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Definately. If you are smart about it. Keep in mind once you know what is ahead you do not need to rush in. Try to lure things out.
Be creative and think of things. Working with a spell caster you can destroy encounters by knowing what is ahead with simple things.
I think you may be doing it wrong. If you stealth and give off your position then it defeats the purpose.
With the amoutn of damage character have to the amount they can do. Going first is very important.
Some tricks I learned.
Waiting. If you notice a spell caster and he sees you. Close/bar the door and wait an hour. His buff spells will end and his spell slots are wasted.
Light. Light will give you off. Having night vision or lowlight vision will make or break your stealth.
Spells. Spell make stealth so much easier. Shooting a ghost sound can cause a distraction for you, open close and mage hand can do this as well. Detect magic can show you monsters that have potions oand such too. Not to mention higher level spells
Make sutre the party is ready to stealth. Do not go until everyone is ready for you to move on before you go. Someone dilly dallying could get you or the group killed.
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I think I've had this work once or twice in ten levels, even with a druid that's rocking a +30 stealth.
First off the stealth rules practically define the term "expect table variation". There's a lot of judgement calls to make there, and I doubt that any two dm's will read them all exactly the same way. Stealth comes with a lot of "it doesn't matter what the dice rolls are, you autofail" situations that you can run into if you don't know exactly how the dm is running stealth.
You need cover or concealment to hide. Most creatures don't spend an awful lot of time in lighting conditions where they can't see perfectly- if you're in the dark, you put a light on. If you're an elf you open a window and let the moonlight in. If you're making a stealth character you practically need A shadow dancers hide in plain sight (the rogue one isn't nearly as useful) or the hellcat stealth feat.
You almost need darkvision. Even in a campaign as human-centric as pfs most of the things you fight can see in the dark. It doesn't matter if YOU"RE as quiet as a church mouse and less visible than a speck of dust, no one is going to miss the light of a torch thats letting you see come down the hall. For you i can recommend a moonrod out of the ARG. It only sheds dim light, but that light goes twice as far if you have Low light vision, so if a party member carries it for you and you sit ~40 feet away from it You're in an area of normal light for you and darkness for the things in the dungeon that don't.* (by the way i'm reading the item, again. table variation)
Doors are a pain. Doesn't matter how quiet you are, its not hard to notice a door swinging open.
Then you need to deal with the most chaotic element of stealthing...your party. Stealth can take a while between the player and the dm Can i move here, whats here, what do i see, perception checks, stealth rolls.. very often the other players will get bored on you, say to hell with it, and just walk on in.
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Sadly, I wouldn't recommend it in PFS. Save it for a real campaign if you have the opportunity to play in one.
You can't work with the DM in PFS so you just get shafted by table variation. Basically the worst potential for this is with stealth if you have a DM of the "selective realism" school of interpreting the rules. (cf. the heinously acrimonious clusterf#$@ that is the last three threads on the topic).
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In a certain special which is said to be very deadly and dangerous, my Chelish charakter acquired the service of an imp, who then scouted ahead invisible and came back to report. I think that were 5 very well spend PP, since it really changed some encounters. Knowing terrain, laid ambushes and traps or luring the foes where you await them is very powerful. Scouting oneself and getting caught, perhaps even by something with true seeing or other ugly abilities could seriously shorten your life though.
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Yeah, it shouldn't be reassuring.
I've run several campaigns where stealth was worthwhile, but in each the scout(s) knew they were taking great risks. (Someone once quipped, it was better one die than a TPK.) In time, the parties learned how to backup those characters in superior ways (one of which was not to be detected themselves). It took coordination and experience, and IF you got both of those in a PFS game you'd still have to contend with whether the party has the resources to aid your survival when things go bad and to take advantage of the info/time earned when things go well.
I've found random groups can barely manage good round-by-round tactics, much less coordinated plans.
It's not worth it unless you have a regular group.
This doesn't mean you can't do a lot of cool things scouting or sneaking, just choose your moments.
Cheers, JMK
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It really does depend on the GM. I have seen GM's basically ask for a stealth check and then assume everything is rolled into the check assuming the character knows how to be stealthy.
Other times GM's specifically ask what you are doing and make judgment calls old school style. I think the problem here is the variability. This is not, however, limited to Stealth. Some GM's make you play out Diplomacy in the same way rather than simply saying role the dice.
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As a GM, I tend to tell players whatever seems logical and noticeable if they get a good Stealth check but it needs to be done nicely.
If the party says that they are casting bunch of spells right in front of door and listen at them for noise, you won't hear a thing since you already alerted (most likely) plenty of enemies inside. I am not saying I don't reward PC's for it, but I have yet to see it done properly.
When it is done properly, I tell the character all that they can see.
For example: A four naked humanoids eating something in their hands in vastly demolished room full of junk. Humanoids are small sized and have strangely shaped heads.
If the PC has darkvision or low lightvision with enough light source, they might try to identify the creatures even with DC 6 Knowledge(local) to notice that it's several of goblins in fact!
So what's wrong or bad here?
Well even a goblin has darkvision. Creatures with darkvision are often in PFS and you need cover to Stealth from them. This might seem problematic.
Even if there is no darkvision, there is scent or some other spell that might fairly easily disrupt scouting.
It might not be an answer which you are looking for, but this is my GM perspective if it helps to find an answer.
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Waiting. If you notice a spell caster and he sees you. Close/bar the door and wait an hour. His buff spells will end and his spell slots are wasted.
If the enemy notices you, and you shut the door and bar it on them. They won't just simply wait for an hour for you to open the door again when they are weakened.
I have found that scouting as a wildshaped rat works better than stealthing as a humanoid.
Guards don't get as panicky. Though some may try to eat you.
-j
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Others have mentioned this, but stealth is not the end-all, be-all skill that lets you essentially be invisible if your roll is better than their perception roll.
You can’t hide when they can easily observe you. Since there is no facing in Pathfinder, you can’t just try to sneak up behind them. Now if the description of what the NPC is doing makes it realistic that you could sneak up behind them, sure, as a GM, I’d allow it.
But one mistake I see a lot of players (and GM’s) make, is that the encounters and NPCs are static. That when the map says they are in square 5, doing action X, that’s what they are doing and where they are. But over several hours of time, those NPCs will have to go to the bathroom, get some water (or beer), maybe eat, probably walk around to stretch their legs (or sit down to rest if they’ve been standing for a couple hours). Now we have limited ways we can emulate this in PFS specifically, because we have to run as written. But the lack of facing can be used as an abstract for what an NPC is doing throughout the room over the course of seconds, minutes, hours, days when the PCs aren’t there. They just happen to be in a specific location, or doing a specific action when the PC’s arrive.
All that being said, if the players plan it out well, and the rolls beat the NPC perception rolls, then sure, the situation behind the door might just change. If the NPCs are not aware of the characters, it makes no sense that they are waiting in ambush for them (or at the very least, if they think the characters are going to pass that direction, but they don’t perceive them, the ambush then turns into regular initiative, or if the characters suss out the ambush, perhaps they can run around behind it, or avoid it altogether.
Additionally, readied actions may not be taken outside of initiative.
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There is also the issue of how much playing time in a timed slot players with non-stealth characters will be willing to sit there doing nothing while the stealth characters do their thing.LOL! I could easily point out the amount of time my PC with no combat skills has to sit there while the melee characters do their thing....
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Long ago (in LG days) a player commented that someone was "Wasteing his game time chatting up the Barmaid for 15 minutes!", So we pointed out he had spent more than an hour "Wasting game time dancing with the monsters" just before that.
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If most of the PCs are enjoying the sneak - (and most of my PCs carry an Elixer of Hiding to give to PCs who don't bother with that sort of thing) - why not spend 10 minutes avoiding a hour of unnessassary fighting?
If everyone can participate its a moot point. It's not about how much time the party spends in combat vs. non-combat, it's about how much time someone is spending twiddling their thumbs while only part of the group participates. Where one draws the line on this is highly subjective. Thus you are going to not only get table variance from DMs on how Stealth works but on how patient non-stealth characters are going to be with the stealth ones, especially in a timed environment.
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It can work well if the group meshes well as a team. Recently at a 4 person table 2 guys were pretty sneaky and were always wanting to sneak/scout/spy. However the other 2 were a human sorc that needed a light to not trip over his own feet and an armored hulk (me) with something like a -5 to stealth.
So to of us would have to stay a good 40 to 60 ft behind the others to not give them away. Then a fight would breakout. The characters at the back were surprised since we couldn't see or hear what was going on up front. So we were usually chiming in on the 3rd round of combat.
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On the other hand I've also seen it work very well with a round of careful planning, devastating surprise attacks, reverse ambushes, bypassed opponents, etc...
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I run a 2-dagger thief and I find taking a potion of invisibility and scouting ahead has helped the group repeatedly in PFS. One time I managed to get behind the BBEG cleric and held action until he heard the rest of the group coming, and when he cast his spell, used my sneak attack to disrupt it with damage.
I almost died by golem last time I did this, but it allowed the party to avoid some brutal range attacks and take it down, setting them up to really mess up the final enemy.
So, it's a risky tactic, but a useful one.
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... in the above example, my PC hands the armored hulk an elixer of hiding, giving him a +10 to stealth for an hour, and asks him to sling his shield on his back (to be drawn later if we get in combat). Perhaps I add a few more buffs on top of this... (MW tool, Ring of Chameleon Power, etc.).
The sorcerer we just hand a scroll of darkvision (Duration 3 hours) and ask him why he doesn't have one of these already? Or we just have the other caster cast it on him...My point is, players will have thier PCs prepped for darkness or flying or for 16 kinds of combat (DR, ranged, etc.) but not for sneaking past the guards? Why not? Next time this armored hulk needs to sneak - is he going to be able to?
Only 4th scenario for all of us, so just barely 2nd level (and used a fair amount of consumables in the last one). This was a different group than I usually game with. we usually have a couple of buffing caster with 6 people at the table. So I used all my money to buy on armor. Did not have the cash for an elixer of hiding yet. But dang straight I will be buying one next time.
I don't know if the sorc would have had the money for a scroll of darkvision or not. But he said the group he normally plays with is almost all unstealthy humans so he hadn't thought to get anything like that.|
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A short note on this.
-If you are not magically enhanced (invisibility, blur, other stuff granting you concealment) you rely mostly on lighting conditions, which in my experience many people already don´t understand very good. See the discussion about darkness etc. Then, many monsters and foes have darkvision, at later levels even worse stuff, what makes it more difficult. That is what makes sneaking very difficult at the moment, because you have to factor in a lot there. Of course elixir of hiding is something nice, but many players don´t want to spend gold on stuff like that it seems. Even though circumventing a fight is a very good tactic often! You could still fight it later or under different conditions, perhaps you get off an surprise round on a flanked and flatfooted enemy.
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I am honestly more concerned as a player not of avoiding the fight, but pulling multiple encounters at once if we avoid the 1st one, considering for a moment that you are in dungeon or castle which you suspect that isn't all that empty.
Avoiding animal in forest, a hungry bear or pack of wolves might be completely reasonable, but avoiding few guards at a castle might be very risky if your stealthy approach is short-timed in term of buffs. In a moment, you might find yourself surrounded from all sides.
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You have to ACT sneaky, and you need to be PARANOID.
Expect that at any instant your sneak attempt is going to fail.
Plan for it to fail.
In addition to high Sneak skills, you need good Perception. You need to see them BEFORE they see you. Keep reminding the GM that you're attempting to Sneak, also that you are actively looking for anything "strange" or "funny" or "out-of-place". You're scouting, every other sentence you say should be "What do I see?"
There are a lot of times when Sneak is impossible, or almost impossible. Doesn't mena you shouldn't try. Opening doors is one of these times. Walking into an ambush is another. You can TRY, but expect to fail.
However, last time I opened a door "sneakily", it worked, and the party managed to avoid a totally unnecessary and potentially lethal giant scorpion encounter, so it pays to take the chance.
The time before that, the monsters WERE alerted by the rest of the party, but I remained undetected and in good position for a major flanking assist.
Another time I disarmed the trap on a door that would have given our entrance away, and we ALL successfully snuck in and got into prime firing positions before the BBEG knew we were there, even though he was "waiting" for us.
Before that, I opened a door on a seemingly oblivious undead gnoll, and managed to fire bomb him before he even knew I was there.
I'm trying to remember if there were other similar successful Sneaks, but the number told already is quite a lot for a 3rd level character to have under his belt. That's about 1 good Sneak every other scenario, and one scenario had two (actually 3, but the 3rd one was role play and not combat).
Some of these Sneaks can be considered "successful" mainly because there was a back-up plan if they failed.
As a sneak, you have to tell the party what you are planning on doing, and they each have to know what you expect them to do.
Basic tactic is the PULL. Anybody who has ever played a MMPORPG knows how this works. The scout goes in, gets as close as he can without being spotted, and then aggros the monster into following him into the arms of his ready and waiting party.
To make this work against an unknown opponent(s), the Sneak has to make a couple of judgement calls at the instant that he is spotted. He has to decide:
1) When to fight and when not to fight.
2) Where to fight.
a) Yes. Shout out "Fire in the hole!", and get the fight started while the party comes running.
b) No. Shut the door, if there was a door involved, and run like hell back towards the party.
a) Yes. Shout out "Incoming! so the party has time to prep.
b) No. Shout out "Twenty-three Skidoo!" so the party has time to runaway and regroup at the last "safe" place. This requires that you designate "fallback" positions as you move ahead.
In the event that your sneaking is a major fail, and the monster sees you first, shout out "Help!", and try to break away and run back to the party, and expect them to be running towards you.
A little paranoid perception, a little sneakiness, and a little tactics, and the scout starts working the way he is supposed to work.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
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My last game with my divination wizard/multiclass whatever...
My arcane eye allowed us to examine the entire layout of the final room, as well as it's inhabitants. After adequate buffing, myself and the inquisitor moved into position under the cover of invisibility, followed by the rest of the sneaking party that was holding a silenced stone. We defeated the final fight of the 10-11 subtier of the scenario without taking a point of damage, with the boss only taking one action -- a failed dimension door.
Yes, stealthing is worth it.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I'd point out that the latest errata makes sneaking more viable, as if you can get from 'stealth point' to 'stealth point' in a move, the bad guy won't auto detect you if you walk in front of him.
It can also backfire. We had a Shadowdancer out solo bypass the one encounter entirely (he didn't see them, they didn't see him) and then get shredded to death by the next encounter which did sense him. When the remaining party members (all two at this point) ran to his rescue, they had to deal with the bypassed encounter, and if they'd rolled one less point of damage against the next encounter, I'd have had a TPK.
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In my experience, GMs ask stealthy PCs to succeed at many many Stealth vs Perception rolls to get close to a NPC (or even worse a group of NPCs), while the Huge monster just appears out of thin air in reach of your casters. YMMV.
Here is hoping the errata will change this.
But today, I would advise players to invest in DPR rather than in Stealth.
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Well everyone has heard of the term player knowledge vs character knoweldge. What I find is few DMs understand that DM knowledge and monster knowledge are meant to different as well.
I often see GMs assume the monsters know everything he does. That will shutdown stealth right away.
Another issue I disagree with is DMs give a straigght stealth VS perception. We were in the other room on the other side of a closed door and when the DM said her perception just barely beat us, I said even through the door? and he decided to adjust her to not noticing. Often being distracted, walls, or other features do not aid you in your stealth. Without line of sight I would give a +20 to the stealth just like invisible.
Developer
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From a player perspective, I have had GMs who are very accommodating of stealthy scouting and those who are more ambivalent about it, but rarely have I had any who are outright vindictive about shutting down clever reconnaissance. Scouting can be a little tricky, but as a GM I like to reward a player who has invested spells known, skill ranks, feats, or tactical knowhow in this approach. Just remember that some creatures and enemies are packing countermeasures that allow them to scout out scouts as the latter try to gather information.
Most scenarios do not detail how a creature might respond to someone scouting around, and that's where rewarding creative solutions comes into play.
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Well, a fighter in full metall armor surely doesn´t get +20 versus someone sitting in a study reading a book, depending on actions not even through a closed door. But against some guards drinking and talking or otherwise busy i can really see that.
GM knowledge versus player knowledge is a very important point in my opinion.
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yes a fighter in platemail gets it too. The idea is a perception takes into account seeing the person. If it is impossible to see the person then why should that be part of it?
Just because you are in platemail creeping along does not mean you ching ching ching loudly as you go. This is what the armor check penalty for stealth incorporates. The fact there is a wall between you and who you are sneaking from is a huge difference. Just like your neighbors in an apartment or dorm. You do not hear them usually until they are obnoxiously loud. My neighbor works on power lines and wears actual chainmail sometimes. I never hear him when he enters his apartment directly across the door.
My point is that DMs know you are sneaking and makes it as if the enemies know you are sneaking and they are looking around for you as well. So they make oppossed checks.
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I assumed that it was SOP everywhere, until my first PFS scenario, when the fighters just started randomly opening doors yelling for "Dinsdale! Dinsdale?", well not actually Dinsdale, but something like that.
Even then I managed to get Sneaky. After all, they were providing one hell of a distraction :)
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Opening doors is one of those things that pretty much fries the concept of sneaking up on anything.
Not so. Unless opening the door sets off an alarm, or the hinges squeak, or the light is significantly different with the door open, then opening the door s-l-o-w-l-y and taking a peek doesn't necessarily obviate sneaking. Especially if the nearest foe is some distance away, or has his back to the door.
Now, Jimbo could attempt to pick the troll's pocket, sneak past him, steal everything in the room, and escape unnoticed. Not likely, but it could be done in the right circumstances. Didn't work out well for Bilbo Baggins though.
Or, Jimbo could stab the first troll in the back, shout "HELP!" and hope the rest of the party arrives before the 3 trolls turn him into a burrahobbit (they're crunchy and taste good with catsup).
How tough are trolls anyway? And they don't like fire. Jimbo likes fire. Maybe he'll yell "FIRE IN THE HOLE!" and toss the flask of Alchemist's Fire that he happens to be holding and starting cooking up some troll Bar-B-Q. Testing the troll for doneness with his daggers while he waits for the imminent arrival of his party.
Or Jimbo could have been spotted by one of the trolls, and not noticed it, and the troll(s) would get a surprise round. Jimbo's reaction to that would be a scream of "HELP!", and assuming that he wasn't one-shotted or gang-banged, a double move action towards the party while screaming "INCOMING", dropping his bomb behind him, and pulling out some fresh weapons, most likely sling bullets, one in each hand.
"A man, a plan, a canal, Panama."
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Not so. Unless opening the door sets off an alarm, or the hinges squeak, or the light is significantly different with the door open, then opening the door s-l-o-w-l-y and taking a peek doesn't necessarily obviate sneaking. Especially if the nearest foe is some distance away, or has his back to the door.
There is no facing in pathfinder. If the DM wants to be nice they can have the troll with his back to the door, but by strict raw and the merging of the listen and spot skills all a characters effectively have 360 degree vision. You're then left with the DMs call of does the troll need to spot you (DC= your stealth check- a minor door penalty) or just the open door (DC=0)
As a DM I would see a character built for scouting that wants to scout ahead and take the rules interpretation that would accommodate that, but thats something you need to know the DM to even try to do which is problematic in society play.
Now, Jimbo could attempt to pick the troll's pocket, sneak past him, steal everything in the room, and escape unnoticed. Not likely, but it could be done in the right circumstances. Didn't work out well for Bilbo Baggins though.
Even with the recent stealth errata (HAAAAleluja!) You cannot even attempt most of these. If you go up to the troll you lack cover. No cover or concealment= you're autospotted. The stealth errata may let you sneak past him if you can start and end your turn behind something.
Or, Jimbo could stab the first troll in the back, shout "HELP!" and hope the rest of the party arrives before the 3 trolls turn him into a burrahobbit (they're crunchy and taste good with catsup).
Surprise round: Jimbo stabs.
Initiative: If the three trolls win they full attack jimbo. The party will need a spatula to get jimbo back to town for a resurrection.
If jimbo wins he moves away, troll moves after, and attacks once. Or worse, the troll decides to grab dinner and makes a grapple check to keep dinner from running away.
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There's a lot of problems with this.
1) In the surprise round one action is open the door, one action is shoot. You're not behind cover or concealment at the end of your turn, so even the new stealth rules won't help you.
2) You now start combat with an open door, and an angry troll who can't not see that the door is open, even if you finagle the rules to allow stealth or go around the corner somehow. The troll is going to notice an open door and an arrow sticking out of his butt in the direction of the door no matter how high you roll on your stealth.