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And what do you do with a surprise round when you have a wall in between you and your target?
Taking 20 on perception is totally kosher, but it doesn't work in every situation and you shouldn't expect it to. If you had plenty of time to set up an ambush, and you knew someone would be coming through in the next few minutes, I would absolutely allow PCs to take 20 on stealth. Once you break stealth, you get your single action during the surprise round, then regular initiative begins.
That wouldn't be a very effective ambush. But they could do any number of things depending on what the grid looked like.
A 5' step and ranged attack is not out of the question.
Cast a spell.
Move up to the enemy hoping you go first in the 1st full round.
Move into a charge lane.
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@Andy - Please remember something: you were the one who decided we'd be talking about not opinion, but how the designers built the game. That was your idea, not mine. If you'd like to switch to discussing what we think would be better than what the designers built into the game, that would be fine, and some of my points would be different (and closer to yours, in all likelihood). But if we do that, it needs to be without the "should"s and the "broken" and the "completely ruins", instead speaking in terms of "I would like" and "I enjoy" and "This would be more fun for me".
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In the meantime, since my last post (and therefore presumably your reply to it) was in the context of how the designers built the game, that's how I'll respond for now.
You keep referring (over and over) to the term "no challenge". You treat it in your most recent post as though it were the baseline to which we compare specific situations to determine a course of action.
But how did it become the baseline?
If we're talking about how the designers built the game, then it seems to me that we should start with what those designers published. We can of course then treat it as a starting point or an approximation or guideline or whatever, but we have to at least start there, or else we're not being honest if we label our thoughts as being an interpretation of what the designers intended.
If you disagree, and think that interpreting how the designers built the game is better served by starting with something other than what those designers designed/published, then please, make your case for that point. Henceforth in this post, however, I'll be assuming we can agree that interpreting designer intent has to start with the primary way in which the designers chose to express that intent: what they actually wrote.
Now, what did the designers actually say about the topic? They only said one thing: that an APL-10 or lower challenge does not grant XP. That's it. We can make comparisons and extrapolations from there, but we have to keep in mind that APL-10=0XP is the baseline.
Everything else is at least a little bit "us" - an idea might be based on them, but the extrapolation is us. And the further we extrapolate, the more degrees of separation our comparisons take us from APL-10, the more an idea is our own rather than an interpretation of designer intent.
And remember, we're talking about designer intent.
So to say of anything that "This is the kind of thing the designers were building into the game", we have to establish that it's not too far off from the only designer input we have: APL-10. Get more than one or two degrees of separation from that, and it goes from "This is what the designers probably meant" to "This is my own idea that I've managed to connect faintly to the rules".
So talking about designer intent, we have to take whatever idea we're discussing (such as auto-pass skills) and compare it to APL-10 and see if it's close enough to make a legitimate claim that the designers probably mean that too.
So did the designers build into the game the idea that auto-pass skills should get no XP? Well, we can make an educated guess at that by comparing auto-pass skills to APL-10 and seeing if it's close enough to be more "them" than "us". That is where we must start, if we're being honest about discussing how the designers built the game.
Except you don't seem to want to do that. Instead, you seem to want to treat "no challenge" as the starting point, and compare everything to that. You're approaching this as though the rule to which we need to make all our comparisons were "no challenge = 0XP", and that other ideas (such as APL-10) need to be compared to that to determine how the designers meant them to be handled.
So instead of comparing our topic of auto-pass skills to their baseline of "APL-10=0XP" to see if our idea is close enough to theirs that it might be what they meant; you're comparing our topic of auto-pass skills to our topic of "no challenge = 0XP" (not involving the designers at all) and then using the result to make a claim about what the designers intended.
How can we talk about how the designers built the game when the only baselines being referenced are our own?
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The designers built the game to be mutable. Not a 100% strict set of must follow rules. This is why you see so many issues with corner cases and ambiguity in PFS. Because RAW will not cover every possible situation. And they built the game with that in mind. They like having ambiguity. It better allows a GM and their players to tailor the game to their own likes, dislikes and other specifications.
The Encounter Design (much like the Magic Item Creation) guidelines are even more mutable than the other rules of the game. How classes and races work and how combat works is pretty clear for the most part. But when you start getting into Encounter Design and Magic Item Creation, you start losing some of that clarity. The guidelines are there to give you a baseline for how things work without any other stimuli. But even those guidelines talk about adjusting the CR of an encounter based on terrain or other environmental conditions. But even the difference between a Shadow and a Dire Wolf has seriously implications to the health of your campaign. Both are CR 3, but they are not an equivalent encounter.
So whenever you start a conversation about game design and designer intent, behind a system that is built as simply a guideline, you have nothing left but opinion. If you weight your opinion with something from those guidelines, all the better.
But there is absolutely no way to make this conversation about strictly how the designers intended the game to work, without including a large dose of opinion.
So I’m not going to answer this latest post until you actually answer mine. Answer my questions straight. I can’t have this discussion with you until I have a basis for where you stand on those questions. Once I know where your opinion lies, then I can debate the topic with you. But everytime you try to invalidate my argument in one fashion or another, without actually addressing the points I’ve brought up, that’s what is aggravating me.
I’ve answered your questions. Now answer mine.
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(just a comment from the peanut gallery here)
an interesting point about APL-10....an 11th level PC attacking a 1st level monster is at APL-10 right?
and he has a 5% miss chance.... so, anytime your miss chance in combat is 5% or less, you have reached APL-10, and should get no XP for defeating the monster. No challange right? APL-10.Got to be careful about raising your "to hit" modifier above the AC of the monster then... Gotta hate them Oozes with an AC < 10.
;)
I know you are kinda half-joking and just trying to throw more fuel on the fire here. But,I'm thinking the CR system with the APL-10 works mostly just fine as is with creatures.
It only gets wonky when considering skill checks that specifically defeat the challenge. Especially when there is a hard coded DC for the challenge.
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Jiggy, lets use a less extreme example.
A level 10 Half-Elf Rogue with a 16 Dex and 12 Wisdom,
Perception vs. Traps of: 25 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +1 Wisdom +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (half-elf) = 25) with no magic or purchased investment.
Disable Device vs. Traps of: 27 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +3 Dexterity +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (3rd level Feat) = 27) with no magic or purchased investment.
Do you feel a CR 10 trap, with no mitigating circumstances (combat, environmental conditions, et. al.) with a DC of 25 to perceive and disable, is a challenge to this character?
If so, why?
He hasn't purchased anything, so the argument that he has used expendable resources is not valid.
He automatically succeeds at finding and disabling the trap. And he probably took trapspotter, and so automatically succeeded in finding the trap just because he walked within 10 feet of it (he didn't even have to actively look for it or indicate to the GM that he thought there might be a trap there so he was looking).
So a CR 10 trap is an APL challenge for a level 10 character.
And yet, there was no challenge. It was succeeded at essentially off-screen as it were.
This is without any traits or extra feats to enhance either skill, and ability wise is a rather average Rogue.
And yet, there are other CR 10 traps with Perception and Disable Device DCs as high as 34 - a 40% chance of failure to spot it, and a 30% chance of failure when disabling it. So if the point of this discussion is "when is high too high," you cannot reasonably argue that the rogue you've described is over-focused on finding and disabling traps for her level.
In fact, your entire argument really seems to be about how trap CRs aren't necessarily labeled right, and has nothing to do with characters at all.
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You have a few options: if you are a ranged characters and you are adjacent to the corner of your cover, you can make an attack around the corner
Ok, but then shouldn't the first character in line see you standing there and then not be surprised? Or at least get to roll against your stealth without the -40 modifier.
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Jiggy, lets use a less extreme example.
A level 10 Half-Elf Rogue with a 16 Dex and 12 Wisdom,
Perception vs. Traps of: 25 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +1 Wisdom +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (half-elf) = 25) with no magic or purchased investment.
Disable Device vs. Traps of: 27 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +3 Dexterity +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (3rd level Feat) = 27) with no magic or purchased investment.
Do you feel a CR 10 trap, with no mitigating circumstances (combat, environmental conditions, et. al.) with a DC of 25 to perceive and disable, is a challenge to this character?
If so, why?
He hasn't purchased anything, so the argument that he has used expendable resources is not valid.
Don't 20 skill ranks and a feat represent a significant investment for the character?
If you compare that to an equivalent bonus from magic items, 5 ranks in a skill is about 2500-3500 gp, and one feat is about 4000-5000 gp. Is there any way to account for this kind of investment?
Compared to fighters, rogues as a class have already traded out full BAB, martial weapons familiarity, and medium and heavy armor proficiency for (among other things) additional skill ranks per level and a large number of class skills. Investing those extra skill ranks into Perception and Disable Device means they are further trading out benefits in Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Swim, etc., essentially choosing to risk taking AoOs, falling to their death, failing to escape a grapple, and drowning so that they can find and disable traps. And they probably suck at combat.
The character has invested everything into defeating traps, to the detriment of all other actions they can take. How much does it matter if the character invests money vs. class features or feats or skill ranks?
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I can’t have this discussion with you until I have a basis for where you stand on those questions. Once I know where your opinion lies, then I can debate the topic with you.
Why do you need to know my opinion before the topic can be discussed? Why does anyone's opinion need to be known in order to discuss a topic? I find that already knowing what "side" someone is on short-circuits more rational debates than it enables.
So no, I have no intention of announcing my general opinion on the topic so long as we're still discussing how we think the designers built the game. My opinion on the final outcome is irrelevant.
But everytime you try to invalidate my argument in one fashion or another, without actually addressing the points I’ve brought up, that’s what is aggravating me.
Invalidating arguments is what debate is about - you keep invalidating arguments until there's one left that is valid (as well as correct and true). If having your arguments invalidated upsets you, then you probably don't want to be asking for philosophical discussions.
I’ve answered your questions. Now answer mine.
Aside from questions about my general opinion on the subject of skills and challenge and XP, which I am declining to answer, what questions have I missed? I've done my best with each of your questions to either answer it thoroughly or explain why the question itself is based on a faulty premise (in which case there's no need to answer the question, unless the premise is first shown to indeed be valid).
Near as I can tell, I've sufficiently addressed every relevant question you've posed. I've also repeatedly offered for you to reference an earlier question and say "Answer that one" rather than needing to repeat yourself. It's confusing to me that you would consistently decline that offer to point out what I missed, while still insisting that I answer more questions. If you're going to demand that I answer your questions, at least throw me a bone and give me an indication of which one(s) you think I've overlooked.
I’ve answered your questions.
Speaking of which, still waiting on your answer to the question that I and Rogue Eidolon both asked yesterday that you said you were going to think about and come back to.
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Jiggy, lets use a less extreme example.
A level 10 Half-Elf Rogue with a 16 Dex and 12 Wisdom,
Perception vs. Traps of: 25 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +1 Wisdom +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (half-elf) = 25) with no magic or purchased investment.
Disable Device vs. Traps of: 27 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +3 Dexterity +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (3rd level Feat) = 27) with no magic or purchased investment.
Do you feel a CR 10 trap, with no mitigating circumstances (combat, environmental conditions, et. al.) with a DC of 25 to perceive and disable, is a challenge to this character?
If so, why?
He hasn't purchased anything, so the argument that he has used expendable resources is not valid.
Don't 20 skill ranks and a feat represent a significant investment for the character?
If you compare that to an equivalent bonus from magic items, 5 ranks in a skill is about 2500-3500 gp, and one feat is about 4000-5000 gp. Is there any way to account for this kind of investment?
Compared to fighters, rogues as a class have already traded out full BAB, martial weapons familiarity, and medium and heavy armor proficiency for (among other things) additional skill ranks per level and a large number of class skills. Investing those extra skill ranks into Perception and Disable Device means they are further trading out benefits in Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Swim, etc., essentially choosing to risk taking AoOs, falling to their death, failing to escape a grapple, and drowning so that they can find and disable traps. And they probably suck at combat.
The character has invested everything into defeating traps, to the detriment of all other actions they can take. How much does it matter if the character invests money vs. class features or feats or skill ranks?
This.
A resource invested is a resource invested is a resource invested.
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Jiggy, lets use a less extreme example.
A level 10 Half-Elf Rogue with a 16 Dex and 12 Wisdom,
Perception vs. Traps of: 25 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +1 Wisdom +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (half-elf) = 25) with no magic or purchased investment.
Disable Device vs. Traps of: 27 (10 ranks + 3 class skill +3 Dexterity +5 Rogue +6 Skill Focus (3rd level Feat) = 27) with no magic or purchased investment.
Do you feel a CR 10 trap, with no mitigating circumstances (combat, environmental conditions, et. al.) with a DC of 25 to perceive and disable, is a challenge to this character?
If so, why?
He hasn't purchased anything, so the argument that he has used expendable resources is not valid.
Don't 20 skill ranks and a feat represent a significant investment for the character?
If you compare that to an equivalent bonus from magic items, 5 ranks in a skill is about 2500-3500 gp, and one feat is about 4000-5000 gp. Is there any way to account for this kind of investment?
Compared to fighters, rogues as a class have already traded out full BAB, martial weapons familiarity, and medium and heavy armor proficiency for (among other things) additional skill ranks per level and a large number of class skills. Investing those extra skill ranks into Perception and Disable Device means they are further trading out benefits in Acrobatics, Climb, Escape Artist, Swim, etc., essentially choosing to risk taking AoOs, falling to their death, failing to escape a grapple, and drowning so that they can find and disable traps. And they probably suck at combat.
The character has invested everything into defeating traps, to the detriment of all other actions they can take. How much does it matter if the character invests money vs. class features or feats or skill ranks?
This.
A resource invested is a resource invested is a resource invested.
Think of it like an Arms Race.
If a pretty moderate level 10 rogue build can automatically defeat a mechanical CR 10 trap and have a fairly reasonable chance at a magical CR 10 trap (and with further investment of other feats, traits and magical items with static bonuses, and the use of spells, per day abilities, and consumables automatically defeat that one too), then the only thing a GM in a home campaign can do to continue to challenge his players, is to offer higher CR challenges.
The same goes for creature encounters. If at 1st level the party has trouble with an Ogre, but at 4th level they easily defeat the Ogre, I don’t think anyone expects the GM to continue to put an Ogre on the table by himself. Maybe two Ogres. Or maybe by level 6, a Cyclops. So the GM keeps increasing the challenge of encounters as the characters gain levels, abilities, and magic.
If the characters stomp all over all the hobgoblins, then perhaps somewhere in the dungeon the GM will add a couple alchemist, sorcerer, or cleric levels (or even a cool Fighter archetype). So instead of fighting 15 standard hobgoblins, they fight 4 hobgoblins with class levels. Probably the same CR encounter, but the one with class levels will be harder to defeat, typically.
The same goes for traps and other obstacles. You typically don’t face the same type of obstacle you did at 1st level when you are 10th level. You face a trap or cliff face that provides different challenges than the ones you ran into at 1st level. However, for a mechanical trap, the difference between a CR 1 and CR 10 trap is 5 DC (20 to 25). You get more skill ranks between level 1 and level 10.
But, if as a player you continue to hike up your skill to automatically succeed at something, the GM is going to find something else to challenge you. If he can’t, he will likely stop providing that type of challenge. If he can, eventually it will get ridiculous with DC 70 traps and what not. That’s the Arms Race.
The initial question that was asked, was this: At what point is a skill too much?
My initial answer was: When you continually auto succeed at everything you try with that skill, stop investing in it until you fail at a rate you cannot accept.
In a home game, if you want to play the Arms Race game, that’s fine. The GM has the leeway to play back.
In PFS, the GM does not have the luxury to play the Arms Race. The DC’s are what the scenario or the RAW say they are. The encounters are the CR the scenario says they are, with the amount of creatures the scenario says are there.
If failure period is not acceptable to you, its fairly easy to get scores to a point where it is impossible to fail.
The big question is, should you? Is it fair to the Organized Play campaign to play the Arms Race with a GM who has one hand tied behind their back?
All the argument about what is considered investment in resources or whatever is really irrelevant to this central question. All this huge argument that’s spanned 3 pages and 150 posts between Jiggy and I, really is irrelevant when you look at this base question for what it is.
If you are fine playing the Arms Race, then don’t be the first one to whine when the scenarios get tougher to survive.
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I answered that one Jiggy. Maybe not specifically quoting the question. But I did answer it.
I guess I'm just being blind today then, as I never did see your answer. Just in case we're talking about different questions, I mean this one:
Say you have two characters--one of them spends 2500 on Eyes of the Eagle whereas another buys a partially-charged wand of acute senses from a chronicle sheet with 20 charges for 2400 (which grants +10). In their Pathfinder careers, let's say the wand-user doesn't ever fully expend the wand because they don't come across that many trap-filled dungeons. The other posters are wondering why the wand-user is OK and not the eyes-user, when both spent similar amounts of money on perception (and indeed, the wand-user gets even more of a bonus for their price, so the eyes-user is not even getting as high of results).
I saw this post, where you said you'd come back to it.
I never did see the answer. If you (or anyone else following along at home) could direct me to that answer, that would be helpful. Thanks!
If you are unwilling to continue to debate this topic by answering my questions, then I guess we are done.
As I've said repeatedly now, just point me to the unanswered questions and I'll address them. (I can't answer questions that I completely missed.)
The only exception is the question of my personal position, as that's not relevant to the topic. Arguments stand and fall on their own, not based on what camp the arguers are in. If you need to know where to categorize me, then this was never about a philosophical discussion. If instead you'd like your points addressed, I'd be happy to address them if you just tell me where to look. I fully admit I could have missed something.|
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The way that ranged line of sight works, you can have cover from being around the corner and still attack. It's weird, but you wouldn't necessarily need to move before the attack, just lean around the corner. Now, as soon as you take your shot, you've just taken your surprise action and your stealth is broken. If you're sniping, you can duck immediately back into cover and attempt a stealth check with a -20 penalty; at that point they're aware of your presence so it's all regular initiative rounds from then on, regardless.
Its not about the line of sight its about your timing: its also why stealth works for the DM but not for the players. You're having the PCs autofail the perception check by making the check at the least opportune time for them instead of when the surprise round starts.
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The only exception is the question of my personal position, as that's not relevant to the topic. Arguments stand and fall on their own, not based on what camp the arguers are in. If you need to know where to categorize me, then this was never about a philosophical discussion. If instead you'd like your points addressed, I'd be happy to address them if you just tell me where to look. I fully admit I could have missed something.
As I pointed out, you can't have a theoretical discussion about the intent of the game designers without including personal opinion.
The personal opinion questions are not a trap. I honestly want to know how you'd handle those situations based on the RAW that we know and what we both feel the intent of them are.
Those answers will go a long way in understanding your position, as I feel our positions are not separated by misunderstandings of the text written in the Core Rule Book, but rather how we personally choose to use them in situations that the text doesn't satisfactorily cover.
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BNW, please expand on your answer here. SOrry, I do not understand what you are trying to say, but am very interested in your viewpoint.
I'd give a finger to be able to paint a diagram on this thing...
W1B
W2WWWWWWWWWWW
W3W
W4W
W5W
B= Badguy
W= wall
numbers= spaces in the ubiquitous 5 foot wide cooridoor.
The way tenieldjo is doing it (which is what most dms would do ime), he makes the stealth vs perception check as if the party were in square 3 (with the full on -40 penalty) but the badguy gets to attack when the party hits square 2. The PC standing in square 2 at least should be making the perception check with no penalty.
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That's what the rules for initiating encounters with opposed perception and possibly stealth rolls are for.
If NPCs have ambush ready, assume they make the perception roll. If PCs fail ambush happens. Every PC that succeeds gets to go in surprise round. I have yet to read a scenario where these rules are supplanted by the scenario text.
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You can't ready an action outside of initiative.And yet it's something players try to do CONSTANTLY.
I don't know if its verboten. Some DM's allow it and some don't. I don't see a hard and fast rule against it, and "i stand in front of the door with a cocked crossbow aimed at the first thing to come through it" is a tried and true D&D tactic.
Thats a big part of the problem here: the perception and start of combat rules are kind of fast and loose, meaning that the rules are really only in the DM's head. The DM by definition is playing by all of them but the players don't usually have that insight, especially if they're constantly switching dms like in organized play.
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Nosig, i think he would have cover in your example
To determine whether your target has cover from your ranged attack (BNW note,polearms use the same rule) , choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target's square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover (+4 to AC). (BNW short cut: attacker picks a corner to attack from, defender picks a corner to defend from)
The either of the left corners of the O square would be drawn along the wall when connected to the right most corner of 3's square. that borders a square that has cover.
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oh, I don't know. I figure it never "passes through", it just runs along. But a lot of players have trouble with this, and they often "correct" people who have read it and have questions, when in fact they are getting it wrong. So they teach the wrong rule, and then it just gets worse.I suppose you're right for sanities sake, but the wording is kind of odd that a line running completely over another line isn't touching it.
You're assuming the rules are a lot tighter and clearer then they are again.
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Do not give enemies or allies the +20 or +40 bonus for being invisible just because there's a wall in the way. That bonus is a function of the invisibility spell, not of concealment.The spell text is a snippet of the invisibility rules in the CRB glossary and is not a special bonus bestowed by the spell itself.
In a related point, Improved Cover grants +10 to stealth checks. While it's true that +20 to stealth isn't explicitly stated in the total cover, I believe it's implicit (or at least a reasonable ruling) that total cover becomes +20, or at the very least stays +10.
This, and the fact that the definition of invisible is "Unable to be seen; not visible to the eye", gives me the impression that the only logical and consistent way to hand out the stealth bonuses is to give +20 stealth when your target cannot see you, for whatever combination of reasons. It's intuitive, consistent, and it prevents all manner of absurd stealth bonus scenarios (eg, being invisible while hiding in a sealed box is *so* much more stealthy than normally hiding in a box).
You are correct that the spell doesn't include the line about increasing stealth; it's a function of the Invisibility condition. However, being behind a wall does not provide that. In fact (and I've been running this wrong), having a blinded opponent does not provide that.
There is nothing in the rules that says that someone behind a wall gets the Invisibility condition. If you don't have an ability that literally gives you that condition, there is no way you should be giving the benefit of said condition.
You mentioned Improved Cover, and that's actually the best cover you can get. Total Cover does not give a bonus to Stealth (or it would say so), but it does prevent targeting. Don't apply +20 just because you can't draw a line to the other guy.
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I have yet to read a scenario where these rules are supplanted by the scenario text.Let's go with FS1, the final encounter. There are no provisions for Perception checks by the NPCs. They are deemed to magically know just when the PCs are arriving and are able to fire off a number of actions which can't occur in the Surprise round by my accounting. If someone can map out these actions per the rules, I'd love to have it explained.
Bloodcove disguise is similar, IIRC. There's an encounter where the BBEG just happens to have a wand of <touch spell> activated. So either she walks around all day with this wand that she burns a charge every morning, never putting it down or using that hand for anything, or she readied it outside of combat.
Actually the 'ready a crossbow, fire' bit can be emulated with the surprise rules. If the guys on the other side of the door fail their perception checks, that's crossbow boy's actions in the surprise round, if they make it, no one is surprised so crossbow boy might get off the shot, or the bad guys might get out of the way. Initiative applies.
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Is there any reason a PC couldn't do the same? Say just before kicking down the door and attacking the BBEG inside? Would that be the surprise round? Even though it happened before initiative or perception checks? (Assume no one on either side made checks to hear noise through the wall/door.)
No, but I was citing this as a case of an NPC readying outside of combat. She doens't know exactly where and when she'll encounter the PCs, so she's been waiting with this wand charged all day, as I understand it. That's a bit different than, say, casting mage armor in the morning because it's 6 hours long.
I just picture the following.
Just to list some amusing images.
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While the wording is not the best, I think it is rather the judge had it explained to him once, so he "knows" how it works. He's always played it that way, the group he plays with play it that way, so when you say it works different, you must be wrong. After all, he KNOWS.
I don't think this is one of those cases. You can't cite a rule that says there's no cover because it depends on whether you think the line has any dimension to it or not, something that doesn't come up in the rules. You can look at the rules as they are all day and still come to that conclusion.
A few instances i've seen of wonky surprise round scenarios.
First steps 1 makes it sound like the entire group of bad guys has a ready action to attack the Pcs
Gods market gamble: If the players are specifically looking for someone following them, they can spot one of the sorcerers with a DC 30
Perception check, avoiding a potential surprise round
Now this is specifically when the PCs KNOW they're acting as bait. Why would any player feel the need to state that they were Looking for an ambush?