Attacking & the Stealth Skill - Update me please?

[Bane Wraith]

Heyo. Asking this because my search-fu has only yielded many older, long threads with regards to attacking from stealth, and I haven't quite found a conclusive statement.

Is attacking from stealth still debated? Does a character that chooses to attack after using stealth (Say using the Hide In Plain Sight ability) get any bonus or deny the opponent their dexterity?

It seems the PRD still has the "It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking" quote, but I'm not sure if the 'Breaking Stealth' section is a newer addition or otherwise not present when the above was discussed years ago.

[bhampton]

Bane Wraith wrote:

Is attacking from stealth still debated? Does a character that chooses to attack after using stealth (Say using the Hide In Plain Sight ability) get any bonus or deny the opponent their dexterity?

It seems the PRD still has the "It's impossible to use Stealth while attacking" quote, but I'm not sure if the 'Breaking Stealth' section is a newer addition or otherwise not present when the above was discussed years ago.

Hmm.....I was going to post the following, but now carefully reading the rules, I'm not sure if this is right or not. I've always been under the impression that if an opponent is unaware they are flat-footed, but that may be incorrect.

...Not sure what the consensus from what you found was, but you can attack from stealth, however your stealth ends after your attack (except when sniping), so you'd catch the opponent flat-footed and they'd be denied their dex.
With sniping, provided you are 10 feet from the opponent you can attack, and re-stealth (albeit at a -20).

[Chemlak]

There were some changes to stealth a couple of years ago, which resulted in successful stealth granting total concealment and some revisions to the breaking stealth section which mean you can definitively attack once from stealth.

[CrystalSeas]

It's part of the Errata issued for the Core Rule Book in the Fifth Printing to Sixth Printing (v5.0) May 2013

Download that document from the Core Rulebook store page
Core Rulebook

[Bane Wraith]

Thanks guys! Much appreciated! No wonder most of the threads I found were from 2011-2013.

[bhampton]

Now, maybe I'm reading too much into this...does stealth still render opponents flat-footed? So far I've just found that it grants you total concealment, but that doesn't actually give you a benefit to attack (at least that I've found). And the flat-footed entry only mentions at the start of combat

PRD wrote:

Flat-Footed: At the start of a battle, before you have had a chance to act (specifically, before your first regular turn in the initiative order), you are flat-footed. You can't use your Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) while flat-footed....Unaware Combatants: Combatants who are unaware at the start of battle don't get to act in the surprise round. Unaware combatants are flat-footed because they have not acted yet, so they lose any Dexterity bonus to AC.

I'm I reading too much into this, or is flat-footed only at surprise round and first round of combat?

[Bane Wraith]

As far as I understand, Using stealth does not guarantee the flat-footed condition, but is a useful tool for initiating that surprise round and first round of combat in your favor. It does not allow you to attack an enemy that's already in combat and strike as if they are flat-footed to you, regardless of whether they were aware of you to start with.

As for the whole of Total Concealment benefits, I'm a tad unclear about that myself. That's what I'm looking up next. At the very least, they'll have trouble targeting you.

[djdust]

combatants are flat-footed until they act in combat. However, if you read under Armor Class, if you can't react to an attack, you lose your Dex bonus to AC, and thus are susceptible to Sneak Attack damage etc. So, we can infer, that an invisible (or successfully stealthy) PC can still get a sneak attack in on an enemy already engaged in combat.

[bhampton]

djdust wrote:

combatants are flat-footed until they act in combat. However, if you read under Armor Class, if you can't react to an attack, you lose your Dex bonus to AC, and thus are susceptible to Sneak Attack damage etc. So, we can infer, that an invisible (or successfully stealthy) PC can still get a sneak attack in on an enemy already engaged in combat.

Ah yes....that's where it is..phew...I thought for a minute there I'd been doing it all wrong, but we just called 'being denied the dex bonus to AC whether present or not' flat-footed for ease.

So the concealment advantage still denies dex to AC, which enables a sneak attack.

Cheers!

[djdust]

yeah, being flat-footed is one of many ways to be denied Dex to AC. A sneak atacky character wants to take advantage of as many ways as possible. It's going to be more likely that stealth will give you the advantage of a surprise round, but if you set up an ambush where you sneak in from the back as the enemies are already engaged with other party members, you are literally 'sneak-attacking'.