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Are all monsters assumed to have the foil senses feat, or is it assumed that monsters generally aren't taking special precautions against special senses and thus aren't hidden from those with special senses?
If it's a case by case basis, I would like to see the stealth skill pulled out of the skill list and given its own heading listing which senses are confounded, similar to stealth.
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This would create a surprisingly complex set of rules.
I suggest it's better to just let GMs work it out.
Relevant rulebook rule: "You automatically become seen if you don’t have cover or aren’t concealed from them at any time during your movement" (page 158, Sneak).
Common sense rule #1: Everybody judges others by their own ruler. Even monsters. So a monster with darkvision or scent or tremorsense automatically assumes everything else does too. Conversely, monsters without these kinds of senses don't expect anything else to have them either.
Common sense rule #2: Intelligence and experience can override Common sense rule #1.
Combining those three rules:
Unintelligent monsters (or low-INT) will Sneak using whatever senses they have and only try to find cover or concealment versus those senses. They will make no effort to avoid senses they don't actually have because they don't know about them.
Intelligent monsters and NPCs probably also make no effort to avoid unusual senses unless they have experience dealing with those senses AND have reason to expect that whoever might sense them or seek them has that sense.
For example:
When attempting to be stealthy, an intelligent dragon probably knows that humans don't have Scent and therefore wouldn't worry much about whether humans could locate it by scent, but a typical wolf probably doesn't know that and would try to mask its scent (by staying downwind, for example).
For me, I try to adjudicate fancy senses by those two rules and it usually makes for fun encounters. Especially if a PC has an unusual sense and some monster walks right into it, thinking it's sneaky, but the PC senses the monster right away.
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I tend to dig something like DM_Blake's style: I try to look at the world from the monsters' and NPCs' perspectives to decide what they would consider important.
I like it as well and I was planning on using Blake's method and seeing how it goes. My specific concern is how beneficial that makes purchased guard dogs, as a I have a player who made a dog trainer as his character for Pale Mountain's shadow. The speed of herding dogs and getting them up the mountain is a different problem.
It does make a nice boon for animal companions and familiars though, and may be enough to bump my estimation of a familiar's value above fun RP toys.
I like it as well and I was planning on using Blake's method and seeing how it goes. My specific concern is how beneficial that makes purchased guard dogs, as a I have a player who made a dog trainer as his character for Pale Mountain's shadow. The speed of herding dogs and getting them up the mountain is a different problem.
It does make a nice boon for animal companions and familiars though, and may be enough to bump my estimation of a familiar's value above fun RP toys.
I feel like if your player took the precaution to get a guard dog and have gone to the trouble of getting it past whatever obstacles and have kept it alive... They probably deserve to have it act like a guard dog, no?
I agree completely. I have a habit of being over generous with things I think are cool though and wanted to check myself before the guard dogs made my play test info useless.
He's buying ten I think, I have no idea how many will survive the long trip, how he's feeding them, how to determine time spent getting them to follow and so on. I'm planning to just use a "carousing" exploration tactic with his animals as herding, give him his nature check as initiative, and calling it good.
I tend to dig something like DM_Blake's style: I try to look at the world from the monsters' and NPCs' perspectives to decide what they would consider important.
Hopefully can fit a few more paragaphs on the stealth/vision section.