Hi
I have a player in my group that has another interpretation of the rules than I do.
He says that if a creature is hidden or undetected behind a solid wall and uses the Stride action to the corner (where he has Line of Sight to enemies) won't make him lose the hidden condition, since he is still behind cover.
He means that the Sneak action only is there to increase Hidden to Undetected, and that if you start hidden you remain so as long as you have cover where you end your move.
Any clarification using rules would be nice. We discussed this for almost 3 hours last game, and we want to use the rules as intended.
Cheers.
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What the player is attempting to do is called "Sneak". It is an action, that includes a stride up to half of your speed, unless they have other abilities that allow them to sneak further.
I would say that if the character was completely obscured by terrain, say through a solid wall, and was never in a place to observe the opposition, then they would remain "hidden" from the opponent through virtue of them physically being out of sight. Once they take a position where they can observe a creature however, like in the case of the corner they attempted to move to, if they were not sneaking then they are no longer hidden.
Think of it like approaching a corner cautiously and slowly peaking around it versus running up to the corner and quickly peaking around it. One is sneaky, the other is obvious.
As a rule, unless a creature is attempting to remain undetected through hide or sneak, or they have some other effect or ability providing hidden to them like invisibility or solid walls, then they are clearly observed automatically.
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He says that if a creature is hidden or undetected behind a solid wall and uses the Stride action to the corner (where he has Line of Sight to enemies) won't make him lose the hidden condition, since he is still behind cover.
Laddeus mentions this and Hexilim seems to gloss over it, but it is kind of the only thing that matters here. If you have the same relevant visual capabilities (ie, if neither of you is invisible or has darkvision) and you can see them, they can (potentially) see you. The potentially hinges upon whether you successfully used a relevant stealth to reach the position where you could see each other. If you simply Stride, your noise gives you away and the opponent will see you when you poke your head around the corner.
Having greater cover or concealment does not actually block line of sight, though the former does offer you a +4 bonus on your stealth check, assuming you make one. That +4 bonus to AC and stealth checks indicates the same thing: that it is possible to spot your or shoot you, it is just harder because only so much of your body is sticking out from cover.
For our blue player I argue that they remain hidden as per the RAW the conditions for being observed are not met - no direct line of effect, there blue player is obscured by a greater cover and the area is dim light meaning the player is also concealed.
Also, I think I just figured out what Hexilim's confusion stems from: conflating the hidden condition with the Hide action. Similar to the blind/blinded argument we had recently. The Hide action says:
If you successfully become hidden to a creature but then cease to have cover or greater cover against it or be concealed from it, you become observed again.
But this is a specific rule for using the Hide action, not a general rule for moving from the hidden condition to the observed condition. Neither condition contains any of that language. In other words, if you used Sneak to reach that corner (and didn't critically fail) or were already at that corner and used the hide action, then maintaining greater cover there allows you to keep from being observed until you take an "obtrusive" action.
However, if you didn't Hide or Sneak to gain that condition in the first place, then the rules for either action don't apply to you.
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- Unnoticed - Your foe has no idea you are there at all.
- Undetected - Your foe knows you are there, but has no idea where.
- Hidden - Your foe knows which 5' square you are in, but can't sense your exact position.
- Observed - Your opponent can sense you normally.
If you are attempting to avoid being observed, that means you are taking either the Hide or Sneak action: Any other action assumes you are not trying to be stealthy (though the GM has a lot of discretion here for things like Recall Knowledge).
- Moving to the corner without being detected is a Sneak action.
- Moving to the corner without caring about being detected is a Stride action
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So I usually find it useful to figure out the intent of the rules rather than getting caught up in confusing text rabbit holes. In this case, I think the best example to figure out intent is examples of cover in the picture on page 477. Specifically, the 4th one, Kyra and the Ogre.
The ogre is at the corner of a building, and Kyra is around the corner a few squares away. But this isn't described as blocking line of effect, just providing cover, or more likely greater cover. How can this be if the center lines cut right through a wall?
Largely because creatures move around within their square, and combat is happening simultaneously. In this specific context, the ogre is fighting Valeros in front of him, which means parts of his body are popping out from the cover while they fight. This is also why hiding behind a bar might give you cover or greater cover but not the hidden condition, even if your body is completely out of sight. If you're popping in and out from cover, the enemy can shoot you while you're popped out, even if that isn't where you end your turn.
Does that make sense?
Worth noting that line of effect states that if as much as 1' gap is enough to establish line of effect regardless of visibility. I would say even the greatest cover usually leaves this much open short of a solid wall between you and the target.
Regardless, line of effect has nothing to do with visibility--you want line of sight, which happens also to have the same wording
"portcullises and other obstacles that aren’t totally solid do not [block line of sight]. If you’re unsure whether a barrier is solid enough to block line of sight, usually a 1-foot-square gap is enough to maintain line of sight, though the GM makes the final call."
The CRB on p 477 says "Cover applies only if your path to the target is partially blocked. If a creature is entirely behind a wall or the like, you don’t have line of effect (page 457) and typically can’t target it at all."
And on p 457 it reads "You have line of effect unless a creature is entirely behind a solid physical barrier. Visibility doesn’t matter for line of effect"
Finally, on p 466 for observed it reads "If you can’t observe the creature, it’s either hidden, undetected, or unnoticed, and you’ll need to factor in the targeting restrictions."
And for hidden "A creature that’s hidden is only barely perceptible".As such, I've read it as "if a line of effect cannot be drawn in a straight line from the center of one character to the center of another without crossing a blocking piece of terrain or obstacle, the creature cannot be observed and the only remaining conditions that can apply are hidden and undetected".
That just so happens to be the same requirement as for determining cover.
Having cover to any degree doesn't mean that you are not still Observed. The two condition sets are completely separate.
Standing in an area of magical darkness would grant total concealment, but no cover.
Standing behind a chain-link fence would grant cover (you couldn't swing a club through it), but it wouldn't grant any concealment or make you not Observed.
Being in a location with cover or improved cover it is possible to be hidden, but it doesn't happen automatically. You have to use the hide or sneak action to get to that location in order to not be Observed.
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The rules for Hide say:
You huddle behind cover or greater cover or deeper into concealment to become hidden, rather than observed.
So cover is not enough to guarantee being hidden, but it's good enough that it's possible.
Sneaking is for moving around while hidden/undetected/unnoticed and staying that way.
You don’t get to roll against a creature if, at the end of your movement, you neither are concealed from it nor have cover or greater cover against it. You automatically become observed by such a creature.
So the converse of that is, if you did have cover and rolled well enough, you stay hidden/etc.
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Side note: you say that the encounter occurs on a moonlit night and that everything is dim light. If the guards don't have low-light or darkvision, then everything is Concealed to them, so everywhere you fulfill the conditions for ending movement in a concealed place. So you're allowed to make stealth checks everywhere, you don't need cover. That would make the rest of the example a bit uninteresting so let's assume the guards have low-light vision (they're half-elves).
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Picture A1: the green character has no cover or concealment at all. There is no line of sight to the blue character at all, so he cannot be Observed. He could still be heard though, so worst case (for him) he's Hidden and best case he's Unnoticed.
Picture A2: the blue character has cover (or likely greater cover) because there's some obstruction, but not complete obstruction. This is the same situation as Kyra in the diagram on page 477. As the example states: "Kyra and the ogre can barely see each other"; so they can see each other a little bit.
Cover applies only if your path to the target is partially blocked. If a creature is entirely behind a wall or the like, you don’t have line of effect (page 457) and typically can’t target it at all.
If you’re uncertain or need to be more precise, draw a line from the center of your space to the center of the target’s space. If that line passes through any terrain or object that would block the effect, the target has standard cover (or greater cover if the obstruction is extreme or the target has Taken Cover).
Where you went wrong is thinking that if the center-to-center line is blocked that entirely blocks line of effect. But as the cover rules say and the diagram shows, that's a partial blockage. For there to be no line of effect at all, you'd need to block every line from any point in the observer's space to every point in the target's space.
So in picture A1, there is no line from any point in a red creature's space to any point in the blue player's space, so there's no line of sight possible. But in A2, he's no longer completely behind the wall, because you can draw an unobstructed line from the southwest corner of his space to some of the red folks.
If that seems strange to you, consider this: if you can look around the corner, they can look back at you and see you looking around the corner, because vision goes in a straight line in both directions.
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Moving on to your precise question:
But, understanding your posts here the claim is that anytime you near a corner, regardless of concealment or type of cover, you are automatically observed by any enemy, regardless of line of effect as no attempt at sneak was made.
This I feel is wrong and not RAI or RAW - please help me understand why you say this?
If you're in the open, you're automatically observed. If you're completely behind a wall, you can't be seen, but then neither can you see them. If you're just at the corner where you can peek around, they can peek back at you too. It's uncertain whether you'll manage to remain hidden, and that's why a roll is needed. Note that the rules say that if you take any action other than stealthing around, you become observed. If don't do anything, just sit still, then you can remain hidden for a long time without having to risk another roll.
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Picture B1:
You're almost right about blue. Blue is either Unnoticed or Undetected, not both; Unnoticed is the stronger condition.
You're wrong about green. There is no such thing as "we don't have line of sight but I can peek at you unobtrusively". Where green is, there is line of sight going both ways, but both of them have cover from each other so it's not easy to see each other (and so they would both get a bonus on stealth checks). The green player can use Hide to become Hidden in this spot because he has cover, but if the guard looked really hard in that direction (with the Seek action) it would be possible to spot him.
Picture B2:
If they Stride then there's no attempt to sneak and they move to the far side of the gap. Blue can't be seen by red at all, so can't be observed. Green can be observed because the corner isn't enough to block line of sight. Since green did nothing to try to be stealthy, green is now Observed. Blue is Hidden because hearing is an imprecise sense, and imprecise senses automatically locate people unless they take steps against that (i.e. walk softly using Sneak).
Now, suppose blue had instead used Sneak, then he would have crossed to the other side and remained Undetected/Unnoticed.
Now, let's say green had used Hide in B1 to go from Observed to Hidden and now uses Sneak. He then becomes Undetected because the guard no longer knows where he is.
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In summary: at a corner you can be observed. If you made no attempt to hide, you will be observed. But a corner provides enough cover to hide. If you end a Sneak action in cover, you can maintain that hidden (or better) status.
In summary: at a corner you can be observed. If you made no attempt to hide, you will be observed. But a corner provides enough cover to hide. If you end a Sneak action in cover, you can maintain that hidden (or better) status.
I would add two things :
- If you go to a corner and specifically tell me you don't let ANY of your limbs go past the corner I would rule you cannot be seen.
- None of your example guarantee that you cannot be heard... So Perception for that if you Stride and Stealth if you try to not be heard... ;=
In play if a player says they are going to the corner to peek, I ask "are you trying to be stealthy"? If they say yes, Then there would be a stealth check vs any perception dcs. If they say no, then if they see a creature the creature is able to see them.
It's not just limbs. If you stick your head out enough to see creatures you are visible.
Plus you are able to be heard and smelled.
I think the biggest take away is, just because you are not being stealthy doesn't necessarily mean you will be noticed. However, just being behind full cover most definitely does not make you hidden.
Sorry, I agree with you, head is a limb in my vocabulary.. Albeit a pretty important one and on you don't want to lose but a limb anyway... ;)
This might be a traduction error but when I say a "limb" I mean what you mean, a Head is a limb ...
Wasn't Sword of Sharpness "severing a limb" capable of beheading ? ;)
And I strongly advise you that even if your players didn't peak, the enemy can make a sound based Perception check if your player don't want to sneak... ;)
Perception check are NOT limited to sight.. ;)
Does your player does not invest in soap, or come out from a place that has a distinct smell that stick ? :)
That can prompt a Perception check too ;)
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In play if a player says they are going to the corner to peek, I ask "are you trying to be stealthy"? If they say yes, Then there would be a stealth check vs any perception dcs. If they say no, then if they see a creature the creature is able to see them.
It's not just limbs. If you stick your head out enough to see creatures you are visible.
Plus you are able to be heard and smelled.
I think the biggest take away is, just because you are not being stealthy doesn't necessarily mean you will be noticed. However, just being behind full cover most definitely does not make you hidden.
Sorry, I agree with you, head is a limb in my vocabulary.. Albeit a pretty important one and on you don't want to lose but a limb anyway... ;)
This might be a traduction error but when I say a "limb" I mean what you mean, a Head is a limb ...
Wasn't Sword of Sharpness "severing a limb" capable of beheading ? ;)
And I strongly advise you that even if your players didn't peak, the enemy can make a sound based Perception check if your player don't want to sneak... ;)
Perception check are NOT limited to sight.. ;)
Does your player does not invest in soap, or come out from a place that has a distinct smell that stick ? :)
That can prompt a Perception check too ;)
Really it's more than that to be honest. If you can see an opponent, they can see you unless you take measures to prevent them from seeing you. Hearing based seek actions wouldn't even take away Hidden.
Hearing is an imprecise sense—it cannot detect the full
range of detail that a precise sense can. You can usually
sense a creature automatically with an imprecise sense,
but it has the hidden condition instead of the observed
condition. It might be undetected by you if it’s using
Stealth or is in an environment that distorts the sense,
such as a noisy room in the case of hearing. In those
cases, you have to use the Seek basic action to detect the
creature. At best, an imprecise sense can be used to make
an undetected creature (or one you didn’t even know was
there) merely hidden—it can’t make the creature observed.
In this game, and most others, a character takes up a 5 foot square for the sake of simplicity. The rules treat that square as their space, regardless of whether a character is actually taking up that entire area.
If a player tells me that they want to move to a corner and not poke their limbs out or otherwise remain hidden, then I am going to tell them they have to sneak to do it. Sneak and Hide are the method that you use to allow a character to do what the OP's player attempted to do.
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If you successfully become hidden to a creature but then cease to have cover or greater cover against it or be concealed from it, you become observed again. You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step. If you attempt to Strike a creature, the creature remains flat- footed against that attack, and you then become observed. If you do anything else, you become observed just before you act unless the GM determines otherwise. The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check.
So the situation we have is someone hidden just around a corner, successfully hidden. He can remain hidden as long as he sits really still, nobody comes around the corner or successfully uses Seek in that direction.
If he takes any action except Hide, Sneak or Step he ceases being Hidden, but the GM might decide to allow some exceptions, perhaps with a check.
In the video you linked that's pretty much what happens: Merisiel wants to open the door and peer in, and the GM thinks that might succeed without breaking her hidden status, so he allows her to try that with a new Stealth roll.
So, from what I can tell of the book as well as that video - it is fully possible to observe other creatures from behind cover at no extra actions spent, while still remaining undetected and even unnoticed (or hidden, for the sake of context).
You want to look around the corner, which in itself doesn't need an action, since the corner doesn't block line of sight (as we saw in the Cover example discussed above). Just passively seeing things in your line of sight doesn't take any actions, so you don't break the stipulation against taking actions other than Hide, Sneak and Step.
But suppose you wanted to actively take a closer look at the guard, because you think there might be something fishy going on here. Earlier on in the adventure you were warned that some bandits had stolen guard uniforms and you want to look close to see if this is a real guard or a dressed-up bandit. That would be a Seek action. In principle, that's not one of the safe actions so this would break your stealth. That would be like craning your neck around the corner and staring. Easily visible. But the GM could agree that carefully peering just around the corner could be done unobtrusively. So he might allow you to do the Seek action, but require you to make another Stealth check to see if you give yourself away by sticking your head out too far.
So this is not an "extra" action - you are using a Seek action to try to see more than just the superficial, and because you're trying to do it discreetly, you also have to make a Stealth check. But that doesn't have to cost extra actions; you're just doing one very discreet Seek action that therefore requires two separate checks.
As an alternative example, you might wonder at the meaning of the heraldic crest you saw on the guard. That would be a Society check to Recall Knowledge. That's also not in the list of safe actions, but the GM might very well decide that just thinking it over doesn't carrry any risk, so he allows you to do that without even requiring an additional stealth check to stay Hidden.
I feel that you ignored the video somewhat - the rogue not only seeks, but also uses an interact action to open 2 doors - in both scenarios the GM rules that opening a door (interact action - so not hide, sneak or step) is an unobtrusive.
I wasn't really focusing on the seek action - I think most people would agree that seek doesn't necessarily require any action depending on the situation, but if need be, there is an actual action that can be taken and it should be unobtrusive in most cases regarding looking or listening.
But, in the video, there is an interact action to not only look, but actively moving a piece of the environment - a door - and then being able to observe a creature (twice) - this is also ruled unobtrusive.
**EDIT**
Reading your reply again, I think that you mostly covered it actually.
I still feel it's a little bit wishy washy so to speak as to in what case an action would be unobtrusive and it feels unfortunate that it is left so much to GM fiat essentially.One could argue that opening the door removes the cover (which is actually the case mentioned in the video) but it feels that the decisions are made mainly in support of a story, rather than game mechanics. This is fine ofc.
However, one of my least favourite things about dnd 5th is the heavy reliance on the GM to make calls as to what goes and what doesn't. It is also one of my favourite things about pathfinder where that is usually not the case and there are plenty of established rules instead.
I suppose stealth in general is just the exception to the rule and you have to hope to end up with a GM that favours stealth.
This edition of the game is heavily layered with GM arbitration. When in doubt the GM chooses is the default, and the rules give the GM a lot of leeway in what they can decide. At some tables peering around a corner could very well be unobtrusive enough to not break stealth. In a particularly low risk scenario, I'd probably allow a player to do so as well, provided they were hidden when they got to the corner they wanted to look around.
But I am a firm believer in the following: Whenever a player does something with any serious risk a roll should probably be involved. If a character would be put in harms way by revealing themselves in such a situation then I'm gonna require them to take precautions, and likely include a stealth check.
I like to think of stealth as being more than mundane invisibility. Say a rogue decides they wanted to sneak around a town for instance. They likely aren't going to remain physically hidden from every person on the street for long, but they can take measures to make themselves "unnoticed" even to people that see them, just by being unobtrusive and blending into the crowd. For something like this, I'd likely allow the rogue to just be stealthy without a roll, until they attempt something with some risk.
Say that rogue decides to break into a bank or some similarly guarded institution. Now they have gone from just wanting to remain anonymous and avoiding attention to wanting to be unseen entirely, likely by people that would harm them if he was found. Now every movement the rogue makes has more inherent risk. They have to slow down and sneak everywhere. Whereas out in the street they had the leeway to do most basic actions without compromising their "stealth", now they have to be very careful with their actions.
That is just how I see the situation, as I stated previously if you were to play at 10 different tables with 10 different gm's you could get 10 different answers. It's the nature of the game.
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I still feel it's a little bit wishy washy so to speak as to in what case an action would be unobtrusive and it feels unfortunate that it is left so much to GM fiat essentially.
(...)
I suppose stealth in general is just the exception to the rule and you have to hope to end up with a GM that favours stealth.
I think the stealth rules in PF2 are better than any I've seen earlier in other games, but stealth is inherently a topic in which you run into corner cases.
I think PF2 in general, but even in the case of stealth, isn't too much "mother may I", the way I've heard 5E described. But I think PF2 is a bit more blatant in saying when something is up to the GM, whereas PF1 pretended that the rules were complete, but then you'd run into a corner case anyway and need a GM ruling after all.
Things I particularly like in PF2 are the clear hierarchy of senses (vague, imprecise, precise) and what they entail. A couple of weeks back we had a discussion on how to handle a long-term blind character who's adapted to the situation and developed sharper hearing and sense of smell. PF2 allows you to model that fairly easily by giving such a character hearing as a precise and scent as an imprecise sense.
Another thing I like is that PF2 makes it a lot clearer when you need to be rolling again for Stealth, and that it removed opposed checks and replaced them with "active vs. the DC of the passive". That makes it a lot more likely to actually succeed at a stealth mission because the randomness has gone down a lot.
So I would say, learn to live with some GM fiat. It can't be gotten rid of entirely. But PF2 gives the GM a lot of guidance on how to run things in general, and then it becomes easier to make rulings for corner cases that don't feel weird and out of place. And of course, play with a GM you trust to use their power wisely :)