I know, it seems like a very "duh" kind of question, but I've not been seeing GMs run it that way; not in my home groups, not in Society play, and not in the discussions on these forums.
Rather, in practice, it seems that once initiative is rolled everyone, at best, can be undetected.
But that can't be true can't? Because if you can only be Unnoticedin Encounter mode, than how would abilities like Assassinate with Encounter action mechanics work? What then, would be the point of Avoid Notice if the encounter was always going to start anyways with those magical GM words, "Roll initiative!"
I don't think you can use Avoid Notice/sub Stealth for Initiative if you don't have cover or concealment.
I don't think it would work even if you were caught out in the open with invisibility, as that only makes you undetected, at best.
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There is really no mechanic that you can invoke to say "if I succeed at X, I will be unnoticed" without GM involvement/judgement.
If you're running the game, I really recommend giving some consideration to whether a character should be Unnoticed, since just following a flowchart of mechanics won ever reach that state. If you're a player, I suggest talking to the GM about whether they will be doing that before trying to take things like Assassinate.
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Avoid Notice's key sentence about not being notices is, "If you’re Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you."
Player characters begin the Avoid Notice exploration activity far away from enemies. Lack of enemies is the very best way to be unnoticed.
My own interpretation of the switch from traveling exploration mode to encounter mode upon encountering other characters is that the players can place the character tokens on the map wherever makes sense for their exploration activity. Therefore, characters using Avoid Notice will be behind obstacles or around corners where they can stay unnoticed. The NPC characters will notice some of the PCs, the ones that were not using Avoid Notice, but the Avoid-Notice PCs who rolled well will be unnoticed.
As mrspaghetti pointed out, some PCs entering the scene will probably cause sentries to take a Seek action to try to spot more PCs. However, a Seek action won't necessarily be successful. A failed Seek action will leave the PC unnoticed, since the sentry will assume he spotted everyone present.
Alright, so let's say we have a group of young heroes trying to infiltrate a temple.
While moving through the temple, using Avoid Notice, they hear someone at the door ahead opening the lock. Wanting to see how this plays out moment to moment, the GM calls for the start of Encounter mode and has everyone roll Initiative. Since they were all using Avoid Notice or Follow the Expert, the lowest in the party gets a lucky roll of 28, which just beats the night guard's 26 Perception DC. The room is well lit, so they must use cover. The aasimar and kobold duck behind pillars while the hobgoblin and tengu duck into side halls. The catfolk ducks into the previous room from whence they came.
Assuming the heroes don't take actions to expose themselves, are they Unnoticed? Or merely Undetected?
Let's assume it's the former, and that the PCs won initiative in alphabetical order (aasimar, catfolk, hobgoblin, kobold, then tengu).
1) What happens as the guard moves through the room?
2) What happens to the characters' stealth states, if anything, if the guard beats their initiative? What happens if he goes last?
3) What are the characters' potential actions? Hide, Sneak, Seek?
There's so many variables here I'm not even sure know how to set up a proper example. :P
Initiative and Stealth
Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 11
When one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you’ll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who’s Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative. All the normal bonuses and penalties apply, including any bonus for having cover. You can give them the option to roll Perception instead, but if they do they forsake their Stealth and are definitely going to be detected.
To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them. What if both sides are sneaking about? They might just sneak past each other entirely, or they might suddenly run into one another if they’re heading into the same location.
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Initiative and Stealth
Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 11When one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you’ll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who’s Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative. All the normal bonuses and penalties apply, including any bonus for having cover. You can give them the option to roll Perception instead, but if they do they forsake their Stealth and are definitely going to be detected.
To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them. What if both sides are sneaking about? They might just sneak past each other entirely, or they might suddenly run into one another if they’re heading into the same location.
This rule strikes me as complete nonsense: I'm guessing it is intended to cover the 'Person who beats opposing stealthers on initiative losses his first turn because he isn't aware there is anyone there' situation, but it makes no sense to me that you just 'know' there is someone there, even after they make all their stealth checks...
Okay, if you assume initiative was a perception roll, then I guess the perception roll did beat the stealth roll, but this gives every creature you encounter a 'free' perception check to at least suspect your presence.Personally, I'd lean toward ignoring this oddly-specific rule and let stealthers remain unnoticed until something changes that status (failed stealth check, loss of necessary cover/concealment, stumbling onto an alarm, etc).
Of course, I'm playing a 19th level Halfling thief, so I might be a bit biased...
Let's keep in mind this from the same page:
"When do you ask players to roll initiative? In most cases, it’s pretty simple: you call for the roll as soon as one participant intends to attack (or issue a challenge, draw a weapon, cast a preparatory spell, start a social encounter such as a debate, or otherwise begin to use an action that their foes can’t help but notice). A player will tell you if their character intends to start a conflict, and you’ll determine when the actions of NPCs and other creatures initiate combat. Occasionally, two sides might stumble across one another. In this case, there’s not much time to decide, but you should still ask if anyone intends to attack. If the PCs and NPCs alike just want to talk or negotiate, there is no reason to roll initiative only to drop out of combat immediately!"
There's also a specific example in the book I couldn't find that has the example of two parties that beat each other's stealth DCs and go by each other none the wiser.
That is to say, if everyone is Avoiding Notice and does so successfully, initiative isn't rolled until someone decides to attack. (Note that the decision to act triggers this, not the act itself.) That means that:
While moving through the temple, using Avoid Notice, they hear someone at the door ahead opening the lock. Wanting to see how this plays out moment to moment, the GM calls for the start of Encounter mode and has everyone roll Initiative
...has probably already gone wrong, because if the players aren't attacking you probably shouldn't be using initiative. You could make an argument for using it if the PCs need to skirt dangerously close to the guard to pass and you want to run it Metal Gear Solid style, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. Usually the party either observes the guard before attacking or skirts far enough around to not require further checks.
While moving through the temple, using Avoid Notice, they hear someone at the door ahead opening the lock. Wanting to see how this plays out moment to moment, the GM calls for the start of Encounter mode and has everyone roll Initiative...has probably already gone wrong, because if the players aren't attacking you probably shouldn't be using initiative. You could make an argument for using it if the PCs need to skirt dangerously close to the guard to pass and you want to run it Metal Gear Solid style, but that's actually pretty rare in my experience. Usually the party either observes the guard before attacking or skirts far enough around to not require further checks.
How does one Hide or Sneak if not in Encounter mode?
How does one Hide or Sneak if not in Encounter mode?Isn't that encapsulated by the Avoid Notice exploration activity?
Yup, in other words you don't need to because you already Avoided being Noticed. Generally speaking that's good enough to not require further stealth checks unless you are doing something especially risky. In the guard scenario, there's a chance the GM might require further checks if you can't give the guard a wide enough berth, but 3v3n that doesn't necessarily require initiative, just further checks and therefore chances to fail.
What about if there are passive traps in a room with a guard, that the PCs are trying to sneak through? You might shift into encounter mode for reasons other than assumed hostility between PCs and NPCs, such as just needing to track movement in a more precise manner than is typically possible in exploration mode. It seems like having an encounter mode equals undetected is a very viable strategy for running anything but the most combat heavy encounters.
Initiative and Stealth
Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 11When one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you’ll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who’s Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative. All the normal bonuses and penalties apply, including any bonus for having cover. You can give them the option to roll Perception instead, but if they do they forsake their Stealth and are definitely going to be detected.
To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them.
What if both sides are sneaking about? They might just sneak past each other entirely, or they might suddenly run into one another if they’re heading into the same location.
I ought to read more of the Gamemastery Guide than Chapter 5, NPC Gallery. I had skipped Chapter 1, Gamemastery Basics, because I have been running Pathfinder games since 2011.
I almost had both sides sneaking past each other happen in my PF2 Ironfang Invasion campaign. Both the party and a hobgoblin patrol were sneaking through the forest. The party saw the hobgoblins but the hobgoblins did not see them. We still had the encounter, because the party chose to attack. In the previous module, Trail of the Hunted, the party was escorting refugees and would have chosen to stay unnoticed.
The wording of the 2nd paragraph in the Gamemastery Guide quote is hard to follow, "So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC?" I guess "their" in that sentence before "Perception DC" refers to "someone" but I keep trying to read it as "all their foes." I suppose it expands out to "So what do you do if a character on one side rolls highest on initiative with a Perception check, but everyone on the other side rolled Stealth checks high enough to beat that character's Perception DC?" The Gamemastery Guide answer is that the high Perception roll merits a freebie that perceptive character notices other people in the area but without actually detecting who or what or where the other people are.
Would this apply if the perceptive character had the 2nd highest initiative with an ally having the highest initiative? What about a character who rolled low on perception but it still beat exactly one foes' own Stealth check for initiative? Would he or she notice that one character is undetected in the room, but fail to notice the rest of the foes? I guess the answers are no, since the paragraph did not mention those cases.
Fortunately, this is the Gamemastery Guide, a book of options and advice, rather than a rulebook.
I like to play with using different skills for initiative than the default Perception-and-Stealth rolls. For example, if some weird creature, such as a leshy or a korred or a maenad, is before them, I would ask for a Recall Knowledge (Nature) roll to see if they realize that the creature is a threat. The opposite side would roll Recall Knowledge (Society) which surprisingly few enemies are trained in. It is an effective way to signal that both sides are unfamiliar with the other side. Or if the sides are already in conversation, initiative might be a Perception-and-Deception roll, with Perception for sense motive rather than observation, for the moment they stop talking and start fighting.
Since I use different initiative rolls, having a special rule for Perception-and-Stealth would be awkward, despite that being the most comment initiative roll.
Initiative and Stealth
Source Gamemastery Guide pg. 11When one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you’ll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who’s Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative. All the normal bonuses and penalties apply, including any bonus for having cover. You can give them the option to roll Perception instead, but if they do they forsake their Stealth and are definitely going to be detected.
To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They’re undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed. That means the participant who rolled high still knows someone is around, and can start moving about, Seeking, and otherwise preparing to fight. The characters Avoiding Notice still have a significant advantage, since that character needs to spend actions and attempt additional checks in order to find them.
What if both sides are sneaking about? They might just sneak past each other entirely, or they might suddenly run into one another if they’re heading into the same location.
I ought to read more of the Gamemastery Guide than Chapter 5, NPC Gallery. I had skipped Chapter 1, Gamemastery Basics, because I have been running Pathfinder games since 2011.
I almost had both sides sneaking past each other happen in my PF2 Ironfang Invasion campaign. Both the party and a hobgoblin patrol were sneaking through the forest. The party saw the hobgoblins but the hobgoblins did not see them. We still had the encounter, because the party chose to attack. In the previous module, Trail of the Hunted, the party was escorting refugees and would have chosen to...
To be clear, if you go first with imitative but everyone is undetected, you basically just have an instinct that tells you someone is present, or hear a faint sound of a sword being pulled from a scabbard but can't tell from where, or the like. So you can act but not very well. Even seeking to find foes is just really, really inefficient unless the room is very small.
And anything that happens with initative after the first enemy pops out of hiding is pretty much academic because at that point you have a target to focus on. But there's no further bonuses to perceiving folks that beat your stealth DC.
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I think the GMG is being a bit too much "general philosophy of GMing" and not precise enough in exact rules in parts of chapter 1. As in, it gives you very good strategies for ruling on issues, but in places, it's just contradictory with the actual rules.
Like Avoid Notice. I mean, obviously, the point of Avoid Notice is to avoid being Noticed.
Also, the GMG and the CRB aren't perfectly in sync on when to roll initiative, and I think that explains why the GMG is so weird on Avoid Notice. (But doesn't excuse it.)
The CRB says encounter mode is for action scenes when every moment counts. It pretty much assumes that you're going into initiative at the start of encounter mode. This doesn't strictly have to be combat. Sneaking by some people at close range is also a case of precise timing. If they round the corner before you get to your next hiding spot, you may be left without cover and therefore get spotted. So turn-based actions are needed for the extra precision.
The GMG on the other hand says you don't roll initiative until one side actually starts a fight. This prompts everyone to roll initiative, presumably because battle scene music suddenly plays. This also explains why the GMG thinks that when you're rolling initiative with Avoid Notice, someone's been noticed. The battle music/sound of initiative dice clattering gives away that there must be someone there (not necessarily how many).
So what to do with this in practice? I think a mix of both approaches actually works nicest. If all the PCs are successfully avoiding notice at the start of an encounter that's happening at close enough distance that we need to round-by-round, then we roll initiative but enemies aren't aware that they're being stalked. The PCs may move around for a bit. But if someone's stealth fails, or one of the PCs decides to launch an attack, we roll initiative again. People can still use Avoid Notice for their check. The point here is that I don't want players using things like Delay to entirely stack the order of actions before making their presence known.