I've seen a lot of groups roll Stealth immediately upon using Avoid Notice, then when initiative begins 10 minutes later, they all roll Stealth again as part of their initiative.
When I pointed out to one group that this was unnecessary, that you could use your initial Stealth roll as your initiative without rerolling (our first set of rolls was really high) they all kind of brushed me off, citing that they didn't feel comfortable with that since the roll was so long ago. The GM allowed me to keep my result for initiative, but I rerolled anyways because I didn't want to further ruffle any feathers among the group. Though they never called me anything of the sort, the whole experience kind of left me feeling like I was some kind of "dirty minmaxer."
So my question is this: When are you expected to roll Stealth while using Avoid Notice? Immediately upon declaring the exploration activity, or only if initiative needs to be rolled/there is a chance to be noticed? Or both (which strikes me as inefficient and wasteful)?
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So my question is this: When are you expected to roll Stealth while using Avoid Notice? Immediately upon declaring the exploration activity, or only if initiative needs to be rolled/there is a chance to be noticed? Or both (which strikes me as inefficient and wasteful)?
Only if initiative needs to be rolled/there is a chance to be noticed.
Technically, you could roll a Stealth check once you declare you're Avoiding Notice, but if there's no foes about there's no point.
AVOID NOTICE
(Exploration)
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed. If you have the Swift Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed rather than half, but you still can’t use another exploration activity while you do so. If you have the Legendary Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed and use a second exploration activity. 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 (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).Reading that, I would say that you roll the stealth check upon declaring your exploration activity (and move half speed).
Then if combat happens and your Avoiding Notice you roll a stealth initiative roll.
also:
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.
Yes, but what exactly would be the point? As NECR0G1ANT and I both pointed out, there's no reason for the extra rolls whatsoever. It's literally wasting everyone's time and energy on rolls that don't matter.
When I went back and reread Avoid Notice before starting this thread, I was actually quite surprised that it seems to call for two rolls, a throwaway roll and the initiative roll. It just doesn't make any sense. I suspect it's not actually intending to state that you need to make two rolls, and is just poorly worded. I'm wondering if rules elsewhere line up with Avoid Notice's current wording, or if they imply fewer rolls.
There really shouldn't be more than one roll unless conditions and/or the situation changes dramatically.
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I think the answer can be found in the other thread :
As a player, if we were ambushed by casters and the GM tells us they go first because their Stealth was better than our Perception, I would find this completely logical.If you weren't Seeking or similar during exploration, you don't get the Perception check. They just Stealth against your static Perception. Its perfectly reasonable for a unobserved caster to drop a spell on you from ambush, just as its perfectly reasonable for an archer to pop an arrow or two without your awareness. And its just as reasonable to be ambushed by a group of drow rogues in the dark as it is for you to "sniff" them out before they can spring the trap.
So the first roll would be against static perception, while the second one would be the initiative check against their initiative / Perception check.
Yeah, RD, you have the right of it. There may be times where you find yourself needing to make superfluous rolls when a player explicitly says they want to search something that doesn't have anything hidden, but even that is only if you really want to avoid meta knowledge for when there actually is something to find or something to find. And that doesn't really matter for stealth, where it is usually pretty obvious if you are spotted, or searching for traps, when a failure means you walk into it. The only situation where it really comes up is investigating for clues and loot and such.
Avoid Notice is extremely badly written and should only be used to get Stealth to Initiative. The first sentence is unusable, as it doesn't even list a DC.
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The first roll could easily be to change your status from Unnoticed to X, with X being the result of the second (initiative) roll.
Imagine a party using Avoid Notice, Follow the Leader and Quiet Allies to pass a couple of hostile guards in explo mode with the clear aim to bypass the guards. The Warpriest having the lowest modifier rolls Stealth but fails to pass the guards perception DC, which means combat ensues as the party is no longer Unnoticed and the guards "call for initiatve".
Every party member now rolls Stealth for initiative. While a couple of party members fail to beat the guards perception DC and will start the combat Detected some party members pass the DC and still start the combat Undetected.
Separating those rolls can make sense.
This is interesting. When we originally started playing we rolled avoid notice rolls right away. Then we looked over stealth for initiative and it seems logically that there is no need to roll anything except for initiative.
I dont see much of a point rolling for stealth before initiative. Unless your entire team is using stealth combat will start far before an enemy finds you.
There are rare exceptions where a player/multiple player are doing a pure stealth mission where avoid notice out of combat comes into play.
Luckily it is a secret check so you as a GM can roll randomly everytime they do it and just ignore it 95% of the time.
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Way I see it now, the second roll comes because we're switching from the timescale of exploration to that of encounter.
So, if you made the first roll, NPCs do not even know you're here. If the whole party succeeded at this they might just completely avoid the encounter.
Otherwise, the encounter starts, but the NPCs still do not know about the stealthy PC. And then it is time for the initiative rolls.
Time to check if the stealthy PC's subtlety is still high enough compared to the perception of the now attentive NPCs.
Important detail--at no point do you compare your stealth roll to your opponent's Initiative. Even when rolling stealth for initiative, you only compare your roll to their 'passive' Perception DC.
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Important detail--at no point do you compare your stealth roll to your opponent's Initiative. Even when rolling stealth for initiative, you only compare your roll to their 'passive' Perception DC.
Sorry, but no. Everyone checks for Initiative, though the rolls might be Stealth (or something else if deemed more appropriate) rather than Perception.
"Typically, you’ll roll a Perception check to determine your initiative—the more aware you are of your surroundings, the more quickly you can respond. Sometimes, though, the GM might call on you to roll some other type of check. For instance, if you were Avoiding Notice during exploration (page 479), you’d roll a Stealth check."
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Sorry, I should clarify. At no point is there a compared roll to determine your level of stealth. You would indeed compare your Initiative (Stealth) to all other Initiative (Perception or other) rolls, but as far as whether the opponent notices you or not, Avoid Notice acts as Sneak, and only cares about the opponent's Perception DCs. This is how you can begin combat stealthed, but still act after somebody who does not see you yet.
(Earlier discourse made me believe that it would be possible for somebody to arrive at this easy and seemingly common mistaken conclusion that the Perception check made as a part of initiative is used to determine level of awareness, rather than merely order of initiative, when Avoid Notice makes explicit that the one roll is compared both to the foe's Initiative (for order) and Perception DC (for awareness).)
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I know I've seen other sources say that you roll Stealth once and use the same value for both determining awareness and initiative. A contradictory example in the book, or a developer in a forum post or online game stream perhaps?
I'll see if I can track down whatever it was.
EDIT: I might have been remembering it from this video. I for one am convinced that the opening sentence of Avoid Notice is not a first or second roll, but rather the only roll*. I believe everything after that elaborates on the first sentence's meaning, and is not describing additional rolls.
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I err on the side of assuming the first sentence does not imply a separate roll because in general, the first line of text in many abilities is a simple one-sentence summary of what that ability does, with the actual mechanics to follow.
It's possible this is not an example of that format, but also that format is common enough to colour my perception here. In either case, I wonder what the worst case scenario involving each interpretation is? I feel like applying the mechanic consistently may be more important than 'getting it right' as long as there are no obvious flaws to a given interpretation (but then I don't do Society play, mileage may vary)
Avoid Notice is extremely badly written and should only be used to get Stealth to Initiative. The first sentence is unusable, as it doesn't even list a DC.Isn't the DC the static perception of the people who might notice you?
Who knows?
It is stated "You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice". Avoid Notice being the action you are currently doing you can't refer to it. So you roll a Stealth check for god knows what. No DC, no information about how it works, you have to guess everything.There are properly detailed actions around Stealth, especially Sneak. I prefer to use this one as I hardly see how you can use Avoid Notice to sneak past enemies with its lack of explanation.
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Avoid Notice is extremely badly written and should only be used to get Stealth to Initiative. The first sentence is unusable, as it doesn't even list a DC.Isn't the DC the static perception of the people who might notice you?Who knows?
It is stated "You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice". Avoid Notice being the action you are currently doing you can't refer to it. So you roll a Stealth check for god knows what. No DC, no information about how it works, you have to guess everything.There are properly detailed actions around Stealth, especially Sneak. I prefer to use this one as I hardly see how you can use Avoid Notice to sneak past enemies with its lack of explanation.
Forgive me for jumping into this debate with such regularity, but I believe the full text of the Avoid Notice activity does, indeed, agree that the Sneak activity is a relevant reference point. (Bold mine)
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed. If you have the Swift Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed rather than half, but you still can’t use another exploration activity while you do so. If you have the Legendary Sneak feat, you can move at full Speed and use a second exploration activity. 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 (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).
This refers most particularly to what happens at the start of an encounter, but certainly it does suggest that the mechanics for Avoid Notice directly reference the Sneak action.
How Avoid Notice works is certainly among the most contentious exploration activities, but there are at least a few things that can be gleaned without resorting to oracles.
Forgive me for jumping into this debate with such regularity, but I believe the full text of the Avoid Notice activity does, indeed, agree that the Sneak activity is a relevant reference point. (Bold mine)
The part about combat is perfectly clear. The part outside combat is completely blurry. You can try to infer things, but you'll hardly find any precise RAW to describe how to handle it. Even considering that Avoid Notice is equivalent to using Sneak repeteadly will generate tons of issues, for example you have to make a roll every action when you Sneak, you have to end each action behind cover/under concealment, does Avoid Notice remove all these limitations?
It's in my opinion better to consider the first sentence as fluff text and ignore Avoid Notice as a mean to stay stealthy.