I think it means 'not urban' though certain dungeons and planar types might count too. Lists of terrain types in PF go
Cold (ice, glaciers, snow, and tundra)
Desert (sand and wastelands)
Forest (coniferous and deciduous)
Jungle
Mountain (including hills)
Plains
Planes (pick one, other than Material Plane)
Swamp
Underground (caves and dungeons)
Urban (buildings, streets, and sewers)
Water (above and below the surface)
Shouldn't be too hard to figure out.
Ruins long abandonned in the middle of the jungle, now hosting tribes of monkeys?
Some naturally occuring caverns in the Underdark that are being used as habitat by troglodytes?
The trees of an enchanted forest, where satyres, nymphs and others live?
The three mountain ranges of Mordor?
What nature is and what is natural aren't straightforward answers in a universe where magic exists and deities have altered the world repeatedly.
Shouldn't be too hard to figure out.Ruins long abandonned in the middle of the jungle, now hosting tribes of monkeys?
Some naturally occuring caverns in the Underdark that are being used as habitat by troglodytes?
The trees of an enchanted forest, where satyres, nymphs and others live?
The three mountain ranges of Mordor?
What nature is and what is natural aren't straightforward answers in a universe where magic exists and deities have altered the world repeatedly.
Old ruins, natural enough. It works.
Natural caverns, literally no question. It works.
Trees with BS living in them, absolutely. It works.
Mountains, obviously. It works.
This SHOULD be really easy to judge. Is it BS shenanigans, yes or no? If yes, don't allow it. If it's not BS shenanigans, then allow it.
The ability costs a feat to get, and takes time to set up. All of that for one stupid D6 of precision damage.
This isn't hard. None of these were hard.
Yet there is no unanimity. Yes, this is a call for the G.M. to make but it isn't always clear cut. I think VoodistMonk is wise here, there were resources invested by a character, I'd let them benefit unless it is clearly a no. All the in-between grey, I'd count as natural for the purposes of this feat.
A real life example could be a big park in the middle of a city, human-made a century or two ago, trees planted, waterways drawn, ponds and lakes filled. Every aspect of this park was designed and was always controlled since yet some areas haven't seen a rake in decades if not more, some areas are left without human intervention, besides picking rubbish up, on purpose. Natural or not?
It really isn't clear cut and this is a point where it is easy to become an adversarial game master.
- note: the mountains ranges that border Mordor are fabricated, someone used magic to make them -
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As I see it, the definition of "natural environments" for the use of this feat requires some GM input.
From my point of view old ruins covered in vines, brushes and debris counts as a natural environment for this feat, an unworked cavern regularly swept by water with very little or no debris doesn't count as one.
The text of the benefits says:
"In natural environments, you can spend 5 minutes to cover yourself in loose debris (such as branches, grass, or dirt) and take 20 on a Stealth check."
Instead of putting the emphasis on the "natural environments" I will put it more on the presence of "loose debris". If the ambient is reasonably natural and the presence of loose debris is normal, the feat works.
If the ambient is natural, but the presence of debris is unusual, it doesn't work.
- note: the mountains ranges that border Mordor are fabricated, someone used magic to make them -
I have read the Lord of the Rings and The Simarrilion a lot of years ago, but from what I recall it wasn't a feat of magic. Maybe it was a divine act, but if that is a feat of magic all the world of The Lord of the Rings was made of magic. There where several interventions made by divine magic shaping and reshaping it.
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I don't care if magic made the mountains... that's no different other than the magic of nature using magma to smash gigantic stone plates together that buckle and create mountains. They are mountains. Mountains qualify for the purpose of this feat.
Loose debris, definitely more important than "natural"... so long as it's not loose trash in an alley, I would let it work. Honestly, in an urban campaign, I would absolutely allow you to even hide in the trash.
Does it look natural? Yes, the trash next to all the other trash looks perfectly normal in this environment... good enough for me, let's not waste time arguing about trivial BS.
So glad you made everyone else in the party do random crap for 5 minutes, just so you could get a stupid D6 of precision damage on one attack... could have spent that feat on a Teamwork feat and got a D6 of precision damage on EVERY attack if you spent 5 seconds to flank instead of 5 minutes to hide in the garbage.
This feat sucks so bad I would let them hide under a napkin... if you are willing to take 5 minutes to do it. Lol.
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It's a team game. Teamwork feats and team tactics (like flanking) make a lot more sense than spending 5 minutes to hide in the trash... for a D6, on one attack.
Is the rest of the party a distraction, a decoy? Or do they all also have this feat, and are also hiding in the trash?
The amount of set up for the relatively small reward is not very, umm, rewarding... in my opinion.
Could one in good faith argue that cities are a natural habitat for plenty of species and have been for centuries if not millenia? I think so, I don't see it as abuse of language or shenanigans.
As such, yes, I'd allow the feat to work wherever loose debris in enough quantity to hide under is a normal occurrence, including a dark alley.
Yes, there are edge cases where this feat could be powerful. Good for the players if their characters leverage such cases. It still doesn't compare by far to Improved Initiative for example.
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It's a team game. Teamwork feats and team tactics (like flanking) make a lot more sense than spending 5 minutes to hide in the trash... for a D6, on one attack.
Is the rest of the party a distraction, a decoy? Or do they all also have this feat, and are also hiding in the trash?
The amount of set up for the relatively small reward is not very, umm, rewarding... in my opinion.
You shouldn't think of feats only as a "PC-centric" feature. It is not very useful for PCs, but for monster it can be worth it.
An automatic roll of 20 when hiding can mean success instead of failure when doing your job and being a predator.
You shouldn't think of feats only as a "PC-centric" feature. It is not very useful for PCs, but for monster it can be worth it.
An automatic roll of 20 when hiding can mean success instead of failure when doing your job and being a predator.
Unless interacting with the PCs, NPCs do not need rules. They do their job, they be what they are whether the rules are adapted or not. The rules try to comply with the world, not the other way around.
In a game with a ruleset such as Pathfinder, elements such as classes, feats or spells are crunch for mostly the players to use.Whether a monster is a successful predator has little to do with what feats it has. Maybe the other way around has some truth, it can have some feats to model a successful predator, or whatever other role. Its role comes from narration, not from the rules and it doesn't need the rules to fulfill the role.
Sure, it can be helpful for the game master to have items to assemble into a monster rather than having to come up with rules that model the monster's role but this isn't what is asked of feats when designed, they are for PCs - and NPCs comparable to PCs for coherence.
It's still handy for an NPC or monster who is going to make about one stealth check ever in their career on screen. And even for a PC being able to take 20 on stealth is possibly a useful thing. There are far worse feats out there.
@Diego Rossi, re-reading my last message, I find my tone could be misread as short. It wasn't the aim. Apologies if I have offended.
@avr, meh. No need for a feat. If they are good ambusher, they have high Stealth and maybe a circumstantial bonus that applies in the case of ambushes in a terrain they know, such as the Tiger in tall grass. Combined with Taking 10 on the Stealth check, we can model the situation just as well without needing additional material than the basic rules.
I would give an NPC a potion of Invisibility before I wasted one of their precious feats on this. Spend that feat on Precise Strike for when they spring out of hiding into flanking position... because it's a smarter tactic. I find this feat not even worthy of my NPC's. There are some very situations, umm, situations this feat MIGHT be worthwhile... but no, there will always be something better to take (Improved Initiative, Iron Will, Combat Reflexes, Toughness, Endurance, Additional Traits, Skill Focus, Weapon Focus)...
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@Diego Rossi, re-reading my last message, I find my tone could be misread as short. It wasn't the aim. Apologies if I have offended.
@avr, meh. No need for a feat. If they are good ambusher, they have high Stealth and maybe a circumstantial bonus that applies in the case of ambushes in a terrain they know, such as the Tiger in tall grass. Combined with Taking 10 on the Stealth check, we can model the situation just as well without needing additional material than the basic rules.
No offense taken at all, to I your tone seemed normal.
While monsters can have any non-standard ability the GM want I prefer to have my world consistent, so the monster's feats and skills should reflect, more or less, what a PC could take.
Personally I dislike the effect of the low intelligence of animals, as it limits them to 1 skill point/level. Patching that with racial bonuses to skills is a patch, not a good solution. While intelligence is a key stat for acquiring skills that rely on it, having a high intelligence doesn't much for acquiring physical skills in real life.
Plenty of high HD monsters have feats they never use, so "wasting a precious feat" is common.