As far as I understand it Avoid Notice lets you roll Stealth as initiative and that is the purpose of the activity, from what I can tell and have read discussions on the forums you can't really sneak past someone in Exploration mode but instead you go to Encounter mode when you are in threat of being detected at all.
So the purpose of Quiet Allies eludes me a bit, since it cannot be used for initiative which seems to be the purpose of Avoid Notice. What happens when a group is using Avoid Notice and using Quiet Allies and you go into encounter mode? Is Quiet Allies for detection only and the individual initiative roll is initiative only?
It's for detection purposes, so you only have to make a single stealth check instead of rolling a bunch of times if you have a lot of people Following your lead.
It doesn't interact with initiative at all.
So from what I've gathered a scenario could look like this:
The party is using Avoid Notice/Follow the Expert and the expert has the Quiet Allies feat. They encounter a guard and roll for initiative. Their previous roll to avoid notice beats the guards Perception DC.
In order to get past him unnoticed they need to use the Sneak action until they're out of his distance and then they use Avoid Notice again.
Avoid Notice is meant for the purpose of how to transition between exploration and encounter modes. You don't need to Avoid Notice when nothing is there to see you. The purpose and benefits of Avoid Notice is so that
* You can roll Stealth for your initiative.
* Even if your initiative is lower than an enemy's (because they rolled really well), you might still remain hidden and therefore not get targeted during the first round of combat, and get stealth-based benefits on your first attack on your turn (flat-footed at least, sneak attack damage if you have it).
The benefit of Quiet Allies is just to allow the entire group to roll one Stealth check when using Avoid Notice. The way probability works, that is a much better option than having everyone roll separately. And that is what it explicitly says is not allowed for initiative - everyone still has to roll initiative separately. It is only the exploration mode Avoid Notice that everyone gets to roll together.
The thing is, that even without Quiet Allies, everyone else in the group can already use Follow the Expert to be using the Avoid Notice action during exploration. The purpose of doing that being that everyone can choose to use Stealth for their initiative (they could also just stick with Perception if that is better), and they can remain hidden at the start of the encounter.
So yes, you could have the encounter start, and have everyone making Stealth checks to avoid the combat and instead sneak past the enemy guard that they meet. And actually they don't need Quiet Allies in order to do that. Follow the Expert alone would allow that to happen. Also Quiet Allies wouldn't help during the encounter section where everyone is making Stealth checks individually. Aid would be what you are going for to help with that.
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So from what I've gathered a scenario could look like this:
The party is using Avoid Notice/Follow the Expert and the expert has the Quiet Allies feat. They encounter a guard and roll for initiative. Their previous roll to avoid notice beats the guards Perception DC.
In order to get past him unnoticed they need to use the Sneak action until they're out of his distance and then they use Avoid Notice again.
If they're trying to avoid a combat, then yeah, that's one way it could play out. Avoid Notice would most likely (it depends on the situation) be necessary to attempt to sneak past the enemy, and Quiet Allies would be very helpful with that goal in mind, since one check is way less likely to fail than at least one of 5 checks failing.
Then, after that initial check is made and compared to the perception DC of the guard the GM has a couple options.
- It could turn into a stealth encounter
- The GM could determine that the previous check was sufficient and that the party doesn't need to enter encounter mode in the first place. Perhaps this is due to noticing the enemy when they're far enough away and in a good enough hiding place that they can simply retreat and go around them.
Also note that avoid notice and quiet allies may be a good option even if you don't want to avoid combat altogether. For example, avoid notice is a great way to set up for an ambush, where if it's successful you have the ability to coordinate your turns and jump into initiative at the same time with delaying turns... if they don't notice you while you're in the process of setting up the ambush, of course ;)
I guess a bit of confusion comes from Avoid Notice saying that the Stealth roll for initiative is also used for determining if you are noticed, so you only roll once.
But if you use Quiet Allies you would need to roll twice, using the first roll for detection and the second roll for initiative. This isn't really stated as far as I can tell and is just a conclusion you would need to make it work. But I do think I understand it completely now, thanks for the answers.
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Avoid Notice is a bit weirdly worded, and the GMG made it worse. The GMG says that if an encounter happens, Avoid Notice will make you Undetected, not Unnoticed. Which is weird, until you look a section earlier when it says when to roll initiative: when one of both sides starts a fight.
So if a party is all Avoiding Notice and they all did really well on Stealth, and they come across some enemies, they have a choice. Start a fight, or pass by quietly. In the first case you roll initiative and the party is Undetected, not Unnoticed. In the second case however, if the party avoids all contact and just quietly tiptoes past, enemies would never notice.
Now there's a bit of a mismatch between GMG and CRB here. CRB says that you roll initiative when every move counts. GMG says you roll initiative when you start a fight.
For stealth, one of the key things is having cover/concealment. If you're in the open with nothing to lurk behind, you're going to get spotted. Now, if the party is in a big forest and can just take a 300m detour, no problem. We never have to leave exploration mode.
But what if there isn't so much room, and maybe enemies are also moving around on patrols? Maybe there's a colonnade and the party is trying to skip from column to column. They gotta time it just right because they need to be out of sight when the guard walks around the corner. So now it makes sense to resolve this in encounter mode ("every move counts"), and perhaps roll initiative. However, since this isn't an actual fight, it's reasonable to say the party is still unnoticed at the beginning, and might stay that way the entire time.
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Basically, there are a lot of different possible situations and you need to exercise some good GMing sense to handle the situation in the best way. Don't try to impose one narrow rigid method that would result in an absurd outcome ("you can never sneak past someone, they always detect you").
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We had this exact situation early in PF2 and this specific rules question threatened to close down the entire game session because even after a lot of rules reading and cross referencing of individual stealth conditions and game modes we still did not know how to handle the situation and at the end were quite frustrated.
The whole transition from exploration mode to encounter mode seems to be badly explained in the CRB, especially if stealth and relevant feats are involved, and it does not help that 3 of 4 stealth conditions and their interactions are perfectly tied into the rules for encounter mode but the 4th condition is a rather narrative one (as in at some point of time the GM simply has to decide who starts the "scene" unnoticed and who doesn't).
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As to the larger question of this thread: Stealth is meant to be a type of encounter, rather than a means to not have encounters, which is why the effect of Avoid Notice hinges around starting an encounter "stealthed" (though it is commonly misinterpreted as being a roll to skip an encounter, and if you fail that roll a second roll to paradoxically have been noticed so you can't skip the encounter but still potentially start the encounter with your opponent having no idea where you are).
Really, really, really disagree with this sentiment. I'm with Ascalaphus on this matter. Sometimes stealth can indeed skip encounters. And sometimes it may be appropriate to have an encounter revolving around using individual Sneak actions. And sometimes (maybe most often) it will be the start of a fight where some people not be initially aware of some other people.
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I really disagree with this "all encounters must be encountered" position. How much more railroady can you get?
It's definitely immersion-breaking for me to posit that because of a not-quite-clear-between-books technicality, you could never sneak past a monster without it noticing. We have plenty of movies and books where heroes sneak past a foe without the foe noticing. It's absurd that this would not be possible in Pathfinder.
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Paizo really tries to get away from the murderhobo/pilfer anything adventure group and approaches their adventure writing much more nuanced.
Two situations:
A corridor with a door towards a guardroom - some guards playing cards.
First situation assumes the door is closed - so you can just walk past or open the door to start an encounter.
Second situation - the door is open. This would lead to many more options
Start the encounter (still the most common option)
Stealth past it (would be a good use of Quiet Allies) and avoid a fight
Diplomacy to avoid a fight (depending heavily on situation if this is a valid option or will autofail)
Deception/Bluff to avoid a fight
And you could even just turn around to avoid the fight.
I have a group in my AP who constantly complain that it is too deadly. What they still don't get is that most often it gets deadly for them because they insist on fighting unnecessary fights instead of avoiding them through use of various skills.
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Really, really, really disagree with this sentiment. I'm with Ascalaphus on this matter. Sometimes stealth can indeed skip encounters. And sometimes it may be appropriate to have an encounter revolving around using individual Sneak actions. And sometimes (maybe most often) it will be the start of a fight where some people not be initially aware of some other people.If sometimes an attack roll could also be a one-step solution to an encounter, or literally any other single-action-solve exist besides stealth, I might be persuaded to think it is okay for Stealth to turn encounters into non-encounters.
APs are full of diplomacy checks you can make that prevent a fight from happening, and occasionally deception or intimidation checks. Do you just remove those from the books too?
I cannot emphasize how appalling I find this idea you have, especially when it is predicated on ignoring the GMG entirely, which indeed says stealth can let you bypass an encounter entirely. There are plenty of fights where this isn't an option, usually due to terrain, but to say you never can is just... Wow.
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Stealth is a type of encounter.
I'd rather say 'Stealth can be a type of encounter' and mostly depending on setting.
There is a difference in circumventing a largely static threat that you somehow managed to notice early on, simply by talking a sufficiently big detour, especially if you have plenty of natural cover (maybe requiring no roll even), sneaking to the fridge while your parents are watching TV in the living room (maybe just one check) and trying to enter an active enemy stronghold Mission Impossible style (stealth as an encounter).
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Stealth is a type of encounter.I'd rather say 'Stealth can be a type of encounter' and mostly depending on setting.
There is a difference in circumventing a largely static threat that you somehow managed to notice early on, simply by talking a sufficiently big detour, especially if you have plenty of natural cover (maybe requiring no roll even), sneaking to the fridge while your parents are watching TV in the living room (maybe just one check) and trying to enter an active enemy stronghold Mission Impossible style (stealth as an encounter).
Exactly. Much like encounter mode can be used for Diplomacy but doesn't necessarily have to be. We have guidelines for social rounds and influence encounters but that doesn't mean every conversation or request is worth that level of granularity.
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The issue is whether Avoid Notice can actually help you avoid being noticed or not.
If you look at the CRB version of Avoid Notice, it seems like maybe you can:
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).
You're trying to avoid being noticed, which I would say relates to the Unnoticed condition. Just going by the CRB, if you succeed at Avoid Notice and an encounter happens anyway for some reason, a good roll means you haven't been noticed.
It's possible that you resolve a stealth job in encounter mode, if the GM judged that's the most appropriate mode. For example, if you have to sneak past some moving creatures and you have to time creeping from cover to cover just so, then that should probably be encounter mode, going by the CRB definition:
When every individual action counts, you enter the encounter mode of play. In this mode, time is divided into rounds, each of which is 6 seconds of time in the game world. Every round, each participant takes a turn in an established order. During your turn, you can use actions, and depending on the details of the encounter, you might have the opportunity to use reactions and free actions on your own turn and on others’ turns.
This would make sense if you were trying to sneak past some enemies in say, a temple, where you scurry from hiding behind one column to another to get to the inner sanctum.
But if you're in a forest with lots and lots of trees so that you pretty much have cover all the time, you could just quietly move step until you're past enemies, not making any new Stealth checks, based on this line from the Hide use of the Stealth skill:
You cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step.
The GM could reasonably say that at the very first moment you come within sensory range of enemies you make that initial stealth check to avoid getting noticed, and then you could just Step by Step move on with no further checks. Since there's plenty of distance and the cover isn't going to be an issue, it doesn't really make sense to drop to encounter mode and do things in initiative. In this case, yes, a single check is enough to avoid a whole encounter, because distance is on your side.
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Now the GMG confuses things, but I think that's because we read bits of it out of context.
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!
And a few inches down on the page we have:
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.
So the GMG says "roll initiative when someone does something the opponent can't help but notice" and then goes on to discuss the case where nobody's seen each other. But that's inside a context where one side is about to do something enemies can't help but notice.
So if a player didn't want to be noticed and didn't want to do anything that would be noticed (like, just, quietly sneaking on), the GMG wouldn't tell you to roll initiative for that.
This doesn't square perfectly with the CRB that says you use initiative when precise timing matters, vs. the GMG that says you use initiative if someone starts a conflict.
My take remains that the GMG passage should not be interpreted to mean that you can't remain Unnoticed if you don't want to fight. It's just that if you do start to fight, you immediately downgrade to Undetected.
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To me, you've just described two non-encounters and one encounter.
Yes, because the first two are exploration activities rather and not encounters.
The difference being that many believe that Avoid Notice can be used to specifically not enter encounter mode, whereas the other interpretation seem to center around the idea of Avoid Notice just being helpful if you plan to actually enter encounter mode.
So Avoid Notice + Follow the Expert + Quiet Allies in order to allow the party to easier by-pass encounters while staying in exploration mode versus the same set of feats and activities just as a means for everybody to easier start unoticed/undetected/hidden when going from exploration to encounter mode.
Stealth is a type of encounter.I'd rather say 'Stealth can be a type of encounter' and mostly depending on setting.
There is a difference in circumventing a largely static threat that you somehow managed to notice early on, simply by talking a sufficiently big detour, especially if you have plenty of natural cover (maybe requiring no roll even), sneaking to the fridge while your parents are watching TV in the living room (maybe just one check) and trying to enter an active enemy stronghold Mission Impossible style (stealth as an encounter).
To me, you've just described two non-encounters and one encounter.
Because "we go through the forest, instead of across the road the watchtowers are by" isn't producing uncertain results or presenting any form of challenge, and "do you parents hear you go grab a snack?" is - at least in general terms - not even a little bit relevant to a game-play scenario (and if it were, it'd be more engaging for the player and integral to the story unfolding through play if it were an encounter rather than a single roll).
But that last one is an encounter (which might be a stealth encounter, or an infiltration one, depending on how the GM feels like handling it)
But maybe that's just me and having a particularly high threshold when it comes to applying "don't roll dice when it doesn't actually matter" to game-play.
Choosing to take the detour through the woods is predicated on spotting the watchtowers/sentries before they spot you, which very much does seem like something a stealth check should determine. (Unless we are using Terrain Stalker, or the sentries lack dark vision and it is night, or something to that effect.) Otherwise the sentries spot the party and then encounter mode definitely happens, which is a pretty high stakes situation where the dice roll actually matters.
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With the argument that Avoid Notice isn't actually a way to sneak because everything has to be handled in an encounter, what does Quiet Allies do then?
Because it sort of sounds like it wouldn't do much, which doesn't sound right and might indicate an error in interpretation or reading.
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The second, there are stakes, but they are either not actually worth rolling because we're talking a parent saying "hey, grab me a drink while your in there" or the like, or they are too high to stack onto a single roll because we are not just trying to answer "do you parents hear you go get a snack from the kitchen?" but rather something like "do you successfully retrieve a snack and return to your room unnoticed, or does your parent come send you to bed without a snack?" So we're still not looking at just tossing one die and calling it good being the best practice because throwing dice for little to no reason is boring, and "roll stealth... you failed? you fail the entire adventure." is the opposite of game-play.
Okay, you're really not saying anything at this point. So apparently everything's either 1 or 100 in PF2? Nothing in the game can have a valid reason to be only one roll, because it's either too low of stakes to matter or too high of stakes to be decided by a single roll? Alright, in that case we shouldn't roll to see who goes first, because that's either too small of a decision to be worth a roll, or too big of a decision to be decided by a roll. We should definitely break that up into multiple rolls or just have the GM decide who goes first. We should also do the same for trying to use battle medicine on someone who's dying 3. No way should someone's life and death be decided by a single roll, it's too high stakes!!
Sorry for being all sarcastic, but... you see the point being made, right? In TTRPGs the point of rolling dice is to determine the result of anything that's neither guaranteed to succeed or guaranteed to fail. Rolling more dice doesn't change that, it's just that sometimes that kind of nuance and the ability to change tactics partway through is important, and other times it's not.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Choosing to take the detour through the woods is predicated on spotting the watchtowers/sentries before they spot you...Except that is not inherently true. The party could be making the choice with no idea the watchtowers even exist. It is, at least potentially, just choosing Path A or Path B which doesn't take any character skill even if it does take player skill to weigh the potential pros and cons of each path or estimate the probabilities of which way is actually the desired path.
This was a counter to the point that you made saying that it shouldn't require a check by default, which was trying to dismiss the idea of using a single roll for stealth in any situation no matter the case. Captain Morgan doesn't need to give an airtight case that no matter how that situation played out and no matter what the players did they'd need a roll. Saying "that is not inherently true", and giving a specific counter example is irrelevant. When you make a sweeping statement, then only a single counterpoint needs to be brought up to counter that sweeping statement. In this case the counter point is assuming we have this watchtower that we don't want to be spotted by and are approaching. The question then is how do we determine if we notice the tower before they notice us? One potential answer that makes sense: Avoid Notice.
THANK YOU.
With the argument that Avoid Notice isn't actually a way to sneak because everything has to be handled in an encounter, what does Quiet Allies do then?
Because it sort of sounds like it wouldn't do much, which doesn't sound right and might indicate an error in interpretation or reading.
Yeah, I am actually rather underwhelmed by the feat. And that is even with being in the camp with Captain Morgan that you can 'Nope' your way out of or past an encounter using stealth.
Most of the benefit of the feat is actually given by the Follow the Expert activity. That is what lets the rest of the party be stealthy even if they didn't build their character for it. Avoid Notice just makes the odds be a bit more in your favor.
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It seems clear enough to me what the CRB intends.
Your whole party doesn't want to be noticed by enemies, not because you want to win initiative, but because you don't want to get into fights. So you take the lead in Avoiding Notice and the rest of them Follow you the Expert.
Now, if you really want to get past enemies without them noticing anyone is trying to pass by at all, then everyone needs to succeed at their stealth check. Otherwise they'd notice something, and although they don't know whether there's 1 or more people there, they at least know something's up.
That's ~4 times a d20 with the chance for a bad roll. With Quiet Allies, it's only one bad roll. You use the worst modifier, but that basically means that the second-worst, third-worst and you all can't fail the check, it's only the worst sneaker that has to roll.
So going with the original CRB language where avoiding notice can in fact keep you Unnoticed, the feat does precisely what it seems to do. It's a pretty big difference in probabilities, taking you from "very bad" to "still bad, but not nearly as bad" odds. I mean, the fighter with fullplate and no Dex is still pretty loud even while following the expert. Since it's basically him making the check, against the typically pretty good Perception of enemies of possibly higher level, well those odds are still bad.
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With the argument that Avoid Notice isn't actually a way to sneak because everything has to be handled in an encounter, what does Quiet Allies do then?
Because it sort of sounds like it wouldn't do much, which doesn't sound right and might indicate an error in interpretation or reading.
Yeah, I am actually rather underwhelmed by the feat. And that is even with being in the camp with Captain Morgan that you can 'Nope' your way out of or past an encounter using stealth.
Most of the benefit of the feat is actually given by the Follow the Expert activity. That is what lets the rest of the party be stealthy even if they didn't build their character for it. Avoid Notice just makes the odds be a bit more in your favor.
I can certainly see where you're coming from, but I think the math actually checks out here. PF2 is designed for 4-6 players, so splitting the difference means an average party is about 5 people. Maybe more if you happen to be traveling with someone or something else. In this case, if you want to have the whole party avoid being noticed, then without quiet allies this would require 5 or more separate stealth checks. Let's say each has a roughly 60% chance of success, then the odds of everyone being unnoticed is just (0.6)^5 = 0.07776 or roughly 7.8% chance. On the other hand, let's say that that group with about 60% chance of individual success the player with the worst modifier has a 50% chance of success (note that it probably won't be much lower than the average, since you're all following the expert, bumping up the modifier a lot). With that single point of failure the chances of everyone (the one check) succeeding skyrocketed from under 10% all the way to 50%. Quiet allies makes possible what would otherwise be improbable.
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Avoid Notice is a bit weirdly worded, and the GMG made it worse. The GMG says that if an encounter happens, Avoid Notice will make you Undetected, not Unnoticed. Which is weird, until you look a section earlier when it says when to roll initiative: when one of both sides starts a fight.
So if a party is all Avoiding Notice and they all did really well on Stealth, and they come across some enemies, they have a choice. Start a fight, or pass by quietly. In the first case you roll initiative and the party is Undetected, not Unnoticed. In the second case however, if the party avoids all contact and just quietly tiptoes past, enemies would never notice.
Yes. The language in the GMG is there mostly to avoid the awkward ambush scenario where the stealthy party beats the perceptive party’s perception DC, but the perceptive party rolls higher on initiative. It doesn’t make sense for someone getting ambushed to act first if they haven’t noticed anything, so the GMG advises to make the ambushers undetected when they start a fight, instead.
I can certainly see where you're coming from, but I think the math actually checks out here. PF2 is designed for 4-6 players, so splitting the difference means an average party is about 5 people. Maybe more if you happen to be traveling with someone or something else. In this case, if you want to have the whole party avoid being noticed, then without quiet allies this would require 5 or more separate stealth checks. Let's say each has a roughly 60% chance of success, then the odds of everyone being unnoticed is just (0.6)^5 = 0.07776 or roughly 7.8% chance. On the other hand, let's say that that group with about 60% chance of individual success the player with the worst modifier has a 50% chance of success (note that it probably won't be much lower than the average, since you're all following the expert, bumping up the modifier a lot). With that single point of failure the chances of everyone (the one check) succeeding skyrocketed from under 10% all the way to 50%. Quiet allies makes possible what would otherwise be improbable.
Yes. Excellently math-ed. Both you and thenobledrake.
But that is all that Quiet Allies does. Makes the tactic more reliable. Puts the probability of group success into something that is actually reasonable to try rather than something almost certain to fail.
What it doesn't do is anything else. So niche use. Useful for certain parties and certain adventures.
Which, to be fair, is probably the appropriate power level for a skill feat.
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I can certainly see where you're coming from, but I think the math actually checks out here. PF2 is designed for 4-6 players, so splitting the difference means an average party is about 5 people. Maybe more if you happen to be traveling with someone or something else. In this case, if you want to have the whole party avoid being noticed, then without quiet allies this would require 5 or more separate stealth checks. Let's say each has a roughly 60% chance of success, then the odds of everyone being unnoticed is just (0.6)^5 = 0.07776 or roughly 7.8% chance. On the other hand, let's say that that group with about 60% chance of individual success the player with the worst modifier has a 50% chance of success (note that it probably won't be much lower than the average, since you're all following the expert, bumping up the modifier a lot). With that single point of failure the chances of everyone (the one check) succeeding skyrocketed from under 10% all the way to 50%. Quiet allies makes possible what would otherwise be improbable.Yes. Excellently math-ed. Both you and thenobledrake.
But that is all that Quiet Allies does. Makes the tactic more reliable. Puts the probability of group success into something that is actually reasonable to try rather than something almost certain to fail.
What it doesn't do is anything else. So niche use. Useful for certain parties and certain adventures.
Which, to be fair, is probably the appropriate power level for a skill feat.
I never said that it was an amazing feat. I was commenting on the dismissive nature of the comment and saying that it simply "makes the odds be a bit more in your favor." I'd say almost impossible to reasonable is much more than "a bit" of a swing in your favor. Personally I'm not a huge fan of the feat either (though it certainly has its uses), but that's not going to stop me from pointing out a flaw in the argument against it.
I disagree with the notion that Avoid Notice forces more than one Stealth check.
I really believe it's just one Stealth check and, should there be an encounter, that same result becomes your initiative (provided you even wish to remain hidden at the encounter's start).
Even in the case of Quiet Allies, which would result in the entire party having a shared initiative (which, per the rules for ties, would allow the players decide the party's order).
You’re skilled at moving with a group. When you are Avoiding Notice and your allies Follow the Expert, you and those allies can roll a single Stealth check, using the lowest modifier, instead of rolling separately. This doesn’t apply for initiative rolls.
@Ravingdork:
I agree with the standard avoid notice activity. It's said pretty clearly. But Quiet Allies goes out of its way to say otherwise. Unless there's some kind of alternative interpretation of what that last sentence means that I'm missing. I'm open to be proven wrong.
Ok guys, having talked theory for quite some time now I simply want to do a sanity check by using a concrete example and asking for your opinions how the following scenario unfolds.
A) Party is out in the wilds (woods, so plenty of cover).
B) Party has noticed an enemy camp.
C) Enemy camp has look-outs of some sorts.
D) Party wants to determine the size and contents of the enemy camp by sneaking their way around in a respectable distance.
E) Party has access to the Quiet Allies feat.
There was a big debate about player positioning, their individual stealth status and initiative and we probably ended up doing most of it wrong, however we finally got to a working solution and proceeded with the battle.
Our group finally decided that my Warpriest would stick to his roll for Stealth and Initiative, starting hidden, as he was the one that "triggered" the encounter. The rest of the players now proceeded to make their own Stealth/Initiative rolls in order to determine both their Stealth status and Initiative count.
In my experience, allies are not only rarely quiet, they are often seeking attention non-stop, insisting on being the life of the party.
Virtually impossible not to notice that.
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I see it in a very simple way: a single roll determines whether the enemis see the party or not; if an encounter starts, everyone rolls Stealth again for initiative.