Legendary Sneak: is the first sentence flavor text?


Rules Discussion


The first sentence of Legendary Sneak reads: "You’re always sneaking unless you choose to be seen, even when there’s nowhere to hide. "

The text of hide says that "you cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step".

I've had players argue that this means they always remain Hidden no matter what they do, because they case being hidden in the moment they do something else, and then "you're always sneaking.." means that their Stealth kicks back in as soon as they do not choose to be seen.

Is that the intent?


No, first sentences in feats and abilities are flavor more often than not. In this case the sentence is flavor.

Liberty's Edge

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I agree with Blave, while not ALL ability descriptions follow the formatting where the first sentence is just a description of the IDEA I personally have come to believe that all instances where this is NOT the case are actually editorial mistakes given that the vast majority of all options and features in the system follow that kind of formatting.

In other words, that sentence is not intended to communicate any mechanical effect of benefit, instead, it describes the tone of what they were trying to get across with the ability.

This is another example of ways that mixed flavor and mechanical descriptions have caused confusion and why I personally feel the system would have been much better off by italicizing all such flavor-only text and descriptions to make it clear what parts of the rules are actually, you know, rules, rather than "dressing."


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber

I think that sentence is more referring to exploration mode, in which there's rarely a reason not to be sneaking. But if you take an action that reveals yourself, you still need to take an action to hide. Which is usually only relevant in encounter mode.

Liberty's Edge

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When you do anything except Hide, Sneak or Step, you are in fact choosing to be seen.


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The biggest counterpoint to the feat auto hiding you with no action taken imo is in the very next sentence of the feat itself: "You can hide and sneak even without cover or being concealed."
What's the point of the hide action if you can become hidden without taking said action? Answer: there isn't one. Hence, the feat doesn't expect you to be able to become hidden with no action cost.


hyphz wrote:

The first sentence of Legendary Sneak reads: "You’re always sneaking unless you choose to be seen, even when there’s nowhere to hide. "

The text of hide says that "you cease being hidden if you do anything except Hide, Sneak, or Step".

I've had players argue that this means they always remain Hidden no matter what they do, because they case being hidden in the moment they do something else, and then "you're always sneaking.." means that their Stealth kicks back in as soon as they do not choose to be seen.

Is that the intent?

If the text of the feat was just the first sentence, then maybe the interpretation "you are always sneaking" would be reasonable. But the text goes on to explain what they mean, so no their arguments are rubbish.

There is nothing wrong with a general description of a power followed by specifics. That is a normal language convention. Its not a conflict or a contradiction. It can't be ignored as irrelvant either.

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