I will assume Creature A is not in plain sight which can be slightly different to Cover.
Creature A is Unnoticed and Undetected by Creature B.
However this is a new encounter because a couple of minutes have passed.
A reasonable GM might require A to use Stealth for initiative, and B to use Perception for initiative. Note that a Cover Bonus can affect the initiative rolls.
Regardless A stays Unnoticed and Undetected until A does something that might change that.
However when B gets a turn, B might choose to Take a Seek action (Perception check versus A's Stealth DC with a modifier for Cover), which also could cause A to be noticed.
If B fails his Seek check or chooses not to make one, he might well move on or stay. That is a role playing issue for the relevant person to decide. If Creature A continues to do nothing the GM could end the encounter right there.
If at some later stage A decides to take an action, roll for a new encounter.
Let's say creature A uses the hide action while they're completely alone. They then stay still, making no further actions, until a couple of minutes later, creature B passes by.
This feels like you are trying to contrive a scenario where a check isn't appropriate due to narrative reasons. That isn't how RPG game mechanics work. They don't necessarily match up with IRL reality, and sometimes not even completely match up with the game's narrative.
If creature A is wanting to hide, there needs to be a check involved somewhere when creature B comes by.
There are a few ways that the check could be handled. Some involve creature A rolling stealth against the passive perception DC of creatures that pass by. Others involve creature A using their passive stealth against an active perception check of passing creatures such as creature B.
But if the GM set up this encounter with either creature A being the enemy and creature B being the party members that are trying to hunt it, or set it up with creature A being the party members and creature B being an enemy that they are trying to avoid, at some point there needs to be a check made for stealth vs perception.
If it is two players playing hide-and-seek with their respective characters and the GM is just watching the fun, then the players can make their own rules.
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Let's say creature A uses the hide action while they're completely alone. They then stay still, making no further actions, until a couple of minutes later, creature B passes by. They have line of sight to the square creature A is occupying but at every point of creature B's movement, creature A has cover. Creature B is NOT doing the seek action. Creature A simply stays still, until B has passed by.
Is there any roll involved? Does B has any chance at discovering A? My current RAW reading of the rules is that no, if B isn't using the seek action, and A has cover or concealment the whole time, A succeeds "automatically". Is that correct?
I believe that's correct. If A is just happy to stay there and not do anything, and B isn't looking for A, then B is just going to pass by.
This fits with the idea of when you should be rolling for initiative: when someone does something that the opposition would want to react to. A is NOT doing anything B would want to react to, so there's no need to actually fire up encounter mode.
If B wanted a chance to spot A, B should have been searching.
Let's say creature A uses the hide action while they're completely alone. They then stay still, making no further actions, until a couple of minutes later, creature B passes by. They have line of sight to the square creature A is occupying but at every point of creature B's movement, creature A has cover. Creature B is NOT doing the seek action. Creature A simply stays still, until B has passed by.
Is there any roll involved? Does B has any chance at discovering A? My current RAW reading of the rules is that no, if B isn't using the seek action, and A has cover or concealment the whole time, A succeeds "automatically". Is that correct?
I believe that's correct. If A is just happy to stay there and not do anything, and B isn't looking for A, then B is just going to pass by.
This fits with the idea of when you should be rolling for initiative: when someone does something that the opposition would want to react to. A is NOT doing anything B would want to react to, so there's no need to actually fire up encounter mode.
If B wanted a chance to spot A, B should have been searching.
Agree 100%, but would love if the book gave more examples cause i have seen so many strange rulings on stealth with different DM's that i have given up on the notion of playing a dedicated stealth character.
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Whether it's an encounter or not seems to be the crux of the situation. Player Core does admit that sometimes you enter into encounter mode outside of actual combat:
In Pathfinder, this is called an encounter. Encounters usually involve combat, but they can also be used in situations where timing is critical, such as during a chase or when dodging hazards.It seems clear to me that timing isn't critical here, specially when you take into consideration that you only have to roll for hiding when you sneak or do otherwise obtrusive actions, which B isn't interested in doing. It makes no difference if B takes 30 seconds to pass by, a full minute, or sticks around reading a book for a quarter hour and then moves on, either way the result is the same. That hardly seems to be the action-packed sequence that Player Core seems to allude to when talking about combat.
Yeah.
Now, let's flip it around. B is just sitting there, reading a book. A starts a mile away, and has been warned that B is there. A just wants a quiet day and doesn't want to have a fight with B, but needs to get past that spot.
Now this might be worth running in quasi encounter mode. A basically sneaking from tree to tree - each time A has to pass an open space in view of B is a Sneak check. Quasi encounter mode because it's still just one character doing all the things. But step by step, because it's interesting if and where it will go wrong. Does A flub a check right at the start? Almost at the end? That makes a difference for where everyone is on the battlefield if stealth fails and there's an encounter.
So basically, this would be a kinda relaxed stepwise thing kinda on the edge of encounter and exploration mode.
This is where we get to take advantage that we're playing tabletop, not an automated computer game. We can handle these edge cases just how we like them.
For us, "exploration mode" isn't a different screen in a computer game. Exploration mode is just a nice time-saving abstraction because taking 25-feet Strides across a 10-mile trek to the next town would be tedious.
But when something is on the edge between exploration and encounter mode, we can just run it like an in-between edge case and not panic.
Hide is an encounter action.
For what you're describing, you don't "roll to hide", instead you simply are doing "avoid notice" exploration activity, and when the other creature is close enough to be reasonable to have an encounter, THEN you roll your stealth check.
This, to me is the right answer. Any time there could be a hostile enemy, initiative needs to be rolled. If you were to flip the op's hidden character into an enemy and the seeker into pcs, it's easy to see why.
Yeah there are a lot of holes in that. For instance, your hide roll doesn't matter. A level -1 goblin could roll negative 50 if they hid when no one is around, and a level 20 ranger who is stealthing themselves or following tracks would walk right past. That's dumb.
One thing that most people might be missing is that the exploration activity 'searching' says nothing about hidden creatures. It is only for hidden doors, traps, objects and such. As others have said, hide is not an exploration activity, and neither is seek. If someone if hiding and an onlooker would come nearby, you'd roll perception vs stealth for initiative.
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Correct rules, incorrect assessment:
How do you get a "success" if there's no DC to compare to?
You still can't get a "success/fail/crit success/crit fail" if you are not comparing to a DC.
So, as soon as an appropriate creature gets in range, you check vs his Perception DC to learn if you have succesfully hidden/become undetected from it.
Which is EXACTLY what Avoid Notice does as I quoted above:
You roll your stealth, as soon as an appropriate creature is nearby, you compare to Perception DC and see what's your observed status based on concealment and Check.
This is my assessment as well.
How I would run this is that I would ask for the secret Stealth check for Hide when the creature first hid. If nothing changed, I would compare that same roll against the Perception DCs of anyone who came by to determine whether they had successfully hidden against that individual. (Exactly as I would have if they had been there when the initial Hide took place.)
I tend not to request additional Stealth rolls for someone who doesn't change what they are doing, because multiple rolls statistically lead to eventual failure. Fairer to get them to set that number once as a benchmark.
Just note that Avoid Notice implies that you are moving ("...while traveling at half speed...") not just hiding in place. So by RAW there's no exploration specific activity to deal with this (you probably have to adapt Hide to exploration mode).
But as well pointed by shroudb there's no one to compare your Stealth DC no matter if you are hiding or Avoiding be Noticed so there's no check at all until someone arrives and you are finally able to check you Stealth vs this creature perception.
Do NPCs have an Exploration mode? I mean, obviously they could if the GM wishes to adjudicate events that way, but do they by default? Is there an example of some enemy with a shield that starts combat with it raised automatically under its tactics? Anything other than trying to ambush?
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There does seem to be a bit of a gap in the rules about how you should handle someone who previously used Hide, then didn't do anything to break stealth, but now new people enter the scene who weren't there when the original check was made so the check result was never compared to their DC.
I think a reasonable way to handle it is to just make a note of what result you scored when you rolled to Hide. You immediately use that result to check if you managed to hide from the people that were already in the area. If others show up later, you just compare the newcomers' Perception DC to the stored result.
To me that makes balance and narrative sense.
Balance: You're not getting to be hidden for "free" - you needed to make a check, and there's a chance that the newcomers are much more perceptive and spot you even if you managed to hide from the people who were already there. But on the other hand, you're not making extra rolls, so there aren't extra risks of you eventually rolling low.
Narrative: if you're well-hidden you're well-hidden, and you're also going to be hard to spot for people coming later on. But not impossible; they might be sharper, and they might be coming from a different direction from which you don't have cover.
I think a reasonable way to handle it is to just make a note of what result you scored when you rolled to Hide. You immediately use that result to check if you managed to hide from the people that were already in the area. If others show up later, you just compare the newcomers' Perception DC to the stored result.
Usually in such cases the best is you deal with Stealth as an DC (adding 10 to it and then rolling the creatures perception vs it) like happens to hazards.
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I think a reasonable way to handle it is to just make a note of what result you scored when you rolled to Hide. You immediately use that result to check if you managed to hide from the people that were already in the area. If others show up later, you just compare the newcomers' Perception DC to the stored result.Usually in such cases the best is you deal with Stealth as an DC (adding 10 to it and then rolling the creatures perception vs it) like happens to hazards.
I don't think that's such a good idea.
Consider: you're in an encounter with four enemies and you try to Hide. You make one roll against all of their DCs. Let's say they're all the same kind of creature, with a Perception of +8, so you need to get one 18 to succeed. If you have a +8 Stealth, you have a 50% chance of success to Hide from all of them.
Now suppose that we do what you propose. Let's say two of the enemies showed up later. They're not actually looking for you, but you decide that they should be rolling. So now the chance of you hiding from all of the enemies is only 12.5% (50% for the two enemies that were already there * 50% for the first enemy that shows up later * 50% for the second enemy that shows up later).
The difference here with Hazards is that you don't get a free check to detect hazards, you have to be Searching for them. (And you might need to have enough proficiency.)
By doing it my way, the odds don't drastically change if the enemies show up one by one instead of all at once.
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If they aren't looking, they shouldn't be rolling. I'd say the PC's check should stand if dealing with the same type/crew/etc., unless of course they are looking, like coming in to swap shifts and they check out the situation. And if a superior perceiver arrives, there's some narrative tension that that might warrant the hider rerolling.
One thing PF2 did was move away from hordes of dice rolling making it nearly impossible to hide from even inferior enemies. That is unless hyperfocused on Stealth to the point you could hardly fail ever, with neither extreme being welcome in a game of give & take. Groups get one DC and typically one roll, perhaps with bonuses for numbers or penalties for distracting each other, etc.
I think a reasonable way to handle it is to just make a note of what result you scored when you rolled to Hide. You immediately use that result to check if you managed to hide from the people that were already in the area. If others show up later, you just compare the newcomers' Perception DC to the stored result.Usually in such cases the best is you deal with Stealth as an DC (adding 10 to it and then rolling the creatures perception vs it) like happens to hazards.I don't think that's such a good idea.
Consider: you're in an encounter with four enemies and you try to Hide. You make one roll against all of their DCs. Let's say they're all the same kind of creature, with a Perception of +8, so you need to get one 18 to succeed. If you have a +8 Stealth, you have a 50% chance of success to Hide from all of them.
Now suppose that we do what you propose. Let's say two of the enemies showed up later. They're not actually looking for you, but you decide that they should be rolling. So now the chance of you hiding from all of the enemies is only 12.5% (50% for the two enemies that were already there * 50% for the first enemy that shows up later * 50% for the second enemy that shows up later).
The difference here with Hazards is that you don't get a free check to detect hazards, you have to be Searching for them. (And you might need to have enough proficiency.)
By doing it my way, the odds don't drastically change if the enemies show up one by one instead of all at once.
I'm considering that you not in encounter mode nor will enter in it while not detected. Usually encounter mode (when you start to count round by round) only happens when the players choose to act or when they are detected vs enemies (what's usually mean battle). But if they are just hidding and waiting the best moment to act or just waiting the enemies go away there's no reason to use encounter mode.
If you will use the encounter mode since the beginning just roll the initiative using theirs Stealth check there's no discussion about this if their initiative with Stealth is greater than all enemies they are undetected/unnoticed until they act or some enemy search or break their hide in some way.
If you save the Stealth roll to use vs all enemies you risk that a good or a bad roll act for all enemies with same Perception in same way. For example if you roll a 30 in Stealth but all patrols have 25 perception DC they will never found unless some enemy with a perception higher than their stealth roll appears. But if you use the Stealth as DC each enemy will have their chance to detect the hidden PC.
This is the first time in a while the rules seem so obviously cut and dry to me and it feels like most people in this thread are crazy pants. In exploration mode, you roll stealth vs initiative. If the stealther wins, they're hidden and begin their round as such. If more enemies enter the combat at later times, they roll initiative just like they would have at the start of the encounter.
The only thing the search exploration activity does is find traps and doors and such. You don't need to be searching to spot a stealthing enemy, that's what initiative is for.
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I agree with Errenor. Search, as an exploration activity, says that you Seek. Seek is very clear in that both creatures and non-creatures can be found.
However, I can see why there could be confusion as Search itself does not mention creatures, and if a player or GM did not notice the 'You seek..' to start off the description of Search, or did not know Seek was an action, they could think creatures were not included.
I'm saying there is no text for searching for creatures because you're always looking for creatures. It's represented by rolling perception for initiative. If the only way to find stealther creatures is the search exploration activity, that's way better than any other option (especially since it includes looking for traps and secret stuff).
So is this disagreement about searching and avoiding notice, who is the active roller and what goes against whos DC? And are we in an encounter just because this moment of tension happened?
So is this disagreement about searching and avoiding notice, who is the active roller and what goes against whos DC? And are we in an encounter just because this moment of tension happened?
Somewhat, yes. The thread has evolved a bit since it's beginning, but the main question was if I hide out of combat with no enemies around, and an enemy passes by, what happens. If the enemy doesn't search, is there no roll involved at all? And personally I think that rai if potential combatants meet, initiative should be rolled. If the hider wins initiative (and beat the enemies perception dc) they're hidden, so you're free to sneak away, continue hiding until the guard leaves, whatever. Otherwise things get complicated and house ruley.
I think "hide out of combat with no enemies around" has zero mechanical link to Hide which requires a DC from agents that aren't present. The PC neither succeeds nor fails, so there's no hidden condition to begin with. I wouldn't for example, let the PC use a Fortune effect to get the best roll. The closest rule mechanically is that you're Avoiding Notice (and simply neither moving nor exploring despite the implication that you are). I might award a circumstance bonus to reflect prep time, though I might also grant a bonus to enemies familiar with the room who might know where one would typically hide.
Then when a creature arrives the GM can adjudicate which use of Stealth suits the situation: the Hide action vs. the Perception DC(s) as the PC's intent comes to fruition (and to be generous and/or expedite events); or as initiative vs. Perception rolls to dive into the nitty-gritty. And as you noted that's also vs. their Perception DCs to see if you begin hidden or not and could let you hide/sneak away too with them none the wiser. Or heck, maybe they sneak in/Avoid Notice and use Stealth rolls for initiative that beat your Perception DC so you totally miss each other. (Not even sure what that's supposed to feel like in game, as time & space become more segmented, yet nobody knows why.)
Re: that GM choice, does the situation even warrant transitioning out of Exploration mode? This IMO should reflect the narrative gravitas of the moment because getting too granular with events can bog down gameplay, especially for any sidelined players watching this unfold.
Returning to the OP, the issue seems to dissolve when one considers that some conditions like Undetected, etc. are subjective and require other agents being present. Avoid Notice fits that action of hiding in-between actual interaction.
Rules be damned, I don't really care what they say, instead I go with this logic:
When a creature is hiding (perhaps it simply doesn't want to interact with the world) and another creature stumbles across it a check happens of stealth vs perception. Not sure if it should be stealth DC vs active perception check or perception DC vs active stealth roll (I usually have players make active rolls, but assuming the walking creature isn't actively looking for the hiding creature I think it makes more since to test against their passive perception).
Anyways, my ultimate point is that a highly perceptive creature should have a chance to notice a creature hiding in the woods, even they aren't looking for them.
So any rule that says that a check doesn't happen at all, is just outright wrong in my book.
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I think a check should happen, but not too many checks. The mechanical odds of hiding from people in the scene right now, should be similar to those of hiding from people arriving later.
The rules are clear that if you want to hide from everyone who is already in the scene, you make 1 roll and compare it to all their Perception DCs.
Now the undefined part is how to handle that when more enemies arrive later (that aren't Searching). But if you let them roll against you, that's a lot of rolls against you, and the odds become really different. On the other hand, if you just roll once and keep comparing that result to the Perception DC of newcomers, then the odds are much much more normal.
So a check should happen, but it should be only 1 check, just like it would be if you were Hiding from people already there.
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I also think there's no need to go to encounter mode. The GM Core has a section on this:
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 isn’t 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’s no reason to roll initiative only to drop
out of combat immediately!
If one side isn't aware of the other side, and the other side is happy to stay stealthy and let them pass, then I see no need to switch to encounter mode.
So is this disagreement about searching and avoiding notice, who is the active roller and what goes against whos DC? And are we in an encounter just because this moment of tension happened?Somewhat, yes. The thread has evolved a bit since it's beginning, but the main question was if I hide out of combat with no enemies around, and an enemy passes by, what happens. If the enemy doesn't search, is there no roll involved at all? And personally I think that rai if potential combatants meet, initiative should be rolled. If the hider wins initiative (and beat the enemies perception dc) they're hidden, so you're free to sneak away, continue hiding until the guard leaves, whatever. Otherwise things get complicated and house ruley.
Before i read the responses below this I wanted to take a crack at answering.
Part of gming is determining when rules mechanics come into play.Hiding outside of combat and not while in exploration mode if thats possible would simply be telling the gm what your hiding behind. This establishes visability relative to positioning of visual senses. The factors that are important at this point where there is no tension or danger or any chance of failure involved is knowing the area and what exactly the player is attempting to do.
Then you can introduce a creature or npc entering the area.
At this point is the player aware there is someone entering the area? If so they can say they want to avoid notice. This changes the player from hiding in place to staying hidden by positioning themselves visavi the npc. This calls for a skill check against the dc of the npc entering the area. No need for initiative just yet. There is tension and a chance of failure but no requirement to measure time by the round.
If the player is not aware thats a different situation. There is no roll the player doesnt know who specifically they are hiding from, are hiding in place, and it will all come down to visibility positioning and if the player happens to be behind cover that would block visibility.
There more to get into as things escalate to the point where initiative is required but most things that will require it are going to be hostile actions. If there are none the exchange might simply become a conversation when the noc spots the player.
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It seems like at some point if there isn’t some kind of roll, then it’s invalidating the stealth skill. If all it takes to stay hidden is to hide when no one is around, then the -2 untrained character is just as good as the +7 trained character. That alone should be reason enough for there to be some kind of roll. I don’t think initiative is necessary, so whether it’s rolling when you say you hide or waiting to roll until there is someone who could see you, it’s just a matter of deciding when making the roll makes sense. Or at the very least maybe compare stealth DC to perception DC if you just don’t want to call for a roll. To me, the character hiding is the one actively doing something, so they should roll at some point.
Rolling is needed when there is a chance of failure.
Welp I'm out at this point. Whatever works for your game, but I hope I don't get stuck with a GM that doesn't simply use avoid notice out of combat and roll stealth for initiative if there's a potential combatant around. Seems so cut and dry to me, a lot of stuff in his thread is needlessly complicated imo.
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I mean, I think that's fine if that's the way the GM wants to run it. But it can greatly slow things down and clue the players in to a hidden enemy being present when they wouldn't otherwise know. If someone hides (player or NPC) it's much faster to just roll a stealth check (usually a secret check) when that happens, and if no one is searching and it exceeds the Perception DC, then you move on. Dropping into initiative feels overly complicated to me.
If the intention of the hidden character is to attack, then sure, I would run it the way you describe. The post was asking about what happens when one creature wants to stay hidden and let the other one pass by.
Welp I'm out at this point. Whatever works for your game, but I hope I don't get stuck with a GM that doesn't simply use avoid notice out of combat and roll stealth for initiative if there's a potential combatant around. Seems so cut and dry to me, a lot of stuff in his thread is needlessly complicated imo.
Theres probably an important factor that makes just rolling initiative either a good idea or an obstructive one.
What is the point of the scene?Is it one where combat is inevitable?
As a GM are you going to allow players to handle the situation in other ways than an inevitable fight?
I actually made this mistake the other night in my game.
I ran it exactly the way you mentioned it should go.
my group didnt even consider talking at that point, didnt try to leverage thier stealth for anything other than some offguard enemies.
If you want your players to have more robust choices in dealing with a situation rolling initiative can railroad them into a mindset of fighting.
Afterwards one of my players mentioned this saying we attacked first we didint even give them the chance to talk. Its my fault though I had them roll initiative to resolve the avoid notice when they arrived near the enemy group.