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I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.
The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
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I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
It's quite unintuitive, but "invisible" gives you only "undetected," not "unnoticed;" only "unnoticed" says enemies are unaware. I suspect the intent is to ensure enemies aren't automatically unaware of you if you take full cover and cast invisibility in combat. This unfortunately also makes it sound like being "invisible" will never give you "unnoticed," though, and there's no explanation of how or when it could. There's room for GM fiat here, and I'm sure players would appreciate it. But the default seems to be that even invisible things will always make some kind of noise, leave tracks, or something else that opens them to failing stealth.
The rules text specifies seek, not search, and there is nothing stopping you from using Seek during exploration mode.
Actions and Reactions: Though exploration isn't broken into rounds, exploration activities assume the PCs are spending part of their time using actions, such as Seeking or Interacting. If they have specific actions they want to use, they should ask; you can decide whether the actions apply and whether to switch to encounter mode for greater detail. PCs can use any relevant reactions that come up during exploration mode.
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Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
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I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
What else would guards be doing while walking around other than seeking during exploration?
Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.
Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.
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You are not seeing the forest for the trees.
You start Unnoticed. Because you turned invisible out of sight and outside the encounter.The rules given are for turning invisible in an encounter.
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Maybe talking through the invisibility rules would be a good separate thread? For new players playing wizards, “talk to your GM about things like invisibility” is probably better advice than “read through this complex argument that may not matter at all at your table.”
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What else would guards be doing while walking around other than seeking during exploration?I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
They walk. They talk. They maybe take a smoke break, even though they shouldn't.
Guard duty is boring. Especially at night, and that assumes good weather. It is rainy, or snowy, all you're thinking about is how to stay warm.
The first pass or two around the perimeter, yeah, you're Seeking in game terms. By the 4th or so time around, you just want your shift to be over. You perk up your awareness when you're near the command post so you don't get yelled at.
That's for a mobile patrol. Standing at the same tree for an hour or two in the middle of the night, you're more focused on trying to stay awake than Seeking.
Now, it's different - mostly - if you are in an active combat zone. Then you have incentive and adrenalin to keep you more focused.
But, if it's night 97 of your guard duty job, and nothing has happened nights 1 to 96, and it's 2 AM, and your body clock is screaming 'Why are you even awake', you are not constantly Seeking.
You'll Seek if something happens - in game terms if that scout blows the Stealth rolls. But not constantly.
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Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
Idem. Many of may players didn't train Stealth usually only those who invested into dex that does this.
I had a sorcerer in one of my parties that didn't invested into Stealth. I asked him why he did this and its explain was "doesn't worth. I already invested hard into acrobatics to have a good Escape and Intimidation to use Demoralize and Diplomacy to take advantage of my high charisma. If I invest into Stealth I will be restricted to trained while the enemies perception keep progressing. Instead I prefer to invest into other skills. If I need to put invisibility in someone I will put it into the rogue that will use it way better than me".
Many Str based martials also ignores Stealth due its low Dex. Instead they prefer to use Follow the Expert to follow the rogue that has Quiet Allies.
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You are not seeing the forest for the trees.
You start Unnoticed. Because you turned invisible out of sight and outside the encounter.
The rules given are for turning invisible in an encounter.
You are free to disagree, but the rules for statuses generally do not change between encounter and exploration mode, and players can take most all the same actions in exploration mode they can in encounter mode, as per the rules. (There are some exceptions for abilities explicitly limited to encounter mode, like stances.) If someone wants to stealthily move once at half their speed, and no more (i.e., their speed is 30 and they move 15 and stop completely), Sneak remains the correct action, even in Encounter Mode. Avoid Notice is intended to be a way to avoid forcing players to say they're repeatedly using sneak (and a way to avoid having new GMs ask players to roll their way to failure).
As far as I can tell by RAW—and this is infuriatingly vague—the only way to be unnoticed is via Avoid Notice, and that requires beating the perception DC of possible observers. I have no idea how a scrying sensor uses this action, so we have one of three choices:
-It cannot Avoid Notice. Anyone present is aware something is in the room, but doesn't know what or where. This seems like what RAW actually leads to, even if it's a bit odd. It also leads to further obnoxious questions about what the DC even is to locate it when using Seek; I'd just use the caster's spell DC, personally.
-We homebrew some RAI consistent with the rules. Upon using the spell, you roll Avoid Notice against the perception DCs of anyone present, probably using your spell attack modifier in place of Stealth for the check. Alternatively, everyone within 30 feet of the scrying sensor gets a perception check against your Spell DC. A positive result for the player in either case would result in the scrying sensor being unnoticed. The former is more consistent with how Avoid Notice works and allows the sensor to be unnoticed by larger amounts of people; the latter is more consistent with spell function generally, but greatly increases the odds of scrying being noticed as the amount of observers increases.
-It's colloquially invisible and is unnoticed without any checks; the reference to the invisible keyword is an error. This seems unlikely and would make it even more powerful than 1E, as even in first edition, you can perceive a scrying sensor with a perception check of a DC equal to 20+spell level. It's actually easier to perceive a scrying sensor than someone standing still with the invisibility spell in 1E. Given both 1E's rules and the nerfed nature of utility spells in 2E, I find this third option both undesirable and unlikely to be intended.
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Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.
Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.
If stealth was a necessary requirement for every PC it wouldn't be a skill. It would be a mandatory proficiency like perception. As it stands it's one optional skill of many optional skills you can take
What else would guards be doing while walking around other than seeking during exploration?I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
They walk. They talk. They maybe take a smoke break, even though they shouldn't.
Guard duty is boring. Especially at night, and that assumes good weather. It is rainy, or snowy, all you're thinking about is how to stay warm.
The first pass or two around the perimeter, yeah, you're Seeking in game terms. By the 4th or so time around, you just want your shift to be over. You perk up your awareness when you're near the command post so you don't get yelled at.
That's for a mobile patrol. Standing at the same tree for an hour or two in the middle of the night, you're more focused on trying to stay awake than Seeking.
Now, it's different - mostly - if you are in an active combat zone. Then you have incentive and adrenalin to keep...
That's why I usually only make then do just one check even if have more than one guard. They are not stressed like in an encounter where they use every action to Seek something hidden.
But they was paid to keep guarding and they was trained to know that someone can try to fool them so they need to keep some attention.
The point is why I a player can repeat Seek/Search action (here repeated Seek makes more sense than Search once that you are not moving, also the rules allows repeated encounter actions in exploration mode) while on guard while other players are sleeping in a camp to prevent unexpected ambushes but enemies thats guarding a hideout or protecting something important or a important structure cannot?
Why they don't can have the right to:
Guard 1: Hey! Look there, theres a leaf stoped in mid air like it was over something (in the case is over the camera invisible floating eye from Clairvoyance or Scouting Eye).
Guard 2: Where!?
Guard 1: There! Look!
Guard 2: Yea now I'm seeing. It's strange let us take a look.
GM: The guards looks like notice the presence of your camera invisible floating eye but looks like they still don't know what is and they are getting closer to probably to investigate better. What you will do?
...
Also these are pretty high rank spells (rank 4 and rank 5). In such kind of adventure your level 7-10 enemies are experienced enough to take some additional care against magic. Maybe one of the guards can have Arcane Sense and is using Detect Magic exploration activity pin-pointing the presence of the area around the camera invisible floating is.
Maybe these enemies guarding are not humans. They can have other senses that helps to Seek invisible and hidden things or maybe a construct or a contracted outsider creature that's able to See the Unseen like monitors (specially Aeons that take their job very seriously) and fiends that are perfect for this job.
As I said before it's not unlikely in a magical world where a invisibility is a rank 2 spell that the enemy creatures doesn't have preparations that largely difficulties other casters to invade or get information difficulting or risking the pre-preparation that some spell substitution wizards can use.
You are not seeing the forest for the trees.
You start Unnoticed. Because you turned invisible out of sight and outside the encounter.
The rules given are for turning invisible in an encounter.
Yeah, I think RAW is pretty damn clear on this.
“ If you're unnoticed by a creature, that creature has no idea you're present. When you're unnoticed, you're also undetected.”
If there has been no explicit chance for an enemy to perceive you (not capital P Perception check, I mean any reason for them to know you’re around like hearing you fight in a room next door) you’re Unnoticed by default. If you become invisible you’re not gonna downgrade it to Undetected somehow, you’re still Unnoticed unless you were so close as to be heard by others while casting the spell. Someone has to actually notice you for you to stop being Unnoticed (and again that doesn’t mean direct perception. It could be, say, you open a door and they see it swing open).
Also as a weird note, Seek and Search actually don’t have any rules on how to resolve a check made against someone Unnoticed. Personally I’d rule it as the invisible character making a Stealth check against the potential observers’ Perception DCs with a -4 circumstance penalty because of the Unnoticed condition, plus the invisible character can do things like move behind cover or whatever to gain the circumstance bonus to Stealth as is standard.
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The whole of this problem is GMs treating the party wanting to recon a dungeon as a traditional encounter instead of an infiltration style encounter or possibly even a research encounter. As a traditional encounter, it usually devolves to one player trying to do everything, while the rest can only really hinder progress if they even make rolls. As a victory point encounter, spell slot usage can either give some auto successes or circumstance bonuses to everyone and the rewards can be information about the rooms/creatures, with failure points that result in more or less enemies present in a combat encounter.
Now there will be “look in the next room” situations that are best run differently, but if the point is gathering information about a dungeon that will later be attacked, and there isn’t a time limit of minutes, than there is no reason to run a scouting mission in tradition exploration or encounter mode…but that is all really beyond the scope of helping wizards have their magic moments.
If there has been no explicit chance for an enemy to perceive you
Precisely.
We are talking about scouting. A careful party if given the time will do the simple risk free reconnaissance from range. Be that drop a Rune of Observation near the road to the dungeon and observe the comings and going for a few days, or put up an illusionary disguise and walk through a town, or a rat climbing over a wall in the middle of the night.
Exactly what is risk free is up to your GM. What they think is reasonable. But typically I don't give any roll to perceive invisible creatures at range. There may be a few places where See the Unseen is up all the time, but they are rare.
Once those sort of things are done, then they might want to try riskier reconnaissance activities. Yep if you must go past a check point with decent guards there should be a roll.
It is not an absolute must even without, but especially with, Follow the Expert existing.Most of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.
Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.
Follow the expert sucks.
I take Stealth on every character. I like my invisible casters to be able to stealth. I consider it a must. I think you are a much weaker target if you don't have it.
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What else would guards be doing while walking around other than seeking during exploration?I can't see a justification for giving a Perception check here.The scrying sensor is invisible. "Invisible" just means you're "undetected" unless a creature uses the Seek action and beats your Stealth DC with a perception check. It's up to you if it's reasonable for guards to constantly take the Seek action on patrol, but there's nothing mechanically untoward going on here.
Invisibility is just weaker than it sounds.
This is exploration mode so Search is the activity. Not everyone is going to be doing that all the time. Maybe efficient guards will be. Avoid those. Stay at range.
With Invisibility there is no roll unless they are seeking. That is the point.
When the GM decides a roll is appropriate and at what range, and with what penalties is very much up to them. The rules don't cover precisely what happens with invisibility outside an encounter. They state what happens inside an encounter.
Regardless there is a circumstance bonus for full cover for sneaking. It is given as +4. I'd be surprised if a GM didn't give at least that for invisible.
They walk. They talk. They maybe take a smoke break, even though they shouldn't.
Guard duty is boring. Especially at night, and that assumes good weather. It is rainy, or snowy, all you're thinking about is how to stay warm.
The first pass or two around the perimeter, yeah, you're Seeking in game terms. By the 4th or so time around, you just want your shift to be over. You perk up your awareness when you're near the command post so you don't get yelled at.
That's for a mobile patrol. Standing at the same tree for an hour or two in the middle of the night, you're more focused on trying to stay awake than Seeking.
Now, it's different - mostly - if you are in an active combat zone. Then you have incentive and adrenalin to keep...
So your assumption is every guards is bad?
Sorry, I don't agree. You have to always be seeking as a guard. Sure, there are lazy guards and bad ones, but your general job when patrolling is to look around for stuff that is causing problems.
That's what guards do. Taking a smoke break or chatting doesn't change what their primary exploration activity would be: seeking for problems.
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The whole of this problem is GMs treating the party wanting to recon a dungeon as a traditional encounter instead of an infiltration style encounter or possibly even a research encounter. As a traditional encounter, it usually devolves to one player trying to do everything, while the rest can only really hinder progress if they even make rolls. As a victory point encounter, spell slot usage can either give some auto successes or circumstance bonuses to everyone and the rewards can be information about the rooms/creatures, with failure points that result in more or less enemies present in a combat encounter.
Now there will be “look in the next room” situations that are best run differently, but if the point is gathering information about a dungeon that will later be attacked, and there isn’t a time limit of minutes, than there is no reason to run a scouting mission in tradition exploration or encounter mode…but that is all really beyond the scope of helping wizards have their magic moments.
When to run infiltration is deserving of its own thread and would be a great read.
If stealth was a necessary requirement for every PC it wouldn't be a skill. It would be a mandatory proficiency like perception. As it stands it's one optional skill of many optional skills you can takeMost of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.
Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.
Well, there's where we agree. I think Stealth should be an innate ability of every class. Like I listed, even little children learn how to stealth and move quietly. Sneaking around is as natural as perception.
Some will be better than it than others, but I could take anyone on this board and tell them to move quietly and they would have an idea of how to do that.
But it isn't, so I take it on every character because I think any adventurer engaged in sneaking into lairs or hunting dangerous monsters would learn this skill. It's easy to pick up at a trained level. I like to always have it.
Debate about stealth aside, I think the important takeaway here is that as a Wizard, your biggest strength is your ability to prepare from a wide list of spells... and conversely one major weakness is that you're stuck with whatever you prepared (unless you're spell sub and have time, but even still).
So the more foreknowledge you're able to get as a Wizard, the better your class is going to feel by giving you more opportunities to exploit those strengths.
And this is definitely something to talk to your GM about, because the difference between a wizard with full knowledge and a wizard with no knowledge is fairly significant.
I don't run it like an encounter unless it becomes one. I do require opposed checks. I don't think scouting falls in perfectly with Exploration or Encounter. It's somewhere in-between and I run it like that.
I don't go, "The invisible guy with no stealth is wandering around unnoticed because...." They can hear him if he doesn't stealth. Invisibility is visual. Some things have scent or other always active imprecise senses that aren't visual. So they can possibly be picked up on. What if the guards have dogs? Dogs aren't going to chat or care, they are going to sniffing and seeking in the area as they were trained to do.
Why would guards ignore small animals or such in areas they are guarding? Maybe in a war camp you could justify this, but in a lich's lair or tower with undead that kill anything alive in it? Maybe not.
Scouting is a very involved activity when I run it. I don't handwave it and I don't go crazy making a player stealth check every round or ten times or something. Running scouting is more intuitive for a DM who should have good knowledge of what a scout is facing or how something might works scouting a location.
I expect a scout to have stealth and pick up the stealth feats if they want to be good scouts. You should know the possibility of imprecise senses and pick up Foil Senses. This is part of being a skilled scout.
Scouting and infiltration shouldn't be looked at as some role-playing gimme, but an actual group role that you build up and work towards whether it is a caster taking the right spells or a class buying the skills and feats necessary.
That is how I see it.
To lean back more into the thread, wizards have some good scouting options:
Clairvoyance is very good.
Clairaudience if you want to listen.
Whatever Prying Eyes is now.
Summons are too short term for stealth operations in my opinion and too low level to effectively work against a mix of mooks and higher level enemies with decent perceptions.
I have also found charm, domination, or possession to work fairly well for scouting depending on what kind of access you have to a mook guard.
If you can capture someone, you can also force them to give you information with charm, though an Intimidate or Diplomacy can work equally well.
Disguising yourself can work as well, especially if you build up social skills or have charisma. I use the veil spell for infiltration or invisibilty sphere. I do tend to play more sorcerers who operate as face people using veil. I imagine a wizard with some Charisma build up could do the same with veil which is now I believe level 4 illusory disguise.
I tend to take Rogue Archetype on a lot of casters...really characters period...so I can access Skill Mastery to increase more skills. Usually Rogue Archetype feats are better than wizard feats, so you are better off taking them to boost skills and gain other high quality feats on the rogue list while grabbing the few high quality wizard feats on their list.
I usually do this with sorcerers or druids, but optimizing with the the rogue archetype for increasing skills or investigator archetype would work for wizards too.
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Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
A PC having Stealth is roughly a 50/50 proposition in my experience. I've only ever seen one party where everyone had it.
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You are not seeing the forest for the trees.
You start Unnoticed. Because you turned invisible out of sight and outside the encounter.
The rules given are for turning invisible in an encounter.Yeah, I think RAW is pretty damn clear on this.
“ If you're unnoticed by a creature, that creature has no idea you're present. When you're unnoticed, you're also undetected.”
If there has been no explicit chance for an enemy to perceive you (not capital P Perception check, I mean any reason for them to know you’re around like hearing you fight in a room next door) you’re Unnoticed by default. If you become invisible you’re not gonna downgrade it to Undetected somehow, you’re still Unnoticed unless you were so close as to be heard by others while casting the spell. Someone has to actually notice you for you to stop being Unnoticed (and again that doesn’t mean direct perception. It could be, say, you open a door and they see it swing open).
Also as a weird note, Seek and Search actually don’t have any rules on how to resolve a check made against someone Unnoticed. Personally I’d rule it as the invisible character making a Stealth check against the potential observers’ Perception DCs with a -4 circumstance penalty because of the Unnoticed condition, plus the invisible character can do things like move behind cover or whatever to gain the circumstance bonus to Stealth as is standard.
Point (1) is not explicitly in the rules, but is an important inference from everything else about how this works. It seems necessary to keep you from being noticed by everyone all the time the second you enter an area. Point (9) is not explicitly in the rules, but is implied by almost all the text on the subject.
1) You only simulate player and enemy senses up to a "reasonable range"—probably something like the range of line of sight for seeing, walls for hearing, and so on. The GM ultimately determines what this reasonable range is, but the default appears to be that you don't simulate things out very far. It's typically not more than the distance to the nearest encounter or two, in practice.
2) Outside of this "reasonable range," creatures are Unnoticed by default. This won't matter very often because if you're outside the "reasonable range" of your enemies' senses, they are likewise usually outside the "reasonable range" of yours. There are exceptions for cases with special senses, etc.
3) Inside of this "reasonable range," creatures use their best available senses to Notice other creatures. If they cannot Notice something with a precise sense, they will fall back to an imprecise sense, then fall back to a vague sense if they have one. Mechanically, most players and enemies only have a precise sense (sight) and an imprecise sense (hearing).
4) Perceivers automatically Notice other creatures with their precise senses unless something makes it otherwise. A creature noticed with a precise sense is Observed.
5) If precise senses fail to Notice a creature, and a perceiver has imprecise senses, then the creature is automatically Noticed by the imprecise senses unless something makes it otherwise. While perceived only by an imprecise sense, creatures are either Hidden or Undetected to the perceiver depending upon the situation, and cannot become Observed.
6) If both precise and imprecise senses fail, and the perceiver has vague senses, creatures are automatically noticed by those vague senses unless something makes it otherwise. While perceived with only a vague sense, creatures can never be better than Undetected to the perceiver.
7) Sneak, Hide, and Avoid Notice are the main ways (if not the only ways) to remain Unnoticed if you are already Unnoticed. The action chosen, your statuses at the beginning of the action (i.e., if you are unnoticed or noticed at the start; and if you are observed or hidden or undetected at the start), the enemies' senses, the Stealth Roll, and your Perception DC together determine if you will be Unnoticed or Noticed when the action resolves, and if you will be Undetected or Hidden or Observed when the action resolves. Confusingly, the part in GM Core about using stealth for initiative (https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2541) implies you are only Unnoticed at the start of an encounter if you beat both an enemy's initiative and their perception DCs with your roll, and this is about the only information on the subject.
8) You can use the Seek action to try to make undetected or hidden targets better perceived and move them up the track of undetected/hidden/observed.
9) Within the scope of an encounter, you cannot become Unnoticed if you have already been Noticed.
About the only wrench is this interpretation is the line in sneak and hide that says "The GM might allow you to perform a particularly unobtrusive action without being noticed, possibly requiring another Stealth check." However, I think that's probably just an unfortunate wording choice, and they should have said "while remaining undetected." Everything else seems at least /consistent/ with this interpretation.
The worst blind spot here is that it's unclear if you remain Unnoticed when you Avoid Notice or Sneak successfully while Unnoticed, and then don't get into an encounter. I'm inclined to say you should, but that's a flat guess. I can't find anything either way.
You are always noticed within a "reasonable range" of an enemy's senses unless a check to Avoid Notice, Sneak, etc. has resolved. You are noticed by default when you enter that range and must use actions or activities to make it otherwise.
Further, if you start unnoticed and succeed your stealth check, you will only remain unnoticed as long as you remain successfully stealthed and combat does not start. Performing almost any action other than a successful Sneak or Avoid Notice will cause you to become noticed (though not necessarily observed); combat starting will mean a call for initiative, and if you lose initiative to an enemy or fail to beat their Perception DC, then you become noticed.
The things that really seem to confuse people IME are that the rules for being unnoticed are a huge, barely intelligible mess you must extrapolate from scraps; that you only simulate senses to a """reasonable range;""" and that you're noticed by default within that range unless you make it otherwise, because the game shortcuts simulating enemy perceptions.
The thing that really gets me and a lot of other people I've seen hung up is that there aren't really provisions for things like "the party busts down the front door very loudly, and I, the GM, want to know if someone in the back of the mansion heard them." The game expects the GM to just make a judgment call on that themselves. If you really wanted, you could follow a gossamer thread of logic that might imply that you make a secret Avoid Notice roll for whoever busts down the door, using an appropriate combination of bonuses and penalties based on table 10-6 (the DC adjustment table), and compare the result to the relevant enemy's perception DC. But that's so tortured as to be absurd. As far as I can tell, the game just handwaves simulating these things and leaves it entirely up to GM fiat. The best interpretation of RAW is almost certainly (1).
Unnoticed/Noticed aren't on the same "status scale" as Observed/Hidden/Undetected. They are their own, distinct "status scale." The two are related insofar as an Unnoticed creature is always also Undetected, but that's it. Seek and search have no rules for resolving checks against unnoticed opponents because it's irrelevant to the statuses (Observed/Hidden/Undetected) that Seek and Search interact with.
The main mechanical difference between Unnoticed (and therefore undetected) and Noticed+Undetected is whether abilities like the Vigilante's Startling Appearance are usable. It /should/ affect how enemies behave towards you, but that isn't mechanically encoded into unnoticed itself.
In short, the enemies have no reason to search for an unnoticed opponent by RAW. But I believe that by RAW, it is not actually any harder for them to find an unnoticed opponent than an undetected one if they coincidentally try.
Within the "reasonable range" discussed above, enemies notice you by default unless you use Avoid Notice, Sneak, etc. Invisibility does not perform these actions for you. You will be Noticed by imprecise senses like hearing while under the effect of Invisibility.
The Invisible status does not change whether creatures notice you. Only Stealth actions and activities can allow you to go unnoticed.
Casting invisibility immediately gives you the invisible status, which makes you undetected. Yet neither the spell nor the status say you remain undetected no matter what you do, and it directly says otherwise. You are undetected until you or an enemy do something that would change that.
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Since this thread is fully and totally derailed at this point to be about stealth:
Having super formal rules about NPC s ability to notice the party would complicate the fun out of encounter and dungeon design. The vast majority of “did reinforcements notice?” Needs to be narrative in nature or else a ton of unnecessary baggage gets added to design choices like the material density of walls, background noise in the dungeon, frequency of random, weird sounds, etc. GMs aren’t running video game infiltrations here with 20+ predetermined scripts, and shouldn’t feel obligated to try that. Round by round encounter mode infiltration scenarios are a bad way to approach this game situation with the rules. The stealth rules run overwhelmingly towards “a combat has broken out, one or more folks are trying to sneak through a battle field.”
Narratively, I think we are used to thinking of these scenarios that way, because the work really well from a protagonist perspective, and they are situations where combat encounters can break out, but the combat encounter rules don’t work very well for them, and some skill feats add confusion by really not being combat encounter mode interactions with these skills, but also not spelled out well at all for Victory Point style encounters. The thing I hope for more than any change to class abilities or combat encounter changes in a PF3 would be for better integration of VP style modes of play into the base chassis of the game and character abilities.
That is why I don’t think trying to run scouting missions in encounter mode is a good idea. If APs had a list of things that could easily be learned about a dungeon through a “scout the dungeon” type VP encounter at the start of every dungeon, with encounters to throw at the party when certain numbers of failed checks occurred, I think it would be a lot easier for GMs to dynamically engage the dungeon and avoid awkward “Rogue vs 3 encounters by themselves” situations or players so trapped in “don’t split the party” that all team tactics become “everyone or no one” situations.
Like the first time a guard sees (as in notices) a bird fly over the castle wall, it doesn’t really need to be a combat encounter, but that is pretty inevitable if you try to handle scouting missions in regular encounter mode.
Since this thread is fully and totally derailed at this point to be about stealth
There is no real debate about Stealth. No one is disputing the rules. If there is a difference it is in the limits of the rules and how GMs treat it. Perhaps where an encounter starts.
If an invisible character outside an encounter walking past an opponent with no special features at over 500ft, taking the Avoid Notice Exploration activity, automatically triggers an encounter and somehow loses Unnoticed, then I would have a problem with how the game is being played.Exactly where the border of an encounter lies is up to the GM. For me I go with the narrative and allow Invisible to do what it says on the tin. I don't consider it a manifestation that is observable unless the viewer is "close" and alert.
This is also supported in the rules under the stealth skill they talk about If you were approaching creatures that didn't know you were there but with out defining what approaching is. Which is why of course different groups do it slightly differently.
I still believe people wanting to invest no skill or feat resources into scouting trying to solve it all with spells is not something that works well when I run the game. You want to be a scout, build a scout. Otherwise wait until you have better spells for intelligence gathering because invisibility doesn't make you silent. So Mr. Wizard with no stealth clomping around a monster lair or dungeon will have to deal with creatures hearing, smelling, or what not unless they've invested in abilities to counter this.
If stealth was a necessary requirement for every PC it wouldn't be a skill. It would be a mandatory proficiency like perception. As it stands it's one optional skill of many optional skills you can takeMost of mine. What pushes you to think otherwise?
Which PC doesn't have a rank in Stealth?
I haven't played a single character whether a caster, summoner, fighter, cleric, or any class without stealth. I always take it. It is an absolute must and I can't imagine a combat team of adventurers not having stealth, everyone.
Even little children know how to play hide and go seek or sneak up on someone. Moving stealthily is one of the most natural activities for almost any living creature to learn with the brain capacity to do so.
True but the system itself more or less requires it because the largest part of a skill is the level. So you need to be trained if you are ever going to do any individual rolls with a reasonable chance of success. Plus it has a role in initiative often enough, and a lot of characters can't do much about their perception scores. So very very useful but not actually required.
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I still believe people wanting to invest no skill or feat resources into scouting trying to solve it all with spells is not something that works well when I run the game. You want to be a scout, build a scout. Otherwise wait until you have better spells for intelligence gathering because invisibility doesn't make you silent. So Mr. Wizard with no stealth clomping around a monster lair or dungeon will have to deal with creatures hearing, smelling, or what not unless they've invested in abilities to counter this.
Honestly, even by maxing out Stealth, you don't really scout with a character unless you have a fast and reliable way of getting away with it if you are caught. That's why I consider the Eidolon the best scout in the game: Whatever happens you are safe.
True but the system itself more or less requires it because the largest part of a skill is the level. So you need to be trained if you are ever going to do any individual rolls with a reasonable chance of success. Plus it has a role in initiative often enough, and a lot of characters can't do much about their perception scores. So very very useful but not actually required.
Initiative put aside, I rarely see a point in rolling a Stealth check unless you are maxed out in Stealth. The whole party stealthing is in general not working, even with Quiet Allies as the lowest bonus is in general really low and Perception is a universally high value among monsters (from first hand experience as a Scoundrel Rogue).
And for initiative, there are lots of conditions for Stealth to be used for initiative:
- You need to be in exploration mode, which roughly implies a dungeon. Not all campaigns are dungeon-centric.
- It costs your Exploration activity, so you need the rest of the party to cover for what you're not doing (mostly Search and maybe Scout).
- It supposes the GM only allows Stealth for Initiative checks. My Rogue is in general disguised as a local inside dungeons so she can use Deception for Initiative. Other characters like to kick door yelling for Intimidation to be used. Etc... Very GM dependent, but still something to consider.
- And you obviously need to have higher Stealth than Perception otherwise it's a nerf to your initiative. Strength-based characters tend to ignore Dexterity and many characters have either very high Perception or much higher Wisdom than Dexterity.
I still believe people wanting to invest no skill or feat resources into scouting trying to solve it all with spells is not something that works well when I run the game. You want to be a scout, build a scout. Otherwise wait until you have better spells for intelligence gathering because invisibility doesn't make you silent. So Mr. Wizard with no stealth clomping around a monster lair or dungeon will have to deal with creatures hearing, smelling, or what not unless they've invested in abilities to counter this.Honestly, even by maxing out Stealth, you don't really scout with a character unless you have a fast and reliable way of getting away with it if you are caught. That's why I consider the Eidolon the best scout in the game: Whatever happens you are safe.
True but the system itself more or less requires it because the largest part of a skill is the level. So you need to be trained if you are ever going to do any individual rolls with a reasonable chance of success. Plus it has a role in initiative often enough, and a lot of characters can't do much about their perception scores. So very very useful but not actually required.Initiative put aside, I rarely see a point in rolling a Stealth check unless you are maxed out in Stealth. The whole party stealthing is in general not working, even with Quiet Allies as the lowest bonus is in general really low and Perception is a universally high value among monsters (from first hand experience as a Scoundrel Rogue).
And for initiative, there are lots of conditions for Stealth to be used for initiative:
- You need to be in exploration mode, which roughly implies a dungeon. Not all campaigns are dungeon-centric.
- It costs your Exploration activity, so you need the rest of the party to cover for what you're not doing (mostly Search and maybe Scout).
- It supposes the GM only allows Stealth for Initiative checks. My Rogue is in general disguised as a local inside dungeons so she can use...
I have not found that to be the case. With a maxed out stealth for a Dex-character, you make your stealth checks a ton. If you pick up Foil Senses, it works against additional senses. If you pick up Swift Sneak, you move at full speed. Stealth works quite a lot, even when used from round to round.
Is Stealth going to let you sneak up on Mr. Dragon or Big Bad without it being maxed? Likely not.
I've found Stealth works a lot of against mooks.
As I stated above, I take the Rogue Archetype a lot. So I often have Surprise Attack and Stealth along with an extra skill feat. There are few feats better than the Rogue Archetype at level 2 and you can always fit in Mobility and Skill Mastery at some point past level 8.
I have shown the quality of Rogue Archetype to the point that my entire group often takes this feat and fits in a few rogue feats. It may be too good comparatively, but oh well. It's the highest quality multiclass feat for any character in the game. Mobility is good for any character in the game. The ability to pick up Gang Up or Opportune Backstab for martials or Skill Mastery for casters is always useful if you play to a fairly high level. Even Deny Advantage is amazing as is Sneak Attack if you want an extra bit of damage and have a trip martial or easy access to level 4 invis with a ranged weapon.
That's why I consider the rogue probably the best overall class in the game whether you play an actual rogue or dip into Rogue Archetype to grab some of what it offers. It's hard to fit on druids or sorcerers without playing Free Archetype or Dual Class, but easy to fit on fighters, barbs, wizards, and most other classes.
That's why almost every character has Stealth because I almost always grab Rogue Archetype. It's too good to pass up for me.
That's why almost every character has Stealth because I almost always grab Rogue Archetype. It's too good to pass up for me.
We have a very different way to build characters :)
Even if I fully agree that some Archetypes/feats/whatever can be considered among the top choices, I don't take them with all my characters just because of that. I have only one character with Rogue Archetype, because the character is of a Rogue-type.
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That's why almost every character has Stealth because I almost always grab Rogue Archetype. It's too good to pass up for me.We have a very different way to build characters :)
Even if I fully agree that some Archetypes/feats/whatever can be considered among the top choices, I don't take them with all my characters just because of that. I have only one character with Rogue Archetype, because the character is of a Rogue-type.
I hope at some point they add General feats to add more skill ups and provide nearly every class with more ways to skill up a character. Right now Rogue or Investigator archetype is the only way to gain more skill ups. I like more skill ups and skill feats for most of my characters.
It's frustrating to play a ranger and need Acrobatics, Athletics, Stealth, Survival, and want maybe Nature and if filling in the rogue role Thievery with no additional help skilling up.
Is Stealth going to let you sneak up on Mr. Dragon or Big Bad without it being maxed? Likely not.
I've found Stealth works a lot of against mooks.
And there are lots of different kinds of mooks.
I have three stories about invisibility from my PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign. When I converted the 6th-elvel NPC Aubrin the Green to PF2 in the 1st module, Trail of the Hunted, I imagined her as owning several magic items when she retired (due to an eye injury that left her mostly blind) but that she had gradually sold them off over the years. I left her with a Cloak of Elvenkind, which would help her fulfill her assigned role in the plot of Trail of the Hunted. After Aubrin the Green ended up among the refugees hiding in the Fangwood Forest, she gave the cloak to her apprentice, the PC elf ranger Zinfandel, who would be going out scouting. Zinfandel kept that cloak for the rest of the campaign.
Everyone in the party was trained in Stealth, because they were hiding from the patrols of the Ironfang Legion.
The first significant use of the cloak was at Fort Ristin in the 2nd module, Fangs of War. It calls for a spoiler mask.
The rogue Sam bluffed that he was a fey of a rare species that the korreds had never seen, so he and Stormdancer were allowed to enter. Then they helped the rest of the party sneak in at a collapsed tower.
The party left the tower and entered the main hall. The elf Zinfandel used the cloak to turn invisible. The first guardian of the hall was a Skinstich, a mindless construct. The module said, "The creation, nicknamed Bughouse, stands motionless under the staircase ascending to area J20. The skinstitch lacks any true intellect, but it ignores fey. As soon as Bughouse notices a larger creature, it lurches forward to attack and fights until slain."
Sam was bluffing that he was fey, so what would it take to bluff mindless Bughouse? I reread the paragraph a few times, and came to the conclusion that "larger creature" was the key. Bughouse would assume that short creatures were fey and tall creatures weren't fey. And the party consisted of short gnomes, halfling, and goblin and one tall elf. Who was invisible. The party walked past Bughouse with no trouble.
Even if Bughouse had detected the invisible ranger, the invisibility hid her height.
Later Zinfandel sneaked into the dungeon invisibly learn the identity of the prisoner before Sam bluffed the jailer to free him.
I explained the situation with Bughouse after the game session and we all had a laugh.
The second significant instance was on a mission the players invented themselves, so it does not need a spoiler.
At 12th level the party decided to free their former neighbors in Phaendar, who had become war captives serving as forced labor for the Ironfang Legion. The legion had built a palisade wall around Phaendar, but that was easy for Zinfandel to climb invisibly. She learned where the villagers here housed during the night, in an inner palisade around some of the original houses of the village. I made the player roll for Stealth once, and the result was above Perception DC of all the guards. Zinfandel stayed away from the higher-level commanders.
The PCs spent a week digging a 100-foot tunnel from the river to the basement of house in the slave compound with the aid of a Dig-Widget. They made several Crafting and Stealth rolls over that week to keep the tunnel entrance hidden, but the invisibility no longer mattered. A Passwall spell finished the tunnel before it approached close enough for digging to be heard.
The third significant instance was at 19th level in Vault of the Onyx Citadel. The maps put the Onyx Citadel on an island two miles from the shore, though the text told of an ordinary bridge to the island. I chose two miles out and no bridge. The party approached the island in a vessel that was driven away by catapult fire. But really, the vessel was piloted by a friendly NPC and the party flew the rest of the way to the Onyx Citadel either invisible or in bird form. The invisible PCs had Stealth checks and the bird-form PCs had Deception checks, and these checks were easy since the guards were at best 16th level with mere trained Perception. Three party members has taken the Legendary Sneak sneak feat, so they did not need the invisibility to stay hidden, but it did help them stay unnoticed.
They entered by a 3rd-floor window that was usually locked, but had been opened for the catapult there to shoot. They killed the catapult crew without raising an alarm, and made a direct path to the command center. They had gotten the floor plan from a former resident of the Onyx Citadel.
Thus, in my games the invisible PCs have been cautious enough that a middle-valued roll on a d20 would not reveal them.
I've had lots of good use of Stealth with invisibility as well. Even base stealth with dex built up and items can reach a pretty good number. Dex is good to build up for casters or any class for reflex saves, stealth, and acrobatics. It's strength on strength on strength for any class that doesn't have to do something else to build up dex and use stealth with items to add bonuses.
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What about Clerics and Druids who go Sentinel?
Is Dex still a good investment?
Currently due the fact that the remastered Armor Proficiency general feat autoprogress to expert there's less reasons to invest into Dex with Warpriests and Druid (this one now can use metal armors normally). You don't even need to get Sentinel Archetype anymore.
What about Clerics and Druids who go Sentinel?
Is Dex still a good investment?
I always invest in dex. Bulwark is nice, but I'd rather have the best dex for skills.
You'll probably do fine if you feel like focusing somewhere else, but investing in dex is always worth it.
It's more reason to invest in dex, unless you want bad reflex saves.
No because heavy armors provides Bulwark. There's no really good reason to invest in Dex when you can use them. Usually such players choose other stats like Con as secondary attribute and putting points as 3rd and 4th stats in other stats like Cha (to improve the social skills) or Str (to able to reduce the armor penalty later). I'm not saying that these heavy armored casters cannot improves their dex but usually doesn't worth due armor penalty and because doesn't help the reflex while it is small than +3 and doesn't have str enough to ignore the armor penalties.
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This is a wizard advice thread. No wizard is going to have the STR to completely dump Dex for heavy armor. At the same time, I’ve had many wizards start with a 12 or 14 dex and be fine.
Is there a way to increase unarmored AC proficiency for wizards?
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This is a wizard advice thread. No wizard is going to have the STR to completely dump Dex for heavy armor. At the same time, I’ve had many wizards start with a 12 or 14 dex and be fine.
You don't need the Strength to wear a heavy armor. I have some characters who just take the penalties.
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Is there a way to increase unarmored AC proficiency for wizards?
No. But there are ways to give heavy armor AC to wizards but its proficiency is the normal caster AC proficiency.
Wizards can benefit from Drakeheart Mutagen if you have an alchemist in the party or don't carry about waste some money buying one.
For a more sustainable option they can go with champion archetype getting access to heavy armor and expert proficiency with a level 14th feat. It's a bit expensive in terms of feat cost but champion also can give access to Lay on Hands and some domain spells.
At level 1 my Ars Gramatica wizard could tank up with a drake heart mutagen and a shield for an AC of 20. I wouldn’t do it to start combats off, but if I was drawing attention, I did it a couple of times., and still do it occasionally at level 6 with a 28 AC. With false vitality up and wooden double, I can take some heavy hits, but I definitely also benefit from having a wood kineticist in the party next to me. And most encounters I never need to and just blast most of the time instead.
At level 1 my Ars Gramatica wizard could tank up with a drake heart mutagen and a shield for an AC of 20. I wouldn’t do it to start combats off, but if I was drawing attention, I did it a couple of times., and still do it occasionally at level 6 with a 28 AC. With false vitality up and wooden double, I can take some heavy hits, but I definitely also benefit from having a wood kineticist in the party next to me. And most encounters I never need to and just blast most of the time instead.
Why would your group even need a wizard to tank? I have never played in a group that didn't have a tank or main martial who could tank in it.
You get four ability boosts that give you four to spend each. Even if you start with a 12 Dex, you can have an 18 by level 15. I haven't seen someone play a caster that did not build up Dex. It's usually casting stat, dex, con, and wisdom in that order. Maybe do charisma a bit for social skills if not your main casting stat.