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We scout. We use terrain to our advantage. We position tactically with melees up front and casters in back. We used ranged power to our advantage to soften targets.
At my usual tables scouting is almost exclusively a matter of someone taking that exploration action. I’d love to see more use of terrain, but that’s probably honestly a weak point in my GMing. Casters in back I see. Ranged attacks tend to either be a PC’s whole thing or a complete afterthought.
I would love to see a demographic study of playstyles in these types of games.
For sure.
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There's kind of a problem with exploration activities though: they are all mutually exclusive (at least at low and middle levels). If you are just scouting (mechanically), you are autodetected by anything and auto-caught in all traps (well, about only 95% of them) and probably auto-miss some hidden enemies.
There’s no mechanical reason to only Scout. One PC on Scout provides the bonus to the whole party. That should leave at least one PC to Search, which should give a better-than 5% chance to spot traps. But, yeah, if everyone isn’t on Avoid Notice or Follow the Expert to sneak, the party is probably going to be detected traipsing around.
I’m not sure there even is an exploration action aimed at spotting hidden enemies. Hidden enemies’ Stealth result is checked against PCs’ Perception DC, right?
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You could scout ahead like that in a game I run, provided the table agreed to sit through it or I had other things the non-scouting players could do in the meantime. But I also tend to use exploration activities as a way to interpret and mechanically translate player requests, and not as something the player must explicitly ask to do. I find that unfriendly, unintuitive, and unusually cruel. ("Sorry, you didn't use investigate—you only used search. You can't make a recall knowledge check on that statue." "Sorry, you were scouting ahead and not searching, so you didn't get a check to notice that hidden door.") To borrow a friend's words, making players use RAW exploration activities feels like making them play a bad 80s adventure game with an equally bad text parser.
I just run exploration mode on "loose" time in the way you'd run PF1E out of combat if you didn't have buffs running—maybe you go around the table and ask what everyone wants to do, maybe you let people think about it and request to do stuff as they get to it. Either way, I filter player requests through the exploration rules to an extent that makes sense.
You could scout ahead like that in a game I run, provided the table agreed to sit through it or I had other things the non-scouting players could do in the meantime. But I also tend to use exploration activities as a way to interpret and mechanically translate player requests, and not as something the player must explicitly ask to do. I find that unfriendly, unintuitive, and unusually cruel. ("Sorry, you didn't use investigate—you only used search. You can't make a recall knowledge check on that statue." "Sorry, you were scouting ahead and not searching, so you didn't get a check to notice that hidden door.") To borrow a friend's words, making players use RAW exploration activities feels like making them play a bad 80s adventure game with an equally bad text parser.
I just run exploration mode on "loose" time in the way you'd run PF1E out of combat if you didn't have buffs running—maybe you go around the table and ask what everyone wants to do, maybe you let people think about it and request to do stuff as they get to it. Either way, I filter player requests through the exploration rules to an extent that makes sense.
The thing that many people seem to forget is that you can end one exploration activity and begin another at any time. Many players (and GMs) are either ignorant or lazy though, and often stick with a single exploration activity for an entire dungeon.
You can be Avoiding Notice until you encounter a door, then Search for traps and sounds on the other side, then upon entering the chamber beyond and encountering the mysterious tapestry within, begin using Investigate. Having not encountered any enemies, you Scout back to the party or use Search to potentially uncover anything you missed the first time through the area.
Scouting doesn't use Exploration activities, there's no exploration activity that covers that.
Now, I agree that scouting "inside a dungeon" is doomed to fail. Any failed check and you are either toasted by a trap or caught alone in a Moderate+ fight => bye bye scout.
Scouting is primarily meant to be used either with magic (Prying Eyes and such) or outside any dungeony environment.
Now, if with your party you allow scouting inside a dungeon, well, you're a nice GM to me. Or your players are fine losing a character every other dungeon.
Or you're a sensible DM that knows how to listen to your players tell you what they want to do and allow them to scout because you're not a dogmatic rules lawyer who thinks you can't do something because there isn't an exact rule for it.
Our scout moves 30 to 60 feet ahead searching for traps while stealthing. They tell the DM they check three times at doors or a particular area that looks problematic. They take feats to do automatic searches for traps like the rogue Trap Finder.
It's why everyone takes Stealth in the group so they can all stealth as needed.
In a dungeon, we don't really care if someone hears us. It doesn't matter. Most encounters aren't that hard. So why are some pretending like this is a problem?
The only people that have problems with a group scouting are DMs who can't quickly rule how something reacts. It often doesn't matter if what's inside a room in a dungeon hears you or someone in the group. That is irrelevant.
What matters is if the scout can open the door quietly to see what's inside and give some information on what they see. After that, you don't really care.
You also don't care if some creature runts outside the room to attack you as that is going to go badly for them, not your party.
The vast majority of encounters are going to go badly for the monster or monsters if they come outside the room.
All we care about with scouting is we have the advantage for knowing when something is coming and searching for traps or problems so the whole party doesn't get hit.
Why?
The scout, some kind of rogue or ranger most of the time, can pick up on stuff better and has great saves and skills for dealing with traps and hazards. If they are 30 to 60 feet ahead, the whole party doesn't get hit, can still close if a combat is started, and gives the scout room to disable to deal with a trap or hazard within range of a heal if needed.
I guess you don't scout if this seems a foreign way to scout.
This means you don't do exploration activities and exploration mode at all. It's just a fact. Exploration mode consists of separate specific activities. If you can do everything you want anytime, you don't do activities. It's not bad, just different style.
I wouldn't say I don't use them at all, because I use them to "translate" requests behind the screen as best I can when one fits what the players would ask for. But I do intentionally avoid requiring the players to ask for specific activities.
I do always tell them about Scout and the activity that lets you move at half speed but have your shield raised at the start of combat, though—or rather, let them know they can do those sorts of things to get the mechanical benefits. Those are important, and it's less likely players will intuit that they can do them.
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Exploration the way I have been running it is binary. If a player says they want to avoid notice they are doing that and not anything else.
Its also a mode that covers a period time that is at least in the minutes. I'm not giving one of my seven players all the game time as they tell me every detail about what they want to do and change it every second as I continue to describe what is happening.
i describe the entrance to a cave they just entered and ask what they would like to do as they traverse it. The rogue is avoiding notice, the champ is on guarding at the front, the witch is investigating the surroundings, the cleric is detecting magic, etc..the whole party is moving at the pace of the slowest character(unless they dont want to ofcourse). This kind of scene is simply a description from the GM until there is a reason to describe a new area or encounter something that needs to be resolved. If a player changes their mind before I have introduced something happening as they traveled then its fine for them to change their activity, but i will enforce the activity they said they wanted to do if something happens even if at that point they say I'm doing this other activity now that they have gained hindsight.
In fact I think I am just going to have everyone type in chat what they are doing. then hold them to it as I go around describing what happens as they engage it what they chose or what happens as a whole as they progress.
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Scouting doesn't use Exploration activities, there's no exploration activity that covers that.
Now, I agree that scouting "inside a dungeon" is doomed to fail. Any failed check and you are either toasted by a trap or caught alone in a Moderate+ fight => bye bye scout.
Scouting is primarily meant to be used either with magic (Prying Eyes and such) or outside any dungeony environment.
Now, if with your party you allow scouting inside a dungeon, well, you're a nice GM to me. Or your players are fine losing a character every other dungeon.
There's literally a Scout exploration activity, and its wording makes it pretty clear that it's intended to function as "someone is looking for danger and gives you advance warning of it."
The problem with that is when people run that as "you get a +1 to initiative but you also don't get to use perception so you can't actually find anything despite somehow noticing it in time to give a bonus to react to it." It doesn't make a ton of sense to run it that way, but its an easy thing to fall into.
Exploration in general tends to work best when it's loosely run and more narrative. If you're doing it in a dungeon with a map and minis, then having people just move ahead and use Sneak or magic may make more sense.
Or you're a sensible DM that knows how to listen to your players tell you what they want to do and allow them to scout because you're not a dogmatic rules lawyer who thinks you can't do something because there isn't an exact rule for it.
There are a few assumptions in your post that are not true around my tables.
It's why everyone takes Stealth in the group so they can all stealth as needed.
Not true in my groups.
You also don't care if some creature runts outside the room to attack you as that is going to go badly for them, not your party.
And that, mostly. If a creature runts outside the room to attack the scout who's 30 to 60ft. ahead of the party, the scout is in serious trouble. And the group, too, as they can lose a party member before even getting to the enemy.
So I think the difference around our tables comes to difficulty of fights compared to the party effectiveness. In my groups, if the scout is heard or seen, a character death/TPK is on the table. That is the reason we don't do that inside dungeons.And it has nothing to do with the GM being sensible. As a GM, I'd certainly run it like you do. The difference being that I'd kill the scout if he is caught and doesn't roll high in initiative (and why I say you're a "nice GM to me" if you don't).
Or you're a sensible DM that knows how to listen to your players tell you what they want to do and allow them to scout because you're not a dogmatic rules lawyer who thinks you can't do something because there isn't an exact rule for it.There are a few assumptions in your post that are not true around my tables.
It's why everyone takes Stealth in the group so they can all stealth as needed.Not true in my groups.
You also don't care if some creature runts outside the room to attack you as that is going to go badly for them, not your party.And that, mostly. If a creature runts outside the room to attack the scout who's 30 to 60ft. ahead of the party, the scout is in serious trouble. And the group, too, as they can lose a party member before even getting to the enemy.
So I think the difference around our tables comes to difficulty of fights compared to the party effectiveness. In my groups, if the scout is heard or seen, a character death/TPK is on the table. That is the reason we don't do that inside dungeons.And it has nothing to do with the GM being sensible. As a GM, I'd certainly run it like you do. The difference being that I'd kill the scout if he is caught and doesn't roll high in initiative (and why I say you're a "nice GM to me" if you don't).
No, you wouldn't kill anything. I guarantee unless you specifically built the encounter to kill the character, you wouldn't do much. This idea you have in your head that PCs die easily is not at all how PF2 runs.
No, it doesn't have anything to do with difficulty of encounters. If you can't keep another PC alive at 30 to 60 feet, then you are playing with people who build very bad characters. That isn't my group and definitely not me.
You're not thinking out very well how the actions play out in these scenarios.
For example, your scout fails the stealth check. Target in room is moving to engage with door closed and requiring movement to engage the PC party. How many actions does that take? How many actions does it take if they decide to use stealth? You asked the PC to roll initiative and engage an encounter.
What is that PC going to do? How exactly are the enemies in the room going to even know what's going on? Open the door? Start the engagement having to move to your scout somehow able to engage before the scout takes action even if they lose initiative?
Scouting in PF2 or any of these games is super easy, super effective, and easy to build for with a low risk of monsters countering it unless they have some magical means to counter it and engage immediately in force on the scout, before the scout moves, all of them.
We hold position delaying or taking defensive actions to let monsters move to us so we can set up our actions to attack without wasting movement to engage. This is part how you control actions as a force multiplier in an encounter.
Our entire group just stays in place with the scout moving back if we don't set up our kill and control zone.
You've already stated many times you play mostly in pick up groups, you don't build for heal, you don't take stealth, you don't engage at a long distance as often as possible to soften enemies at range, and you don't control the battlefield or terrain. I do all of this in my group.
It's easy to scout in a dungeon and maintain your force multiplier for scouting.
You don't have to do this to enjoy and win the game, but don't pretend it isn't massively effective. It is. You can build for it easily. Rogues, rangers, investigators, and monks are amazing scouts. We almost always have one in the group. Monk is different than a rogue or ranger with the high perception which helps a lot, but monk mobility is immensely helpful when scouting as is their higher AC.
It's really not that difficult to see why it works so well. Any time you start an encounter and force the enemy to move to you, you have won the action battle. Scouting allows this to occur nearly 100 percent of the time.
Yeah, this means you are just using freeform checks mostly. That's what 'translating requests' means. And that's perfectly fine, checks are the base mechanic of the game after all. But (exploration) 'activities' are much more limited. And I'm just trying how to make sense of them. They definitely work when moving as a group, as people here described, but not really for solo scouting.This means you don't do exploration activities and exploration mode at all. It's just a fact. Exploration mode consists of separate specific activities. If you can do everything you want anytime, you don't do activities. It's not bad, just different style.I wouldn't say I don't use them at all, because I use them to "translate" requests behind the screen as best I can when one fits what the players would ask for. But I do intentionally avoid requiring the players to ask for specific activities.
I do always tell them about Scout and the activity that lets you move at half speed but have your shield raised at the start of combat, though—or rather, let them know they can do those sorts of things to get the mechanical benefits. Those are important, and it's less likely players will intuit that they can do them.
It's not solo scouting. It's more like a combat team with a point man.
The entire party can stealth. So if in exploration mode, we just all stealth. If we're moving through a dungeon, if the DM points out something or the map shows something interesting, we investigate it.
Main focus is to control engagement as much as possible and engage favorable ranges and avoid traps and hazards.
I've been in groups where they don't scout much. They wander about waiting to roll initiative and letting the DM tell them to engage at whatever distance they decide. But I can't play this way. It feels very unnatural.
Would anyone seriously wander into a dangerous area filled with enemies like they're casually wandering about with some friends waiting to get ambushed and killed? I can't see it. I definitely can't see idly by playing this way. I would not enjoy that table at all.
As far as solo scouting goes, I agree that once you talk about indoors, the danger jumps through the roof.
It's super contextual, but if a Stealth PC is sneaking through a room w/ foes in it, even just to get inside the room enough to see it's contents:
That is X number of NPCs who get checks to spot the PC.
If the PC is spotted and goes 2nd in initiative, it's *not* about killing that PC in one turn.
It's about the damn doors.
If the foe "is smart," their before-PC turn will be spent running to close and then block the door to trap the PC inside. Trying to KO the PC is pretty brain-dead. Any Kolbold level intellect would figure that out.
*That* basic idea of foes using doors/alarms/etc is why a scouting PC is basically one foe-roll (not even a bad PC roll!) away from a deadly scenario. Having their escape route blocked, a gate shutting lever pulled, etc, are all things that can happen before the PC gets a turn.
And while going inside a foe-filled room sounds stupid, that's basically the only option to "scout" for a Stealth PC inside a dungeon/building.
I don't think there's a single AP with "vents" that a small or pest-form PC can use to scout the layout and occupants of a building. The only way in/out of those rooms are the doors. (this is why the master ability to teleport the familiar back is a thing!)
And most GMs leave the doors shut, which kinda makes even looking inside for scouting nearly impossible, lol.
But yeah, in a system where it's possible to get separated from the party, scouting ahead is super hecking dangerous.
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No, you wouldn't kill anything.
Yes I would. It's the classic "Barbarian charging the enemies and bringing the combat 60ft. away from the rest of the party" all over again, but in much worse. That's a sure way to a new character sheet and may even end up with a TPK.
For example, your scout fails the stealth check. Target in room is moving to engage with door closed and requiring movement to engage the PC party.
Doors are not ubiquitous. Classic example: The Froghemoth uses Aquatic Ambush, Strikes, Improved Grab, Swallow Whole and back to water. The player takes a new character sheet as there's nothing the party can do to save the scout.
Sure, "most fights" will be ok. So you may increase your chance of success for 90% of fights but for 10% of fights you lose, at least, your scout.
Our entire group just stays in place with the scout moving back if we don't set up our kill and control zone.
Your party is unique. Play with more GMs, more players and I'm pretty sure you'll change your mind about scouting.
Scouting in dungeon asks for very special circumstances, party setup and scout builds (the Eidolon is a classic scout that works in most situations, but not all parties have a Summoner).
At first I was worried we had really dragged the conversation off topic, but reading everyone’s posts, it is definitely true that how GMs handle exploration mode/time between encounters will play a massive role in the value of different ways to buff.
One thing that is tricky for GMs is that there are multiple ways to approach it, and that PF2 APs are in the process of changing the guidance for this. For example, in the past, running an entire dungeon almost in encounter mode, especially with scouting or magical recon was kinda of how you had to handle any tricky situation that required more detail than general narrative. PF2 has had VP systems for things like chases, infiltrations, social encounters, etc. since the beginning, but APs only used them in very specific circumstances, and GMs had almost no examples to draw from to use such systems for exploration activities like scouting. Newer APs (like Triumph of the Tusk) are working these systems much more clearly into the larger dungeon areas.
A GM using an infiltration or research subsystem for players to learn about a dungeon before engaging it in a combative raid are going to eventually provide very different encounters than GMs taking an old school approach. I know I have previously always tried to run dungeons as one whole encounter environment that responds to the changing situation of players actions, and that is pretty time and attention demanding in preparation, but felt necessary to let players scout ahead in a realistic fashion.
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A GM using an infiltration or research subsystem for players to learn about a dungeon before engaging it in a combative raid are going to eventually provide very different encounters than GMs taking an old school approach. I know I have previously always tried to run dungeons as one whole encounter environment that responds to the changing situation of players actions, and that is pretty time and attention demanding in preparation, but felt necessary to let players scout ahead in a realistic fashion.
I will do something like this as GM.
If the party crosses path with a group that is stationary and has no reason to expect their arrival, I will give my players the option to attempt a skill challenge.
Successes to the skill challenge can include a “free” recall knowledge check, being able to choose their starting squares, or even a “free” round of non-hostile actions (pre-buffing). Failure can allow the enemy those same advantages.
As I can set DCs, I can choose the difficulty of the skill challenge.
But those are rarer situations, and most fights will begin cold, at a more or less predetermined distance, and just rolling straight initiative.
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]Well, Search certainly qualifies.
I’m not sure it does. Search states “You Seek meticulously for hidden doors, concealed hazards, and so on.” I don’t think hidden enemies are part of “and so on,” because I think every PC has a shot at seeing hidden enemies by virtue of how Stealth works.
. Could it be that no checks happen at all? You are too occupied otherwise and the creature does nothing.
A stealth check happens. Even if the opponent isn’t doing anything “now,” they hid themselves at some point, and now you roll to see how well they’re hidden.
I've seen this error several times now: Sneak and Hide are always against perception DC. You don't roll perception against sneak.
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A GM using an infiltration or research subsystem for players to learn about a dungeon before engaging it in a combative raid are going to eventually provide very different encounters than GMs taking an old school approach. I know I have previously always tried to run dungeons as one whole encounter environment that responds to the changing situation of players actions, and that is pretty time and attention demanding in preparation, but felt necessary to let players scout ahead in a realistic fashion.
I very much dislike subsystems, mostly because of their overuse in PFS, but I must admit this one can be pretty handy. Turning the Exploration activities into a skill challenge to give more information about the dungeon denizens would definitely change the classic "Avoid Notice, Search and one who Scouts" that I see all the time.
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I've seen this error several times now: Sneak and Hide are always against perception DC. You don't roll perception against sneak.
Not during the Sneak action, anyway. After, though, you might roll Perception against Stealth DC if you take the Seek action to look for the creature who used Sneak or Hide.
But i don’t think that’s part of the Search exploration action. With Search “You Seek meticulously for hidden doors, concealed hazards, and so on.” Hidden creatures simply roll their Stealrh against EVERY PC’s Perception DC, regardless of each PC’s exploration action. Also, in exploration mode, arguably the enemies are using Avoid Notice, not Sneak or Hide anyway.
... But i don’t think that’s part of the Search exploration action. With Search “You Seek meticulously for hidden doors, concealed hazards, and so on.” Hidden creatures simply roll their Stealrh against EVERY PC’s Perception DC, regardless of each PC’s exploration action...
Our group has rolled that into the Scout Activity. After all, that's one of the primary functions of a "scout" (to be on the look out for hostiles).
... Also, in exploration mode, arguably the enemies are using Avoid Notice, not Sneak or Hide anyway.
Perhaps it's a difference in interpretation around our table, but unless enemies are exploring they're not likely performing Exploration Activities. Sure, a roving patrol may have units in Scout, Defend, Repeat a Spell, and/or something appropriate to the task of the patrol (Search and Investigate being unlikely, for instance), or an infiltration squad might be in Avoid Notice and Follow the Leader. But, busting into a room full of dungeon guards eating dinner and playing cards, they're certainly (by our interpretation) not in "Exploration Mode."
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I've seen this error several times now: Sneak and Hide are always against perception DC. You don't roll perception against sneak.Error here is absolutely yours. Look up Seek action.
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Anyway. The plot thickened to the point of tar. It now seems to me that in this supposedly highly regulated game not just a lot of approaches to 'exploration mode' exist, but each and every GM does it very differently :D
Search and Seek are not the same action. Having someone need to effectively stealth twice to succeed is obnoxious.
EDIT: And yes, this should be no surprise. Exploration mode is absurdly loosely written, even if you try to run it raw.
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I've seen this error several times now: Sneak and Hide are always against perception DC. You don't roll perception against sneak.
I mostly agree with you. You absolutely shouldn't be making opposed rolls -- that's a 1e thing. For the most part, 2e doesn't have "opposed checks" -- they have checks against the opponents DC.
Now, philosophically, when someone is sneaking through a room of people you could either have the sneaker roll a Stealth check against a Perception DC *or* you could have the people in the room roll a Perception check against a Stealth DC.
Which roll you call for sometimes depends on the rule, but more often is determined by "what results in the fewer rolls" (1 roll for sneaking vs 10 people in the room all getting separate rolls -- and you want fewer rolls for statistical reasons as much as for simplicity) or "do the players know what is going on" (it may be more plot appropriate for the GM to roll than to call for a secret check for a situation the player is aware of) or "giving the players agency" (all things being equal it is more fun for the players to make dice rolls than for the GM to make dice rolls).
But the nice thing is that, most of the time, *mechanically* you can make the check either way.
What? No, the enemies don't automatically all roll to spot the PC. That's silly, and ludicrously stacked against the PC due to the number of rolls involved. You roll a single stealth check and see if anyone in the room's perception DC is high enough to still notice them.
How do you adjudicate it if someone is already sneaking around, then sneaks into the sense range of a bunch of creatures, such as by entering a room?
It doesn't really make sense to re-roll Sneak on the PC side, as in theory you would need to re-roll it each time a square of movement enters a new creature's LoS / perception range. Gets even weirder with other edge cases.
Is it just one PC Sneak roll vs all Perception DCs until the PC stops and ends the Sneaking an hour later? Combat-version of Sneak requires a new roll every time you move, which would be non-viable.
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I honestly have only really experienced the reverse at a table, where PCs are given a roll by the GM to notice something hidden.
However the rolls are made, every creature a PC tries to sneak past has a chance to notice them, which is the point.
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... there's no way that a PC who wants to sneak ahead ahead has to deal with rules this undefined. All I see are Avoid Notice, Sneak, and the infiltration system example.
Oh. The actual "sneak around the castle" desire is talked about in Stealth. And, the RaW is even more non-viable than my most pessimistic guess, s##+.
If you want to sneak around when there are creatures that can see you, you can use a combination of Hide and Sneak to do so.
* First, Hide behind something (either by taking advantage of cover or having the concealed condition due to fog, a spell, or a similar effect). A successful Stealth check makes you hidden, though the creatures still know roughly where you are.
* Second, now that you're hidden, you can Sneak. That means you can move at half your Speed and attempt another Stealth check. If it's successful, you're now undetected. That means the creatures don't know which square you're in anymore.
If you were approaching creatures that didn't know you were there, you could begin Sneaking right away, since they didn't know your location to start with. Some actions can cause you to become observed again, but they're mostly what you'd expect: standing out in the open, attacking someone, making a bunch of noise, and so forth. If you Strike someone after successfully Hiding or Sneaking, though, they're off-guard to that Strike.
Creatures can try to find you using the Seek action.
Three conditions explain the states of detection. Remember that these conditions are relative to each creature—you can be observed by one creature while hidden to another and undetected by a third. Observed: You're in the creature's clear view. Hidden: The creature knows your location but can't see you. Undetected: The creature doesn't know your location.
So you do need to make a stupid number of Sneak rolls, one per 1/2 Stride of movement. *and* foes get their own rolls to Seek you at GM discretion. Rolling once per observing creature might be more viable than needing to Sneak every movement.
Can't believe that's still the RaW post-remaster. You are more likely to make injury poisons viable than to ever successfully sneak around a dungeon / manor.
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I think the point of Avoid Notice is to override individual Hide/Sneak actions in exploration mode and avoid having you roll to failure. You roll once and use that result against the enemies you encounter until you change activities or have to roll initiative.
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Our group has rolled that into the Scout Activity. After all, that's one of the primary functions of a "scout" (to be on the look out for hostiles).
But do you limit it ti PCs on Scout, as in you don’t even compare the hidden foes’ Stealth results to the Perception DCs of PCs’ who aren’t on Scout?
Perhaps it's a difference in interpretation around our table, but unless enemies are exploring they're not likely performing Exploration Activities.
This may fall under the category of “NPCs don’t follow the same rules,” but exploring isn’t really the sine qua non of exploration mode. Basically anytime you’re not in either encounter mode or downtime, you’re in exploration mode. There are a number of defined exploration actions that are pretty incompatible with actively “exploring.”
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How do you adjudicate it if someone is already sneaking around, then sneaks into the sense range of a bunch of creatures, such as by entering a room?
Assuming you’re talking about exploration mode, not encounter mode, I just roll a secret Stealth check against the opponents’ Perception DCs or, if there was some reason to have already rolled one, I’d apply the pre-existing result. But when I have a PC running Avoid Notice, I don’t even roll a Stealth check unless and until it becomes relevant.
Is it just one PC Sneak roll vs all Perception DCs until the PC stops and ends the Sneaking an hour later?
Essentially, yes, though Stealth roll to Avoid Notice, not to Sneak.
Combat-version of Sneak requires a new roll every time you move, which would be non-viable.
That difference in granularity is one of the key differences between encounter mode and exploration mode. Also worth noting that Sneak and Avoid notice are different actions, so it’s not too crazy that different rules govern them.
However the rolls are made, every creature a PC tries to sneak past has a chance to notice them, which is the point.
Yeah, but that “chance” expresses itself in comparing Perception DC to the PC’s secret Stealth result.
... there's no way that a PC who wants to sneak ahead ahead has to deal with rules this undefined. All I see are Avoid Notice, Sneak, and the infiltration system example.
“Use Avoid Notice” til an encounter breaks out seems plenty defined to me.
I have them roll a sneak check when in range of creatures that could possibly detect them, often the PC uses cover to gain a stealth bonus.
One of the ways we stealth is move to a door quietly (Stealth check), listen at the door (Perception check), and hand signal to the party if something is present in the room.
Then we form up at the room with the tank in front, ranged power behind the tank, and any other melees ready to enter with the tank remaining at the door to ensure narrow terrain to ensure we can't be overwhelmed and swarmed. Tank will hold the door meleeing in the doorway while ranged hammers from behind. If the target is weak, we cut our way in and if strong, we hold them in the doorway to ensure the can't swarm us.
Rinse and repeat your way through a dungeon.
It seems that exploration mode Avoid Notice doesn't really work when you're close enough for combat to potentially break out, and you certainly could not use Avoid Notice RaW to sneak through a battle map.
There is potential for the GM to be extra generous with the rules on "Unobservable Stealth" where they can give you a whole degree of success better via things like invisibility.
Glad to see that no one appears to be running that RaW where you need to Sneak every movement once you get close enough. The text on that "Being Stealthy" section fits too precisely to say that you could use Avoid Notice instead. Once you approach, you use the Sneak and Hide actions.
There is no missing middle "pre-combat" stealth action, just the exploration and encounter actions.
It seems that exploration mode Avoid Notice doesn't really work when you're close enough for combat to potentially break out, and you certainly could not use Avoid Notice RaW to sneak through a battle map.
There is potential for the GM to be extra generous with the rules on "Unobservable Stealth" where they can give you a whole degree of success better via things like invisibility.
Glad to see that no one appears to be running that RaW where you need to Sneak every movement once you get close enough. The text on that "Being Stealthy" section fits too precisely to say that you could use Avoid Notice instead. Once you approach, you use the Sneak and Hide actions.
There is no missing middle "pre-combat" stealth action, just the exploration and encounter actions.
Which is why you have a DM who can figure out how this will work in real time without using exploration or encounter mode like they have done for time immemorial.
Rules are not hard rules. In games like these the rules are there to provide as much guidance as possible for DMs. But for a game of multiple people playing group imagination games, then the DM is there to make it work, not tell people no when actions seem reasonable and possible regardless if there is a specific rule for it.
This was better done in PF1, but is still possible in PF2 as you think out how to do it within the PF2 rules.
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It seems that exploration mode Avoid Notice doesn't really work when you're close enough for combat to potentially break out,
How close is “close enough for combat to potentially break out[?]” Melee reach? One move action away? Whose move? X range increments on some ranged weapon that’d be implicated if combat broke out? The range of spell that someone involved either has prepared or known? That’s pretty clearly a GM judgment call, but whatever that distance is, a PC could use Avoid Notice to get almost that far, then turn around and leave, which is presumably what a PC who is using Avoid Notice to scout ahead wants to do anyway.
]and you certainly could not use Avoid Notice RaW to sneak through a battle map.
I’d say that’s a bit situational, too. If there’s sufficient cover or concealment to mask a trip across a battle map, and the PC stays behind it, I don’t know that there’s anything in RAW to prevent that.
Once you approach, you use the Sneak and Hide actions.
I’m not sure there’s a clear definition of “once you appraoach.” That point exists in every situation, but it also varies by situation.
There is no missing middle "pre-combat" stealth action, just the exploration and encounter actions.
I don’t know what that means.
For what it's worth, when my players decided to camp outside the stairs leading to the final boss (of EC5, if anyone cares) and toss as many 10min and 1min buffs as they could, the boss took that opportunity to cast 9th rank Heroism, Blass, Bane, Benediction, Malediction, True Seeing and a nasty invisibility spell on himself, plus 6th ranked heroism on his minions. For the first three turns of the battle, the PCs were absolutely on the backfoot, since the boss's counteract was higher than theirs.
As it turned out, it was not the stack of buffs on either side that determined the fight, but the barbarian rolled high on Seek, pointed out, then the cleric casted True target and critted 9th rank holy light, then the next two also casted 9th rank holy light (campaign thing) before the boss could take a turn.
If they have the ability, this is what I do too. I sometimes place a an enemy in a room prior to the main boss room just to start a fight to alert the boss it's time to prepare so they can drop the hammer on the PCs.
Most monsters can't do this, but the handful that can spend their time productively as well if the party buffs outside.
You don't "pre-roll" the Stealth check.
You only roll when someone enters the sense range of someone else.
That seems like a really inefficient way to handle Stealth, and also like a good way to give up metagame information.
Most GMs I know are juggling so many things already that if they didn't write down the Stealth check result as the Stealth attempt was made, they would forget that the character was using Stealth at all.
As funny as the comic is, there's never a need for a player to know that a secret check (in this case his stealth check) was made. So no information given.Oh no?
If his solution is to write the check results, then isn't it just easier to write the activities themselves?
It's easier to write a two-digit number than a longer multi-digit word. :P
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That seems like a really inefficient way to handle Stealth,
Rolling Stealth when it’s not yet, and may never be, relevant seems really inefficient to me. When, or even if, it comes up, then I’ll roll.
Most GMs I know are juggling so many things already that if they didn't write down the Stealth check result as the Stealth attempt was made, they would forget that the character was using Stealth at all.
If you don’t roll before it becomes relevant, then you don’t have a number to keep track of.
That said, remembering whether a character is using Stealth is fairly easy at my tables, though, because in all but extraordinary circumstances the same characters tend to almost always or almost never use Stealth, so when those patterns break, it stands out.
I roll stealth when it needs to be rolled. I don't like an excess of rolls for monsters or PCs.
I do think rolling it in advance makes sense just to keep players from gaining meta knowledge via dicerolls. Easier to roll when they use avoid notice than start having to throw dice at the screen for no reason to break the connection between hearing dicerolls and knowing something is happening.
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What? You haven't been writing about Search or Avoid Notice. You've wrote 'Sneak' and 'Hide'. They go along with Seeking which absolutely rolls Perception. Or have you just meant that Sneak and Hide themselves don't roll perception? That is true (and obvious as there's no such thing in their texts).Search and Seek are not the same action. Having someone need to effectively stealth twice to succeed is obnoxious.I've seen this error several times now: Sneak and Hide are always against perception DC. You don't roll perception against sneak.Error here is absolutely yours. Look up Seek action.
Witch's original point here was that you don't automatically Seek someone when they Sneak. If you're trying to sneak past a bunch of people cooking food at the campfire, you just role your Stealth against their Perception DC as you Sneak. They're not Seeking you out if they're chilling at the campfire, so you don't end up having to roll twice and fail most stealth attempts. In the situation where there is someone actively observing - their Seeking takes as much effort as long distance walking does, it's not a casual glance around every once in a while from the campfire - then they can make Seek checks against your Stealth DC to spot you, but only if they include you in the correct area of their Seek. If you're sneaking in the air grate and they're looking only out the front door, they can't spot you at all.
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I think this line of thinking is getting derailed by thinking that NPCs and PCs all need to operate under the same set of rules all the time in order for the game to function.
But in reality, NPCs don't really operate in exploration mode at all and trying to think through how they would is kinda of applying a weird video game script over something much, much easier for GMs to handle narratively . I think the VTT module phenomena is partially to blame for this because it populates an entire dungeon's creatures fairly arbitrarily at once, and then pushes the GM to either stick with that exact set up, or shoulder the responsibility for running a whole little simulation of movement on their own from that base starting point.
I think that APs getting away from that idea, with just having some key locations in a dungeon plotted out so, and then a list of creatures/treasure/etc that the GM should populate into the dungeon as needed for making the dungeon feel alive will be a better narrative experience for players in the long run. Even the exact number of creatures in the dungeon doesn't need to be static because NPCs might go out for a walk/visit family/go to town to steal/trade/spy/etc.
So NPCs don't really need to be engaged in exploration activities, they need to appear as if they might be engaged in exploration activities to make the next encounter (and the circumstances of it) feel narratively earned and expected, but still fun and the right level of challenging.
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That's all good. If that's what really was meant :) I'd maybe add that for example (alert) sentries can Search while not going anywhere. Which does make them rolling Perception too. Or call that anything you like if you think that Search is only for traps. I mean that NPCs should be able to seek in 'exploration' sometimes too.
That is in fact what I meant. I don't think search covers hidden creatures, though, myself—at least not by RAW.
WRT Seek during exploration: I typically frown on enemies using seek without an obvious reason, but yeah, there's nothing mechanically stopping them from doing so. By RAW, palace guards could spend all their actions forever seeking. (I think that doing so should probably make them fatigued by RAI and following other implied logic about using encounter mode actions repeatedly during exploration, but I don't think it would by RAW.)
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I think this line of thinking is getting derailed by thinking that NPCs and PCs all need to operate under the same set of rules all the time in order for the game to function.
But in reality, NPCs don't really operate in exploration mode at all and trying to think through how they would is kinda of applying a weird video game script over something much, much easier for GMs to handle narratively . I think the VTT module phenomena is partially to blame for this because it populates an entire dungeon's creatures fairly arbitrarily at once, and then pushes the GM to either stick with that exact set up, or shoulder the responsibility for running a whole little simulation of movement on their own from that base starting point.
I think that APs getting away from that idea, with just having some key locations in a dungeon plotted out so, and then a list of creatures/treasure/etc that the GM should populate into the dungeon as needed for making the dungeon feel alive will be a better narrative experience for players in the long run. Even the exact number of creatures in the dungeon doesn't need to be static because NPCs might go out for a walk/visit family/go to town to steal/trade/spy/etc.
So NPCs don't really need to be engaged in exploration activities, they need to appear as if they might be engaged in exploration activities to make the next encounter (and the circumstances of it) feel narratively earned and expected, but still fun and the right level of challenging.
Can you imagine trying to follow every rule for every NPC? It would make the game terrible and hard to run. A GM should know how to use the rules to make the game fun, interesting, and challenging without letting them bog down play or subvert imaginative play.