Cross posting from another thread where it was off-topic.
- Avoid Notice (Player Core) old but gold: wouldn't this make more sense to have the Secret trait?
Thank goodness it doesn't. Would make it hella difficult to use, what with rolling Initiative and all.
The Stealth check for Initiative is separate from the Stealth check for sneaking around during Exploration.
What's the point of rolling the first time to Sneak around if you're just going to have to roll a second time against being spotted anyways?
Please cite your source. I was unable to find it in the remaster and was beginning to think it may have been removed.
Insofar as I can tell, you roll Stealth only when there's a chance someone might spot you. There's no point in rolling Stealth to Avoid Notice if the encounter is three rooms away.
I suppose you could roll it in advance, then use that value when you encounter something, but that gets tricky as circumstances, such as cover, might well have changed.
Avoid Notice comes in two different behaviors, Exploration and Encounter
First Roll is equivalent to Sneak, To see wether or not you can move past undetected in Exploration mode without needing to enter Encounter mode.
Second roll only happens when you enter Encounter Mode both to determine your initiative and to what degree you are detected upon your presence being revealed upon launching an ambush.It is written into the Action itself and yes..The first roll should be secret and regardless of the presence of creatures. Three Reasons;
Players shouldn't know the existance of creatures.
Players shouldn't know the non-existance of creatures.
Players shouldn't know the result of their stealth check before attempting to 'sneak'.Likewise, The second roll probably shouldnt be secret as it is initiative. But it determines the success of your ambush.
First roll; Sneak Roll
Second Roll; Ambush RollSneak roll succeeds but Ambush Roll doesnt;
You can sneak up as close as you can but become detected before you move.Sneak Roll fails but Ambush Succeeds;
They become aware of you the moment you enter detection range, but remain undetected(Not unnoticed) provided you have cover/Concealment.Further discussion or answers are likely to be found in another thread.
I'm still waiting for a citation, as I can't find anywhere in the remaster where it is explicitly stated a player has two opportunities to fail Avoid Notice.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2541 At the least, you can see it here, in Initiative with Hidden Enemies.
When members on one or both sides of an impending battle are being stealthy, you'll need to deal with the impacts of Stealth on the start of the encounter. Anyone who's Avoiding Notice should attempt a Stealth check for their initiative.
And the same goes for other activities that'd use the same check as your eventual initiative roll.
I read all of those same rules before posting. I'm still not seeing where it says to roll twice.
Insofar as I can tell if you roll only once while Avoiding Notice when there is a chance of encountering enemies, you're still following all the rules as written.
Rolling twice is akin to asking the players to make Perception checks when there's nothing to find but a mundane squirrel. A pointless waste of everyone's time.
I personally recommend that you talk to your GM.
I personally use a house rule, I use the Avoid Notice roll for initiative, but I don't compare it to the perception DC in encounter mode as the rule says to avoid wasted turns (where for example the enemy's perception test was higher than the player's stealth test, but he doesn't even know that the players are there acting, which effectively makes him lose the turn). Instead I simply declare that creatures with the higher initiative noticed the creatures with the lower initiative. It's simpler, faster and more reliable.
I personally don't like to roll new initiatives using stealth because it's not reliable:
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Each exploration activity is described minimally to save page space. I interpret the text in light of the general travel rules to better understand them.
Avoid Notice
Exploration
Source Player Core pg. 438 2.0
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed. If you're Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you (based on their Perception DCs, as normal for Sneak, regardless of their initiative check results).
The first sentence mentions a Stealth check. I interpret this as a Stealth check for travel. The Exploration Mode section of Player Core says,
While you're traveling and exploring, tell the GM what you'd generally like to do along the way. If you do nothing more than make steady progress toward your goal, you move at the full travel speeds given in the table.
When you want to do something other than simply travel, you describe what you are attempting to do. It isn't necessary to go into extreme detail, such as “Using my dagger, I nudge the door so I can check for devious traps.” Instead, “I'm searching the area for hazards” is sufficient. The GM finds the best exploration activity to match your description and describes the effects of that activity. Some exploration activities limit how fast you can travel and be effective.
The paragraph before that, under "Travel Speed," suggest making checks for activities such as Climbing once per in-game hour.
Thus, the party is Avoiding Notice while traveling through hostile territory. Once per hour, the PCs roll their Stealth checks. If they all succeed against a secret DC, then they avoid notice. I would also ask for a Stealth roll whenever they are sneaking past a known monster on the map.
Suppose they fail the roll, "I rolled a 1." I would reply, "You hear voices in a deep, bubbling language and the sound of humanoids splashing through the swamp toward you. Let me set up a swamp road map. Arrange your tokens on the map in your marching order."
Then I choose between two options. The first option is that I invoke the 2nd sentence of Avoid Notice, "If you're Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, ..." Encounter Mode begins immediately and band of Boggard Warriors appears on the map. In that case, the players' rolls for travel Stealth are fresh, so I say, "If you want to be hidden, you may use your recent Stealth roll for initiative. Otherwise, roll Perception or Survival for initiative." Obviously, the PC who failed the travel Stealth roll won't be successful at hiding, no matter where they place their token on the map. I might place the boggards right next to that PC. I would encourage the PCs who are successfully hidden to adjust their position on the map to have concealment from boggards. If necessary, I can add an extra bush to the map to hide behind.
The second option is that I continue Exploration Mode, because the Boggard Warriors need a a few rounds to reach the party and I don't want to roleplay a few nothing-but-wait rounds. I say, "the people you heard are approaching from the north. You have time to move to hiding places behind the swamp foliage on the map and roll Stealth again if you want to Avoid Notice or to raise a shield if you want to Defend or make a Perception check to Scout or make a Recall Knowledge Roll on Society to identify the approaching foes by their language. If you make a roll, that will be your initiative, too; otherwise roll Perception or Survival for initiative." The PC who failed the travel Stealth will have a new opportunity to Hide, but the player might choose Defend or Scout instead. Heh, if everyone chooses to Avoid Notice and rolls successfully, then the Boggard Warriors show up, search for what they heard, fail to find them, and leave without combat.
Both options have more complexities than the Avoid Notice entry describes.
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What's the point of rolling the first time to Sneak around if you're just going to have to roll a second time against being spotted anyways?
Please cite your source.
Oh, I can do citing sources.
Avoid Notice lists making two checks.
One while you are traveling around.
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed.
But that doesn't count for initiative.
Initiative is explicitly a second roll.
If you're Avoiding Notice at the start of an encounter, you usually roll a Stealth check instead of a Perception check both to determine your initiative and to see if the enemies notice you
In scenarios that involve Avoid Notice but don't involve Initiative, the Stealth roll to move around is still needed. It is asked for in the action.
For example: If a character is using Avoid Notice and the party encounters some NPC non-enemies. There is no stealth roll for Initiative because encountering these characters isn't going to result in combat. But the character would still be rolling Stealth for the Avoid Notice while they are moving around at half speed.
Why would you bother rolling Stealth when "just traveling around" though?
I'd argue that making the Stealth check for Initiative IS attempting a Stealth check to Avoid Notice while traveling at half speed. You say they are two separate checks, but it doesn't actually say that. I think it's just shorthanded due to a lack of page space.
1) You declare you are Avoiding Notice.
2) You move at half speed.
3) Something happens.
4) Roll initiative using Stealth.
Making a Stealth roll when there's nothing around doesn't make any sense. Even if you played it that way, it would ALWAYS be invalidated by the Initiative roll, so what even is the point?
As for the meta of it, as noted in the OP, Avoid Notice doesn't have the Secret trait.
So far no one has cited anything that I haven't already read several times, or that explicitly states that they are not the same roll.
Note that Avoid Notice doesn't state when the roll is made. At the beginning of the exploration activity? At the end? Somewhere in the middle? Every hour? No! I say you roll when the GM says it matters.
For me, that's when you're rolling initiative (or when the GM says to for a non-combat encounter). That way, you can determine cover bonuses and the like based on what's actually happening, not on the cover bonuses/other variables you had several hours/miles ago.
Why would you bother rolling Stealth when "just traveling around" though?
Because the rule says to do so. And it says when.
You wanted rules citation. That is what I provided.
You attempt a Stealth check to avoid notice while traveling at half speed.
It doesn't matter if that roll is used for anything or not. The roll is still rolled. It is rolled in Step 1 of your example scenario.
What you are arguing for is a houserule change to remove the roll during step 1 because you feel that it is always going to be unused. While you can certainly make the argument to the other players at your table, the rule still says what the rule says.
Why would you bother rolling Stealth when "just traveling around" though?
The party would not use Avoid Notice when just traveling around. They would Avoid Notice in territory where hostile creatures dwelt.
I'd argue that making the Stealth check for Initiative IS attempting a Stealth check to Avoid Notice while traveling at half speed. You say they are two separate checks, but it doesn't actually say that. I think it's just shorthanded due to a lack of page space.
1) You declare you are Avoiding Notice.
2) You move at half speed.
3) Something happens.
4) Roll initiative using Stealth.
The list should be.
1) You declare that you are all Avoiding Notice.2) You move at half speed.
3) Whenever you move past a potential menace, including a potential random encounter once per hour, you all roll Stealth.
4a) If everyone succeeds against the Perception DC of the menace, you successfully sneak past the menace and receive XP for outwitting the menace.
4b) If someone fails against the Perception DC of the menace, you have an encounter with the menace. You may use your recent Stealth check as your initiative.
If not everyone in the party is Avoiding Notice, then the party will automatically fail at sneaking past a menace, so the only effect of Avoid Notice is that the PCs who avoided notice receive the option to roll Stealth for initiative and start the encounter hidden, like in Ravingdork's list.
Making a Stealth roll when there's nothing around doesn't make any sense. Even if you played it that way, it would ALWAYS be invalidated by the Initiative roll, so what even is the point?
If the journey has no threats to avoid, then yes there is no point in the party rolling Stealth to avoid it. Sometimes the party is misinformed.
As for the meta of it, as noted in the OP, Avoid Notice doesn't have the Secret trait.
The DC is secret. That is enough. I admit that I don't make secret checks in my games, because my players are good at not letting player-not-PC knowledge affect their PCs, so I might have missed the point.
So far no one has cited anything that I haven't already read several times, or that explicitly states that they are not the same roll.
A stealthy party could make several successful Stealth checks to bypass many encounters before they have an encounter that they failed to bypass.
Note that Avoid Notice doesn't state when the roll is made. At the beginning of the exploration activity? At the end? Somewhere in the middle? Every hour? No! I say you roll when the GM says it matters.
My players sometimes make Perception checks in Encounter Mode to check for traps. Rather than wasting their time having them check every 5 feet like in old school D&D, I apply the check to the next trap in front of them, "You see no traps. You keep checking until you spot a trap 5 feet in front of the next door." Likewise, for Avoid Notice in Exploration Mode, I would apply the Stealth check to the next creature that could spot them.
For me, that's when you're rolling initiative (or when the GM says to for a non-combat encounter). That way, you can determine cover bonuses and the like based on what's actually happening, not on the cover bonuses/other variables you had several hours/miles ago.
Cover bonuses apply while traveling only if the cover lasts through the entire period of travel. For example, the PCs could be traveling in persistent fog, so they have concealment from the fog, or the particular threat they are rolling to avoid is behind dense foliage. Otherwise, the PCs move past the cover so the bonus would be only momentary and not apply in general.
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I only require one roll myself. I don't think it is clear it requires two rolls either. I default to less rolls when the rule is ambiguous. I usually only ask for stealth rolls when the group is heading into combat. We've played far too long at this point to care about whether the player knows whether they needed to roll stealth or not. So I don't waste time with that build up any longer. They make the stealth roll when it is needed and I ask them if they are going into the battle using stealth and one roll is to avoid notice and initiative as I have no real interest in too many rolls to do things. More rolls equals more chance of failure for that activity and thus a sense of defeatism for such activities as the sheer number of rolls leads to failure and rolls becoming annoying and an impediment to verisimilitude.
I think you have plenty of ambiguity to run it with one roll, but it's still up to the DM how they want to do.
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... though Quiet allies.
You’re skilled at moving with a group. When you are Avoiding Notice and your allies Follow the Expert, you and those allies can roll a single Stealth check, using the lowest modifier, instead of rolling separately. This doesn’t apply for initiative rolls.With how this is worded you cannot have "It is a single check done at initiative"
Oh poo. Quiet Allies looks like a pretty strong argument to me.
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Maybe a way to make sense of it is to point out WHY you would roll initiative.
You don't roll initiative if two sides meet but both sides do so well on Avoid Notice that they don't notice each other, and just quietly pass each other by.
You also don't roll initiative if one sides does notice the other, but keeps quiet and doesn't engage.
You roll initiative when one side is going try to do something to the other.
GM Core (p. 25) implies that the mere act of wanting to do something initiative-worthy, is going to warn the opposition that something is about to happen;
So what do you do if
someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative,
but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the
enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed.
This is a bit weird - why would they suddenly be unnoticed? The only way I can square it is by coming back to the general principle for initiative - you roll it when people are actually going to do something to each other, and that means everyone hears the battle music playing in the background?
It does pose some problems though - abilities like Assassinate require an attack against a target to which you're Unnoticed, but the above quote doesn't seem to allow that to be possible.
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I think it's quite possible that these rules just aren't totally consistent with each other. Individual GMs make some interpretations that work okay enough to get by, but if you look at the bare rules, I'm not convinced that they really work.
I think it's quite possible that these rules just aren't totally consistent with each other. Individual GMs make some interpretations that work okay enough to get by, but if you look at the bare rules, I'm not convinced that they really work.
I think that my disconnect with this thread is that I think of exploration activities as being primarily about Exploration Mode and other people think of exploration activities as being primarily preparation for the encounter after exploration mode. The two different goals can make exploration activities seem contradictory.
There are exploration activities that are all about the next encounter, such as Defend.
Defend
Exploration
Source Player Core pg. 438 2.0
You move at half your travel speed with your shield raised. If combat breaks out, you gain the benefits of Raising a Shield before your first turn begins.
On the other hand, there are exploration activeis that are all about travel, with no encounter expected.
Hustle
Exploration Move
Source Player Core pg. 438 2.0
You strain yourself to move at double your travel speed. You can Hustle only for a number of minutes equal to your Constitution modifier × 10 (minimum 10 minutes). If you are in a group that is Hustling, use the lowest Constitution modifier among everyone to determine how fast the group can Hustle together.
Likewise, Treat Wounds is about the next ten minutes in Exploration Mode. It gives no advantage at the beginning of an encounter if the encounter interrupts it.
My players spend a lot of roleplaying time in Exploration Mode. So I try to make that mode clear and convenient. For example, during the Busker Woes service project in Spoken on the Song Wind, which I chronicled at Virgil Tibbs, Playtest Runesmith, comment #8, because the playtest runesmith was marginally involved, they set up a trap for some thieves who were stealing musical instruments from buskers. The module had set this up as a Downtime activity of Gather Information, but the players' sting operation was in Exploration Mode as they played alongside professional musicians while keeping their eyes open. I had non-standard exploration activities such as, "I asked the PCs for Sense Motive checks when the 5th-level human thief Mashkudu walked past the performance to case the items worth stealing."
I think of Avoid Notice as a way to sneak past opponents or sneak up on opponents. The party could be advancing down a hallway in a dungeon, 100 feet from the next encounter, so I would ask them for an exploration activity rather than running their progress turn by turn. For stealth they pick Avoid Notice, for trap finding they pick Search, for reading clues they pick Investigate, etc. That the PCs who Avoided Notice can select Stealth for initiative to begin an encounter hidden is merely a reflection that they were already hidden.
Avoid Notice is one roll that you keep until you enter an encounter and rolling initiative, or change to another exploration activity. The entire point of having "Avoid Notice" instead of just rolling sneak repeatedly is to avoid bogging down play with 50 rolls and keep players from rolling to failure, and the same goes for other exploration activities that're abstractions of repeated checks. If you're asking players to roll a stealth check every time they move in exploration mode, I unequivocally believe you're griefing them as a DM.
Mechanically, initiative is just a separate check. I don't think this is actually common sense; I struggled with this when I first started running the system. But a lot of the system design doesn't really make sense unless initiative is a separate check. You don't know if you can use free actions triggered by rolling initiative, for example, if you don't know which of your checks are going to be initiative. The Scout activity makes no sense if you aren't rolling initiative at the start of encounters. And so on.
GM Core (p. 25) implies that the mere act of wanting to do something initiative-worthy, is going to warn the opposition that something is about to happen;
This is a bit weird - why would they suddenly be unnoticed? The only way I can square it is by coming back to the general principle for initiative - you roll it when people are actually going to do something to each other, and that means everyone hears the battle music playing in the background?So what do you do if
someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative,
but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the
enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed.
There are few clarifying rules that I hate more than that one. It literally does the opposite of what I would have expected.
Avoid Notice is one roll that you keep until you enter an encounter and rolling initiative, or change to another exploration activity. The entire point of having "Avoid Notice" instead of just rolling sneak repeatedly is to avoid bogging down play with 50 rolls and keep players from rolling to failure, and the same goes for other exploration activities that're abstractions of repeated checks. If you're asking players to roll a stealth check every time they move in exploration mode, I unequivocally believe you're griefing them as a DM.
Mechanically, initiative is just a separate check. I don't think this is actually common sense; I struggled with this when I first started running the system. But a lot of the system design doesn't really make sense unless initiative is a separate check. You don't know if you can use free actions triggered by rolling initiative, for example, if you don't know which of your checks are going to be initiative. The Scout activity makes no sense if you aren't rolling initiative at the start of encounters. And so on.
Best explanation for why it is the way it is that I've heard yet.
Well, maybe I'll start requiring a second roll for initiative now. One extra roll isn't too bad.
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Players need to know their own initiatives for party combat strategy. That's frankly another reason the avoid notice check shouldn't be the same roll as the initiative check; avoid notice (and search, for that matter) should be secret checks, but initiative definitely isn't.
It's also worth noting that you usually roll stealth for initiative if you use Avoid Notice, but don't have to, as per its text; the player could actually choose to use perception instead. This leads to a really awkward issue if you reuse the Avoid Notice check for initiative: if a player triggers an encounter because of a poor stealth check, they've got a good idea that they'd probably want to switch their initiative to perception, and if they don't trigger an encounter, they know to keep that check for initiative. That's no good.
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I keep forgetting that if you Fail to Sneak you remain Hidden rather than becoming Observed.
As an aside, should Avoid Notice be considered Sneak? Or something altogether different that just uses Sneak DCs?
4b) If someone fails against the Perception DC of the menace, you have an encounter with the menace. You may use your recent Stealth check as your initiative.
I don't think that follows the rules as written. The rule for Avoid Notice calls for a separate initiative check.
Most notably, the modifiers may be different. Keen Follower, for example, can give one character a rather high circumstance bonus to the Stealth check during exploration mode. That bonus would not be applicable to the Initiative roll.
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GMCore is full of passages and paragraphs on how to fit a rule or mechanic into a square hole...
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@Witch, I'm not here to argue for you to use my way, and none of the "it's two rolls" arguments have compelled me to reconsider. I'm just sharing that how I read it and how I run it jives with Ravingdork's initial understanding
If the player wants to use a different skill for initiative they can do so when I ask them, "are you using your Avoid Notice roll for initiative," which I ask when I tell the party to roll initiative. AFAIR the answer has been invariably "yes" because most of the players using Avoid Notice have played rogues and hoped to take advantage of their Surprise Attack class feature, which doesn't even care if they're hidden at all. I'm not hiding their initiative order. They can see that after I get all the results sorted so they can strategize with the party. They're usually able to surmise that their late entry compared to other players probably means they rolled low but unless they placed their character out in the open they still begin hidden as a consolation prize, "as normal for Sneak." I do remind newer players that they need cover relative to their foes or concealment to gain that benefit. I try to run a strictly no-gotchas table
How does a gunslinger using avoid notice trigger their on-initiative free action (e.g., Ten Paces) at your table? You can retroactively apply it, sure, but we both know that's not how the mechanics of the game work. You need to use on-initiative actions at the time initiative is rolled. It makes as much sense as saying you used a free sustain two turns ago to sustain a spell you cast one turn ago.
And how does a player who's avoiding notice use a hero point on their initiative roll? It's a perfectly viable way to spend a hero point. How can you know whether or not you should hero point your initiative if it's a secret check? Can they hero point it once you've called for initiative? But if they can hero point after they know their Stealth roll didn't beat the enemies' perception DC, isn't that rerolling after you know the result of your check?
Likewise, if players are pumping their dex and stealth, that only makes it more obvious they have a bad roll if they triggered an encounter. Or, if the creature looks like something that has special senses, maybe they infer that information instead—also not something they should be able to do.
It also has the bizarre effect of letting you reroll your future initiative by switching exploration activities to something else and switching back, which leaves... a sour taste in my mouth.
I get the temptation to run it this way, and ran it this way for half of the first module I ran. There was some intuitive sense to the idea that whatever the players were doing when they triggered the encounter represented how they entered said encounter, and therefore represented their initiative. But whatever narrative sense it might've made, there were far more mechanical reasons that it's a separate check. I eventually realized it just doesn't make any sense to use the same check. The game rules need to be contorted in increasingly odd ways, and given a ton of situational exceptions that exist only for initiative checks, to make things work as they should.
And finally, just to kill this once and for all:
When the GM calls for it, you'll roll initiative to determine your place in the initiative order, which is the sequence in which the encounter's participants will take their turns. Rolling initiative marks the start of an encounter. More often than not, you'll roll initiative when you enter a battle.
Typically, you'll roll a Perception check to determine your initiative—the more aware you are of your surroundings, the more quickly you can respond. Sometimes, though, the GM might call on you to roll some other type of check. For instance, if you were Avoiding Notice during exploration, you'd roll a Stealth check. A social encounter could call for a Deception or Diplomacy check. In most cases, you can still use Perception if you prefer.
Encounters typically begin when you ask your players to roll initiative, which sets the order that the characters will act in. The full rules for rolling initiative can be found on page 435 of Player Core, but in brief,initiative involves each character rolling a check—usually a Perception check, but possibly a different skill if you deem it appropriate—and then acting in order from highest result to lowest. Below, you'll find specifics on how to run certain types of initiative or deal with problems. These are guidelines, and you might prefer to execute initiative in a different way at your table.
Most times, characters will use Perception to roll initiative; however, there are a number of times that another skill might make sense. Occasionally calling for different skills in the initiative check can be a good way to create variety in encounters. Consider the following factors when deciding which checks to allow.
-You'll likely call for Stealth for a character who's Avoiding Notice or hiding before combat.
-You might call for Deception if a character decides to initiate a surprise attack during a negotiation.
-You might call for Society for a character who realizes that the diplomat they're talking to is actually a spy based on misinformation in their cover story.
-You might call for a magical skill like Arcana or Occultism for a spellcaster studying a strange magical phenomenon that suddenly summons a monster to fight the party.
None of these wordings ever imply you keep a roll from an exploration activity. Every single one tells you the player rolls initiative at the start of an encounter.
The only support the "keep your roll" reading has is, "More often than not, you'll roll initiative when you enter a battle," which implies there are times you won't roll initiative. But that is wholly unexplained,* and everywhere else in the text explicitly says the players are rolling checks when initiative is called, even saying to "call for Stealth for a character who's Avoiding Notice" and "initiative involves each character rolling a check." Every single passage about initiative is worded as though every player is rolling a check, and no passage is worded as though you keep the check from your exploration activity. It's basically impossible to defend the idea via exegesis.
Obviously, you can run it however you want at your table. If it works for you, and your players like it, so be it. But this seems to be a surprisingly common point of confusion, so I'd like to put as much on the record here as I can for people who read the thread later.
===
*All I can think of is that it's to leave open battles based on subsystems that don't use initiative, or to leave the players room to sort of have a bit of an RP fight before the actual mechanical fight begins. Maybe also to leave room for the GM to adjudicate cases like "I shoot the zombie that's playing dead" in a way that lets the players actually get off a shot before initiative is rolled.
If I'm Avoiding Notice and roll a high Stealtch check, and the party triggers an encounter, what advantage did my roll get me before being invalidated by my new initiative roll???
Avoid Notice is one roll that you keep until you enter an encounter and rolling initiative, or change to another exploration activity. The entire point of having "Avoid Notice" instead of just rolling sneak repeatedly is to avoid bogging down play with 50 rolls and keep players from rolling to failure, and the same goes for other exploration activities that're abstractions of repeated checks. If you're asking players to roll a stealth check every time they move in exploration mode, I unequivocally believe you're griefing them as a DM.
Mechanically, initiative is just a separate check.
What exactly is preventing a player from declaring Avoid Notice, getting a bad roll, then switching exploration activities after a few minutes?
For example, going down a hallway, I roll a 1 on my Stealth check to Avoid Notice. Oops. Guess I'm exposed. Good thing we're the only ones in the hallway. Before opening the door at the end of the hallway, I declare that I'm Searching it for traps as a new exploration activity. Then, before someone else in the party opens the door, I swap back to Avoid Notice hoping for a better roll than my previous Stealth check for the possible encounter on the other side.
Insofar as I'm aware, there are no rules that prevent you from swapping exploration activities whenever you want; only rules that prevent you from doing more than one exploration activity at a time.
I think its also worth noting that just because something doesn't have the secret trait doesn't mean it needs to be rolled in the open.
I know quite a few players who would be pretty irritated by the GM suddenly demanding to make rolls for them on non-secret checks.
Secret Checks are reccomended whenever the PCs arent aware, like an affliction they have yet to experience symptoms of, or when the knowledge of success or failure is supposed to be unknown. The trait just shows when secret check is the default behavior.
In general, I agree. Just take care not to surprise your players unnecessarily.
Miracles, in what way does letting someone roll perception or roll stealth for initiative after triggering combat not do the exact same things your talking about?
If your sneaking around and someone spots you, you know somethings up. The only exception might be them playing it off as not noticing to turn the tables on you, but that's a very involved non standard situation.
There's a few activities I would allow the option to keep your previous roll, they need to make sense though. Like athletics, stealth or deception. Otherwise you roll when an encounter starts.
I also feel that a low roll that triggers an encounter should often put you low on initiative, blundering into an encounter and then going first to mitigate that blunder should be a rare thing.
Can someone please walk me through an example in which two Stealth rolls are made, one for Avoid Notice and one for Initiative, and both are meaningful?
I'm coming around, but I'm still having issues wrapping my head around the idea that the first roll isn't somehow wasted.
How can you benefit from cover bonuses to Initiative if you roll before you know where on the map you're miniature is going to be placed?
Before I address the rest of this, I think I should lay some groundwork real quick.
===
First, I want to be extra clear about what Initiative with Hidden Enemies says. It basically gives says there are four cases and explicitly gives results for two of them:
Case 1
Check results: PC Stealth roll≥Enemy Perception DC and PC Initiative>Enemy Initiative
Gameplay Outcome: PC is Unnoticed and Undetected
Case 2
Check results: PC Stealth roll≥Enemy Perception DC and Enemy Initiative>PC Initiative
Gameplay Outcome: PC is Noticed and Undetected
The cases it doesn't explicitly give results for are thus, and I'll just guess at their outcomes:
Case 3
Check results: Enemy Perception DC>PC Stealth roll and PC Initiative>Enemy Initiative
Gameplay Outcome: You're noticed. You're either hidden or observed, depending on if you failed or critically failed stealth.
Case 4
Check results: Enemy Perception DC>PC Stealth roll and Enemy Initiative>PC Initiative
Gameplay Outcome: You're noticed. You're either hidden or observed, depending on if you failed or critically failed stealth.
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Second, there are two ways I see to interpret how Avoid Notice interacts with rolling initiative.
(1) As long as you're avoiding notice, you can roll Stealth for initiative, regardless of the outcome of your Avoid Notice check. Avoid Notice determines whether or not you trigger the encounter; your initiative check determines whether you're noticed or unnoticed, and undetected or hidden or observed. Diegetically, failing or critically failing avoid notice means that you alert the guards but get still get a chance to hide yourself.
(2) A bad Avoid Notice roll might prevent you from using stealth for initiative at all, and partially determines whether you're noticed or unnoticed. Sneak says that you are hidden on a failure, and observed on a critical failure. A critical failure might prevent using Stealth for initiative at all, and a failure might make it impossible to start the combat unnoticed but still allow you to use Stealth for initiative. This is GM discretion, to a degree.
I think both make sense, but I prefer (1). (2) is a sensible extrapolation from most of the rules, and I have no issue with it. But (1) is more player-friendly (your ability to use Stealth for initiative isn't gated by the result of your Avoid Notice check) and requires slightly less extrapolation. (2) requires a bit of massaging the text in Initiative with Hidden Enemies.
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With that out of the way, it should be easier to respond to some of the questions.
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If I'm Avoiding Notice and roll a high Stealtch check, and the party triggers an encounter, what advantage did my roll get me before being invalidated by my new initiative roll???
Regardless of interpretation, using Avoid Notice is a prerequisite to using stealth for initiative. The game leaves open the possibility of a situation where you could use stealth for initiative without taking the action, yeah. But it does say that's not the norm. And Avoid Notice will prevent you from triggering encounters if you are scouting ahead solo.
And indeed, I feel that I should note that "my party revealed themselves while I was stealthing and triggered an encounter" is normal gameplay. As you've acknowledged elsewhere, full-party stealth (the only real way to prevent this) practically requires feat investment in the form of Quiet Allies and preferably Keen Follower. One person using Avoid Notice doesn't prevent encounters unless that person is solo scouting. (Pragmatically, that's another reason I prefer interpretation (1); it'd be unfortunate if in most play, Avoid Notice couldn't stop encounters from triggering, but sure could stop you from being unnoticed or using Stealth for initiative at all.)
Now, the rest does depend a bit on interpretation.
If your table uses interpretation (1) of Avoid Notice, then it kept you from triggering the encounter yourself. You might also be able to gain better fight positioning, at GM discretion.
If your table uses interpretation (2) of Avoid Notice, then in addition, your Avoid Notice check will determine if you can use stealth for initiative at all. It will also determine if you can be unnoticed at the start of the encounter.
So for rogues with Surprise Attack (or anyone who'd rather roll stealth than perception), it matters. Outside of that, though, it's extremely table-dependent. By RAW, whether you're noticed or unnoticed and undetected or observed is determined by your initiative roll, as per Initiative with Hidden Enemies. ("To determine whether someone is undetected by other participants in the encounter, you still compare their Stealth check for initiative to the Perception DC of their enemies. They're undetected by anyone whose DC they meet or exceed. So what do you do if someone rolls better than everyone else on initiative, but all their foes beat their Perception DC? Well, all the enemies are undetected, but not unnoticed.") So there's only so much left for the Avoid Notice check.
What exactly is preventing a player from declaring Avoid Notice, getting a bad roll, then switching exploration activities after a few minutes?
The biggest thing is that the roll should probably be secret, so you don't know if you should switch. Some GMs will also "lock in" exploration activities in 10 minute chunks, though that's not RAW and I personally dislike it.
Miracles, in what way does letting someone roll perception or roll stealth for initiative after triggering combat not do the exact same things your talking about?
If your sneaking around and someone spots you, you know somethings up. The only exception might be them playing it off as not noticing to turn the tables on you, but that's a very involved non standard situation.
You know you trigger combat regardless of the rules interpretation. But if the DM is running the game in a way where they keep your Avoid Notice roll as your initiative, then you know your initiative roll was low. And if your choices are keeping a bad roll or rerolling with perception, it's probably worth rerolling with perception.
If you always roll a fresh check for initiative, this whole bit of metagaming is null.
Without wading into the RAW, I'd definitely rule it RD's way. Rolling stealth checks when there's nothing to detect you is silly, just like rolling perception checks when there is nothing to detect. That's why exploration mode and secret checks are nice-- it lets you save rolls for when they actually matter. And by the time the stealth check to Avoid Notice matters, you've usually reached initiative. Stealth vs Perception for initiative is meant to represent how quickly one party gets spotted, so it is weird to roll again when you already determined that fact.
Most of the time, Avoid Notice coincides with hostilities because someone in your party didn't use it (or failed at it) and the fight is kicking off. If a solo scout fails to Avoid Notice, it's kicking off. A meaningful distinction only arises if the scout succeeds, observes the opponent for a time,and then decides to initiate hostilities. In that scenario, you could justify a new roll for initiative as the sneaker being spotted as they begin their first attack.
Quiet Allied changes the equation, but it's a specific feat creating an exception to the rules, not actually a rule itself.
None of this will convince your GM this is what the rules mean; it is just a best practice for running Avoid Notice. For RD, it is worth asking how much this distinction matters. Unless you're succeeding at a lot of solo scout Avoid Notice checks, you're just as likely have a second roll replace a bad result with a good result as the other way around. As long as the practice is consistent it should even out. The first roll serves no purpose and is a waste of time, but if the GM wants to waste their time making a pointless secret check on your behalf... Well, it's probably easier than wasting your own time and energy arguing about it.
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Though.. as previously mentioned this has issues.
1. Should the players know there is nothing nearby? Like with search its not really feasable to roll after they turn around the corner and then say nothing. unless you want the players to begin wasting everyone's time taking turns to search the corridor before moving trough.
2. Players can move independently and as such a character that successfully avoids notice and moves in first should have enough time to capitalize on this before initative is rolled. Same if they move behind the party they could've been heard what sounded like 4 pairs of footsteps turned out to be 3 people. So the two rolls arent for the same thing.
One is to move while unoticed, The other is to stay hidden upon either side initiating hostile actions and the enemies becoming aware of the party. The first roll absolutely changes the odds and outcomes of the second with cover bonus alone placing you earlier than you otherwise would've.
While it may work at your tables and your players, I cannot call it best practice. You may call it a waste of time to roll as soon as they announce they are avoiding notice but for tables that do not want such game information leaked to the players I cannot reccomend any other method than to roll when they begin the activity.
1. Sure, why not? D&D/Pathfinder GMs have this obsession about withholding knowledge from players the characters don't have, but what purpose does it actually serve in this case, building tension? You know what builds tension? Keeping things moving to the parts that are actually tense. Exploration tactics are initiated at the beginning of Exploration Mode, not after every door the players open. If there is something to roll against, 99% the time you'll immediately find out because you either stumble into a monster or trigger a trap. The GM doesn't give you an opportunity to halt walking down the hallway when the check to spot the trip wite is rolled. You get that opportunity if you succeed.
2. A player sneaking ahead of the party is what I was talking about solo scouting, and succeeding on a an Avoid Notice check is literally the only time initiative isn't triggered when encountering any enemy that would attack you on sight. As I mentioned, you can justify having that be a separate roll for initiative if you really want to. If a player sneaks behind the party, whether you successfully Avoided Notice won't matter. How contrived does the scenario have to be for the anything to change by the enemy thinking for part of one round that there are 3 PCs instead of 4? The enemy is going to attack the PCs they can actually see either way.
Avoiding notice follows the same rules as sneak, so you can't even do it if there isn't cover or concealment.