Please help walk me through it, as these two abilities seem incredibly redundant to me, but one requires a feat and makes sneaking HARDER due to limited condition requirements.
If I make a successful Stealth check when using Avoid Notice, I can basically place myself wherever there is reasonable cover or concealment on the encounter map when combat starts, since the enemy is unaware of my presence. If that's right next to the enemy, then that sucks for them.
If I have Terrain Stalker and am in the appropriate terrain, I can start the encounter within fifteen feet of an enemy, provided there is appropriate cover or concealment for me to hide behind.
How exactly is that better? Why did I waste a feat for something that is more limited, but allows me to do what I already could do?
The only benefit I see is that I no longer need to roll the check. Is there anything else that I am overlooking?
A GM can demand more checks or harder checks depending on how close you are trying to get to opponents. Same as with any other 'traveling' exploration activity which repeats.
If the travel requires a skill check to accomplish, such as mountain climbing or swimming, the GM might call for a check once per hour using the result and the table above to determine your progress.The amount of checks or adjustment of checks is entirely up to GM to decide so you might be needing a check for every 30ft of movement at increasingly difficult DCs. Thats not the case with Terrain Stalker, It simply says "you succeed unless they are seeking"
A GM who demands more checks or harder checks without good reason is probably not playing the game as intended.
Stealth is rolled against the enemies' Perception DC when the one sneaking decides to use Avoid Notice, Hide, Sneak, or a similar ability. If the GM makes up some arbitrary modifiers* or asks for multiple rolls, then they're being unfair.
Terrain Stalker is an upgrade to the general exploration activity Avoid Notice. So I am not sure how they are redundant. That is like saying that Assurance(Medicine) is redundant with Treat Wounds because anyone trained in Medicine can already use Treat Wounds.
If you have Terrain Stalker and want to get right up close to the enemy, go ahead and roll stealth for it.
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If I make a successful Stealth check when using Avoid Notice, I can basically place myself wherever there is reasonable cover or concealment on the encounter map when combat starts, since the enemy is unaware of my presence. If that's right next to the enemy, then that sucks for them.
Not really. For one, initiative isn't triggered when you attack, it is triggered when you intend to attack:
When do you ask players to roll initiative? In most cases, it's pretty simple: you call for the roll as soon as one participant intends to attack
If you are maneuvering yourself into the perfect position to attack, the GM can absolutely put you in imitative and make you roll individual sneak checks.
It is pretty reasonable to say the enemy doesn't see you, so you can observe it from the tree line of the clearing and go back to report to your party without another check. It is another thing to say you can get into stabbing range without the need for any other checks.
Terrain Stalker is really meant to be a scouting tool, IMO. You can go creep around the edges of the bandit camp with no rolls and really map the place out.
Yep, as a GM as soon as players tell me they intend to attack we're going to start transitioning from exploration mode to encounter mode.
I've never let a player using avoid notice get right up on an enemy, it's not reasonable to do so IMO.
I've generally used Terrain Stalker to help guide me for how close you can get while still using Avoid Notice, cause Avoid Notice is vague. Because with Terrain Stalker you can approach within 15ft of an enemy as long as they aren't on guard or searching.
Personally I would use about 30ft of distance to be as close as I let someone using avoid notice get, before we're definitely in initiative order and not using exploration rules any more. But it's also going to vary a lot depending on terrain and conditions. I'm never going to let someone get closer than 30ft, but it might get much further depending on conditions.
I personally think RD that you/your group is interpreting Avoid Notice too liberally.