"Hide in Plain Sight" and "Camouflage" - WHO SAYS???

pemerton said:

I don't fully follow the way you've set it out, in part because the top of your list is a "cannot" clause while the rest are "can" clauses.

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My interpretation is basically that if any of the clauses bar the first applies, you can use stealth. If not, you cannot.

In addition, if you have attacked this round you suffer a -20 penalty to stealthy. If you wish to use stealth to sneak attack every round without the penalty, you have to use Stealth before the attack, not after. Which makes a big difference between your turns, as you cannot benefit form the defensive aspects of Stealth.

Also, to me it seems that if you used Bluff to create a distraction to hide, you suffer a -10 penalty to Stealth - which seems overly harsh as you already spent your action on Bluff.

Starfox said:

I must say it adds even more confusion to hos Stealth really works.

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Obviously whoever wrote the ranger has a different interpretation of Stealth than I do, but I cannot say which interpretation or it it is "right" or shared amongst all developers. This adds even further confusion to how Stealth works. Which is very bad, actually, since it is the core ability of one class and a peripheral ability of several more.

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My take, admittedly an amateur one without much play experience of 3E or 3.5, is that hiding requires not being observed, and cover or concealment to hide behind. The distraction option seems to me not to be an alternative to cover or concealment, but rather a way of escaping observation:


I take it that the hiding place that must be within 1 foot per rank is itself a place offering cover or concealment. (And the word "though" establishes a contrast with the previous paragraph of rules, which is the explanation of how observation prevents hiding.)

On my reading, Hide in Plain Sight, which allows hiding while observed for rangers, assassins and shadowdancers, makes distraction unnecessary. In combination with Camouflage, it would also make dashing for cover/concealment unnecessary; in the case of an assassin or shadowdancer you could dash for shadows instead - my take is that they would have to be within 10' + 1' per rank of Hide.

What happens if a ranger with Camouflage but not HiPS hides following a distraction? My take is that they do not need to dash to a hiding place because any natural terrain is a hiding place for them; but arguably they still have to move fast to establish their camouflage, so the -10 penalty probably should still apply.

With the difference between Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight, I am afraid that you are right, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. This makes stealth use in combat very very restrictive in combat, possibly useful for escaping but not for attacking, and basically forces rogues to rely strictly on flanking to get Sneak Attack. Now how I'd like it to be after having played with a rogue in 4E.

A rogue of level 10+ can take Hide in Plain Sight as a rogue ability. But until level 10, a sniper rogue really isn't feasible even with my "hide at the beginning of the round" workaround.

Looks like I will have to house rule Stealth.

Edit: Or probably just add some ability to the rogue.

Starfox said:

A rogue of level 10+ can take Hide in Plain Sight as a rogue ability. But until level 10, a sniper rogue really isn't feasible even with my "hide at the beginning of the round" workaround.

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Note that Stealth has a specific "Sniping" clause - if you've already used Stealth, you can make a single ranged attack and then make an immediate Stealth check (with penalty) to retain your concealed position.

Edit: of course, just how useful that is is questionable.

Starfox said:

This makes stealth use in combat very very restrictive in combat, possibly useful for escaping but not for attacking, and basically forces rogues to rely strictly on flanking to get Sneak Attack.

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Like [MENTION=22424]delericho[/MENTION] said, as long as you're shooting from behind cover or concealment can't you re-hide (with the -20 penalty) to maintain your advantage? (My view would be that if you don't rehide then you will come under observation from your target, and hence would need a distraction to enable you to hide again.)

Starfox said:

A rogue of level 10+ can take Hide in Plain Sight as a rogue ability.

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Is this PF? It's not in the 3.5 SRD.

Rogue Talents (as their proper name is) are heavily revised in Pathfinder.

Edit: See http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/rogue#TOC-Rogue-Talents

Starfox said:

Rogue Talents (as their proper name is) are heavily revised in Pathfinder.

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How does a rogue get favoured terrain, which seems to be part of the HiPS talent?

pemerton said:

How does a rogue get favoured terrain, which seems to be part of the HiPS talent?

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When a rogue picks HIPS, he also gets a terrain he can use it in. Picking it several times gives more terrains. But there are no other bonuses from this mini-favored terrain.

I'm only familiar with 3.5, not Pathfinder, so my comments will be coming from that point of view. They will also be coming from the point of view that the ability is actually meant to be functional and such, so any odd interpretations that mean the ability doesn't actually function or change the gameplay are discarded.

Hide shows that in order to normally hide from something:

You need cover or concealment in order to attempt a Hide check. Total cover or total concealment usually (but not always; see Special, below) obviates the need for a Hide check, since nothing can see you anyway.
If people are observing you, even casually, you can’t hide.

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Those are the two big things, but the link does have the rules for sniping and such. The sniping rules follow the -20 to hide for attacking just like it is in the first line of:

Your Hide check is opposed by the Spot check of anyone who might see you. You can move up to one-half your normal speed and hide at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than one-half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty. It’s practically impossible (-20 penalty) to hide while attacking, running or charging.

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With regards to the Ranger, the Hide skill does specifically call it out under Special:

A 13th-level ranger can attempt a Hide check in any sort of natural terrain, even if it doesn’t grant cover or concealment. A 17th-level ranger can do this even while being observed.

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So it explicitly says that a 13th level ranger can hide in any sort of natural terrain and does not need the usual cover or concealment. That does not obviate the need to not be directly observed because everything else about the Hide skill is still in effect. Cover is noted as being "Any barrier between an attacker and defender" according to the glossary. Concealment is not so well defined since it's self-referential. Looking at the glossary shows that concealment is "Something that prevents an attacker from clearly seeing his or her target." Blur is one of those "somethings" but it can also be something like shadowy illumination. Note that in that link it specifically says it's not possible to hide in the shadows in the range a creature with darkvision.

At 17th level, the ranger can then hide even while being observed. If we look at the ranger's abilities, we see that this only applies in natural terrain, but it still means several things such as the character no longer needs to provide a distraction to hide because it can hide even while being looked at.

By the way, I don't recommend trying to relate this into something realistic. WotC itself has noted that Olympic athletes are at most about 6th level, so things like Camouflage and HiPS are superhuman abilities.