January and Beyond!

[The Little Raven]

Actually this is not correct for an out of combat situation.

It is. You are only using the distracted enemy example.

Outside combat, the DM can allow you to make a Stealth check against a distracted enemy, even if you don’t have superior cover or total concealment and aren’t outside the enemy’s line of sight. The distracted enemy might be focused on something in a different direction, allowing you to sneak up.

Let's say the enemy is not distracted (vigilant city guard).
Let's say they don't have superior cover or total concealment, but have partial concealment (twilight).
Let's say they are directly in the enemy's line of sight (walking down the road towards the gate).
Let's say the party is making no attempt to hide.

The Shade can hide from the guard in these conditions, outside of combat. The guard could be watching him walk down the road towards the gate in the dim twilight and he can just disappear and walk right past the guard, due to either the lighting or positioning his allies between himself and the guard. It isn't hard for a player to let the DM know he's going to move to keep his allies between him and the guard in an out of combat scenario (and a ready action would easily let someone do it in my game in-combat)

The non-Shade (non-Cunning Sneak) cannot hide from the guard in these conditions, without a distraction, gaining superior cover or total concealment, or going outside of the guard's line of sight. The guard would be watching him walk down the road, and he'd either need to duck off the road behind something for superior cover or have something like a cloud of darkness descend upon him for total concealment. Then he'd be able to walk past the guard, due to the lighting.

Let's say the enemy is not distracted (vigilant city guard).
Let's say that the area is a brightly lit hallway, at least 3 squares across.
Let's say the guard is positioned to 1 side of the hallway, at the middle of its length.
Let's say there is no concealment and no cover aside from an ally.
Let's say the ally is making no attempt to hide.

The Shade can hide from the guard in these conditions, outside of combat. Out of combat, it should be no problem for the Shade to be able to keep his ally between him and the guard for cover. Unless the guard has some reason to actively look for a dude hiding in the shadow of a guy walking openly down a hallway, it'll go off without a hitch.

The non-Shade (non-Cunning Sneak) cannot, since he cannot use his ally as cover and the guard is not distracted.

So this is not true and neither the shade nor the trained PC can remain in stealth without cover or concealment.

I never claimed anyone could hide without cover or concealment. I said that the trained PC cannot begin to hide without superior cover or total concealment, while the Shade can... because the Shade can begin to hide with cover or concealment (not superior or total), like dim light or a waist-high wall. So, a trained PC and a Shade both would be perfectly visible to someone without low-light vision in dim light, but the Shade can begin hiding while the trained PC cannot.

Especially because if the enemies are paying attention - where a regular stealth check wouldn't work - then it will be easy to break the cover from an ally and expose him (Which requires no passive perception or a roll - if you lack cover or concealment from an enemy, you are simply no longer hidden).

Movement ain't so easy when other characters are in play. I've had a Cunning Sneak in my group that has been able to use his group to keep himself hidden from enemies quite well, despite my efforts to break the cover granted by his allies.

It pretty clearly doesn't and thus far, nobody has successfully argued why this is better out of combat than say a cunning sneak (or just anyone regularly trained in stealth for that matter).

I never said this is better than Cunning Sneak. Let's stick with things I said, like the fact that it is better than someone simply trained in Stealth.

It's sole advantage is that you can use it to stealth while adjacent to an ally, but this then relies on the ally providing 'cover'.

...and they can use partial cover and partial concealment to begin hiding, which is a big advantage when lighting conditions are actually defined.

As cover is drawn from sight lines between an enemy and the shade, it is very hard for a medium PC to consistently provide cover to the shade.

It hasn't been hard for my group's Cunning Sneak. He has managed to enter towns with his picture posted at the gate with the group because he can hide behind any of them or has no problem walking past in dim light without distractions.

 

[Aegeri]

It is. You are only using the distracted enemy example.

Because it's by far the most reasonable assumption.

Let's say the enemy is not distracted (vigilant city guard).
Let's say they don't have superior cover or total concealment, but have partial concealment (twilight).

Then, around the corner or in a buildings doorway or similar they hide. They then move through the city with the partial concealment - even with the rest of the party. He can then walk with the party completely normally after that due to the twilight. Unless these city guard are literally omnipresent and everywhere, this is a pretty moot issue (and if they are, then you're not having an easy time sneaking in the first place).

So your example fails immediately on that point.

Let's say they are directly in the enemy's line of sight (walking down the road towards the gate).
Let's say the party is making no attempt to hide.

The Shade can hide from the guard in these conditions, outside of combat.

So can a regular rogue who is trained in other skills. Also I dispute that the shade can hide, because allies as cover is actually quite dubious. What is the parties formation and what is the line of sight of the guards? Can no guards draw a straight line through to the shade PC without touching another PC (and that's the definition of cover from a PC). Also, both the shade and cunning sneak in your scenario do not require their allies, because they can hide using the concealment alone. Other characters can use items that dim lighting, utility powers or just their regular powers to make a stealth check to become hidden.

So the shade is at no special advantage whatsoever still.

The guard could be watching him walk down the road towards the gate in the dim twilight and he can just disappear and walk right past the guard

The allies are irrelevant, because he can do so with concealment and the cunning sneak can do this as well. So can many other characters trained in stealth, such as the warlock whose shadow step will provide concealment, stacking with the current concealment to provide total concealment for him to hide.

You've manufactured in detail a scenario that the shade is no better at than the cunning sneak (and many other classes).

It isn't hard for a player to let the DM know he's going to move to keep his allies between him and the guard in an out of combat scenario

Depends on where the guards are and this isn't as easy as you think: Medium creatures don't block LoS easily and it takes one clear LoS to break hidden. That's it. In the scenario you made though it's rather irrelevant, anyone trained in stealth could (when no guards were around) hide and follow his allies. The concealment you've provided means that the town guard won't see them unless they beat his stealth check.

and a ready action would easily let someone do it in my game in-combat)

Okay, so that seems fine. Can you explain to me where the shade is getting the standard action to ready to do this from? Considering he needs a standard action to use his racial to use an ally as cover to begin with - where is the standard action coming from to ready the action? What exactly is the shade going to do all combat? Occupy a square?

The non-Shade (non-Cunning Sneak) cannot hide from the guard in these conditions, without a distraction, gaining superior cover or total concealment, or going outside of the guard's line of sight.

All of these are easy enough to actually do with roleplaying, items, feats and utility powers. That's the entire fatal flaw to this supporting argument. These are things the character would be taking anyway as well.

The guard would be watching him walk down the road, and he'd either need to duck off the road

May I ask, would there be a particular reason he couldn't have been using stealth from the moment they left their inn or similar in the first place? I'm confused as to your example, because you're trying massively hard to make something in the shades favor and yet I can't quite see how this is supposed to be something the shade can only do. If the place is in twilight (concealment everywhere outside) when they leave, if there are no guards they can hide in the first place. If the guards don't have a reason to be looking for the PCs, why is getting out of sight to stealth a problem? If the town guards are hostile for the character trying to stealth, why isn't he doing that to begin with anyway?

Let's say the enemy is not distracted (vigilant city guard).
Let's say that the area is a brightly lit hallway, at least 3 squares across.
Let's say the guard is positioned to 1 side of the hallway, at the middle of its length.
Let's say there is no concealment and no cover aside from an ally.
Let's say the ally is making no attempt to hide.

The Shade can hide from the guard in these conditions, outside of combat.

It just took an immense amount of absolutely, 100% completely specific engineering to make this. However, let me just say that if you can generate concealment this is now entirely irrelevant. For example a warlock see the guard, he stealths outside of the guards line of sight and then waltz down the hallway with concealment.

He doesn't need his allies and neither will they give him away.
He does this by a class feature he's granted for free, that costs him no action to use.
He makes his own concealment, so staying hidden is no problem.

Incidentally, I do wonder why the allies are wandering down the hallway not giving the entire game away. I mean if you're trying to be stealthy needing three allies to march down the hallway in plain sight is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of.

Unless the guard has some reason to actively look for a dude hiding in the shadow of a guy walking openly down a hallway, it'll go off without a hitch.

I can think of so many logical problems with your argument here, beginning with the fact the guard might wonder "Why are three heavily armed random individuals walking towards me?"

You are hidden, but your allies aren't and if the guard doesn't react well to that your entire strategy breaks down like a house of cards. Say you can only go halfway down before the guard tells you that if you go any further that the jig is up. Now your allies can't go anywhere and the shade is no better off.

Effectively you need to engineer such a highly specific set of circumstances for this to be useful, that you actually make my argument for me.

The non-Shade (non-Cunning Sneak) cannot, since he cannot use his ally as cover and the guard is not distracted.

Yet if he has a source of concealment he almost certainly can - this is not hard to do with items.

I said that the trained PC cannot begin to hide without superior cover or total concealment

Which are just about stepping out of line of sight, with distracted enemies they don't actually need either (if you noted). I again, would like to point you towards the out of combat stealth rules, where you require neither total concealment or total cover to begin hiding if the enemies are distracted.

I've had a Cunning Sneak in my group that has been able to use his group to keep himself hidden from enemies quite well, despite my efforts to break the cover granted by his allies.

Without another power, a cunning sneak cannot use his allies as cover to become hidden.

If you end your movement at least 3 squares away from your starting position, you can make a Stealth check to become hidden if you have any concealment or any cover, except for cover provided by intervening allies.

I do recall that a power can do this though, but you can't ordinarily use your allies as cover to remain hidden. Also allies do not provide cover to remain hidden.

If you no longer have any cover or concealment against an enemy, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy. You don’t need superior cover, total concealment, or to stay outside line of sight, but you do need some degree of cover or concealment to remain hidden. You can’t use another creature as cover to remain hidden.

Unless the cunning sneak in your party has a power or item that lets him use allies to remain hidden (and as cover for a stealth check), he's never been able to do that to begin with :O

I never said this is better than Cunning Sneak. Let's stick with things I said, like the fact that it is better than someone simply trained in Stealth.

My point there is the opportunity cost involved - especially in actions. The CS just does this. The shade pays a standard action and a -1 penalty to surges. Anyone else has a slightly, but not overall more arduous time doing it.

...and they can use partial cover and partial concealment to begin hiding, which is a big advantage when lighting conditions are actually defined.

So? What point does this have to anything I've said? The ordinary guy trained in stealth can begin hiding before combat and remain that way in the same lightning conditions. The shade can be more reactive - that's true - but a canny player can realize his disadvantages and start hiding before he's ever in trouble.

It hasn't been hard for my group's Cunning Sneak. He has managed to enter towns with his picture posted at the gate with the group because he can hide behind any of them

Unless he has a power or a feat that lets him do this, no, no he actually can't. Cunning sneak specifically rules out allies and the stealth rules specifically rule out using allies as cover to remain hidden.

 

[Dausuul]

I never claimed anyone could hide without cover or concealment. I said that the trained PC cannot begin to hide without superior cover or total concealment, while the Shade can... because the Shade can begin to hide with cover or concealment (not superior or total), like dim light or a waist-high wall. So, a trained PC and a Shade both would be perfectly visible to someone without low-light vision in dim light, but the Shade can begin hiding while the trained PC cannot.

Out of combat, this is largely irrelevant. Gate guards, however vigilant, do not have the All-Seeing Eye. It is generally trivial to find a location that the guard cannot see--around a corner, behind a tree, whatever--in which to begin hiding.

The one real advantage I can see to the shade's ability is that you can cross lighted areas in an ally's shadow. Say the guarded entrance is protected by a "moat" of illumination. All approaches are brightly lit, but the entrance itself is in shadow. In this situation, an ally could approach the gate guard while the shade trails behind, using the ally as cover to get through the lighted area. Once the ally reaches the shadows around the entrance, the shade can "detach" and glide on through, while the ally chats up the guard and then turns around and goes back.

But this is a fairly specialized case. For one thing, the number of allies required jumps to two or three as soon as you have more than one guard. For another, the shade must remain behind the ally (or allies) until they reach the shadowed area; there is no way to angle around, which means that not only must the target entrance be in shadow, but the guard must also be in shadow and so must a couple of squares in front of the guard. Finally, as Aegeri points out, this whole rigmarole becomes redundant and worthless if you have a way to generate concealment in a lighted area.

 

[Aegeri]

I can't figure out what is going wrong here

Edit: Okay, suddenly everything appeared

 

[Walking Dad]

I thought 4e is strong in team play.

In the above example by "The Little Raven" the only one able to sneak in is the shade. What do the players of the other characters do during this time? Sitting around the table, waiting?
And when the shade sneaked in, what next? He cannot get the party unseen in, so it becomes either a solo mission or the rest of the group has to deal with the guards with one less group member.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I disagree, because I think the shade will be just as poor off. For example, the rogue is useless against spiders with tremorsense. What exactly makes the shade any better at dealing with those same tremorsensing spiders?

You misunderstood me/took ths sentence out of context:

A shade that can´t use its racial does not suck as much as a rogue that can´t get CA.

I still don´t know why you believe, that the shade power has no benefits because of the way the stealth rules work.

If I don´t misread anything, I honestly believe, beeing able to vanish from sight while beeing looked at is damn powerful and nothing you can do without this racial ability.

You are on an open marketplace:
use the racial and disappear from sight, because you have partial cover provided by all those people around you. Only the persons you actually use as cover notice you.

Also you can use a standard action + moveaction to vansih. On your next turn you can charge in, while beeing invisible and use a moveaction to vanish again.

But to be honest, a little combat related compensation at level one would have been nice.

 

[Aegeri]

I possibly did misunderstand you there, but I'm still not sure exactly what advantage you think they have. The sole benefit that you can get me to kind of agree with is that the shade can use stealth from allies to hide in certain situations. The problem is that this requires a specific party formation and is very susceptible to enemies drawing LoS towards you. A medium human ally isn't quite as effective as a pillar for hiding behind - especially if enemies surround you or are at various angles. So it's actually not that easy to use allies as cover. Additionally, it's been pointed out multiple times that other characters can invest in items/feats/powers that give you concealment in some way. This is flatly superior to hiding with allies and the shade will probably want these anyway as well.

The tortured scenarios that some people have come up with to make this useful are proof enough of the validity of my argument.

Your second argument doesn't really work well either. For one, you're spending an entire turn doing nothing just to get CA on a charge the next turn. When instead you could charge the first turn and just whack the enemy to begin with. As I showed conclusively with some basic maths, using the authors own example of a slayer shade - the turn spent waffling around hiding using the standard action wastes a huge amount of overall damage. When you actually do charge, assuming you're not using the best stance for charging (which I just cannot understand why you wouldn't) you're stuck there at the end of the charge - so you cannot become hidden anyway. Remember that charging ends your turn and the attack occurs at the end of the movement (which would automatically break your hidden condition as well).

So at most you spend an entire turn doing nothing (Standard + move) to gain CA on your first attack next round. This is really all this racial comes down to: getting CA (potentially) on that attack. I mean that is really poor action economy. Of course you might have meant "Charge" in a not so literal game mechanics sense. But in this case, you need to move - maintaining cover or concealment while doing so - then attack (standard) and then get another move from somewhere (the stance Klaus suggests does work here). You then need to pray that you have concealment.

If you're hiding around an ally, most enemies movement or just whoever your ally is moving (or being pushed/pulled/slid) instantly breaks your stealth. Meaning you rarely remain hidden long enough to make it count for more than that first attack when you are trying to use allies. Additionally the enemy cannot move at all or breaks your stealth. As it is very easy for a single shift to get a clear LoS on you - breaking stealth immediately.

So from what I've tried so far in combat this is possibly the weakest racial in the game - especially because of the standard action cost. Outside of combat, it's utility is so limited your DM literally has to make an elaborate specifically metagamed scenario for it to be ever relevant. The 3x3 hallway, that is perfectly lit and has a guard 1 square inside the other end is a perfect example. Then again all anyone else does is use a power or similar that gives them concealment. They then hide from around the corner (out of LoS) and walk through wondering what all the fuss was about anyway. Plus it doesn't look as elaborately comical as the shade hiding behind another PC. Whom apparently the guard doesn't care about whatsoever marching down the hallway, making me severely question why you need stealth in the first place here.

 

[Dausuul]

You are on an open marketplace:
use the racial and disappear from sight, because you have partial cover provided by all those people around you. Only the persons you actually use as cover notice you.

Doesn't work. You can only use allies for cover. Random bystanders are not allies.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And in the marketplace you only need to have had full cover. There just needs to be one place you are completely covered from everyone you are hiding from. Then you just need concealment to approach. Not normally hard (and especially not if you have Shadow Walk...)

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Doesn't work. You can only use allies for cover. Random bystanders are not allies.

in a combat, yes... out of combat on a marketplace i would count people not actively trying to hit you as cover. Maybe make it 2 persons in the line of sight needed for partial cover.

I really don´t want to go into the who is my ally discussion again. But a lot of people around you is more a terrain feature than a situation where ally and enemy is appropriate.

But if you read carefully, bystanders could be ok per rules:

Creatures and Cover: When you make a ranged attack against an enemy and other enemies are in the way, your target has cover. Your allies never grant cover to your enemies, and neither allies nor enemies give cover against melee, close, or area attacks.

Even if they are not your allies, bystanders are also not enemy´s allies.

If those bystanders are actually allies who are willing to point at you if you try to move stealthily behind them, then of course, you can´t hide, as those allies communicate about your location.