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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6988500" data-attributes="member: 42582">Fair enough. I hope you're not shocked that I continue to regard it as such.I tend to only worry about action economy matters in action economy contexts (combat being the most salient, but not the sole one). In light of the fiction, when the halfling B starts being careful to stay quietly behind A would seem to be the relevant time.Depending on the actual table dynamics of some particular episode of play, we might be very precise or very relaxed about calling for a clear declaration. (Eg in a different context - Buring Wheel - there is a skill called Conspicuous. If B had both Stealth and Conspicuous, and at the table it had more-or-less been taken for granted that B was being stealthy, then a sudden declaration of Conspicuousness might raise some eyebrows. Whereas if things are just going along and then I as GM mention the observers, it would be reasonable for B's player to say "OK, but remember I was hiding behind A!")The declaration could also be divorced from the check, depending again on very local variations in what is actually happening at the table. (Again an example just to illustrate: if B's player had delcared the stealth either explicitly or implicitly, but nothing is at stake because there are no observers, then on "say 'yes' or roll the dice" principles I probably wouldn't call for a roll - but then if, for whatever reason in terms of the unfolding narration of events at the table, some observers came into the picture, it would be time to call for a roll of the dice - though no new action would be taking place - the roll would reflect a change of the dramatic situation at the table, not the infiction circumstances of B.)Agreed. They are not in full view of the observers.Assuming, though, that it is light rather than dark and that they are not behind a wall or anything similar, it would be quite reasonable to describe them as being in full view or in plain sight simpliciter. Eg "We didn't get seen, even though we were in full view! Luckily the observers had their backs to us." Spy A could even say, "We didn't get seen, even though we were in full view! - because the observers had their backs to us, we luckily weren't in full view of them!"Also: if the observers are listening, the player of the human might need to make a DEX (Stealth) check to see whether or not s/he goes unheard. Once A and B enter into the observers' field of vision (with adequate illumination, no distractions, etc) then for A the jig is up, but not necessarily for B (who is a tricksy halfling).I think you're putting a weight on "vanish" that it's idiomatic usage won't bear.Eg imagine a novelist writing a passage about a magician practising her tricks. No one else is in the room. She practises her disappearing act, and it works (eg the flash powder goes off as intended, letting her slip into her magic box or whatever). If the author wrote, "As she vanished into her magic box, she thought to herself . . . [something suitably poignant or comic or whatever is appropriate to the story]," that would not be odd at all. It's like spy A's reference to "nearby observers" - meaning people ready or hoping to observe, not necessarily actually observing. Likewise someone - like the magician in my imagined story - can vanish even if there's no on there to see them do so.The halfling in my example vanishes, in the sense of "ceases to be visible in an ordinary fashion", upon stepping behind A.Another example of that sort of usage - the sniper or bird watcher who puts on his/her camouflage suit, slips down into the grass/foliage, and vanishes! There is no implication in that description that any person or other animal was watching the event take place.There is no general requirement, for the use of "observer" or "vanish" or "in plain sight" or "in full view", that there be an actual observed thing or an actual seeing/viewing being. These terms can be, and often are, used in a context that presupposes a hypothetical/potential observer, or a "field of vision" as an abstract conception rather than something literally obtaining in relation to some concrete beings concrete sensory organs.</blockquote>

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