Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jimlock" data-source="post: 5533667" data-attributes="member: 6674931">To be able to judge the situation correctly it would be nice to know whether the rogue was moving through an area of shadowy illumination (hence: concealment). Without concealment, or cover in respect to the enemy, or HIPS, this is impossible no matter how high his Hide is.Another issue is whether a character is allowed to open a door silently, merely by using his move silently skill. By RAW he is not allowed. Perhaps you allowed it in order to facilitate things but i would side with RAW on this one.The noise a door makes does not depend on the "move" silently of the opener, although... the openers skill in opening it silently does play a role. While it might sound easier to use the skill and be done with it, in the long term this rule turns broken for the simple reason that a rogue's move silently can get so high, that its completely unnatural that he opens cranky old doors, rusty portcullises and stone dungeon doors without making any noise. Because of that, in my games i set door DCs and roll Listen checks for anybody prone to hear them being opened. The DCs tend to be relatively low, for it is not an easy job to open such doors without others hearing it (Its the middle ages remember! Craftsmen might have been good at the time... still everything was pretty cranky back then!) A stone door for example can have a DC as low as 5... or you can even rule that its impossible, yet a low DC is better than nothing, for distance (-1 per 10 feet) can facilitate things. Example: while it is impossible to open a stone door seamlessly and a person standing behind it will certainly hear it, the same sound might fade off in the cave and people at larger distances might not hear it. What can be interesting, if you don't mind the complexity, is that you  can increase or decrease those DCs according to player actions. Do they grease it? Do they lift and turn, so as to loose the noise from the hinges etc. etc...While this might sound complicated at first. it really isn't. Its a single roll like before, only that the DC is not the Move Silently of the opener but the door's own DC. Of course in order to not penalize the rogue, for he certainly knows better, you can rule that a Rogue grants a +5 or a +10  to the Doors listen DC, or you can somehow relate the bonus to his HD (1/2 his HD) or his MS skill (1/3 of the skill). Actually its really simple, and at the same time it challenges the player's creativity, provided you have, or come up with, some description for the door at hand.While it may sound that i made a big deal out of this, remember that one of the most difficult tasks in real life trespassing and break in, is indeed passing through doors and windows.Now as far as hiding goes... RAW is not enough so as to cover the situation you described.If the area your rogue moved in (before and after the door), provided concealment (shadow illumination), by RAW, the rogue could hide, open the door, move in and remain hidden... even if the enemy witnessed the door opening in the shadows! What's crazy is that while shadow illumination is not complete darkness, and the baddies can see the door opening in the gloom, the rogue is entitled "invisibility" due to concealment!So...since we cannot follow rules to the letter in this case... i suggest two ways out of this. Either you rule that the rogue is considered "observed" due to passing through an opening that has the full attention of the enemies, thus making it impossible for him to hide once the door opens,  or you can rule the "move between cover". In this case, I would count the 5 square feet before and after the door as an area without cover, even if its an area of shadow illumination. Moreover i would impose another penalty of a -20 on the check. This i do because even though "move between cover" has a penalty of its own, in this case, the enemies have their full attention on the portal due to door movement. The rogue has to be standing diagonally to the door, on one side or the other, and you can rule that he can push open the door from this position. Then he can attempt his hide and move.Even though this might sound ridiculous, i tend to favor almost impossible tasks getting a chance of happening, no matter how small that chance, for a high level rogue with adequate ranks in Hide should have a real, if small, chance of such an impressive feat.</blockquote>

Verification