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<blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8201276" data-attributes="member: 7006">For me its either #1 or #2 depending entirely on the story of the scene.If there is a guard on duty at night in the radius of a lantern... whether or not they notice the rogue sneaking up from behind him will be dependent on the guard's Passive Perception versus the rogue's Stealth check first (to make sure the rogue actually is &quot;hidden&quot; IE &quot;silent&quot; as he approaches)... and then I make a snap second call on the personality of who this guard is.&nbsp; Is he an always-attentive super-guard?&nbsp; Is he a layabout?&nbsp; Is he skittish and always looking in every direction out of fear?&nbsp; Is he focused just on the woods ahead of him and not someone coming up from behind?Any of these questions will impact my call on whether the rogue's last bit of movement out of the darkness and into the radius of the lantern's light will make him be &quot;seen&quot;.&nbsp; Or if I decide not to make up a personality for the guard on the spot... I might decide to roll a Perception check for the guard and the results of that roll tell me whether or not they notice the rogue (if their &quot;active&quot; Perception check is higher than the rogue's Stealth check.)Or even I might just say to myself &quot;You know, it'd be cool for the rogue and the party to take this guard out silently.&nbsp; So I'm going to just say the rogue does it.&quot;&nbsp; And I know this will probably irritate some of the people here... but that guard might very well turn into a Minion at that very moment and the rogue takes him out of commission with a single attack-- his original count of hit points suddenly becoming a mere 1 HP.&nbsp; Because why not?&nbsp; Depending on the story of the group's infiltration up to that point, it might not matter if the guard is taken out or not, so at that point for me the Rule of Cool comes into play.&nbsp; And the rogue taking out the guard silently to let the others advance is cool.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DEFCON 1, post: 8201276, member: 7006"] For me its either #1 or #2 depending entirely on the story of the scene. If there is a guard on duty at night in the radius of a lantern... whether or not they notice the rogue sneaking up from behind him will be dependent on the guard's Passive Perception versus the rogue's Stealth check first (to make sure the rogue actually is "hidden" IE "silent" as he approaches)... and then I make a snap second call on the personality of who this guard is. Is he an always-attentive super-guard? Is he a layabout? Is he skittish and always looking in every direction out of fear? Is he focused just on the woods ahead of him and not someone coming up from behind? Any of these questions will impact my call on whether the rogue's last bit of movement out of the darkness and into the radius of the lantern's light will make him be "seen". Or if I decide not to make up a personality for the guard on the spot... I might decide to roll a Perception check for the guard and the results of that roll tell me whether or not they notice the rogue (if their "active" Perception check is higher than the rogue's Stealth check.) Or even I might just say to myself "You know, it'd be cool for the rogue and the party to take this guard out silently. So I'm going to just say the rogue does it." And I know this will probably irritate some of the people here... but that guard might very well turn into a Minion at that very moment and the rogue takes him out of commission with a single attack-- his original count of hit points suddenly becoming a mere 1 HP. Because why not? Depending on the story of the group's infiltration up to that point, it might not matter if the guard is taken out or not, so at that point for me the Rule of Cool comes into play. And the rogue taking out the guard silently to let the others advance is cool. [/QUOTE]

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