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<blockquote data-quote="Ziana" data-source="post: 4325480" data-attributes="member: 69885">Yes. Cover is one of the necessary conditions to use stealth. Attacking stealthily from behind cover in order to gain combat advantage is an intended use of the feature.What confuses the issue in the PHB is that they treat out-of-combat and in-combat stealth&nbsp; very fluidly; but the question of &quot;avoiding notice&quot; is only relevant to not alerting PCs to your presence or position. If you're trying to sneak past the guards and you fail a stealth check, they now know you're there and combat can begin. Alternately, you might be trying to sneak around to the back of a group in combat, using cover to do so; but if you fail one of your checks the opponents can now begin attacking your rogue's position.Enemies might be aware a rogue or ranger is hiding behind a rock/pillar/corner, but they can't adequately defend against her attacks and so grant combat advantage.As the DM it's up to you; normally it's a passive check. If the kobolds spent part of their turn (minor action I believe, see p281) warily watching for the thief, it would be an active check.It doesn't matter if the 2nd kobold sees him (but of course that kobold can see where he is, and come attack him on his turn), he only needs to get advantage over his target.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ziana, post: 4325480, member: 69885"] Yes. Cover is one of the necessary conditions to use stealth. Attacking stealthily from behind cover in order to gain combat advantage is an intended use of the feature. What confuses the issue in the PHB is that they treat out-of-combat and in-combat stealth very fluidly; but the question of "avoiding notice" is only relevant to not alerting PCs to your presence or position. If you're trying to sneak past the guards and you fail a stealth check, they now know you're there and combat can begin. Alternately, you might be trying to sneak around to the back of a group in combat, using cover to do so; but if you fail one of your checks the opponents can now begin attacking your rogue's position. Enemies might be aware a rogue or ranger is hiding behind a rock/pillar/corner, but they can't adequately defend against her attacks and so grant combat advantage. As the DM it's up to you; normally it's a passive check. If the kobolds spent part of their turn (minor action I believe, see p281) warily watching for the thief, it would be an active check. It doesn't matter if the 2nd kobold sees him (but of course that kobold can see where he is, and come attack him on his turn), he only needs to get advantage over his target. [/QUOTE]

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