Stealth (Apath)

Unofficial rules compendium

You are skilled at avoiding detection, allowing you to slip past foes or strike from an unseen position. This skill covers hiding and moving silently.

Check

Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Creatures whose Perception you beat with your Stealth can't sense you or say where you are. You are effectively invisible against them. When hidden this way, you gain a +2 bonus on attack rolls, and ignores opponents' Dexterity bonuses to AC (even if they lack such a bonus, which is significant for sneak attack). Attackers don't know where you are, and must guess at a square to attack in.

As long as your enemies communicate, they are able to point out your location to each other if they know where they are; you are usually either hidden against all enemies or not hidden at all.

Check Modifiers

Creatures gain a bonus or penalty on Stealth checks based on their size: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Large –4, Huge –8, Gargantuan –12, Colossal -16.

Once you are successfully hidden and can see all your opponents, you can take 10 on Stealth checks as long as nothing unexpected happens. Since unaware observers generally take 10 on their Perception checks and are often distracted as well, it is possible to remain in Stealth indefinitely unless something untoward happens, such as a patrol.

Perception distractions: As noted below, a character with an enemy closer to you than you are counts as distracted and allows you to hide, but this is not distracting enough to give a Perception penalty. An enemy in melee suffers a -5 distraction penalty to Perception. An outflanked enemy suffers a -10 distraction penalty to Perception.

Creature using Stealth is...	Stealth modifier
Size Modifier	See text
In combat or speaking	–20
Moving at half speed, or moving around vigorously, like spells with somatic components	–5
Running or charging	–20
Absolutely motionless, taking only free actions	+20
Behind an obstacle (door)	+5<ref name="Per"/>
Behind an obstacle (improved cover)	+10<ref name="Per"/>
No line of sight - invisible, total cover, or total concealment	+20<ref name="Per"/><ref name="Invisible">If senses other than sight can detect the character, such as in a quiet room, this bonus can be reduced to +10 or even less. The modifier is always +20 against pinpointing the character, .</ref>
Some distance away	+1 per 10 feet<ref name="Per">This is really a modifier to Perception.</ref>
Observer is distracted (in melee)	+5<ref name="Per"/>
Observer is seriously distracted (outflanked)	+10<ref name="Per"/>

A failed stealth check means opponents pinpoint you, but see the footnote under invisibility. <references/>

Conditions For Going Into Stealth

To hide using stealth, you need to satisfy two conditions, you need to be under cover or concealment, and all observers need to be distracted.

Distraction

An observer is distracted if one of the following applies:

• The creature has a visible enemy (likely one of your allies, but not necessarily so) closer than you are.
• The creatures is being distracted by a Bluff check, from you or another.
• You have total cover or total concealment against the creature.

Note that a distraction is only required to hide when you are currently being seen. If an opponent can't see you because you are currently hidden, you don't need a distraction.

Cover or Concealment

In order to hide, you need to have cover or concealment against all hostile observers.

Group Stealth

When a group tries to move stealthily the following procedure can be used. Do not use these rules in combat; it is intended for groups trying to avoid combat.

Each character makes a Stealth check. Use the best result. Each character beyond the character with the best roll penalizes the main character's Stealth check by -2, or -4 if that character's Stealth check was 10 or more. This is a variant of the Aid Other action.

Characters can hang back to lessen the impact they have on the main character's Stealth check. The Stealth check of a character who hangs back can never be used as the group's roll. For every 10 ft. behind the head of the group a character is, his defective Stealth check gets a +1 bonus, but his effective Perception check suffers a -1 penalty. Being behind a door or corner counts as being 100 ft. away. Common practice is to have two groups; a point group or point man moving at the head, and a secondary group moving far enough behind to gain an effective Stealth modifier of +9, sufficient to always roll 10.

Special Cases

Camouflage and Hide in Plain Sight

Rangers and some other characters gain improved stealth abilities. Camouflage means you always have concealment for the purpose of Stealth. You can use this virtual concealment with Stealth, but it confers no other advantages.

Hide in plain sight means you can always use Stealth, as if you had cover and all observers are distracted.

Senses

Most creatures rely on sight for penetrating stealth, but there are some special cases.

darkvision and low-light vision: Allow creatures to ignore concealment in conditions of poor light, but it is still possible to use sharp shadows against such vision, as contrast between light and dark still affect them. Thus, it can actually become easier to hide against creatures with darkvision by introducing light, and thus shadows.

Alternate Primary Senses: There are some senses that penetrate most cover and concealment. See blindsense, blindsight, and tremorsense. Even in this case you can still hide if you manage to somehow conceal yourself against the sense in question, such as masking your scent against scent-based blindsight or not touch the ground against tremorsense. Camouflage is a great asset here.

Secondary Senses: Even if you are invisible to a primary sense, or an observers primary sense is blinded, most creatures have a secondary sense (usually hearing, but sometimes scent) they can use that to locate you. You are considered invisible if the target can only detect you with a secondary sense. See keen scent, scent.

A character that has one or more secondary senses put out of action suffer a -4 penalty on Perception checks, cf deafened condition.

Sniping

If you've already successfully used Stealth at least 10 feet from your target, you can make one ranged attack and then immediately use Stealth again without becoming visible in between. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check to maintain your obscured location. If you pass this check, you were never visible, and targets have no idea where you are.

Note that you can take a 5 ft. step before you make an attack to hide at the beginning of the round, this avoids all circumstance penalties due to your actions in the previous round.

Action

Usually none. Normally, you make a Stealth check as part of movement, so it doesn't take a separate action. You can use stealth as part of a 5 ft. step.

External Links

• Original Stealth rules at d20PFSRD.com
• Stealth Discussion at ENworld
• Stealth development article at Paizo Blog

Discussion Sources

• http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2pt9j&page=2?Stealth-Errata
• http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2jufj&page=16?List-of-Errata-in-Pathfinder-Core-Rulebook#788
• http://paizo.com/products/btpy88yj/faq?Pathfinder-Roleplaying-Game-Core-Rulebook#tabs
• http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q8oq?6-questions-about-Stealth
• http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2q8q0?Stealth-and-Sneak-attack#41
• http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/skills/stealth.html#_stealth
• http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/perception

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