Thieves

[mburr0003]

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

If two groups meet in a field, empty room, or other area with clear sightlines and no hiding spots, and neither enjoys supernatural concealment (e.g., invisibility), nobody has surprise!

Implication: sneaking is impossible and Stealth is irrelevant if there are no hiding spots.

You don't need surprise to perform a Backstab roll.

Another interpretation is that the Thief was sneaking ahead of the group all along and is simply closer to the enemy when the ambush triggers, no "disappearing from view" necessary.

Oh sure. I'm more than flexible enough for that, as long as the Stealthy PC's Player isn't the type to start "But if I saw them I would have done X, Y, Z..." nonsense and excepts the fiction.

I interpret that as commentary and tactical advice. This isn't D&D 5E with its unclear writing and poor editing; SJG is usually pretty good at writing clear rules. I presume that if you were intended to assume that the backstabber can cast spells like Haste and Major Healing, move around in the open, and anything else that isn't attacking while the enemy remains ignorant to his presence, the rules would say so plainly. (And then I would ignore those rules if you had no hiding place, because they'd be unrealistic.)

While I wouldn't allow all that extra nonsense. A Backstab roll sets the PC up for a Backstab, if they abandon that, they also abandon their hidden status. Or at least the enemy gets a Perception/Observation roll against their MoS.

In other words, I interpret that as a friendly reminder that All-Out Attack is risky.

It definitely is, especially for the "Clothe Armor" types.

Originally Posted by Anthony

You're ignoring the first sentence of section on backstabbing: "When the GM starts combat time, anyone may try a Stealth roll to hide in shadows, duck into the bushes, etc".

I interpret "etc" liberally. Otherwise it's really doing a diservice tot he skill in a dungeon delve situation.

Originally Posted by sjmdw45

Not so much. In the doomchild case it's because there is a preestablished fictional context: the dungeon keeper has access to 24 doomchildren and some tunnels and doors, and the doomchildren have been ordered to hide behind doors to protect them from missile fire, so "behind the nearest doomchild" is always empty tunnel.

Which is why I'm fine with a Backstab to the front. Sometimes the rules aren't written to cover every situation and require a GM's touch.

But this isn't a unique case. If you try to Backstab in I Smell a Rat's cellar, you're going to wind up in spider webs getting stabbed by spiders with speed 6.50, faster than you.

And I'd let the Backstabber wait a turn or two for the enemy to be in a good "Backstab position". I don't interpret all these rules literally.

This works fine if and only if there is no preestablished fictional context. Schrodinger's convenient cover waveform collapses early if someone does recon with Wizard Eye/Rider Within, or if the GM is running a classic dungeon crawl

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I find that it mostly crumbles in the face of "GM vs the PCs" scenarios when the GM doesn't want to allow the "rule of cool" to ruin their carefully planned encounter where Stealth isn't allowed.