Stealth (DEX)

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.

Your Stealth check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone who might notice you. Creatures that fail to beat your Stealth check are not aware of you and treat you as if you had total concealment. You can move up to half your normal speed and use Stealth at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than half but less than your normal speed, you take a –5 penalty. It’s impossible to use Stealth while attacking, running, or charging.

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. You take a –20 penalty on your Stealth check to maintain your obscured location.

• Size - Creatures gain a bonus or penalty on Stealth checks based on their size: Fine +16, Diminutive +12, Tiny +8, Small +4, Medium +0, Large –4, Huge –8, Gargantuan –12, Colossal –16.
• Being Observed - If people are observing you using any of their senses (but typically sight), you can’t use Stealth. Against most creatures, finding cover or concealment allows you to use Stealth. If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check), you can attempt to use Stealth. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Stealth check if you can get to an unobserved place of some kind. This check, however, is made at a –10 penalty because you have to move fast.
• Magic - If you are invisible, you gain a +40 bonus on Stealth checks if you are immobile, or a +20 bonus on Stealth checks if you’re moving.

This skill allows you to pick pockets, hide weapons on your person, and otherwise take a variety of actions without drawing the attention of others.

You can use Sleight of Hand to entertain an audience (or more likely a small child or distractable guard) similar to using the Perform (CHA) skill. In such a case, your “act” encompasses elements of legerdemain, juggling, and the like. (For the purpose of spending time making a profit the effect are reduced. Might I suggest trying to pick pocket instead? A safer choice would be learning to perform or getting a day job!)

A Sleight of Hand check lets you palm a coin-sized, unattended object.

When you use this skill under close observation, your skill check is opposed by the observer’s Perception check. The observer’s success doesn’t prevent you from performing the action, just from doing it unnoticed.

You can hide a small object (including a light weapon or an easily concealed ranged weapon, such as a dart, sling, or hand crossbow) on your body. Your Sleight of Hand check is opposed by the Perception check of anyone observing you or of anyone frisking you. In the latter case, the searcher gains a +4 bonus on the Perception check, since it’s generally easier to find such an object than to hide it. A dagger is easier to hide than most light weapons, and grants you a +2 bonus on your Sleight of Hand check to conceal it. An extraordinarily small object, such as a coin, shuriken, or ring, grants you a +4 bonus on your Sleight of Hand check to conceal it, and heavy or baggy clothing (such as a cloak) grants you a +2 bonus on the check.

A successful DC 20 Sleight of Hand check allows you to unobtrusively draw a weapon or other object no larger or longer than a light weapon (which includes potions, but not wands or alchemist bombs). Observers can notice you drawing the item as normal with opposed Perception checks. Creatures carefully observing you gain a +4 bonus on this Perception check.

If you try to take something from a creature, you must make a Sleight of Hand check. The opponent makes a Perception check to detect the attempt, opposed by the Sleight of Hand check result you achieved when you tried to grab the item. An opponent who succeeds on this check notices the attempt, regardless of whether you got the item. You cannot use this skill to take an object from another creature during combat if the creature is aware of your presence.