Quote Originally Posted by Curmudgeon View Post
Re: A 674b

I'm afraid you're not getting the point. You can't under the rules say the Rogue is "already hiding"; it doesn't work that way in D&D. The Rogue behind the tree or bush isn't hiding; they're simply out of sight, and out of combat. Hiding is only possible in the game if someone has line of sight to you. That's what a Hide check opposed by an enemy's Spot score means. (You're not "hiding" from the Sphinx if you're outside of Egypt.)
I think you're getting bogged down on largely irrelevant details. I'll simplify this further.

A rogue has succeeded in successfully hiding from an orc. The rogue wants to attack the orc with a ranged weapon for sneak attack damage.

Question 1: How do I know if the orc sees the rogue after the attack or not? You said that he essentially has to make a spot check against a DC of 0 + 1 for every 10ft. away the rogue is. What are the other factors that contribute to this (such as concealment, or creature size)?

Question 2: If the orc sees the rogue, how, exactly, do they re-hide from him? Previously I seem to recall you saying that if you break line of sight you can attempt another hide check, but now you're saying that you actually can't hide if there is no line of sight.

Which seems absurd to me since if there was, say, a search party going down the road looking for you and you ducked behind a tree it should still be hide vs spot rather than "the search party cannot possibly find you!" In your example of "you're not hidden from the Sphinx if you're outside of Egypt," if you somehow managed to make an attack on said Sphinx from outside of Egypt the game would pretty much treat it as though you were hidden from them...

Question 3: How does this sequence of events change if the rogue is using the "sniping" option? You have said that unless the rogue can hide in plain sight the enemy will still get that DC 0 + distance spot check to see him. So after that there's a hide -20 vs spot check and if that succeeds the enemy knows what square the rogue attacked from if they made the low DC spot check (which they probably did), but does not know where the rogue currently is (since he's hidden) and the rogue will be able to sneak attack next round. If he fails then the orc knows where he is.

I am primarily interested in Question 2 (how to legally hide during combat), but I'm curious about the other two as well.