concealment

[elonin]

Some DMs that i've played with deny pc sneaky types any type of concealment at all. Does that leave low level rogues to flank or is UMD+wand viable?

Tumbling into a flank is a nominal effort in 3.5 but isn't reliable in pathfinder. Am I missing something?

Also, does natural concealment occur in the underdark when practically everything/one down there has dark vision. And how would you apply hide in plain sight (darkness) in the underdark? A literal reading would suggest that it would apply since it is dark. On the other hand that would seem broken since the condition nearly always applies (ie breaks game balance for underdark campaigns).

[Flickerdart]

Note: This is 3.5 advice, I don't know how much of it applies to PF.

Re: Low-level SA - flanking's good, catching your enemy flat-footed is fairly easy since few things have decent senses. Wands of distract assailant might work, but the DC would be very low. You could also try using wands of benign transposition combined with ranks in Handle Animal and a squirrel or something.

The darkness in the Underdark does create natural concealment, yes (glowing fungus aside), but like you say, most creatures ignore it with darkvision. The item Ring of the Darkhidden in MIC makes you invisible to darkvision for 2000gp.

Hide in Plain Sight is a funny beast - there are different kinds of it, and only some need shadow. It's not a condition, though, it just lets you roll Hide checks while being observed and (for some versions) without needing cover. Attacking while hiding is still a -20 penalty, and hiding still costs actions, so HiPS is not the uberskill you might think it is.

[elonin]

I have avoided flanking in the past since I'm squishy and don't stand well against full attacks.

The poor senses of low level things don't matter much, since if your dm rules that you can't find concealment you can't make the check.

The hide in plane sight I meant to refer to is the darkness version, since it is fairly easily gotten with a +1 template or collar of umbral metamorphosis. I can't get into the dm's head but the dm who ruled that darkness based HiPS wouldn't work in the underdark didn't want to concede hide checks "at will" for being in a dark environment.