Awareness of location of NPC miniatures?

[Saruman]

Hi, suppose a party engages a combat with some goblins (no surprise rounds as both parties become aware at the same time), but at some point the PCs (all of them) lose the line of sight to one of the goblins...
In that case, is the DM supposed to remove the Goblin miniature from the board until any PC gets line of sight to it? For example, while the miniature of that Goblin is removed, the DM could mentally determine to himself its exact location while the PCs can't see it.
Although, to determine the location of their enemies, the PCs could call for Listen checks, but I suppose that does not tell them precisely where are them (in a succesful Listen check, depending on the result, the DM could tell them something like "You hear the enemy someone over here (points to some area in the board").
Is this specified in the corebooks?



[3.5]

[Crake]

Hi, suppose a party engages a combat with some goblins (no surprise rounds as both parties become aware at the same time), but at some point the PCs (all of them) lose the line of sight to one of the goblins...
In that case, is the DM supposed to remove the Goblin miniature from the board until any PC gets line of sight to it? For example, while the miniature of that Goblin is removed, the DM could mentally determine to himself its exact location while the PCs can't see it.
Although, to determine the location of their enemies, the PCs could call for Listen checks, but I suppose that does not tell them precisely where are them (in a succesful Listen check, depending on the result, the DM could tell them something like "You hear the enemy someone over here (points to some area in the board").
Is this specified in the corebooks?



[3.5]

This is entirely up to each individual DM, no rule exists that forces a DM to do anything, they can run it however they want.

[Jgosse]

I would have a pad of graph paper on hand and sketch out the map. when the npc is out of sight remove the mini and keep track of his location on the pad. that way you cant forget make misstep with speed or be accused of changing his location.

[Saruman]

Yes, although it might be hard to verify line of sight at every single move. Suppose a PC moves 30 feets somewhere near its hidden opponent, so everytime the PC moves to another square the Dm should determine if he has line of sight; because maybe the PC actually gets to see his target in the middle of his movement action and therefore might want to stop and attack; or stop and do something else.

Or maybe the Dm would check for line of sight at the end of the PC's turn (where the PC finally lands) although that might seem unrealistic; but it would be simplier than checking line of sight at every single square the character moves.

[Urpriest]

They don't have to actively check at any point. The DM uses common sense to determine whether the PCs can see the NPCs, and the players use basic honesty to not take advantage of knowledge their characters don't have.