Improved Diversion: How Improved Is It?

[Duke of Urrel]

The SRD's description of Hide (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/hide.htm) skill is pretty clear about the difficulty involved in creating a diversion to hide … or so I thought.


"If your observers are momentarily distracted (such as by a Bluff check; see below), though, you can attempt to hide. While the others turn their attention from you, you can attempt a Hide check if you can get to a hiding place of some kind. (As a general guideline, the hiding place has to be within 1 foot per rank you have in Hide.) This check, however, is made at a -10 penalty because you have to move fast.

Creating a Diversion to Hide
You can use Bluff to help you hide. A successful Bluff check can give you the momentary diversion you need to attempt a Hide check while people are aware of you."

The SRD's description of Bluff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/bluff.htm) skill provides the following details.


"Creating a Diversion to Hide
You can use the Bluff skill to help you hide. A successful Bluff check gives you the momentary diversion you need to attempt a Hide check while people are aware of you. This usage does not provoke an attack of opportunity.

A Bluff check made to feint in combat or to create a diversion to hide is a standard action."

I always assumed that creating a diversion to hide and then moving to hide represented a standard action followed by a move action, respectively.

Then I read about the Improved Diversion feat on page 110 of the Complete Adventurer, and I began to doubt my assumption.


"Benefit: You can use Bluff to create a diversion to hide […] as a move action. You gain a +4 bonus on Bluff checks made for this purpose.

I can understand the benefit of a +4 bonus to Bluff checks, but I don't understand the benefit of using Bluff skill to create a diversion to hide as a move action. If you must use a move action to hide after you make your Bluff check (and I believe you must, because standing in place and trying to hide right where you are is not an option when one or more enemies have already spotted you there, and because hiding while moving any distance at all is too tricky to count as a five-foot step), it makes no difference (given the normal budget of a normal turn during a full combat round) that your Bluff check requires only a move action rather than a standard action.

Am I right about this, or am I missing something really obvious here?

Maybe creating a diversion to hide and hiding are supposed to count as one and the same standard action. Does anybody interpret the rules in this way?

[Anxe]

That's the only way it makes sense to me. It must be one standard action to create the diversion and then move up to your ranks in Hide away. You could use your move action for something else before or after that.

[TuggyNE]

Action
Usually none.

And we're done.

No, seriously, that's what it is. Hiding after a distraction takes no action.

[Duke of Urrel]

Thank you for your prompt response, Anxe!

Does everybody else out there share Anxe's view, or are there dissenting views?

My original assumption was founded on the distinction between actions and moves. Generally, you either move or you act, and you don't act while moving, and you don't move while acting. So I assumed that when you create a diversion to hide, you can't move, and that when you hide, you must move, but that your Hide check merely modifies how you move.

Of course, there are and have always been some actions that combine action with movement. The charge action is the most well-known of these. I suppose I can re-imagine creating a diversion to hide and then hiding as part of the same standard action, one that requires two skill checks to pull off successfully.

When I re-imagine both creating a diversion to hide and hiding as a single move action, the advantages of the Improved Diversion feat seem to be as follows.


You may first attack or cast a spell and then both create a diversion to hide and hide.


Alternatively, you may first create a diversion to hide and hide, then attack a newly flat-footed opponent before your turn ends (presumably from an unexpected direction). This would be similar to the effect of the Improved Feint (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#improvedFeint) feat, except:



you need a place of concealment close at hand to make it work, and


if you succeed, you make your opponent truly flat-footed (that is, unable to make an attack of opportunity against you if your attack provokes one) rather than merely deprive him or her of a Dexterity bonus.


Is this how everybody else understands the Improved Diversion feat?

Postscript: Ah, I see and recognize a clear and rule-based vote of confidence from TuggyNE. Thank you. Anybody else?

[Darrin]

TuggyNE nailed the important part. So long as you can 1) not be observed and 2) get into cover/concealment, you can hide, even with only a 5' step.

All I can add is that there's a -20 penalty if you hide on the same turn that you attack, charge, or run.

[Duke of Urrel]

TuggyNE nailed the important part. So long as you can 1) not be observed and 2) get into cover/concealment, you can hide, even with only a 5' step.

All I can add is that there's a -20 penalty if you hide on the same turn that you attack, charge, or run.

I don't agree that you can make a Hide check while taking a move that counts as a five-foot step. This follows from some other considerations, according to my own interpretation of the rules.


Firstly, I interpret the Hide skill rules as generally requiring you to make a Hide check as part of some another action. You can't make a Hide check that represents its own action except when you snipe (in which case you first make a ranged attack and then make a Hide check at -20 as a move action). You can make a Hide check while attacking (that is, in order to remain hidden while you attack from an area of concealment), but this imposes the -20 penalty. I even allow you to remain hidden while taking a full attack action, but in this case, I require you to make another Hide check at -20 every time you attack.


Secondly, since I allow you to try to stay hidden while taking a full-attack action, I forbid you to try to hide again at the end of this action by taking a five-foot step and making yet another Hide check that adds no penalty at all.

I think my prohibition of making a Hide check while taking a five-foot step makes sense in the context of the other rules as I interpret them. I allow you to move less than five feet when you hide, provided that concealment is close at hand. Indeed, I even allow you to make a Hide check without moving in the tactical sense at all, that is, without even moving from one game square to another, provided that you have concealment right where you are. But in every case, I require your Hide check to supplement another action, and for the sake of consistency, I require this action always to be at least a move action.

Since you impose the -20 penalty on the Hide check of a creature that merely takes an attack action on the same turn as it hides, I think the consequences of your interpretation and mine work out to be pretty much the same. So I'm not itching for a quarrel with you; I just want you to know where I'm coming from.