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Compendium]Fleeting Ghost Rogue Utility 2

You are stealthy and fleet of foot at the same time.
At-Will Martial
Move Action Personal
Prerequisite: You must be trained in Stealth.
Effect: You can move your speed and make a Stealth check. You do not take the normal penalty from movement on this check.

I would like to emphasize that making a stealth check is part of the power. Also note the following from the new stealth description.

Fleeting Ghost Rogue Utility 2

You are stealthy and fleet of foot at the same time.
At-Will Martial
Move Action Personal
Prerequisite: You must be trained in Stealth.
Effect: You can move your speed and make a Stealth check. You do not take the normal penalty from movement on this check.[/quote]
I would like to emphasize that making a stealth check is part of the power. Also note the following from the new stealth description.

Compendium]Becoming Hidden: You can make a Stealth check against an enemy only if you have superior cover or total concealment against the enemy or if you’ wrote:

Becoming Hidden: You can make a Stealth check against an enemy only if you have superior cover or total concealment against the enemy or if you’re outside the enemy’s line of sight. Outside combat, the DM can allow you to make a Stealth check against a distracted enemy, even if you don’t have superior cover or total concealment and aren’t outside the enemy’s line of sight. The distracted enemy might be focused on something in a different direction, allowing you to sneak up.

Now the nerf was that characters can only hide if they have total concealment/cover. That is expressed in the first sentence where it states that you can only make a stealth check with total conceament/cover.

Point of emphasis: The rules prevent you from hiding by preventing you from rolling the stealth check!

My question is this: is the following interpretation reasonable?

Fleeting Ghost allows a stealth check whenever it is used; “Move your speed and make a stealth check.” This is a case of a specfic power overriding the general rule that you need total concealment and allows a rogue using the power to make a stealth check with any normal move.

Assuming the stealth check is successful the rogue would then be hidden and thus subject to the following portion of the stealth rules.

Compendium]Keep Out of Sight: If you no longer have any cover or concealment against an enemy, you don’ wrote:

Keep Out of Sight: If you no longer have any cover or concealment against an enemy, you don’t remain hidden from that enemy. You don’t need superior cover, total concealment, or to stay outside line of sight, but you do need some degree of cover or concealment to remain hidden. You can’t use another creature as cover to remain hidden.

So, if the rogue uses fleeting ghost and makes his stealth check without normal cover/concealment he would be immediately revealed. (Of course, the other conditions like attacking/talking would also break his stealth.)

Thus, a rogue can make a move action to activate fleeting ghost, end his move in a square with normal cover/concealment, make a stealth check (via the FG rules) and remain hidden (via the stealth rules.) If this works then rogues with FG don't need superior cover/concealment to hide.

What do y'all think?

PS. When coupled with the stealth nerf, this interpretation has the (positive IMHO) benefit of allowing rogues to be good stealthers while disallowing warlocks the ability to be constantly hidden.

ozziewolf wrote:

The ability does not grant a stealth check it grants the ability not to take a penalty to a stealth check. Trying to read it any other way is rules lawyering.

You see, here's where I think you might be wrong. The power explicitly grants a stealth check. I mean, look at it.

"You can move your speed and make a Stealth check."

That's just about as clear as it can be... Although I will grant that this was written before the stealth nerf and thus might be an unintended consequence of the wording.

I'll ignore the ad hominem.

HiFructose wrote:

Thus, a rogue can make a move action to activate fleeting ghost, end his move in a square with normal cover/concealment, make a stealth check (via the FG rules) and remain hidden (via the stealth rules.) If this works then rogues with FG don't need superior cover/concealment to hide.

I can see this being a reasonable interpretation. Allowing rogues to stealth behind normal cover/concealment isn't anything rogues haven't been doing since 4.0 was released up until the stealth revamp. If nothing else, this underlines what I've been saying about the need to update a lot more than the basic stealth rules.

I think the intention was just to avoid the -5 penalty for moving. In that regard it is like a more specificly potent Skill Focus: Stealth. Hopefully we will get a LOT of clarification from WotC when the instill the new stealth update, rather than just the presented changes to the basic skill.