In Pathfinder, how does Stealth work with Sneak Attack?

Question

So, in Pathfinder, it seems that being able to use stealth in order to gain sneak attacks only works in the surprise round, with the rules as written.

So, imagine a scenario where we have a sniper (rogue) firing against a fighter, who has total concealment from anyone he is firing upon. Also assume that sniper beats all perception rolls to know where he is. (Even with the -20 penalty for sniping).

Surprise Round: Sniper catches the fighter unaware, and gets to use sneak attack damage against the fighter because he is flat footed.

1st Regular round: Fighter acts first, but is no longer flat footed because he has acted but has no idea where the sniper is. Sniper fires again, but can not use precision damage since the Fighter still gets a Dexterity bonus, presumably because the sniper is "somewhere" shooting at him.

This continues, sniper never gets precision damage again because he will never catch the fighter without his dex bonus.

Change the scenario just a little bit. Now the Sniper is Invisible which states the following:

Invisible

Invisible creatures are visually undetectable. An invisible creature gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls against sighted opponents, and ignores its opponents' Dexterity bonuses to AC (if any). See the invisibility special ability.

Does mean the Sniper now can do precision damage since the Fighter no longer gets to apply his dexterity bonus, or is the subtle wording difference between "ignores" and "denied" make a big deal?

If the Sniper does get his sneak attack, why would making stealth rolls be any different?

Answer 1

RAW, as you point out, the sniper isn't getting the sneak attack (you're not missing some other rule). Why? No good reason other than that "the rules say so," so I would invoke GM privilege - as in Pathfinder they say clearly "the GM is the law over and above the written rules" - and make it so they get their sneak attack. Because it makes sense from a game world logic/sim point of view and you can rule that's more important than the game rules/theoretical balance point of view.

There are no end of huge threads on paizo.com going over in tortuous detail how vision and stealth and all that work, and the summary is "slavishly following the rules means things that make no sense." Since there's no facing, there's no way to hide and move across a doorway or whatnot without everyone automatically seeing you regardless of Stealth (hide in plain sight excepted), for instance. But good GMs fix that.

In my game, I also worry about "what about rogues joining the fight late" and other such relevant bits. My answer is to give someone a sneak attack if I think it's justified. I balance this by being more of a hardass against cheese that lets people flank all the time in combat and whatnot, as IMO that's against the original "backstab" spirit that I consider to be the source of all these rules.

Answer 2

I think the reason Invisible works and Stealth doesn't is based on melee combat, not ranged combat. As you point out, with sniping you're essentially invisible if you're not spotted, but in melee combat you generally can't get close enough to strike without being spotted whereas you can walk right up to someone while invisible.

Answer 3

The author of the thread uses logic heeped upon assumptions in my opinion. For instance, he assumes that there is an unspoken "no facing rule." He then builds his reasoning to a large extent on this assumption.

I believe there is an unspoken "facing rule" in Pathfinder. This unspoken "facing rule" is what naturally leads one to get a flanking bonus, for instance. If I then extrapolate my reasoning, I could reach the conclusion that if a person has their back turned to another individual, then a person could sneak up from behind them.