Perception
Pathfinder Core Rulebook (Second Edition), page 464
Your Perception measures your ability to notice things, search for what’s hidden, and tell whether something about a situation is suspicious. This statistic is frequently used for rolling initiative to determine who goes first in an encounter, and it’s also used for the Seek action.
The rules for rolling a Perception check are found on page 448. The rules below describe the effects of light and visibility on your specific senses to perceive the world, as well as the rules for sensing and locating creatures with Perception.
In this section
- Light The amount of light in an area can affect how well you see things. There are three levels of light: bright light, dim light, and darkness.
- Senses The ways a creature can use Perception depend on what senses it has.
- Special Senses While a human might have a difficult time making creatures out in dim light, an elf can see those creatures just fine.
- Detecting Creatures There are three conditions that measure the degree to which you can sense a creature: observed, hidden, and undetected.
- Concealment and Invisibility The concealed and invisible conditions reflect certain circumstances that can make a creature harder to see.