tarkisflux
2014-11-23, 04:05 PM
I don't think any of the groups I've ever played in have used stealth as written. They either don't make checks every round, or they don't make checks for all of the opposition, or some other handwaving happens.
And I think there are good mechanics reasons not to use it as written. The opposed roll setup makes the odds of success complicated in ways that aren't helpful. The one opposed roll per guard makes the odds of someone spotting you very high in groups of more than 4, so long as they're capable of spotting you at all. And when you have to make multiple rolls to set a variable DC against multiple people over multiple rounds... it's really quite hard to be stealthy at all. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of people simply default to invis. I don't like it any better on the perception side of things. It's a skill that guards need, despite rarely getting it as a class skill or having a lot of points to spend on it. There are ways this can be mitigated, but it's still a skill tax on all guards forever.
Note: There's also weirdness with multiple party members trying to stealth as well, since that often turns the setup into worst stealth roll vs. best perception roll. I don't have any ideas to resolve that in a satisfactory way though (I don't generally consider group stealth checks satisfactory), and am just going to ignore it for the moment. It will still be a problem after this, but less of one I hope. Still, if something comes to mind, feel free to add it in :smallsmile:
Anyway, those are what I consider pitfalls of the official stealth writeup, so you can see where I'm coming from and what I want to address with this. What I'm considering doing is removing the perception side of the checks, so that you make at most one check a round or even per minute out of combat, and that it's not opposed by a potentially high number of other checks. And then giving a minimum DC based on CR or character level so that even creatures who don't invest in perception can defeat your stealth. Here, have a rough draft rules proposal:
You may make a stealth check to prevent creatures who are unaware of your position from becoming aware of you. The DC for this check is 10 + half the creature's level or CR or 10 + the creature's perception modifier, whichever is higher. Creatures who are already aware of you or who have been alerted to your presence but can not see your current position add +5 to their DCs. You may not take 10 on this check, nor may you retry it. If multiple creatures could notice you, you make one check and compare it to the DC of each individual creature to see which ones notice you. You do not need cover or concealment to make these checks.
Success on this check means that the creatures do not notice you and remain unaware of your location. Failure on this check means that the creature notices you and is alerted to your position. If there is nothing blocking line of sight, they see you. If there is nothing blocking sound, they hear you. Once you have been noticed, you may not hide from a creature again until you have broken line of sight with them.
You suffer a -5 penalty to this check if you are moving faster than half your speed, and a -20 penalty to this check while you are running, charging, or attacking (including sniping). You gain bonuses or penalties to this check based on size as normal.
While this is tagged for Pathfinder, it's pretty straightforwardly transferable to DnD 3.x, 4e, and 5e as well. So here's the minor adjustments needed for those.
The changes for 3.x are extremely minor (unless I forgot something), as it's basically two skills instead of one. This makes the odds of successful stealth worse, but there are things you can do to eliminate one of the rolls like being far enough away for movement noise to be irrelevant or walking over noisy surfaces behind cover. It's still a vast improvement over the original IMO.
Since 4e and 5e have passive perception values, we can just make those the check DCs. They have different scaling added to that value, but since the same scaling is added to the stealth numbers it works out ok.
If you'd prefer to comment about this in one of those contexts instead, feel free. I'm quite interested in comments about how well or poorly it works in those systems as well. Please label them clearly though, so that it's not confusing what you're referring to. Thanks!
And I think there are good mechanics reasons not to use it as written. The opposed roll setup makes the odds of success complicated in ways that aren't helpful. The one opposed roll per guard makes the odds of someone spotting you very high in groups of more than 4, so long as they're capable of spotting you at all. And when you have to make multiple rolls to set a variable DC against multiple people over multiple rounds... it's really quite hard to be stealthy at all. It doesn't surprise me that a lot of people simply default to invis. I don't like it any better on the perception side of things. It's a skill that guards need, despite rarely getting it as a class skill or having a lot of points to spend on it. There are ways this can be mitigated, but it's still a skill tax on all guards forever.
Note: There's also weirdness with multiple party members trying to stealth as well, since that often turns the setup into worst stealth roll vs. best perception roll. I don't have any ideas to resolve that in a satisfactory way though (I don't generally consider group stealth checks satisfactory), and am just going to ignore it for the moment. It will still be a problem after this, but less of one I hope. Still, if something comes to mind, feel free to add it in :smallsmile:
Anyway, those are what I consider pitfalls of the official stealth writeup, so you can see where I'm coming from and what I want to address with this. What I'm considering doing is removing the perception side of the checks, so that you make at most one check a round or even per minute out of combat, and that it's not opposed by a potentially high number of other checks. And then giving a minimum DC based on CR or character level so that even creatures who don't invest in perception can defeat your stealth. Here, have a rough draft rules proposal:
You may make a stealth check to prevent creatures who are unaware of your position from becoming aware of you. The DC for this check is 10 + half the creature's level or CR or 10 + the creature's perception modifier, whichever is higher. Creatures who are already aware of you or who have been alerted to your presence but can not see your current position add +5 to their DCs. You may not take 10 on this check, nor may you retry it. If multiple creatures could notice you, you make one check and compare it to the DC of each individual creature to see which ones notice you. You do not need cover or concealment to make these checks.
Success on this check means that the creatures do not notice you and remain unaware of your location. Failure on this check means that the creature notices you and is alerted to your position. If there is nothing blocking line of sight, they see you. If there is nothing blocking sound, they hear you. Once you have been noticed, you may not hide from a creature again until you have broken line of sight with them.
You suffer a -5 penalty to this check if you are moving faster than half your speed, and a -20 penalty to this check while you are running, charging, or attacking (including sniping). You gain bonuses or penalties to this check based on size as normal.
While this is tagged for Pathfinder, it's pretty straightforwardly transferable to DnD 3.x, 4e, and 5e as well. So here's the minor adjustments needed for those.
The changes for 3.x are extremely minor (unless I forgot something), as it's basically two skills instead of one. This makes the odds of successful stealth worse, but there are things you can do to eliminate one of the rolls like being far enough away for movement noise to be irrelevant or walking over noisy surfaces behind cover. It's still a vast improvement over the original IMO.
Since 4e and 5e have passive perception values, we can just make those the check DCs. They have different scaling added to that value, but since the same scaling is added to the stealth numbers it works out ok.
If you'd prefer to comment about this in one of those contexts instead, feel free. I'm quite interested in comments about how well or poorly it works in those systems as well. Please label them clearly though, so that it's not confusing what you're referring to. Thanks!