Paul Strack
First Post
I am mostly adopting the new Compendium rules for Stealth, which will likely become official errata soon. If you don't know what I am talking about, look here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237486
I mostly like the new rules. To summarize, the Compendium's Stealth entry only allows Stealth to be used only at the end of a move action and only if that move that ends behind Superior Cover, Total Concealment or out of Line-of-Sight. Being hidden is functionally identical to being invisible to those you are hidden from. If you hide successfully, you can remain hidden while moving behind normal cover or concealment. You stop being hidden when you leave cover or concealment, but retain its benefits until the end of the action in which you break cover.
My interpretation of these rules is that they are not really about hiding to become unseen. The new requirements for hiding basically mean you already unseen. The Compendium Stealth rules are more about how to remain unseen when moving behind inferior cover or (briefly) when moving out into the open.
Unfortunately, the new rules make the offensive benefits of Stealth (Combat Advantage) difficult to achieve in most battlefield conditions. To use Stealth offensively, a rogue would either need to move out of and back into Line of Sight over multiple moves or to constantly argue about which terrain grants Superior Cover, both of which I think will be tedious in play. I think rogues need to get CA regularly to be balanced against the other classes, so I want to make using Stealth for CA to be simple to resolve.
Here is my house rule to address this issue. I am adding an extra use of Stealth:
Partially Hidden (Trained Only): If you make a move ending behind any cover or concealment, you can make Stealth check against your enemy's passive Perception to become partially hidden. If successful, you gain a Combat Advantage against that opponent for your next attack or until the end of your turn, whichever comes first. If you are able to target multiple opponents with a single attack, compare your Stealth check against their passive Perceptions separately to see which ones you are partially hidden from and have Combat Advantage against. You can only be partially hidden from opponents against whom you have cover or concealment. For this purpose, allies do not count as cover.
Ramifications: This house rule lets my rogue to continue darting from cover to cover, making ranged sneak attacks as she goes, which is pretty much how she is playing now. That should make playing the throwing-knife-ninja-rogue and the roving-sniper-archer-ranger simple and fun rather than tedious. The Trained Only requirement keeps this option as special sauce only for stealthy characters like rogues and rangers.
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?t=237486
I mostly like the new rules. To summarize, the Compendium's Stealth entry only allows Stealth to be used only at the end of a move action and only if that move that ends behind Superior Cover, Total Concealment or out of Line-of-Sight. Being hidden is functionally identical to being invisible to those you are hidden from. If you hide successfully, you can remain hidden while moving behind normal cover or concealment. You stop being hidden when you leave cover or concealment, but retain its benefits until the end of the action in which you break cover.
My interpretation of these rules is that they are not really about hiding to become unseen. The new requirements for hiding basically mean you already unseen. The Compendium Stealth rules are more about how to remain unseen when moving behind inferior cover or (briefly) when moving out into the open.
Unfortunately, the new rules make the offensive benefits of Stealth (Combat Advantage) difficult to achieve in most battlefield conditions. To use Stealth offensively, a rogue would either need to move out of and back into Line of Sight over multiple moves or to constantly argue about which terrain grants Superior Cover, both of which I think will be tedious in play. I think rogues need to get CA regularly to be balanced against the other classes, so I want to make using Stealth for CA to be simple to resolve.
Here is my house rule to address this issue. I am adding an extra use of Stealth:
Partially Hidden (Trained Only): If you make a move ending behind any cover or concealment, you can make Stealth check against your enemy's passive Perception to become partially hidden. If successful, you gain a Combat Advantage against that opponent for your next attack or until the end of your turn, whichever comes first. If you are able to target multiple opponents with a single attack, compare your Stealth check against their passive Perceptions separately to see which ones you are partially hidden from and have Combat Advantage against. You can only be partially hidden from opponents against whom you have cover or concealment. For this purpose, allies do not count as cover.
Ramifications: This house rule lets my rogue to continue darting from cover to cover, making ranged sneak attacks as she goes, which is pretty much how she is playing now. That should make playing the throwing-knife-ninja-rogue and the roving-sniper-archer-ranger simple and fun rather than tedious. The Trained Only requirement keeps this option as special sauce only for stealthy characters like rogues and rangers.
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