D&D 5E Moving Stealthily While Traveling

aco175 said:

My question would be what is meant be slow movement? is it 1/2 speed or something slower like 1/4 speed? Typically I allow rogues to move at 1/2 speed and still be hidden, although I think that is a power they get at some point. I would allow other PCs to move at 1/4 unless they are trained in Stealth.

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Slow pace is 200 feet per minute, 2 miles per hour, 18 miles per day.

Saelorn said:

Traveling stealthily through plains or desert would seem to be impossible, unless the relevant creatures were all asleep or otherwise distracted, which doesn't really seem plausible over the periods of time involved with overland travel rules. The most likely scenario would be that the opposing party had set up camp somewhere, so I would determine the nearby features based on their ability to find an appropriate location to camp; if there are no features of note in this plain or desert, then the chance of the parties passing within observation distance of each other would be minimal.

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From all the Westerns I used to read, I've got the impression that plains are deceptively easy to stealth across, with river beds, tall grasses, and subtle changes in elevation that provide the terrain to do so, yet it's seeming flat openness leaves the greenhorns relaxed and unwary because they think they can see everything for miles.

Anyway, I've always sort of pictured moving stealthily through more open spaces as choosing a path where terrain features block sightlines rather than tiptoeing through the woods like soldiers in a Vietnamese jung,e.

And so in this way, a party could move stealthy even while mounted on horses and carrying on a conversation. What slows them down is taking a winding path.

So my GM asks where and how we are traveling?

If we are on the open road trail and not trying to be stealthy we are just spotted if some one is coming the other way but travel at normally speed ~20 miles a day for 8 hours of travel, anything more than that is a forced march.

If we are traveling on horse its the same but we can carry more gear and might make 25 miles instead but horse's walking carrying gear is not really much faster.

If we want to stealth, we can travel just off the main road at half speed, using the shadows of the trees and edge bushes of trees, hills, tall grass to "stealth"
at disadvantage since horses don't really stealth, its more just picking hard to see spots but still being noisy. (10 miles in 8 hours with disadvantage on stealth)

If we want to REALLY stealth, we need to get away from the roads so that we are not expected and get off our horses and lead them so that we can quiet them if we see someone or expect trouble. This also make our silhouettes shorter for hiding in terrain and darkness. Doing this however because of the rough terrain we travel a 1/4 distance or 5 miles every 8 hours with NO disadvantage on stealth tests since its not likely we would cross anyone's path to begin with. He might however ask for a survival check from our guide to make sure we stay on course and don't get lost.

That's just how we do our games anyway.

Saelorn said:

Traveling stealthily through plains or desert would seem to be impossible, unless the relevant creatures were all asleep or otherwise distracted, which doesn't really seem plausible over the periods of time involved with overland travel rules.

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I'm not sure to which rules you're referring exactly. The rules I quoted in my OP can apply to time scales of days, hours, or even just minutes. Regardless, I think the time period that's relevant to stealth is the moment an encounter takes place. At that point, it will affect whether the encountered creature can be surprised or if the encounter can be avoided.

Saelorn said:

The most likely scenario would be that the opposing party had set up camp somewhere, so I would determine the nearby features based on their ability to find an appropriate location to camp; if there are no features of note in this plain or desert, then the chance of the parties passing within observation distance of each other would be minimal.

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You seem to be taking all these factors into account to determine the likelihood of an encounter occurring in the first place, and to consider the stealthiness of the party's movement to be one such factor, which makes some sense out of your statement above, which I find a bit puzzling. My frame of reference here, assuming stealthy movement is possible, is that the players have told me their characters are moving stealthily through an area at a slow pace. At some point, I determine there will be an encounter with some creature, and the fact the characters are being stealthy then affects whether they are noticed. Is there some way in which your approach differs?

Hriston said:

You seem to be taking all these factors into account to determine the likelihood of an encounter occurring in the first place, and to consider the stealthiness of the party's movement to be one such factor, which makes some sense out of your statement above, which I find a bit puzzling. My frame of reference here, assuming stealthy movement is possible, is that the players have told me their characters are moving stealthily through an area at a slow pace. At some point, I determine there will be an encounter with some creature, and the fact the characters are being stealthy then affects whether they are noticed. Is there some way in which your approach differs?

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For my part, I use pace to influence likelihood of a random encounter. Stealthiness just means the PCs have a chance to surprise the monsters.

Hriston said:

I'm not sure to which rules you're referring exactly. The rules I quoted in my OP can apply to time scales of days, hours, or even just minutes. Regardless, I think the time period that's relevant to stealth is the moment an encounter takes place. At that point, it will affect whether the encountered creature can be surprised or if the encounter can be avoided.

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The general rules for hiding are that you can only hide when nobody can see you. This rule applies in all circumstances. Out of combat, you can sneak past people while they're looking in a different direction (as determined by the DM). During combat, everyone is assumed to be looking in all directions at all times, which is why hiding is impossible unless you have cover or concealment.

Overland travel is a sub-set of the out-of-combat rules, in that we don't assume everyone is always looking around in every direction, except it's usually over a larger time scale. If you just need to sneak past a guard while you move past a door, then you can go behind their back when they turn around. If you need to sneak past a large group of goblins in the wilderness, you would need them all to be turned away at the same time, or else one of them will be looking in your direction and thus hiding is impossible; and because you're outside in an open environment, sight lines are much longer, and it might take you several minutes to sneak past. Thus, the chance of sneaking past a large group in an open environment would be approximately zero, since one of them will be looking in your direction during the several minutes it takes you to move past.

Hriston said:

You seem to be taking all these factors into account to determine the likelihood of an encounter occurring in the first place, and to consider the stealthiness of the party's movement to be one such factor, which makes some sense out of your statement above, which I find a bit puzzling. My frame of reference here, assuming stealthy movement is possible, is that the players have told me their characters are moving stealthily through an area at a slow pace. At some point, I determine there will be an encounter with some creature, and the fact the characters are being stealthy then affects whether they are noticed. Is there some way in which your approach differs?

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As you say, I'm taking the stealth of the party into account in determining whether the encounter will take place at all, rather than determining that an encounter will take place and then using the stealth factor to determine if the party is noticed.

In an open environment, stealthy movement is effectively impossible (see above point). If the party is moving stealthily, then it's through a forest or something; in which case, they're significantly less likely to draw the attention of whatever baddies are in the region, and many of those encounters would simply not occur. I guess it's also possible that they would stealth upon a monster just chilling there in the forest, but that tends to not happen, for several reasons. DM discretion.

So a few thoughts.

1. Really think about the area the players are moving through and whether or not they're being smart about it. "Open" plains can have grasses that grow nearly 4 to 6 feet tall. "Open desert" can be navigated at night while wearing appropriate colors.

2. Slow pace is relative to the difficulty of the terrain, so it's much harder to move stealthily in a lot of areas that adventurers frequent. The 18m a day pace is only for roads, open plains and things like corridors. Deserts are another thing altogether. Half movement on top of that.

3. How encumbered are the players? if they are geared and armed appropriately for stealth, then yes. If they are wearing non-magical metal armor, no way. There's no such thing as a stealthy war party or cavalry.

4. "Stealth" isn't always about moving, it's about presenting what is expected to be seen by the enemy. If a rock falls off a ledge in a windstorm people may not think about it, but the rock that falls off the ledge and levitates will stick out like a sore thumb.

5. All of this can be modified by magic.

iserith said:

For my part, I use pace to influence likelihood of a random encounter. Stealthiness just means the PCs have a chance to surprise the monsters.

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I've seen your posts about this. It seems to intensify the effect travel pace already has on random encounters, which is that at a fast pace, you'll have fewer random encounters per unit of distance travelled, and at a slow pace, more random encounters per unit of distance travelled. That already seems like enough of a trade-off to me, so I just stick to checking for random encounters at regular intervals of time with chance possibly influenced by population density.

Saelorn said:

The general rules for hiding are that you can only hide when nobody can see you. This rule applies in all circumstances. Out of combat, you can sneak past people while they're looking in a different direction (as determined by the DM). During combat, everyone is assumed to be looking in all directions at all times, which is why hiding is impossible unless you have cover or concealment.

Overland travel is a sub-set of the out-of-combat rules, in that we don't assume everyone is always looking around in every direction, except it's usually over a larger time scale. If you just need to sneak past a guard while you move past a door, then you can go behind their back when they turn around. If you need to sneak past a large group of goblins in the wilderness, you would need them all to be turned away at the same time, or else one of them will be looking in your direction and thus hiding is impossible; and because you're outside in an open environment, sight lines are much longer, and it might take you several minutes to sneak past. Thus, the chance of sneaking past a large group in an open environment would be approximately zero, since one of them will be looking in your direction during the several minutes it takes you to move past.

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I agree. If no means of staying out of sight exists, and you encounter any creatures that are aware of their surroundings, they see you. I'm still not sure why it's implausible that they might be asleep for the few minutes it takes to move past them, but it isn't really all that relevant to moving stealthily, unless you're actually trying to sneak within 10 feet of them and they have a passive Perception of 20 (according to my reading of XGtE, anyway), and I suppose you could wake them up if you aren't trying to be stealthy, you're within about 70 feet, and their passive Perception is at least 15 (from XGtE again).

Saelorn said:

As you say, I'm taking the stealth of the party into account in determining whether the encounter will take place at all, rather than determining that an encounter will take place and then using the stealth factor to determine if the party is noticed.

In an open environment, stealthy movement is effectively impossible (see above point). If the party is moving stealthily, then it's through a forest or something; in which case, they're significantly less likely to draw the attention of whatever baddies are in the region, and many of those encounters would simply not occur. I guess it's also possible that they would stealth upon a monster just chilling there in the forest, but that tends to not happen, for several reasons. DM discretion.

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What I'm understanding from this is that encounters in your games usually only happen with creatures that have already noticed you.

Hriston said:

What I'm understanding from this is that encounters in your games usually only happen with creatures that have already noticed you.

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Outdoors, when travelling in the wilderness, yes. Part of that is due to the probability of a humanoid with inferior senses tripping over a natural predator in its own habitat, and part of it is due to the way that 5E rules discourage trivial combats by handing out so much free healing.

Even in circumstances where it makes sense for the party to come across a random monster or bandits or something, I'm much more likely to just handwave it, since there's no chance that anyone will die and all damage will be erased by morning. The exception to that is usually dragons, unless the party is over level 10, at which point those can also be handwaved.