D&D (2024) Playtest 6: Stealth Rules

[Oofta]

Ive always been fond of rolling against the environment for stealth, with failure triggering perception attempts, and critical failures inducing an immediate position reveal.

The two stage process best mimics how stealth tends to play out in video games. If you don't stealth properly that doesn't always mean you're found out; enemies are usually alerted to something and then they go searching. Your stealth check in this case would basically either have to fail twice, or fail very very very hard.

The question then becomes how to determine where the line is for critically failing. I think its better for it to start close to the DC and move farther out as you gain experience, but as a general rule, 10 or more short of the DC works. (Ie, PF Crits)

Either way, you get room to recover, and a clearly defined opportunity to potentially try abilities or other Skills to get around the failure, rather than trying to beat the DM to adjudicating.

The problem is that at low levels (and for anyone that doesn't have expertise) that DC 15 is going to fail more often than not, especially at low levels. There are times I just want to have players stealth past a dozing guard with an effective passive perception of 5 or less. It should be automatic from anyone with any skill at all, and even fairly easy for anyone else.

If these are the only rules I have to follow, I can't follow the rules at all when sneaking past a drunken soldier and an alert ancient red dragon and have the scenario matter. We're always going to hit that DC 15 check.

Yes, video games handle this stuff differently. Because they're video games and the code has to be simple and binary. DMs can handle a lot more ambiguity and alternatives. Giving DMs latitude on things like stealth can really help set the tone for a game. I think different groups potentially running stealth differently is a strength of the game.

Oh, and the other issues I listed above still apply.

 

[Emberashh]

The problem is that at low levels (and for anyone that doesn't have expertise) that DC 15 is going to fail more often than not, especially at low levels. There are times I just want to have players stealth past a dozing guard with an effective passive perception of 5 or less. It should be automatic from anyone with any skill at all, and even fairly easy for anyone else.

If these are the only rules I have to follow, I can't follow the rules at all when sneaking past a drunken soldier and an alert ancient red dragon and have the scenario matter. We're always going to hit that DC 15 check.

Yes, video games handle this stuff differently. Because they're video games and the code has to be simple and binary. DMs can handle a lot more ambiguity and alternatives. Giving DMs latitude on things like stealth can really help set the tone for a game. I think different groups potentially running stealth differently is a strength of the game.

Oh, and the other issues I listed above still apply.

Probably important to also note that my post doesn't assume a single, fixed DC. Thats stupid.

And Id say given the example you gave that Perception should mirror the mechanical framework of stealth; ie, if their Passive Perception is 5, and lets just say the PC rolled 15 for Stealth, then even if that wasn't high enough to pass the roll against the Environment, the guard doesn't notice anyway.

Likewise, if their passive wasn't 5 but say, 12, then they'd be alerted, but would have to beat the PC's 15 with a Perception roll.

 

[fuindordm]

The problem is that "hidden" is a relative condition, with potentially different values for every pair of entities in the area. All this wonkiness arises because they are trying to write stealth as an absolute condition : player rolls stealth and the PC gains some sort of "hidden" condition that applies only to them.
This is a case where you must either write an essay on how stealth works (like Gary Gygax did with initiative) to help players navigate multiple edge cases, or throw your hand in the air and ask the players to use common sense.
Imagine if for combat they wanted the player to roll a single attack roll, gain the "agressive = 17" condition, then apply it to every opponent in reach, but the opponents can react to this value and help each other raise their AC. That's what their stealth rules look like.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Trying to mix the "invisible" condition into the hiding rules is a massive mistake that I hope they step away from.

 

[Hriston]

Huh. This effectively raises the passive Perception score of all creatures in combat to 15, compared to the 2014 Hide action.

 

[Kalmi]

As someone who is currently trying to write stealth rules for my own game, I certainly sympathize with the difficulty of writing such rules, but yes, there's a lot that feels weird here. I'm not sure why they're so insistent on the Invisibility condition being involved, and the only explanation I can think of is that since 2014 has no Hidden condition, but does have Invisibility, they're trying to preserve backwards compatibility that way.

The problem is that "hidden" is a relative condition, with potentially different values for every pair of entities in the area. All this wonkiness arises because they are trying to write stealth as an absolute condition : player rolls stealth and the PC gains some sort of "hidden" condition that applies only to them.
This is a case where you must either write an essay on how stealth works (like Gary Gygax did with initiative) to help players navigate multiple edge cases, or throw your hand in the air and ask the players to use common sense.
Imagine if for combat they wanted the player to roll a single attack roll, gain the "agressive = 17" condition, then apply it to every opponent in reach, but the opponents can react to this value and help each other raise their AC. That's what their stealth rules look like.

I think this is it. I'm not sure it's the wrong way to do it per se, but it certainly feels weird. It's relatively simple, but at the cost of making stealth feel like a weird form of, well, invisibility.

Ive always been fond of rolling against the environment for stealth, with failure triggering perception attempts, and critical failures inducing an immediate position reveal.

The two stage process best mimics how stealth tends to play out in video games. If you don't stealth properly that doesn't always mean you're found out; enemies are usually alerted to something and then they go searching. Your stealth check in this case would basically either have to fail twice, or fail very very very hard.

The question then becomes how to determine where the line is for critically failing. I think its better for it to start close to the DC and move farther out as you gain experience, but as a general rule, 10 or more short of the DC works. (Ie, PF Crits)

Either way, you get room to recover, and a clearly defined opportunity to potentially try abilities or other Skills to get around the failure, rather than trying to beat the DM to adjudicating.

This is more or less how I'm writing mine, just with stealth checks against passive perception rather than the environment.

 

[Stalker0]

Has any edition ever had decent stealth rules?

4e once the PHB2 came out actually had pretty solid stealth rules to me.

the biggest things to me where:

• It was very clear on how perception worked against stealth. You had the passive perception at the start, and an enemy could make an active perception check as a minor action ("bonus action") to see a creature if it believed something was hiding there.
• Your stealth worked only against specific creatures that failed, not all or nothing.
• It actually gave specific penalties and told you when you needed to make a new stealth check. For example, you could move under stealth no more than 5 ft a round to maintain normal stealth. If you went faster than that on a turn, you had to make a new stealth check at a -5 penalty. Aka sneaking around was fine, but you were very slow, as you should be!

 

[Yaarel]

I would be interested in using this thread to create an "ideal" Stealth mechanic.

 

[Oofta]

Huh. This effectively raises the passive Perception score of all creatures in combat to 15, compared to the 2014 Hide action.

Or lowers it in some cases.

 

[WanderingMystic]

So to me and my gaming group "finding" assumes that that person relays the information or in some way acts upon knowing that you are there.