D&D 3E/3.5 [3.5] Hide Skill Ruling

[Tellerve]

Yep, sounds like a good codifiying of rules Basically what I would have done, but that looks more official. I'm assuming your "line" is a 5' wide line?

I'm not sure how you'd do active listening for a spot, that might be a big harder to judge and also the bonuses shouldn't probably be as high. Or maybe people can't "focus" their hearing, but I certainly can imagine times when in movies people do, but maybe that was more take 20 or 10.

Tellerve

 

[Skaros]

I had a similar issue that I wasn't how to resolve in my game last night.

The party rogue was walking along the bank of a small underground stream. He spotted a kuo-toa peeking its eyes up above the water line, clearly spying...

The party rogue then moves along as if he hadn't spotted it, steps around a corner.

He rolls his hide check (very high....31 or something).

From there he waits a round, and then goes prone, and army crawls out towards the water's edge (to within 20 feet of where the kuo-toa is underwater, raising its head often to scan the room for the rogue or rest of the party).

Kuo-toa's have darkvision, so the fact that there was very little light wouldn't help the rogue with his hiding, right?

Also, at what point is there no longer a chance the rogue can hide? I can see him hiding when he's 40 feet or so away, perhaps because he's prone and the floor of the cavern is irregular, but at 20' or 10'?

Skaros

 

[bret]

High Dex +4 (or higher!), Cloak of Elvenkind, 13 ranks of hide = +27 without breaking much of a sweat. Average roll 37.

Guard... no chance.

Just wanted to point out that in 3.5 the bonus from the Cloak and Boots is only +5.

As for the guard, there are several things you should consider.

• Don't have any areas that provide cover. This would be pretty standard security even in the real world, you want to restrict the approaches so that they have to come through an area that doesn't provide cover.
• Use some magic. A simple Alarm spell (1st level spell) cast by a 4th level caster lasts for 8 hours. A single 4th level apprentice could cover an approach. That would be an appropriate challenge for a 10th level rogue, especially if he reconned the area for a day or so in order to find out the guard rotation and such.
• There should be multiple guards. Assuming the guards are fighter types, they could take the Alertness feat. With 4 guards, you can get +6 from Aid Another (three guards all aiding the fourth) which helps even things out. What this comes out to is each guard has an overlapping area they are looking at, so if one misses something the other will hopefully catch it.
• The player has made it a focus of his character to not be seen. If it is just peon guards, he should have about as much chance of sneaking up successfully as a fighter of equal level would have of just slaughtering the guards. In other words, hiding and sneaking is what Rogues do. Don't try and make it so even a commoner is impossible to sneak up on.

 

[Wraithdrit]

Hmmm...

This all seems reasonable. I think another issue is that I ruled last time that a cave wall is considered 'cover providing' since there are nooks and crannies and what not.

So maybe the key is to nix that and just say if you can't make it back to cover at whatever move rate you decide to move (with appropriate penalty) then you are just not able to hide again, and thus... seen.

- Wraith