4 Stealthy PCs + 1 loud metal paladin = ??

[Dunjin]

My players have a mostly stealthy group, but they keep running into a problem with the party paladin, who is decked out in plate armor and is about as stealthy as a flatulent elephant with cymbols strapped to its knees. The rest of the group are a rogue, a fighter/rogue, a ranger, and an elvish sorcerer with some ranks in Sneak.

Clearly there was some interest in stealth on the part of the players, but the one player went big and loud. In designing adventures and encounters, this disparity creates a challenge: How do I create stealthy situations that are also fun for Sir Loud-n-metal?

This also leads to trouble in situations where the party wants to use deceit but the paladin wants to go in and face things straight-up, either with violence or diplomacy.

Any pointers? How do I deal with this? Majority seems to vote for stealth and cleverness, but one important part of the group voted for plate armor and a greataxe.

 

[d20Dwarf]

Clearly there was some interest in stealth on the part of the players, but the one player went big and loud. In designing adventures and encounters, this disparity creates a challenge: How do I create stealthy situations that are also fun for Sir Loud-n-metal?

This also leads to trouble in situations where the party wants to use deceit but the paladin wants to go in and face things straight-up, either with violence or diplomacy.

Any pointers? How do I deal with this? Majority seems to vote for stealth and cleverness, but one important part of the group voted for plate armor and a greataxe.

Well, not every encounter should satisfy all the characters, so I don't think you have to design specific encounters around this problem. It also sounds like the players should have gotten together and discussed their plans better, or the paladin player isn't much interested in acting with the party.


On a tangent, what do you guys think about using a party average for a single Move Silently roll while they are traveling in a dungeon? It would speed things up, and would also keep players from feeling like the one big clunker is ruining their skills. This also keeps the rogue from always having to put himself in mortal peril just to use one of his basic class skills.

 

[Dunjin]

Well, this was everyone's first campaign, so I let them be whatever they want. The fact that they've all turned out pretty stealthy was a side-effect of that, and in the flurry of explaining stuff and helping them make characters, it never occurred to me until the second or third game, in which the paladin made things difficult for the party by being loud and shiny. I'm considering getting him an elvish cloak or something similar (obviously as a reward for an adventure) to help him keep up.

Other than having him (or everyone else) reroll, is there any other advice?

Oh, and I think I like the idea of a party Sneak skill (I house-ruled Move Silently and hide into a Sneak skill to cut down on rolling) is a cool one. I sorta used it already once, to simulate the stealthy characters helping the less-stealthy find good hiding spots and such.

 

[Pyske]

Sounds interesting, Wil. On the same theme, I've always liked the Pointman ability from Spycraft to "lead" the entire party for one skill check. Perhaps Dunjin could give similar abilities to his PCs through a magic item or something similar. (Basically, it is the ability to make a skill check and have it apply to the whole party.) Or heck, just make it a standard option in the game, but apply a penalty to the roll of -(2 + person's ACP) per person led. This would at least let the paladin benefit from the higher skill ranks of his fellow party members.

Dunjin: the best standard rules option I can think of would be to make a couple of stealth-related items available to the PCs. If they want the whole party to be stealthy, they give them to the paladin. If they want specialization, they give it to someone who is already stealthy.

As for social considerations, I'd leave that to peer pressure, but make it clear to the paladin that his code doesn't require being rigid about honesty.

. . . . . . . -- Eric

 

[orangefruitbat]

Keep the paladin in reserve.

Simply divide the group into two parts. A scouting party leads, some 100-200 ft ahead. The second contingent follows behind. Obviously the paladin goes in the second group, as well as at least one other, preferrably someone skilled with missle weapons (you could just keep the paladin in the back, but it's best not to leave anyone by themself).

Whenever the first group gets into trouble, the second group charges up to reinforce them. Whenever the first group detects an opponent, they double back and let the noiser group know of the situation.

 

[Taren Seeker]

Characters that are big, shiny and loud should feel like they are dragging down the stealthy party. Should the rest of the party get the clanker's higher AC while the clanker gets thier higher stealth bonus?

Leaving him far behind on occasion is good, as is having him carry a chain shirt for the odd time when the whole group needs to move in stealth. After all, a Paladin wouldn't want to endanger the whole group just so that he is well protected, right?

As for wanting to use guile while the Pally wants to barge in...well, thats a roleplaying problem. Let them think up the arguments to convince him that straight ahead isn't always the best way. If it truly is the best way to handle a situation the Paladin should be able to go along with it.

 

[Dunjin]

I think I will find a way to give them stealth items. Getting him to drop the plate might be tough, but getting him to keep in mind a "stealth loadout" might not be.

Is there a rule that is the equivalent of "Aid Another" for skills? Like, a way another character can roll a skill to add a bonus to another character's skil check?

Also, does anyone have the rules for masterwork armor on them? I forget (because the higher-level game I played in before didn't consider masterwork armor worth the price), but would masterwork plate lower the skill penalty enough to be worthwhile?

 

[Pyske]

Aid Another works normally for skills.

Masterwork reduces the Armor Check Penalty by 1 point. (2 total, for plate & shield both being masterwork.) Remember that magic armor is automatically masterwork. For even better improvements, there is mithril armor, but that's pretty expensive on heavy armors.

PS -- Here's the 3.5 SRD link. Masterwork is described in the Equipment document.

http://www.wizards.com/D20/article.asp?x=srd35

 

[Kichwas]

I like wilderness encounters...

Encounters often begin at 1000 to a couple thousand feet, and as the two sides close they do a large exchange of missile fire. The paladin usually arrives into melee in the round before, during, or after the last round of combat. He tends to get at most one strike before the whole engagement is over...

I don't change the encounters to satisfy him when they're in the open, because in the wilderness encounters will begin at long range.

Even in a dense jungle you will hear them before you can close by several minutes unless they are tracking you in stealth - in which case the encounter began a long time ago anyway and you've just been failing a lot of listen checks.


Let the party pick it's own style of engagement. If they don't split into two stages then the paladin will ruin it for all of them, if they do... then he will miss half the fights unless they make a point of circling back and assaulting en mass - in which case the other side may often get the drop on them as they try to do so.

Eventually, they will find a balance or just get comfortable with losing characters.

If you want the game to tailor for the paladin - you'd probably want a lot of overland stuff where he can bring a mount (one that stays around, not the pokemon he gets as a class ability - even opn a regular warhorse a paladin on the field is quite a threat, something my players will eventually figure out... hopefully...), or you want something in mucky dungeons where the moss stifles the aucustics and softens the sounds of metal shoes (not to mention that metal shoes are slippery on the wet stone found in many dungeons...). In other words, you want dungeons where he won't be making an echo that's heard three levels down.

If they keep the balance they have, consider dropping a magic item at some point that's essentially rubber shoes... something which doesn't aid in the paladins move silently checks, but stops the echos so it doesn't sound like the party is carrying a boom-box into the dungeon.

 

[Taren Seeker]

I think I will find a way to give them stealth items. Getting him to drop the plate might be tough, but getting him to keep in mind a "stealth loadout" might not be.

Is there a rule that is the equivalent of "Aid Another" for skills? Like, a way another character can roll a skill to add a bonus to another character's skil check?

Also, does anyone have the rules for masterwork armor on them? I forget (because the higher-level game I played in before didn't consider masterwork armor worth the price), but would masterwork plate lower the skill penalty enough to be worthwhile?

I didn't mean to give up the Full Plate entirely, but yes, a stealth loadout is a nice way to put it. For aid another, it should be easy for one of his buddies to aid him in padding some of his noisier joints and demonstrating on the move where and how to step to visualize the +2 bonus.