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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 6682509" data-attributes="member: 6787503">Right, but that's also the maximum range of the weapon, and no other weapon can shoot that far, at least none on the weapons list. For the sake of simplicity, I like to assume that, within that range, noises are generally audible.I agree that the audibility of noise is entirely left to the subjective discretion of the individual DM. It would have been nice, however, to have some general guidelines as to range of hearing included in the rules, along the lines of what was provided in the DMG for range of vision. I don't see any reason not to have done so. There are a number of factors involved that might have dissuaded the designers from doing so, namely the ability of the environment to absorb or dampen sound, and the speed and direction of wind. I like to put all that down to the die roll, however, and would have liked a simplified list of common sources of sound and distances over which they can be heard in typical adventuring environments. I can only assume they didn't do this because of the complications that would arise when people started asking things like, "What if the sound is twice as quiet, but can still be heard?" or, "What about intervening noise?" They obviously didn't want to produce a long list of modifiers to apply to any Stealth roll. That's what advantage/disadvantage is for anyway.As it is, I've compiled a list of four sound levels: quiet whisper, whisper, normal conversation, and loud singing, just what I've been able to find decibel measurements of on the internet. I've then applied a sound level drop of 6dB per doubling of distance. I'm not an expert in acoustics, however, so I'm not sure if I've done the calculations correctly. What it tells me, however, is that a whisper approaches becoming inaudible at about 6', normal conversation at about 100', and loud singing at about 600' or more. The sound of combat I would generally expect to be louder than any of these, but keep in mind these figures would apply only under ideal conditions. If anyone has more accurate numbers, I would love to hear about them.</blockquote>

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