D&D 5E Barbarian wolf totem = stealth 24/7?

[johniemi]

What's up with the 5th ed Barbarian wolf totem 6th level ability? Specifically please lmk if the below is played correctly as this is what our party's "stealthy urchin Barbarian" is doing. I'm the GM.


-Moves stealthy 24/7, both in and out of combat, effectively...
-He rolls stealth every time there is a random encounter and I check it against the monster's passive perception...
-Usually the Brb wins, thus when combat begins, none of the monsters detect the barbarian but naturally detect everyone else in the party...
-And if the monsters want to detect the Brb during combat, they need to take an action to detect him (perception check), which they obviously don't do as they are too busy fighting the other PC's.
-Once the Brb sneaks up to an enemy (rolls Stealth, moves at full speed), he gains advantage on his attack rolls for one round
-On subsequent rounds he may hide again as an action if the surroundings allow (dim light, half cover) and no-one is looking. If someone is looking he needs to find full cover and then take an action to roll stealth.


All this just sounds too good to be true...?

 

[jaelis]

"you can move stealthily while traveling at a normal pace" refers to the overland travel rules in the PHB. In combat or the like, you use the normal rules for stealth, which anyway let you move at normal speed but you need to maintain some form of concealment. It is up to you as DM to decide when hiding in combat is possible, it is not automatic and the wolf totem ability doesn't have any impact.

 

[MarkB]

It only means he doesn't have to slow down in order to move stealthily, not that he's automatically stealthy. If the party are travelling in clear view without cover, the barbarian will not be able to roll for stealth (barring a special feature such as halflings' ability to hide behind allies).

And as for hiding during combat, any character can attempt the same thing. And a barbarian who is attacking once every other round and gaining advantage on his first attack is significantly less of a threat than one that is attacking without advantage every single round.

I'm not seeing anything particularly good about what you're describing - let alone too good to be true.

 

[iserith]

"you can move stealthily while traveling at a normal pace" refers to the overland travel rules in the PHB. In combat or the like, you use the normal rules for stealth, which anyway let you move at normal speed but you need to maintain some form of concealment. It is up to you as DM to decide when hiding in combat is possible, it is not automatic and the wolf totem ability doesn't have any impact.

I would add that travel pace can be in feet per minute and not just miles per hour or day. So it's not just wilderness journeys or the like. It includes what I would call a "dungeon exploration pace." Most DMs don't care about this in my experience though. I seem to be the only one that makes a deal of it in my circles. I tie pace to frequency of random encounters. A slow pace means a higher chance of random encounter; a fast pace means less chance. Being able to be stealthy at a normal pace would be a pretty nice benefit in my games as it would be an unmodified roll for random encounters and you could sneak, plus you won't have to worry as much about failing a time-sensitive quest.

It might be worth implementing this in your game, OP, so the player gets some benefit from the class feature. The issue is that the rest of the party likely won't have it, so you'll have to figure out how that will resolve.