Does someone making a Spot check blow your hiding for everyone?
- Thread starter Dracuwulf
- Start date
Salad Shooter
First Post
Dracuwulf said:
If the person that spotted the thief pointed him out to others, then the spot checks would not be required...but if he keeps quiet, then everyone must spot until the thief is pointed out, in which case they see him. At least, thats what I would do.
Chronosome
Explorer
What Salad said.
Hide and Move Silently checks are always relative to the individuals the sneak's trying to get around. Spot and Listen are "personal" skills that one person garners info from. It can get a little tedious rolling Spot checks for each barfly, but that's the strict, rulesy way of it.
If you want a quick way of doing things, you could have it so the barfolk take 10 on their checks. It would speed up the DMwork, but you'd lose a little realism.
Hide and Move Silently checks are always relative to the individuals the sneak's trying to get around. Spot and Listen are "personal" skills that one person garners info from. It can get a little tedious rolling Spot checks for each barfly, but that's the strict, rulesy way of it.
If you want a quick way of doing things, you could have it so the barfolk take 10 on their checks. It would speed up the DMwork, but you'd lose a little realism.
Last edited:
Li Shenron
Legend
Dracuwulf said:
It depends on the consequences. The DM knows if it's important for the situation how many and who of the attendant spots the thief or if otherwise one successful spotter would be enough to discover the thief (in which case I would make a single Spot check for the whole crowd).
Hiding
That's probably the way I'd handle it. Generic folk in the tavern take 10 on their spot check (most of the time with a -5 penalty for inattention). That means the normally don't detect even a decent mid-level sneaker. (I'd estimate the average spot modifier for a crowd to be below +4, some have alertness, some have wisdom, some have a few crossclass ranks). Even a 1st level rogue can manage +6 or +7 (if he's not small).
I'd make seperate rolls for important (N)PCs. If the thief mills around for long enough, I'd assume someone "takes 20". If that's enough to beat the hide roll, fine, but most of the time even that won't be enough.
That's probably the way I'd handle it. Generic folk in the tavern take 10 on their spot check (most of the time with a -5 penalty for inattention). That means the normally don't detect even a decent mid-level sneaker. (I'd estimate the average spot modifier for a crowd to be below +4, some have alertness, some have wisdom, some have a few crossclass ranks). Even a 1st level rogue can manage +6 or +7 (if he's not small).
I'd make seperate rolls for important (N)PCs. If the thief mills around for long enough, I'd assume someone "takes 20". If that's enough to beat the hide roll, fine, but most of the time even that won't be enough.
RttToEE actually had suggested rules for handling spot/listen checks for large groups of guards; for tavern patrons (except maybe in rough neighborhoods), Take 10 would not be approrpriate. They'd probably Take 0 or Take 5 -- terms suggested in RTOEE, in fact.
That module had a list, IIRC, of varying levels of alertness; the usual "guard duty" level of alertness, with no recent alarms or combats, would be to Take 10. If there'd been an alarm that hour-ish, they'd Take 20; for the rest of that day, and the next perhaps, they'd Take 15; and so on.
I'm sorry if the above sounds vague, but, I don't own a copy of RTOEE ... the only copy I've had a chance to go through was a friend's, and it's since been given back, so ... I'm working purely on memory here.
Maybe someone who has a copy, would be nice enough to find that table, and type it up here? ^_^
That module had a list, IIRC, of varying levels of alertness; the usual "guard duty" level of alertness, with no recent alarms or combats, would be to Take 10. If there'd been an alarm that hour-ish, they'd Take 20; for the rest of that day, and the next perhaps, they'd Take 15; and so on.
I'm sorry if the above sounds vague, but, I don't own a copy of RTOEE ... the only copy I've had a chance to go through was a friend's, and it's since been given back, so ... I'm working purely on memory here.
Maybe someone who has a copy, would be nice enough to find that table, and type it up here? ^_^
Li Shenron
Legend
Pax said:
They are completely wrong and yet they are completely right.
"Spotter distracted" gets -5 on the Spot check, so if they Take 10 with -5 effectively they get a result of 5 (plus other modifiers). They are right on the final effect, they are wrong when they say that Take 10 was not appropriate
What I wanted to say is that you don't need to introduce extra mechanics for Take 5 or others, the Take 10 rule is enough once you use circumstance modifiers with it. Just trying to make it simple...
Li, the point of the rules I cited was, they took those very circumstance modifiers into account, and presented them along with general descriptions of how alert th guards would likely be at that given time.
IOW, simplified the whole issue to "look up alertness level, find number to use". ^_^
IOW, simplified the whole issue to "look up alertness level, find number to use". ^_^
jgsugden
Legend
What you may want to consider is that it is harder to sneak past an entire crowd than just 1 person. Thus, I decided to make a house rule to cover the issue of sneaking past a group.
Even when the guards are taking 10 (casual guarding, no stress), they should get a bonus for a group acting together. I calculated the average highest roll for 2 rolls of d20s would be 13.825. NOt wanting to repeat the math, I rolled 3d20s 50 times and received an average on the highest die of a little below 16. When repeated for four dice, I had an average slightly above 16.
Based loosely upon my results, I decided that when groups of similar skilled beings make spot (or listen) checks and take 10 on that check, I give them bonuses as follows:
2 spotters: +4 (take 14)
3 or 4 spotters: +6 (take 16)
5 to 8 spotters: +7 (take 17)
9 to 20 spotters: +8 (take 18)
21 to 40 spotters: +9 (take 19)
more than 40 spotters: +10 (take 20 - the maximum bonus)
If there is a few creatures with a higher spot roll amongst a larger crowd of rabble, I'll always roll a spot roll for those special beings. If the crowd has a bunch of different spot scores, I only look at the subgroups with the highest spot scores and assume that the others give no real advantage - something that the math proves true if there is a significant difference between the effective spot skills (more than a point or two).
This type of thing saves a lot of time, though it does create some problems. You need to account for distance and distraction penalties, so you often must break down a larger group of similar beings into multiple groups of beings with different effective skill scores - which usually results in you only caring about the group closest to the target (that all share a similar distance to the target ... something around a 20 foot difference in their distance from the target).
Even when the guards are taking 10 (casual guarding, no stress), they should get a bonus for a group acting together. I calculated the average highest roll for 2 rolls of d20s would be 13.825. NOt wanting to repeat the math, I rolled 3d20s 50 times and received an average on the highest die of a little below 16. When repeated for four dice, I had an average slightly above 16.
Based loosely upon my results, I decided that when groups of similar skilled beings make spot (or listen) checks and take 10 on that check, I give them bonuses as follows:
2 spotters: +4 (take 14)
3 or 4 spotters: +6 (take 16)
5 to 8 spotters: +7 (take 17)
9 to 20 spotters: +8 (take 18)
21 to 40 spotters: +9 (take 19)
more than 40 spotters: +10 (take 20 - the maximum bonus)
If there is a few creatures with a higher spot roll amongst a larger crowd of rabble, I'll always roll a spot roll for those special beings. If the crowd has a bunch of different spot scores, I only look at the subgroups with the highest spot scores and assume that the others give no real advantage - something that the math proves true if there is a significant difference between the effective spot skills (more than a point or two).
This type of thing saves a lot of time, though it does create some problems. You need to account for distance and distraction penalties, so you often must break down a larger group of similar beings into multiple groups of beings with different effective skill scores - which usually results in you only caring about the group closest to the target (that all share a similar distance to the target ... something around a 20 foot difference in their distance from the target).
Another option would be to simply give a circumstance modifier equal to the square root of the number of guards -- and round down (a.k.a. truncate). So, two or three guards get to Take 10, and get a +1 circumstance bonus (the circumstance being, "multiple guards"); four to eight guards get a +2, three to twenty-four guards get a +3, and so on -- then modified for their alertness.
Where levels of alertness differ, you might want to break the groups up along those lines. So if you hve thirty gurds, ten of whom are asleep ("Take 0"), ten of whom are eating, dicing, or otherwise inattentive ("take 5"), and another ten of whom are on high alert ("take 15") ... you would have three groups.
Lets assume the average spot/listen modifiers for all of them is +5 (a few ranks, a bit of wisdom, whatever -- these're professional sentries ...).
The sleepers, since there're ten of them, would get 0 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, or, 8. If you can't sneak past them, you deserve to be caught.
The gamblers (etc), since they're at least awake, would get 5 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, or, 13. It's conceivable they' notice a Commoner NPC slave/prisoner tryign to sneak away, but most decent rogues should be able to slip past them with no trouble.
The ones ctually on watch, being unusually alert, however, get 15 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, for 23. At this level, even low-to-mid level rogues -- up to level 7 or 8, say -- may have some trouble slipping by unseen. If the rogue gets a 10, and has maximum ranks (10 or 11), they need to have a Dexterity of 16+ to stay hidden. Not unlikely, but, not a guarantee, either. Even an 8th level elf rogue, with a 22 dexterity and maximum ranks of hide/move silently, would have to roll a 7+ to slip past those ten guards.
All this supposes, of course, that the guards re in a singular, reasonably-small area -- no more than a double move's worth of distance between any two of them, for typcial PC-race (or equivalent) guards, say.
Where levels of alertness differ, you might want to break the groups up along those lines. So if you hve thirty gurds, ten of whom are asleep ("Take 0"), ten of whom are eating, dicing, or otherwise inattentive ("take 5"), and another ten of whom are on high alert ("take 15") ... you would have three groups.
Lets assume the average spot/listen modifiers for all of them is +5 (a few ranks, a bit of wisdom, whatever -- these're professional sentries ...).
The sleepers, since there're ten of them, would get 0 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, or, 8. If you can't sneak past them, you deserve to be caught.
The gamblers (etc), since they're at least awake, would get 5 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, or, 13. It's conceivable they' notice a Commoner NPC slave/prisoner tryign to sneak away, but most decent rogues should be able to slip past them with no trouble.
The ones ctually on watch, being unusually alert, however, get 15 + average spot/listen modifier + 3, for 23. At this level, even low-to-mid level rogues -- up to level 7 or 8, say -- may have some trouble slipping by unseen. If the rogue gets a 10, and has maximum ranks (10 or 11), they need to have a Dexterity of 16+ to stay hidden. Not unlikely, but, not a guarantee, either. Even an 8th level elf rogue, with a 22 dexterity and maximum ranks of hide/move silently, would have to roll a 7+ to slip past those ten guards.
All this supposes, of course, that the guards re in a singular, reasonably-small area -- no more than a double move's worth of distance between any two of them, for typcial PC-race (or equivalent) guards, say.
