Elven Cloaks & Hiding

[taliesin15]

I'm thinking of doing some house ruling on Elven Cloaks, but first I wanted to get opinions on hiding with them. Do characters need to be actively Hiding for them to work, i.e. confer the Hide skill bonus? And if they are Hiding in say a Wilderness area, wouldn't they necessarily be holding still or moving slowly? I'm tending to think that they should confer some sort of bonus especially in natural (especially sylvan) settings for characters moving through such areas, therefore, they would tend to camouflage somewhat characters so clad even if they are moving at normal speed.

OTOH, if any character wearing an Elven Cloak is riding a horse or other mount, it doesn't seem that the Cloak would help all that much.

Any ideas on this will be helpful since the rules seem a bit vague to me on this matter.

 

[Salthorae]

Well 3.x RAW don't distinguish at all between hide settings as far as Sylvan or City, but if you want some guidelines to House Rule something like that I would take a look at the 2e AD&D DMG Cloak of Elvenkind

For the other stuff:

Yes, characters have to be actively trying to hide and unless they have Hide in Plain Sight they need either cover or concealment and cannot be being observed to even try and hide...

You can move at 1/2 speed and hide w/o penalties, any faster and you incur them though...

Finally anyone on a horse isn't going to meet the cover/concealment or "not being observed" prereq's for a hide check well enough to attempt to use the hide skill.

 

[taliesin15]

Yeah, Salthorae, that all sounds pretty good. FWIW, I was going to give my version of Elven Cloaks a slight Hide bump in non-natural settings (many dungeons, almost all urban settings), a bigger bonus in natural, and a fairly high one in wooded areas. Just makes more bloody sense to me. I'm also thinking of doing the same for the Elven Boots. AND I'm thinking that there could be some that might also double as +1 to +3 Cloaks of Protection.

But what do you think of a character or party travelling through wooded areas on foot at normal speed: shouldn't Elven Cloaks confer some sort of Hide bonus?

 

[SlagMortar]

You can move up to one-half your normal speed and hide at no penalty. When moving at a speed greater than one-half but less than your normal speed, you take a -5 penalty.

Just take a -5 penalty for hiding while moving at normal speed (or slightly less than normal speed if you read the rules very strictly). The cloak of elven kind effectively makes the character as good at hiding while moving at normal speed as the character would be moving at half speed without the cloak.

 

[billd91]

Finally anyone on a horse isn't going to meet the cover/concealment or "not being observed" prereq's for a hide check well enough to attempt to use the hide skill.

I disagree. Behind cover or concealment, a mounted character could still be hiding. But the horse will probably be pretty easily noticed since it's large and has a hide check penalty for it and probably has no ranks in hide. That said, though the horse is a poor hider (it could still be hard to spot at a distance because of the -1 on Spot checks per 10' of range), if the rider gets a better hide check than the viewer's spot check, I think it would indicate that nothing can be observed about the rider, even if the presence of one can be inferred.

 

[darthkilmor]

But what do you think of a character or party travelling through wooded areas on foot at normal speed: shouldn't Elven Cloaks confer some sort of Hide bonus?

A party travelling at normal speed isnt hiding. The cloaks, they do nothing!

 

[irdeggman]

A party travelling at normal speed isnt hiding. The cloaks, they do nothing!

Right.

Hide is an active skill - that means you have to actively use it. Spot on the other hand can be a reflexive skill or an active one.

 

[Salthorae]

I disagree. Behind cover or concealment, a mounted character could still be hiding. But the horse will probably be pretty easily noticed since it's large and has a hide check penalty for it and probably has no ranks in hide. That said, though the horse is a poor hider (it could still be hard to spot at a distance because of the -1 on Spot checks per 10' of range), if the rider gets a better hide check than the viewer's spot check, I think it would indicate that nothing can be observed about the rider, even if the presence of one can be inferred.

Okay, if you're in the mountains or somewhere with cover large enough to cover up a horse (RL horse are 5'ish tall at the shoulder) and the rider (say another 3' above that), then yes you could hide on a horse, but since the OP talked about "Sylvan" settings, I was assuming forests, light forests mixed with plains/clearings etc. I suppose there could be some ginormous trees in a "Sylvan" setting...

As for "hiding" while the party was walking around, if you wanted to add in something like that to the cloaks as well, I would make it at most a 5-10% displacement effect. Anything more and you tread on the Cloak of Displacement (both flavors). It would be more:"the magic of the cloak makes them hard to see even while moving", but they wouldn't be hiding.

I would also boost the gp value for these cloak's you're building, especially if they are coupled with CoProtection +1-+3...

 

[billd91]

Okay, if you're in the mountains or somewhere with cover large enough to cover up a horse (RL horse are 5'ish tall at the shoulder) and the rider (say another 3' above that), then yes you could hide on a horse, but since the OP talked about "Sylvan" settings, I was assuming forests, light forests mixed with plains/clearings etc. I suppose there could be some ginormous trees in a "Sylvan" setting...

Substantial underbrush would do, as would a slight rise in the terrain, moss hanging from low branches, raspberry bushes, or pine trees that still have low branches. It's not at all hard to get concealment, even for a horse, in a sylvan setting.

 

[irdeggman]

Just to quote the SRD on the "actions required" for Hide and Spot:

Hide

Action: Usually none. Normally, you make a Hide check as part of movement, so it doesn’t take a separate action. However, hiding immediately after a ranged attack (see Sniping, above) is a move action.

Spot

Action: Varies. Every time you have a chance to spot something in a reactive manner you can make a Spot check without using an action. Trying to spot something you failed to see previously is a move action. To read lips, you must concentrate for a full minute before making a Spot check, and you can’t perform any other action (other than moving at up to half speed) during this minute.

Now if someone wanted to add a circumstance penalty to the Spot check made to begin an encounter or see someone from a distance that is a different issue - it is not an opposed spot/hide check.