D&D (2024) Group Checks?

[I'm A Banana]

I am a big user of group checks.

I think the Stealth situation is interesting. On the one hand, yes, a single failed check could fail a stealth situation, and so if you want a stealth situation, you get your stealthy party members to sneak on ahead of those who are more boisterous. This is an interesting strategic decision, as it means ambushes are rarer (the party is split), but are still useful in some situations (when maybe there's only a guard or two and your stealthy scouts can take them out). This is a bad gameplay result, though, since it means the non-stealthy bit of the party just sits around twiddling their thumbs for what could be quite a lot of table time.

So I think I'm still going to use group checks for Stealth, because I'd rather not have Boredom Time. And I'm OK with the average result - with more stealthy characters giving advice and help to less stealthy characters.

 

[prabe]

They can do stealth without using magic. You chose in your build not to.

As for your further moving goalpost, wear lighter armor longer? There's no duration on that. ;-)

Enhance Ability lasts a hour per casting. There are more options but the duration on a buff like that one is long and it can be cast again.

Although you could go with plan B making a DEX based battlemaster who has stealth proficiency and uses the tactical mind feature and ambush maneuver. Building a character who isn't good at stealth is your choice, but in doing so complaining about not being good at stealth makes little sense.

Not moving any goalposts, that I can see. I run the game so a Stealth check can plausibly cover most of a day moving through the woods. Only one of your three options for outside help will cover that. Sure, lighter armor will, as well, but if you're calling for lots of individual rolls, you're kinda guaranteeing eventual failure.

Seems as though telling someone they should have built their character differently is moving the goalposts to a different pitch, though. Good job, well done, buh-bye.

 

[Retros_x]

Thanks.

So it reveals mundanely hidden creatures as if they were visible now and not just actually invisible things.

If you see someone hidden they are not hidden anymore anyway.

That’s a requirement for taking the Hide action. The rules for the action don’t say the condition ends if you leave cover or obscuration.

The rules say the condition ends when an enemy spots you. To get spotted an enemy needs to perceive you. If you are obscured, they need to roll on perception to see if the can hear you or maybe see some movement in the shadows. If they just run into you or you just dropped from the ceiling there is no chance of failure, they perceive you automatically and you are not hidden anymore. No DM I know would roll a perception check to spot an enemy that stands in front of you. So getting out of cover, getting out of darkness, dropping from the celing, whatever, definitely lets an enemy spot you, which meets the condition that is specified in hiding action that you are not hidden and thus cannot reap the benefits of the invisibility condition anymore.

The spell doesn’t actually say that though

But the condition "Invisible" says it.

Again, they naughty word up the phrasings completely. But if you take your time to read all the texts and associated rules spread over different pages RAW becomes clear for me at last. But in this department its a big failure in their attempt to make the rules better understandable, they managed to make it even worse.

 

[Nefermandias]

Why people keep saying they removed contested checks from the game?
Here is what page 29 from the new DMG says under "Calculated Difficult Classes":

Another way to handle similar situations is to have one creature's ability check set the DC for another creature's check. That's how hiding works, for example: a hiding creature's total Dexterity (Stealth) check sets the DC for Wisdom (Perception) checks made to find the hidden creature.

Clearly, contests are still a thing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why people keep saying they removed contested checks from the game?
Here is what page 29 from the new DMG says under "Calculated Difficult Classes":

Another way to handle similar situations is to have one creature's ability check set the DC for another creature's check. That's how hiding works, for example: a hiding creature's total Dexterity (Stealth) check sets the DC for Wisdom (Perception) checks made to find the hidden creature.

Clearly, contests are still a thing.

Ok, that's good!

 

[Charlaquin]

If you see someone hidden they are not hidden anymore anyway.

The rules say the condition ends when an enemy spots you. To get spotted an enemy needs to perceive you. If you are obscured, they need to roll on perception to see if the can hear you or maybe see some movement in the shadows. If they just run into you or you just dropped from the ceiling there is no chance of failure, they perceive you automatically and you are not hidden anymore. No DM I know would roll a perception check to spot an enemy that stands in front of you. So getting out of cover, getting out of darkness, dropping from the celing, whatever, definitely lets an enemy spot you, which meets the condition that is specified in hiding action that you are not hidden and thus cannot reap the benefits of the invisibility condition anymore.

Unless you’re, you know, invisible. Which the Hide action makes you.

But the condition "Invisible" says it.

It actually doesn’t say that. Again, we can infer it from the name of the condition, but then we must also infer that the Hide action makes you invisible too, since it says it does, and doesn’t specify any exception. If we are applying the effects of the condition consistently, it either makes you impossible to see with regular vision when you take the Hide action (in which case you would not be found when you leave cover unless you also made a loud noise) or it doesn’t do that when you cast the Invisibility spell (in which case all you get from being invisible is advantage on initiative since the other effects don’t work if the enemy can see you).

 

[Audiomancer]

Why people keep saying they removed contested checks from the game?
Here is what page 29 from the new DMG says under "Calculated Difficult Classes":

Another way to handle similar situations is to have one creature's ability check set the DC for another creature's check. That's how hiding works, for example: a hiding creature's total Dexterity (Stealth) check sets the DC for Wisdom (Perception) checks made to find the hidden creature.

Clearly, contests are still a thing.

Wait… you READ the DMG?!?!

Is that… even ALLOWED?

 

[Nefermandias]

Wait… you READ the DMG?!?!

Is that… even ALLOWED?

Honestly, the "nobody reads the DMG" meme has always been tiresome and kind of harmful for the community. Especially for newcomers.

It is particularly annoying when "influencers" keep spreading the lie that the DMGs were all bad and useless. And yes, I am including the 2014 one here too. I am one of the few who really find the 2014 DMG good.


The very idea of someone picking up on DMing without even reading the core rulebooks is frankly absurd to me.

 

[Li Shenron]

Actually, there's something quite interesting in the new write up:

They tell us that group checks aren't the right tool to resolve situations where a single failed check would have consequences.

That's pretty much where group checks were useful.