Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="DrSpunj" data-source="post: 1594034" data-attributes="member: 994">Agree.Agree.Disagree. The PHB is very clear about distance playing a factor, -1 per 10' of distance, and we've kept that in our combined Sneak. The difference between the Detector's bonus and the Sneaker's bonus (along with any other modifiers appropriate to the situation) then very specifically dictate the distance at which opposed rolls come into play.If a Ranger in the forest (some total cover behind larger trees, but cover present everywhere to allow Hiding) is trying to sneak up on an Orc guarding his tribe's encampment the DM should be able to calculate ahead of time how close the Ranger needs to get before opposed checks are necessary, either with Hide/Spot or Listen/MS under the RAW, just by assuming the Ranger rolls 1s and the Orc rolls 20s. The difference is the maximum distance penalty that allows for the Orc to automatically fail and the Ranger to automatically succeed; 10' less than that is when opposed rolls need to start. Depending on their skills relative to each other that could be as little as 30', but it could also be much higher. At night the Orc's Spot would be limited by his 60' Darkvision, but his chance at Listening wouldn't be affected. In the daytime both are limited only by the distance penalty.How often should the DM ask for opposed rolls? This is probably debatable, but I usually ask once per action. Move Silently & Hide both allow you to move half your speed with no penalty, so it seems to me that you'd ask for an opposed check any time someone used a Move Action. If they use a double Move Action to approach, flitting from one tree to a bush to the next tree a bit closer to their goal, then we roll two opposed checks, one at the end of each Move Action.Umm, how about a Ranger trying to sneak up on an Orc camp guard in the forest? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Or a Rogue trying to sneak across a large cavern riddled with stalagmites & pillars of various sizes? Or someone sneaking across a graveyard at night using the tombstones & mausoleums as best they can for cover? What about in a tumble or ruins, with large pieces of rock walls in disarray with bits of more than a few still standing upright in places?I've played in games with each of these scenarios just in the last several months, and while your experience certainly seems to differ, using the two skills together happens quite a bit more often than using them separately in any 3.x games I've been a part of.It's true that not every situation calls for both under the RAW, but if you're moving at all within hearing distance a Listen/MS rolled is required, and if at any time during your Move Action you have the potential to be seen (because you have less than Total Cover) then a Spot/Hide check is likewise required. That happens an awful lot in the games I've played in. It seems YM-does-V. <shrug>Your intent behind these two paragraphs is a bit confusing to me. In the first it seems like you say we don't need to combine the Sneak skill at all, but in the second you go on to say Monte combined them into a single skill (effectively giving Sneaky characters an extra skill pt per level), so it must be okay to do so, but he kept the mechanics otherwise identical to the RAW and you don't seem to care for how we've combined the mechanics. Can you please clarify your position here?Thanks.DrSpunj</blockquote>

Verification