Hiding and Detection

[Minigiant]

Magic and axes? Hiding behind trees and doors is hot in da dungeons.

This topic is about stealth and detection and how we prefer seeing it. Here are my thoughts on the subject.

1) Sight and Hearing.
I understand the reason for having Stealth and Perception handing both sight and hearing senses. It makes life easier for characters in many new Rpgs by removing the double cost to be sneaky or observant. Many 3rd edition rogues, rangers, monks, etc were down four skill points a level by default.

But there was something about having light and sound separate skills that had a little more charm. I hope to see them split up without an almost automatic tax or penalty.

2) Strength and Magic

I prefer magical and mundane stealth and detection to be separate for the most part. There should be few (read as less than 2) spells that let a caster notice a person hiding behind a rock. An adventurer would have a hard time actually seeing an invisible monster but it would be possible with enough levels, training, or wisdom. There is Invisibility and "so sneaky its practically Invisibility".

Mundane sense can only sort of pick up the invisible until epic. Magical spells can only enhance mundane senses to pick up super sneaks outside of polymorphing into a being with additional senses.

3) Raw Power
At some point, character should be able to effortless stroll in and out a 1st level commoner town without a chance of being seen via mundane methods as long as they have enough cover to slip behind.
Basically I want to see +20 total modifiers for stealth and senses roll at some point in the game.

4) Availability
Any character who does not have a class or theme that almost absolutely requires stealth or detection or is of a race that is genetically inclined to sneakiness or strong sense should have to spend some sort of resources to be sneaky or observant. Free bonuses/Class Skills/Skill Training only to those who need it.

The additional of themes could facilitate this by letting the noisy, blind, and deaf classes get the skills that only some of them use. Then the town guard arguments can end as the town guard theme has perception skills whereas the fighter class doesn't have any.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

1. I think that the differences between being seen and being heard can be handled, when they're important, with situational/specific modifers, and don't need to be handled with duplicate/parallel skills -- so a more 4e approach than a 3.5 approach.

I tend to think 4e handles stealth pretty well, if you use all the rules. Many folks, I think, tend to ignore the speed limitations on stealthy movement that applies to just about everyone but rogues (who take the right powers). That stealthy mobility is huge, if it's used.

As for the way 4e handles spells like invisibility, again, I think it works pretty well. They can't see you, but they know right where you are if you don't make some sort of stealth check -- the same way they'd know right where you were if you were behind a curtain but they knew you were there.

-rg

 

[Hassassin]

I disagree about separating sight and hearing again. When it matters (e.g. low light vision) use modifiers.

The rest is pretty much what I also think.

 

[Savage Wombat]

I always disliked stealth and opposed roll mechanics, because it meant that it was near-impossible to sneak up or past multiple opponents. Because somebody's going to roll high, and all it takes is one.

 

[CM]

I always disliked stealth and opposed roll mechanics, because it meant that it was near-impossible to sneak up or past multiple opponents. Because somebody's going to roll high, and all it takes is one.

In 4e you're rolling against the enemy's passive perception (they were taking 10 on spot/listen in 3e parlance), so it was actually much more reliable. If they had reason to believe that someone was hidden in the area they could use minor actions to roll actual d20 perception checks. I'd like to see something similar continue in 5e.

Edit:

The downside is that I think it's still too easy to make a 4e PC with stratospheric stealth or perception check bonuses, with all the untyped modifiers out there. 4e was supposed to fix this, but there it is.

 

[howandwhy99]

Off the top of my head (just something weird I thought of):

Character/Monster ratings: - modified by environmental factors (cover/concealment, noise, etc.)

• Sight - clarity by distance (requires light)
• Hearing - ditto (needs a medium as well)
• Scent/taste - requires scented material, spore left in an area
• Touch - This is contact, but could notice a heat/cold source with enough disparity. Could also notice pressure a la waves in water
• Balance is a non-factor in my book for detecting others.

These are all passive or constant actions. Active searching/listening could increase odds due to focus, looking under and in things, etc. Active rolls could be opposed or against a static DC.

Ability DCs are assigned for each of the above, this is very similar to other abilities a.k.a. Ability Scores. I'd probably do these by Race and and leave out character variance just for the ease of it. Eagle-men see farther than humans, but neither hear as well as bat-men. Adding in 3-18 is just making things too hard on ourselves.

Sneak checks are modified by the user's size, brightness, odor, loudness, heat or cold disparity, etc. as above. This should be as easy as possible: Human norm = 0 and most everything about demi-humans is 0 as well, customization as desired.

FYI, hiding was always hide in shadows before. No shadows, no hiding. Being a chameleon or camouflaged (invisible) always required a special item or effect.

Success = success for the individual for at least the day. A mass of individuals are going to get a bonus based on group size anyways, but the same holds true for them too. However, still, no shadows (concealment), no hiding.