How far should the party hang back from the scout?

[TheEvil]

"Scouting" in D&D is spelled divination. Clairvoyance and clairaudience as well as scrying are the usual methods. You can fall back on things like augury, divination, or locate object or creature aslo.

If you're really desperate, you can cast fly, invisibility, and silence on someone with a good spot skill and send them into the air to look around. This is usually only useful if what you're looking for is either really big or really obvious, though, in my experience.

Arcane Eye is also an excellent spell to add to that list, though a spell caster without a high spot will miss things.

 

[TheEvil]

Yes, they would. But at least the party would get to keep the benefits of a character with good spot and listen, amongst other skills.

Without getting noticed? Tremor Sense, Blindsense/Sight, very simple traps, and statistics all conspire to make the life of a scout a short one.

The Darkstalker feat in Lords of Madness, requires creatures with Scent, Blindsense/sight and/or Tremorsense are still required to make a spot or listen check, whichever is higher. Just make sure your GM is cool with the idea.

In any case, make sure your scout doesn't neglect Spot and Listen. In one game, my scout snuck right through a waiting ambush and back through it without ever being noticed. But she didn't see the ambushers either! It was rather embarassing and I heavily invested in spot and listen on the next level.

 

[Vrecknidj]

The nearest member should always be at least one foot more away than any number divisible by 5.

;-)

Dave

 

[Chimera]

I guess that I've been fortunate that, while I've played with a pretty good number of GMs, none of them has ever been the vindictive bastard that decides that he needs to deliberately kill off the scout with traps or special monsters designed to do just that.

Divinations. Great, but sometimes you don't have those spells. Sometimes you got better ideas for your spell selection.

In the last session of my Greyhawk game, I scouted ahead quite a bit (Fighter 1 / Rogue 2 / Wizard 1, really odd character development). First with the usual Hide/Move Silent, then with an object that cast Darkness (when I have Darkvision from a special), then for a brief while with both Darkness and Silence upon me.

In the past, I've used Invisibility. Certainly I'll do that again in the future. Especially after one case, where I got up close to two guards and sneak attacked one of them with a vial of Alchemist Fire, killing him. I then turned and ran at top speed back to the intersection where I'd left my party. They were able to ambush the guards who were chasing me.

The trick for me has always been to know when I'm over my head, when I've passed too many doors or other corridors, or when I'm getting too far away from the party. I also insist on having a good selection of potions available, which is sometimes an issue - I end up arguing with other players about how much they help me scout versus their desire to have it in their pocket 'just in case'.

 

[Stalker0]

If your going against humanoids, scouting shouldn't be so lethal. Remember, fighters don't have spot as a class skill so most of the time the scout should be undetectable.

But many monsters have very good senses, not so great against them.

 

[TheGogmagog]

In general, I agree with the above. If a scout is absolutely necessary, I'd make sure to cast the Message spell on the scout, so we could communicate over distances, and require him to scout ahead no farther than 2 rounds ahead of the party. Any farther and he's as good as dead before reinforcements can reach him. And even the 2 rounds may get him killed more often than not.

I'll second the 2 round rule. If the scout turns tail, and the group contiues they could be together in one round.

The point isn't so much that the group isn't noticed, it's that the scout isnt. At two rounds ahead, the rogue should get an encounter check two rounds before the rest of the group. By RAW, the oncoming group would then get a check for the rest of the group one or two rounds later when they have closed to encounter distance. Even if the scout fails to spot them, or the opponents approach from the side, the scout is at an advantageous position to flank if they are unseen.

I do agree with all the dangers of scouting, it requires winning both hide and move silently checks moving at a reduced speed, and then winning one of spot or listen. Thats four skills to keep maxed, plus the party will probably expect him to detect and disable traps, find loot, activate magic items.... Of course you can augment your skills with invisibility, fly and silence, dimension door and who knows what other magic. So it's probably not for everyone unless you are keeping those skills maxed and have some evasion magic. It's value would vary depending on how the DM rules the advantages of scouting. I'd agree with the second poster, 30' isn't worth independant spot checks, but 60 to 90 should be. If an oncoming group spots the main group, they should still need to roll separate spot checks for the scout.

 

[Felon]

Scouting is dangerous, but so is blundering into ambushes blindly. Saying that "it doesn't work in D&D" or "sooner or later it gets you killed" are generalities that can be applied to many roles, such as the fighter who acts as the party's meat shield. You obviously need certain assets to be successful. In this case, you need to be able to escape if you're detected. Ranks in Hide, Move Silently, Spot, Listen, Tumble, and a decent initiative modifier all are important. If you're in an enclosed area, forget the bow. Hold a melee weapon in one hand, and a potion of invisibility or cure X wounds in the other.

Obviously, it helps to have more than one party member capable of scouting, but for some reason a lot of players I've gamed with seem demonstrably irritated when they discover they're not the only stealthy character. Go figure.

A lot of scouting's success depends on the DM and the situation (mostly the DM). Some mean DM's do not like scouts, because they spoil surprises. Some nice DM's keep their encounters so evenly-matched to the party that caution is simply a grand waste of time.

In dense terrain, like forests, you can scout ahead 60-100 feet. In more open terrain, you may have to outride a bit.

 

[diaglo]

If your going against humanoids, scouting shouldn't be so lethal. Remember, fighters don't have spot as a class skill so most of the time the scout should be undetectable.

nor are wis or int their primary stats.

 

[Nail]

I guess that I've been fortunate that, while I've played with a pretty good number of GMs, none of them has ever been the vindictive bastard that decides that he needs to deliberately kill off the scout with traps or special monsters designed to do just that.

Vindictive? Try "normal set-up".

D&D 3.xe generally discourages "scouting" in the classic sense. There are good reasons for this:

• It bores the other players, and
• It reduces dramatic tension.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

~1 round ahead and we do not like to lose sight of our friends as a habit. Sometimes we let him push ahead if there is a good situation dependent reason.

A scout pused even a little bit ahead has a pretty good chance of detecting an ambush before the entire party walks into the kill zone.

However, putting the entire party in the kill zone is not necessarily a bad thing if your party is optimized for taking care of all problems with uncomplicated extreme violence. If everyone is within LoS of the enemy then the enemy is probably within LoS of everyone, yes? But these tactics do not bode well for encounters where you should have run before getting hip deep in your own blood...