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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Slobber Monster" data-source="post: 2594525" data-attributes="member: 27687">I agree that stalking someone closely for an extended period of time should be pretty hard without an overwhelming stealth advantage. However, the one problem with rolling every round is that you run into problems with the granularity of the d20 system. For any combination of skills and circumstances, there's going to be a distance at which it's completely impossible to hear the opponent. If the opponent follows 10' closer than this distance, then the listener will hear them on a 20 if the stalker rolls a 1. That's a 0.25% chance per round of detection, which over the course of an hour makes detection (guesstimating here) about  70-80% likely. Over two hours it's well over 90% likely. The odds of detection go up pretty quickly from there. So you go from guaranteed success to almost certain failure with little space in between.That behavior might be OK in many cases. If so the DM might as well simply choose whether the detection occurs at all, and if so where it occurs. This can still be done randomly, but skill checks aren't really the most effecient way to do it. If detection occurs then skill modifiers can still be used to establish how far away the opponent is.The other way to handle it, and this is what I would usually do, is after the initial opposed skill check only make a new roll whenever circumstances change. A check would be made every time the group stops and listens, or if the stalker speeds up to shorten the distance, or a new ground surface is encountered, the wind dies down, after combat, etc.</blockquote>

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