I can't decide about Rats!

[Mistah J]

Quick question:

The party is trying to sneak around some caves used as a hideout by some bandits. These caves are infested with rats - normal, completely harmless rats, just lots of them.

I can't make up my mind if this should help the PCs or hinder them.

1. Help: the bandits are used to little noises and corner-of-the-eye movements and just assume anything the PCs do is rats moving about.

2. Hinder: As the PCs move about, they disturb the rats who squeak and scurry about - alerting the bandits to their presence.

If it helps to know, this is a party of 5 2nd lvl PCs on their first adventure of the campaign.

What do you think?

 

[Asha'man]

What a cool idea! Maybe I'll steal it.

But my immediate instinct would be to do both, in separate encounters.

Have some inexperienced, skittish thieves who jump at the slightest noise -both when it's PCs and when it's rats!
Then some more experienced, but complacent or lazy guards, who go "eeh, the rats are restless today"
And the master thief, who's clever and alert. "Something's spooked these rats."

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Basically, Asha'man has it right...sort of.

You should give the NPCs a chance to see if they perceive the reason why the rats are squeaking...essentially a Listen or Spot check, possibly modified by things like someone being in tune with nature (like a Druid or Ranger) or a native of the sewers.

 

[Mistah J]

Thanks for the advice.

Taking it, I've come up with the following:

The rats give a -2 penalty to Stealth checks (we're using PFRPG). If the bandits fail two opposed Perception checks, this penalty turns into a +2 bonus since they stop paying attention due to too many "false alarms."

The PCs can also intentionally disturb the rats (ideally at a distance). This can be done in a number of ways (handle animal check, ranged touch attack with a stone) and counts as a failed Perception check on the part of the bandits.

Thoughts?

 

[Infiniti2000]

Maybe the PC's can move through the rats without disturbing them too much. Actualy, though, doesn't it seem like the rats are used to the presence of humanoids, what with the bandits about? Maybe they would be scared at all and you should just give the bad guys a -2 to Perception (or +2 to Stealth). Increase that to +4 if the PC Ranger (or whatever) can induce some cooperation with the rats (e.g. Handle Animal).