Is a Ranger still part of a group while scouting?

[daimaru42]

OK, I have some questions about my new Ranger character. The DM is currently working up a campaign where he and some friends are guiding a group of escaped slaves through a forest. Coincidentally, (I swear) my character has that as his favored terrain, so the group can move at full speed through difficult terrain and can't get lost (except magically).
But can the Ranger scout ahead without the group losing those benefits? How far? Obviously, if he scouted ahead a mile or more they could certainly get lost while he was away. But 50'? 100'? What if he's being stealthy? Is he more apt to lose them if he's being deliberately hard to see?
Flipping that around, how close can he stay to the group without losing his ability to sneak up to random monsters?
Also, stealth movement slows a character to 2/3 speed. Stripe has a normal speed of 35' per turn, I'd call that 25'. Am I right?
FWIW, he has proficiency in both stealth and perception, besides being in his favored terrain.

 

[iserith]

It's up to your DM how far you can scout ahead. If I were your DM, I'd be fine with you scouting ahead quite a distance within reason on the grounds that I don't want to rob you of one of the cool things you can do (and may not do very often over the course of a campaign). One could imagine that even a ranger scouting out a mile ahead is leaving a trail for the rest of the party to travel such that they don't get lost and can avoid difficult terrain. There are ways to imagine this working.

Stealthy movement is 2/3 speed if you're using the rules for Travel Pace, as you say, and your ranger can move normal pace when traveling alone. There is no reduction in speed for becoming hidden otherwise in a combat or other "zoomed in" situation. What "traveling alone" means is up to your DM, but again, if I were your DM, I'd prefer not to negate your class features wherever possible. So as long as whatever you proposed as your approach to your goal seemed reasonable given the situation, you can travel at a normal pace and remain stealthy with the rest of the party at a reasonable distance away. The thing is, if your DM is running the normal rules for surprise, it will still come down to the person who rolls the lowest. So really, this issue of normal vs. slow pace and how close your party is shouldn't really be a consideration.

 

[aco175]

If I was the DM, I would make a few encounters that are set and a couple random ones that would be rolled for. I would let the ranger use his cool abilities like [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] said above. I would also allow the ranger to be close when one of the set encounters happened. For instance, I may make a waterfall encounter where the group must cross some stones or a log to avoid falling over the waterfall. Maybe some goblins are on the other side shooting arrows. Now the group can withdraw and maybe get lost from the ranger, since he is no longer guiding them, or they can try to cross under fire to engage. The player of the ranger is now either out of the fight since he is scouting maybe a mile or so ahead, but that is not fun. I would give the rest of the party a round or two getting shot at and then have the ranger appear behind the goblins already on the other side. This would allow the other PCs to cross earlier and allow the ranger some cool time by himself.

 

[ad_hoc]

Those abilities are for overland travel.

Tactical movement is unaffected. Overland travel doesn't care about your movement speed for example. Difficult terrain in combat still applies.

 

[Hriston]

Not generally. Scouting ahead will usually split the party. Read the "Splitting the Party" sidebar in the "Activity While Travelling" section. If the ranger is moving at a different pace than the rest of the party, s/he definitely forms his/her own group. On the other hand, I could see a marching order with the ranger in the front rank some distance from the rest of the party making sense, so it's really up to your DM.

OK, I have some questions about my new Ranger character. The DM is currently working up a campaign where he and some friends are guiding a group of escaped slaves through a forest. Coincidentally, (I swear) my character has that as his favored terrain, so the group can move at full speed through difficult terrain and can't get lost (except magically).
But can the Ranger scout ahead without the group losing those benefits? How far? Obviously, if he scouted ahead a mile or more they could certainly get lost while he was away. But 50'? 100'? What if he's being stealthy? Is he more apt to lose them if he's being deliberately hard to see?

Again, I think the question is whether you've split the party and what matters is what makes sense to your DM/group. The litmus test I would personally apply is whether the ranger and the rest of the party are moving at the same travel pace for the hour in question. If not, then the party has split. If they are and the ranger is using stealth (i.e. the entire party is travelling at a slow pace), they may not be aware of the ranger's exact location but can rely on the understanding that s/he is a certain distance ahead of them.

Flipping that around, how close can he stay to the group without losing his ability to sneak up to random monsters?

I'm not sure what ability you mean. If the ranger is alone, s/he can sneak at a normal pace, but if the group is tagging along, stealth requires a slow pace. The distance ahead the ranger would need to be for the group not to spoil his/her attempt to be sneaky, however, depends on sighting and audible distances for the area in which the monster is encountered. In a forest, the ranger could usually get within around 90 feet of the monster without having to come out into the open, but under some circumstances could get as close as 20 feet. As long as the rest of the group is also sneaking (which entails moving at a slow pace) and stays more than 40 feet behind the ranger (although under some circumstances they could be closer), any quiet noises they make won't be heard by a monster another 20 feet ahead of the ranger, for example.

Also, stealth movement slows a character to 2/3 speed. Stripe has a normal speed of 35' per turn, I'd call that 25'. Am I right?

Moving stealthily has no effect on character speed, which is used when resolving events on a turn-by-turn scale (combat). Outside of combat, events are resolved on a scale of minutes, hours, or days, in which case moving stealthily requires using a slow pace, which is the same for all characters. The benefits to the group from Natural Explorer of moving through difficult terrain and not getting lost are conferred when resolving travel on a scale of hours or greater.

 

[Fevvers]

I'd rule that the ranger is still part of the party if the rest of the party are moving at the same pace and communication (via visual signals, Message cantrip, familiar or similar) is still possible.

However, this then raises an interesting question regarding Rary's Telepathic Bond...

 

[guachi]

If I were your DM, I'd be fine with you scouting ahead quite a distance within reason on the grounds that I don't want to rob you of one of the cool things you can do (and may not do very often over the course of a campaign).

Using the actual rules as starting point, the above is an incredibly important factor to weigh in regards to the Ranger ability in question.

The amount of times this will come up in a campaign is probably in the neighborhood of "once".

It's even more important to let players use these kinds of rarely used abilities at low levels when PCs have so little they can do, anyway.

 

[Shiroiken]

Obviously it depends on the DM, but group mentality affects this as well. I've seen "scouting ahead" range from as far as a mile to as little as 10 ft, depending on how the group views it. Depending on terrain, I would say average scouting would be between 100 ft (thick forest/jungle) to several thousand feet (open plains), but in both cases the scout would still be part of the traveling party because they would regularly return with information (possibly waiting for the party to catch up) or leave messages for the party to find (such as marks on trees).

 

[S'mon]

>>so the group can move at full speed through difficult terrain and can't get lost (except magically).
But can the Ranger scout ahead without the group losing those benefits? How far? <<

As GM I would rule that for the group to move at full speed, the Ranger can take point but needs to stay in sight of the group. That generally means they all fit on one battlemat.

 

[5ekyu]

The direct answer is "ask your GM and talk it over with them." Its vital that you and your GM be on the same page and pretty much irrelevant what we think.

That said, as GM with any sort of character capability and focus I tend to not try to finagle edge cases where it fails or (worse) bites the character. As such i would assume your character is smart and skilled and that means when visibility varies so would your position scouting... maybe you cut farther ahead due to clear field and a hill or tree you can use - maybe you draw in closer because it's more crowded with low visibility or maybe the reverse...

But unless you fail a check I won't be throwing any sort of "normal" setup that screws you over for scouting.

Matter of fact, I tend to roll "random encounters" at the beginning of the "day" and then during the day a scout or ranger could spot signs of these being in the locale (in addition to possible of set planned encounters.) I **hates it** when after you setup camp the GM rolls on some random chart for a beastie you have seen not one sign of all day to proof show up on the edge of your campsite.

Had my fill of roving packs of ninja-ogres, ninja-basilisks, ninja-giant-web-slinging-spiders, ninja-uber-trolls who all apparently only fed once a year and clean up all their dinners.