D&D 4E Is infiltration/misdirection possible in 4E?

[Cryptos]

It's hard to come up with fortress layouts and guard routines on the fly... for me, at least.

Granted, it can be tough at times, but the OP has mentioned a very fertile source of inspiration for this very thing - the Thief video games. Go back and reread the part in the DMG about borrowing liberally for your campaigns. Seems to me that once again, the solutions are right in front of him. If you're able, go back and play the games for a few hours. Get a feel for what the environments look like and how the NPCs are placed and move around. It's been long enough since they've been out that if you dress the scenarios up with D&D flavor, and with the shift to team-oriented play and the opportunities of roleplaying instead of being on a linear path, your players probably won't even notice, and if they do, they'll probably enjoy it just as much.

 

[The Grackle]

There is no out-of-combat invisibility in this game. If you open a door -- even unseen -- then you break sustainability and lose your invisibility power for the day.

Requiring a standard action to sustain is for use in a combat round. Outside of combat you don't move in stuttering, 6-second bursts or have defined action types- you just do stuff. I'd say as long as a wiz didn't attack or cast a spell, he could keep his invisibility up. It's a DM's call really.

If you could figure out how to make 1e, 2e and 3e into infiltration games, I'm positive you can manage it with Fourth.

 

[Otterscrubber]

I think there is a ton more exciting options now for doing "Thief"-style infiltration. You can basically run a whole subterfuge encounter, or even a whole play session without doing any combat whatsoever. Just roleplay and some skill checks here and there. Makes me think of the "A" team. Ya got your dwarven B.A. Baracas to maybe forge some tools you'll need to break into the lords treasure chest, Half-Elf "Faceman" to charm some of the kitchen maids in the lords castle to get you inside, a crazy Tiefling Murdoc to do some streetwise something or another to setup some type of backalley getaway and a human "Hannibal" to mastermind it all and distract the lord at a dinner while he's busy gettin robbed

All to get a land-deed that rightfully belongs to a poor peasant family and discover that the lord has been stealing taxes from the King himself!

Queue the action music......

 

[Torchlyte]

I wouldn't say those options are really new, but they certainly seem better-integrated to me.

 

[Rechan]

Requiring a standard action to sustain is for use in a combat round. Outside of combat you don't move in stuttering, 6-second bursts or have defined action types- you just do stuff. I'd say as long as a wiz didn't attack or cast a spell, he could keep his invisibility up. It's a DM's call really.

And the wizard could always be standing on the sideline, using his standard action to give the Rogue (or the big clunky fighter) the benefit of the illusion.

Granted, he needs to be in range and be in LoS/LoE, but the wizard doesn't have to be the one invisible. A character acting drunk, asleep, whathaveyou, sitting with a view while the invisible rogue pickpockets the keys from a guard is wholly possible.

 

[hong]

As the guy whose dragonborn ruined our party's stealth check this evening ("I rolled a five! Everyone hear me? I rolled a five!"),

 

[SableWyvern]

Because he wants a style of game which the more meat of the core books (Powers) does not facilitate.

And...?

How does that make the skill challenge system necessary? Are you seriously asserting that you can't run an inflitration game without using skill challenges? Individual task resolution systems have served many people very well for a very long time, and continue to do so. That D&D4e introduces a challenge resolution system doesn't suddenly change that.

 

[Surgoshan]

It's hard to come up with fortress layouts and guard routines on the fly... for me, at least.

Neither can I. I really meant to wing the play session. Build up a fortress based on the known playstyle, but also trying to accommodate what they can and can't do in 4e. After a few infiltrations, he'll have a better feel for what's possible and what isn't.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't see any need for the OP to use skill challenges if he dislikes the degree and style of abstraction they involve. Skill challenges are a tool made available to GMs in 4E, but there's nothing about the game that requires their use.

You appear to have a mistaken understanding about skill challenges.

If either of the elements I talk about in my initial post are followed up, it will quickly be seen that 'skill challenges' are not used in those cases as hand waving abstractions of the whole affair.

Instead they are used at each step of the way to enable degrees of success or failure in attempting each step of the infiltration.

In previous editions (without magic) it would have been "everyone make your hide and move silently checks". "Oh, one of you rolled pretty badly". "Now all the guards make their spot and listen checks. One guy rolls well, you're spotted".

There could be a skill challenge for getting up to the castle, a skill challenge for getting inside (through the gate? over the wall? something else?), a skill challenge for finding the right location, and so on. Lots of DM creativity opportunities at each step of the process, and the beauty of it is that one unlucky roll by the PCs just increases the tension rather than spells out instant failure.

Seriously, look at some of the neat things that have been done with them.

Regards

 

[Grabuto138]

I don’t often post but I am ashamed to admit that this post really rubbed me the wrong way. In my impression, the OP was really describing a campaign based almost exclusively on magic-users stepping all over everyone else. A problem since first edition that, I hope, has been resolved in 4th edition.

The bias against skill challenges is, for me, telling. My campaign has used an ad hoc version of skill challenges since we started 3rd edition. Basically, if the player wants to do or know something and could reasonably justify it then they could make a skill or ability check. We establish a flow, describing what we do and say, and periodically the DM would call for a check. The player would help set the tone for what checks by describing the skills they are using.

More importantly, speaking only for me, I can’t imagine anything more boring than a series of infiltration missions based on magic such as scry and invisibility. Since you know my spells, just email me on how it works out. Why do I need to be there? A better solution is to devise a mission based on skills that lets everyone, including players without a potion of invisibility, shine. I am sure that many DMs reading this post began to instinctively think of adventures based on infiltration that would let everyone get a turn.