D&D 5E Moving Stealthily While Traveling

[Draegn]

In addition to sight and sound has anyone ever considered scents? How would you handle a character that is played as a dandy? A character who always bathes with a Lush bath bomb, receives massages with scented oils, wears perfumes, and does everything possible to remain clean.

 

[Hriston]

Outdoors, when travelling in the wilderness, yes. Part of that is due to the probability of a humanoid with inferior senses tripping over a natural predator in its own habitat, and part of it is due to the way that 5E rules discourage trivial combats by handing out so much free healing.

How does the predator have a chance to notice the humanoid without encountering it? And wouldn't the humanoid then have a chance to notice the predator, however small that chance may be?

Even in circumstances where it makes sense for the party to come across a random monster or bandits or something, I'm much more likely to just handwave it, since there's no chance that anyone will die and all damage will be erased by morning. The exception to that is usually dragons, unless the party is over level 10, at which point those can also be handwaved.

I can understand skipping such encounters if you feel like they're a waste of game time.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

How does the predator have a chance to notice the humanoid without encountering it?

That's just a matter of how you want to label it. Generally speaking, if the monster is 20 feet away and the party never sees it, I wouldn't count that as an encounter.

And wouldn't the humanoid then have a chance to notice the predator, however small that chance may be?

Theoretically, yes, but not a significant one. If you have a sleeping leopard in a corn field, and you cross that field at random, your chance of tripping over the leopard is significantly less than five percent.

 

[Hriston]

That's just a matter of how you want to label it. Generally speaking, if the monster is 20 feet away and the party never sees it, I wouldn't count that as an encounter.

Ah, then we've been talking past each other somewhat. I was using an encounter to mean the same thing as you seemed to mean by "the parties passing within observation distance of each other", which I wouldn't think means observation necessarily takes place and would include avoided or negated encounters.

Theoretically, yes, but not a significant one. If you have a sleeping leopard in a corn field, and you cross that field at random, your chance of tripping over the leopard is significantly less than five percent.

I think our resolution process differs somewhat. I wouldn't require you to trip over the leopard in order to notice it. Determining that the sleeping leopard is encountered is what prompts me to introduce it in the first place. That determination also tells me the leopard is within encounter distance, and since it's asleep, and therefore not trying to be stealthy, it would be noticed immediately.

 

[Hriston]

Except for things like salt pans, there's rarely terrain that's truly flat. Gullies, dips, etc., exist that can be taken advantage of to move undetected through a lot of 'open' terrain. A dip of just a few feet can be exploited to be invisible. This is even ignoring things like tall grass or other ground vegetation.

I'm in agreement with this and other statements that stealthy movement is possible in pretty much all terrain types. As a DM, I would only introduce an exception as a particular challenge to be overcome, which would be explicit to the players in my description of the area before they decided if and how they were going to move into or through it.

On the other hand, at the scale of an encounter map, areas may exist where no stealthy movement is possible, because of the presence of illumination and lack of dense foliage, for example.

I think the reason I started this thread was to explore the idea that terrain types could be considered more or less conducive for stealthy movement in the same way that certain areas of a smaller-scale map could be. Dense forest, described as a type of difficult terrain in the PHB, for example, seems to equate quite readily to dense foliage, but I think drawing these types of parallels may not be as productive as it seemed to me at first. Obviously, all terrain types are a pastiche of features, which is probably why conditions making stealthy movement possible are available in nearly all cases.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I think our resolution process differs somewhat. I wouldn't require you to trip over the leopard in order to notice it. Determining that the sleeping leopard is encountered is what prompts me to introduce it in the first place. That determination also tells me the leopard is within encounter distance, and since it's asleep, and therefore not trying to be stealthy, it would be noticed immediately.

To further highlight the differences in our process, I would argue that a sleeping leopard is inherently stealthy, and would require a check to find it even if you knew it was around. A sleeping cat has more in common with a hidden object than it does with an active creature.

 

[Hriston]

To further highlight the differences in our process, I would argue that a sleeping leopard is inherently stealthy, and would require a check to find it even if you knew it was around. A sleeping cat has more in common with a hidden object than it does with an active creature.

You're right. I generally wouldn't use my personal knowledge of leopards to make a ruling that affects a mechanical outcome of the game. I'd rather let the mechanics speak for themselves, and if there's nothing in the leopard's stat-block about being hidden when asleep, then I wouldn't introduce such mechanics to model something about leopards that the stat-block doesn't capture. I don't think a 5e stat-block for a leopard exists, but looking at the panther and the tiger, they have no special ability to remain hidden while asleep.

You seem to know more than I do about the sleeping habits of leopards, but I have a few cats of my own. They're much smaller than leopards, and sometimes I have to look under a chair to find one of them when it's asleep, but there are other times when they make noises or twitch their ears in their sleep involuntarily. I don't see why the larger leopard wouldn't be even more noticeable.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I generally wouldn't use my personal knowledge of leopards to make a ruling that affects a mechanical outcome of the game. I'd rather let the mechanics speak for themselves, and if there's nothing in the leopard's stat-block about being hidden when asleep, then I wouldn't introduce such mechanics to model something about leopards that the stat-block doesn't capture. I don't think a 5e stat-block for a leopard exists, but looking at the panther and the tiger, they have no special ability to remain hidden while asleep.

It's not a trait of any particular creature. It's just my ruling on the general properties of being asleep, is that you aren't drawing any special attention to yourself.

Even if you're indoors, in a fairly large room, I wouldn't say that you automatically notice every object in that room. If there's a creature in that room, then you're probably going to notice it if it's moving around, but you're probably not going to notice something that's laying still unless you stop and look around for a while.

Now extend that to an outdoor setting, and your chance goes down even further. If there's an active creature within hearing distance, then you might reasonably hear it, so you need to make an opposed check if it's trying to be sneaky. If it's asleep, then the chance of hearing it is effectively zero (under most circumstances), so you would need to stop and look around (and potentially make some sort of check) before you notice it.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't see why the larger leopard wouldn't be even more noticeable.

In short, because they are naturally evolved to blend into their environment and have lived long enough to know where it is safe to sleep.

Your house cat by contrast, faces no predators while inside your house. There are no environmental hazards they must keep aware of, so while they may be spectacularly quiet while asleep, they have little incentive to seek out protected areas. Likewise, you know your cat must be in your house (assuming it is an indoor only cat). Your house is a fairly limited area, even if it were scaled up until your cat was as large as a leopard, it would still be a VERY small area. Your character may know that a leopard exists somewhere in this jungle but your character has no reason to believe one is nearby (unless you are weirdly paranoid, or tracking one).

Though in the end I agree, without something to say "Leopards are considered hidden even while sleeping..." or similar, I would not impart such a thing. However I might say that so long as the leopard is sleeping in its natural terrain (the jungle) checks to spot it are at a disadvantage.

 

[Satyrn]

Though in the end I agree, without something to say "Leopards are considered hidden even while sleeping..." or similar, I would not impart such a thing. However I might say that so long as the leopard is sleeping in its natural terrain (the jungle) checks to spot it are at a disadvantage.

And me, I'd have to decide if this specific leopard chose to sleep out in the open or looked for a hiding spot to nap in.

There are a few factors that come into play, and the foremost is "what is likely to be more interesting and fun" followed very closely by "what would a solitary predator be more likely to do?"

I wouldn't look at the statblock until I was figuring out how it was gonna do what it chose.