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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 6823139" data-attributes="member: 7006">You really need to ask the DM how they are running Stealth in the game.  You are right that theoretically, if your son has a ranger with a 16 Dexterity (+3 modifier) and is proficient in Stealth (+2 prof bonus), that +5 total should mean he escapes the notice of many monsters assuming the DM is using their "Passive Perception".  As   [MENTION=6777052]BoldItalic[/MENTION] pointed out, an Ogre has a passive perception of 8, which means the ranger would escape its notice on a roll of 3+.Now what could be happening is that the DM is rolling each monster's Wisdom (Perception) check, which gives a much higher chance of being successful in seeing the ranger-- especially if the DM was rolling for each monster in the group.  At that point, sneaking up is a rare event indeed.  For example:The Ranger sneaks up on an encampment of hobgoblins.  He rolls an 11 on a d20, adds +5 for DEX and Stealth proficiency, and gets a 16.  Ordinarily, the hobgoblin's passive perceptions of 10 would mean that none of them spot the ranger.  But if the DM is rolling Wisdom (Perception) checks, and only ONE in the hobgoblin encampment has to succeed to notice the ranger (and then alerts everyone else), you're usually going to get at least one of them (especially in like a group of 10) to roll that 16 or higher.  And once that happens, then the DM considers him spotted, and thus the party doesn't get to Surprise the encampment.It's quite possible that the DM doesn't want to have his monsters always Surprised, so he's running Stealth and sneaking such that your party can never get the drop on them.  Which is rather lame in my opinion... but it could explain why the scout always gets noticed.At this point, all you can do is find out from the DM how they are running the stealth rules and thus find out just how likely it is your son can ever successfully sneak up.  If the DM's making sure it really never happens, then you can just tell the party to not bother ever scouting ahead.</blockquote>

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