D&D 5E Sneakity Sneak
- Thread starter CapnZapp
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Rod Staffwand
aka Ermlaspur Flormbator
I think there's been an over-reliance on skill checks in the WotC-era of the game and its most egregious with stealth and perception. It's a natural outgrowth of the d20 skill system so I can't fault WotC too much for it, but I think the rules-writing, DM-advice and official adventures could have done more to de-emphasize them.
The idea that the PCs are equipped with perpetual radar arrays that instantly detect and analyze each and every possible threat and secret feature within a 100 foot radius is just bad wrong fun. Yes, I said it. I can't think of anyone who'd find this fun, other than perhaps those who want a juvenile power fantasy out of the game.
D&D, in its most traditional form, is about exploration. Exploration is about information--making the unknown known. Giving the players too much information too easily is the surest way to ruin the fun of the game. There's no longer any interaction with the environment, monsters or threats. There's no experimentation. There's no uncertainty or fog of war. There's no spirit and no mystery.
The DM presents the situation. The DM determines when and at what distances monsters are detected. Sometimes this might be a check, sometimes not. Sure, a PC might have a 35 passive perception, but that doesn't mean they should automatically spot an invisible goblin hiding in a rotten log and holding his breath 400 feet away. No check needed--the PC doesn't know about the goblin.
Consider the following:
1. Line of sight is your best friend. No line of sight = no perception check. Obviously you can play around with this a bit such as allowing the players to sniff out the stinky ogre hiding behind the rock or hear the dragon breathing behind the door, but these are explicit exceptions. Blocking line of sight should be ludicrously easy. Look around you--how many places are there for a goblin to hide and ambush you? Probably a lot. Now go outside and look at how many things block LoS: buildings, bushes, etc. Even open terrain can have rises that can obscure enemies (especially prone ones) until you're very close.
2. Monsters have home-field advantage. For the most part its the adventurers encroaching on monster territory--the dungeon or the wilderness. Monsters that like to ambush their foes have all the time in the world to find the most favorable places to do so. Some can manipulate the environment to make it even easier--forcing or luring their prey into certain avenues. In short, give them advantage on any stealth rolls at the very least (especially if a monster is in its own lair). Also, the DC chart is a great aid. If you think it should be "very hard" for the PCs to spot the hidden tiger, make the check DC 25. That's what it's there for.
3. A PC can only realistically do so much at one time. This is the core fault of the radar method. You can't be on the look out for anything and everything--in all directions--at the same time. Are you checking the floor for pressure plates or looking at the gloomy recesses in the ceiling for stirges? Are you watching the rear or trying to hear the pitter-patter of goblin feet? I'm not suggesting that the DM force the players to constantly call out what they're focusing on as a means to ambush them with glee when they guess wrong. You might want to get a general sense of what they are focusing on: looking for traps, looking for ambushes ahead, looking for ambushes behind, etc. and use that to guide your presentation. But my real point is that this is a reason why highly-perceptive and cautious individuals might still run into danger when its very close--because there is just too many places it can be hidden and one's focus is bound to be spread too thin. Was that crooked flagstone mislaid or is it a pressure plate? Is that sound in the distance a monster's growl or just the wind? Is that bit of movement in the gloom a wraith or a swirl of dust?
4. A whole lot of monsters aren't constrained by practical or biological concerns in their ambushes. Zombies can rise up out of the ground right in front of you while incorporeal undead can phase through a wall and attack. Oozes can ooze anywhere. Others can burrow or climb. Demons and devils might literally appear out of nowhere. Intelligent, deceptive and magic-using monsters (such as lamias) can lure PCs into other threats while remaining out of the line of fire.
5. If you're writing your own material you can easily write in traps that summon monsters out of thin air. You can add fanciful terrain (such as invisibility fields, magical darkness or illusory walls) that conceal monsters. You can even add effects that make ranged fire or spells less effective.
6. Monsters are horror-movie villains. This is especially true of wandering monsters. Don't have them charge the PCs unless that's really what you want them to do. Have the PCs catch glimpses of them at long range. They know there's a enemy out there but maybe they don't know what it is. Have it circle around or stay just outside of their sight. Be mysterious and threatening. You can even do this less-intelligent but highly-aggressive monsters--ones that you might ordinarily have go straight at the PCs. These are monsters. They're not natural and cannot be psychoanalyzed. Owlbear be inscrutable, yo.
7. Elusive monsters that lurk at the far range of the PCs' perception put stress on the party. They either have to change up their tactics to deal with this threat or perhaps risk a double encounter if they move forward into another monster while the lurker is still around. It also gives perception-specialists a chance to actively use their abilities (rather than as lame radar dishes).
8. Monsters getting surprise should be a real possibility, though a careful party should be able to minimize it. It's also a great way to make use of low-CR monsters that otherwise wouldn't be much of a threat or drain on a party. Remember, if you're looking at an adventuring day design you're expected to put in a few encounters that drain party resources. Ambushes by lesser monsters are a great way to do that--they appear, do some damage, and the counterfire takes them out. Game time: 5 minutes. Fast, easy and keeps players engaged. All wins.
9. Multiple monsters don't all need the same hiding spot. If the party is encountering a group, you can spread them out. Make some visible and some hidden. Hide them in different places--some in front, some on the sides, maybe even some from behind. Perhaps the visible ones are bait or a distraction to allow the others to ambush. Pack hunters are great at this. Force the group to consider multiple angles of attack.
That's what I try to do, anyway. I haven't run (or read) any published 5E adventures so I don't know how they present encounters. My standard encounter distance is probably 30 feet in a dungeon or indoors, 60 feet in a city, and maybe 120 feet outdoors. This varies a lot strictly based on line of sight. Always line of sight.
The idea that the PCs are equipped with perpetual radar arrays that instantly detect and analyze each and every possible threat and secret feature within a 100 foot radius is just bad wrong fun. Yes, I said it. I can't think of anyone who'd find this fun, other than perhaps those who want a juvenile power fantasy out of the game.
D&D, in its most traditional form, is about exploration. Exploration is about information--making the unknown known. Giving the players too much information too easily is the surest way to ruin the fun of the game. There's no longer any interaction with the environment, monsters or threats. There's no experimentation. There's no uncertainty or fog of war. There's no spirit and no mystery.
The DM presents the situation. The DM determines when and at what distances monsters are detected. Sometimes this might be a check, sometimes not. Sure, a PC might have a 35 passive perception, but that doesn't mean they should automatically spot an invisible goblin hiding in a rotten log and holding his breath 400 feet away. No check needed--the PC doesn't know about the goblin.
Consider the following:
1. Line of sight is your best friend. No line of sight = no perception check. Obviously you can play around with this a bit such as allowing the players to sniff out the stinky ogre hiding behind the rock or hear the dragon breathing behind the door, but these are explicit exceptions. Blocking line of sight should be ludicrously easy. Look around you--how many places are there for a goblin to hide and ambush you? Probably a lot. Now go outside and look at how many things block LoS: buildings, bushes, etc. Even open terrain can have rises that can obscure enemies (especially prone ones) until you're very close.
2. Monsters have home-field advantage. For the most part its the adventurers encroaching on monster territory--the dungeon or the wilderness. Monsters that like to ambush their foes have all the time in the world to find the most favorable places to do so. Some can manipulate the environment to make it even easier--forcing or luring their prey into certain avenues. In short, give them advantage on any stealth rolls at the very least (especially if a monster is in its own lair). Also, the DC chart is a great aid. If you think it should be "very hard" for the PCs to spot the hidden tiger, make the check DC 25. That's what it's there for.
3. A PC can only realistically do so much at one time. This is the core fault of the radar method. You can't be on the look out for anything and everything--in all directions--at the same time. Are you checking the floor for pressure plates or looking at the gloomy recesses in the ceiling for stirges? Are you watching the rear or trying to hear the pitter-patter of goblin feet? I'm not suggesting that the DM force the players to constantly call out what they're focusing on as a means to ambush them with glee when they guess wrong. You might want to get a general sense of what they are focusing on: looking for traps, looking for ambushes ahead, looking for ambushes behind, etc. and use that to guide your presentation. But my real point is that this is a reason why highly-perceptive and cautious individuals might still run into danger when its very close--because there is just too many places it can be hidden and one's focus is bound to be spread too thin. Was that crooked flagstone mislaid or is it a pressure plate? Is that sound in the distance a monster's growl or just the wind? Is that bit of movement in the gloom a wraith or a swirl of dust?
4. A whole lot of monsters aren't constrained by practical or biological concerns in their ambushes. Zombies can rise up out of the ground right in front of you while incorporeal undead can phase through a wall and attack. Oozes can ooze anywhere. Others can burrow or climb. Demons and devils might literally appear out of nowhere. Intelligent, deceptive and magic-using monsters (such as lamias) can lure PCs into other threats while remaining out of the line of fire.
5. If you're writing your own material you can easily write in traps that summon monsters out of thin air. You can add fanciful terrain (such as invisibility fields, magical darkness or illusory walls) that conceal monsters. You can even add effects that make ranged fire or spells less effective.
6. Monsters are horror-movie villains. This is especially true of wandering monsters. Don't have them charge the PCs unless that's really what you want them to do. Have the PCs catch glimpses of them at long range. They know there's a enemy out there but maybe they don't know what it is. Have it circle around or stay just outside of their sight. Be mysterious and threatening. You can even do this less-intelligent but highly-aggressive monsters--ones that you might ordinarily have go straight at the PCs. These are monsters. They're not natural and cannot be psychoanalyzed. Owlbear be inscrutable, yo.
7. Elusive monsters that lurk at the far range of the PCs' perception put stress on the party. They either have to change up their tactics to deal with this threat or perhaps risk a double encounter if they move forward into another monster while the lurker is still around. It also gives perception-specialists a chance to actively use their abilities (rather than as lame radar dishes).
8. Monsters getting surprise should be a real possibility, though a careful party should be able to minimize it. It's also a great way to make use of low-CR monsters that otherwise wouldn't be much of a threat or drain on a party. Remember, if you're looking at an adventuring day design you're expected to put in a few encounters that drain party resources. Ambushes by lesser monsters are a great way to do that--they appear, do some damage, and the counterfire takes them out. Game time: 5 minutes. Fast, easy and keeps players engaged. All wins.
9. Multiple monsters don't all need the same hiding spot. If the party is encountering a group, you can spread them out. Make some visible and some hidden. Hide them in different places--some in front, some on the sides, maybe even some from behind. Perhaps the visible ones are bait or a distraction to allow the others to ambush. Pack hunters are great at this. Force the group to consider multiple angles of attack.
That's what I try to do, anyway. I haven't run (or read) any published 5E adventures so I don't know how they present encounters. My standard encounter distance is probably 30 feet in a dungeon or indoors, 60 feet in a city, and maybe 120 feet outdoors. This varies a lot strictly based on line of sight. Always line of sight.
Imaro
Legend
I don't check
Your point?
Well earlier I brought up that there are quite a few monsters designed to be stealthy...either through superior stealth skills or special abilities... and I was curious in why you don't use these when you want to run a stealth (for the monsters) based encounter...
EDIT: In other words different monsters and NPC's have different purposes, tactics that compliment them, etc. Why not play to those as opposed to trying to make an Ogre stealthy ninja (though this is quite possible by adding the rogue class to him per the DMG)?
Greenstone.Walker
Adventurer
From last week, in the Primeval Thule setting.
The characters (sorcerer, druid, wizard) were walking through a ruined serpentfolk town (walls no more than a few feet high, roofs mostly gone). Two serpentfolk archers were hiding in a building. Serpentfolk have skin-changing camouflage and are good at hiding (Stealth +7, the ability to Hide as a Bonus Action, Sneak Attack). The characters were walking 3 abreast and none of them were doing anything else, so all of them could concievably see the ambush. At 150ft range (short range for the archers) I rolled two DEX\Stealth rolls for the archers and asked all 3 players for WIS\Perception.
Two players beat the archers, one failed, so we started combat with one character surprised.
I told the players, "You know the archers are in that dark building with all the holes in the wall, but you don't know exactly where. It will take an Action to study the area carefully and attempt to determine which hole in the wall an archer is firing from". As it turned out, none of them used targeted attacks so none of them did this. My intention was to re-roll DEX/Stealth for each archer as it took the Bonus Action Hide, but I didn't need to make these rolls.
Archers hiding in a ruined building < fireball and summoned mephits.
However, before they died, the poisoned sneak attack arrows did a lot of damage.
transtemporal
Explorer
As an impulsive question, yours is quite understandable.
The answer isn't as simple however - the issue isn't that I can't have goblin archers or whatever, but that most heavy hitters in the MM are only heavy-hitting in melee.
My problem is that denying monsters melee is too good of a tactic. My solution is to reduce a party's ability to do that.
Since my theory is that the main way characters accomplish this is by having "great range" (that is, being highly mobile, having good "reach" or both) my suggestions focus on reducing the "range" of characters.
Why do I put words like "range" and "reach" within quotes? Because reach normally means melee reach. Here I'm expanding the concept to include, say, a crossbow archer with Sharpshooter and Crossbow Expert feats, since
he is effectively similar to a dual wielding shortsword melee fighter only that his reach isn't 5 feet, its 120 feet.
Yes - the rules allow characters to effectively slash someone with a shortsword from over a hundred feet away. No moving, no magic, no trickery
Either that, or your character has an effective Speed close to 120. That works too.
In both cases, the characters have a "threat range" where they can effectively engage monsters at distances far greater than any designer foresaw.
It completely breaks the entire MM (goblin archers notwithstanding) and it completely breaks the fundamentals of the fantasy genre D&D is squarely placed in.
To fix this, I am attempting to go straight to the fundamentals.
My observation is that with slow dwarfs with axes, the game suffers from none of these issues. Why? Because his range is much more in line with the game's fundamental expectations. His range isn't 120 feet, it's 25 feet.
The difference is staggering.
So. The question becomes: how do we tweak the rules to encourage minmaxers* to build short-range characters?
*) plenty of people already play axe dwarves, and that's perfectly alright. I'm just identifying that it doesn't cost you enough to play a vastly more effective build using range, and so this is mostly an issue for us with minmaxing players.
I hope this answers your question; that no, it's not just a matter of having more goblin archers
Oh OK, to my mind you can't talk about range without also talking about DPR. Currently, melee and range DPR are fairly comparable so all things being equal, players will go for the one with the least risk for the best advantage. But if you change the relative DPR between the two styles, you also change the party make-up. This is why I said in the other thread that banning the Sharpshooter feat would probably solve a big chunk of your problem with the idea being that ranged characters will deal less damage which will make them the less mandatory choice, which in turn will change the party make-up closer to your fantasy ideal.
But to be honest, I'm not a big fan of banning and nerfing so I would do it a different way. I would keep current feats the way they are and give melee a straight bonus to damage equal to their prof bonus. At the same time I would introduce a new version of the GWM feat, but for one-handed melee weaps (I know quite a few peeps have already done that but in our campaign we haven't yet).
This doesn't solve your mobility problem, but I'm assuming most of those PCs with uber movement are monks anyway who aren't using GWM or SS.
CapnZapp
Legend
Thank you. Yes, I read that.
I'm sure none of us actively wants to nerf anything, it's just that in order for me to keep finding the Monster Manual useable as-is, it will have to be more nerfs at one end than buffs at the other.
