Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6958013" data-attributes="member: 996">If the issue is it's hard to stealth up close to attack in melee, range penalties won't help, but giving advantage or changing a DC is no great stretch for the DM.  It does make sense, though:  if one member of the party spots the ambush, it's spoiled, if any ambusher give's himself away, it's spoiled.  And 5e does tend to prioritize that sense of sense over fears of brokenness. I disagree.  Passive scores as a DC is much more workable than contested checks.  Imagine if the party each rolled contested perception vs stealth for each ambusher.  At least one PC is going to spot at least one ambusher.Group checks were introduced in 4e and relieved some of the issues with multiple characters (or monsters) performing one task, with a single success (or failure) determining the results.  5e retained this mechanic, it's just a matter of deciding when to use it.When wanting to get stealthy monsters close to the party, the DM could:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Narrate the success of the ambush without worrying about rules or rolls.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Call for a group perception check against an arbitrary DC.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Call for a group perception check against a DC based on the stealth bonuses of the ambushers.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Make a group stealth check for the ambushers against the party's highest (or average, I suppose) passive perception.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Call for individual perception checks, with those who fail being surprised.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Whatever else the DM can think of. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></li> </ul>Or the DM could make a specific house rule to cover stealth and share it with the players. Which, I know, is not the point of the thread.On the assumption that the one with the best perception will give a warning of some sort, I assume. A possible justification for a group check, instead.</blockquote>

Verification