D&D 4E Stealth and Perception checks in 4e

[AbdulAlhazred]

I tend to use what Black Night said.. and I tend to be a bastard, when my players attack hide-outs or lairs. Sounds out of the ordinary generate lower DC's for the other Monster's passive perception, etc.

But I'm not really a fan of the idea that a group of monsters 10 squares and a standard wall away, wouldn't notice the sounds of battle between 4 pcs and a guard squad.

Well, it depends on the environment. They MIGHT not. A nice stone wall and some twisty corridors, it might not carry that far. If its an orc lair and the orcs are used to hearing each other fighting they might ignore it.

One thing you have to remember with lairs. A round is 6 seconds long. That really isn't a lot of time. Monsters that are on a hair trigger can certainly react, but most monsters are just going about their ordinary business. Even if they're warlike and always armed, etc they're probably not going to leap up and move to the attack instantly. A whole fight is over in usually under 40 seconds. Its quite easy to imagine even monsters a couple rooms away not responding in that amount of time. Every orc is pulling on his boots and looking for his battleaxe, wondering where the heck the boss is (in the guardrobe most likely) etc. Figure it takes the average emergency squad a couple minutes to roll on a call, its tough to consistently react much faster than that.

 

[KarinsDad]

One thing you have to remember with lairs. A round is 6 seconds long. That really isn't a lot of time. Monsters that are on a hair trigger can certainly react, but most monsters are just going about their ordinary business. Even if they're warlike and always armed, etc they're probably not going to leap up and move to the attack instantly. A whole fight is over in usually under 40 seconds. Its quite easy to imagine even monsters a couple rooms away not responding in that amount of time. Every orc is pulling on his boots and looking for his battleaxe, wondering where the heck the boss is (in the guardrobe most likely) etc. Figure it takes the average emergency squad a couple minutes to roll on a call, its tough to consistently react much faster than that.

This is a realism issue as well. When was the last time the PCs surprised an Orc on the john, or fast asleep in a hallway by itself?

The game is typically designed with "encounters" in mind, so the PCs tend to meet "encounters" with monsters that are usually ready to fight.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

One thing you have to remember with lairs. A round is 6 seconds long. That really isn't a lot of time. Monsters that are on a hair trigger can certainly react, but most monsters are just going about their ordinary business. Even if they're warlike and always armed, etc they're probably not going to leap up and move to the attack instantly. A whole fight is over in usually under 40 seconds. Its quite easy to imagine even monsters a couple rooms away not responding in that amount of time. Every orc is pulling on his boots and looking for his battleaxe, wondering where the heck the boss is (in the guardrobe most likely) etc. Figure it takes the average emergency squad a couple minutes to roll on a call, its tough to consistently react much faster than that.

One of my DMs has been absolutely awful about that. When stuff arrives from several rooms away two rounds in, that's just a bit...unlikely.

Brad

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, like KD says, DMs tend to organize adventures in terms of digestible encounters and things like the arrival of reinforcements, readiness, etc are usually contrived to make the adventure work, not to represent anything 'realistic' (and lets be real, adventures are generally predicated on terms that are pretty far fetched or contrived even in a magical world). OTOH most DMs also don't invoke the sorts of logical measures that any group of monsters that is likely to survive for long would put in place either. Even orcs would likely have loud reliable alarms and virtually infallible defenses at the entry points to their lairs. That kind of thing can be interesting once in a great while (Tucker's Kobolds) but generally it gets old fast.

 

[pwnedd]

Cool. Thanks for the replies. So it sounds like under normal circumstances neither side is likely to get the jump on the other, unless they are specifically attempting to be stealthy and are moving very slowly. That makes sense

Here is the next scenario I had in mind:

Scenario 2:

The group's rogue quietly moves up ahead and peers into the next room. An enemy is standing there in normal light, but facing away (out of line of sight) and not paying attention to the door. The rogue moves 2 squares in, makes a stealth check, and attempts to move towards the enemy to sneak attack him.

Question:

The PHB states that in order to maintain stealth you must have some degree of cover (low lighting or foliage?). In this case though, supposing that the enemy does not bother to turn around and check his back, could the rogue sneak up on him and make a surprise attack? Would his stealth be automatically maintained without the need for any additional checks, even if he has to cross 10 squares (two at a time) to get to the enemy?


Or is sneaking up behind an enemy much more difficult?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Cool. Thanks for the replies. So it sounds like under normal circumstances neither side is likely to get the jump on the other, unless they are specifically attempting to be stealthy and are moving very slowly. That makes sense

Here is the next scenario I had in mind:

Scenario 2:

The group's rogue quietly moves up ahead and peers into the next room. An enemy is standing there in normal light, but facing away (out of line of sight) and not paying attention to the door. The rogue moves 2 squares in, makes a stealth check, and attempts to move towards the enemy to sneak attack him.

Question:

The PHB states that in order to maintain stealth you must have some degree of cover (low lighting or foliage?). In this case though, supposing that the enemy does not bother to turn around and check his back, could the rogue sneak up on him and make a surprise attack? Would his stealth be automatically maintained without the need for any additional checks, even if he has to cross 10 squares (two at a time) to get to the enemy?


Or is sneaking up behind an enemy much more difficult?

The key here is that combat hasn't started yet. The rules for hiding specifically don't require cover/concealment outside of combat at the DM's discretion. It is intended for exactly this type of situation where an enemy is distracted or not watching in your direction. You just proceed as if you had concealment, so you can stay hidden. Obviously if the enemy turns around or other enemies can see you or you move into an area the DM determines is in the enemy's field of view then you lose your hidden status.

 

[pwnedd]

Supposing that the enemy doesn't turn around and no other enemies are around, if the rogue makes a successful stealth check 20 squares away, does he then get an "automatic" surprise attack? The DM could of course decide to make some extra roll(s) to see if the enemy decides to turn around, but what I'm wondering is whether there are any rules that would help decide what to do?

 

[deadsmurf]

Well once hidden, as long as you can move far enough, you maintain the combat advantage from being hidden until end of turn, even if moving out of cover/concealment.

So if combat is raging, the elf rogue could easily hide 14 squares away from an enemy then get right up on the enemy, and sneak attack him.


If combat proper hasn't started yet, most of the time the rogue will reach, more or less to the surprised enemy and get a surprise round (and probably win initiative too) and get a couple sneak attacks in.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Well once hidden, as long as you can move far enough, you maintain the combat advantage from being hidden until end of turn, even if moving out of cover/concealment.

So if combat is raging, the elf rogue could easily hide 14 squares away from an enemy then get right up on the enemy, and sneak attack him.

That's not true, you stop hiding immediately when the conditions for being hidden go away. However, you keep combat advantage until the end of the action that triggered you becoming visible.

So, if you use Deft Strike while you are hidden, you can move out of cover(using the movement given to you by the power) and attack with combat advantage. If you move out of cover and then use a power to attack, you no longer have combat advantage.

If combat proper hasn't started yet, most of the time the rogue will reach, more or less to the surprised enemy and get a surprise round (and probably win initiative too) and get a couple sneak attacks in.

Yeah, if the Rogue sneaks up by himself, he'll likely get a surprise round on an enemy who is looking in the other direction. However, if the party is anywhere nearby, the enemy should hear them coming long in advance of him getting that close. The average enemy has a passive perception of 13 or 14, which lets him hear a party who isn't attempting to stealth at near infinite distances(since there isn't a penalty beyond 10 squares).

Even an average party who is attempting to stealth will have one person who has a stealth check so low that they can be heard coming a mile away.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, if the Rogue sneaks up by himself, he'll likely get a surprise round on an enemy who is looking in the other direction. However, if the party is anywhere nearby, the enemy should hear them coming long in advance of him getting that close. The average enemy has a passive perception of 13 or 14, which lets him hear a party who isn't attempting to stealth at near infinite distances(since there isn't a penalty beyond 10 squares).

Even an average party who is attempting to stealth will have one person who has a stealth check so low that they can be heard coming a mile away.

Well, this kind of thing is sort of under the control of the DM. DMG page 36 has some guidelines/rules for this kind of "non-combat stealth". These rules are a bit oddball though. The door rule for instance says monsters hear the party through a door on a DC25 Perception check. If the PCs use Stealth, then they get a +5 to their check. The problem is this may actually be WORSE than not using Stealth at all! Still, we can draw some conclusions, its better to be further away, quieter, and have barriers like doors between you and the monsters if you want to sneak around and surprise them.

On top of this DMG2 has a few more things to say. It provides the option to use a Group Skill Check for the party's Stealth. It also states that a PC more than 10 squares from the rest of the group gets their own individual Stealth check.

Its really going to be up to the DM to decide how this works overall. A rogue sneaking up on a monster who is more than 10 squares from the party gets his own individual Stealth check. Its possible a monster could hear the party and not the rogue, but it also seems pretty reasonable for the DM to allow some level of ability for the party to move close.

The Stealth rules really don't go into a significant amount of detail on what the relationship is between the environment and Stealth. Beyond the "-2 at 10 or more squares" it is silent on any other possible considerations, aside from the -5 door penalty. What if the area the monsters are in is fairly noisy for instance? An orc lair probably has a fair amount of normal activity going on. Even guards might well not be alarmed to hear footsteps unless they're on high alert. Distractions of other kinds aren't covered either, like what happens if the wizard uses a cantrip to attract the guard's attention? Does that have an impact on their ability to detect the rogue sneaking past them on the other side of the room? All of this is up to the DM obviously.

Really if you boil it all down Stealth use and surprise are pretty much up to the DM. The players can certainly create conditions under which they can gain surprise, but they will always have to rely on the DM's interpretation of the situation as to exactly what they can accomplish.