Stealth - Starting Fresh - Slate Wipe.

[LowSpine]

There has been a massive surge of threads about stealth lately because of the confussion over the descriptions in the core rules and the later, some say contradictory, entries in the online compendium.

I have started this thread to ask how stealth should work. This is not a discussion of what the rules say, or in what way the rules should be interpreted or how they should be adjusted or house-ruled.

What I really want to know is how people think the rules should be designed from scratch.

I think keeping the idea of a stealth skill and a perception (+passive) skill is fine as well as their link to ability scores, but other than that scrap the lot and start agian. (In fact, if you want to get rid of absolutely all of it that is fine by me.)

What would be excellent is any suggestions, ideas or just information on how other rpgs (popular or otherwise) approach this topic.

So if you could burst into the WOTC office with a bottle of liquid paper, a permanent marker and an uzi - what would you TELL them about how stealth is going to work from now on.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Moved to 4E House Rules.

-Hyp.
(Moderator)

 

[Paul Strack]

My opinion:

1) Using Stealth to get Combat Advantage should be easy, at least for character's training in Stealth. You need this for the rogue to work as a balanced character.

2) Using Stealth to get Invisibility should be hard, because Invisibility is a huge advantage, defensively. If becoming Invisible via Stealth is too easy, combat becomes a game of hide-and-seek.

3) The rules should be clean and simple, easy to resolve without a lot of corner-counting, dice-rolling and skill-comparing.

The original rules succeeded on #1 but failed on #2 and #3.

The Compendium rules succeed on #2 and #3 but fail on #1. They also risk problems in the area of #3 when rogues resort to the corner-counting-to-get-superior-cover rules from the DMG or the "stealth shuffle" in and out of LOS in an attempt to get CA for ranged attacks.

For my game, I use the Compendium rules for how to use Stealth to get invisibility. I fix the problems I see with #1 via a house rule allowing characters trained in Stealth who move behind normal cover and concealment to make a Stealth check to partially hide and get a Combat Advantage for their next attack on their current turn.

The house rule is more or less how I've been running Stealth all along.

 

[Syrsuro]

Conceptually, I like the idea of using passive stealth checks for the hider during the perceiver's turn.

This has the advantage of not requiring the specific die roll result to be retained for, potentially, multiple rounds as well as better dealing with the fact that situational factors (movement, lighting, etc) may well change from round to round and would require recalculating the value - rather than simply figuring out what their current stealth value would be on a roll of a 10.

It also makes it easier to deal with ambushes by NPCs, as they would be waiting in place with a passive stealth, rather than dealing with a whole bunch of random rolls (if you have many stealthy NPCs, one of them is going to have a bad roll and in theory blow it for all of them).

I would suggest that - once the PC is hidden - you use the PCs passive stealth opposed by either the NPCs passive perception (if he has no reason to suspect that there is someone hiding there) or the NPCs active perception (if he has reason to suspect that the PCs is hiding from him and spends a minor action to look for him).

Carl

 

[MyISPHatesENWorld]

My List:

1) You should be able to get combat advantage, from stealth in combination with your other means of gaining combat advantage, pretty much all of the time. It shouldn't become your only means of gaining combat advantage. You should still sometimes need to flank with your defender to eliminate a tough boss or brute or just to help clear out a particularly thick crowd of soldiers or minions. And your means of gaining combat advantage from your own or others' powers should still have a place.

2) You should be able to become invisible easily enough that you can perform stealthy missions in combat. That means having the ability to move across the battlefield unseen reliably, and make 2-3 attacks on a particular target (e.g. artillery) with combat advantage reliably while regaining invisibility in the same round reliably before returning back to the group to engage any leftover soldiers, brutes, minons or whatever. Note the word reliably - becuase stealthy missions require a series of successful rolls to result in a successful mission, you run into problems with probability and multiple events.

3) You should be able to engage in games of hide and seek with enemy skirmishers and skulks, avoiding and/or eliminating them (or anyone else) if they attempt to interfere with you completing your stealthy missions and/or intercepting them if they attempt to target your controllers (or other vulnerable party members) or attempt to flank (or succeed in flanking) your defender.

4) The numbers should work in such a way that a non-optimized character is still able to perform stealthy missions as part of his role with success.

 

[Syrsuro]

I'm not sure I buy the 'all the time' theory. I'd say more like 60-70%. For example, to compare the rogue to the ranger, the rogue gets 2d6 sneak attack damage compared to a rangers 1d6 hunter's quarry damage.

Thus if the rogue is getting his damage bonus every round, he is going to outshine the ranger - and as strikers their average output ought to be comparable. If he only gets the damage bonus every other round, the ranger will outshine the rogue (because he gets to use better weapons). So the real number should be somewhere between 50% and 100%, but closer to (at a rough guess, not a statistical calculation) 70%.


Carl

 

[corwyn77]

Nope, I'd go with all the time, or pretty darn close, given the ranger's higher damage weapons and multiple attacks.


Assuming no feats spent, and both taking the highest damage weapon possible while keeping the +3 weapon prof bonus (to keep the math simple), and assuming a 50% hit chance (since they have the same attack bonus) we get the following:

Rogue: d6(shortsword) + 2d6 (sneak attack) + 4 (stat) +3 (either str for brutal scoundrel or cha using sly flourish) = 17.5/2 = 8.75


Ranger: 2d8 (longsword x 2)/2 + d6 (quarry) x .75 = 7.4

The rogue is a little better. add +1 weapons and the feats increasing striker damage, the rogue increases by 1 per round but the ranger gains 1.5 per round. (9.75 vs 8.9)

If they both spend feats for a higher damage weapon (rapier and bastard sword) the rogue gains .5 and the ranger gains 1 so they're about even.

At best, I might concede down to 90%.

 

[Syrsuro]

Perhaps. But that's ignoring the rogue feat Backstabber versus the ranger feat Lethal Hunter (both increase die to d8, but rogue has two dice) or the fact that rogues can attack dex at-at will rather than AC, which is equivalent (on average) to a +3 to those attacks.

Also rogues can focus more heavily on dex (used for both their melee and ranged attacks) while rangers typically have to use strength for melee and dex for ranged - allowing rogues to gain the benefit of their highest stat on both attack types.

Carl