Stealth - Streamlined PEACH

[yu gnomi]

I don't pretend to understand all the ins and outs of 4ed stealth, so the idea of simplified system appeals to me. Let me see if I understand this one.

Say a rogue sees a good spot to hide, a square with concealment next to a monster he wants to attack. If he is hidden at beginning of his turn, he has displacement (50% miss chance?) as long as he remains hidden.

By using concealing terrain, and/or rogue utility powers, he can use a move action to reach his target spot and remain hidden. He can then attack a foe, with combat advantage -since he is still hidden for the attack, but loses his hidden status as an immediate reaction to his attack. He can then use a minor action to hide again in his chosen spot.

Assuming he makes that stealth check, he will once again gain displacement. If the foe wants to attack the rogue, he will have to attack the rogue's square (-5 penalty to hit), and also has 50% miss chance (?). However, if he manages to strike the rogue, the rogue is revealed to everyone, until he can take a minor action to hide again.

Is this how it works?

I am only guessing that displacement means 50% miss chance because that's what it means in 3ed. I haven't come across it before in 4ed.

 

[clearstream]

Say a rogue sees a good spot to hide, a square with concealment next to a monster he wants to attack. If he is hidden at beginning of his turn, he has displacement (50% miss chance?) as long as he remains hidden.

Displacement is the level 16 wizard power. It makes you roll again if you hit, effectively doubling your chance to miss.

By using concealing terrain, and/or rogue utility powers, he can use a move action to reach his target spot and remain hidden. He can then attack a foe, with combat advantage -since he is still hidden for the attack, but loses his hidden status as an immediate reaction to his attack. He can then use a minor action to hide again in his chosen spot.

Yes.

Assuming he makes that stealth check, he will once again gain displacement. If the foe wants to attack the rogue, he will have to attack the rogue's square (-5 penalty to hit), and also has 50% miss chance (?). However, if he manages to strike the rogue, the rogue is revealed to everyone, until he can take a minor action to hide again.

Not quite. That -5 only applies to enemies who can't be seen for some reason on top of stealth. The worst penalty on ranged and melee attacks against a hider would be -4.

I am only guessing that displacement means 50% miss chance because that's what it means in 3ed. I haven't come across it before in 4ed.

PHB165. Imagine a troll can hit you on a 6. That = 75% chance to hit. If they do hit they have to roll again, so 75%*75% = around 56% to hit.

This is different from say picking two squares and rolling 50/50 between them. That would be 75%*50% = around 38% to hit. I was using a weighted method of picking squares, and then realised displacement came out fair to rogues while being consistent and fast to DM.

-vk

 

[MarkB]

Forked from: Stealth - Streamlined PEACH to critique MarkB's RAI in some detail.



Until Mearls clarifies his remark about information sharing, no one can pick exactly what information he meant was sharable. If you assume exact location can't be shared, DM must track separate awareness conditions for each enemy. Unless you are running a mission where stealth is the focus (I do sometimes), ruling that all enemies in the encounter share the same information is nearly all of the time as fair to the hider as tracking separately, but plays a lot faster. If exact information can be shared, highest Perception is the guy to share it, so don't bother rolling against anyone else.

You make a good point about it being more streamlined, but bear in mind that one of the main purposes of using stealth in combat is to gain Combat Advantage. If a character successfully hides from his intended CA target, but then loses his hidden status as a result of another character pointing him out, then he'll lose CA against his target (and indeed all his opponents). Essentially, the enemy only needs to have a single character with excellent Perception in order for their entire force to defeat Stealth.

I don't understand this ruling. 5-squares of concealment breaks sight. Any number of squares of cover will leave some unblocked LOS, unless in conjunction they are really superior cover. The way I'm handling it is you'd check to hide first, then move hidden through the cover/concealment. You might need to use a standard to move into cover/concealment first, if you don't have it already. That seems cleaner.

By the book, you can hide whenever you have cover or concealment, but I dislike the idea of a character being able to slip away from sight whilst being actively observed without even moving from his current square. Requiring some movement in order to do so resolves that.

This is very close to how I have it in Stealth - the low-down UPDATE. The reason I moved to just using Displacement is that once you try as a DM to pick squares fairly, you most often end up using some random method. Let's say you pick two squares and roll d6 50/50. First, that's probably too good a protection for a skill to give in combat (At-Will 50% resist all ranged/melee attacks, and -5 to hit if you don't resist) and second it's burdensome to keep picking squares, making up odds, and throwing dice. Displacement is a fair way to emulate all that fuss, but faster, cleaner, and more consistent.

It is a simpler solution, but it still diminishes the effect of a successful Stealth check of leaving your opponent unable to see you.

Note that if you aren't using the 10 points over rule from TWYCS, you've no basis to pluck that -5 out of them. That -5 is tied to the same thing the 10 points over rule is!

The -5 is tied to having total concealment. If your opponent is unable to see you, I don't see that there's any qualitative difference between that and total concealment.

By RAW stealth doesn't end except on certain actions, but more importantly why do all that rolling if nothing is happening to end stealth? I just go with the first roll and move on, until something changes.

In combat, something is likely to change every round, as opponents and allies change positions and gain different viewpoints to your position. I included this based on what I recall was either in a CustServ response or the most recent FAQ, stating that you must re-roll your Stealth check at the end of each turn.

Quite nice ruling, and one I am moving to. It probably needs to be qualified, since some powers explicitly don't reveal your position, and others don't read like they should. I'm about to read through the list and try to put some order to it, but for now I plucked the Attack, Immediate, and Opportunity, keywords out.

That's a fair way of doing it.

To be honest, they're fair-minded rules. I believe in play they making hiding a bit more effort to DM than I'd like, and unless you bias your square picking they'll make hiding imba in terms of the defence offered.

Your rules do have the advantage of being faster to use in play. I prefer mine in some respects, but I'll have to see whether the increased management cost is too high a cost to pay for them.

 

[yu gnomi]

So instead of picking square and attacking at -5 penalty, hidden target simply gets displacement. All attack rolls made at -2 for cover or concealment, or at -4 if his chosen spot offers both cover and concealment.

 

[clearstream]

You make a good point about it being more streamlined, but bear in mind that one of the main purposes of using stealth in combat is to gain Combat Advantage. If a character successfully hides from his intended CA target, but then loses his hidden status as a result of another character pointing him out, then he'll lose CA against his target (and indeed all his opponents). Essentially, the enemy only needs to have a single character with excellent Perception in order for their entire force to defeat Stealth.

Mearls made exactly that point, here http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1055454

I've been playing around with monster designs the promote a sort of "order of operations" for adventurers - take out this guy first, then this guy next - and high perception guys are an area I'm messing around with as "first step targets" to clear out space for the stealthy characters.

By the book, you can hide whenever you have cover or concealment, but I dislike the idea of a character being able to slip away from sight whilst being actively observed without even moving from his current square. Requiring some movement in order to do so resolves that.

You're not alone on that one In the end I shrugged and thought 'What's most consistent.' If nothing else, it's faster to DM. Also, I didn't want hiders shuttling between two positions, or if not two, then three, or if not three, then...

It is a simpler solution, but it still diminishes the effect of a successful Stealth check of leaving your opponent unable to see you.

The question this introduces is just how good Stealth needs to be? It's one skill. It can be used untrained. Most critters have crap Perception. Does it need to be any better than a freebie level 16 power?

That aside, picking squares, assigning chances, and rolling is cumbersome; or you just call it, and then your players whine when you choose the one they are in.

The -5 is tied to having total concealment. If your opponent is unable to see you, I don't see that there's any qualitative difference between that and total concealment.

My view on this is simple. If you go with -5, why don't you go with the -10 effective to spot exact square?

In combat, something is likely to change every round, as opponents and allies change positions and gain different viewpoints to your position. I included this based on what I recall was either in a CustServ response or the most recent FAQ, stating that you must re-roll your Stealth check at the end of each turn.

Roll each turn is in the TWYCS rules, nowhere else. In those rules, it's not super clear, and you don't know whether to roll in the first turn. Also, I'm findiing hiders sometimes want to set-up and sit tight. Rolling each turn is a nuisance for that and to be honest I don't mind them benefiting, or suffering, from their first throw.

Perhaps I'm a lazy DM

-vk

 

[clearstream]

So instead of picking square and attacking at -5 penalty, hidden target simply gets displacement. All attack rolls made at -2 for cover or concealment, or at -4 if his chosen spot offers both cover and concealment.

You're about there. Displacement and concealment only affect ranged and melee attack rolls. Cover can affect all attack rolls.

-vk

 

[yu gnomi]

Got it, and I greatly appreciate the help.

One last question: For invisibility, it's still pick a square and roll at -5 (plus any concealment/cover penalties). With understanding that if wrong square is picked, the attack automatically misses. Right?

Edit: Just realized concealment penalty is already -5, so attack would be at -5, or -7 if invisible target also had cover.

 

[clearstream]

One last question: For invisibility, it's still pick a square and roll at -5 (plus any concealment/cover penalties). With understanding that if wrong square is picked, the attack automatically misses. Right?

Edit: Just realized concealment penalty is already -5, so attack would be at -5, or -7 if invisible target also had cover.

You've got it exactly. My RAI doesn't deal with invisibility, which works using the RAW on PHB281. Those rules make it difficult to perceive an invisible creature's exact location.

Rogue powers like Hide in Plain Sight can change the 'hidden' status you got using stealth into true 'invisibility'.



-vk

 

[clearstream]

One other note for yu gnomi don't forget about whether enemies are alert.

Your rogue in the example you gave might get his first attack in before his enemies were alert, so until then they can't attack or look for him. Most enemies will be only 'ready' before combat starts.

If you decide your rogue has surprise, he should use his surprise round to get into position, since he only gets one action. Then he would kick things off in his first normal round.

After he attacks, they'll be alert, if they weren't before.

-vk

 

[Paul Strack]

You know, that's a great idea. Your ranged guy gets the CA the designers said they wanted him to have, with minimum fuss. I like the Trained limit... <thinks> The only thing to bear in mind is that using a minor puts a cost on hiding, and that cost is probably justified considering the benefits.

This stuff is economy of attention. We want our hiders to do the stuff that's fun, but not to take an unfair share of our DMing time, or get all our other players to strain their RP to accomodate them, or have defences far out imba compared to their buddies.

That's the main rationale for my "stealthy attack" rule. It is a DM's bargain between me and my rogue player. I make it easy for her to get the CA for her attacks, but more costly for her to get the defensive benefits of hiding. As a result, she uses the "stealthy attack" in almost every combat, but only attempts to hide defensively when the conditions are right and there is a good reason for her to do so.

That way, the more complicated hiding rules only come up rarely. The Trained Only option keeps the stealthy attack as the rogue's special sauce, though my Warlock just multi-classed into Ranger to pick up Stealth as well.

EDIT: I forgot to add earlier: when I rule that when you make a stealthy attack (as opposed to hiding), you only need to beat your target's perception, not the whole group of enemies. This lets the rogue be effective against grunts even if there is a super perceptive master bad guy in the group.

Also, the stealthy attack idea wasn't mine, originally. I stole it from someone else on this forum who pointed out that Stealth would be a lot simpler if you distinguished hiding (defensive) from using stealth for attacks (offensive). Unfortunately, I can't remember who it was and the forum has no search feature.

I'm not sure about using displacement for invisibility. It might feel right once you factor in the -5 penalty you'd have against an invisible foe, which should stack with cover for -7, as compared with the -4 worst case for a hiding one.

Yes, it would be displacement with the full Invisibility concealment penalties. So, Invisibility displacement is better than Stealth displacement, which is as I think it should be.