"Stop sneaking! They'll hear you!"

[pawsplay]

I saw this come up in a different thread a little while ago. I believe the people discussing it over there decided it was probably a mistake, and the DC was supposed to be 15 (base 10 + 5 for being through a door). That sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Ok, someone else will have to answer this one. But I have this feeling that Perception was treated more like a defense and the Stealthy characters should be rolling?

 

[Keoki]

Conan is very nice and has very limited healing without the retardedness of 4E.

You're right. Conan has plenty of its own retardedness...

 

[Surgoshan]

Ignore the DMG; the crunch in the PHB is what should matter. There it's a matter of opposed checks. You roll stealth against the mob's passive perception. +5 if there's a door, +10 if it's a wall, -5 if you're talking, -5 if you move more than 2, -10 if you run, +2 if you're more than 10 squares away. It's all in the skills chapter under Stealth and Perception (two separate parts).

 

[Jack99]

Ok, someone else will have to answer this one. But I have this feeling that Perception was treated more like a defense and the Stealthy characters should be rolling?

There are two kinds of perception. Active and passive.

Passive is when you aren't actively looking/listening for something, in which case it is 10+skill mods+environmental mods (such as the door).

Actively looking for something changes the 10 based to a d20 die roll, not surprisingly, and is a standard action (or more).

So yes, unless whoever they were trying to sneak up upon were actively listening for intruders, in which case both sides would be rolling.

 

[Bigassgeek]

This happens a lot to the rogue in my group, he wants to sneak everywhere, but the odds of 1 of the 6 party members rolling bad (or even average) vs one of a bunch of enemies rolling goodish is EXTREMELY low.

Yeah, that's a problem our sneakers have been dealing with since 3.0. The rules make sense, and it's perfectly logical that a fighter in chain is probably going to be clinking and clanking, but it would be nice if sneaking up on monsters was just a tad easier.

Maybe that'll be my first 4e tweak...

 

[chaotix42]

Actively looking for something changes the 10 based to a d20 die roll, not surprisingly, and is a standard action (or more).

Or less, as per pg. 281 of the PHB.

 

[Dormain1]

The way we run it is that they hear/see the tin can walking along but do not see the rogue

monsters walk right past the rogue to the fighter or pally and get flanked by the rogue or the rogue goes after the slingers or spellcasters sitting safely back

If I remember right an old rule was you could also have the rogue roll stealth checks for the party (ie helps them quieten their armour etc) but they use thier penalties

rogue rolls 16+5+4 =25

-8 for the paladin or fighter in full plate =17

 

[Bigassgeek]

Ignore the DMG; the crunch in the PHB is what should matter. There it's a matter of opposed checks. You roll stealth against the mob's passive perception.

I see what you're saying, but I'm thinking this particular situation is served better by having the DM set a DC rather than having the PCs roll a Stealth check.

The DC to hear a normal conversation is 10, according to the table on page 187 of the PHB. Hearing whispers is a 20. A DC somewhere in that range seems about right. If someone's deliberately sneaking up on a closed door to give it a listen, rolling Stealth seems to make sense, but it's tantamount to punishing the sneaker for trying to sneak.

I'll probably let the player choose to either take the default DC or try his luck with actively rolling Stealth, at least in the "monsters in another room behind a door" scenario. For creeping up on an exposed enemy I'll stick with rolling to set the DC.

 

[Bigassgeek]

The way we run it is that they hear/see the tin can walking along but do not see the rogue

monsters walk right past the rogue to the fighter or pally and get flanked by the rogue or the rogue goes after the slingers or spellcasters sitting safely back

Good adjudication. I like it.

If I remember right an old rule was you could also have the rogue roll stealth checks for the party (ie helps them quieten their armour etc) but they use thier penalties

rogue rolls 16+5+4 =25

-8 for the paladin or fighter in full plate =17

Ooh, now that's interesting. It's a bit... well, "meta" I guess, but no more so than some of the other 4e rules.

 

[Jack Colby]

I'm thinking my solution is going to be to play a different game system that doesn't have milestones or healing surges. Conan is very nice and has very limited healing without the retardedness of 4E.

In my opinion as a big Conan fan, 4E can handle REH style Conan better than the Conan RPG. The healing rules are part of that, btw.