Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Thievery in 5e - still relevant?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9138103" data-attributes="member: 6877472"><p>Well no, it's obviously not intended to be fun. The DM who employs a tactic like this really doesn't want Stealth to succeed. That was the whole point of my post- Stealth tends to be less pass/fail and more "does the DM want it to function in this circumstance" (in my experience).</p><p></p><p>Stealth has many hoops to jump through to begin with, and thus can easily be rendered pointless by any DM who doesn't want it be an option. I often don't bother to be proficient with it, because it's so rarely functioned. I still recall my very first AD&D Thief, trying to sneak about and gather intel on our enemies, being told that I was automatically spotted by an orc, because orcs have infravision, and the book says I can only hide from infravision "only if some heat producing light source is near to the creature or to the thief attempting to so hide....". Yes because carrying around a torch while sneaking makes perfect sense, lol.</p><p></p><p>And again, ask yourself how many standard D&D monsters who lurk in dungeons have infravision (or some other stealth-foiling sense). So here you have an ability in a game called "Dungeons & Dragons" that typically neither works in Dungeons or against Dragons, lol.</p><p></p><p>So yeah. I've learned that stealth only works when the DM wants it to, the fiddly rules are simply there to justify them not wanting it to.</p><p></p><p>In the current edition, it's even worse in some ways, as I've encountered several DM's who like to make group checks to see if the party can sneak about without being detected. Given that most armor users have disadvantage on this check (and armor users tend not to be trained in Stealth or have particularly high Dexterity in the first place), the chances of success in your standard Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue party is fairly slim in such cases.</p><p></p><p>In fact, one of the best ways to get Stealth to function at all in this edition is Pass Without Trace. A spell. Something a Rogue doesn't have access to natively, let alone Invisibility. Not long ago, I was in another thread complaining about how useless Stealth is (with regards to AD&D Backstab) when someone was like "what? in my campaign Thieves were backstabbing all the time!".</p><p></p><p>I bring up the extremely restrictive rules for setting up a Backstab in the first place, and his response was (as near as I can recall), "oh well, I always give Thieves a Ring of Invisibility". LOL.</p><p></p><p>Now I know some people are going to say "well in my campaign, I allow Rogues to..." and that's great. I'm sure there are many sane DM's have long since made rulings about stealth that actually allow it to work. But of all the skills in the game, there is none more restrictive than the ability to creep up on someone unseen.</p><p></p><p>I recently started playing Baldur's Gate 3, and I was surprised at how easy sneaking about is. All you need to do is stay out of the enemy perception range and you're hidden. The game only makes you roll if you actually blunder <em>into </em>said range. And there are several ways to distract enemies to make sneaking about easier. It functions so simply that I'm stunned that it's always been so complicated at the table, almost as if the designers <em>don't want stealth to function</em>!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9138103, member: 6877472"] Well no, it's obviously not intended to be fun. The DM who employs a tactic like this really doesn't want Stealth to succeed. That was the whole point of my post- Stealth tends to be less pass/fail and more "does the DM want it to function in this circumstance" (in my experience). Stealth has many hoops to jump through to begin with, and thus can easily be rendered pointless by any DM who doesn't want it be an option. I often don't bother to be proficient with it, because it's so rarely functioned. I still recall my very first AD&D Thief, trying to sneak about and gather intel on our enemies, being told that I was automatically spotted by an orc, because orcs have infravision, and the book says I can only hide from infravision "only if some heat producing light source is near to the creature or to the thief attempting to so hide....". Yes because carrying around a torch while sneaking makes perfect sense, lol. And again, ask yourself how many standard D&D monsters who lurk in dungeons have infravision (or some other stealth-foiling sense). So here you have an ability in a game called "Dungeons & Dragons" that typically neither works in Dungeons or against Dragons, lol. So yeah. I've learned that stealth only works when the DM wants it to, the fiddly rules are simply there to justify them not wanting it to. In the current edition, it's even worse in some ways, as I've encountered several DM's who like to make group checks to see if the party can sneak about without being detected. Given that most armor users have disadvantage on this check (and armor users tend not to be trained in Stealth or have particularly high Dexterity in the first place), the chances of success in your standard Fighter/Cleric/Wizard/Rogue party is fairly slim in such cases. In fact, one of the best ways to get Stealth to function at all in this edition is Pass Without Trace. A spell. Something a Rogue doesn't have access to natively, let alone Invisibility. Not long ago, I was in another thread complaining about how useless Stealth is (with regards to AD&D Backstab) when someone was like "what? in my campaign Thieves were backstabbing all the time!". I bring up the extremely restrictive rules for setting up a Backstab in the first place, and his response was (as near as I can recall), "oh well, I always give Thieves a Ring of Invisibility". LOL. Now I know some people are going to say "well in my campaign, I allow Rogues to..." and that's great. I'm sure there are many sane DM's have long since made rulings about stealth that actually allow it to work. But of all the skills in the game, there is none more restrictive than the ability to creep up on someone unseen. I recently started playing Baldur's Gate 3, and I was surprised at how easy sneaking about is. All you need to do is stay out of the enemy perception range and you're hidden. The game only makes you roll if you actually blunder [I]into [/I]said range. And there are several ways to distract enemies to make sneaking about easier. It functions so simply that I'm stunned that it's always been so complicated at the table, almost as if the designers [I]don't want stealth to function[/I]! [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Thievery in 5e - still relevant?
Top