(This post comes from our Shades of Emerald blog, but has been copied here in full for convenience sake.)
There’s something about rogues (or thieves, bandits, assassins, whatever else you want to call them). They carry an aura of danger about them. The way they stand in darkness keeping their features vague, their agility and technique in entering any domicile they desire, and their understanding of the human body and its weaknesses. Rogues are bad-ass in my book, but not everyone can play a rogue.
As far back as D&D goes (and therefore all RPGs), the rogue has always had the upper hand compared to his allies. Thieves had one thing all other classes never did: skills. A series of percentile dice applicable to a large number of situations in and out of combat. Absolutely brilliant. I always played two classes back in the TSR days: rogues and druids. (We’ll get into druids some other time.) While everyone else at the table was busy explaining why it makes sense to have training in such-and-such skill, I was already rolling 2d10s and telling the rest of them to hurry up. Thieves ruled because they had options none of the other characters had.
This exclusivity changed in 2000 with 3e and the d20 system. A more concrete skill system was devised for ALL characters to use, but the rogue had more. Only the bard could compete with him, but come on! Seriously? A bard? As RPGs evolved to expand to a larger market and satisfy the cravings of its players, rogues have been the quintessential adventurer. And while time has provided each of us with the ability to be like a rogue, they always have considerable advantages over the others when it comes to stealth in combat.
We want to change that. Starting today.
I hate to say it, but your characters have been missing out on ample opportunities to kill powerful creatures with just one blow. Not minions, full blown villains. Skirmishers, brutes, elites, and solos. It’s not your GM’s fault, it’s the rules. This game (and all other versions before it) have never included a viable option for stealth combat and by that, I mean sneaking up on a target and taking him out with one shot before he makes a sound. There are numerous reasons for this, all which have been made in name of balance, with the main cause being hit points. There are other reasons such as training, Dexterity modifiers, armor, and more, but we’ll get to that. The main reason you’ve never considered killing someone from the shadows is because after you hit, that target gets to turn around and swing back. Your damage will never reach his total hit points with one swing unless you use a daily attack power, roll a crit, and have a +5 weapon. As it stands, only the rogue stands the greatest chance of pulling this off through sneak attack damage and combat advantage. That’s where the stealth encounter comes in.
This post is a teaser for our next upcoming product, Break & Enter Book I: Stealth Encounters. The answers will not be provided here, but what we lack in immediate solutions, we provide with extensive playtesting and development. This is not a theory; this is a working solution. This series of previews and discussions will delve into the concepts and delivery of the various components of the stealth encounter, how they’ll work for you, and how you can incorporate them into an existing campaign without modifying your characters. This first post offers a brief explanation on the basics of stealth encounters, beginning with alertness ranges and unaware hit points. So let’s get started.
The Definition of a Stealth Encounter
Anytime you wish to engage a target without entering a full blown melee
storm, you can use a stealth encounter. Stealth encounters are a hybrid of a combat encounter and skill challenge used to engage a series of targets with powers with the flexibility and training of a skill challenge. It’s important to note you do not require training in Stealth to pull this off; it helps, but is not a requirement. (In fact, we offer various ways in Book II: The Art of Stealth for allies to assist their untrained associates with Stealth checks and more, but that’s for another time.)
These encounters are designed to account for the necessary actions required to engage a target without alerting them within the same time frame as a regular combat encounter. Within 6 to 8 rounds, you can creep up on a series of targets, avoid detection, and dispatch them all through a selective combination of every tool already available to your character. You can use burst attacks, area attacks, fire an arrow, access utility powers, make a skill check, capitalize on weapon properties, and more.
Don’t get me wrong: there are tools available for re-enacting stealth combat without this system, but they become tired and repetitive after a while. Minions simply need a good attack roll and they’re guaranteed to go down; skill challenges use nothing but skills and never account for attack powers; and characters untrained in Stealth suffer a huge disadvantage. Stealth encounters fix these issues.
Alertness Ranges: A Boost to the Untrained
In the distance, past the thick canopy of trees, you spot the glint of moonlight against a hobgoblin’s chain mail armor. The foul smell masks your approach and the brute faces the opposite direction, watching his friends playing with cards and tokens by the main gate. Plotting out your path, you slowly make your move.
Conditions: The hobgoblin stands 8 squares away. The forest around you is difficult terrain, but you have total concealment from the darkness and cover from the trees.
Original Rules: Using the standard rules for stealth and combat in 4e, you have to move no more than one-half your speed and make Stealth checks against the target’s passive Perception. Assuming you’re not a rogue, you have to move at one-half your speed and the difficult terrain reduces that by another half, so you’re speed is now 1 square. It will take you 4 rounds of double moves to reach the hobgoblin (unless you take a -5 penalty to your Stealth check and move 3 squares, putting you within reach on your second turn). You have to make 4 Stealth checks just to reach your target.
Solution: In a stealth encounter, the hobgoblin has two alertness ranges. Two of them, actually, a standard alertness range and an active alertness range. For most medium humanoid creatures, they have a standard alertness range of 10 squares and an active alertness range of 5 squares. While you stand within a creature’s standard alertness range, you roll against the target’s passive Perception (as usual), but if you fail your Stealth check, the hobgoblin does not notice you. He shifts, turns around and thinks he hears something, but shrugs it off and turns back to his post. While operating in the standard alertness range, you can move your full speed. Therefore, you reach the edge of the hobgoblin’s active alertness range at the end of your first move action.
Now we enter the active alertness range. While in this zone, the target can make an active Perception check against your Stealth. (Or your Dungeoneering, Nature, or Streetwise checks, depending on your environment.) While in the active alertness range, all standard stealth rules apply, but you still have a second move action for your turn, so you move a total of 4 squares into the hobgoblin’s active range. He doesn’t notice you. On your next turn, you go for broke and run through the difficult terrain and make your attack.
There’s also one important factor here: the other hobgoblins. When you strike and take down that first hobgoblin, you will be outside of the others’ alertness ranges. They won’t hear a thing and will continue to play their game. Or perhaps you’re still within their standard alertness range. Make another Stealth check as a free action after you kill the first hob and they’re none the wiser.
Difference: You’ve now gone from reaching the hobgoblin within 4 rounds (and making an attack on your 5th) to reaching the hobgoblin and attacking in your 2nd turn.
Unaware Hit Points: Down In One Shot
You grip your weapon tightly and stop breathing. The hobgoblin spits on the ground and grumbles something about the cold. You’ve made it this far downwind and he doesn’t even know you’re there. Now, you strike, grabbing hold of this foul creature with one hand over his mouth and the other planting your weapon into his heart.
Conditions: The hobgoblin is a Level 7 Brute with 55 hit points. You have combat advantage against him.
Original Rules: Assuming you reach an adjacent square without alerting the hobgoblin, you have combat advantage and a surprise round to attack. Now let’s figure you hit and deal 23 damage (you’re a striker, you use an encounter attack, whichever). The hobgoblin is still alive and rolls initiative. Oh, and so do his friends because they see the commotion.
Solution: All enemies in a combat encounter have unaware hit points, an amount of damage they can sustain before being killed while unaware of a target. Unlike minions, an enemy in a stealth encounter has more than 1 hp (providing an additional moment of suspense when you roll damage). When your target has the unaware condition, you can roll damage against its unaware hit points. If you deal more damage than this new total, the target dies.
Let’s hypothesize the worst and assume you don’t cause enough damage. All enemies (or guardians, but this is once again for another time) use half their regular hit points in a stealth encounter. This allows you to maintain the same timing as a regular combat encounter in case you miss and a scuffle breaks out. Even if you miss while unaware, you can use an action point to make another quick reactive strike and still take the target down.
Difference: You can legitimately kill the hobgoblin with one at-will attack power rather than a perfect crit on a daily.
What Happens When You Fail?
Because all enemies in a stealth encounter have fewer hit points than their traditional counterparts, a bad roll does not mean the start of a new encounter. Fewer hit points allows you to run stealth encounters at the same pace as before without wasting precious time, energy, and skill checks into a potentially failed effort. If there are any hobgoblins alive in the above example, they can be dispatched in a couple of rounds.
So Why The $#@! Use A Stealth Encounter?
Designed to mix-and-match between stealth and open combat, this new encounter format gives players and GMs the opportunity to try something different. There might also be times when your power selection is weak, you’re one encounter away from a milestone, and running past the trees screaming simply gives them the edge to pick you off with ranged or area attacks. Stealth encounters are designed to work on one-shot encounters or an entire dungeon crawl, should you desire. Versatility is the name of the game.
In Our Next Installment…
…we’ll discuss two new conditions and how modifiers can give you a edge to your Stealth checks, including elevation and noise. Until then, stay silent!
There’s something about rogues (or thieves, bandits, assassins, whatever else you want to call them). They carry an aura of danger about them. The way they stand in darkness keeping their features vague, their agility and technique in entering any domicile they desire, and their understanding of the human body and its weaknesses. Rogues are bad-ass in my book, but not everyone can play a rogue.
As far back as D&D goes (and therefore all RPGs), the rogue has always had the upper hand compared to his allies. Thieves had one thing all other classes never did: skills. A series of percentile dice applicable to a large number of situations in and out of combat. Absolutely brilliant. I always played two classes back in the TSR days: rogues and druids. (We’ll get into druids some other time.) While everyone else at the table was busy explaining why it makes sense to have training in such-and-such skill, I was already rolling 2d10s and telling the rest of them to hurry up. Thieves ruled because they had options none of the other characters had.
This exclusivity changed in 2000 with 3e and the d20 system. A more concrete skill system was devised for ALL characters to use, but the rogue had more. Only the bard could compete with him, but come on! Seriously? A bard? As RPGs evolved to expand to a larger market and satisfy the cravings of its players, rogues have been the quintessential adventurer. And while time has provided each of us with the ability to be like a rogue, they always have considerable advantages over the others when it comes to stealth in combat.
We want to change that. Starting today.
I hate to say it, but your characters have been missing out on ample opportunities to kill powerful creatures with just one blow. Not minions, full blown villains. Skirmishers, brutes, elites, and solos. It’s not your GM’s fault, it’s the rules. This game (and all other versions before it) have never included a viable option for stealth combat and by that, I mean sneaking up on a target and taking him out with one shot before he makes a sound. There are numerous reasons for this, all which have been made in name of balance, with the main cause being hit points. There are other reasons such as training, Dexterity modifiers, armor, and more, but we’ll get to that. The main reason you’ve never considered killing someone from the shadows is because after you hit, that target gets to turn around and swing back. Your damage will never reach his total hit points with one swing unless you use a daily attack power, roll a crit, and have a +5 weapon. As it stands, only the rogue stands the greatest chance of pulling this off through sneak attack damage and combat advantage. That’s where the stealth encounter comes in.
This post is a teaser for our next upcoming product, Break & Enter Book I: Stealth Encounters. The answers will not be provided here, but what we lack in immediate solutions, we provide with extensive playtesting and development. This is not a theory; this is a working solution. This series of previews and discussions will delve into the concepts and delivery of the various components of the stealth encounter, how they’ll work for you, and how you can incorporate them into an existing campaign without modifying your characters. This first post offers a brief explanation on the basics of stealth encounters, beginning with alertness ranges and unaware hit points. So let’s get started.
The Definition of a Stealth Encounter
Anytime you wish to engage a target without entering a full blown melee
storm, you can use a stealth encounter. Stealth encounters are a hybrid of a combat encounter and skill challenge used to engage a series of targets with powers with the flexibility and training of a skill challenge. It’s important to note you do not require training in Stealth to pull this off; it helps, but is not a requirement. (In fact, we offer various ways in Book II: The Art of Stealth for allies to assist their untrained associates with Stealth checks and more, but that’s for another time.)These encounters are designed to account for the necessary actions required to engage a target without alerting them within the same time frame as a regular combat encounter. Within 6 to 8 rounds, you can creep up on a series of targets, avoid detection, and dispatch them all through a selective combination of every tool already available to your character. You can use burst attacks, area attacks, fire an arrow, access utility powers, make a skill check, capitalize on weapon properties, and more.
Don’t get me wrong: there are tools available for re-enacting stealth combat without this system, but they become tired and repetitive after a while. Minions simply need a good attack roll and they’re guaranteed to go down; skill challenges use nothing but skills and never account for attack powers; and characters untrained in Stealth suffer a huge disadvantage. Stealth encounters fix these issues.
Alertness Ranges: A Boost to the Untrained
In the distance, past the thick canopy of trees, you spot the glint of moonlight against a hobgoblin’s chain mail armor. The foul smell masks your approach and the brute faces the opposite direction, watching his friends playing with cards and tokens by the main gate. Plotting out your path, you slowly make your move.
Conditions: The hobgoblin stands 8 squares away. The forest around you is difficult terrain, but you have total concealment from the darkness and cover from the trees.
Original Rules: Using the standard rules for stealth and combat in 4e, you have to move no more than one-half your speed and make Stealth checks against the target’s passive Perception. Assuming you’re not a rogue, you have to move at one-half your speed and the difficult terrain reduces that by another half, so you’re speed is now 1 square. It will take you 4 rounds of double moves to reach the hobgoblin (unless you take a -5 penalty to your Stealth check and move 3 squares, putting you within reach on your second turn). You have to make 4 Stealth checks just to reach your target.
Solution: In a stealth encounter, the hobgoblin has two alertness ranges. Two of them, actually, a standard alertness range and an active alertness range. For most medium humanoid creatures, they have a standard alertness range of 10 squares and an active alertness range of 5 squares. While you stand within a creature’s standard alertness range, you roll against the target’s passive Perception (as usual), but if you fail your Stealth check, the hobgoblin does not notice you. He shifts, turns around and thinks he hears something, but shrugs it off and turns back to his post. While operating in the standard alertness range, you can move your full speed. Therefore, you reach the edge of the hobgoblin’s active alertness range at the end of your first move action.
Now we enter the active alertness range. While in this zone, the target can make an active Perception check against your Stealth. (Or your Dungeoneering, Nature, or Streetwise checks, depending on your environment.) While in the active alertness range, all standard stealth rules apply, but you still have a second move action for your turn, so you move a total of 4 squares into the hobgoblin’s active range. He doesn’t notice you. On your next turn, you go for broke and run through the difficult terrain and make your attack.
FROM BREAK & ENTER BOOK I:
Most trials presented in stealth encounters include an aura of awareness called the alertness range. This aura includes a standard and active range from where the target stands: the active alertness range remains active at all times so long as the target remains conscious. So long as you stand within the target’s active alertness range, the target makes active Perception checks against your Stealth check whenever it is made. If you operate outside their active alertness range but within their standard alertness range, you roll your Stealth check against their passive Perception. A successful check results in the target spotting you and reacting accordingly; a failed check gives you a reprieve (the target does not spot you) but increases its active alertness range to match its standard alertness range.
On average, the active alertness range is double their standard range. From hereon, you can make another Stealth check to remain hidden after every move with a suspicious target keeping a sharper lookout for you.
Most trials presented in stealth encounters include an aura of awareness called the alertness range. This aura includes a standard and active range from where the target stands: the active alertness range remains active at all times so long as the target remains conscious. So long as you stand within the target’s active alertness range, the target makes active Perception checks against your Stealth check whenever it is made. If you operate outside their active alertness range but within their standard alertness range, you roll your Stealth check against their passive Perception. A successful check results in the target spotting you and reacting accordingly; a failed check gives you a reprieve (the target does not spot you) but increases its active alertness range to match its standard alertness range.
On average, the active alertness range is double their standard range. From hereon, you can make another Stealth check to remain hidden after every move with a suspicious target keeping a sharper lookout for you.
There’s also one important factor here: the other hobgoblins. When you strike and take down that first hobgoblin, you will be outside of the others’ alertness ranges. They won’t hear a thing and will continue to play their game. Or perhaps you’re still within their standard alertness range. Make another Stealth check as a free action after you kill the first hob and they’re none the wiser.
Difference: You’ve now gone from reaching the hobgoblin within 4 rounds (and making an attack on your 5th) to reaching the hobgoblin and attacking in your 2nd turn.
Unaware Hit Points: Down In One Shot
You grip your weapon tightly and stop breathing. The hobgoblin spits on the ground and grumbles something about the cold. You’ve made it this far downwind and he doesn’t even know you’re there. Now, you strike, grabbing hold of this foul creature with one hand over his mouth and the other planting your weapon into his heart.
Conditions: The hobgoblin is a Level 7 Brute with 55 hit points. You have combat advantage against him.
Original Rules: Assuming you reach an adjacent square without alerting the hobgoblin, you have combat advantage and a surprise round to attack. Now let’s figure you hit and deal 23 damage (you’re a striker, you use an encounter attack, whichever). The hobgoblin is still alive and rolls initiative. Oh, and so do his friends because they see the commotion.
Solution: All enemies in a combat encounter have unaware hit points, an amount of damage they can sustain before being killed while unaware of a target. Unlike minions, an enemy in a stealth encounter has more than 1 hp (providing an additional moment of suspense when you roll damage). When your target has the unaware condition, you can roll damage against its unaware hit points. If you deal more damage than this new total, the target dies.
Let’s hypothesize the worst and assume you don’t cause enough damage. All enemies (or guardians, but this is once again for another time) use half their regular hit points in a stealth encounter. This allows you to maintain the same timing as a regular combat encounter in case you miss and a scuffle breaks out. Even if you miss while unaware, you can use an action point to make another quick reactive strike and still take the target down.
Difference: You can legitimately kill the hobgoblin with one at-will attack power rather than a perfect crit on a daily.
What Happens When You Fail?
Because all enemies in a stealth encounter have fewer hit points than their traditional counterparts, a bad roll does not mean the start of a new encounter. Fewer hit points allows you to run stealth encounters at the same pace as before without wasting precious time, energy, and skill checks into a potentially failed effort. If there are any hobgoblins alive in the above example, they can be dispatched in a couple of rounds.
So Why The $#@! Use A Stealth Encounter?
Designed to mix-and-match between stealth and open combat, this new encounter format gives players and GMs the opportunity to try something different. There might also be times when your power selection is weak, you’re one encounter away from a milestone, and running past the trees screaming simply gives them the edge to pick you off with ranged or area attacks. Stealth encounters are designed to work on one-shot encounters or an entire dungeon crawl, should you desire. Versatility is the name of the game.
In Our Next Installment…
…we’ll discuss two new conditions and how modifiers can give you a edge to your Stealth checks, including elevation and noise. Until then, stay silent!
