Michigan J. Fighter
Our group is about to start up a new campaign in Exalted, and no less than three of the party came to our character creation session with, “I want to be the stealthy guy!” Now anyone that’s ever broken into a drow matron’s vault or crept through the slave pits of the undercity knows that having a sneaky guy in the party is a good idea. He can scout ahead, set up ambushes, create diversions, and spy out all kinds of useful intel. The problems come creeping in, however, when you try to turn your lone infiltrator into a commando squad.
For the sake of argument let’s say that everybody in the group is average at sneaking, and can succeed in going undetected 50% of the time. If any one of these characters attempts to creep through a sleeping dragon’s lair, they’ll get away with the Bilbo impersonation half the time. If all four of them attempt the trick, however, they’ll only avoid detection in 1 out of every 16 attempts. Even if a party designed for stealth tries to burgle Big Red, with each master ninja enjoying a full 90% success rate, at least one of them will biff the roll about 35% of the time.
All of the above makes a certain amount of sense from a simulation standpoint. It’s harder to get a squad of dudes behind enemy lines than a single operative. But from a narrative standpoint, I’ve always felt that this sort of thing bites. Why the crap can’t we sneak into one freaking cultist den without setting off alarm bells?
Do any of you guys have a good system or house rule to fix this one? Because this issue has honestly stumped me for years.
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Plot twist – the party is trying to sneak past the drow (or something else with light blindness) , so the Fighter standing in bright light is the only one the sentries can’t see very well.
Cleric: “Fighter, that is without a doubt the stupidest thing I’ve ever– Ow! The drow are attacking! HOW CAN THEY SEE ME!?”
Fighter: *does the Charleston”
That was clearly not Cleric! The accent is all wrong.
I ran it through the Dwarven-to-English translator as a convenience for our English-speaking readers. The original: “Fighter, that is wi’oot a doubt th’ stupidest thing a’ve ever– ow! Th’ drow ur attacking! Howfur kin thay see me!?”
Use the Aid other rule. Take your best stealth guy and have the others ‘aid’ him. One roll for the whole squad and even with the increased difficulty for stealthing others you have the bonus from the ‘aid others’ rule to offset it.
You mention “stealthing others.” Do you actually let the stealthy guy roll his skill check for the whole team? What system is this?
Pathfinder.
Then won’t everyone else simply dump their stealth skill?
Specialization. Stealthing others is an epic target number. They still need to have the skill themselves in order to use the Aid Other Action. I don’t have the book right now, but I think they also have to have it within either two or four ranks of the Stealthing character in order to be eligible to use Aid Other. This way Only one player has to dedicate his skill point to have the most Stealth possible.
And this is why the delicious teamwork feat stealth synergy was invented.
It might be a feat tax on the whole party, but if any party is planning on sneakily approaching any objective as a group, it’s necessary. I understand feeling a bit miffed about not being able to sneak as a group, but as long as an option like the above exists, I think that’s enough. Sneaking around as a group is a lot harder to imagine being possible, since more bodies = more chances of being spotted or heard. It makes sense that it requires special training together as a team to turn cooperation into a stealth benefit rather than a detriment.
I avoided that feat on account of the rules argument. Do we just use the highest die rolled then apply everyone’s modifiers separately? Do we use the highest total on the check for everybody? Do we yell at one another on message boards for several hours?
Doesn’t the feat say you add all you’re respective modifiers(and penalties) together, and take whichever roll is the highest?
That’s the argument. It can be read as “take the highest roll and then each individual adds their modifier to that roll seperately,” or it can be read as “sum your modifiers and then add them to the highest roll to get a single result.” The latter means that an army of dudes with this feat can get a stealth result in the thousands.
Well the later point is hard to use since you still need concealment or cover to roll stealth to hide. An army of thousands can’t ALL have concealment. I can see how it can be interpreted both ways, but I think the intention is to add all the modifiers beforehand, then use one roll for everyone. This way the more clanky loud armored ones bring down any sneaky high modifier people, and vice versa.
Group checks are one option. As long as half the group succeeds, it all works out. The other is to make sure your commando squad includes some spellcasting chops for things like Invisibility and Pass Without Trace.
The thing that kills me about group checks is that, if you assign the best guy to the task, everyone else is at liberty to simply dump the skill. One solution I heard on the reddit thread I started was to have the least stealthy guy make the checks, but to allow more skilled characters to aid. That might be my favorite so far.
Hmm, that’s a good point.
5E group checks don’t work like that: as MSK said, everyone has to roll and you need half of them to succeed.
And then, several months alter, I realized what edition MSK was talking about. I heard “group checks” and imagined some generic “one person makes the check on behalf of the group” solution. Trying to straddle the line between multiple editions is rough sometimes!
A way I’ve seen it is everyone rolls their check, and then you take the party’s average and that’s what you run with. More common is you’re in essence equal to the sum of your lowest roll. And still more common is everyone dumping Stealth because it really is broken in a detrimental way.
Ah. The old back up plan strategy. Solid.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/5d/46/2f/5d462f5465c553b9f6de44023fe2bd76.jpg
There’s a Stealth charm that lets the Night help the Twilight or whoever sneak away. I don’t know if it lets you do it to a group, though.
Solar stealth? Core book? Any chance you can remember the name?
It’s in the adventure Under The Rose. Lunars and Alchemicals also have charms in their core sets (Rats In The Basement Style and Vapor Mirage Strike Team, respectively) which allow them to conceal an army with magnitude up to the user’s Essence.
SPREADING NIGHT’S SHROUD
Cost: 2m;
Mins: Stealth 5, Essence 3;
Type: Reflexive
Keywords: Stackable, Touch
Duration: One scene
Prerequisite Charms: None
The Lawgivers were meant to work together to bring order to Creation, but the Night Caste has always found fulfilling this mandate difficult. This Charm helps the Iron Wolves stand side by side with their less subtle brethren. The Lawgiver need only touch a consenting ally and commit two motes to tag him as a beneficiary. Up to maximum of (Stealth rating) beneficiaries may be tagged simultaneously.
Beneficiaries use the Solar’s traits (if higher) for all rolls to remain undetected. Additionally, whenever the Solar activates another Stealth Charm or Stealth-related anima power while using Spreading Night’s Shroud, she must pay two extra motes per beneficiary. This surcharge extends the effect through the tag, hiding the beneficiary just as it hides the Solar. Should the Lawgiver or any beneficiary do anything that qualifies as an attack, however, all the Lawgiver’s shared effects instantly terminate, preventing an unexpected attack.
1. Stealth guy goes in.
2. Stealth guy creates distraction/knocks out communication/floods place with sleeping gas.
3. Rest of party goes in.
Or:
1. DM plans stealth encounter
2. DM figures out ways for rest of party to support stealth guy without tagging along.
In my experience:
1. Stealth guy goes in.
2. Some jackhole gets bored and throws a grenade at the compound.
3. Roll initiative.
Guardian Fog Technique, p405
I shall inform my solar mate. Cheers!
Edit: Dang it! We’re running 2e. Looks like it’s no dice on this charm.
ah, the joys of Clanky McClankerson on the team.
We’ve had various times of using narrative common sense”how do you keep Biff in his full plate from ruining the sneak?” “we wrap him in blankets and muffle his feet like a horse then he follows exactly in my footsteps!” to ole Mage-y Magicsparklebutt funking up the sound entirely, to Druid McTalksWithBunnies projecting “cover” noises that wouldn’t otherwise be out of place.
Druid: “Ooh… That’s 12 on the bird calls.”
Orc Guard: “Am that a Kirtland’s Warbler? It very rare! Me get sketchbook.”
Yeah. The Stealth/Perception discrepancy has always bothered me. If you want a party to sneak as a team every single member needs to be good at stealth. Then you are allowed to succeed sometimes.
If you want the party to get ambushed an average amount you need just one person good at Perception. But what you usually wind up with is one guy with stealth and everyone with perception because it’s the most common check in the game. Unlike every other skills there are virtually no possible campaigns where you could go without using it multiple times and there’s really no substitute for it.
I think I favor the use the average of the party’s rolls method mentioned by someone above. It’s about the only way to make Stealth function in the in a similar manner to how other skills are designed to.
Same thing but less math: multiply the DC by the number of rollers. The players sum their check results, which must hit that number. This way everyone’s character gets to matter, but there’s still only one (collective) check to worry about.
Just seeing the image, without reading any text, made me visibly cringe. As someone who leans towards the roguish types, Clanky McClankerson has been a liability in a handful of missions. On the bright side, they’re a great asset in the inevitable combats. Then again, Stealth is that kind of mechanic that doesn’t mesh well with a mixed-style group.
So if Fighter sings and dances, do the bad guys capture him and try to sell him to the slave market with the expected shenanigans to follow?
Heh. Between your comment and HadACookie’s thoughts on drow, I’m pretty sure this comic comes chronologically just before Escape Plan.
That moment when the antipaladin in banded mail is the stealthiest character in the group aside from the summoner’s eidolon.
“Clang, clang, clang” went the party
“Ding, ding, ding” went the bell
“Halt! Who goes?” said the watchmen
And the encounter went straight to hell.
In RuneQuest you have two separate skills, one for Hide and one for Sneak. I once had 85% in Sneak, and 10% in Hide. I was described as: that fluorescant pink elephant, on socks. I could get in almost anything, without being heard, but anytime somebody came looking, I would be in the spotlight, like Fighter above.
So one is a visual skill and the other is an auditory skill? Interesting…
I seriously need to get to more gaming cons and try more systems. RuneQuest sounds like a blast.
In my party’s case, it’s Fighter tripping over his feat with the crashing sound of full plate. Guy’s got no Dex mod. Which is why he’s never the guy that scouts somewhere. It’s only when we absolutely all have to sneak past something.
Didn’t you say he’s your “never rolls above a 10” guy anyway?
Yup. We just cross our fingers and hope he rolls just high enough to pass. Or gets one of his rare nat 20s.
I don’t let it bother me. If the whole party can’t sneak then leave the sneaking to the sneaky people. This may split the party. That’s fine. The sneaks can carry out a reccy before the main event. Gives the party a chance to make an actual plan. Maybe even give casters a chance to choose spells. Or the sneaks can get into a good position to hit the bad guys from behind. All good.
Absolutely have to sneak past something? Silence and invisibility. Or charm the guards. There’s ways and means and having the opportunity to use different approaches to tackle a problem is fun. As is failure.
I dunno, man. That comes with its own problems:
https://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/unmasked-part-2-4
One houserule I’ve seen is as follows: For Stealth or any other check where every member of the group must succeed, the player with the lowest base modifier rolls and the largest single penalty affecting the group is applied to the check. So if Fighter’s the only one in full-plate, he can take off his armor to reduce the penalty to whatever Cleric gets from that chain shirt, but if the whole party is in full plate then they all have to take off their armor to get the penalties down low enough.
I’m reminded of the Zelda system I’m planning on running. There’s a feature called “Extended Challenges” where the idea is that everybody rolls together. If the total gets above the DC, they succeed. These could be just one stat or several stats depending on the situation. I could definitely see a caper being several successive checks in a row with this sort of system. You pass and fail as a group.