[3.X] How Not to Be Seen

[virgil]

These are a set of house-rules/guidelines for adjudicating stealth in my current AE game, and I'm wanting your opinion as to egregious concerns, especially in comparison to the normal rules.

Hide & Move Silently are merged into one skill, Stealth. Spot & Listen are merged into one skill, Notice. Modifiers originally tied to just Spot or Listen apply to Notice, using the greater of the two, so long as the sense can be used; so Spot bonuses do not apply against invisible targets, thunderstones negate Listen bonuses, etc.

Stealth is rolled once for the entire scene. With a standard action, you get your roll result for the round. With a move action, you get your roll result with a -5 penalty for the round. As a free action, you get a -10. After a character is spotted from stealth, they are permitted a single reroll to their Stealth for the scene.

Observers are presumed to be constantly taking a free action to "Take 0" on Notice, which gives a Notice result equal to their bonus. When they Observe, a move action, they get to roll normally for that round. An observer will only roll once for the entire scene, using the same result for all further Observe actions. They are permitted a single reroll to their Notice for the scene after they fail to beat the Stealth by 5 or less.

Compare results to the point-of-view of any potential observer. Stealth is impossible against someone directly observing you until line of sight is broken (or the Bluff check for a distraction to dive for cover). Changes to the DC based on the circumstances apply instantly, and can make a stealthy subject change to noticed by the observer.

Until the subject is noticed, the observer is unaware and flat-footed to the subject. If conditions change to make the observer aware, they remain flat-footed until the end of the action. Multiple attacks from a full-attack action do not all get the bonus (just the first); though if it's the start of combat for the observer, they remain flat-footed until their action as normal.

Notice Modifier	Observer Status
-1 per 10'	Distance
-10/1ft thickness	Wall
-5	Closed door
-5	Distracted, full conversation or using standard action
-5	Intense sensory input (spotlight in face)
-10	In combat, Asleep
-20	Pinpoint subject with total concealment
+10	Observe, subject without cover or concealment
+4	Observe, knows who to look for
-3	Observe as swift action

Stealth Modifier	Subject Status
-5	Moving greater than half speed
-20	Attacking, running, charging
-30	Attacking observer
+20	Total concealment
-20	Carries light source, auto pinpoint
+/-2	Favorable/unfavorable conditions

If a subject has total concealment, such as invisibility or no line of sight with the observer, then an observer can only roughly know their direction; pinpointing will give the precise square. If the subject is completely immobile, including no breathing, then the bonus from total concealment increases by +20 and the observer requires an observe action along with a 10 point penalty to their own stealth attempts.

Use common sense applications of sensory bonuses, such as bonuses to Spot not applying while asleep.

Beyond Sight & Sound
Ripping off Pathfinder, Notice can be used for senses beyond Spot/Listen. However, the standards use a human baseline, which is rather abysmal and therefore doesn't require the level of detail the others do. If a sense is acute enough to be a special ability, like a bat's blindsense or a beast's scent; then they can use it as a normal sense (out to the range limit) with a +8 bonus.

DC	Detail
-10	Stench of rotting garbage
0	Smell smoke
10	Determine if food is spoiled
25	Sense a burrowing creature underneath you
15+caster level	Identify the powers of a potion through taste

Shadowrunning
Sometimes the entire party needs to infiltrate a location, and some of them are incompetent at their job. With a -5 penalty, all allies within 30' who follow the stealth leader uses the leader's roll before modifiers (such as size, actions, etc).
Alternatively, everyone can make individual Stealth checks as appropriate, and the leader reduces his own check to boost their allies. For every 1 point their result is lowered, every ally within 30' gains a +2 bonus. The recipient's check cannot exceed that of the person taking the penalty.

[Krusk]

-10/1ft thickness Through a wall
If I take 20 with 0 ranks or ability mods I can see through a 1ft thick wall and make out the arrangement of the room, sure I won't see whoever is hiding inside the room (if anyone) but I'll still get the gist of the layout.
This is dumb and you should just leave this idea out.

Also
-1 per 10ft means that no one ever sees anything at a distance. People who invest in stealth are already awesomely better at it than people who invest in observation. Even more so against people who did not.

You should have DC to notice invisible foes, along with a DC to emulate true seeing.

You should also have stealth DCs that actually turn on invisibility as per the spell. Same with greater invis.

[Sashi]

-10/1ft thickness Through a wall
If I take 20 with 0 ranks or ability mods I can see through a 1ft thick wall and make out the arrangement of the room, sure I won't see whoever is hiding inside the room (if anyone) but I'll still get the gist of the layout.
This is dumb and you should just leave this idea out.

All it takes is to change these to "Listen through a wall" and "listen through a closed door".

And you can't pinpoint the location of a sofa by listening because the DC to hear a sofa is "-" not "0"

[CatharzGodfoot]

The status of the "stealther" (sneak?) should apply to the Stealth check. The status of the "observe" (observer?) should apply to the Notice check.

[Sigil]

You might consider working the division between seeing and hearing a target back into the skill for verisimilitude. You could do this by simply having some modifiers to Notice checks only apply to targets that the observer has line of sight to, and others that only apply to targets that the observer does not have line of sight to. This has the benefit of getting rid of some weirdness related to invisibility conferring a -20 penalty to hearing an invisible creature, and negates the need for some of the common sense rulings (such as holding a light source vs having concealment). Fortunately line of sight is already a defined term within d20. Such a table would look like this.

Modifier	Observer Status	Line of Sight Required?
-1 per 10'	Distance	No
+10	Observe, stealther without cover or concealment	Yes
+4	Observe, knows who to look for	No
+5	Stealther, greater than half speed	No
+20	Stealther attacking, running, charging	No
+30	Stealther attacking observer	No
-20	Stealther invisible, can only pinpoint	Yes
+20	Stealther carries light source, auto pinpoint	Yes
-5	Through a closed door	No
-10/1ft thickness	Through a wall	No
-5	Distracted, including overpowering sensory information	No
+/-2	Favorable/unfavorable conditions	No
-10	Asleep	Special, sleeping creatures have no line of sight

You would also want to include a line about how checks against a target that the observer has line of sight to are also compared to the stealthers Stealth DC as if they did not have line of sight, and if such a check would have been successful they pinpoint the location of the creature just as if they never had line of sight in the first place.

You could also include blurbs for edge cases, such as if an observer pinpoints the location of a target that is out of its line of sight, the observer can tell where the sound is coming from most strongly if there are multiple paths to the target available.

This would make your notice skill slightly more complicated, but I think would narrow down wonkiness.

[virgil]

Clarification provided to better cover the situation. As it stands, it's a DC 55 (inanimate objects have 0 Dex and don't roll) to see through a wall to know the room's layout, essentially having tremorsense through active sonar; which I am at peace with as a result.

One thing a friend is pointing out is that in the event of a blind victim or invisible assailant, the victim is at a -10 to know what square he's being stabbed from.

[ishy]

free action, part of movement. Compare to the point-of-view of any potential observer. Stealth is impossible against someone directly observing you until line of sight is broken (or the Bluff check for a distraction to dive for cover), and your initial roll upon entering stealth remains until you attempt to re-stealth against an observer that's spotted you. All potential observers make a reactive Notice check, which they retain until they take a move action to Observe to get a reroll. Changes to the DC based on the circumstances apply instantly, and can make a stealthy subject change to noticed by the observer.

So say, I want to sneak into a castle. I just let myself be spotted by party members till I roll a 20 for stealth and then proceed to use that for the entire sneaking in part?

[virgil]

free action, part of movement. Compare to the point-of-view of any potential observer. Stealth is impossible against someone directly observing you until line of sight is broken (or the Bluff check for a distraction to dive for cover), and your initial roll upon entering stealth remains until you attempt to re-stealth against an observer that's spotted you. All potential observers make a reactive Notice check, which they retain until they take a move action to Observe to get a reroll. Changes to the DC based on the circumstances apply instantly, and can make a stealthy subject change to noticed by the observer.

So say, I want to sneak into a castle. I just let myself be spotted by party members till I roll a 20 for stealth and then proceed to use that for the entire sneaking in part?

This is a concern. The problem I want to avoid was iterative probability buggering the rogue without KY. The solution to that should be some kind of predictable event that forces the subject to reroll their Stealth...maybe whenever they do more than a move action?

[TarkisFlux]

Why are you letting people keep their rolls anyway Virgil? Reduce roll fatigue? Increase the odds of a successful stealth job by eliminating crap roll round? Something else?

Depending on your goals, there's a few potential solutions:
[*]Assume people just take 20 on their rolls through that sort of exploit, and adjust the notice penalties to account for it. This is a terrible solution and you shouldn't do it, but it is technically a solution.
[*]Don't let people keep their rolls, but do let them take 10 in all circumstances. If you pair this with some sort of warning system where they know that a notice check is about to be made against them, they can just take 10 until someone gets a sense they might be there, and then make a serious roll to continue being stealth at that time.
[*]Drop the actual roll. When you're stealthing, you go slow and you set your notice DC to 10 (or 12, or 15) + whatever. It's not an opposed check so you don't have to worry about people getting their 20s or 1s and making the job of the noticer too hard / easy. This kind of sets stealth to an automatic thing where people are trying to 'save' against it, and fits with lots of the rest of the game but does lose the critical stealth failure that people seem to like. If you want to keep crap rolls in while mitigating the good ones, you could keep the roll and have it be 10 unless you roll a 1 on the d20, or the lesser of d20 or 12, or some other roll flattening thing.
[*]Drop the per round thing and move to task resolution instead. You make a stealth check to accomplish a particular task, like sneak past the gate or along the wall or whatever, and people who could notice you just get 1 check for the task. Larger more nebulous tasks get a penalty to encourage people to move in more defined ways. May be weird modelling stealth in combat.

[Edit] And if you feel like checking out a more detailed and also crazy set of notice modifiers and stuff, click here.

[virgil]

Goals

• Simple: So the whole Tome of Prowess is nixed due to size and associated lists of special abilities unlocked at various ranks
• Compatible: Roughly uses the same inputs/numbers as AE & Pathfinder, since I'm not going to be messing with the existence of skill points
• Combat Applicable: For the rogue, it needs to handle round-by-round use in combat; which goal-based stealth doesn't
• Iterative Probability: Notice vs Stealth is a RNG of nearly 40, and introducing too many rolls will result in failure
• Fatigue: Tied to iterative, rolling every single round for multiple participants one or more times per round at all times is burdensome

Non-starters include stuff like assuming everyone gets a free Take 20 or something. Looking at the Tome of Prowess, the presumed Take 0 for Notice with an actual roll for an action is something I was mentally assuming and should incorporate; may or may not include the penalty for taking an Observe action even faster. The same goes for some of the modifiers, which I will take into account.

[TarkisFlux]

For those goals you should probably just allow people to take 10 on stealth all the time and to take 0 on notice all the time or take 10 with some action cost. You can go further and incorporate some sort of 'hey, there might be something over there' mechanic for the spotter (like I did with the DC-1 to DC-5 notice result) if you want people to have a reason to randomly roll off in the middle of a sneak scene for dramatic tension or whatever. I don't think it's necessary, as any sneak who can see a guard that may have just half-noticed them can just stop moving and boost their DC anyway without the roll. Either way it's a workable thing that brings rolling way way down without leaving the per round framework.

Looking at the Tome of Prowess, the presumed Take 0 for Notice with an actual roll for an action is something I was mentally assuming and should incorporate; may or may not include the penalty for taking an Observe action even faster. The same goes for some of the modifiers, which I will take into account.

I wasn't suggesting you use that page, because it's a lot crazier than you seemed to want, but that it might be a good place to loot modifiers (or serve as inspiration on what to avoid). Sorry if that wasn't more clear, but since looting modifiers may be occurring, Mission Accomplished.jpg.

[Grek]

Let's give this a try:

Perception:
Spot and Listen are merged together into a single Wis based skill, Perception. For each rank, you get to choose one sense that you are good at detecting hidden people with. Each sense must be one you either have or previously had. See Table: Senses for examples. You can still make checks using senses you have but didn't choose, but you do not add your Perception ranks when doing so.

In order to determine if anyone is sneaking nearby, an observer must make an Observation Attempt, which works as follows:
1. At any time, as an immediate action, the observer declares that they want to Observe an area. This ignores the usual rule that you cannot take immediate actions while flatfooted.
2. The observer declares which sense they will be using. All senses are either directional (in which case the observer must also declare a cone to represent the direction they're looking) or non-directional (in which case they perceive all around them) or both (in which case the observer picks which they use it as on each attempt)
3. The observer immediately detects all creatures which are not attempting to hide from the sense the observer chose, or who failed their Stealth Check to do so. They perceive creatures which did not fail their Stealth Check as being whatever it is that creature is trying to hide as. This requires no roll.
4. After making an Observation Check in an area, the observer may Scrutinize any creature, object or 5' square in the area they've observed. A single Perception check is rolled in secret against the Stealth Class(es) of any creature(s) hiding there. See Table: Perception Modifiers for relevent circumstance modifiers on this roll. If successful, the creature(s) are detected. If unsuccessful, the observer finds nothing, just as they would if there wasn't anything there to find.

Stealth:
Hide, Disguise and Move Silently are merged together into a single Dex based skill, Stealth. Each rank allows you to choose one sense that you know how to hide from. Each sense must be one you've seen used at least once. See Table: Senses for examples. You can still make checks using senses you have but didn't choose, but you do not add your Stealth ranks when doing so.

In order to determine if a character can avoid detection, they must make a Stealth Attempt, which works as follows:
1. As a standard action which provokes attacks of opportunity, the character declares that they wish to become Hidden from a given sense. They must decide which Stealth Limitations they wish to employ (as seen on Table: Stealth Limitations) at this time.
2. A Stealth Check (modified by the circumstance bonuses listed on Table: Stealth Limitations) is made in secret against the DC given by Table: Senses. If successful, the character is hidden and gains a Stealth Class equal to 10 + their Stealth bonus. If unsuccessful, the character thinks they are hidden, but are not.
3. The character remains Hidden from that sense until they voluntarily stop hiding or take an action that is not allowed by the Stealth Limitations they chose when they started hiding. Ceasing to be hidden from one sense does not automatically make a character cease being hidden from other senses, nor does being detected by a given sense.

Table: Senses will list mundane stuff like Sight, Hearing and Scent with a DC of about 20 or so. More exotic senses, like Tremorsense, Taste, Blindsight, Telepathy, Divination Magic, etc. will have higher DCs. Table: Stealth Limitations has stuff like "Can't attack", "Can't use hands at all", "Can't move", "Can't move faster than half speed", "Can't speak" etc. which give you circumstance bonuses on your Stealth check in exchange for not being able to do cool things while hidden.

[Voss]

You're modifiers are largely so big that I'm not sure any of it is worthwhile. But some specific stuff jumps out:

with an angry mob carrying torches, for some reason it is child's play to pick out a specific guy among the throngs of torch-bearers. Blending in with a mob should be something that is possible.


Tasting potions. Why? I could understand if it was someone with alchemy or even spellcraft. But you can pass a potion around to a group of crap-covered farmers and be reasonably sure they can identify a potion of almost anything. For level one seplls, no matter how obscure, they're batting 25% each.

[Sigil]

For the potions, you could describe it as ingesting a negligible amount of the potion, and being so aware of it's effect on your person that you extrapolate the greater effect it would have if you took it. This notably has nothing to do with taste, but could fill the same function.

[virgil]

You're modifiers are largely so big that I'm not sure any of it is worthwhile. But some specific stuff jumps out:

with an angry mob carrying torches, for some reason it is child's play to pick out a specific guy among the throngs of torch-bearers. Blending in with a mob should be something that is possible.

Tasting potions. Why? I could understand if it was someone with alchemy or even spellcraft. But you can pass a potion around to a group of crap-covered farmers and be reasonably sure they can identify a potion of almost anything. For level one seplls, no matter how obscure, they're batting 25% each.

As Sigil points out on the potions thing, it largely fills the same function, was something Pathfinder had in their list which I like, and harkens to some aspects of the 10th Doctor's behavior. As for the modifiers being so big, those are the same ones from the core rules; you're largely doing everything without many modifiers unless you start stabbing people. Besides, that's level 1 potions, something that's more likely than most would expect to see in a town at one point or another; similar to how it's just assumed commoners know red dragons breathe fire or that owlbears live in caves.

From what I can tell, not being seen at all is for Hide & Move Silently, while being passed over in a crowd is the bailiwick of Disguise. As I'm not going so far as to Katamari Disguise into the Stealth skill, that's not on the table for heavy review. The biggest concern is the resolution, when and how often to make Notice and Stealth checks.

I'm not completely sold on the idea of dropping all rolling, because this is still D&D and things shouldn't be too deterministic.

[TarkisFlux]

From what I can tell, not being seen at all is for Hide & Move Silently, while being passed over in a crowd is the bailiwick of Disguise. As I'm not going so far as to Katamari Disguise into the Stealth skill, that's not on the table for heavy review.

Since you're renaming to stealth, you can actually drop the conceptual hide and move silent baggage. You don't need to be hidden or unseen or silent to be stealthy, you just need to not stand out in your surroundings. Stealth could just be "avoiding notice", whether you're moving in shadows or with a crowd or swimming next to a boat (this is the Assassin's Creed model of stealth, instead of the Splinter Cell/Thief/Everyone else model of stealth). People still get a bonus to noticing you if they have a description or whatever, so shadows are preferable but not required. It's more complicated because you don't want a stealth penalty to people running with the crowd in front of the bulls, but it's certainly doable. Particularly in a game with no facing.

And it's still sufficiently distinct from disguise since it doesn't let you walk up to guards and chat like you can when you're wearing a wig. Even dumb guards notice you when you do that, the disguise just makes them notice something else.

The biggest concern is the resolution, when and how often to make Notice and Stealth checks.

I'm not completely sold on the idea of dropping all rolling, because this is still D&D and things shouldn't be too deterministic.

Seeing as you're set on the per round resolution model, how often is "every round someone could notice you". There's really no getting around that part without moving to a task based resolution system. Unless you lean on the take X rules or tweak your 'roll and keep' in a functional way, that means rolling every round.

And I wasn't suggesting dropping all rolling, I was suggesting dropping most of it. Give people the option to avoid die fatigue and terrible rolls, make them roll every round they're stealthing or watching, and see how long it takes for them to adopt a take 10 position when the results aren't super important. It probably works better with a soft fail state, like the guard hearing something in the distance and giving them both a chance to make actual rolls on the next round, since you want to retain opposed rolls in these cases. Soft fail states are added complications though, and are probably less easy than your roll and keep. So if you can think of a good way to tweak that, which I'm not seeing off hand, that's probably preferable for your goals.

Anyway, task based (even if that task is 'sneak past this guard' or 'keep sneaking around this guy in combat this round'), 'roll when it matters, and you can still be auto-caught by people substantially better than you', or 'roll and keep against an individual noticer (not in general)' are the only halfway decent solutions I can think of. Else you're begging iterative probability to screw you, as you've noticed. If you can't make one of them work, pick another the next most workable and least annoying one and make it work instead.

[virgil]

Stealth could just be "avoiding notice", whether you're moving in shadows or with a crowd or swimming next to a boat (this is the Assassin's Creed model of stealth, instead of the Splinter Cell/Thief/Everyone else model of stealth). People still get a bonus to noticing you if they have a description or whatever, so shadows are preferable but not required. It's more complicated because you don't want a stealth penalty to people running with the crowd in front of the bulls, but it's certainly doable. Particularly in a game with no facing.

Looking at what I've got written so far, unless it's someone adjacent to the guy, there's going to be soft cover between the stealther and just about every other observer from the mob itself; and any cover or concealment prevents the -10 penalty for being noticed.

As it stands, I've got the following rulings...
Stealth: Roll every round. Take 10 with a standard action.
Notice: Take 0 as a free action. Roll every round they spend a move action

Not 100% certain on the soft-fail state though.

[Grek]

Another option for avoiding die fatigue is to have a decaying roll. Roll 1d20 for stealth any time you have concealment or a distraction as a free action once per turn. This sets the DC to detect you. Every time you take a move or a standard outside concealment, that DC goes down by one until you roll for stealth again.

[Foxwarrior]

If it's a free action, and the more often you do it the more successful you are, then how does that help at all?

Perhaps if the roll is an immediate action instead.

[virgil]

If it's a free action, and the more often you do it the more successful you are, then how does that help at all?

The more often you Take 0, the more successful you are?

[Foxwarrior]

I was referring to Grek's suggestion.

For your suggestion, keep in mind that guards who're just wandering around, looking for intruders, would probably be ordered to roll every round.

[Grek]

If it's a free action, and the more often you do it the more successful you are, then how does that help at all?

Perhaps if the roll is an immediate action instead.

I thought about making it a swift or immediate, but lots of classes use those for things and I didn't want to dick them over more than the classes that do not. So, "free action, usable at most once per turn" it was.

[virgil]

Distance remains a problem. Normal people can see things from miles away if there's no cover, doubly so if the object contrast with the environment. It's this very facet that likely fuels defense of the common ruling that if you have no cover, you are auto-spotted, because otherwise you could never see mountains until you were standing on it.

A friend was suggesting having being 10' reduces your size category by one, and every doubling (20, 40, 80, 160) reduces you by another category; with the accompanying size bonus to Stealth. If you go below Fine, you become unnoticeable.

I'm wondering if tying range penalties to encounter distances based on terrain would be better.

[codeGlaze]

Distance remains a problem. Normal people can see things from miles away if there's no cover, doubly so if the object contrast with the environment. It's this very facet that likely fuels defense of the common ruling that if you have no cover, you are auto-spotted, because otherwise you could never see mountains until you were standing on it.

A friend was suggesting having being 10' reduces your size category by one, and every doubling (20, 40, 80, 160) reduces you by another category; with the accompanying size bonus to Stealth. If you go below Fine, you become unnoticeable.

I'm wondering if tying range penalties to encounter distances based on terrain would be better.

Why not both?

[virgil]

Another idea suggested by a friend

Range Penalty -1 per 10'
[*]Daylight: One-third normal penalty
[*]Bright Light: One-half normal penalty
[*]Darkness: Double normal penalty
[*]Outdoor terrain: One-half normal penalty
[*]Flat/Exposed terrain: One-half normal penalty

Modifiers stack, meaning a peasant can see a scarecrow in the field on a sunny day without even taking an Observe action from 600'. If they Take 10 with an Observe action, then they'll spot it from over a third of a mile away.