3E Stealth

[RobbyPants]

I imagine this will get lost in the annoying questions thread, so I started a new one.

What are the main problems with 3E's stealth system? How much of that is issues with 3E skills, how much is a lack of rules, and how much is bad rules?

I haven't engaged with the 3E stealth rules at a table in quite a while.

[Kaelik]

One part of it is related to the skill system, most of it is lack of rules, some of it is bad rules.

Some problems off the top of my head without going back to read the rules:

1) You can only roll Hide at all with cover or concealment. So there is no such thing as just sneaking across a T intersection while the guard is looking the other way.

2) Related to the same rule: Lots of things that grant cover or concealment really obviously shouldn't be letting you make hide checks if you can't normally. Like Tower shields, or the Blur spell, or casting Darkness and being an invisible field of shadowy illumination that they ignore as it walks past them. (Or don't, maybe they see your tower shield and investigate or darkness field and sound the alarm, this falls under no rules.)

3) No Rules: There really is actually no articulation of what being Hidden really means at all.

4) Time: If you roll a check, you are permanently undetectable forever, you can do backflips in front of people for 30 years straight and they will never see you. Actions: You can do literally anything and stay hidden, you can walk up and kick people in the face, and they won't see your kick hit them in the face, and they will only know that they took damage and nothing else. Because you are subject to the blur spell. WTF.

5) The actual skill system: Basically, the binary nature and the fact that you are encouraged to run off the RNG means that you either are super invisible to people, or they spot you instantly if they did better boosting of their perception (or if they are using any of the detection systems that bypass either your concealment or just hiding in general) unless you in turn counter that with a feat that makes all of those Literally Worthless, so you are right back to your jacked up hide check.

This certainly exasperates 4, but you could imagine, and I did write, rules that basically give you penalties to your previous hide check as you do more things until it gets low enough for them to see you, and this would still be a problem, if a more minor one.

6) There are lots of other problems I'm sure that I can't remember, or never encountered.

[RobbyPants]

1) You can only roll Hide at all with cover or concealment. So there is no such thing as just sneaking across a T intersection while the guard is looking the other way.

True. I think stealth should allow you to sneak up on a person. I could see things like having your back to a wall giving a bonus against that, or something, but there are a lot of scenarios 3E just doesn't handle.

2) Related to the same rule: Lots of things that grant cover or concealment really obviously shouldn't be letting you make hide checks if you can't normally. Like Tower shields, or the Blur spell, or casting Darkness and being an invisible field of shadowy illumination that they ignore as it walks past them. (Or don't, maybe they see your tower shield and investigate or darkness field and sound the alarm, this falls under no rules.)

I remember the tower shield jokes from the old forums. I hadn't really thought of blur as working like that.

3) No Rules: There really is actually no articulation of what being Hidden really means at all.

Good point. I'm assuming they figured this was just "common sense" and chalked it up to MTP.

4) Time: If you roll a check, you are permanently undetectable forever, you can do backflips in front of people for 30 years straight and they will never see you. Actions: You can do literally anything and stay hidden, you can walk up and kick people in the face, and they won't see your kick hit them in the face, and they will only know that they took damage and nothing else. Because you are subject to the blur spell. WTF.

I've never considered that, before. I had always wondered how often you should make new checks.

5) The actual skill system: Basically, the binary nature and the fact that you are encouraged to run off the RNG means that you either are super invisible to people, or they spot you instantly if they did better boosting of their perception (or if they are using any of the detection systems that bypass either your concealment or just hiding in general) unless you in turn counter that with a feat that makes all of those Literally Worthless, so you are right back to your jacked up hide check.

This certainly exasperates 4, but you could imagine, and I did write, rules that basically give you penalties to your previous hide check as you do more things until it gets low enough for them to see you, and this would still be a problem, if a more minor one.

I'd like to see a system that had at least three states. Something like:

• Undetected
• Detected
• Located and/or identified

The idea would be if the perception check beat your stealth check, you would be detected, but if they beat it by X (5?) points, they could locate your square and/or identify or recognize you. When I say "identify", I just mean stuff like "Oh, that's Steve down the hall" or "Hey, there's some guy dressed in black over there!". Presumably, if you were detected but not located, the guards would probably become more alert and change their behavior. If you went long enough without being found, they might assume they were just hearing things. If you are detected more than once, they'll keep looking much longer. I'm not sure how much of that should be scripted and how much should be left to MTP. Perhaps some guidelines in the DMG, or something.

6) There are lots of other problems I'm sure that I can't remember, or never encountered.

It wouldn't surprise me. Seeing this listed out is helpful.

[erik]

Distance modifiers are shit. Better to just have range increment adjustments.

[RobbyPants]

Distance modifiers are shit. Better to just have range increment adjustments.

What do you mean by that?

[Username17]

The fundamental problem with Stealth in 3rd edition is that the purpose of the stealth minigame is to answer three questions:

• Do they know you exist?
• How accurately can they target you?
• How much can you get away with before you get noticed?

Now one of those questions is purely binary, but the others are not. And that means that the core d20 mechanic is simply not suitable to answer the questions that a stealth game is supposed to answer. You roll numbers against a DC, and it simply does not and cannot generate an answer to "how much" questions.

Now the way stealth ends up working in 3e for the most part is that you roll your DM's favorite stealth skill (many DM's like Hide) and you roll your DM's favorite perception skill (many DM's like Spot) and the DM pulls some DCs out of their ass and depending on whether you hit those DCs determines whether the players or the monsters or both get to act or not during the surprise round. That's not the rules in the book, but the actual rules in the book are unusable gibberish.

-Username17

[merxa]

Distance modifiers are shit. Better to just have range increment adjustments.

What do you mean by that?

Close 0-30ft -0
Medium 35-100 -2
Long 105-400 -4

Etc, maybe double the penalty for every 4x distance after long range.

[erik]

Pretty much like merxa said.

Range	Spot Mod
0-5 ft	+4
6-30 ft	+0
31-100 ft	-4
101-400 ft	-8
401-800 ft	-12
801-1600 ft	-16
1601-3200 ft	-20
3201-4800 ft	-24
4801-6400 ft	-28

Idea being counterbalancing size mod and still being able to spot things from a very long distance.

[Kaelik]

All of that is too fiddly for me. the entire point of ranges should be to simplify A LOT so like 3-4 ranges total.

[Lokathor]

So, one thing that gets brought up a lot is that the reason you need to hide is usually that you can't do the straight up fight version of the scene (eg: Frodo can't fight a Ring Wraith).

So basically Hide and Spot (or whatever you call the skills) needs to be about as disconnected from Level as it can be, which is not a thing that DnD really skills do. However, one way that you could integrate level into Spot would be to use that Close/Medium/Long chart, but then use the character's Level as the factor. So once you're higher level, you get -0 to Spot from a little farther off.

[erik]

All of that is too fiddly for me. the entire point of ranges should be to simplify A LOT so like 3-4 ranges total.

Honestly 0-400' covers almost all of usable play space. The only times you're gonna care about extreme distances is for really big stuff trying to hide. The only reason I went higher is if for some reason there's a dragon hiding in the distance, but honestly it could just be concealed in clouds or via magic. So yeah, I could see chopping the table down to just the first 4.

[Username17]

Certainly one issue is that the numeric inputs are unsalvageable. The fact that Frost Giants have higher Spot and Listen numbers than Hill Giants by dint of having more hit dice means that you couldn't imagine a set of mechanics that would generate usable outputs with those inputs.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

The D&D leveling system works for having more sword attacks to deal more damage to increasingly large giants,

it doesn't work so well with anything not related directly to face to face punching

[MGuy]

Basically you have to rewrite Stealth. I'm pretty sure there've been threads on it. I know I have notes from kaelik's ruminations on it, there was some good bits in Cham's GM doc that made it easier to make a scouting minigame for the thing I'm brewing and I have notes from PL's mousetrap though I don't know if he's updated the document in the year + that I've looked at it.

[RobbyPants]

Now one of those questions is purely binary, but the others are not. And that means that the core d20 mechanic is simply not suitable to answer the questions that a stealth game is supposed to answer. You roll numbers against a DC, and it simply does not and cannot generate an answer to "how much" questions.

I know some 3E skills (Disable Device, for sure, maybe others?) had two degrees of failure, with one being missing the DC by 5 or more points. You could possibly get more by tacking on more 5-point increments for how much you can do.

Close 0-30ft -0
Medium 35-100 -2
Long 105-400 -4

Etc, maybe double the penalty for every 4x distance after long range.

Yeah, three of four ranges seems like a good sweet spot.

So, one thing that gets brought up a lot is that the reason you need to hide is usually that you can't do the straight up fight version of the scene (eg: Frodo can't fight a Ring Wraith).

So basically Hide and Spot (or whatever you call the skills) needs to be about as disconnected from Level as it can be, which is not a thing that DnD really skills do. However, one way that you could integrate level into Spot would be to use that Close/Medium/Long chart, but then use the character's Level as the factor. So once you're higher level, you get -0 to Spot from a little farther off.

Yeah, I'm torn on level for that. I get what Frank is saying with hill and frost giants.

I like the idea of adding something based on your level to all d20 rolls. So long as the other modifiers are controlled, it keeps you on the same page as level-appropriate threats. But yeah, this leads to a situation where high CR monsters have better stealth mods than low CR monsters, even if they have no ranks (or whatever) in the skill, just by virtue of their level.

Some of that can be fudged with size modifiers. If a dragon has -$TEXAS because of size, that can get their stealth modifiers to a more reasonable amount, but high-level small creatures are super sneaky, even if it doesn't make sense.

[Mord]

Kaelik's latest thoughts on stealth were good, but the issue comes up again that you have to decide what range you want your stealth minigame to operate at. For the range increments Kaelik, merxa & erik are talking about, I would call what you're doing more "reconnaissance" than "stealth."

I'm coming at this from a perspective informed by Assassin's Creed, Metal Gear Solid, Dishonored, Deus Ex, Hitman, etc., where stealth is something that you engage in while you're within 100 feet or so of your target. In such a context, every few feet that the stalker gains on the target make a meaningful difference in terms of the target's ability to perceive the stalker. The stalker has to hug cover and shadows much more tightly within 20' or 40' as compared with 60'. If you're using Kaelik's range increments, then the stalker isn't doing anything differently between 5' and 60' from the target.

Add to this that D&D is a game played in 5' squares; these squares are usually physically about 1". You physically do not have a table big enough to represent a 4800' distance between targets at that scale, and if you're not using the grid to represent movement at that distance, why are we fucking around with concrete intervals? Yes, I realize a digital tabletop is as big as you want it to be, but you're a fucking liar if you say you ever fully laid out a 1000x1000 square terrain grid.

I'm clearly missing something here, because I can't figure out what activity you're trying to emulate, where there is a meaningful difference between people who are separated by 1600' versus 3300'.

The closest thing I can think of is a sniper duel, but even then, the range increment on a crossbow is 120' and long range spells top out around 1200' for 20th level casters - if we're playing at sane levels, the furthest away a Fireball could come from is about 800'.

Maybe these range increments would be useful if you were to use D&D to simulate a WWI charge against an artillery emplacement. "The artillery spotters see you at 1000', your move speed is 60' sprinting, good luck guys."

[RobbyPants]

I'm clearly missing something here, because I can't figure out what activity you're trying to emulate, where there is a meaningful difference between people who are separated by 1600' versus 3300'.

I don't know a lot about visibility ranges when it comes to REALISARM!, but I imagine there would be a max range measured in a few hundred meters, where anything beyond that just doesn't matter, and conditions (fog, lots of trees, crowds of people, etc) will reduce that max cap. It would be possible for situations to be bad enough that the max perception distance starts cutting into the closer three range increments, as well.

It gets more fussy, but you could run into different ranges for hearing and sight (heavy fog on a quiet night vs an open field on a very windy day).

[Kaelik]

If say, there was a giant honking fucking dragon flying around at 1600ft a round because he can literally do that, you might care if you spotted him or he spotted you at 2400ft or 4800ft.

That said, in my rules you actually can't spot him until he is within 2400ft of you at all, and even then you need Eagle Eyes or something.

[Chamomile]

Yes, I realize a digital tabletop is as big as you want it to be, but you're a fucking liar if you say you ever fully laid out a 1000x1000 square terrain grid.

For reference, I have made a couple of maps on Roll20 that are between 100x100 and 400x200 in size, and they cause processing issues for my players' machines because of how stupendously large they are, especially if you put actual content on them, which means tons of tokens everywhere. It is not only extremely difficult to make 1000x1000 maps that large with enough content to justify their existence, it's also very likely literally impossible to run in the sense that you can't even get started because your browser will give up the ghost halfway through loading.

Granted, this is mostly because Roll20 is really poorly optimized.

[Kaelik]

I have a Roll 20 Battlemap that is literally 1800ft long, and it's only that short because that's the maximum possible attack distance at this level.

It is not in fact, "5ft square grids" because that would be really stupid when most of it is the same terrain and it's 1800ft of the PCs trying to get from point A to point B. But it is in fact 1800ft, because people can detect you from that far away, and attack you from that far away.

[deaddmwalking]

People are bothered by the idea that you can't spot things at arbitrary distances.

You probably can't recognize an individual 500' away from you, but you may be able to tell that a person is there. But you can see a mountain that is 40+ miles away, and the sun that is 93 million miles away, and the closest star that is 25.67 trillion miles away, plus things even further away.

In D&D you may legitimately deal a monster that is roughly the size of a mountain. More to the point, there are things that you can see that might lead you to deduce the presence of a foe.

For example:
Another way the Mongols used deception and terror was by tying tree branches or leaves behind their horses. They dragged the foliage behind them in a systematic fashion to create dust storms behind hills to appear to the enemy as a much larger army, thereby forcing the enemy to surrender. Because each Mongol soldier had more than one horse, they would let prisoners and civilians ride their horses for a while before the conflict, also to fake numerical superiority.

It's possible that you couldn't see an individual at a distance of 10 miles, but you might be able to determine that an army was approaching.

If you have ways of magnifying (such as a Spyglass), maybe you could see things further away? That's a funny item - it says that it doubles the size of things that you can see, but not what the mechanical benefit of that is supposed to be.

In any case, one would expect a strong correlation between the types of visual acuity that let you identify a specific individual at a distance of ~500 feet and an approaching army at ~10 miles, and an army of giants at ~50 miles (assuming Line-of-Sight, etc).

Now maybe individuals who are trying to conceal their presence in general without an awareness of a specific observer (like when being sneaky in a Dungeon) should be distinctly different from your ability to see the stars in the sky, but that's not obviously true. Is perception more about seeing things or recognizing them for what they are?

At the very end of Harry and the Hendersons, Harry returns to the forest. During the scene, several other creatures reveal themselves by following him. Most observers don't recognize that there are other BigFoots in the scene until they move. It's not just 'movie magic'- they didn't replace a tree on set with a costumed man - if you watch it again you'll see that the creatures are all 'clearly visible', but by not moving and generally having coloration that matches the natural environment, they're not easy to spot.

A good stealth system has to allow Harry's family to be virtually invisible if standing still in a forest but be obvious if charging at you in an open field.

In 3.x, Harry's family can't hide because they don't have cover - you automatically see them 100% of the time.

[Username17]

Let's imagine a couple of scenarios. The first is "The Thief in the Museum."

The Thief in the Museum.
The concept is that there is that there is a thief and a guard. The thief is trying to get the treasure without getting caught by the guard. That's it. So let's think of the possible end points:

• Guard spots Thief before he gets to the treasure.
• Guard detects Thief's presence before he gets to the treasure. Perhaps he finds footprints or hears movement. Guard knows that there is a thief and raises the alarm, but does not necessarily know what the thief looks like or where they are.
• Guard detects Thief taking the treasure. Guard knows where the thief is, because he's at the treasure. The alarm is raised, but the thief has the treasure.
• Guard detects Thief (or the loss of the treasure) after the treasure is taken but before Thief has escaped the building.
• Guard spots Thief after the treasure has been taken. The chase begins, but the thief already has the treasure.

So that's five distinctly different states just for the Guard's attempt at perception. And keep in mind that the main action that Thief can take to avoid being detected during or after taking the treasure is to detect Guard and waiting until Guard is far enough away from the treasure that they have time to escape the building before Guard notices that the treasure is gone.

Needless to say, an opposed Stealth vs. Perception roll is not going to give you that level of granularity. But that level of granularity is actually a minimum for a stealth system to not be a pile of ass. Any less outputs than that and a stealth system really isn't fit for purpose.

-Username17

[Ancient History]

Hmm. Dammit, I think that makes the stealth in Space Madness! a pile of ass.

[deaddmwalking]

So that's five distinctly different states just for the Guard's attempt at perception.

-Username17

And that doesn't include 'Guard doesn't notice thief at all'.

In a lot of good heist movies, especially one that involves a 'dummy treasure replacement', that happens.

[ACOS]

@The Thief in the Museum:
Seems to me that the adjudication of this scenario via a "sneak-v-perception" stealth system boils down framing; i.e., how granular is the GM's framing of the scene? Is it just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am hand-wave of a scenario (because "well, you passed that 1 stealth check, so I guess we're done"); or is it a 5-stage negotiation, breaking each stage in to its own distinct set of conditions, complete with a countdown timer?

This seems more an issue with teaching GMs how to run complex scenarios, and not necessarily an indictment of the stealth rules themselves.

The idea that "you only have to roll stealth one time and then can act with impunity" is super myopic (from further above). Of course we all agree that that makes zero narrative sense .... nor does it make mechanical sense. Once you start doing something other than the thing you were doing in order to hide, there is now a change in the conditional fiction, as such, a new (and possibly modified) roll is warranted.

-------

@range modifiers:
Aren't "distance modifiers" and "range increments" the same thing? Simply changing the scale and/or granularity doesn't change the concept.
also re: distance -- perception is rolled vs stealth. The mountain giant walking atop the ridge line w/o trying to hide (or great wyrm gliding above the horizon, or whatever), whether or not he's casting a silhouette is trivial -- it's a narrative detail that doesn't warrant a roll. More broadly, any given mini-game is only relevant insofar as it is needed to answer dramatic questions; they are simply unwarranted and don't apply to purely narrative details.