If you're enjoying the content here, check out our new site, Thoughtcrime Games. Thanks for visiting!
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Stealth as Mechanics.
Characters use Stealth to move silently and invisibly toward or away from each other. A Stealth check is usually made at the end of a move action, but can occur if permitted any time the character moves, regardless of action type. The character makes a Stealth check opposed by the passive Perception of any and all target creatures present. In combat, a character must be out of line of sight or have superior cover/total concealment to make a Stealth check to hide. Outside of combat, the DM has more license to determine when an character is sufficiently distracted enough to warrant a Stealth check. If the check succeeds, the character is hidden and invisible to any creature whose passive Perception his or her Stealth check surpassed.
In order to remain hidden, the character must maintain the following conditions –
Keep Out of Sight: The hidden character must maintain at least partial concealment or normal cover at all times. If at any point the character no longer has any cover or concealment, he or she is no longer hidden. This cover may NOT come from being behind an ally. A hidden character loses the advantages of being hidden against any other creature that attempts to move into its square.Keep Quiet: The hidden character may not generate a noise louder than a whisper lest he or she alert the enemy to his or her position.
Keep Still: The hidden character must not travel any more than 2 squares on an action to remain hidden. If this constraint is broken, the character must reroll the Stealth check with a -5 penalty (-10 if running). A character that makes an attack is no longer hidden.
A character retains all advantages of being hidden until the end of the action that breaks one of the constraints, at which point all advantages of being hidden are lost. The character may not become hidden again on the same action.
Very few rules have been changed as many times as Stealth, though it appears this iteration is permanent. There are also very few rules so regularly defeated by powers, particularly those of the Rogue and Ranger though Bards, Druids, Assassins, Warlocks, Warlords and even Wizards will occasionally thumb their collective noses at the stringent Stealth requirements.
It’s important to notice that the Stealth rules as written are nearly completely confined to the realms of sight and sound, whereas we discussed in the Serious Skills: Perception installment that the Perception skill also includes smell, touch and taste. What happens if you’re trying to hide from a bloodhound or a really big snake? Surely your cover and concealment don’t mask your natural scent, right? There are several ways to deal this, choose whichever you like:
Ignore It: Honestly, when was the last time a character’s smell really played into a combat encounter? A PC or monster that reeks of fish or sewage or whatever might be an interesting combat gimmick on occasion but rarely is it going to show up incidentally. I could imagine players of Shifters wanting some kind of continual scent option for foiling opponents’ Stealth moves, but getting into fidgety physics modelling such as this can lead your group into an intellectual arms race against the DM that will just not be productive for your game. If the ability of your monster to smell or be smelled is important, make it the crux of your encounter – otherwise, just drop it.
Scent trait: Pull a page from 3rd edition and port over the mechanics of the Scent trait. Basically, you can detect the presence of something within 6 squares of you but not the exact location, though you can use a move action to determine direction. This is a quick, easy-to-implement fix that will keep your Stealthy players a little nervous while not flatly denying them the advantages of having an awesome Stealth skill. If you just need to default to something occasionally for the rare scent-based opponent, I recommend this ruling.
Blindsense: You could simulate the smell/taste abilities of certain animals and monsters by giving them blindsense. (For what it’s worth, I’ve always assumed oozes have a really powerful sense of taste which is how they navigate and attack things.) Do this sparingly, however since blindsense completely bypasses Stealth and will make certain Rogue/Ranger builds feel really cheated. Once in a while is fine to mix it up, but throw blindsense monsters at your party regularly and you will have a mutiny on your hands in no time.
Should scent become some kind of running thing with your group, consider allowing your Stealthy characters to carry around a little bottle of perfume or musk or something they can fire off as part of a Stealth check to temporarily mask their scent. I can’t help but be amused by the possibility of a character wielding Calvin Klein’s “Escape” to confuse pursuing enemies or explaining that it’s called Chanel No. 5 because it’s followed by a 5d8 Sneak Attack.
DMs planning to incorporate Stealth in a skill challenge should hold a few facts in mind while doing their prep work. Of the 25 official classes (Essentials counted under their Classic counterparts) only six – Ranger, Rogue, Avenger, Monk, Seeker and Assassin – can naturally train in Stealth. All of these classes are Strikers with the arguable exception of the Seeker (isn’t control by damage a Striker, really?) and represent ALL the classes in the game that hit off Dex, from which Stealth is based. This means that Stealth is very likely to not be a widely-trained skill in your average party. You probably have one guy who can skitter past Cerberus itself and four who yell “Clank” every time they take a step. Therefore you do not want to make repeated Stealth checks mandatory in your skill challenges unless the DCs are pretty low or you have a combat encounter prepared for the nearly inevitable failure. If a single character is going to go scouting ahead or infiltrate something, Stealth to your heart’s content. If the whole party needs to be stealthy, however, write the skill challenge around minimizing obstacles and hazards to said stealth using other skills.
As a final note, there is a significant amount of overlap between Thievery and Stealth that isn’t always clear-cut. Hiding an object in a room or creating a hidden compartment is Stealth, but picking a pocket or performing sleight of hand is Thievery. There are times where as a DM you’re going to look at a situation and legitimately be unsure whether to use Stealth or Thievery. I’ll discuss this more in the Thievery installment, but given that they are both relatively rare skills based off the same uncommon to-hit stat, feel free to let your players substitute one for the other regularly in non-combat situations.
Stealth as Platform
There are few Good reasons why a character would be trained in Stealth. Most uses of the Stealth skill lend themselves to activities that are inherently morally grey – deemed Unaligned or Evil in D&D terms. I mean, if you weren’t doing something wrong, you wouldn’t need to hide, right?
If your Stealth training is of your own desire and volition – perhaps as a Spy, Assassin, or Smuggler – you’re already on the wrong side of the law. Heck, even if you are The Law, your authorities will likely disavow all knowledge of your actions, making you a Man With No Name. At best, you’re some kind of Undercover Agent and have probably done some things that occasionally keep you awake at night despite your best intentions or goals. It’s all downhill from there, ranging from the merely self-interested Cat Burglar to the downright ruthless Crime Lord.
If your Stealth training is a product of necessity as opposed to desire, your background might be less sinister but likely no less shady. The Street Urchin or Homeless Wanderer stealing food from merchant’s carts and squatting in abandoned buildings may be a criminal of requirement but is a criminal nonetheless. A Political Dissident or Guerilla Activist may not be doing anything illegal or wrong with his or her Stealth skill precisely, but beliefs or other deeds that ARE against the current status quo make the training necessary. Displace Nobility such as Charles Darnay from A Tale of Two Cities is another case of a character with Stealth training who is ‘wrong’ for reasons that have nothing to do with Stealth. Wrongly Pursued Innocent is an interesting variant of this theme.
I can, however, think of exactly one reason to be trained in Stealth without being on somebody’s ‘naughty’ list and it comes from the Seeker/Ranger – hunting. Sitting in duck blinds, stalking deer for hours – these sorts of activities require a good Stealth to pull off regularly and wouldn’t necessarily reflect on the character’s social status. It is a quiet oasis, though, in a desert of despicable deeds.
Stealth as Sense
Stealth is, at its core, the ability to prevent sensory information from reaching other people thus making it a little strange as a sensory skill; not useless, just strange. The first and most immediate use of Stealth as a sense is the ability to locate and identify good hiding spots. A ‘good hiding spot’ could be both a physical location like a closet tucked under a stairway or something more abstract like the amount of time it takes the castle guard to change shifts. Using Stealth as a sense is almost a Zen-like experience, to use the term VERY loosely. Where Perception mostly detects what is present, Stealth is best used to determine what is absent, or to see the void. While a character might default to a Perception check to notice that the chancellor is missing from the banquet (because the Chancellor is ALWAYS evil and plotting a coup… what, didn’t you play Chrono Trigger?), I might give the Stealthy character that information straight out or allow them to use their Stealth skill in place of Perception for that roll. It’s similar to the sensory use of Dungeoneering (danger sense), except that it picks up more than just danger. A character with a heavy Stealth bent is always on the lookout to find holes, gaps and breaks in the standard way of things.
Stealth as Social Skill
Running with the idea that Stealth is the ability to find gaps and prevent information from reaching undesired targets, the uses of Stealth in social situations are surprisingly abundant. Subtle insinuation, double entendre and the masking of messages in jargon are excellent uses of Stealth in social situations. Just like the basic use of Stealth is to sneak your body past someone at close proximity, it seems quite reasonable that a verbal use of Stealth would do something similar with an intended message, putting it past those ‘not in the loop’ right in front of them. While this use initially feels like it should be a Bluff check, remember that Bluff is the ability to make the implausible seem plausible and any subsequent information delivery beyond that is simply icing on the cake. This is an attempt to hide something – an idea that Charisma is not generally suited to.
If not talking, the working of codes and ciphers – either to encrypt or decrypt information – fits neatly within the realms of Stealth, not because it is a skill inherently ruled by Dexterity, but because it’s something that people sneaking around performing secretive acts would have to do. Though there’s a legitimate argument for the use of Thievery instead – not the least of which is the Forgery Martial Practice – but I like Stealth because Stealth maneuvers tend to use the whole body and mind where Thievery is often confined to the hands.
Really creative DMs with deep, complex NPCs might even allow the use of Stealth as a form of Insight. Once again, this usage would point out what the NPC is NOT saying rather than give any information on what the topic at hand really is. It would be useful to ascertain what topics or people the NPC might be avoiding in conversation or if the target is receiving some kind of non-magical cues from elsewhere, such as hand signals or dirty looks. In the end, Stealth would probably not be the ideal social skill, but in the hands of inventive DMs and players, has the capability of providing truly unique methods of meta-communication.
Hope you enjoyed that breakdown of Stealth! Next week: Thievery
Similar Posts:
About the Author
Ryven Cedrylle was introduced to 2nd edition D&D by his father at age 8 and has been hooked ever since. When not out somewhere with his nerd-loving wife, he spends an inordinate amount of time staring at small objects - primarily beakers, stars, books about religion and virtual gaming miniatures. Follow him on Twitter for previews of upcoming material and random nuggets of wit!
There's also a guy Ryven knows who's trying to adopt a baby. Take a look at the site, see if you can help him out. 
What an excellent post. There are some parts of 3e that I never had the heart to leave behind and scent is certainly one of them. I use Scent as an aid to Perception, it provides a bonus but if someone’s stealth beats it by enough then obviously they’re smart enough to move downwind or disguise their scent in some other way.
I look forward to digging through your archives.
Overall, I’ve really enjoy your posts on using skills more creatively. Keep it up! Many of your suggestions for stealth are great, and I especially like your suggested solutions for dealing with creatures that have blindsight or a strong sense of smell, and for using stealth as a sense in place of perception to notice a likely hiding place, etc. However, I personally find the last section of your article difficult to grasp (using it as a social skill). I find the instances given a bit of a stretch for my tastes. I still fail to see the connection between a verbal evasion and physical training in stealth (which, as I understand it, is what the stealth skill represents). Now if somebody were physically trying to hide a small object under someone else’s nose while speaking to them in a social situation then, sure, I’d agree that would be a legitimate use of stealth. But to use stealth to mask a verbal message with jargon or to insinuate something else in a subtle manner while talking just doesn’t make sense to me. I would rule that has nothing to do with training in physical stealth and would allow PCs to use other skills (bluff, perhaps, or an insight check or even a nature check to recognize what makes their verbal “opponents” tick and the best way and time to conceal their “hidden” messages, or even an endurance check as a supporting skill to keep up the incessant prattle), but not stealth. Also, I disagree with the codes and ciphers idea: I believe that both fall firmly under the thievery skill, though I can see a valid argument to allow a spill-over into history (to remember similar codes you’ve seen in the past and apply those to what you see now) or perception (to notice certain patterns in a code that will help crack it) or dungeoneering (in the engineering sense) to determine the best way to decipher a cipher (especially if the cipher has been created using a mechanical device, or manipulation of a mechanical device is needed to break the code).
@Mike – First off, thanks for reading! As to your objections to my use of the Steath skill – fair enough. As a player or DM, I would use your rulings for jargon and subterfuge without complaint. I believe, however, that you missed the underlying point I was trying to make, so let me state it more plainly. There are simply not enough skills to directly cover every single action that a PC could attempt. Second Edition tried with its kits and non-weapon proficiencies (look where THAT went) and 3.X’s skill list and skill point systems were also insufficient. What skill roll do you make to write a piece of music, for example? The point is that it sometimes makes more sense to choose a delineated skill that represents a character’s experience in a related area and ‘default’ to that. In 3.X, you had the Perform skill and it was quite probable that a songwriter would also be a performer, so that skill would make sense. However, not all songwriters are also performers, so maybe your song requires Knowledge (royalty) or something. In 4E, the same thing applies. We choose Diplomacy not because songwriters are trained diplomats, but because said performers are likely to go to many places and be familiar with many cultures. Since there is no skill for encrypting a spoken message we ask who would need to do those sorts of things and what other skills would those same people be trained in? Very likely Stealth and probably Bluff, so either of them are reasonable. Skills represent more than just the few mechanics for which they are named. Skills show experience with different methods, goals and mindsets and occasionally require a little stretching beyond their normal limits to fully explore what a character might be capable of doing. I hope that explains my reasoning more clearly.
There is another group of people who need Stealth for legitimate reasons: performers whose performance includes moving around on stage. Actors and dancers, mostly. It is not at all unusual for them to depart a scene stage left and then re-enter stage right – and only somewhat unusual for them to re-enter at center stage! Even if they will be continually out of line of sight while getting to the new position, it would be bad for them to make noise, cause curtains to ripple, cast a shadow on the scene, etc. (unless the script explicitly calls for such, of course).
And in that context, I’ve seen Hide in Plain Sight used in real life…
I must take issue with the depiction of Stealth as inherently morally gray. There are many reasons to hide what one’s doing that are perfectly acceptable and not even remotely evil. Theater and hunting are mentioned previously, but why would someone who is The Law need to be disavowed if he’s caught using Stealth? What if he’s on a stakeout? What’s morally questionable about using Stealth to escape an assassin?
Regarding Stealth and Thievery as social skills — I wonder if there might be a way to alleviate some of the concern caused by using Dex skills for interactions that require no real dexterity. Would it make sense to say that a character trying to use a trained skill in an unorthodox manner could substitute the appropriate ability bonus for the skill’s normal one? For example, if you want to use Stealth to break a cipher, use all of your Stealth bonuses except substitute INT for DEX? Obviously, the high-Dex character may not want to do so, so I’m not sure if such substitution should be mandatory, but it could at least be an option.