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zorba1994
2011-03-19, 10:53 AM
Most of the players in my normal DnD group can't make it to this week's session, and because designing balanced combat encounters for two PCs can be tricky, I was thinking of instead running a stealth based adventure.

How would I go about doing this? I'm running 4e (didn't post it in the 4e forum because most of the advice should be system-independent, but I felt I should say what system anyhow), and the players are a fighter and a rogue (both level 1).

As far as plot, the rogue is coming back to a city where the thieves guild recently ran him out, so the session will probably begin with him getting completely owned in a 1 on 1 duel with the level five thieves guild leader. After this, I was thinking that the guild would give him a second chance, forcing him to do all sorts of grunt work (retrieve this, steal that, assassinate him), so thematically I'm set.

How should I go about making a stealth based adventure? Also, how long would the average stealth based "encounter" take?

Shinizak
2011-03-19, 11:17 AM
You could have it so that the thieves want to retrieve an item in the local baron's keep. run it like a mission impossible movie. the players have all the information they need, the floor lay outs, the security level, how the guards interact, etc. Looks like a perfect set up, but midway through the heist there's an unexpected element that forces the plan to unravel. This will test the player's ability to think on their feet.

Alpha0010
2011-03-19, 12:27 PM
They could be sent to break a thieves' guild member from the prison. They have to sneak in, get him out of the cell, and sneak out without being caught.

Toofey
2011-03-19, 12:44 PM
Couldn't the stealthy element be that they have to do something for the party in the city but have to evade the thieves guild? That way you can save the duel for breaking guild rules until a point where the thief in question until he has a chance opening up other plot possibilities.

Darth Stabber
2011-03-21, 10:20 AM
After lots of serious testing I can say with some certainty that 4e doesn't really support that type of play very well RAW (3.5's wasn't great, but 4e's is aweful). If you are willing to roll with that, then I agree on the mission impossible note. It works well in most systems, though with 4e's low lethality it loses still. Anything other than minions really ruins the sneaking.

The general rule of thumb is stealth's efficacy is inversly purportional to lethality within a system. The reason why is because stealth characters are generally aiming for a quick no-fuss kill from hiding (which is in theory why rogues get sneak attack). Dead targets can't (in theory) raise the alarm and call back up. In games where durability scales faster than damage, the odds of the quick kill are dramatically lower.

Non-minions in 4e have a high durability compared to a player character's ability to cause harm. Hence 4e has a relatively low lethality.

Yora
2011-03-21, 11:19 AM
I've played quite a lot of adventures in which the party managed to avoid any direct confrontation at all. But it depends a lot on the gm and the group how much dice you want to roll. If the gm handwaves a lot and just says "you can do that, it seems to work", the system isn't much of a problem. But when you roll for everything for which a rule exists. it indeed might be more complicated as the success chances for the PCs might be too low.

For example, putting on stolen uniforms and simply strolling through an enemy base without being bothered is not a problem in any system. But if you have to make Disguise checks against the Sense Motive check of any person you meet (using 3.5 here as an example), most characters will just not have the neccessary stats to pull it off reliably. And it sucks when your good plan comes all crashing down because some random guard rolls a 15 instead of a 14.

Ravens_cry
2011-03-21, 12:05 PM
I wouldn't do this at level one, at least not in 3.X, there is too much luck involved, the dice mater too much, for this to be really satisfying.