Curious about something.

[Spacehamster]

How often does your party run a dedicated scout that actually advances a bit ahead of the party stealthily, locating monsters, traps and natural hazards?

[agnos]

My home game currently does. It can be useful, but the major drawback is the amount of extra time it consumes.

[BeefGood]

One player monopolizes the action. The rest of the party sits back and waits for a report. Not fun for them. I have not found a way to handle this problem besides railroading: “no you do not investigate further—you go back to the party and report”

[DarkKnightJin]

In the game I'm currently in, I am the non-sneaky one, so I tend to hang back a bit if sneaking is to be done.
Especially after a spectacular natural 1 the last time I tried to sneak closer to someone..

Edit: Perhaps my Cleric should pick up Find Familiar from somewhere for scouting purposes..

[DeTess]

One player monopolizes the action. The rest of the party sits back and waits for a report. Not fun for them. I have not found a way to handle this problem besides railroading: “no you do not investigate further—you go back to the party and report”

If it's in a dungeon, a closed door in a heavily guarded room should do the trick of forcing him to get reinforcements, right? Or have you reached the power-level where closed doors with guards aren't obstacles anymore?

[mephnick]

Well, the current group has an assassin with a floor stealth of like 23 and a couple characters with Pass Without a Trace, so .. a lot. I never find it wastes too much time.

Great for locating monsters and getting his assassinate, but he didn't put anything into investigation so it doesn't help with traps so well.

[Lord Vukodlak]

My home game currently does. It can be useful, but the major drawback is the amount of extra time it consumes.

How? do you pull the scout aside to tell him the information privately so he has to repeated it back to the group. Or do you assume the scout will tell the party everything he sees and relay the info to the whole table?

The only extra time I've found that's consumed by scouting is that if the party knows whats down the hall and behind the door before they barge in they'll stop to plan their attack.


Or... by scout a head do you mean scout the entire dungeon and put yourself a suicidal distance from the rest of the party rather then just scout far enough ahead to the next combat encounter?

[nickl_2000]

We always have something, but it doesn't always happen that it is used. Whether that is a tabaxi who can climb a building and look in from the top or a familiar who can poof around easily.

That being said, scouting is a quick thing for our parties usually.

[The Shadowdove]

Usually only in a dungeon context. But it usually doesn't eat up too much time. Our party is a solid 50/50 of scouting or bumrush facechecking. Characters have died, so they've kind of learned an equilibrium through trial and error.

[Longman]

How often does your party run a dedicated scout that actually advances a bit ahead of the party stealthily, locating monsters, traps and natural hazards?

I just ask every character what they are doing in that "minute". (The length of time is pretty variable, I just say minute to keep it simple.)

The scout can go ahead, look around etc. But typically the other characters will move up and check stuff out as well because they can't help themselves. So long as you offer each character the chance to do something in that minute, it works OK.

If the party ever get really organized and actually let the rogue do her job, I'll be pleasantly surprised. but several of them have massive FOMO and they just blunder in as soon as I describe anything half-way interesting.

[Waterdeep Merch]

My parties tend to have high dex in general. The party usually has a scout, a backup scout, and possibly a second backup scout. Everyone else forms 'HQ', offering support and assistance in any way they can (spellcasting, setting up traps, trying to draw other enemies their way, et cetera). Leomund's Tiny Hut is a particularly fantastic HQ bunker, and any clerics that have good divination tools prepared are aces. Figure out how you'll be communicating back and forth (backup scouts are especially handy if you have no magic option, as are pre-planned smoke signals or bird calls), and try to make sure everyone has a job to do. If you have a fighter sitting in the corner not contributing, you're wasting valuable resources. Think about what he could be doing (drawing attention is something anyone that can take a hit will excel at).

If you're in a dungeon, don't send the scouts out too far. You risk them getting jumped by something they can't handle alone. Have a planned scenario for extracting them quickly, or getting your frontliners into the fray immediately. Archers should be holding shots, sword and board players should ready an action to advance, great weapon characters should be ready to charge. If you aren't prepared for the dice to fail you, then you will fail.