A Unique Approach to Group Stealth

[Astofel]

I was talking to one of my DM friends, and she shared with me what I think is certainly an interesting way to run group stealth, especially for heist missions and the like. I thought I'd share it here to see what the Playground thinks, with the caveat that the idea is still in a rough, unrefined state.

Essentially, when the stealth mission starts there is only one stealth roll made by each party member. The results of all these rolls are added together and that combined number becomes the party's 'stealth HP'. Every time they do something that could result in their detection the DM rolls Perception for whoever would be doing the detecting, and subtracts the result from the stealth HP. As the stealth HP gets closer to 0, the area becomes more and more alert to the PCs, until eventually the HP does hit 0 and the PCs basically have to fight their way out.

The idea is that this gives the less stealthy players a way to contribute to these types of encounters and not just sit around twiddling their thumbs while the rogue goes off and does the adventure on their own. I can still see a few glaring issues, though.
1. Larger groups will be better at stealth by virtue of having a higher stealth HP. Not sure how to fix this apart from having some kind of modifier to the HP total based on group size, and I don't really know how to do the math to figure out how that modifier should work.
2. Spells like Pass Without Trace bloat the HP total massively. Easiest way to deal with this is simply to have it only apply to the end total.
3. If the DM rolls the Perception checks in the open then the players know exactly how close they are to being found, and can 'metagame' based on that. If the DM rolls in secret then all the players know is that as time goes on they're more likely to be found, which is true, but I know that many people don't like it when DMs roll in secret.

Honestly I'm not even sure if this is a system I'd use myself, but I definitely think it's interesting enough to warrant further discussion.

[BurgerBeast]

It sounds like a cool idea to me, but obviously needs refining.

As for the math re: party size, simply divide the total by the party size, and then every time you subtract, divide the amount by the party size.

I’m also interested in ways to improve group stealth, so this is an idea I may fiddle with. Any way to change stealth to a progression with multiple decision points is worth consideration against the alternatives, I think.

[Galithar]

5 party members roll stealth with the following totals:
Rogue: 22
Fighter: 12
Wizard: 7
Ranger: 15
Bard: 17

Their Stealth Health is 73 and their Stealth average is 14 (rounded down from 14.6)

Each time they have a chance of being detected the DM rolls a Perception check VS a DC of their Stealth average (14) if the enemy succeeds they lose stealth health equal to party size + the amount over DC.

A roll of 14 reduces stealth health by 5. But a roll of 20 would reduce it by 11. This allows more perceptive enemies to 'contribute more to detecting' then low perception enemies. Rolls of a natural 20 from enemies either explode (roll another d20 and add to the result) or reduce stealth health by the party size plus the full value of the roll.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't do any math on this. I literally just wrote the first thing that came into my mind to just bounce an idea that hopefully inspires someone to make something better haha

[JellyPooga]

5 party members roll stealth with the following totals:
Rogue: 22
Fighter: 12
Wizard: 7
Ranger: 15
Bard: 17

Their Stealth Health is 73 and their Stealth average is 14 (rounded down from 14.6)

Each time they have a chance of being detected the DM rolls a Perception check VS a DC of their Stealth average (14) if the enemy succeeds they lose stealth health equal to party size + the amount over DC.

A roll of 14 reduces stealth health by 5. But a roll of 20 would reduce it by 11. This allows more perceptive enemies to 'contribute more to detecting' then low perception enemies. Rolls of a natural 20 from enemies either explode (roll another d20 and add to the result) or reduce stealth health by the party size plus the full value of the roll.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't do any math on this. I literally just wrote the first thing that came into my mind to just bounce an idea that hopefully inspires someone to make something better haha

I like this; it penalises larger groups trying to be stealthy and keeps the core mechanic of "checks vs. checks". I would increase the base "stealth damage" to twice the party size, maybe more, though; otherwise it's going to take way too long to deplete that Stealth HP and make the scenario in any way exciting!

[Azgeroth]

i can't see this really working well, in theory, if 5 party members all roll more than 6, then even a single roll total of 27 isnt going to spot them?

better to let them all roll, add together, divide by total, that's the DC. if some one beats that DC, they become aware of the party, and its then for the party to find a way to not be found, or the party member who was found has to give themselves up so the rest of the party can move on..

i don't really see anything wrong with this method, you can always just record the roll for each party member seperately, and check each roll against that list to see who in the party is spotted. this can be good, especially if you allow the more stealth members of the party to assist/help the other less stealthy members by way of forging the path, showing them how to move, when not to move, allow a -5/+5 exchange though it has to be decided before the roll.

[Galithar]

I like this; it penalises larger groups trying to be stealthy and keeps the core mechanic of "checks vs. checks". I would increase the base "stealth damage" to twice the party size, maybe more, though; otherwise it's going to take way too long to deplete that Stealth HP and make the scenario in any way exciting!

The biggest problem I see is it still encourages leaving the less stealthy members behind.

If your Fighter with a +3 but disadvantage (from armor) rolls low and drops your average significantly then you're better off without him (for staying hidden at least). And my understanding is the goal is to encourage the entire party to undertake stealth missions together.

EDIT: Alternative stealth damage calculation. You lose stealth health equal to (Perception Roll - Stealth Average) * Party Size

This makes it so larger groups are easier to detect, IF they aren't sneaky enough. If you manage to be stealthy enough that the enemy has disadvantage on their checks and can't beat your DC then you can sneak successfully, but it takes only a few bad rolls (bad for the party, high perception rolls) to detect you. It also means that lots of 'barely failed' checks don't always mean detection.

Alternative to the alternative: Stealth damage is equal to (Perception Roll - Stealth Average) + Party Size * Number of 'failed' rolls, including this one [Failed as in beat parties stealth average]

This makes each successive failure more and more likely to reveal the party.

[Astofel]

i can't see this really working well, in theory, if 5 party members all roll more than 6, then even a single roll total of 27 isnt going to spot them?


That's by design. It's not very much fun when you're trying to do a stealth mission as a player and one lucky roll from the DM ruins all of that. This system is biased in the PCs favour in that most parties are more or less guaranteed to get out of the starting gate. I understand that some players might not like that; this system isn't for them.


5 party members roll stealth with the following totals:
Rogue: 22
Fighter: 12
Wizard: 7
Ranger: 15
Bard: 17

Their Stealth Health is 73 and their Stealth average is 14 (rounded down from 14.6)

Each time they have a chance of being detected the DM rolls a Perception check VS a DC of their Stealth average (14) if the enemy succeeds they lose stealth health equal to party size + the amount over DC.

A roll of 14 reduces stealth health by 5. But a roll of 20 would reduce it by 11. This allows more perceptive enemies to 'contribute more to detecting' then low perception enemies. Rolls of a natural 20 from enemies either explode (roll another d20 and add to the result) or reduce stealth health by the party size plus the full value of the roll.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't do any math on this. I literally just wrote the first thing that came into my mind to just bounce an idea that hopefully inspires someone to make something better haha

I quite like this idea. I think I might have to do some playtesting of ideas that come up in this thread.

[Mith]

5 party members roll stealth with the following totals:
Rogue: 22
Fighter: 12
Wizard: 7
Ranger: 15
Bard: 17

Their Stealth Health is 73 and their Stealth average is 14 (rounded down from 14.6)

Each time they have a chance of being detected the DM rolls a Perception check VS a DC of their Stealth average (14) if the enemy succeeds they lose stealth health equal to party size + the amount over DC.

A roll of 14 reduces stealth health by 5. But a roll of 20 would reduce it by 11. This allows more perceptive enemies to 'contribute more to detecting' then low perception enemies. Rolls of a natural 20 from enemies either explode (roll another d20 and add to the result) or reduce stealth health by the party size plus the full value of the roll.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't do any math on this. I literally just wrote the first thing that came into my mind to just bounce an idea that hopefully inspires someone to make something better haha

Since skills do not have "natural 1s and 20s", I would avoid exploding d20s. Beating the highest individual roll by 10 would be a better criteria for an exploding dice mechanic.

Also, spells such as Guidance and Portent will end up gaining a much larger advantage, as they only add to one roll, but are extended over the entire session.

[strangebloke]

Personally, I waffled a lot with respect to stealth checks, but I'm now thoroughly in the "Each player rolls versus each enemy."

Of course, generally it will be passive perception they're rolling again, so only the highest matters.

[Wildarm]

Pondering on this. I've always found the stealth mechanic to be tricky with groups. The optimal path is to have the rogue or a familiar explore each room ahead of them and then signal the party forward but on some sparsely populated dungeons this + checking for traps ends up slowing down play alot and tends to be quite boring for all players except the person doing the searching.

An averaged stealth check for the entire party might be the way to go. I still like the concept of players aiding each other though.

Here's my suggestion:

Allow each player in the group with proficiency in the skill to allow a re-roll for a player who is not proficient. Here's the mechanic(Stealth Montage):

Everyone rolls their checks:

Rogue(prof): 15
Fighter(non-prof, disadvantage): 10
Wizard(non-prof): 5
Ranger(prof): 18

Average: 12

As the group proceeds and everyone remains hidden with perception checks below 12, They run into someone with a passive perception of 14. At that point you can let a player with proficiency help the player with the worst roll. The wizard rolls again and gets a 17 this time. That's enough to bring up the groups average and avoid detection. Repeat for each pair of proficient/non-proficient characters if needed. You can only help one person in the group during the entire stealth montage.

You RP it by having the wizard spot the guard and stepping back out of sight too quickly and bumping the table. The Ranger grabs a falling cup out of the air just before it hits the ground.

Mechanically it's not necessarily superior to sending your best scout forward alone but it's MUCH better than everyone rolling stealth and the worst roll being the determining factor of getting caught.

[sophontteks]

Groups should be penalized pretty heavily for each additional member. Individual rolls do this well already.

Group checks reduce the chance of a bad roll hurting the group. This removes the risk of getting caught, and makes two people stealthier then one person. Even Rogues can roll bad. If taking a fighter in full plate makes them stealthier, its a bad system.

Ultimately, in my opinion, group stealth checks might as well be handwaved entirely. All a group needs is enough stealth to pull the average up and they will rarely fail. Its better for a DM to not even bother and just say that they automatically succeed.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

This one's tough for me because I personally don't want to add a complicated system. Each time I've tried making one or implementing someone else's to something like stealth, I've just realized I liked it better the simple way. That being said, this isn't too far from how I do group stealth. Usually I have everyone roll and just say they succeed if half or more beat the DC. For a longer mission I think it would change depending on setting.

For instance, if they can't be seen at all under any circumstance, it's going to get more difficult. Maybe 3/4 have to succeed in that case or a grant advantage to the enemies. If it's more like Ocean's 11 where they can be seen most of the time and plan far in advance but have to act under pressure and maintain a facade, I might give the party advantage or even only require them to make individual stealth checks when they're doing something that they don't want anyone to see.

Being able to adapt to the situation is important for me for any stealth rules I implement. So how would you guys tweak your systems to be able to reflect the different stealth scenarios that demand much more or much less stealth as it were?

[Human Paragon 3]

You could try giving groups smaller than 4 advantage on their checks and groups of 5 or more disadvantage. This should bring the HP of a small group and a large group more in line.

[Man_Over_Game]

5 party members roll stealth with the following totals:
Rogue: 22
Fighter: 12
Wizard: 7
Ranger: 15
Bard: 17

Their Stealth Health is 73 and their Stealth average is 14 (rounded down from 14.6)

Each time they have a chance of being detected the DM rolls a Perception check VS a DC of their Stealth average (14) if the enemy succeeds they lose stealth health equal to party size + the amount over DC.

A roll of 14 reduces stealth health by 5. But a roll of 20 would reduce it by 11. This allows more perceptive enemies to 'contribute more to detecting' then low perception enemies. Rolls of a natural 20 from enemies either explode (roll another d20 and add to the result) or reduce stealth health by the party size plus the full value of the roll.

DISCLAIMER: I didn't do any math on this. I literally just wrote the first thing that came into my mind to just bounce an idea that hopefully inspires someone to make something better haha

Turns out, large parties aren't penalized more than any other scenario when considering the option to split the party:



Rogue + Wizard: Average of 14, total of 29, loses 3 HP on a DC of 15, runs out on turn 11

Fighter + Ranger + Bard: Average of 14, total of 44, loses 3 HP on a DC of 15, runs out on turn 11

Total group: Average of 14, total of 73, loses 6 HP on a DC of 15, runs out on turn 11

Then allow obvious distractions to cause Disadvantage on Perception checks by enemies, and you'd have a valid strategy for your Barbarian and Fighter to contribute to a stealth event. My main concern is that determining the value of 11 rounds worth of stealth. Is that per combat round (for 66 seconds of stealth)? Are the checks made once a minute (for an hour of stealth)? I'm not sure what the unit of measurement is here.

[langal]

Why is it averaged out? The enemy only needs to notice the weakest link right? Everyone rolls and you just use the lowest score if the party is close together.

[Man_Over_Game]

Why is it averaged out? The enemy only needs to notice the weakest link right? Everyone rolls and you just use the lowest score if the party is close together.

With someone in your party that's talented in stealth, they'd be able to scout ahead and find the weak points in a patrol. They'd be the frontman and guiding the rest of the party. Additionally, having it based solely on the lowest value character means that you have someone in the stealth group that is straight up hurting the party, which is unlike any other mechanic in the game. Even in combat, a random Guard NPC can participate in their own way and provide some minor assistance, but basing it on the lowest value means that you're almost forcing the party to split, and DMing two parties separately is a good way to ruin a game (Ask pros about Shadowrun; they'll be more than willing to agree).

By averaging them out, you have the Rogue provide his expertise, still have a penalty applied for having a poorly stealthed character in the team, while allowing everyone to act as a group.

[sophontteks]

Why is it averaged out? The enemy only needs to notice the weakest link right? Everyone rolls and you just use the lowest score if the party is close together.
I've heard people suggest it. In my groups. The reasons I've found haven't compelled me much.

- So the group can always stealth for free surprise.
- So the big burly fighter can be as stealthy as the rogue.
- Because stealth is risky and averaging rolls makes it safe.
- Because using invisibility and pass without trace is a waste of combat resources.
- Because the party would rather handwave scouting entirely.

[Wildarm]

I've heard people suggest it. In my groups. The reasons I've found haven't compelled me much.

- So the group can always stealth for free surprise.
- So the big burly fighter can be as stealthy as the rogue.
- Because stealth is risky and averaging rolls makes it safe.
- Because using invisibility and pass without trace is a waste of combat resources.
- Because the party would rather handwave scouting entirely.

The main reason I would do it is for plot and to keep the party together. If my players are actively doing their best to avoid combat I'm fine with that. It's logically the safest option to get in and get out without being seen. Unfortunately the mechanics of stealth don't lead to this being effective as a group. I've only ever been in one party myself where everyone is proficient in stealth and no one has disadvantage due to armor. Even then, RNG could sink the team due to a single botched roll.

Lately, I've found myself letting it slide if someone is spotted the group early in an infiltration attempt. It ruins the anticipation and excitement of the whole encounter and the whole mission just bogs down into a series of fights with potentially bad odds for the characters as reinforcements arrive. It goes from being a memorable and epic infiltration to stop an evil sacrifice to do you guys remember when we slaughtered all those rando cultists and failed to save the victim cause someone rolled a 3 on their stealth check in the first 5 minutes of play.

[sophontteks]

The main reason I would do it is for plot and to keep the party together. If my players are actively doing their best to avoid combat I'm fine with that. It's logically the safest option to get in and get out without being seen. Unfortunately the mechanics of stealth don't lead to this being effective as a group. I've only ever been in one party myself where everyone is proficient in stealth and no one has disadvantage due to armor. Even then, RNG could sink the team due to a single botched roll.

Lately, I've found myself letting it slide if someone is spotted the group early in an infiltration attempt. It ruins the anticipation and excitement of the whole encounter and the whole mission just bogs down into a series of fights with potentially bad odds for the characters as reinforcements arrive. It goes from being a memorable and epic infiltration to stop an evil sacrifice to do you guys remember when we slaughtered all those rando cultists and failed to save the victim cause someone rolled a 3 on their stealth check in the first 5 minutes of play.
The players should have tools at their disposal to handle this. Invisibility, greater invisibility, polymorph, shapeshifting, enhance ability, pass without trace, guidance, inspiration, bend luck, divination, and so on.

The group check is functionally little different then hand-waving stealth. The more you roll, the closer you get to an average of 10. If the party has enough modifiers they pretty much win stealth without using any resources.

This is what I mean by points 2, 3, 4, and 5.

[Man_Over_Game]

The players should have tools at their disposal to handle this. Invisibility, greater invisibility, polymorph, shapeshifting, enhance ability, pass without trace, guidance, inspiration, bend luck, divination, and so on.

The group check is functionally little different then hand-waving stealth. The more you roll, the closer you get to an average of 10. If the party has enough modifiers they pretty much win stealth without using any resources.

This is what I mean by points 2, 3, 4, and 5.

All of those are the same thing: a magical solution.

With an average, the group is still penalized for having a lower stealthed character (Rogue 22 with Wizard 7 = 15 average instead of just Rogue 22 with 22 average), and trying to run two parties doesn't work unless both parties are acting simultaneously (Party A is stealthed while Party B is making an assault).

Averaging the rolls can make it safe on part of the players, but that's why the enemies would make their own rolls.

[sophontteks]

All of those are the same thing: a magical solution.

With an average, the group is still penalized for having a lower stealthed character (Rogue 22 with Wizard 7 = 15 average instead of just Rogue 22 with 22 average), and trying to run two parties doesn't work unless both parties are acting simultaneously (Party A is stealthed while Party B is making an assault).

Averaging the rolls can make it safe on part of the players, but that's why the enemies would make their own rolls.
Is it bad that magic is needed? We are talking about every class having a solution except the base fighter, rogue, barb, and monk.

The way averages work. The rogue's excess stealth is wasted otherwise, but he could risk rolling a 1 and getting caught. The rogue is more stealthy if he takes the fighter with him, so the fighters roll could make up for a bad roll on the rogue's part. It doesn't matter as much that the average is dropped a little.

Rather then more people making the group less stealthy, more people make the group more stealthy with no risk of critical failures, and the stealth roll almost always being close to an expected, predictable value.

Its handwaving the stealth encounter.
Why can't this party expend resources to make up for the party weaknesses?

[Man_Over_Game]

Is it bad that magic is needed? We are talking about every class having a solution except the base fighter, rogue, barb, and monk.

The way averages work. The rogue's excess stealth is wasted otherwise, but he could risk rolling a 1 and getting caught. The rogue is more stealthy if he takes the fighter with him, so the fighters roll could make up for a bad roll on the rogue's part. It doesn't matter as much that the average is dropped a little.

Rather then more people making the group less stealthy, more people make the group more stealthy with no risk of critical failures, and the stealth roll almost always being close to an expected, predictable value.

Its handwaving the stealth encounter.
Why can't this party expend resources to make up for the party weaknesses?

To make sure I understand, your concern is that the lack of rolling (and random chance of failure) is the major concern, but in your example:

Players constantly roll against hostile group's Passive Perception.

But with the suggestion example:

Hostiles roll Perception against the Player group's Passive Stealth.

To me, that's just two ways of doing almost the same exact thing. The difference is, Scenario 1 (yours) does better when individual players change and the enemies don't, and Scenario 2 (suggested) does better when individual enemies change and the players don't.

And considering the player group is sticking together, I think that it'd be more efficient to just have the players use a group passive rather than the enemies using one. One event is going to change all the players' stealth circumstance, but a single event on the enemy's side will likely just interact with a solo enemy who's on a patrol and not all of them.

[jas61292]

The way averages work. The rogue's excess stealth is wasted otherwise, but he could risk rolling a 1 and getting caught. The rogue is more stealthy if he takes the fighter with him, so the fighters roll could make up for a bad roll on the rogue's part. It doesn't matter as much that the average is dropped a little.

This is typically untrue. One roll with a higher modifier will always have a higher average roll than the average of two rolls, one of which has a lower modifier. It will make extreme bad rolls less likely, but it will also make extreme good rolls less likely.

Furthermore, as the modifiers diverge further, they will overcome the average advantage. For example, if you have a level 5 rogue with expertise and 18 Dex (stealth mod +10) and his buddy the wizard or fighter or whatever, with, say, +3 stealth, the rogue by himself is always more stealthy. Always. For any given perception, the rogue will have a higher chance of beating it by himself than if he uses the average of him and his buddy. If the guy using perception rolls a measly 10 or less, the rogue never fails. The rogue with his buddy fails 3.75% of the time. Rare, but it can happen. But because of the huge modifier difference, the rarity of extremes serves only to hurt the group, not help.

And of course, it gets even worse for the group once it includes +0 Dex, disadvantaged heavy armor users. And as they get higher level.

[Wildarm]

The players should have tools at their disposal to handle this. Invisibility, greater invisibility, polymorph, shapeshifting, enhance ability, pass without trace, guidance, inspiration, bend luck, divination, and so on.

The group check is functionally little different then hand-waving stealth. The more you roll, the closer you get to an average of 10. If the party has enough modifiers they pretty much win stealth without using any resources.

This is what I mean by points 2, 3, 4, and 5.

True that the more people participating the more you approach the average of 10. This just means that yes a group will likely be caught by a decent guards passive perception. The flip side to that is that it MUCH better represents your groups stealth ability. I was trying to come up with a meaningful(and non-magical) means for a group to successfully stealth to a location. For every armored fighter with a penalty, there is a skilled rogue helping him make up the difference(hopefully). This is much more attractive than just having the rogue roll a 17 only for the heavy armored fighter to roll a 7. The first guard is going to spot the fighter but not the rogue in that scenario. This means once again the rogue is forced to go on ahead solo which I dislike at the table for time/fun reasons.

Basically I hate the stealth/perception mechanic in the game forcing the party to either split up or use magical means to hide everyone. I want my players to work as a group and feel like they are helping each other accomplish their goal.

[Naanomi]

How would passive perception bonuses... things like Observant... work?

Pass Without Trace seems strong in this variant as well (not that it isn’t already)

[MaxWilson]

I was talking to one of my DM friends, and she shared with me what I think is certainly an interesting way to run group stealth, especially for heist missions and the like. I thought I'd share it here to see what the Playground thinks, with the caveat that the idea is still in a rough, unrefined state.

Essentially, when the stealth mission starts there is only one stealth roll made by each party member. The results of all these rolls are added together and that combined number becomes the party's 'stealth HP'. Every time they do something that could result in their detection the DM rolls Perception for whoever would be doing the detecting, and subtracts the result from the stealth HP. As the stealth HP gets closer to 0, the area becomes more and more alert to the PCs, until eventually the HP does hit 0 and the PCs basically have to fight their way out.

The idea is that this gives the less stealthy players a way to contribute to these types of encounters and not just sit around twiddling their thumbs while the rogue goes off and does the adventure on their own. I can still see a few glaring issues, though.
1. Larger groups will be better at stealth by virtue of having a higher stealth HP. Not sure how to fix this apart from having some kind of modifier to the HP total based on group size, and I don't really know how to do the math to figure out how that modifier should work.
2. Spells like Pass Without Trace bloat the HP total massively. Easiest way to deal with this is simply to have it only apply to the end total.
3. If the DM rolls the Perception checks in the open then the players know exactly how close they are to being found, and can 'metagame' based on that. If the DM rolls in secret then all the players know is that as time goes on they're more likely to be found, which is true, but I know that many people don't like it when DMs roll in secret.

Honestly I'm not even sure if this is a system I'd use myself, but I definitely think it's interesting enough to warrant further discussion.

Interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for sharing.

[langal]

I've heard people suggest it. In my groups. The reasons I've found haven't compelled me much.

- So the group can always stealth for free surprise.
- So the big burly fighter can be as stealthy as the rogue.
- Because stealth is risky and averaging rolls makes it safe.
- Because using invisibility and pass without trace is a waste of combat resources.
- Because the party would rather handwave scouting entirely.

I agree. The rogue basically loses stealth. She gains a slight stealth buff aura instead.

I personally think it is more exciting if the rogue has to scout ahead some times. That's their time to shine and sort of the point of the class.

If the DM has a quest that requires the whole group to be stealthy the whole time, then maybe it's not very well thought out. Or the fighter just has to go with lighter armor. It seems the armor wouldn't help in this scenario ànyways.

[JellyPooga]

I've heard people suggest it. In my groups. The reasons I've found haven't compelled me much.

- So the group can always stealth for free surprise.
- So the big burly fighter can be as stealthy as the rogue.
- Because stealth is risky and averaging rolls makes it safe.
- Because using invisibility and pass without trace is a waste of combat resources.
- Because the party would rather handwave scouting entirely.

Or perhaps, the most compelling reason should be; because group stealth is totally a thing IRL. A stealthy point man and an wary "tail-end charlie" are critical to any group of people trying to stay hidden from the enemy. Put Mr.Oblivious at the front or the back and it will go tits-up. Ask any decently trained military personnel or huntsman. You can put a completely untrained civilian with a trained professional and pass unseen past even wary guards. Put that untrained civvy on point and yeah, even Mr.Shadow is gonna get spotted. Why? Because a good infiltrator can assist someone less good at it than them. Silently. Covertly. That's rather the point of being good at stealth; you can do everything without detection, not just walk quietly or hide yourself effectively.

[Kane0]

Hmm, i do like the idea of stealth health, makes things a lot less binary as the scenario plays out.

[sophontteks]

Or perhaps, the most compelling reason should be; because group stealth is totally a thing IRL. A stealthy point man and an wary "tail-end charlie" are critical to any group of people trying to stay hidden from the enemy. Put Mr.Oblivious at the front or the back and it will go tits-up. Ask any decently trained military personnel or huntsman. You can put a completely untrained civilian with a trained professional and pass unseen past even wary guards. Put that untrained civvy on point and yeah, even Mr.Shadow is gonna get spotted. Why? Because a good infiltrator can assist someone less good at it than them. Silently. Covertly. That's rather the point of being good at stealth; you can do everything without detection, not just walk quietly or hide yourself effectively.
The professional would scout ahead and guide them, like we see in the traditional stealth system.


True that the more people participating the more you approach the average of 10. This just means that yes a group will likely be caught by a decent guards passive perception. The flip side to that is that it MUCH better represents your groups stealth ability. I was trying to come up with a meaningful(and non-magical) means for a group to successfully stealth to a location. For every armored fighter with a penalty, there is a skilled rogue helping him make up the difference(hopefully). This is much more attractive than just having the rogue roll a 17 only for the heavy armored fighter to roll a 7. The first guard is going to spot the fighter but not the rogue in that scenario. This means once again the rogue is forced to go on ahead solo which I dislike at the table for time/fun reasons.

Basically I hate the stealth/perception mechanic in the game forcing the party to either split up or use magical means to hide everyone. I want my players to work as a group and feel like they are helping each other accomplish their goal.
If you gave a rogue the option to always roll 10 on stealth they would never be detected. A roll of 10 on stealth is great. The party only needs enough modifiers and they will always beat all but the otherworldly passives consistently.

I think its MUCH more realistic for thst fighter wearing metal armor to give the rogue away. Your version is more attractive to you because its making a risky task safer for free.

[sophontteks]

To make sure I understand, your concern is that the lack of rolling (and random chance of failure) is the major concern, but in your example:

Players constantly roll against hostile group's Passive Perception.

But with the suggestion example:

Hostiles roll Perception against the Player group's Passive Stealth.

To me, that's just two ways of doing almost the same exact thing. The difference is, Scenario 1 (yours) does better when individual players change and the enemies don't, and Scenario 2 (suggested) does better when individual enemies change and the players don't.

And considering the player group is sticking together, I think that it'd be more efficient to just have the players use a group passive rather than the enemies using one. One event is going to change all the players' stealth circumstance, but a single event on the enemy's side will likely just interact with a solo enemy who's on a patrol and not all of them.
No my main concern is the first reason I listed. The party can stealth everywhere they go for free surprise rounds always at no cost.

[Dark Schneider]

Why not simply a group check? In a group check if half succeed then the group succeed.

Roll Stealth for everyone and if at least half surpass the passive perception of observers, then the group succeed.

Currently not applying it, as I think beign good on Stealth must have its reward. Think that if you are not good with weapons, you don't get advantage only for being at fighter side. But for those who want to apply.

[jas61292]

Why not simply a group check? In a group check if half succeed then the group succeed.

Roll Stealth for everyone and if at least half surpass the passive perception of observers, then the group succeed.

Currently not applying it, as I think beign good on Stealth must have its reward. Think that if you are not good with weapons, you don't get advantage only for being at fighter side. But for those who want to apply.

To many people, myself included, a group check is uniquely unsuited to stealth. How likely it is to work does vary by party and by who you are trying to sneak past, but while mechanically it works fine, it beggars belief that two negative dex heavy armor wearing guys could roll stealth checks 10 or more points below a guard's perception but remain completely unseen because their two allies barely made the check by 1 or 2. Teamwork has its benefits, certainly, but only to an extent. While in cases of working together on figuring out a puzzle, spotting a clue, or controlling a ship or something, it makes sense that a group working together makes them more likely to succeed, in stealth, logic says that the more you work together the more likely you fail, which makes it an odd fit for the mechanics.

The advantage of a system that works with the group but actually relies on everyone's scores, rather than just the top half, is that it can more accurately simulate the fact that a skilled sneak could assist his teammates by scouting ahead briefly and having them follow his lead, while also taking into account that having others with them will drag them down a bit.

Having done some various calculations, I almost feel like simply averaging the group's rolls, rather than anything more complicated is a very good and simple "fix" to this situation. The whole Stealth Health thing is very interesting and might make for a better game overall, but adds a level of complexity that I'm not super interested in. What is nice about pure averages though is that it makes every single check matter, but won't cause any one to exert undue influence over the others.

One other nice bonus of simply using the average is what it does in situations where all party members are similarly stealthy. So much of the focus in conversations like this are on the extremes: the stealthy rogue partnered with the clumsy cleric or whatever. But what if you have a group of people who are all similar? A group check would practically just be giving advantage (which is why I don't like it), but focusing on the weakest link makes it super disadvantage. Averaging always focuses the results towards the average dice roll, and with similarly stealthy people, that means towards their individual averages as well. This means that any check that they should, on average, make, becomes easier for them when they work together. But any check that, on average, would be difficult for them, will become harder. And the more the check deviates from that average, the more easy or hard it becomes. This does a fantastic job, in my mind, of simulating how individuals could work together to make a situation easy for all of them even easier, and also how a group's lack of skill relative to the one trying to perceive them would compound and make them even worse then they would be by themselves.

[Tanarii]

In any situation in which the more skilled characters can reasonably 'carry' the less skilled, but the less skilled can also screw things up for everyone, use Group checks. That's what they are for.

While this is rarely going to apply to Stealth, there are some scenarios it might reasonably apply. Especially more abstract ones. One that always leaps to mind for me is a party trying to cross a city at night without drawing unreasonable attention from the Watch. They're not specifically hiding, and they can easily have more skilled individuals playing point and tail, but the less skilled individuals CAN mess things up.

This doesn't really translate as well into specific cases ... ie specific encounters vs specific individual percievers. I that case it's better to use the normal system, or you end up with the heavily armored character getting away without any penalty.

What I've done to address this IMC is look at actual reasonable ranges for something to be heard, and encounter starting distances. 30ft-60ft is about the distances a conversation sounds like a whisper, depending on how loud you're talking. 35 ft is the starting distance for a surprise encounter. 70 ft is the starting distance for a normal encounter. So I use 30 ft as the necessary distance at which scouts must be ahead to count as a second group, which generally puts the main party 60ft from enemies and generally not needing to make checks.

[Mercurias]

I want to like this idea, because it’s really super creative. The more I think about it, though, the more I worry it would routinely lead the party deep into the enemy base without the Stealth HP to get out.

I also feel that this mechanic fails to take into account the chance of being caught at the very beginning, which is something that would make sense for them to fail on. Common sense would dictate that the majority of a castle/camp/compound’s security be looking outward for threats. Fortified locations even plan for it and try to leave stretches of open ground where someone trying to sneak through would be without much cover. Failing at the beginning makes SENSE.

After review, I believe this mechanic could be abused as a means of gaining entry to a fortified location by burning through your stealth resource and then trashing the place from inside. After all, combat is a lot harder when the enemy is behind walls and you’re in the open.

Mechanically speaking, I think it would be more balanced to have group stealth be managed by every party member rolling, adding the total, divining the total by the number of party members, and subtracting 1 for each party member who is not proficient in stealth.

Since Stealth is something’s a person has to train and practice at, I feel it’s important to let stealthy characters have their moment. It makes sense that the Rogue could only keep the Paladin’s heavy plate from clanking so much.

[HappyDaze]

IMO, if you want to use Stealth as a party, then have the whole party take the effort to be good at Stealth. Having four ninjas along with a glowing, clanking tank in magical heavy armor says that the last guy is getting noticed a lot, not that they somehow fold shadows around him (unless they have magic, of course).

[Mith]

While I would agree that I would probably do case by case, I think a better reason is to allow for a high rolling Stealth character to spend a "reaction" to give their excess Stealth to 1 character. They have to describe what they are doing to assist with the stealth boost. If they do a good description, and take time penalties, they may gain advantage (negate a disadvantage) as well.

This allows for a rogue to cover for another, but not to cover for everyone.

[Tanarii]

While I would agree that I would probably do case by case, I think a better reason is to allow for a high rolling Stealth character to spend a "reaction" to give their excess Stealth to 1 character. They have to describe what they are doing to assist with the stealth boost. If they do a good description, and take time penalties, they may gain advantage (negate a disadvantage) as well.

This allows for a rogue to cover for another, but not to cover for everyone.
Might as well just make it a group stealth check at this point. Since you only need 1/2 the group to succeed, they can each be assumed to be helping one other person.

[Dark Schneider]

To many people, myself included, a group check is uniquely unsuited to stealth. How likely it is to work does vary by party and by who you are trying to sneak past, but while mechanically it works fine, it beggars belief that two negative dex heavy armor wearing guys could roll stealth checks 10 or more points below a guard's perception but remain completely unseen because their two allies barely made the check by 1 or 2. Teamwork has its benefits, certainly, but only to an extent. While in cases of working together on figuring out a puzzle, spotting a clue, or controlling a ship or something, it makes sense that a group working together makes them more likely to succeed, in stealth, logic says that the more you work together the more likely you fail, which makes it an odd fit for the mechanics.

The advantage of a system that works with the group but actually relies on everyone's scores, rather than just the top half, is that it can more accurately simulate the fact that a skilled sneak could assist his teammates by scouting ahead briefly and having them follow his lead, while also taking into account that having others with them will drag them down a bit.

Having done some various calculations, I almost feel like simply averaging the group's rolls, rather than anything more complicated is a very good and simple "fix" to this situation. The whole Stealth Health thing is very interesting and might make for a better game overall, but adds a level of complexity that I'm not super interested in. What is nice about pure averages though is that it makes every single check matter, but won't cause any one to exert undue influence over the others.

One other nice bonus of simply using the average is what it does in situations where all party members are similarly stealthy. So much of the focus in conversations like this are on the extremes: the stealthy rogue partnered with the clumsy cleric or whatever. But what if you have a group of people who are all similar? A group check would practically just be giving advantage (which is why I don't like it), but focusing on the weakest link makes it super disadvantage. Averaging always focuses the results towards the average dice roll, and with similarly stealthy people, that means towards their individual averages as well. This means that any check that they should, on average, make, becomes easier for them when they work together. But any check that, on average, would be difficult for them, will become harder. And the more the check deviates from that average, the more easy or hard it becomes. This does a fantastic job, in my mind, of simulating how individuals could work together to make a situation easy for all of them even easier, and also how a group's lack of skill relative to the one trying to perceive them would compound and make them even worse then they would be by themselves.
Notice that the group check is more like "ones helping others". Because the same could be applied to the example with Survival and etc. Imagine that is the skilled ones helping the less skilled, then roll some kind of "average" to check if succeed. Do not see like specifically like it sounds when you roll.

Also, that is the reason I don't use it. It is something I think is individual. But for those who want this kind of group stealth, I see it a good option, and complying the RAW, also easy to apply and handle. Remember that foes can also use it, so if everyone use it, no major problem. It is more a how do you want to play stuff.

But as mentioned, you should worry about improving your stealth, like getting an armor without disadvantage to stealth, some spell adding numbers to the check, etc. A Shadow Monk with Pass without Trace grants +10 Stealth to the group, so giving this kind of advantage (all the group stealth without sacrifice) freely is not something I am agree with.

[Mith]

Might as well just make it a group stealth check at this point. Since you only need 1/2 the group to succeed, they can each be assumed to be helping one other person.

At least in the parties I've played with, you are likely going to end up with multiple rolls being too low to compensate with the excess roll. If you have the rogue roll 10 over, and another roll two over, while party members 3 and 4 roll 2 and 7 under, 1 person is getting noticed no matter what you do. In group stealth, the first two people manage to cover for the other two. Plus, if using reactions to cover your party members can potentially slow you down, you may end up taking more time than you really had.