Listen/ Noise DC for different happenings

[Max Caysey]

Hi y'all

Back from my gaming with the urban rogue party... We had great night, but the sneaky rogue asked me a question I couldn't answer.

Where can one find a list of different things and what noise and subsequent listen DC needed to hear it. A few examples:

1) Breaking a window pane
2) Using a Sap to sneak attack
3) Shooting an arrow into a wall/ door frame/ wooden beam
4) Shooting an arrow carrying a small water vial, hitting a lamp or touch to extinguishes it.
5) Jumping down off a 10 ft. wall
6) Picking a lock
7) And are any of the above, and other similar things effected by move silent checks? If not, how to determine how much noise they make, what DC that would be and how to reduce it?

Lets just say, the sneaky rogue have been playing Thief, since the days of "The Dark Project"... Obviously his name is Garrett! :smallbiggrin:


Well, we were unable to find any info on the matter... Do anyone here know of any such list or ways of knowing the listen DC on thins like the above?

Cheers

[Thurbane]

The Listen entry in the SRD/PHB skill section includes some sample DCs:


-10: A battle
0: People talking
5: A person in medium armor walking at a slow pace (10 ft./round) trying not to make any noise.
10: An unarmored person walking at a slow pace (15 ft./round) trying not to make any noise
15: A 1st-level rogue using Move Silently to sneak past the listener
15: People whispering
19: A cat stalking
30: An owl gliding in for a kill


Best option is probably to have the DM compare those against your examples, and see where they sit.

My quick-n-dirty guesstimates are as follows (some would probably be better as opposed skill checks):



1) Breaking a window pane: -5
2) Using a Sap to sneak attack: 10
3) Shooting an arrow into a wall/ door frame/ wooden beam: 10
4) Shooting an arrow carrying a small water vial, hitting a lamp or touch to extinguishes it: 10
5) Jumping down off a 10 ft. wall: most likely a Move Silently check with a penalty?
6) Picking a lock: 15

[Max Caysey]

The Listen entry in the SRD/PHB skill section includes some sample DCs:


-10: A battle
0: People talking
5: A person in medium armor walking at a slow pace (10 ft./round) trying not to make any noise.
10: An unarmored person walking at a slow pace (15 ft./round) trying not to make any noise
15: A 1st-level rogue using Move Silently to sneak past the listener
15: People whispering
19: A cat stalking
30: An owl gliding in for a kill


Best option is probably to have the DM compare those against your examples, and see where they sit.

My quick-n-dirty guesstimates are as follows (some would probably be better as opposed skill checks):

Thank you...

Do you know if there's a way to determine like the sound level: "For every dB, the DC increases by 10" Or something like that? Or are we just to imagine in comparison/ in reference to normal talking and the other examples?

[Thurbane]

Do you know if there's a way to determine like the sound level: "For every dB, the DC increases by 10" Or something like that? Or are we just to imagine in comparison/ in reference to normal talking and the other examples?

I'm not aware of any such rules, sorry. AFAIK, you're looking at opposed checks, or finding a comparison from examples.

There may be more examples out there aside from the ones I listed, in other sources...