Move Silently and size

[Biggus]

Does anyone know why Hide has modifiers for size but Move Silently doesn't? It seems to defy common experience, is there a gameplay related reason for it perhaps?

[Celestia]

No idea. Size, in the real world, affects noisy movement. You don't hear spiders stomping up your walls.

[Batcathat]

I guess the idea is that you can "compensate" your size with skill more when moving silently than while hiding, maybe? I'm not sure how realistic that is though. I guess something like a lion can sneak pretty well despite being big but it can't exacly hide as well as a house cat.

[Silly Name]

I'm not sure how well size correlates to moving stealthily - big cats often sneak up on their prey, and small insects like bumblees make a whole lot of noise.

Now, being smaller=better at hiding makes sense because small things are harder to spot, in general. I agree that a giant should make a lot of noise while moving, as it would stomp on the ground pretty heavily, but it doesn't make sense that a Large creature flying through the air makes equal noise, right?

[Particle_Man]

Probably a fantasy trope: The sneaky Bugbear, the Huge silent monster stalking you, etc.

Also, the idea that if you are silent your noise is 0, and 100 x 0 is still 0.

Meanwhile, Hide really requires something for you to hide behind, and if you are big, there are less things that let you do that.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It makes zero sense. Applying size modifiers to move silently is a common house rule IME. If we want sneaky big creatures we can give them racial bonuses or the like.

I do still like having Hide/MS as separate skills though; the house rule fixes the primary issue neatly.

[Biggus]

I'm not sure how well size correlates to moving stealthily - big cats often sneak up on their prey, and small insects like bumblees make a whole lot of noise.

Now, being smaller=better at hiding makes sense because small things are harder to spot, in general. I agree that a giant should make a lot of noise while moving, as it would stomp on the ground pretty heavily, but it doesn't make sense that a Large creature flying through the air makes equal noise, right?

I don't think you're comparing like with like: a big cat moves extremely slowly when sneaking up on prey, one careful footstep at a time. A bee beats its wings furiously, if it was the size of a lion, it would be deafening. Have you ever been near a swan taking off?


Probably a fantasy trope: The sneaky Bugbear, the Huge silent monster stalking you, etc.


That is a fair point, but...


If we want sneaky big creatures we can give them racial bonuses or the like.


...many large creatures who rely on stealth already get racial bonuses to Hide and Move Silently. If we want to preserve their stealthiness, we can just increase the racial bonuses to offset the size penalty, as the game already does with Hide in some cases.

[Duke of Urrel]

The rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/moveSilently.htm)allow "noisy surfaces" to impose a penalty on Move Silently checks. A fair-minded dungeon master may easily reason that a big creature either disturbs more of its surroundings or imposes a greater weight burden on floors than a small one would, so that the big creature should incur a Move Silently penalty. The same surface may not be equally noisy for creatures that differ in size.

For example, an elephant can hardly avoid brushing against undergrowth that a smaller creature can noiselessly slip between. The same wooden floor that creaks under the weight of a giant easily bears the weight of a light-footed halfling without complaint. So the elephant and the giant should incur Move Silently penalties of -2 or -5 because the surfaces they move upon are "noisy" as a direct consequence of their size.

[Venger]

Does anyone know why Hide has modifiers for size but Move Silently doesn't? It seems to defy common experience, is there a gameplay related reason for it perhaps?

The designers are lazy and forgot about it. There is not. A monster the size of a roc or cloud giant would be so noisy due to its size, you could probably hear its heart beating.

While there is a niche precedent for certain big things being relatively quiet (e.g. trains once they cut their engines and drift to a stop, leading to a surprisingly high number of deaths around trainyards) this does not map over to living creatures who have not had hundreds of years of engineering to ensure their movement is as quiet as possible and travel on all kinds of different terrain and not just on tracks designed to muffle sound.

[liquidformat]

The rules (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/skills/moveSilently.htm)allow "noisy surfaces" to impose a penalty on Move Silently checks. A fair-minded dungeon master may easily reason that a big creature either disturbs more of its surroundings or imposes a greater weight burden on floors than a small one would, so that the big creature should incur a Move Silently penalty. The same surface may not be equally noisy for creatures that differ in size.

For example, an elephant can hardly avoid brushing against undergrowth that a smaller creature can noiselessly slip between. The same wooden floor that creaks under the weight of a giant easily bears the weight of a light-footed halfling without complaint. So the elephant and the giant should incur Move Silently penalties of -2 or -5 because the surfaces they move upon are "noisy" as a direct consequence of their size.

if you are going to go into that level of detail then you should also be looking at adding in penalties based on foot type, a hoofed animal will make exponentially more noise than a creature with padded feet. Furthermore, an animal like a cat with retractable claws makes less noise than a creature that can't retract its claws.

Also there is a glaring issue with the 'larger things should make more noise' argument and that is D&D size categories are focused around spacial size and not mass. Something Like a hot air balloon probably falls into Giant category and is very easy to spot but makes almost no noise. By your argument by virtue of being giant it should have a large penalty to move silently...

[Duke of Urrel]

if you are going to go into that level of detail then you should also be looking at adding in penalties based on foot type, a hoofed animal will make exponentially more noise than a creature with padded feet. Furthermore, an animal like a cat with retractable claws makes less noise than a creature that can't retract its claws.

Also there is a glaring issue with the 'larger things should make more noise' argument and that is D&D size categories are focused around spacial size and not mass. Something Like a hot air balloon probably falls into Giant category and is very easy to spot but makes almost no noise. By your argument by virtue of being giant it should have a large penalty to move silently...

The reason why I went into all that detail was to argue, gently, against any general size-category modifier to Move Silently checks and in favor of the modifiers already provided by the rules.

You're right on all counts, of course. A hoofed creature should make a lot of noise when it steps on cobblestones, but maybe not when it steps in soft mud. A dire tiger is a stealthy beast even if it's Huge in size, whereas a Huge elephant or rhinoceros is probably not very stealthy and certainly has no retractable claws. And hot-air balloons that don't touch the ground shouldn't make any sound at all. But I think using the -2 and -5 penalties provided by the rules for "noisy surfaces" can account for all these differences. All that is needed is for the dungeon master to exercise a little good judgement.

[hamishspence]

I recall reading that elephants are notoriously stealthy because of their well-padded feet, and their ability to step very gently.

[Psyren]

This is part of why I think PF consolidating those skills down to a simple "Stealth" makes more sense. This makes smaller creatures better at both, and bigger creatures worse. If you're ever in a circumstance where a particular sense should matter more than others when it comes to detection, a circumstance modifier to that unique situation makes more sense.

[Biggus]

Thanks all, I think I'm going to go with introducing the size modifiers and giving extra racial bonuses to compensate where appropriate, seems to make more sense that way.