Hi all,

Background

I am in a bit of a quandary.  I have a cool shadow monk that I'm playing at the moment.  He is variant human with Mobile feat and a Ring of Free Action.   In this way he is a fantastic skirmisher and I play him very much using hit-and-run tactics.  With his ring he can run through his team mates' squares without penalty (ignoring Difficult Terrain) and with 50' movement speed he is able to keep quite far back and often not get attacked.  Out of combat, as a Shadow Monk he is mostly focused on stealth and scouting.  He uses Darkvision spell a lot and also Pass Without Trace.   With those set up he is an excellent scout, able to see in the dark and being extremely hard to spot.

In the campaign we have spent the last few months of real life (and about three or four days in the characters' lives) inside a deep, dark dungeon which feeds perfectly into my shadow monk powers.  The whole place is mostly pitch black which just works great for me.   So what is the problem?

The Issue

For the last few months, whilst inside this mega dungeon, myself and our party half-elf sorcerer (also skilled in Stealth and with Darkvision), have been the party scouts.  We have headed off into the darkness with PWT spell going (+10 Stealth is mad) and been excellent at spotting nasty monsters before they spot us, giving us countless opportunities to surprise our opponents.   This all sounds great right?   

But, some of the players in the group find this really frustrating.  They sit there with their non-stealthy, heavy armour wearing fighter-types, twiddling their thumbs and getting bored whilst the two scouts hog the limelight.   I 100% get this.   It is definitely something I'd not enjoy, especially when we've been in a dark place which screams to have scouts out and about for months of game time now.  So for months they have been sitting there listening to us play our PCs and bored until the party agrees to go kick something's butt.

The Solution

We had a discussion on this as players and agreed that it's not fun for the non-scouts, and that we actually probably achieve more in a session simply by wandering around more actively and less quietly, and just blundering into everything in the dungeon and dealing with what is in front of us.  So we agreed to stop scouting.

What Do I Do Now?

So my question is, what do I do with my shadow monk now?  Since agreeing to this new tactic, I have continued to play him as a skirmisher.  He still hits and runs.  But he no longer scouts.  He no longer uses PWT.  He just sits in the middle of the party, feeling a bit pointless, until combat starts when he runs in and out.   It feels like a shadow monk is not the build I'd have gone for to play a straight forward, non-sneaking skirmisher.

I've really lost all my enthusiasm for the PC since this change happened.  But, as I say, I 100% agree that it's boring for those not scouting when we scout.  So I am fine with that idea.  I just don't know how to play my monk now, or what to do with him.

Any suggestions???

Thanks in advance
Blakey

How far ahead were you scouting? You could have the non-stealthy types follow fairly closely behind (check with your DM what kind of distance would make enough difference to give the heavily armored PCs a decent chance of remaining unnoticed) and still get to use your stealth to try and get the advantage of surprise for a round, without effectively splitting the party.

Other than that, there’s the issue of apparently being in a dark, cavernous megadungeon that takes many months of playing to go through. I mean, I don’t know how many playing hours corresponded with those 3-4 days in game but spending several months of gaming in essentially the same location is something I would avoid if I was your DM (not hating on him/her, just saying it’s a bit of a pitfall). Varying the challenges, environments, interactions etc frequently is more likely to give everyone a chance to shine regularly, and at the very least it means not running into the same figurative wall for months on end. I assume the DM was part of the discussion you had with the group - maybe they could make a few changes to upcoming events to provide a change of pace?

 

Quote from pangurjan>>

How far ahead were you scouting? You could have the non-stealthy types follow fairly closely behind (check with your DM what kind of distance would make enough difference to give the heavily armored PCs a decent chance of remaining unnoticed) and still get to use your stealth to try and get the advantage of surprise for a round, without effectively splitting the party.

We were very close (close as could be without them having to make stealth checks). But the decisions and risks all laid with the scouts in terms of where we went and what we looked at.  The others just played tag-along which is not a great deal of fun.

Other than that, there’s the issue of apparently being in a dark, cavernous megadungeon that takes many months of playing to go through. I mean, I don’t know how many playing hours corresponded with those 3-4 days in game but spending several months of gaming in essentially the same location is something I would avoid if I was your DM (not hating on him/her, just saying it’s a bit of a pitfall). Varying the challenges, environments, interactions etc frequently is more likely to give everyone a chance to shine regularly, and at the very least it means not running into the same figurative wall for months on end. I assume the DM was part of the discussion you had with the group - maybe they could make a few changes to upcoming events to provide a change of pace?

Agreed and I think this is a problem.  The first months of the campaign were spent wandering the wilds and there were many little dungeons to explore.   I think that the fact we've been in this mega dungeon for so long has led to the non-scouts saying "this is boring for us".   It's probably just too much of one style of play in one go.  But equally it looks like we are only 3/5 of the way through this whole dungeon so we have many months of subterranean play ahead.

I'm trying to decide between:

1. Refactor my monk into an Open Hand (or other subclass) non-sneaky monk.   The DM would be happy to let me do this.
2. Refactor my monk into a completely different but similar styled class, e.g. Gloom Stalker.   I expect the DM would also be happy with this.  Downside is he'd suffer from the same problem of being a sneaky PC in a party which doesn't want to sneak.
3. Refactor my monk into a non-sneaky totally new class i.e. a complete rebuild where the only thing which remains consistent is the race and name of the PC, plus probably his weapon of choice (spear).
4. Make a brand new non-sneaky PC

Even with it being a cavernous megadungeon, it’s not hard to vary the challenges a little bit in between the combat encounters. There could be perils to overcome using Athletics or Acrobatics, puzzles to solve, items or writings of a religious nature to examine for clues, encounters with non-hostile NPCs, etc. The less stealthy PCs might possibly have magic or skills that could be made relevant? I’m not suggesting there’s always going to be something that’s in their wheelhouse to deal with, but I don’t think even this specific type of dungeon would be nothing but stealthy exploration and combat. Breaking that monotony could help a bit. It’s hard to be more specific without knowing what might get the non-scouts engaged aside from violent encounters.

As for changing your character, that’s certainly an option. You might deprive the party of a reliable scouting option in the future (the sorcerer scouting ahead alone doesn’t seem advisable), but there will be downsides to every decision. If you’re not having fun, changing things up might be best.

I wonder if this would help solve the issue: Simplify the scouting so it takes up less table time. Tell your DM your general MO for scouting (how you would proceed and what you would be on the lookout for in general) then abstract it all away into one Skill check that will take you all the way until your next encounter, then have the DM just describe all the stuff you avoided along the way. You still get to be useful as a scout, but the non stealthers won't have to sit and twiddle for a long time.

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

I wonder if this would help solve the issue: Simplify the scouting so it takes up less table time. Tell your DM your general MO for scouting (how you would proceed and what you would be on the lookout for in general) then abstract it all away into one Skill check that will take you all the way until your next encounter, then have the DM just describe all the stuff you avoided along the way. You still get to be useful as a scout, but the non stealthers won't have to sit and twiddle for a long time.

 
I like this idea. 

It’s our game night tomorrow. I’m going to suggest this, perhaps combined with all the players chipping in to indicate where the scouts go, and see what people think. 

So your groups problems stem from two things:

1. You not knowing how to use your character's Shadow Arts properly.

2. You (with/without the sorc) going off on your own (not actual scouting) instead of just scouting a bit ahead to ensure the path ahead is clear (scouting) which takes no more than SECONDS to play out.

--

Why are the others not stealthing and hanging back? Even with a 0 dex mod and disadvantage to stealth without proficiency, they'll roll an average of around 7. With PWT that's a Stealth of 17 - which is higher than a lot of passive perception checks for the monsters you might face. Shadow Monks can also use Silence so enemies can't hear you or your party, and that's going to improve your stealthing by astounding levels, since it's not concentration and can be combined with PWT. You've basically allowed the clunky full plate fighter into an expert ninja, for 4 ki points.

There's absolutely no reason for them to be stuck behind.

Also, you're scouting. It shouldn't be several minutes of you wandering alone - it should be a a basic scout ahead 60 - 100 ft, roll stealth etc, take a look - nothing? beckon the group to advance. Continue step by step. You're scouting, everyone's sneaking, everyone's playing and everybody's engaged. I've never played a game where anything different is done and nobody has ever complained about being bored and the stealthy rogues/shadow-monks got to be stealthy rogues/shadow-monks. Everyone's happy.

Our Shadow Monk uses Pass Without Trace a lot and has the whole group stick close enough to take advantage of it.

Quote from Cyb3rM1nd >>

So your groups problems stem from two things:

1. You not knowing how to use your character's Shadow Arts properly.

2. You (with/without the sorc) going off on your own (not actual scouting) instead of just scouting a bit ahead to ensure the path ahead is clear (scouting) which takes no more than SECONDS to play out.

--

Why are the others not stealthing and hanging back? Even with a 0 dex mod and disadvantage to stealth without proficiency, they'll roll an average of around 7. With PWT that's a Stealth of 17 - which is higher than a lot of passive perception checks for the monsters you might face. Shadow Monks can also use Silence so enemies can't hear you or your party, and that's going to improve your stealthing by astounding levels, since it's not concentration and can be combined with PWT. You've basically allowed the clunky full plate fighter into an expert ninja, for 4 ki points.

There's absolutely no reason for them to be stuck behind.

Also, you're scouting. It shouldn't be several minutes of you wandering alone - it should be a a basic scout ahead 60 - 100 ft, roll stealth etc, take a look - nothing? beckon the group to advance. Continue step by step. You're scouting, everyone's sneaking, everyone's playing and everybody's engaged. I've never played a game where anything different is done and nobody has ever complained about being bored and the stealthy rogues/shadow-monks got to be stealthy rogues/shadow-monks. Everyone's happy.

Thanks for the response.  I'll try and respond to your points here.

The others are following along just a few feet back (far enough that the DM is not asking for stealth checks from them but close enough to reach us in about a round of combat if needed, so a bit out of PWT range).   Agreed we could clump up and use PWT on the whole group, we've considered it but the group has rejected that idea in the past.  Why?  It brings the team stealth score right down to the lowest common denominator (which is -1 with Disadvantage and then an extra +10 for PWT).   If all six of us roll stealth checks even with +10 it only takes for one to roll badly and we all get heard.   The more "scouts" we have the more chance one of us will get heard.   Without the heavy fighter along with us the current scouts are at +17 stealth (with PWT) which pretty much guarantees surprise.

I am 5th level.  Using 4 ki points for an hour's worth of PWT and 10 minutes worth of Silence in a huge dungeon is not very resource efficient.   2 ki for an hour's PWT is worth it, but Silence is a luxury I can't afford.

I am not wandering alone (or alone with the sorcerer).  As above we are going together, with a reasonable degree of separation, but the issue is that all the other players feel they do is "follow the two scouts".  It is the players of the scouts who control all the action and the scout characters take all the risks.  Hence the feeling of boredom from the non-scout players as this takes a lot of in-game session time.

Quote from Blakey >>

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

I wonder if this would help solve the issue: Simplify the scouting so it takes up less table time. Tell your DM your general MO for scouting (how you would proceed and what you would be on the lookout for in general) then abstract it all away into one Skill check that will take you all the way until your next encounter, then have the DM just describe all the stuff you avoided along the way. You still get to be useful as a scout, but the non stealthers won't have to sit and twiddle for a long time.

 
I like this idea. 

It’s our game night tomorrow. I’m going to suggest this, perhaps combined with all the players chipping in to indicate where the scouts go, and see what people think. 

Let me know how it goes!