I'm working on a stealth test where the character/party needs to navigate a series of caverns in a cave system and avoid detection from its inhabitants
Each of the caverns is filled with Plant Type creatures that have the "False Appearance" ability (While the [plant] remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a normal [plant].) giving caverns the impression of an underground jungle.
The whole idea is if the player stealth roll fails the perception then the plants attack.
Question:
I'm struggling with how to properly implement the check for the player and the creatures navigating the caverns using contesting Stealth / Perception checks.
The players I know with Stealth check unless specifically stated the character has stopped moving or is detected somehow, the roll does not change.
With the creatures is when I'm not sure if I should use their Passive Wisdom(Perception) or Wisdom(Perception) as the check against the player stealth roll?
If it came to the party wanted to go in a group stealth check would the creatures in the cavern highest perception to determine the DC?
If there is a better way to implement this convoluted idea I'd appreciate any feedback.
This sounds very interesting, but also a challenge mechanically.
The thing is, there has to be something in your caves that the players could reasonably use for cover. It makes no sense realistically speaking for a plant to be growing, say, on the ceiling, and the players tiptoe across the middle of the open cavern unnoticed. So it seems like you'll have to be very specific about where you place the plants and what cover is available for the players to use.
As far as contested rolls, it seems like it might be easiest to set a group DC for a stealth check that they have to beat in order to get away with it. You could try putting the passive perception of three plants together and making that number the DC the players need to beat, or something like that. Some kind of combination of the plants would make the most sense, I think.
This sounds very interesting, but also a challenge mechanically.
The thing is, there has to be something in your caves that the players could reasonably use for cover. It makes no sense realistically speaking for a plant to be growing, say, on the ceiling, and the players tiptoe across the middle of the open cavern unnoticed. So it seems like you'll have to be very specific about where you place the plants and what cover is available for the players to use.
As far as contested rolls, it seems like it might be easiest to set a group DC for a stealth check that they have to beat in order to get away with it. You could try putting the passive perception of three plants together and making that number the DC the players need to beat, or something like that. Some kind of combination of the plants would make the most sense, I think.
Hope this helps.
I'm glad you brought that up as it was something I been trying to justify how it would work since each cavern is mostly a "forest" of the creatures with some non-living plants spread around. At first, visually I was thinking the plants would be along the walls but was you brought up walking down the middle of the cavern unnoticed really does not work to what I was trying to accomplish.
Do these plants have blindsight? If so, how far out does it go? If not, how do they navigate their environment (even if "navigating" just means telling when there's food around). Because if it were, then that's easier to explain away. Once they discovered that fact, they could just loop around the radius of the plants. If it's something like tremor sense, that is also a little easier. I think a lot of it would depend on how they see.
Also, what level are your players? Is this supposed to be a grind, or is the plan for them to be able to sneak around most or all of the plants?
Be prepared for a lot of fights. The problem is D&D doesn’t work well as a stealth game. One bad roll, even from the rogue with stealth expertise (let alone the fighter in heavy armor), and now the whole party is found. One person scouting ahead can work, but the whole party doing it, and before long the dice will decide no one is sneaking anywhere.
Best option (imo) is a group roll. Say the DC is 15. If half, or more, of the party passes, everyone does and they move on. If not, there’s whatever the consequence is. Even with that, you end up counting on die luck a lot. And the more you make them do it, the more chances to fail.
Be prepared for a lot of fights. The problem is D&D doesn’t work well as a stealth game. One bad roll, even from the rogue with stealth expertise (let alone the fighter in heavy armor), and now the whole party is found. One person scouting ahead can work, but the whole party doing it, and before long the dice will decide no one is sneaking anywhere.
Best option (imo) is a group roll. Say the DC is 15. If half, or more, of the party passes, everyone does and they move on. If not, there’s whatever the consequence is. Even with that, you end up counting on die luck a lot. And the more you make them do it, the more chances to fail.
Yeah, that is my fear that it turns into "wave" after "wave" of fights if the dice do not roll in the player(s) favor. Plus it could be a single character doing the stealth/scouting that could end up taking the brunt of the attacks.
I really need to rethink this idea, as pointed out, mechanically this may not work out as I'd like to see it executed.
As different classes and characters will have different strengths, it won't work well to have the whole party try to sneak.
Instead, consider having a stealthy section to offer the stealthy character a time to shine. Have a door which cannot be opened and the key clearly present hung on the wall opposite the "sleeping" plants. The party needs to get the key - it's on a padlock or something so cannot just be mage-handed. The sneaky character will have to sneak in, pick the lock to get the key, then sneak out. It offers 3 separate rolls, and to me offers a reasonable risk vs reward. Be sure to introduce them to the triffids before they get there so no-one just walks over to the key!
Now, as a potential alternative, you can have the friendly neighborhood gardener whip them up a potion which he uses to grow giant vegetables. The potion causes the plants to go into a sleeplike state - they stop growing and become significantly hardier. As long as he keeps the plants supplied with potion, they can sleep through winter and start growing again in spring, allowing him twice as long to grow his prized pumpkins. If the potion is administered to the murder-plants, they fall "unconscious" for 1 hour (you have limited supplies so can't use it all on one plant!), and this allows the party to sneak past, provided the rogue can sneak in and administer the potion.
Then, have a plant-boss later on (if you haven't already planned one) and if they didn't bother with the potion earlier, give them some advantages for using that on the plant boss. The plant boss might even be a result of the farmers potion, depending on how much of a plan you've already got for the story!
As different classes and characters will have different strengths, it won't work well to have the whole party try to sneak.
Instead, consider having a stealthy section to offer the stealthy character a time to shine. Have a door which cannot be opened and the key clearly present hung on the wall opposite the "sleeping" plants. The party needs to get the key - it's on a padlock or something so cannot just be mage-handed. The sneaky character will have to sneak in, pick the lock to get the key, then sneak out. It offers 3 separate rolls, and to me offers a reasonable risk vs reward. Be sure to introduce them to the triffids before they get there so no-one just walks over to the key!
Now, as a potential alternative, you can have the friendly neighborhood gardener whip them up a potion which he uses to grow giant vegetables. The potion causes the plants to go into a sleeplike state - they stop growing and become significantly hardier. As long as he keeps the plants supplied with potion, they can sleep through winter and start growing again in spring, allowing him twice as long to grow his prized pumpkins. If the potion is administered to the murder-plants, they fall "unconscious" for 1 hour (you have limited supplies so can't use it all on one plant!), and this allows the party to sneak past, provided the rogue can sneak in and administer the potion.
Then, have a plant-boss later on (if you haven't already planned one) and if they didn't bother with the potion earlier, give them some advantages for using that on the plant boss. The plant boss might even be a result of the farmers potion, depending on how much of a plan you've already got for the story!
Relying on each person, you're going to fail a lot... but doing group rolls where they have to average and beat a preset DC can make it a lot more fun. And remember, there are no critical successes or failures in skill checks... so it's not like someone gets super lucky by rolling a 20 or that the whole group automatically fails if someone gets a 1. So if the DC is 12 for detection, and you have the cleric in metal armor with a 9, the rogue with a 22 and the wizard with a 15 then they would succeed.
Yeah, it's not working out the way I was hoping to run a stealth skill check in a cave system. Everyone pointed out excellent flaws where I'd run into problems and I spent the day trying to poke holes in that feedback. Mostly my counter was either not mechanically sound or narratively improbable/weak for how I wanted the skill 'encounter' to work and avoid combat as much as possible.
I have a few days before my game session so hopefully, I can come up with something to keep the general spirit otherwise I'll limit it to a few combat encounters.
I just had one idea, maybe have one character make a nature or survival check first (assuming someone is good at one of those, if there’s two, and one can help the other even better), to show how well that person can guide them through the passage. If they pass that check, give them advantage on those group stealth checks. Still subject to the dice, but might stack it a bit more away from a single bad roll ruining everything.
I just had one idea, maybe have one character make a nature or survival check first (assuming someone is good at one of those, if there’s two, and one can help the other even better), to show how well that person can guide them through the passage. If they pass that check, give them advantage on those group stealth checks. Still subject to the dice, but might stack it a bit more away from a single bad roll ruining everything.
That is a possibility I can see how that could play out and it does help with the Stealth checks. Of course, all this is could go out the window if the party decides, 'who needs stealth' and goes all out on the combat each zone.
Be prepared for a lot of fights. The problem is D&D doesn’t work well as a stealth game. One bad roll, even from the rogue with stealth expertise (let alone the fighter in heavy armor), and now the whole party is found. One person scouting ahead can work, but the whole party doing it, and before long the dice will decide no one is sneaking anywhere.
Best option (imo) is a group roll. Say the DC is 15. If half, or more, of the party passes, everyone does and they move on. If not, there’s whatever the consequence is. Even with that, you end up counting on die luck a lot. And the more you make them do it, the more chances to fail.
Yeah, that is my fear that it turns into "wave" after "wave" of fights if the dice do not roll in the player(s) favor. Plus it could be a single character doing the stealth/scouting that could end up taking the brunt of the attacks.
I really need to rethink this idea, as pointed out, mechanically this may not work out as I'd like to see it executed.
I think it would be fair to have a system where with each failed check (which results in an encounter), the players get a little better at identifying how the plants detect them and thus a little better at avoiding detection. For example if you were using a fixed Stealth DC for the area, each combat might lower that DC by 2. You could set it up so that after 3 fights (or whatever you want the limit to be) they would be experienced enough to navigate the rest of the area safely.
Thus if they do well, they avoid combat altogether. But if they do poorly, it doesn't turn into an endless tedious slog.
Be prepared for a lot of fights. The problem is D&D doesn’t work well as a stealth game. One bad roll, even from the rogue with stealth expertise (let alone the fighter in heavy armor), and now the whole party is found. One person scouting ahead can work, but the whole party doing it, and before long the dice will decide no one is sneaking anywhere.
Best option (imo) is a group roll. Say the DC is 15. If half, or more, of the party passes, everyone does and they move on. If not, there’s whatever the consequence is. Even with that, you end up counting on die luck a lot. And the more you make them do it, the more chances to fail.
Yeah, that is my fear that it turns into "wave" after "wave" of fights if the dice do not roll in the player(s) favor. Plus it could be a single character doing the stealth/scouting that could end up taking the brunt of the attacks.
I really need to rethink this idea, as pointed out, mechanically this may not work out as I'd like to see it executed.
I think it would be fair to have a system where with each failed check (which results in an encounter), the players get a little better at identifying how the plants detect them and thus a little better at avoiding detection. For example if you were using a fixed Stealth DC for the area, each combat might lower that DC by 2. You could set it up so that after 3 fights (or whatever you want the limit to be) they would be experienced enough to navigate the rest of the area safely.
Thus if they do well, they avoid combat altogether. But if they do poorly, it doesn't turn into an endless tedious slog.
My original idea was to use the creatures Passive Perception and then build up the DC on each failed zone that resulted in combat as these are plants that can send chemical/hormone warning to other plants down the line.
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Setup:
I'm working on a stealth test where the character/party needs to navigate a series of caverns in a cave system and avoid detection from its inhabitants
Each of the caverns is filled with Plant Type creatures that have the "False Appearance" ability (While the [plant] remains motionless, it is indistinguishable from a normal [plant].) giving caverns the impression of an underground jungle.
The whole idea is if the player stealth roll fails the perception then the plants attack.
Question:
I'm struggling with how to properly implement the check for the player and the creatures navigating the caverns using contesting Stealth / Perception checks.
The players I know with Stealth check unless specifically stated the character has stopped moving or is detected somehow, the roll does not change.
With the creatures is when I'm not sure if I should use their Passive Wisdom(Perception) or Wisdom(Perception) as the check against the player stealth roll?
If it came to the party wanted to go in a group stealth check would the creatures in the cavern highest perception to determine the DC?
If there is a better way to implement this convoluted idea I'd appreciate any feedback.
This sounds very interesting, but also a challenge mechanically.
The thing is, there has to be something in your caves that the players could reasonably use for cover. It makes no sense realistically speaking for a plant to be growing, say, on the ceiling, and the players tiptoe across the middle of the open cavern unnoticed. So it seems like you'll have to be very specific about where you place the plants and what cover is available for the players to use.
As far as contested rolls, it seems like it might be easiest to set a group DC for a stealth check that they have to beat in order to get away with it. You could try putting the passive perception of three plants together and making that number the DC the players need to beat, or something like that. Some kind of combination of the plants would make the most sense, I think.
Hope this helps.
I'm glad you brought that up as it was something I been trying to justify how it would work since each cavern is mostly a "forest" of the creatures with some non-living plants spread around. At first, visually I was thinking the plants would be along the walls but was you brought up walking down the middle of the cavern unnoticed really does not work to what I was trying to accomplish.
Do these plants have blindsight? If so, how far out does it go? If not, how do they navigate their environment (even if "navigating" just means telling when there's food around). Because if it were, then that's easier to explain away. Once they discovered that fact, they could just loop around the radius of the plants. If it's something like tremor sense, that is also a little easier. I think a lot of it would depend on how they see.
Also, what level are your players? Is this supposed to be a grind, or is the plan for them to be able to sneak around most or all of the plants?
Be prepared for a lot of fights.
The problem is D&D doesn’t work well as a stealth game. One bad roll, even from the rogue with stealth expertise (let alone the fighter in heavy armor), and now the whole party is found. One person scouting ahead can work, but the whole party doing it, and before long the dice will decide no one is sneaking anywhere.
Best option (imo) is a group roll. Say the DC is 15. If half, or more, of the party passes, everyone does and they move on. If not, there’s whatever the consequence is. Even with that, you end up counting on die luck a lot. And the more you make them do it, the more chances to fail.
Yeah, that is my fear that it turns into "wave" after "wave" of fights if the dice do not roll in the player(s) favor. Plus it could be a single character doing the stealth/scouting that could end up taking the brunt of the attacks.
I really need to rethink this idea, as pointed out, mechanically this may not work out as I'd like to see it executed.
As different classes and characters will have different strengths, it won't work well to have the whole party try to sneak.
Instead, consider having a stealthy section to offer the stealthy character a time to shine. Have a door which cannot be opened and the key clearly present hung on the wall opposite the "sleeping" plants. The party needs to get the key - it's on a padlock or something so cannot just be mage-handed. The sneaky character will have to sneak in, pick the lock to get the key, then sneak out. It offers 3 separate rolls, and to me offers a reasonable risk vs reward. Be sure to introduce them to the triffids before they get there so no-one just walks over to the key!
Now, as a potential alternative, you can have the friendly neighborhood gardener whip them up a potion which he uses to grow giant vegetables. The potion causes the plants to go into a sleeplike state - they stop growing and become significantly hardier. As long as he keeps the plants supplied with potion, they can sleep through winter and start growing again in spring, allowing him twice as long to grow his prized pumpkins. If the potion is administered to the murder-plants, they fall "unconscious" for 1 hour (you have limited supplies so can't use it all on one plant!), and this allows the party to sneak past, provided the rogue can sneak in and administer the potion.
Then, have a plant-boss later on (if you haven't already planned one) and if they didn't bother with the potion earlier, give them some advantages for using that on the plant boss. The plant boss might even be a result of the farmers potion, depending on how much of a plan you've already got for the story!
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There are some good ideas here. Thanks!
Relying on each person, you're going to fail a lot... but doing group rolls where they have to average and beat a preset DC can make it a lot more fun. And remember, there are no critical successes or failures in skill checks... so it's not like someone gets super lucky by rolling a 20 or that the whole group automatically fails if someone gets a 1. So if the DC is 12 for detection, and you have the cleric in metal armor with a 9, the rogue with a 22 and the wizard with a 15 then they would succeed.
Yeah, it's not working out the way I was hoping to run a stealth skill check in a cave system. Everyone pointed out excellent flaws where I'd run into problems and I spent the day trying to poke holes in that feedback. Mostly my counter was either not mechanically sound or narratively improbable/weak for how I wanted the skill 'encounter' to work and avoid combat as much as possible.
I have a few days before my game session so hopefully, I can come up with something to keep the general spirit otherwise I'll limit it to a few combat encounters.
I just had one idea, maybe have one character make a nature or survival check first (assuming someone is good at one of those, if there’s two, and one can help the other even better), to show how well that person can guide them through the passage. If they pass that check, give them advantage on those group stealth checks. Still subject to the dice, but might stack it a bit more away from a single bad roll ruining everything.
That is a possibility I can see how that could play out and it does help with the Stealth checks. Of course, all this is could go out the window if the party decides, 'who needs stealth' and goes all out on the combat each zone.
I think it would be fair to have a system where with each failed check (which results in an encounter), the players get a little better at identifying how the plants detect them and thus a little better at avoiding detection. For example if you were using a fixed Stealth DC for the area, each combat might lower that DC by 2. You could set it up so that after 3 fights (or whatever you want the limit to be) they would be experienced enough to navigate the rest of the area safely.
Thus if they do well, they avoid combat altogether. But if they do poorly, it doesn't turn into an endless tedious slog.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
My original idea was to use the creatures Passive Perception and then build up the DC on each failed zone that resulted in combat as these are plants that can send chemical/hormone warning to other plants down the line.