Think about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
Sneaking around is heavily dependent on how you move your body around. Being able to stay low, move smoothly, set your feet down lightly. If you're going to link the skill to a single ability score, dexterity makes far more sense than wisdom.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Sneaking around is heavily dependent on how you move your body around. Being able to stay low, move smoothly, set your feet down lightly. If you're going to link the skill to a single ability score, dexterity makes far more sense than wisdom.
No amount of lightness of foot will substitute for knowing where to put the foot. No amount of staying low will hide you if you don't know where to stay low. No amount of moving smoothly will help you if you don't know when to move. You don't have to be especially light of foot, you have to know what sort of footwear to don and where to step. Crouching doesn't really take that much agility and motion doesn't really have to be that smooth. I could see penalizing a stealth roll for low dexterity, but the bonus to stealth should come from Wisdom, not Dexterity. The only reasonable alternative to Wisdom for stealth would be Charisma, because ultimately being stealthy is a performance of a sort. By being stealthy, you are really trying to persuade or deceive your target into thinking that you are not really there.
You know, Stealth should really be Intelligence-based, because if you don't know what a guard is, you wouldn't be able to worry about whether or not they can see you. (Sarcasm)
Literally any skill requires some level of mental work to achieve excellence, but that can more easily be interpreted as "Proficiency", rather than the underlying attribute that makes it successful.
No matter how wise you are, you will eventually make a mistake. If you are heavy-footed, then that hidden twig is going to snap, unless you can quickly adjust your footing and apply pressure elsewhere. If you accidentally knock silverware off a table, you need to be able to catch it before it hits the floor. Wisdom lets you minimize mistakes, dexterity lets you survive them.
Aside from that, it's perfectly fair game to change Stealth(Dexterity) to Stealth(Wisdom) depending on the circumstances.
Slinking through an abandoned mineshaft? Roll Dexterity. Skirting around security cameras in a casino? Roll Wisdom. Hiding in plain sight while making your way through a crowded ballroom? Roll Charisma.
This about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
You aren't wrong per se. It is probably mostly for game mechanics and a little bit game trope. Stealth has always been tied to movement, movement has always been tied to STR and DEX. It also might be a little due to previous editions where it had different names like "move silently".
Lastly, and perhaps most important, stealth is very much about how you move in addition to where you move. Especially, when you are loaded in armor, klinking weapons, and a heavy bag. No amount of knowing where to step is going to make your 500 lb, metal studded step quieter, but smooth movements will. And those are all reasons why the WotC chose DEX (maybe).
And there are rules for using different abilities with skills based on the situation.
This about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
You're describing proficiency with Stealth. That's what "knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you", "knowing where to stop so you don't make a noise", etc. Dexterity allows you to act upon that knowledge effectively.
Note also that Stealth is not actually locked to Dexterity. A DM may absolutely call for a Wisdom(Stealth) roll if the situation calls for it, or any other attribute as needed. You might decide Dex stealth is for remaining unheard, Wis stealth for remaining unseen in a forest, Cha stealth to move subtly through a crowd, Con stealth to remain hidden when suffering painful effects, etc.
As long as you explain this to players as they are building their character then they will be able to understand what sorts of stealth they can expect their character to achieve.
Making Wis the main check for stealth would make life easier for a stealthy Ranger, but harder for a Rogue who now needs to keep another stat higher.
This about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
Ah, the old armchair quarterback problem. Sure, the DM can ask for all that stuff but in the end to pull it off you need physical body control. Examples abound. Heck, I can tell you perfectly how to swing a baseball bat to best effect, to line up the ball with your eyes, to rotate your hips and open up as you strike the ball - all the knowledge and wisdom in the world won’t help you if you cannot physically do it properly. Stephen Hawking could tell you how to walk and run but...well, yeah. Even your rogue could explain the deft movements and arcane knowledge needed to throw a fireball at someone but without the intelligence or knowledge, all they can do is interpretive dance and sign language, looking like a dude at a Full Moon Beach Party. In different circumstances, your DM might ask you to choose the way forward which might very well involve intelligence; or to consider the consequences of lifting the garter belt from the queen while she’s wearing it. But it’s circumstance, not by default. Interesting idea though.
Sneaking around is heavily dependent on how you move your body around. Being able to stay low, move smoothly, set your feet down lightly. If you're going to link the skill to a single ability score, dexterity makes far more sense than wisdom.
No amount of lightness of foot will substitute for knowing where to put the foot. No amount of staying low will hide you if you don't know where to stay low. No amount of moving smoothly will help you if you don't know when to move.
No amount of clever thinking will substitute for treading lightly instead of stomping from one well-concealing bush to another...
Think about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
stealth is dex because rogues are dex, and stealth is a major part of their class role.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Moving stealthily is a physical act and relies on proprioception more than calculation. A perception roll would be appropriate in assessing the condition through which you're going to move, but "in the moment" if you're pausing or slowing your cognition to the speed of consciousness where WIS or INT cognitive checks are required you got guards picking you off as you're lost in thought over audible expression of your boots friction coefficient against dry grass in autumn. Don't make your approach a mindfield, so to speak.
Yes, most functions in D&D are actually compound acts if you wanted to go gritty into human performance mapped to the six stats. It's inadequate to hyper realism, but I think the objection posed literally "overthinks" the action. DEX with its hand eye coordination cascades a bunch of timing based skills and spatial awareness / proprioception is more a wholly integrated body action rather than something contained in headspace.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
One could argue that Perception is critical for a rogue and it's not Dex based. Maybe it should be... :D
one could argue that, but...those people would be wrong.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Maybe we should realize these skills don't really map to particular stats well, so we should branch them off from the proficiency system, and make them a class feature (and potential feat) where success may receive mods from some stats but are ultimately determined by an independent set of percentile rolls ... oh wait.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
If you're the DM and you want to run it that way, you can.
But I think what you're describing is the proficiency aspect of stealth. Being a sage won't make you stealthy. Wisdom is a general awareness about the world, not a specific skill. Something you specifically practice and get better at is a proficiency.
And yes, stealth does involve dexterity. Simply taking a step so that your foot slows to a stop just as it touches the ground requires precision muscular control, especially to do it and keep moving at a reasonable speed. You also want to move in such a way that your clothes don't rub against each other and the contents of your pack don't clatter.
If perception factors into it in the situation, you can call for that too. If the rogue needs to spot a guard on the parapet that could have line of sight on their approach, call for it and raise the DC on their stealth attempt if they don't see the guard.
So stealth can involve both dexterity and knowledge, but knowledge is proficiency, not intelligence or wisdom.
What I'm curious about is; how many characters with good Wisdom are likely to have poor Dexterity?
Druids, Monks and Rangers are often Dexterity based as it gives you a good mixture for skill rolls as well as tying into your defence. Clerics will depend if you're going for a frontline armoured "I cast hammer" build I guess, but in that case you're not going to be terribly stealthy anyway.
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Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
What I'm curious about is; how many characters with good Wisdom are likely to have poor Dexterity?
Druids, Monks and Rangers are often Dexterity based as it gives you a good mixture for skill rolls as well as tying into your defence. Clerics will depend if you're going for a frontline armoured "I cast hammer" build I guess, but in that case you're not going to be terribly stealthy anyway.
Sigh...you start fooling with Dex as part of Stealth, then you had better be prepared to re-write the entire Rogue class.
What I'm curious about is; how many characters with good Wisdom are likely to have poor Dexterity?
Druids, Monks and Rangers are often Dexterity based as it gives you a good mixture for skill rolls as well as tying into your defence. Clerics will depend if you're going for a frontline armoured "I cast hammer" build I guess, but in that case you're not going to be terribly stealthy anyway.
Sigh...you start fooling with Dex as part of Stealth, then you had better be prepared to re-write the entire Rogue class.
Why are you saying this to me? I'm not suggesting stealth should change, I'm querying why would you bother switching it to Wisdom, when classes that require good Wisdom have good Dexterity anyway. There's nothing to be gained either thematically or mechanically by switching the stat except for some specific characters who probably won't be any good at stealth anyway.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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Think about it. Proceeding stealthily isn't about agility or hand eye coordination. It's about knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you. It's about knowing where to step so you don't make a noise. So, stealth is about being able to perceive the best path to proceed unnoticed. It is about your perception of the environment and your insight into the people you are trying to sneak around. Thus, stealth is really about perception and insight and therefore should be a Wisdom based skill. Fight me.
Sneaking around is heavily dependent on how you move your body around. Being able to stay low, move smoothly, set your feet down lightly. If you're going to link the skill to a single ability score, dexterity makes far more sense than wisdom.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
No amount of lightness of foot will substitute for knowing where to put the foot. No amount of staying low will hide you if you don't know where to stay low. No amount of moving smoothly will help you if you don't know when to move.
You don't have to be especially light of foot, you have to know what sort of footwear to don and where to step. Crouching doesn't really take that much agility and motion doesn't really have to be that smooth. I could see penalizing a stealth roll for low dexterity, but the bonus to stealth should come from Wisdom, not Dexterity.
The only reasonable alternative to Wisdom for stealth would be Charisma, because ultimately being stealthy is a performance of a sort. By being stealthy, you are really trying to persuade or deceive your target into thinking that you are not really there.
You're entitled to believe that if you want to.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
You know, Stealth should really be Intelligence-based, because if you don't know what a guard is, you wouldn't be able to worry about whether or not they can see you. (Sarcasm)
Literally any skill requires some level of mental work to achieve excellence, but that can more easily be interpreted as "Proficiency", rather than the underlying attribute that makes it successful.
No matter how wise you are, you will eventually make a mistake. If you are heavy-footed, then that hidden twig is going to snap, unless you can quickly adjust your footing and apply pressure elsewhere. If you accidentally knock silverware off a table, you need to be able to catch it before it hits the floor. Wisdom lets you minimize mistakes, dexterity lets you survive them.
Aside from that, it's perfectly fair game to change Stealth(Dexterity) to Stealth(Wisdom) depending on the circumstances.
Slinking through an abandoned mineshaft? Roll Dexterity.
Skirting around security cameras in a casino? Roll Wisdom.
Hiding in plain sight while making your way through a crowded ballroom? Roll Charisma.
You aren't wrong per se. It is probably mostly for game mechanics and a little bit game trope. Stealth has always been tied to movement, movement has always been tied to STR and DEX. It also might be a little due to previous editions where it had different names like "move silently".
Lastly, and perhaps most important, stealth is very much about how you move in addition to where you move. Especially, when you are loaded in armor, klinking weapons, and a heavy bag. No amount of knowing where to step is going to make your 500 lb, metal studded step quieter, but smooth movements will. And those are all reasons why the WotC chose DEX (maybe).
And there are rules for using different abilities with skills based on the situation.
You're describing proficiency with Stealth. That's what "knowing which shadow, bush or crowd will best hide you", "knowing where to stop so you don't make a noise", etc. Dexterity allows you to act upon that knowledge effectively.
Note also that Stealth is not actually locked to Dexterity. A DM may absolutely call for a Wisdom(Stealth) roll if the situation calls for it, or any other attribute as needed. You might decide Dex stealth is for remaining unheard, Wis stealth for remaining unseen in a forest, Cha stealth to move subtly through a crowd, Con stealth to remain hidden when suffering painful effects, etc.
As long as you explain this to players as they are building their character then they will be able to understand what sorts of stealth they can expect their character to achieve.
Making Wis the main check for stealth would make life easier for a stealthy Ranger, but harder for a Rogue who now needs to keep another stat higher.
Ah, the old armchair quarterback problem. Sure, the DM can ask for all that stuff but in the end to pull it off you need physical body control. Examples abound. Heck, I can tell you perfectly how to swing a baseball bat to best effect, to line up the ball with your eyes, to rotate your hips and open up as you strike the ball - all the knowledge and wisdom in the world won’t help you if you cannot physically do it properly. Stephen Hawking could tell you how to walk and run but...well, yeah.
Even your rogue could explain the deft movements and arcane knowledge needed to throw a fireball at someone but without the intelligence or knowledge, all they can do is interpretive dance and sign language, looking like a dude at a Full Moon Beach Party.
In different circumstances, your DM might ask you to choose the way forward which might very well involve intelligence; or to consider the consequences of lifting the garter belt from the queen while she’s wearing it. But it’s circumstance, not by default.
Interesting idea though.
DM - And In The Darkness, Rot: The Sunless Citadel
DM - Our Little Lives Kept In Equipoise: Curse of Strahd
DM - Misprize Thou Not These Shadows That Belong: The Lost Mines of Phandelver
PC - Azzure - Tyranny of Dragons
It is always the quiet ones you have to worry about.
No amount of clever thinking will substitute for treading lightly instead of stomping from one well-concealing bush to another...
stealth is dex because rogues are dex, and stealth is a major part of their class role.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Moving stealthily is a physical act and relies on proprioception more than calculation. A perception roll would be appropriate in assessing the condition through which you're going to move, but "in the moment" if you're pausing or slowing your cognition to the speed of consciousness where WIS or INT cognitive checks are required you got guards picking you off as you're lost in thought over audible expression of your boots friction coefficient against dry grass in autumn. Don't make your approach a mindfield, so to speak.
Yes, most functions in D&D are actually compound acts if you wanted to go gritty into human performance mapped to the six stats. It's inadequate to hyper realism, but I think the objection posed literally "overthinks" the action. DEX with its hand eye coordination cascades a bunch of timing based skills and spatial awareness / proprioception is more a wholly integrated body action rather than something contained in headspace.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
one could argue that, but...those people would be wrong.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Maybe we should realize these skills don't really map to particular stats well, so we should branch them off from the proficiency system, and make them a class feature (and potential feat) where success may receive mods from some stats but are ultimately determined by an independent set of percentile rolls ... oh wait.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
yeah let's not.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
If you're the DM and you want to run it that way, you can.
But I think what you're describing is the proficiency aspect of stealth. Being a sage won't make you stealthy. Wisdom is a general awareness about the world, not a specific skill. Something you specifically practice and get better at is a proficiency.
And yes, stealth does involve dexterity. Simply taking a step so that your foot slows to a stop just as it touches the ground requires precision muscular control, especially to do it and keep moving at a reasonable speed. You also want to move in such a way that your clothes don't rub against each other and the contents of your pack don't clatter.
If perception factors into it in the situation, you can call for that too. If the rogue needs to spot a guard on the parapet that could have line of sight on their approach, call for it and raise the DC on their stealth attempt if they don't see the guard.
So stealth can involve both dexterity and knowledge, but knowledge is proficiency, not intelligence or wisdom.
What I'm curious about is; how many characters with good Wisdom are likely to have poor Dexterity?
Druids, Monks and Rangers are often Dexterity based as it gives you a good mixture for skill rolls as well as tying into your defence. Clerics will depend if you're going for a frontline armoured "I cast hammer" build I guess, but in that case you're not going to be terribly stealthy anyway.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Sigh...you start fooling with Dex as part of Stealth, then you had better be prepared to re-write the entire Rogue class.
Why are you saying this to me? I'm not suggesting stealth should change, I'm querying why would you bother switching it to Wisdom, when classes that require good Wisdom have good Dexterity anyway. There's nothing to be gained either thematically or mechanically by switching the stat except for some specific characters who probably won't be any good at stealth anyway.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.