I created a warforged rogue and I am trying to figure a few things out. First is if I am invisible would something be able to track me using smell? Because unlike creatures I would smell like wood, stone, metal. Which to me would be hard to track through smell. As for tracking me through whats in my bag I don't eat or drink so I have nothing that gives off an odor in my bag.
Second a high role say a 30 in stealth. Does that mean you are hard to see and make very little noise or that you cover your tacks, foot prints, and make little noise and are hard to see?
Basically the reason I am asking is i was invisible rolled a nat 20 +10 stealth. And the bad guy found me because they saw my foot prints in the dust on the floor, followed them and then used smell to find me. Which I think was a bad call but the dm is the rule master so after a little arguing we decided to let the internet answer this for us. So please help
Warforged receive no mechanical benefit to stealth checks, so tracking you by smell is entirely reasonable. They’d still have to bear your 30 stealth roll, but maybe your DM actually rolled that well. Who knows? At the end of the day, it boils down to an opposed roll. If it were I, the tracks and smell would just be how I explain the fact that my NPC managed to roll above a 30.
But as a general rule, you don’t cover your tracks unless you say you want to cover your tracks. Something like Pass Without Trace will prevent you from leaving behind anything that could be tracked non-magically, but without that, you have to actually do something to cover up after yourself. Nothing is ever included automatically in a roll. You only do what you say you’re trying to do. So if you didn’t actually say you were trying to cover your tracks, then yeah, it’s a perfectly reasonable detail to narrate. A good DM tactic is to ask how a player wants to accomplish their task, which can help the DM narrate successor failure in a way that’s honest to the player’s intent.
That said, some flexibility on the part of the DM is often warranted, especially when players may not be familiar with or used to how the game works.
Warforged receive no mechanical benefit to stealth checks, so tracking you by smell is entirely reasonable.
This I agree with. Overall, warforged do not get benefits to stealth. Maybe they don't have any smell (being metal) but they'd still make noise and leave tracks and whatnot (maybe more noise and tracks?)
They’d still have to bear your 30 stealth roll, but maybe your DM actually rolled that well. Who knows? At the end of the day, it boils down to an opposed roll. If it were I, the tracks and smell would just be how I explain the fact that my NPC managed to roll above a 30.
Yep
But as a general rule, you don’t cover your tracks unless you say you want to cover your tracks.
Something like Pass Without Trace will prevent you from leaving behind anything that could be tracked non-magically, but without that, you have to actually do something to cover up after yourself. Nothing is ever included automatically in a roll. You only do what you say you’re trying to do. So if you didn’t actually say you were trying to cover your tracks, then yeah, it’s a perfectly reasonable detail to narrate. A good DM tactic is to ask how a player wants to accomplish their task, which can help the DM narrate successor failure in a way that’s honest to the player’s intent.
This I would disagree with. In general, I don't think players are required to know everything that their character would to use them. Like, if the character is trying to be stealthy, that involves a lot of things - moving quietly and not making noise, staying away from things that you might bump or knock over, covering your tracks, probably a dozen things that an actual rogue would know but I don't. (Staying away from light sources so that your breath doesn't disturb the flames? How do you deal with shadows, or with breezes, and so on?)
The player doesn't have to remember and narrate each of the details of what "being stealthy" means when they make a stealth check. Just like when a wizard is casting a spell, you don't make the player remember the exact incantation or else the spell fails, when a fighter is shooting a bow the player doesn't have to describe the mechanics of drawing the arrow and aiming, etc.
That said, some flexibility on the part of the DM is often warranted, especially when players may not be familiar with or used to how the game works.
Agreed. I think it's absolutely possible for a stealth check that's arbitrarily high to not be enough in certain cases, but I think it would be nice for the DM to make it clear what happened in a few ways.
"You had a good plan, and you rolled well, but you failed because you personally forgot some execution detail that your character would know" - IMO that's not okay.
"It's impossible for your character to sneak in this area because you'd leave tracks anyway" - that's definitely possible. IMO, in that case, as a DM I'd have made you roll perception rather than stealth - since stealth is impossible, I'd have you roll perception to notice that you can't be sneaky here, the way you're doing it.
(Oh, and a thing to check here - you did roll stealth because your DM told you to roll stealth, right? You didn't just grab dice and roll even when there was no reason to because you couldn't succeed anyway?)
"It's possible to sneak here, and your character is doing it well to the best of your ability, but the person who's tracking you is even better at tracking than you are at stealth and rolled higher (or had some magical help)" - also possible! IMO in that case the DM's narration should call that out more clearly, that you did everything right but the person following you was just even better. "
This I would disagree with. In general, I don't think players are required to know everything that their character would to use them. Like, if the character is trying to be stealthy, that involves a lot of things - moving quietly and not making noise, staying away from things that you might bump or knock over, covering your tracks, probably a dozen things that an actual rogue would know but I don't. (Staying away from light sources so that your breath doesn't disturb the flames? How do you deal with shadows, or with breezes, and so on?)
The player doesn't have to remember and narrate each of the details of what "being stealthy" means when they make a stealth check. Just like when a wizard is casting a spell, you don't make the player remember the exact incantation or else the spell fails, when a fighter is shooting a bow the player doesn't have to describe the mechanics of drawing the arrow and aiming, etc.
In general, I 100% agree. The point I disagree on is that "covering one's tracks" is part of the normal action involved when a character says "I'd like to roll stealth." That's always going to be a subjective thing though, so I know that not everyone is going to draw the lines in the same places :)
1st. Previously the DM had made it known that the reason you move at half speed when stealing is because you are trying to make less noise and cover your tracks.
2nd. My character after being invisible walked around an area creating footprints all over. Then triggered a trap which caused rocks and dirt to fall all over the area i was just in.. it also alerted the goblin guards. They show up in the area i was just in and is now covered in dirt and rocks and without fail or hesitation walked straight to where my character is now hiding (invisible and has a 30 stealth roll) and finds my character.
Now as a fellow DM I understand you bend some things so that the players will end up in a dramatic situation for fun sake but this is just wrong. But i tried everything I could rhing of but a nat 20 on any goblin trying to find something always fails against an invisible stealthed 30 check. It just can't be done with those stats. But you say maybe he has magic gear the helps him. Nope when he was dead we looted and nothing but some copper and the standard goblin gear.
P.s. he has since admitted he broke the rules just for story sake but it still took away from my awesome potential story I had going scouting for the group.
1st. Previously the DM had made it known that the reason you move at half speed when stealing is because you are trying to make less noise and cover your tracks.
2nd. My character after being invisible walked around an area creating footprints all over. Then triggered a trap which caused rocks and dirt to fall all over the area i was just in.. it also alerted the goblin guards. They show up in the area i was just in and is now covered in dirt and rocks and without fail or hesitation walked straight to where my character is now hiding (invisible and has a 30 stealth roll) and finds my character.
Now as a fellow DM I understand you bend some things so that the players will end up in a dramatic situation for fun sake but this is just wrong. But i tried everything I could rhing of but a nat 20 on any goblin trying to find something always fails against an invisible stealthed 30 check. It just can't be done with those stats. But you say maybe he has magic gear the helps him. Nope when he was dead we looted and nothing but some copper and the standard goblin gear.
P.s. he has since admitted he broke the rules just for story sake but it still took away from my awesome potential story I had going scouting for the group.
This is a big lesson for DMs...if you need something to happen 1) plan an alternative if the players bypass it, And 2) plan an alternative for the alternative. Taking away a players agency in a roll you allow or call for is a recipe hurt feelings and for players to lose trust in their DM, and some amount of trust is needed for the game to run well.
Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check when you attempt to conceal yourself from enemies, slink past guards, slip away without being noticed, or sneak up on someone without being seen or heard.
I take the bolded statement as being inclusive of covering your tracks, and/or moving in such a way as to not leave tracks to begin with.
On the DMing side of things, if one of my players is attempting to move through an area with enough dust & debris to leave obviously visible tracks... I tell them that. At bare minimum, I give them the opportunity to roll a Perception check. Unless you're Blinded, Passive Perception should be more than sufficient to notice "I'm leaving footprints all over this dusty-ass floor".
On the point Icon raised about forcing certain events to happen, having backup plans is absolutely crucial to a DM. Dealing with invisible players is soo damn easy; "the head guard has See Invisibility..." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As far as being a Warforged goes... yeah, there's nothing about the race that indicates they have no smell. Warforged still have vital fluids & lubricants that would give off a distinct odor.
And you really have nothing in your bags that has an odor? Highly doubtful. Got potions? Those smell. Spellcasting reagants? Smelly. Stuff you looted from dead enemies? Yup, their stink is all over it.
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You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
There are several points in a certain recently published adventure that describe NPCs successful stealth checks, which can nevertheless be overcome by looking for tracks they have left and not thought to cover. It is not an automatic thing every time you roll Stealth.... but if my player rolled a 30, I'd probably give them the benefit of saying that thought of everything to make their hiding perfected, and not pull a gotcha moment about tracks.
Make a Dexterity (Stealth) check when you attempt to conceal yourself from enemies, slink past guards, slip away without being noticed, or sneak up on someone without being seen or heard.
I take the bolded statement as being inclusive of covering your tracks, and/or moving in such a way as to not leave tracks to begin with.
Being invisible doesn't make you undetectable. Ruleswise the only benefits you have is that you count as heavily obscured, enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls and you have advantage on attack rolls. A natural 20 in and of itself is does nothing but a roll of 30 is still a very good roll.
All in all, I can understand that it's a bit of a bummer that your DM fudged the rolls but none of the things you mentioned would make you undetectable. For example, pretty mucheverything have a smell and the invisible condition explicitly state that one of the ways to find invisible creatures is through their tracks.
1st. Previously the DM had made it known that the reason you move at half speed when stealing is because you are trying to make less noise and cover your tracks.
2nd. My character after being invisible walked around an area creating footprints all over. Then triggered a trap which caused rocks and dirt to fall all over the area i was just in.. it also alerted the goblin guards. They show up in the area i was just in and is now covered in dirt and rocks and without fail or hesitation walked straight to where my character is now hiding (invisible and has a 30 stealth roll) and finds my character.
Now as a fellow DM I understand you bend some things so that the players will end up in a dramatic situation for fun sake but this is just wrong. But i tried everything I could rhing of but a nat 20 on any goblin trying to find something always fails against an invisible stealthed 30 check. It just can't be done with those stats. But you say maybe he has magic gear the helps him. Nope when he was dead we looted and nothing but some copper and the standard goblin gear.
P.s. he has since admitted he broke the rules just for story sake but it still took away from my awesome potential story I had going scouting for the group.
Did your DM have you roll stealth before or after you triggered the trap?
Makes sense to me that once you've triggered the trap, you've given away your position, no matter how well-hidden you were before.
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hello,
I created a warforged rogue and I am trying to figure a few things out. First is if I am invisible would something be able to track me using smell? Because unlike creatures I would smell like wood, stone, metal. Which to me would be hard to track through smell. As for tracking me through whats in my bag I don't eat or drink so I have nothing that gives off an odor in my bag.
Second a high role say a 30 in stealth. Does that mean you are hard to see and make very little noise or that you cover your tacks, foot prints, and make little noise and are hard to see?
Basically the reason I am asking is i was invisible rolled a nat 20 +10 stealth. And the bad guy found me because they saw my foot prints in the dust on the floor, followed them and then used smell to find me. Which I think was a bad call but the dm is the rule master so after a little arguing we decided to let the internet answer this for us. So please help
Warforged receive no mechanical benefit to stealth checks, so tracking you by smell is entirely reasonable. They’d still have to bear your 30 stealth roll, but maybe your DM actually rolled that well. Who knows? At the end of the day, it boils down to an opposed roll. If it were I, the tracks and smell would just be how I explain the fact that my NPC managed to roll above a 30.
But as a general rule, you don’t cover your tracks unless you say you want to cover your tracks. Something like Pass Without Trace will prevent you from leaving behind anything that could be tracked non-magically, but without that, you have to actually do something to cover up after yourself. Nothing is ever included automatically in a roll. You only do what you say you’re trying to do. So if you didn’t actually say you were trying to cover your tracks, then yeah, it’s a perfectly reasonable detail to narrate. A good DM tactic is to ask how a player wants to accomplish their task, which can help the DM narrate successor failure in a way that’s honest to the player’s intent.
That said, some flexibility on the part of the DM is often warranted, especially when players may not be familiar with or used to how the game works.
This I agree with. Overall, warforged do not get benefits to stealth. Maybe they don't have any smell (being metal) but they'd still make noise and leave tracks and whatnot (maybe more noise and tracks?)
Yep
This I would disagree with. In general, I don't think players are required to know everything that their character would to use them. Like, if the character is trying to be stealthy, that involves a lot of things - moving quietly and not making noise, staying away from things that you might bump or knock over, covering your tracks, probably a dozen things that an actual rogue would know but I don't. (Staying away from light sources so that your breath doesn't disturb the flames? How do you deal with shadows, or with breezes, and so on?)
The player doesn't have to remember and narrate each of the details of what "being stealthy" means when they make a stealth check. Just like when a wizard is casting a spell, you don't make the player remember the exact incantation or else the spell fails, when a fighter is shooting a bow the player doesn't have to describe the mechanics of drawing the arrow and aiming, etc.
Agreed. I think it's absolutely possible for a stealth check that's arbitrarily high to not be enough in certain cases, but I think it would be nice for the DM to make it clear what happened in a few ways.
"You had a good plan, and you rolled well, but you failed because you personally forgot some execution detail that your character would know" - IMO that's not okay.
"It's impossible for your character to sneak in this area because you'd leave tracks anyway" - that's definitely possible. IMO, in that case, as a DM I'd have made you roll perception rather than stealth - since stealth is impossible, I'd have you roll perception to notice that you can't be sneaky here, the way you're doing it.
(Oh, and a thing to check here - you did roll stealth because your DM told you to roll stealth, right? You didn't just grab dice and roll even when there was no reason to because you couldn't succeed anyway?)
"It's possible to sneak here, and your character is doing it well to the best of your ability, but the person who's tracking you is even better at tracking than you are at stealth and rolled higher (or had some magical help)" - also possible! IMO in that case the DM's narration should call that out more clearly, that you did everything right but the person following you was just even better. "
In general, I 100% agree. The point I disagree on is that "covering one's tracks" is part of the normal action involved when a character says "I'd like to roll stealth." That's always going to be a subjective thing though, so I know that not everyone is going to draw the lines in the same places :)
to clarify:
1st. Previously the DM had made it known that the reason you move at half speed when stealing is because you are trying to make less noise and cover your tracks.
2nd. My character after being invisible walked around an area creating footprints all over. Then triggered a trap which caused rocks and dirt to fall all over the area i was just in.. it also alerted the goblin guards. They show up in the area i was just in and is now covered in dirt and rocks and without fail or hesitation walked straight to where my character is now hiding (invisible and has a 30 stealth roll) and finds my character.
Now as a fellow DM I understand you bend some things so that the players will end up in a dramatic situation for fun sake but this is just wrong. But i tried everything I could rhing of but a nat 20 on any goblin trying to find something always fails against an invisible stealthed 30 check. It just can't be done with those stats. But you say maybe he has magic gear the helps him. Nope when he was dead we looted and nothing but some copper and the standard goblin gear.
P.s. he has since admitted he broke the rules just for story sake but it still took away from my awesome potential story I had going scouting for the group.
This is a big lesson for DMs...if you need something to happen 1) plan an alternative if the players bypass it, And 2) plan an alternative for the alternative. Taking away a players agency in a roll you allow or call for is a recipe hurt feelings and for players to lose trust in their DM, and some amount of trust is needed for the game to run well.
I take the bolded statement as being inclusive of covering your tracks, and/or moving in such a way as to not leave tracks to begin with.
On the DMing side of things, if one of my players is attempting to move through an area with enough dust & debris to leave obviously visible tracks... I tell them that. At bare minimum, I give them the opportunity to roll a Perception check. Unless you're Blinded, Passive Perception should be more than sufficient to notice "I'm leaving footprints all over this dusty-ass floor".
On the point Icon raised about forcing certain events to happen, having backup plans is absolutely crucial to a DM. Dealing with invisible players is soo damn easy; "the head guard has See Invisibility..." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As far as being a Warforged goes... yeah, there's nothing about the race that indicates they have no smell. Warforged still have vital fluids & lubricants that would give off a distinct odor.
And you really have nothing in your bags that has an odor? Highly doubtful. Got potions? Those smell. Spellcasting reagants? Smelly. Stuff you looted from dead enemies? Yup, their stink is all over it.
You don't know what fear is until you've witnessed a drunk bird divebombing you while carrying a screaming Kobold throwing fire anywhere and everywhere.
There are several points in a certain recently published adventure that describe NPCs successful stealth checks, which can nevertheless be overcome by looking for tracks they have left and not thought to cover. It is not an automatic thing every time you roll Stealth.... but if my player rolled a 30, I'd probably give them the benefit of saying that thought of everything to make their hiding perfected, and not pull a gotcha moment about tracks.
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I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
I think this is a good take.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Being invisible doesn't make you undetectable. Ruleswise the only benefits you have is that you count as heavily obscured, enemies have disadvantage on attack rolls and you have advantage on attack rolls. A natural 20 in and of itself is does nothing but a roll of 30 is still a very good roll.
All in all, I can understand that it's a bit of a bummer that your DM fudged the rolls but none of the things you mentioned would make you undetectable. For example, pretty mucheverything have a smell and the invisible condition explicitly state that one of the ways to find invisible creatures is through their tracks.
Did your DM have you roll stealth before or after you triggered the trap?
Makes sense to me that once you've triggered the trap, you've given away your position, no matter how well-hidden you were before.