Vorco is an expert at his craft. He can pick locks. He can pick pockets. He can pick off targets, and they never see him coming. They never hear him either. He is silence incarnate. He is a phantom. He is-
CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.
-Being followed by an idiot in plate mail. Through the noise, he can hear swords being drawn in the room ahead, and orders being given. Great.
Rogues are supposed to be sneaky, right? I’m pretty sure they are, and if you asked a lot of people to describe what a rogue does, they’d probably give similar answers. They pick locks, they disarm traps, they stab backs, and they do it quietly. It’s not a bad assumption, because rogues usually are good at those things. I’d go so far as to say that it’s what most people play rogues for.
The problem comes in practice. They can be quiet, and they’re good at it, but they’re not good at having quiet friends. Dungeons and Dragons is a group game, and most of the time you’ll be with your buddies that aren’t playing rogues. The bard might be okay at stealth. The wizard at least doesn’t have heavy equipment. But the armored bastions of the party, your paladins and fighters, the odd cleric, are probably going to be bad at stealth. Both because they don’t have much dexterity, and because their armor makes them even worse at it.
There are two existing solutions for the problem in the rules. One is a group stealth check. The whole party rolls the skill, and if at least half of them succeed, everybody does. The problem is that half of the party needs to succeed, and you might be the only person good at stealth. Or you can split the party to sneak, which comes with its own set of problems in game and out. Your allies won’t know if you’re in trouble, you won’t know if they’re in trouble, and the other people around the table don’t get to participate. Tabletop RPGs are a collaborative medium, and it sucks all the air out of the room to turn it into a game of solitaire.
Most skills don’t face this problem. If you want to know something, only one person needs to succeed. You can keep searching for things. But stealth is failed as a group, can’t be retried, and throws a wrench into the fantasy of the class.
Stealth could use some changes, and I’d be happy to hear any ideas. Feel free to share them in the comments below, or join us on the Boss Rush Discord to discuss it.
Featured Image: Larry Elmore
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