Stealth, but in Non-Stealth Games | Game Changer #dnd

I personally also always employ tiered failure similar to video games. Failing a stealth check means the guards are curious what that sound was, not that they immediately know where the players are.

The last stealth mission I ran was actually pretty good. The party had two hours to infiltrate a city district controlled by a hostile force, get to the other side of the district, break some people out of jail and get out. If they were too late, an alarm would be raised and then it gets a lot more difficult to get back to an allied area. Because there was an entire district to get through, being noticed by some guards wouldn't immediately ruin the whole mission, most likely just drain thei resources. They knew they had a time limit, but while I kept track of minutes going by, I didn't tell them the exact time they had remaining, only estimates of how long it took them to do each step. Uncertainty makes the timer even more anxiety inducing. There were also some unrelated distractions going on in the area, basically not-so-random encounters with possibilities for information or loot, but at the cost of time spent. Some encounters they avoided with stealth, others they fought or talked themselves through. Got their target, caused a prison break which affects the world, heard commotion that foreshadowed other things they would learn abour soon. I think it was a great mission, even if I left a bit too much up to improv.

Great video! I think the biggest takeaway for me (although as soon as you said it I couldn't believe i hadn't always been doing it) was to bring a greater variety of skill checks into stealth. I've always brought in investigation and perception in addition to stealth, but there are definitely a lot of other checks that could easily come into play, and make additional oarty members actually feel useful. (Other checks would often come up, but not directly in relation to the actual stealth; that's definitely going to change now)

I agree that it is important to telegraph (or straight up tell the PC) the DC and consequence of plans/actions. As the DM I've learnt to be generous rather then realistically; a ringing bell could alert the entire bandit camp, and often 1 single mess up by the PCs can bring a whole stealth plan crumbling apart. So, it doesn't hurt to have NPCs react with video game logic (short memories, a tad unobservant), or even give the PCs a "3 strikes before they're out" level of suspicion from the guards.

My players generally play heroes. If I want them to take a stealthy approach, I fill the area with a bunch of town guards or other such combatants who are innocent but are "just doing their job." It's even better in the "prove the noble is corrupt" scenario, as their guards have also been fooled and are legitimately good people, so callously killing them would be even more tragic. Your point about explaining dice rolls is really important, and I've recently realized that it's important in any "rulings not rules" situation, not just stealth. The game only works when everyone at the table has a shared understanding of how the world works, and it's often problematic when a player tries to do something that they think should be really easy but after they roll the DM tells them it was a really high difficulty (and not due to information that the PC couldn't know, just because they have fundamentally different opinions about the difficulty of the activity). Similarly, if there's a "common sense" potential outcome to an action that a player just isn't considering or doesn't think would happen, it's really important to make them aware of that potential outcome. Since I am running the game, I am enforcing my assumptions about the way the world works, but my players are never going share 100% of my assumptions, and those misalignments can cause problems. I've stolen a technique from BLeeM for that situation: "your character would know..." and then I can prompt them with whatever thing I think is perfectly reasonable that the player does not, so that they know that this is how this world that we're playing in is going to work.

I am absolutely gobsmacked at your perspicacity and insight, Trek. Yet another amazing breakdown and discussion. Thank you!!

Baldurs gate 3 has also really opened my eyes on stealth. There's one area where you are asked to kill someone. In this area there is a floating eye that on a successful check you discover is transmitting everything it sees to a group of enemies. There's also a war drum that is up on a ledge that you can destroy so they can't call for reinforcements. And finally the target and her guard have a protection spell that blocks an instant of damage. The way I did it was having a rogue take out the drum and eye when the enemies weren't looking and then dropping a web spell on the target and her guard. It was so rewarding to strategize and execute a plan based off of information I had gathered. I am definitely going to try and work in these elements into my dnd games

Big fan of this. Always loved included non-Stealth skills in Stealth sessions

We just talked about this (stealth in DnD) and are playing again today, so this was perfectly timed to add to the discussion or develop something fun.

Good video. The stealth archer in Skyrim is called a dominant strategy - and is named so because, it's the ideal solution to - what should be most encounters. A good game designer would have seen this and provided other encounters where stealth archery wouldn't work, like you are doing in the video.

Let's gooooo, new Trekiros vid!!!

I just had two of my small players captured and taken by Couatl and brought back to the lair of a baddie. This is perfect timing for this video to come out because I was trying to find way to make the encounter interesting from the inside (The kidnapped) and the outside (the rescuers). Now I can try to think of features that force everyone to use their strengths

My pirate captain loves to use her flame thrower on every heist. I guess it is quieter than a gun?

i forgot to plan todays seasion and first thing that poped to my head was STEALTH and this video saved my ass... thank you so much!

I never knew that kishotenketsu had a name, but knew it is a very important part of game development.

"Persuation? Maybe the guards can be brided." Picture on screen: "Leovold, Emissary of Trest" Me: PTSD from EDH, when he was still legal.

bro has +7 insight. these vids are A+

Your channel and videos are incredible, and i honestly want a video like that for every single encounter type, and a general tips for dms video, i am having a hard time managing to write a good story for my players and the way you handle things and teach them would help me so much

'If you have a Monk, they can be sad because they chose to play a Monk.' Good sir, may I introduce you to the class feature Unarmored Movement at level 9, Slow Fall, and a level of skill monkeying that rivals the Rogue. If you're playing mid-level DND, Monks can probably pull off more shenanigans than the Rogue with their extra movement capabilities as they go full Prince of Persia on the facility.

Had a game where the DM was good at running stealth and combat. Always letting us devise our own approach to any scenario. We always made a plan that would be a stealthy approach but, our dice had different plans...ALMOST EVERY TIME. Each time we would fail roll after roll to the point that the DM had to turn it into combat or break the suspension of disbelief. Now, the one or two times we succeeded was an excellent stealth mission. The dice just made the story and that was we were really bad at stealthy approaches.