Stealth Checks — Advanced Old School Revival

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Rolling a Stealth Check

Roll + Deft+ Skill(= Stealth score)

The stealth check is a special type of Deft check you can make to go unnoticed by your enemies. You may apply a skill that makes sense for the circumstances. For example, if you're trying to disguise yourself to escape into a crowd, you might add Performance to your stealth check. If you're trying to move silently or hide in shadows, adding Reflexes might make more sense.

The result of the roll becomes your stealth score, which remains in effect as a target number (TN) vs. detection, as long as your stealth status isn't compromised.

How to sneak, in 3 steps:

Establish your stealth score.
If you take risky action, you make a separate check to maintain your stealth score.
If you fail, you're detected, which negates your stealth score.

Detection & Perception

In some cases, action others take may expose you or arouse suspicion. If someone's searching your location or suspicious of your disguise, they may be entitled to a Perception check vs. your stealth score. For the purposes of this check, a group of NPCs will make a single roll; the leader makes the check with applicable modifiers. If you're stealthed but they meet or beat your stealth score, you become detected.

Stealthy vs. Risky Action

While you are stealthed, the GM will tell you whether an action you take is stealthy or risky. An action is risky if there’s a chance it will arouse suspicion or expose you. If you’re wandering into a large crowd of people to escape your pursuers, matching the pace of the crowd is stealthy. Running through the crowd is risky.

Checking Your Stealth Score

Whenever you take risky action, you must make a separate check to maintain your stealth score. Failing this check puts you in a compromised position (you're detected), which negates your stealth score.

For example, if you're trying to steal a heavy book off the shelf of a library you snuck into, the GM might call for an unopposed Mighty check to represent the chance of you dropping the book and making noise. This check might be against a TN or rolled as a success check at the GM's discretion. If you fail, the book might drop to the ground with a loud thud, which means the patrons in the library become alerted to your presence.

Remember to always follow the fiction.

For example, in the library example above, we can think of the “patrons in the library” as part of the environment: they don’t have stats to make a Perception check against you, but if they’re alerted to your presence, escaping quietly from the scene with the book becomes impossible, which is why you’ll need a new strategy for your exit (and why you lose your stealth score).

On the other hand, if there were guards with their backs turned to you as you attempt to steal the book, the GM might call for a Perception check from the guards: they’d roll vs. your stealth score. In this situation, failure might mean you’re revealed outright: they turn around and see you (you’re revealed). Or, if they’re around the corner, maybe the GM will afford you a chance to change strategies if you beat their initiative—you decide dash to the stairwell and hide in the shadows.

Changing Strategies

Once you're detected, you'll need to change your strategy to remain stealthed. Becoming detected negates your stealth score. If you were trying to sneak down the hallway and the guards spot you (they beat your stealth score on a Perception check), then maybe you try to deceive them by exhuding confidence and making them believe you're supposed to be there. This would establish a new stealth score, and your air of confidence will travel with you.

Active Searching

If your opponents are alerted to your presence (you've been detected), they roll with advantage on their Perception checks when searching for you. That is, if you re-established your stealth score after becoming detected, your opponents don't suddenly forget you're out there: they know something is up, even if they don't know it's you.

Collaborating on Stealth Checks

When a party of characters is trying to be sneaky, designate one character as the point person. That person makes the stealth check, and the group adopts the stealth score rolled.

The GM may impose disadvantage on the check or a -1 to the roll for each character the point person is trying to hide, depending on the circumstances. The rules of detection described above apply to the group as a whole.

If members of the party break off from the group, they may need to roll again to establish their own stealth score.

Example of Stealth Check

Zed is trying to sneak across an imperial courtyard, and it’s broad daylight.

GM: Okay Zed, you’re in the courtyard. There’s a cobblestone path to the servants’ kitchen, a fountain at the center, and a garden on either side of the path. How are you avoiding being in plain sight?

Zed: I slink into the garden, laying low and moving slowly.

GM: Let’s get your stealth score.

Zed: (rolls a d6) That’s a 3 plus my Deft of 5. With Reflexes: 10.

Zed proceeds past a number of courtiers in the garden, but they have no reason to suspect he’s there, so he passes them unnoticed and steps into the cobblestone path to head toward the servants’ kitchen. However, suddenly a troop of imperial guards escorting a dignitary take to the cobblestone path in single file.

GM: What do you do?

Zed: I’m going to dive into the fountain!

GM: Woah, risky! Sounds like a Reflexes check to dip in without a big splash. That’s Tricky, so 9.

Zed rolls again, but he falls short by a few points. He’s been detected.

GM: One of the guards hears the splash and approaches the fountain. What do you do?

At this point, Zed has to change strategies, because as soon as they inspect the fountain, he’ll be revealed. He has a single turn to find a way to conceal himself so as to re-establish his stealthed status. Even so, the guards are aware something is amiss, and will receive advantage on any Perception checks to detect him for the rest of the scene.

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