3rd Ed Stealth. Options

[Rajaat99]

My players have high stealth and they can sneak past alot. Besides perception, what other ways do people have of detecting sneaky people? I've used high sensor rating drones against them too. There's probably something obvious I'm not seeing, so I'm asking for help.

[mfb]

use security measures. pressure pads can't be snuck past, unless you're an adept with traceless walk. laser tripwires are hard to detect, as are capitance wires and pheremone sniffers.

[James McMurray]

Changing stealth vs. perception to an opposed test with a base target number of 4 might also help. It definitely helps make results more predictable insteadof wondering if the guy with one skill is going to get lucky and be harder to see then the guy with 4 skill.

[mfb]

i think, in this situation, that would actually make things worse, though i would normally agree that open tests are the devil. the PCs have high stealth skills, probably higher than most guards' intelligence scores, which means that making the outcome more consistent will make it even harder for the guards to detect the PCs.

[Backgammon]

Guards can use their Stealth skill as Complementary dice, so you get a boost right there.

Otherwise, security setups consisting of good lighting, open Zero Zone terrain, electronic surveillance such as thermal or ultrasound, guard animals or guard spirits, etc. All this forces the players to come up with a stealthing scheme more detailed than "we go by here and roll high on our stealth".

[mfb]

yeah. try imposing terrain modifiers to the stealth roll--sneaking through hip-high grass is a lot easier than sneaking across a well-lit, empty concrete lot.

[James McMurray]

The Corporate Security Handbook had a lot of good ideas in it. I think I remember seeing it at one of the online stores as a pdf.

[SL James]

*cough* SOTA63 *cough*

[Rajaat99]

Alright, I'll quit being lazy and go read. Terrain modifers? Duh. I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe, I wasn't.
SOTA: 2063, I'll go check it out.
Corporate Security Handbook. I'll see if I can hunt it down.
Thanks all.

[Wounded Ronin]

Stealth is really unrealiable. The key is to make the PCs just keep making stealth checks until one of them gets a bad roll. At the same time put a lot of average guards around the compound so that each one gets to roll 3 dice to detect intruders. Even if the PCs have great stealth one of them will screw up eventually and one of the many guards will see him and open fire, alerting everyone.

I really can't believe that there's difficulty with this because stealth has always been simultaneously an important skill but also kind of a universal weak link.

[Backgammon]

[SL James]

Plus some neat stuff it didn't have - like rules for hotwiring a maglock (which occasionally can come in hand) and all sorts of other stuff. Not that CSH lacks them - it's just... more well-arranged.

[Kanada Ten]

Plus, Corporate Security has a lot of material not applicable for SR3.

[SL James]

BTW, I really like Extended Missile Parry and wish they kept it in MitS.

[blakkie]

[James McMurray]

Nooooo! I agree with blakkie again!!!! Aieeee! ;)

[mfb]

while cherry-picking rolls is not a method i would personally use, i don't think it's 'cheating' to make the players roll more often. after all, they're the ones wanting to use the skill so frequently.

[Sharaloth]

I agree with Blakkie as well.

As a GM I only make PC's reroll stealth if the situation changes. For instance, if a PC is hiding out ouside a protected compound and uber-rolls a 32 on the stealth test, all the guards in the compound are very unlikely to notice him, so long as he doesn't leave that oh-so-perfect cover he's managed to find. I'm not going to make him roll a new stealth roll for each guard that comes by, that's just stupid and obviously the GM trying to screw over the player. If the PC decides to leave that hiding spot and sneak towards the building, that's a new stealth roll there, and a new possibility for discovery. Once he's inside, he's got to contend with more stuff, and will generally require a new stealth roll every time he crosses into an entirely new section of the building (a new floor, a more secured area, the guard's breakroom, etc).

[nezumi]

Thought of trying closed doors? Just set a little beeper so it rings when someone goes in (most stores have those). Also motion detectors, and always apply appropriate modifiers for terrain (make them up if they aren't listed, I don't recollect the list being as complete as I'd like). Walking through an empty parking lot at high noon should probably impose a -8 to the stealth roll. So it's possible, but very, very difficult. Also don't forget to apply modifiers based on the speed the person is moving. A person moving at a crawl will hide better than someone walking at normal speed.

[Rajaat99]

[mfb]

keep in mind that in the SR3 rules, using karma on an open test just gives you one extra die per iteration. eg you get one die for 1 kp, two dice for 3kp, three dice for 6kp, and so on.

[Wounded Ronin]

Well, obviously I don't just sit there and keep telling the PCs to reroll until they get a satisfactorily poor roll. That would just piss everyone off and derail the game.

No, no, no. This is how you do it.

You have a lot of average security guards with Int 3. The PCs are hiding somewhere or sneaking somewhere and they roll between 6 and 8 dice, let's say. They often roll at least ~8 on their stealth test and can also get results of around 15 or so without too much problem.

So, yes, if I just roll 3 dice I'm probably not going to beat 8, 15, or the occasional 20+. But the thing is that each guard gets the chance to notice each PC. So I roll 5 times for the Int 3 guard if there's a hiding party of 5. Furthermore, if there are a lot of guards I roll for each guard. So 10 average guards rolling Int 3 five times to detect a party of 5 would result in my rolling a total of 150 dice.

I don't see how you can construe that as cheating. I think that's actually following the rules pretty literally. And with 150 rolls it dosen't matter if we give the guards +6 TN penalties for cover and concealment or whatever. You're still probably going to get at least one really excellent roll. And, as far as I can tell, I think I'm just following the rules.

[Taran]

Heh. I've actually done that, albeit at a slightly smaller scale. But I had a computer with a Lisp interpreter do all the heavy lifting for me.

[Wounded Ronin]

Agreed. Electronic dice rollers help a great deal. I actually mostly used computer programs for rolling as a GM. Using physical dice was rare for me. Personally, I think that since technology is there we should use it to run a better game. An efficient computer program > lots of dice and counting.

[mfb]