maneuver choice and the "Disappear" technique for stealth

Plane · 09-20-2020, 07:13 PM

DF11 Power-Ups pg 35 has a "Disappear" technique which based on the pricing there is a Hard technique defaulting to Stealth at -10.

This is probably to more realistically emulate something cinematic like B202's Invisibility Art.

It's based on DF2 Dungeons pg 11-12 and I'm not really sure on why that pricing. There's actually a maximum penalty of -19 (5 basic, 4 extra-heavy encumbrance, 5 if ambushed, 5 if not in tunnels/bushes) so I'm guessing this might be similar to Targeted Attack where it can never legally result in completely buying off all possible penalties.

At first glance I thought this might be automatic "I'm in your rear hex" but since Stealth per B222 involves a contest against the Perception of a Sentinel.

No particular sense seems to stand out. It's "to hide" AND "to move silently". The former is implied by B402 "Attack From Above", the latter is implied on B181 (Body Language) B205 (Light Walk)

Coughing/Sneezing on B428 supposedly makes Stealth impossible, but I think more realistically per B358 that should just establish where you are on the table rather than give auto-success to all hearers? We could actually making 'coughing' a leveled trait, with more extreme coughs being more audible (different baseline assumed range) and giving increasing penalties to IQ and DX.

I'm actually realizing now I can't find rules for "intentionally being louder". For example if you want to shout out a warning to your friends far away, the ideal is "shout like Metallica" so it would be an unpenalized Hearing roll at 512 yards. Some levels of noise wouldn't be possible with just your body... and I imagine Size Modifier could play into this (SM+100 giants can more easily make noise than SM-10 gnats). Plus perhaps there should also be rules where loud noises begin to hurt people.

Tactical Shooting 34's "Shooting is Loud" tries to approach this but uses a vague "everybody nearby". SOL establishes "125 dB is painful" and "140 dB can
result in permanent" but the rules themselves don't distinguish dB, you get B138 permanent Hard of Hearing by crit-failing your 1st HT roll to recover after 1+ min rather (oddly not using standard temporary/lasting crippling rules as MA70 does for Ear Clap). Maybe comparing these could somehow help us establish damage > decibals formulae and maybe something akin to "Decibel Tolerance" up from 0?

B78 "Protected Sense" caps impairment at 2 seconds preventing permanent

Earmuffs (B289) give that but TBF that should probably come with something like Temporary Disadvantage: Hard of Hearing.

There's one penalty if you're trying to be quiet moving fast (Hearing) and another if you've nothing to hide behind (Vision) so maybe you'd roll two separate QCs target was Blind or Deaf?

Maybe even a 3rd roll for smell? Discriminating Smell gets called out..

B211 mentions doing Observation vs Stealth (as opposed to Stealth vs Observation: where order matters). B348 mentions "A tie means nobody
won" which is unhelpful in this situation... using Resistance Rolls "attacker must succeed to win" the flipped order 211 (Per v Stealth) and 222 (Stealth v Per) could denote one situation or another, although I don't think the order should necessarily be locked whether or not you use Obversation or raw Per.

Observation is also called "active listening" on B358 ... I'm thinking we should maybe define Vision/Hearing as tertiary traits apart from Per and then have "Sight-based Observation" and "Hearing-based Observation" ? Or keep OB as sight-only and make a different skill called "active listening"?

B211's "On a critical failure, someone spots you" is also a bit strange. I realize it's meant to represent the "without letting others know that you are watching" aspect of the skill, but to be less silly, maybe failing the skill should just mean a MoF-based penalty to your Stealth roll when you resist counter-observation?

I'm thinking maybe "Stealth Resists" when someone isn't already looking at you, but if they ARE already looking at you (passed the first roll) then "Stealth Attacks" and must succeed, plus WIN the contest (defender wins ties) per B348.

It would be easier to "break free" of an "observation grapple" if they were trying to keep track of multiple foes (simultaneous uses -2 penalty) or there was bad lighting or you were far away or moving quickly (speed/range table for sense rolls) but you'd still need to succeed or else vision wouldn't need to be rolled to 'defend' at all... so the only way they would 'lose track' is voluntarily: perhaps opting to try to stop following you so they don't suffer -2 on resisting other foes' Stealth?

Perhaps if it would be impossible for them to resist (effective skill on Observation is 3 or less due to distance, multiple uses, etc) you could get Task Difficulty Modifiers as a bonus to allow a near-guaranteed "success" in "avoiding their view" ?

Or something like a successful Observation roll (optionally resisted by Stealth) only gives "10 seconds of success" at which point you need to roll again to maintain it or it's automatically lost? That would mean even if "Attacking with Stealth" always failed (maybe you can't even hunt rolling a 3 because your effective Stealth is 2 or less, preventing "attacking" with ti) you could still hunt the 3 while RESISTING with it when the Observer tries to reset his count.

B180 also mentions Stealth v Blind Fighting, where Stealth would be attacker which I think assumes you know you have an attacker around somewhere.

There seems to be overlap between modifiers inherent to the Stealth skill and it's Disappear technique...

Example 1: "A penalty equal to your encumbrance level" and "any encumbrance penalties"

if this applies to both the base skill AND the technique, do you double-count encumbrance as situational modifiers or not?

"-5 to hide in an area without “natural” hiding places," and "-5 anywhere but in bush or shadowy tunnels"

The first -5 is in context of "anywhere except in a totally bare room" per B222 which I figure is the +10 "plain sight" situation which only Invisibility Art can monopolize. I could see GMs also giving somewhere between -1 and -4 for mid-tier situations.

I wonder though: why combine these all into a single technique? Wouldn't it make more sense to define these as separate techniques?

"Encumbered Stealth" (buys off penalty in all situations, not just vanishing) would seem a lot more useful than "Disappearing Stealth". If you did double-count the penalties you would want to buy off Encumbered Stealth first, prior to buying off the Disappearing Stealth component of Disappear's -10 default.

The +5/0/-5 for ambushing/stand-up/ambushed sounds like something which could get complicated in staggered combat and guerilla warfare when parties regruop and might alternate between ambushing one another. Like Tactics rerolls "when to reset and roll a new contest" mechanic being established would help cover a gray area.

B358 "may treat this roll as a Quick Contest against his Stealth skill" treats Stealth as the resistance (I think?) when "attacked" with Hearing (since this is one of those situations where you need a way to resolve a tie... ties don't make sense with detection because someone has to win! Unless maybe a tie just means reroll the QC until someone does win?)

09-20-2020, 07:13 PM	#1
Plane Join Date: Aug 2018	maneuver choice and the "Disappear" technique for stealth DF11 Power-Ups pg 35 has a "Disappear" technique which based on the pricing there is a Hard technique defaulting to Stealth at -10. This is probably to more realistically emulate something cinematic like B202's Invisibility Art. It's based on DF2 Dungeons pg 11-12 and I'm not really sure on why that pricing. There's actually a maximum penalty of -19 (5 basic, 4 extra-heavy encumbrance, 5 if ambushed, 5 if not in tunnels/bushes) so I'm guessing this might be similar to Targeted Attack where it can never legally result in completely buying off all possible penalties. At first glance I thought this might be automatic "I'm in your rear hex" but since Stealth per B222 involves a contest against the Perception of a Sentinel. No particular sense seems to stand out. It's "to hide" AND "to move silently". The former is implied by B402 "Attack From Above", the latter is implied on B181 (Body Language) B205 (Light Walk) Coughing/Sneezing on B428 supposedly makes Stealth impossible, but I think more realistically per B358 that should just establish where you are on the table rather than give auto-success to all hearers? We could actually making 'coughing' a leveled trait, with more extreme coughs being more audible (different baseline assumed range) and giving increasing penalties to IQ and DX. I'm actually realizing now I can't find rules for "intentionally being louder". For example if you want to shout out a warning to your friends far away, the ideal is "shout like Metallica" so it would be an unpenalized Hearing roll at 512 yards. Some levels of noise wouldn't be possible with just your body... and I imagine Size Modifier could play into this (SM+100 giants can more easily make noise than SM-10 gnats). Plus perhaps there should also be rules where loud noises begin to hurt people. Tactical Shooting 34's "Shooting is Loud" tries to approach this but uses a vague "everybody nearby". SOL establishes "125 dB is painful" and "140 dB can result in permanent" but the rules themselves don't distinguish dB, you get B138 permanent Hard of Hearing by crit-failing your 1st HT roll to recover after 1+ min rather (oddly not using standard temporary/lasting crippling rules as MA70 does for Ear Clap). Maybe comparing these could somehow help us establish damage > decibals formulae and maybe something akin to "Decibel Tolerance" up from 0? B78 "Protected Sense" caps impairment at 2 seconds preventing permanent Earmuffs (B289) give that but TBF that should probably come with something like Temporary Disadvantage: Hard of Hearing. There's one penalty if you're trying to be quiet moving fast (Hearing) and another if you've nothing to hide behind (Vision) so maybe you'd roll two separate QCs target was Blind or Deaf? Maybe even a 3rd roll for smell? Discriminating Smell gets called out.. B211 mentions doing Observation vs Stealth (as opposed to Stealth vs Observation: where order matters). B348 mentions "A tie means nobody won" which is unhelpful in this situation... using Resistance Rolls "attacker must succeed to win" the flipped order 211 (Per v Stealth) and 222 (Stealth v Per) could denote one situation or another, although I don't think the order should necessarily be locked whether or not you use Obversation or raw Per. Observation is also called "active listening" on B358 ... I'm thinking we should maybe define Vision/Hearing as tertiary traits apart from Per and then have "Sight-based Observation" and "Hearing-based Observation" ? Or keep OB as sight-only and make a different skill called "active listening"? B211's "On a critical failure, someone spots you" is also a bit strange. I realize it's meant to represent the "without letting others know that you are watching" aspect of the skill, but to be less silly, maybe failing the skill should just mean a MoF-based penalty to your Stealth roll when you resist counter-observation? I'm thinking maybe "Stealth Resists" when someone isn't already looking at you, but if they ARE already looking at you (passed the first roll) then "Stealth Attacks" and must succeed, plus WIN the contest (defender wins ties) per B348. It would be easier to "break free" of an "observation grapple" if they were trying to keep track of multiple foes (simultaneous uses -2 penalty) or there was bad lighting or you were far away or moving quickly (speed/range table for sense rolls) but you'd still need to succeed or else vision wouldn't need to be rolled to 'defend' at all... so the only way they would 'lose track' is voluntarily: perhaps opting to try to stop following you so they don't suffer -2 on resisting other foes' Stealth? Perhaps if it would be impossible for them to resist (effective skill on Observation is 3 or less due to distance, multiple uses, etc) you could get Task Difficulty Modifiers as a bonus to allow a near-guaranteed "success" in "avoiding their view" ? Or something like a successful Observation roll (optionally resisted by Stealth) only gives "10 seconds of success" at which point you need to roll again to maintain it or it's automatically lost? That would mean even if "Attacking with Stealth" always failed (maybe you can't even hunt rolling a 3 because your effective Stealth is 2 or less, preventing "attacking" with ti) you could still hunt the 3 while RESISTING with it when the Observer tries to reset his count. B180 also mentions Stealth v Blind Fighting, where Stealth would be attacker which I think assumes you know you have an attacker around somewhere. There seems to be overlap between modifiers inherent to the Stealth skill and it's Disappear technique... Example 1: "A penalty equal to your encumbrance level" and "any encumbrance penalties" if this applies to both the base skill AND the technique, do you double-count encumbrance as situational modifiers or not? "-5 to hide in an area without “natural” hiding places," and "-5 anywhere but in bush or shadowy tunnels" The first -5 is in context of "anywhere except in a totally bare room" per B222 which I figure is the +10 "plain sight" situation which only Invisibility Art can monopolize. I could see GMs also giving somewhere between -1 and -4 for mid-tier situations. I wonder though: why combine these all into a single technique? Wouldn't it make more sense to define these as separate techniques? "Encumbered Stealth" (buys off penalty in all situations, not just vanishing) would seem a lot more useful than "Disappearing Stealth". If you did double-count the penalties you would want to buy off Encumbered Stealth first, prior to buying off the Disappearing Stealth component of Disappear's -10 default. The +5/0/-5 for ambushing/stand-up/ambushed sounds like something which could get complicated in staggered combat and guerilla warfare when parties regruop and might alternate between ambushing one another. Like Tactics rerolls "when to reset and roll a new contest" mechanic being established would help cover a gray area. B358 "may treat this roll as a Quick Contest against his Stealth skill" treats Stealth as the resistance (I think?) when "attacked" with Hearing (since this is one of those situations where you need a way to resolve a tie... ties don't make sense with detection because someone has to win! Unless maybe a tie just means reroll the QC until someone does win?)