Stealth Skill: Results of a Critical Success?

[kdtipa]

I did a quick search of the forum, and read the skill description. And neither gave me a good idea on this one. When you use stealth to avoid detection it often comes down to a contest of skill versus Perception. But to make it easier in my mind, I usually just consider margin of success on the Stealth skill roll to be the penalty for any perceptions rolls made so the character doesn't have to roll a separate contest with five guards.

If you roll a critical success on your stealth roll, what happens? Is it like combat where a critical success can't be defended against, so you automatically succeed? No one should even bother making perception rolls? Or is it just that you gave everyone around you the biggest possible penalty to notice you? If your skill is 15 and you roll a 3, does that mean people would have to make their perception rolls by at least 12?

It's almost an auto success to make it by 12, but what if you had taken the -5 for moving over 1 yard per second? And you are crossing an open yard without good hiding places for another -5. So you critically succeeded but only made it by 2. Is it an auto success still? Or are you just really lucky to have any stealth result at all for being in the open and moving too fast?

Or even if you have cover and move slowly, what if the guard has special gear to help with keeping watch like goggles with thermal imaging (seems like +3 is the normal vision bonus) and they are particularly perceptive for a total perception of 20? Do they get to take their shot at an 8 or less to notice you, or does your critical negate that they are usually really good at spotting intruders?

Is there something in the RAW that I missed? And what do you think about this?

[johndallman]

Well, by RAW, Quick Contests aren't affected by critical successes (B.348).

If you want them to be, you could say that any critical success beats a non-critical success, but if both the stealther and the perceiver succeed critically, you fall back to margin of success to determine the winner.

[kdtipa]

Okay... so RAW is that critical success doesn't really work on contests, but the basic definition of a critical success says that the GM basically makes something up and "something good" happens. If not a direct effect on the contest, is there anything else that could be of benefit to the character using stealth?

I guess I'm really wondering what benefit there is for the exceedingly rare roll of a three on skills that are usually a contest. Is it just that you're more likely to succeed?

[johndallman]

Mostly, you're just more likely to succeed.

The GM is free to make something to explain why you succeeded so well. For example, "you've discovered a part of a wooden floor that doesn't creak at all, giving you +2 to any further stealthy movement through that area."

[Kelly Pedersen]

Personally, I prefer the Quick Contest rules, and let a critical success provide its main bonus, a really big margin of success. That said, if you're really determined to find a bonus for a critical success, I'd suggest letting the sneaking person go twice as long before having to roll Stealth again. So if you're calling for a Stealth roll once a minute, let them use that margin of success for 2 minutes instead.

[kdtipa]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Personally, I prefer the Quick Contest rules, and let a critical success provide its main bonus, a really big margin of success. That said, if you're really determined to find a bonus for a critical success, I'd suggest letting the sneaking person go twice as long before having to roll Stealth again. So if you're calling for a Stealth roll once a minute, let them use that margin of success for 2 minutes instead.

Hmm... not a bad thought. Increased duration. Thank you.

[evileeyore]

I just give a crit double Margin. Either crit.

And I've still had people fail with critical successes when doing this.

[Mithlas]

If it serves the good of the plot, you could use luck (and the character's skill) to say none of the others could make opposed perception tests and move on to the next challenge.

[weby]

In my house rules a critical success counts as success by 10 more than the actual margin for quick contests and a critical failure as fail by 10 more than then actual margin.