Stealth
Use: Macro skill. May sometimes be used as a round skill.
Sample specializations: Concealment, trailing, ambush
Characters with stealth can sneak about or hide without attracting attention. Characters who use stealth are not necessarily being quiet or invisible; the goal is to be unnoticed. A character can stealth through a large crowd of people and be in plain sight the whole time, but by “blending in” she is able to pass through the crowd without anyone really noticing her doing so. To use stealth, the player generates an action total against a difficulty number equal to the Perception of the character whose attention is being avoided. An alert target, such as an on-duty guard, is usually harder to avoid and the difficulty number is instead equal to the target’s find skill value. Success means the character remains undetected, failure means she is automatically detected. If there is more than one target involved, such as trying to sneak past a patrol of two guards, the stealth attempt is handled with the multi-action rules in Chapter Four. If the character is being actively searched for, stealth becomes a round use skill instead of a macro skill and the character will have to make several stealth checks to avoid detection. The conditions around the character can affect the difficulty of attempts to use stealth. The chart below lists some common modifiers. Keep in mind that some modifiers can be negated by certain circumstances. For example, if a sentry can see in the dark, the modifiers for darkness should not be applied.
STEALTH CHART
Condition Modifier
Rain, sleet, snow -1
Dawn or dusk, fog, trees, crowd, etc. -2
Night -3
Inattentive guards -3
Dense concealment (jungle, large crowd) -5
Attentive guards +3
Open terrain +3
Broad daylight, brightly lit area +4
*This includes guards who are actively searching for the character.