Running Stealth in Classic D&D

Stealth seems like a sticky issue in classic games of D&D, mainly due to the presence of the Thief class and their percentile skills of "hide in shadows" and "move silently". Some DMs rule that because of these skills, the Thief is the only character who can sneak about the dungeon - with the other character classes having to stay behind. 

You might remedy this by saying that perhaps the other classes can still perform the various "thief skills" though at half the chance of success of a Thief of equal level. This in turn might be somewhat problematic for stealth especially though, since the chance of success is in that case very slim (not that actual Thieves have it much better). 

In my Keep on the Borderlands campaign I have figured out a method which I think has so far been fairly successful, having been tested throughout the seven sessions we have played so far;

Who doesn't love modrons? From the 5th edition DMG

Each character may attempt to sneak around or hide from any monsters encountered (as long as there is enough cover to do so of course). The monsters have a chance of spotting the character based on the characters armour as follows; 

1 in 6 - Unarmoured
3 in 6 - Light Armour (leather)
5 in 6 - Heavy Armour (chain, plate)

+ 1 in 6 for each additional "hear noise" chance above 1 in 6 of the monster (demi-humans, thief NPCs, etc.)

Characters with access to the "hide in shadows" and "move silently" percentile skills may attempt a roll against whichever skill is the most appropriate should they be spotted through the initial d6 roll. 

Mission Statement

During my time as a hobbyist in the TTRPG space I have had several ill fated blogs. Some were a little more successful than the others but none really took off outside of at most a single mildly successful post. This is my final blog, the be all end all for me. 

I don't really intend for anyone to see anything of what I post here, so If you are in fact reading this you probably ended up here through some deep diving on the 11th page of google searches - still you are welcome! 

This blog is dedicated to ALL my interests, not only including role-playing games but also miniature wargaming as well as a little bit of film and book stuff as well.