What are your opinions on players who want to stealth/scout far ahead of the group? It's frustrating for me to deal with it. Either they're successful and play solo while the others dick around, or fail and get ganked by whatever discovered them.
Should I just ban it and force all characters to be tethered to each other?
just enforce that they always report back to the rest of the group first, without engaging any enemies they find
if they get caught and fucked up, have the enemies capture them for interrogation, and let them leave behind a personal effect as a clue to their trail for when the group goes looking for them
if this happens more than once or twice in a campaign then tell the ranger to stop being a fag
>>47833402
They get ganked and die is usually the standard outcome. Don't be out to get them, but let them know that they aren't some type of super sekrit solo stealth master.
>>47833402
If you don't want/need scouts, don't bring scouting classes into the party. Simple as that.
Scouts are supposed to be for scouting, not ninja/assassination. The only fighting they're supposed to do is against other scouts.
In a party of 6 people, unless you have civilians or something slow and vulnerable (a cannon?), then they are effectively ALL scouts.
>>47834156
Not when half of them are wearing plate mail and tower shields.
>>47833402
The Worst. When the rogue says she's gonna scout ahead, you know she just wants to take all the treasure for herself.
>>47833402
How do you plan on banning "not being near the party?" Do you mean telling players that you don't like it and asking them to stay near each other?
There's nothing wrong with scouts. Yeah they can drag on with the solo play a little bit, but I like to go back and forth between the solo guy and whatever else is happening, if something interesting can happen back with the rest of the party.
I especially like to do this whenever there's an element of failure, essentially creating mini-cliffhangers every couple of minutes.
As long as you do this, both sides will be interested- when a side isn't going, it's waiting very eagerly to resolve its challenge while simultaneously being interested in whatever problems the other side faces (because it obviously affects them, even if it's just "we have to rescue the scout somehow")
>>47833402
Just tell them to roll stealth a couple of times and tell them what they find. Assume that they go back immediately to the group.
>>47833605
This.
I handle it the way L4D did: Those losing a fight have movement disabled and bleed-out without swift aid from another. "Scout" too far from the party, and help cannot reach you in time to save you. Roll-up a newbie, Lone Wolf McQuade.
>>47833605
The thing is what if the character is a super sekrit solo stealth master.
>>47837847
Doesn't matter, the so called stealth master just stepped in the random destination teleport field / plane shift area and got his/her wish, really far separation from the party. Welcome to the elemental plane of fire or similar.
>>47833402
I'd handle it about the way Darkest Dungeon handles it. Scouting is done on downtime, where others would be resting or healing or doing something back in the town. Don't drag down the whole party while you do it, but make it useful when they do it. Things like detailed maps, monster types, and location of traps magical and otherwise can really help a character feel useful.
Don't punish them arbitrarily for something that their character is built to do ala >>47838905. If they can see and avoid traps in locations where it makes sense for a trap to be, and can tell where is too close to be to a monster, reward them for playing how they want to play.
Keep it short. That's what worked for my group:
So, you want to sneak to their camp. 15 for outskirts, 30 for center, 40 for one of commander's tents. If you fail - you alert them and get one die of damage for each five points of failure while escaping. If you succeed I tell what you saw.
Time saved, scout feels useful, I don't get to deal with shitty solo adventures.
>>47839304
I was going to mention something like this. Turn scouting from a player splitting off from the party to a flat roll or series of rolls to determine the outcome.
Could do the same for infiltration, making a number of flat rolls for intended infiltration into an enemy territory. Sneak roll determines if you successfully sneak, perhaps a second to determine if you managed to get where you wanted to go, and a third to see if you can do what you intended to do. The party entering the area could trigger the infiltrator to show up at a designated spot (within reason) and start combat with them.
>>47833402
Problem how? They just need to have a movement of 30+ ft. Either they get the info and sneak back to the other PCs or they'll be spotted and need to outrun the opposition back to the other PCs.
I find recog rather important to the PC group, we need to know what we're in for and how many of them there are.
