I'm not one to rock the boat, but I don't really agree with Revenant or Loraxxe on this. I've got a couple of reasons.

The first one: I used to play a stealth-based character and I hated this game mechanic. :P But the rest are legitimate, really. Also, before I start, I actually found a way to stay stealthed while setting traps in NWN. I've used it many times on other servers and I don't consider it an exploit. But from the comments I've seen so far, the DMs might consider it as such, so I'll hold off on posting it publicly.

From an RP perspective, I think the game mechanic is NOT realistic. I understand the point that a char shouldn't be able to do two things at once, or stealth/set traps in the open grass ten feet from their enemy. But when I set traps, or see RPers set them, they don't do it in the open. They do it in a choke point (to make sure enemies will have to run through it to get at them) between two rocks or trees or something, and other such places -- places that have enough cover that characters could remain hidden while working.

Also, yes, open ground shouldn't just be walked straight through invisibly. But any RPer worth their salt can get around that without even meaning to exploit anything. As long as you're talking realism, that meadow Cloaky McDagger just walked through probably has bushes and brambles everywhere. The grass in that open grassland is probably at least two feet high. Etc. In the end, I think the whole realistic cover question is so subjective as to be rendered trivial -- after all, some illustrations of valid cover in the PHB don't actually conceal you much.

Also, the 3.0 PHB's description of the Hide skill doesn't actually say anything about cover. Technically you can walk straight through a grassland rolling Hide every round. Of course that's at the DM's discretion, but there's no hard and fast rule saying you can't roll Hide unless there's a convenient boulder. I don't want to be a rules lawyer about this point, I'm just sayin' is all.

Last but not least, there are certain types of character for whom traps are a major combat skill. Read: stealthy types. A big part in such characters' survival isn't their combat prowess, but their ability to control the encounter -- with traps, tricks of the environment, whatever. Being forced out of stealth the moment you set a trap destroys that control, and it kills a lot of the incentive to set one in the first place. It crimps a stealthy character's options a lot more than it enforces realism. I think they SHOULD be able to set traps and remain stealthed.

There'll always be situations where allowing a PC to stay stealthed is exploitive. Setting a trap five feet away from a goblin in open terrain, then stepping across the trap to shoot it -- I'm not saying a scenario like that is okay. But I think there are a lot more situations where players can RP a trap being set stealthily, and they should be allowed to do it.


--Cafall
Last Edited By: Cafall Mar 29 09 11:14 PM. Edited 1 times.