A fight breaks out in one room. The enemies across the hall presumably aren't deaf and the walls probably arent soundproof.
On the other hand, I see that devolving into the party gets into one fight and all the enemies in the area open their doors and swarm them.
So how do you guys play it?
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First: if you're using this (and it does make sense), it's good to tell your players beforehand, perhaps even before character creation. Suddenly characters capable of a quiet-ish takedown become more valuable
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Warning: not RAW, but for practicality;
You can use the Perception rules, which have penalties/modifiers for sounds farther away and behind obstacles and all that. Sit down once to figure out all the modifiers; note down the following:
* Base DC to hear the fight
* Penalty per obstacle
* Penalty per distance
Now, to keep it convenient, assume that monsters in other rooms start out Taking 5 (yes, five) on their Perception check, but in each subsequent combat round, they roll 1 higher than before. Figure out how many combat rounds it takes before they notice.
Using this, you can beforehand note down for your entire dungeon, if a fight breaks out in room X, it takes Y rounds before the monsters in room Z hear it.
Warning: not RAW, but for practicality;
You can use the Perception rules, which have penalties/modifiers for sounds farther away and behind obstacles and all that. Sit down once to figure out all the modifiers; note down the following:
* Base DC to hear the fight
* Penalty per obstacle
* Penalty per distanceNow, to keep it convenient, assume that monsters in other rooms start out Taking 5 (yes, five) on their Perception check, but in each subsequent combat round, they roll 1 higher than before. Figure out how many combat rounds it takes before they notice.
Using this, you can beforehand note down for your entire dungeon, if a fight breaks out in room X, it takes Y rounds before the monsters in room Z hear it.
Awesome rule of thumb here. Maybe not RAW, but definitely not contrary to any. For that matter, I'm probably adding this in o my game.
Now that covers the basics, but here's some extras you might want to add in, or not. I'd add that it also depends on the (and lacking a better word here) threat level of the whole run. The more on guard someone is, the higher the bonus to their perception check per round. Casual Friday and nothing ever happens on casual Fridays? Maybe there's a further penalty in there. Drunk and sleeping it off? More penalties.
For further effect, you can set a kind of delay. Say there's a stronghold where the guards in one room break out into fights over the gambling or something. If the fight lasts more than X rounds, someone is sent to investigate.
Of course if the creatures in the next area can be alerted, the whole complex might have an alert system as well. Give the combatants too long unoccupied and one of them rings the gong of alert or some such.
And as a final thought, don't forget the opposite. Silence and the associated spells are handy, but every so often someone or something notices an unnatural amount of the silence. I would definitely roll on this one. I'd give it a base 50 DC, minimum. Possibly higher. Read that as almost impossible, excepting the most skilled, lucky, and alert creatures around (including, of course, bonuses for threat level, if any)
When i run a game i let sound attract enemies more often than my friends do when they run games, but there is something to be said for putting a big limit on it. If you want to be realistic, think about how once a fight broke out the entire castle/dungeon/town would know about it in a minute or two, or less. From a game viewpoint I don't find that is necessary. As far as what to roll though, thats up to you. You - the GM - need only decide the enemies hear it. Isn't the DC to hear battle a zero?
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Hearing sounds of a battle are DC 0, modified by +1/10ft, if I remember correctly. Hearing a whisper is a DC 15, also modified by distance.
Actually, come to think of it, aren't all the DCs listed in the book?
I hourseruled that hearing a gunshot was a DC -30, so if you were standing a football field away the DC became 0. We used wikipedia to compare decibles of a gunshot to a whisper. Of course, by the rules, hearing a gunshot is no different than hearing a bow being drawn, but I had to draw the line somewhere.
Detail Perception DC
Hear the sound of battle –10
Notice the stench of rotting garbage –10
Detect the smell of smoke 0
Hear the details of a conversation 0
Notice a visible creature 0
Determine if food is spoiled 5
Hear the sound of a creature walking 10
Hear the details of a whispered conversation 15
Find the average concealed door 15
Hear the sound of a key being turned in a lock 20
Find the average secret door 20
Hear a bow being drawn 25
Sense a burrowing creature underneath you 25
Notice a pickpocket Opposed by Sleight of Hand
Notice a creature using Stealth Opposed by Stealth
Find a hidden trap Varies by trap
Identify the powers of a potion through taste 15 + the potion's caster level
Perception Modifiers DC Modifier
Distance to the source, object, or creature +1/10 feet
Through a closed door +5
Through a wall +10/foot of thickness
Favorable conditions1 –2
Unfavorable conditions1 +2
Terrible conditions2 +5
Creature making the check is distracted +5
Creature making the check is asleep +10
Creature or object is invisible +20
1 Favorable and unfavorable conditions depend upon the sense being used to make the check. For example, bright light might decrease the DC of checks involving sight, while torchlight or moonlight might increase the DC. Background noise might increase a DC involving hearing, while competing odors might increase the DC of a check involving scent.
2 As for unfavorable conditions, but more extreme. For example, candlelight for DCs involving sight, a roaring dragon for DCs involving hearing, and an overpowering stench covering the area for DCs involving scent.
A combat across a hall through 2 closed doors is about a DC of 1.
There you go.
Detail Perception DC
Hear the sound of battle –10
Notice the stench of rotting garbage –10
Detect the smell of smoke 0
Hear the details of a conversation 0
Notice a visible creature 0
Determine if food is spoiled 5
Hear the sound of a creature walking 10
Hear the details of a whispered conversation 15
Find the average concealed door 15
Hear the sound of a key being turned in a lock 20
Find the average secret door 20
Hear a bow being drawn 25
Sense a burrowing creature underneath you 25
Notice a pickpocket Opposed by Sleight of Hand
Notice a creature using Stealth Opposed by Stealth
Find a hidden trap Varies by trap
Identify the powers of a potion through taste 15 + the potion's caster level
Perception Modifiers DC Modifier
Distance to the source, object, or creature +1/10 feet
Through a closed door +5
Through a wall +10/foot of thickness
Favorable conditions1 –2
Unfavorable conditions1 +2
Terrible conditions2 +5
Creature making the check is distracted +5
Creature making the check is asleep +10
Creature or object is invisible +20
1 Favorable and unfavorable conditions depend upon the sense being used to make the check. For example, bright light might decrease the DC of checks involving sight, while torchlight or moonlight might increase the DC. Background noise might increase a DC involving hearing, while competing odors might increase the DC of a check involving scent.
2 As for unfavorable conditions, but more extreme. For example, candlelight for DCs involving sight, a roaring dragon for DCs involving hearing, and an overpowering stench covering the area for DCs involving scent.A combat across a hall through 2 closed doors is about a DC of 1.
There you go.
Thanks for the info.Although most often it would only br 1 closed door. And I feel like this means every enemy at least on the same floor as the PC's swarms them after about 2 rounds of their first combat.
In most games I play in hearing as you described it seems to be "as plot demands" or as the DM remembers that those people shouldn't be deaf.
I usually don't go too into the mechanics of perception checks for this. My players usually worry about this more than I do. Once they prepared a special magic item to help infiltrate a fortress; Quietus, the brick of silence. They threw it directly at the enemies' alarm gong.
In general I'll prepare a way for the bad guys to catch the players coming, sometimes a sentry sometimes an alarm spell, sometimes a tripwire hooked up to bells or noisy things, all depending on the CR of the enemies and their capabilities.
If the players manage to bypass it, the enemies all default to unaware from there out unless excessive noise is made. If they hit the alarm, at least one group is alerted directly and others would be more likely to have all their gear ready to go by default.
It also changes in regards to how many encounters the PC's have had that day, much like resting times.
The rules various posters have listed above are all good and sound guidelines for using and I'll leave the rules at that. Basic guiding principle, however, is that combat is LOUD. People and monsters are yelling and screaming in pain, weapons and armor are clashing and various spells make significant noise. Not to mention the deafening noise of blackpowder weaponry if gunslingers are used. Combat WILL be heard in most normal environments unless care is taken to make it silent or less noisy in some way. So all adventuring groups should be forced to plan tactically for how they want to take on inhabited compounds without bringing the entire garrison down on their heads. If you assume combat is not heard in other rooms, you are making the game considerably easier for the players (and less "realistic").
So, the key question really becomes how do opponents in other rooms react? That will depend heavily on their state of readiness. Guards on duty, fully armed and armored, will react almost immediately. There could be standing orders on how they should react (who charges to the sound of battle, who tries to flank, who sounds the alarm and or runs for help). Some ill-disciplined or poorly led troops might even run away or react sluggishly. Off duty troops will respond more slowly, pausing to arm and armor, and sleeping troops will be very slow to react.
When I know a battle like this is going to occur, or think it likely, I prepare a chart ahead of time indicating round by round what reinforcements arrive and where, and think out what their tactics will be. If it happens unexpectedly, I frequently pause the game to quickly sketch out the response back of the envelope.
These scenarios can be hard to run and preparation is a GM's best friend.
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The fear is often that the PCs will alert the entire dungeon, turning a lot of manageable fights into one impossible fight.
You can turn it around: plan for the PCs to alert the entire dungeon, turning a lot of easy fights into one tough but manageable fight, with enemies arriving every other turn or so.
It's often been remarked that NPC action economy works better if you have lots of small enemies rather than one big guy; no Slumber Hex stopping the entire encounter, no one BBEG getting out-actioned by seven PCs...
A side benefit is that you can secretly manipulate the amount of enemies that arrive every turn, to make sure you don't overwhelm the PCs too much.
I apply a filter on rules like this; do I have the brain-space to include the potential perceptions of nearby foes?
Sometimes it's easy... adjacent rooms with thin walls or doors, just assume there's someone hearing what's going on. Otherwise, if the potential observers are a few doors down, usually I focus my attention on providing the most fun, vibrant, descriptive, challenging (assuming intelligent foes) encounter I can.
Frankly running multiple encounters at once, even if one of them is in another room where combatants are getting their armor on, picking up weapons, casting buff spells, chugging buff potions and so on is a huge burden. People complain about iterative attacks or attacks of opportunity "slowing down the game" but in my experience it doesn't work that way. It's stuff like simulating large portions of a dungeon simultaneously that does.