Kyrrok the Level 1 Shoanti Ranger hears a group moving down the Lost Coast road. They are travelling in the same direction as Kyrrok but are moving faster than him and will shortly overtake him.
Kyrrok dismounts his horse,Silver, and leads her behind a few trees and bushes just off the road (10 - 15'). Here he decides to lay low (use Stealth) to let the group pass him so that he can get a better handle on who they are what they want.
My question:
Handle Animal to get Silver (his horse) to heel and lay low with him?
Separate Stealth for the Horse? - this doesn't feel right to me.
Modified opposed stealth check for having the horse with him?
I'm the GM. I realize its whatever I decide but I'm wondering what others would do.
Any observations appreciated. Great group of people here and I appreciate any help or thoughts you care to provide.
You could try and turn it back round on the player and leave them with the challenge of how they get their animal to hide and then adjudicate their effort.
I think that any of the Heel, Down, Stay and Perform are reasonable Handle Animal commands that could be used to command the animal into a stealthy position. Heel and Stay refer to movement and Down could be noise. Perform could be either, or both, but I think that two handle animal checks should be required to see if the horse remains still and quiet.
If both handle animal checks are successful then the horse's Stealth DC would be 0, comprised of:
Ranks:0
Dex: +2
Size: -4
Aid Another: +2 - the Ranger is aiding the horse.
Alternatively to a stealth DC of 0, I would allow the Ranger to use their stealth DC at a penalty of -8 providing they were next to the horse, taking their combined size to be Huge. Though at 1st level the Ranger's skill score may not be 9 or higher to gain an advantage this way.
Alternatively to a stealth DC of 0, I would allow the Ranger to use their stealth DC at a penalty of -8 providing they were next to the horse, taking their combined size to be Huge. Though at 1st level the Ranger's skill score may not be 9 or higher to gain an advantage this way.
I don't see how a Medium creature and a Large creature are equivalent to a Huge creature.
My suggestion would be to have the ranger make a Handle Animal check to Heel. Success would allow both to use the ranger's Stealth at a -4 penalty for the Large size of the horse; failure means the horse doesn't understand well enough to follow the ranger into hiding.
Thanks guys. Going with the check to heel then the -4 for large size of horse as penalty to ranger stealth, as suggested by Thanis.
I appreciate both of your ideas, thank you.
It's too bad he's not a Hunter with teamwork feats. Stealth Synergy would be perfect in this situation.
explain please Stacktdeck.
explain please Stacktdeck.
Hunters share their Teamwork feats with their AC.
Stealth Synergy lets the two of them roll stealth checks and take the highest as both their rolls.
This means that no matter what, at worst the horse gets the Hunter's stealth check.
oh. Thanks for that.
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If you're looking for a way to enable this, even though the ranger would likely fail, I'd go heel and then allow him to aid in the stealth check if he has time to bring the horse to a well covered area.
However, if you're looking to run it by the books, there's already a trick to have animal companions hide, which if the ranger hasn't trained his AC in, it's a dc 25 push to get it to do so. Then separate stealth checks for both him and the AC, and if it's his favored terrain, both gain the bonus to stealth.
EDIT- Nevermind, level 1. He doesn't have a favored terrain or an animal companion, it's just a horse. So likely DC 25 push check and the stealth rolls, not likely to succeed against several perception checks.
The smart thing for the ranger to do would be to ride the horse well away from where the people are coming up, and then go back and scout on his own. This is a level 1 ranger so the horse is obviously not an animal companion. It also means that he has only 1 point in stealth and handle animal.
Most rangers don’t have a good CHA, and often have a penalty due to dumping CHA. Assuming he did not dump CHA that means at first level his maximum bonus to handle animal is +4. This means it is impossible for him to push the horse to perform a trick it does not have. Also assuming a 18 DEX which gives him a +8 stealth. If he is trying to hide on the horse and takes the -4 penalty for the horse being large that gives him a +4 to his stealth.
So what the ranger needs to do for this to succeed is to roll natural 21 on a d20, then roll stealth with a maximum bonus of +4 and hope that no one in the group following him beats this with their perception roll. This is simply not going to happen. If he were a high level ranger with an actual animal companion than he could probably pull it off.