Raellus
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Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 00:05

Can a PC Help another on an opposed Recon roll for a Group Ambush situation?

Here's the situation: I've got two PCs trying to get into a position to observe an enemy POW camp (and eventually, attack the guards). Since they are trying to get into an OP without being detected by the enemy sentries, I assume that I need to follow the rules for Group Ambush, which involves making opposed skill rolls.

One PC has INT A and Recon C, the other has INT B and Recon C. According to the Group Ambush rules, I have to roll for the PC with the lower Recon skill level. Both PCs have Recon C, but I assume that I should then use the lower of the two Ability scores to determine which PC rolls. Is that correct?

The two PCs already have favorable modifiers (+2 total) for distance (200m) and terrain (forest), but I would like to increase the odds of success by having the PC with the higher Recon skill Help the PC with the lower skill level, thereby adding another +1 modifier to the Group Ambush roll. Is that possible/correct? I don't see anything in the rules saying otherwise but I'd like to make sure I didn't miss- or misinterpret- anything.
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Rolando
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 01:18

I believe that a group trying to ambush some other group or a single target uses the single worst recon skill. So no modifier for helping.

But I can see a situation where one of the characters is not actually ambushing but helping the ambusher make the ambush, if the character is doing some distraction instead of being part of the ambush group, for example.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 07:17

Group rolls for Recon differs from normal group rolls in that when you are sneaking, it is the PC with the lowest Skill Level that makes the rolls, because he has the least knowledge how to do this and when you are scouting others that are sneaking upon you, only the PC with the highest Skill Level rolls. Other than this, it is anormal opposed roll. This concept is similar in many of the YZE-games. Like in normal group rolls, it is up to the Referee to decide what modifiers to use, including help.

Regarding help in group sneaking (normally used when waylaying), it has been debated if you can help or not because normally when someone help someone, they need to communicate and that would of course ruin the sneaking part and that may be true, sometimes, but you can communicate with hand signals

Regarding if you have the same skill level. Technically the rules only mention skill level, not attribute and this is the same in other YZE-games as well, so that would mean that you have to go back to the normal group rolls to see what goes which means it is up to the players to decide. I do get the logic by using the PC with the lowest attribute in that case (and choice after that) but technically the rules doesn't say that, but I'm sure some groups out there use that interpretation.

When it comes to sneaking for other purpose than into combat, I treat that as the same thing, you just don't start combat, you do whatever it is that you wanted to do. For example, if a player wants to steal something from an NPC by sneaking up to him and pickpocket him, I would treat that as a sneak attack but with the difference in that the player, if he succeeds, instead of making an attack, he tries to steal something, (which would mean another recon opposed roll in this game) and then if this little thief wants to sneak away unseen as well, he as to make another recon opposed roll, but here if he succeeds, he don't start a combat, he gets away.
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welsh
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 15:41

As a general rule I would say don't bother with help on Recon. Since every party probably has more than one person with Recon skill, it just cancels out on any kind of opposed roll, because help just turns into a +1 for both sides. Even if you are camouflaging a position and you want to use help for a +1, when the bad guys come along they'll have someone who can give them a +1. So I say just ignore it and keep things simple.

Re sneaking up, I would go with the lowest combined skill and attribute roll. The rules may refer to skill only, but the thinking behind the rule is that the lowest skill is the weak link in the sneaking party. So if you have two Recon Ds in the group, then the one with the lower INT is the weakest link.
 
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Fenhorn
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 16:21

True, if you do decides to allow help when sneaking around then you have to allow help when scouting it. That over all usually benefits the scouting part more than the sneaking part I think.

Even though it is not spelled out directly in the rules, I do think the idea is that, even though it is a group roll (when it comes to waylaying for example), the idea is that it is the "idiot" that rolls because he is the most likely person that will screw things up.

In our FbL campaign, we used the person that had the lowest amount of dice. It wasn't until I read the T2K rules that I saw that it actually say skill level and not skill roll or anything like that. Sure it is easier in FbL to do use the one with the least number of dice since it is a dice pool game. Luckily my group is only three people now so the situations doesn't come up that often and it is usually quite clear who the idiot is.
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Raellus
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Fri 02 Jun 2023, 17:09

Thanks, everyone. I understand the rationale behind only letting the PC with the worst Recon skill roll for stealth/ambushing. However, considerin the in-game circumstances in this particular scenario, it seemed appropriate to allow one PC to help another. The situation was this: two PCs were sneaking through some woods to try to observe a prison camp that is 200m from the tree-line. They weren't going to engage the sentry- they simply wanted to get into position without being seen.

Part of stealth is fieldcraft, and that can be taught/modeled by someone with greater expertise. A more stealthy individual could offer helpful advice like, "Slow down. Look where you step. Avoid those dried twigs. Don't silhouette yourself on that crestline. Stay in the shadows." etc. That's how I justified applying Help in that scenario.

On the T2k (all editions) forum (link in sig), a member suggested that, under those particular circumstances, "Maybe [stealth] can be modelled and some teaching can happen. Might incur a time cost though. So instead of taking 10 minutes to get into position, it takes an hour."

But I get it. From here on out, I won't apply Help to Ambush [stealth] rolls.

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welsh
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Re: Help on Opposed Recon (i.e. stealth) Roll

Sat 03 Jun 2023, 16:44

A more stealthy individual could offer helpful advice like, "Slow down. Look where you step. Avoid those dried twigs. Don't silhouette yourself on that crestline. Stay in the shadows." etc. That's how I justified applying Help in that scenario.
I don't think it's practical to give advice while sneaking through the woods, but you could say that the more skilled person is picking the route and setting the pace, which could be a +1.

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