When a PC makes a successful Stealth check and generates additional successes I understand they can use these successes to aid another character that is infiltrating at the same time.

So here is my question. Does this mean the character can give an assist (skilled or otherwise) to the other character, or does it mean that other character gets an automatic Success and doesn't even have to roll a Stealth Check?

When a PC makes a successful Stealth check and generates additional successes I understand they can use these successes to aid another character that is infiltrating at the same time.

So here is my question. Does this mean the character can give an assist (skilled or otherwise) to the other character, or does it mean that other character gets an automatic Success and doesn't even have to roll a Stealth Check?

I do it the opposite way. One player goes first, then passes any successes beyond the first over to the next player. Followed by the next, and the next. It makes it easier to keep track of who is positioned where if someone should fail a check.

I do it the opposite way. One player goes first, then passes any successes beyond the first over to the next player. Followed by the next, and the next. It makes it easier to keep track of who is positioned where if someone should fail a check.

Well we don't literally pool the dice. We still know how many successes and failures each person has. I'm not sure what you mean by positioning.

When I read it, it makes me think of a free assist. It fits better narratively. I mean, a silhouette 2 being could sneak a silhouette 0 being in a purse, maybe. For average, silhouette 1 PCs, I don't think it really makes sense to be an auto-succeed for somebody else.

Yeah the auto succeed thing doesn't really make sense to me either. I guess it really depends on how the group is sneaking or hiding. Are you doing it one at a time or all at once. I could understand giving the next player an advantage on the next roll, but not rolling over Sucesses.

There's no auto-success invovled - everyone makes a check. It's just that if the first person rolled 4 successes, the second person starts with 3 successes. If he rolls 3 failures on his check, he's left with 0 successes, i.e., a failure. Which means he gets noticed. This way even characters who suck at Stealth can sneak around, provided they have a more skilled companion who "scouts ahead" for them and maybe signals them to hunker down when a sentry approaches, stuff like that.

This is, incidentially, how the Stealth mechanic is laid out in the Skills chapter of the Core rules.

As for positioning, the assumption is typically that the PCs are sneaking from point A to point B. So if they fail their check and are noticed, where are they in relation to those points? Did they make it all the way to point B, or did they barely move from point A? Did some players reach point B unnoticed while someone else got made halfway there? Are some still waiting near point A for the path to clear so they can move across? That sort of thing. When you roll one PC at a time there's no arguing about how far the various people got before one of them failed the check.

Does this mean the character can give an assist (skilled or otherwise) to the other character, or does it mean that other character gets an automatic Success and doesn't even have to roll a Stealth Check?

I read it as the former, which means it costs a maneuver and adds a boost die.

Narratively, we run it as if one guy (the sneakiest) is going ahead of the rest and signalling when it's safe to proceed and when they need to hold still. (Mechanically, it's just the usual thing of Advantages generated by the first roll giving the next guy a Boost.)

I could see each extra success = another boost for someone else, but not more than that. There is only so much that a super-stealthy Bothan can do to allow Jar Jar to sneak anywhere.

I could see each extra success = another boost for someone else, but not more than that. There is only so much that a super-stealthy Bothan can do to allow Jar Jar to sneak anywhere.

There's also a limit because it costs a maneuver. So if somebody rolls at least three successes on a Stealth action, they could assist two people (and take 2 Strain). At least, that's how I'd interpret it.

I can see either Krieger22's passing successes or Thallios's passing a Boost for each success. Either way, it should be that the sneaky leader should be able to give a lot of help to those behind him; however, they shouldn't just auto-succeed.

I think we can all picture the typical scene in movies were the sneakiest guy goes in front and signals the others, and generally they make it through. However, it's also easy to recall when the klutzy guy in the middle/end fumbles and trips an alarm or something.

whafrog, I think the idea is that the successes automatically pass Boosts, not using the maneuver system. For one, generally this kind of sneaking would be in narrative time, not structured rounds. Second, anyone can give a Boost for the Assist maneuver, even Mr. Trips-Over-Himself. Third, if the leader is very skilled at sneaking and rolls well, I wouldn't penalize them by capping the amount of help he can give to the others.

Thanks for all the input, guys! The way that makes the most sense to me so far is for every additional success to pass a boost die on to the next person. That way its still really helpful, but not so much so that the other people in the part don't have to worry about being stealthy at all!

Thanks for all the input, guys! The way that makes the most sense to me so far is for every additional success to pass a boost die on to the next person. That way its still really helpful, but not so much so that the other people in the part don't have to worry about being stealthy at all!

My only counter would be that in combat, all it takes is a single advantage to pass a boost die to the next person. Seems odd that being able to utilize success for helping others isn't more beneficial.

whafrog, I think the idea is that the successes automatically pass Boosts, not using the maneuver system.

Why not? It's in the rules for a reason.

For one, generally this kind of sneaking would be in narrative time, not structured rounds. Second, anyone can give a Boost for the Assist maneuver, even Mr. Trips-Over-Himself. Third, if the leader is very skilled at sneaking and rolls well, I wouldn't penalize them by capping the amount of help he can give to the others.

I don't know about "generally", but I agree, if you're in narrative time then there's no need for a maneuver, per se. However, even in narrative time the "clock" could be ticking, and having to dish out too many successes to keep the party stealthy might be used narratively by the GM to slow the party down. It depends how critical the situation is and how much tension you want to leverage.

Edit: for your second point, technically you're right, the player can ask for Mr. Trips to assist, but the GM is free to disallow it (as noted in the rules). Personally I usually only allow "assists" to be from trained people, or something contextually important which depends heavily on the situation and the source of the assist.

If the party is all together sneaking through the jungle led by Mr Stealth, his successes could Assist extra members of the party; meanwhile Mr Trips wouldn't be able to help anybody in this particular endeavour. However, maybe if Mr Trips is good at Perception, and they stationed him as a lookout up on some cliff, with comm access, then his Perception successes could be added to the party's Stealth attempts as Assists.

Thanks for all the input, guys! The way that makes the most sense to me so far is for every additional success to pass a boost die on to the next person. That way its still really helpful, but not so much so that the other people in the part don't have to worry about being stealthy at all!

My only counter would be that in combat, all it takes is a single advantage to pass a boost die to the next person. Seems odd that being able to utilize success for helping others isn't more beneficial.

However, extra successes in combat only equate to extra damage. It doesn't increase the next PC's chance of succeeding. If you overkill a rival, there is zero bonus from any successes beyond what is required to kill that NPC.

Thanks for all the input, guys! The way that makes the most sense to me so far is for every additional success to pass a boost die on to the next person. That way its still really helpful, but not so much so that the other people in the part don't have to worry about being stealthy at all!

My only counter would be that in combat, all it takes is a single advantage to pass a boost die to the next person. Seems odd that being able to utilize success for helping others isn't more beneficial.

However, extra successes in combat only equate to extra damage. It doesn't increase the next PC's chance of succeeding. If you overkill a rival, there is zero bonus from any successes beyond what is required to kill that NPC.

I know. Sorry if anyone feels my counter-point derailed the thread more than the point I was responding to.

Just saying - I am not the one who brought up combat :-)

I was merely stating how this is still a bonus, and that the combat example was an apples to oranges comparison.

hhhmmmm....I guess I see the words 'aid' and 'assist' as having the same meaning. It would still be significantly beneficial to have extra successes turn into Boosts. Say you get 3 Successes and 1 Advantage on a roll, now all of a sudden you can give somebody 3 Boost to their Check as opposed to 1 (if you were to turn that Advantage into a Boost). This seems pretty significant to me.

I still like the pooling of success and failure. It is a group effort to hide. People are helping each other. One person acting a fool could get the whole group caught.

I still like the pooling of success and failure. It is a group effort to hide. People are helping each other. One person acting a fool could get the whole group caught.

Actually it would be the opposite...the fool would be averaged out. Pooling mitigates the extremes.

I still like the pooling of success and failure. It is a group effort to hide. People are helping each other. One person acting a fool could get the whole group caught.

Actually it would be the opposite...the fool would be averaged out. Pooling mitigates the extremes.

I would agree if the number of failures rolled actually meant something. It almost never does. In a low-stealth group, someone rolling 4-6 failures and no success themselves is going to be hard to overcome.

Sounds like a Bell curve and since we have all been in school we know that is to help out the people that don't score as high making a range much larger for average, so to fail they would have to really fail to impact the bell curve.