In last night's game, the PCs were sneaking around a cultists' compound while the bad guys were sleeping. The situation required them to make quite a few Stealth checks, but I wasn't really sure how to handle this for the group as a whole. What do you other GMs do in this sort of situation?

1) Do the PCs each roll Stealth individually? I think this is the RAW solution, but I was worried that it would penalize the one PC who has invested a lot in being sneaky, since if one PC fails and wakes the cultists, they all essentially fail.

2) Can a sneaky PC "pave the way," rolling first, and getting to the destination, then giving the others a boost die or two to make their own rolls easier? I suppose this would be a possible use of an Advantage or two from the sneaky PC, but would you allow this without that PC rolling Advantage to justify it?

3) Or, can the sneaky PC roll for everyone, possibly with a setback for each additional character he's trying to sneak along with him? Or is that too overpowered?

4) Finally, is there any way Leadership would help the sneaky PC buff the non-sneaky PCs somehow?

Thanks for any pointers!

I'd say whatever fits best.

1) I think that's RAWest, but maybe the other PCs can do something different in the meantime (surveillance, hacking, preparing an ambush, whatever) and only the good stealther goes in.

2) That's how I often rule it, that the first PC to sneak passes boost die to the others with advantage, because he can signal them where to go and what to avoid. You can also try that he instead passes on excess sucess, eg if the first stealther rolls 4 sucess and the second fails with 2 failures, he can use the 3 excess sucess from the first PC to still pass the check.

3) This sounds like a good solution to save time on rolls (and maybe a particular clumsy PC adds 2 setback instead). If it's only 2 PCs, you could just do an assisted check.

4) If you have the Age of Rebellion GM Kit, it includes rules for squads: PCs can make Leadership checks to form a squad of minions on them, and there different formations, one of which gives a boost on stealth checks from that squad. This could be inspiring to do something similar. Also, Improved Inspiring Rhetoric.

Last but not least, when I have a bigger group of PCs and I know they are going to stealth around as a group multiple times, I sometimes only let one PC roll for each bit of stealth action, but each time someone else has to roll. Eg the first time they have to get somewhere the sneaky spy rolls the stealth check. The next time the still quite stealthy gunslinger rolls and so on. Eventually on the way out, the clumsy diplomat has to roll.

RAW the ninja can pass out extra Successes they roll to others to aid them.

Nobody reads chapter 3, though the description of stealth gives you a pretty good group afford by allowing to hand out extra successes to other players. One of the more elegant solution for this old stealth rpg issue.

16 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

RAW the ninja can pass out extra Successes they roll to others to aid them.

Oh, that's cool. And, yeah, I just found it: "Extra success on a Stealth check may be used to aid any allied characters that are infiltrating at the same time. Effectively, the successful character points out a factor that might otherwise have caused the ally to fail." (CRB p. 118)

I had just commented in the surgeon thread it's really helpful to read the Talents, Skills, and even Equipment entries. All sort of mechanical goodness in those write ups.

3 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

I had just commented in the surgeon thread it's really helpful to read the Talents, Skills, and even Equipment entries. All sort of mechanical goodness in those write ups.

Yeah, to be fair, I have read the rulebook It's just a lot to remember in the midst of the game. I could have re-checked the rules before posting here, of course. But then how could players down the road find the question?

If the entire party is sneaking, I would use an opposed group Stealth check. So the best character at sneaking is the one that rolls, difficulty based on the best possible "detector" that they're trying to sneak past, and other characters trained in Stealth pass a boost die. Maybe give out a setback or two if some non-stealthy characters in the group are wearing heavy armor or something. But I don't know what the actual rules are, that's just how I would run it off the cuff!

33 minutes ago, SavageBob said:

Yeah, to be fair, I have read the rulebook It's just a lot to remember in the midst of the game. I could have re-checked the rules before posting here, of course. But then how could players down the road find the question?

Yeah, I've read the core books twice and I still learn something new out of each of them.

Another suggestion I might give you is to have all of your players read the rule books up to the "Game Master" chapter. Just let them glance it over. I have a good group of players who all like to use special little rules. I rely on my players to know the rules and teach them to me instead of the other way around. That way we all grow and learn the rules together so if someone else wants to be the GM, they're not nearly as intimidated by having 3 big books to memorize.

3 hours ago, P-Dub663 said:

Another suggestion I might give you is to have all of your players read the rule books up to the "Game Master" chapter. Just let them glance it over. I have a good group of players who all like to use special little rules. I rely on my players to know the rules and teach them to me instead of the other way around. That way we all grow and learn the rules together so if someone else wants to be the GM, they're not nearly as intimidated by having 3 big books to memorize.

I like that idea; I have one player who might go for that at least.

Our norm is that if a rules question comes up, I just make an on-the-fly decision to keep play running smoothly. But we make a note of it to look it up after the game (or ask here) in case it comes up again in the future. (In this case, the smuggler had to roll his Stealth check with a setback for the burly Wookiee he was trying to carry with him. It worked, but I like the "share extra successes" RAW rule better and will use that next time it comes up.)