Tuesday, July 22, 2014

How silent are those Boots of Elvenkind?

So just how effective are Mirado's Boots of Elvenkind?

S&W Complete is pretty definite on the subject:

"Boots of Elvenkind: The wearer of the boots moves with complete silence."

No word about speed restrictions, encumbrance, etc. As written, you could run in these puppies and not make a sound. It doesn't even say foot sounds, only - movement. So, breathing? Swinging swords? What's the cutoff, I wonder, for "movement." You could say they are boots, so it's obviously foot movement only, but a ring of invisibility doesn't just hide your finger or hand, and a cloak of protection works on your whole body. So it's a valid question in my mind.

AD&D was a lot more restrictive:

"Boots of Elvenkind: These soft boots enable the wearer to move without sound of footfall in virtually any surroundings. Thus the wearer can walk across a patch of dry leaves or aver a normally creaky wooden floor and make only a whisper of noise - say 95% chance of silence in the worst of conditions, 100% in the best."

That's what I was thinking of during the session, but the short version S&W went with makes it considerably better of a magic item.

Certainly they got a bit weaker in 3.x, according to the SRD:

"Boots of Elvenkind These soft boots enable the wearer to move quietly in virtually any surroundings, granting a +5 competence bonus on Move Silently checks."

But still, yeah, I need to ask our GM what effect he's thinking of.

5 comments:

  1. It would be also interesting to treat them as giving the same bonus you get for being (say) an Nth level thief. So if you're treated as a 10th level thief, you might get +4 on Stealth Checks (in 5e), and be advantaged (call it another +4 ish). S&W would be rather less good.

    that way, you're good, but if you're a thief with Das Boots, you're _better._

    Eh, "completely silent" is a nice no-fuss rule, though.

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  2. How would that be with GURPS DF? Would you just add a bonus the Stealth skill or would you allow it to make the PC using the boots silent even their breath?

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    Replies
    1. Use the silence advantage. Pick the appropriate level.

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    2. Yes, that's how - or you can just make them full-out Boots of Mage-Stealth, which will help significantly with Sneaking in the Dungeon.

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