Use this skill to hear approaching enemies, to detect someone sneaking up on you from behind, or to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation.
Your listen skill check is either made against a DC that reflects how quiet the noise you are attempting to hear is, or it is opposed by your target's move silently check. Your DM may decide whether or not he makes the listen roll for you, so that if you don’t hear anything than you don't know weather nothing is there or that you failed the check.
|5||Someone in Medium Armor Using a Slow Pace(10 ft per round) Trying not to make noise|
|10||An Unarmored Person Using a Slow Pace (15 ft per round) Trying not to make noise|
|15||A 1st Level Rogue Using Move Silently To Sneak Past a Listener|
|19||A Cat Stalking|
|30||An Owl Gliding In For the Kill|
(a star means) If you beat the DC by 10 or more than you can make out what the people are saying (providing that you understand the language.)
|Listen DC modifier||Condition|
|+5||Through a Door|
|+15||Through a Stone Wall|
|+1||Per 10 feet of Distance|
In the case of someone trying to be quiet, the DCs given on the table could be replaced by move silently checks, in which case the indicated DC would be their average check result (or close to it) so if the DC 19 noted on the table for a cat stalking means that an average cat has a +9 bonus on Move silently checks. Assuming an average roll of 10 on a d20, would put its move silently check to 19.
Varies. Every time you have a chance to hear something in a reactive manner you can make a listen check without using an action. Trying to hear something that you failed to hear previously is a move action.
Yes, you can try to hear something that you failed to hear previously, with no penalty.
- When several characters are listening to the same thing the DM can decide to make a single d20 roll and use it as all the characters' listen checks.
- Half Elves receive a +1.
- A sleeping character has a -10 added to there roll and a successful check awakens the sleeper.