Listening/Hearing and the rules

[B.T.]

Hi everybody,

allthough doing a Forum search, I did not find an answer to this question:

Is there an asset, that enables characters to listen carefully to their surroundings?

IIRC it was very hard to listen, when you wear a helmet. The slightest movement of the air produced some kind of noise (on the edge of the steel helmet). Certain sounds are obvious: You can hear a tracked (and in most cases wheeled) vehicle, you can hear the firing of a gun, explosions, even people talking, if you are close enough. When I was serving, we usually did not wear helmets, when we patrolled a wooded area - because we were tasked to listen. On my only reserve exercise, we had to wear helmets (Mostly because of the reports of Falkland veterans of the British Army, who had losses from fragments, that injured people's heads.).

In most cases the characters will avoid sounds, using their stealth skills, when they sneak up on a foe's position. But what to do, if the PCs are the guys, who are sneaked up by some enemy? I could just make a roll versus the enemy's stealth asset, but I would like it more, if the players could make a roll for their charakter.

Any suggestions? How do you handle such situations or do you have some kind of houserule?