Stealth Broken?

[Slippin Jimmy]

Have wiped out most of the entire first Act using only stealth shots. Basically from doing this;
hide, shoot, hide, move.

Seems to be if you remember to move away from where you took your shot NPC's just stand there, completely frozen and forfeit the turn so you can keep repeating this.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Originally posted by Slippin Jimmy:

Have wiped out most of the entire first Act using only stealth shots. Basically from doing this;
hide, shoot, hide, move.

Seems to be if you remember to move away from where you took your shot NPC's just stand there, completely frozen and forfeit the turn so you can keep repeating this.

Is how i cleared most of the underdark, especially the minotaurs.

[Edstyles]

Yeah , stealth should trigger a fight right away. Way to fix this is to aloud a suprise condition if the stealth check is passed. This would give you 1 extra attack from suprise round but thats it. And if its a group of players you would have to pass the stealth check for the entire party for the suprise condition.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Wood Elf Ranger
Archery Fighting Style
Colossus Slayer
Mobile Feat
Crusher's Ring, Longstrider, Boots of Speed, Helm of Haste, Amulet of Misty Step
Spellthief Longbow

Go wherever you want to on the battlefield, attack with impunity from the shadows. Take the Fog spell to lay down cover in places where there aren't any natural shadows. Just end your turn by hiding inside the fog, ducking out when it's your turn to attack and ducking backing in for cover.

[BurningFalcon]

Originally posted by Edstyles:

Yeah , stealth should trigger a fight right away. Way to fix this is to aloud a suprise condition if the stealth check is passed. This would give you 1 extra attack from suprise round but thats it. And if its a group of players you would have to pass the stealth check for the entire party for the suprise condition.

No, stealth should not trigger a fight right away. That's how stealth works.Unless you or your shots get noticed, nothing can stop you from sneaking and assassination around. (unless your damage is rolls are bad)

With high Stats, good positioning, good rolls on your side and bad rolls on the enemies sides, you're essentially playing Thief/AssassinsCreed/Any-Stealth-Game

Can it be op? Yes, it can. Should it be nerved? No. Because if you mess up and a fight breaks out, chances are your damage-output drops significantly.

Also, there's no surprise round in DnD5e. There's the surprise condition. Everyone with the surprise condition gets skipped in the first round of combat.

Not sure how this game does it, but usually, npcs do passive-perception checks (or active perception if actually on guard) against the stealth-checks of players within sight/earshot

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by BurningFalcon:

Originally posted by Edstyles:

Yeah , stealth should trigger a fight right away. Way to fix this is to aloud a suprise condition if the stealth check is passed. This would give you 1 extra attack from suprise round but thats it. And if its a group of players you would have to pass the stealth check for the entire party for the suprise condition.

No, stealth should not trigger a fight right away. That's how stealth works.Unless you or your shots get noticed, nothing can stop you from sneaking and assassination around. (unless your damage is rolls are bad)

With high Stats, good positioning, good rolls on your side and bad rolls on the enemies sides, you're essentially playing Thief/AssassinsCreed/Any-Stealth-Game

Can it be op? Yes, it can. Should it be nerved? No. Because if you mess up and a fight breaks out, chances are your damage-output drops significantly.

Also, there's no surprise round in DnD5e. There's the surprise condition. Everyone with the surprise condition gets skipped in the first round of combat.

Not sure how this game does it, but usually, npcs do passive-perception checks (or active perception if actually on guard) against the stealth-checks of players within sight/earshot

It should trigger combat mode immediately, unless you have the Skulker feat.

[BurningFalcon]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

Originally posted by BurningFalcon:

No, stealth should not trigger a fight right away. That's how stealth works.Unless you or your shots get noticed, nothing can stop you from sneaking and assassination around. (unless your damage is rolls are bad)

With high Stats, good positioning, good rolls on your side and bad rolls on the enemies sides, you're essentially playing Thief/AssassinsCreed/Any-Stealth-Game

Can it be op? Yes, it can. Should it be nerved? No. Because if you mess up and a fight breaks out, chances are your damage-output drops significantly.

Also, there's no surprise round in DnD5e. There's the surprise condition. Everyone with the surprise condition gets skipped in the first round of combat.

Not sure how this game does it, but usually, npcs do passive-perception checks (or active perception if actually on guard) against the stealth-checks of players within sight/earshot

It should trigger combat mode immediately, unless you have the Skulker feat.

I don't think so.

The Skulker feat only makes hiding easier and prevents you from being spotted when missing an attack.
I stand by my point, as long as you kill or opponent and nobody sees or hears it, there should be no combat.

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by BurningFalcon:

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

It should trigger combat mode immediately, unless you have the Skulker feat.

I don't think so.

The Skulker feat only makes hiding easier and prevents you from being spotted when missing an attack.
I stand by my point, as long as you kill or opponent and nobody sees or hears it, there should be no combat.

Oh, well that's already the case. In fact, I use this technique in the Dank Crypt with a Rogue (or Astarion) to snipe the Scholars before the rest can react. I can usually take out at least two or three before combat begins, and occasionally I've managed to snipe all four of them without entering combat mode. Once combat mode starts, you then start adding the other party members (who are Hiding nearby) to the combat with a free attack, so many fights can actually be ended this way without the enemy getting a single turn, unless there's a lot of them or they have a high hp pool and take multiple turns to down.

If another enemy see's the one getting attacked, you will enter combat mode, but you can still use Hide to make them skip their turn. It's super effective.

I'm curious to see if Larian is going to do anything about this, or if the Wood Elf Death Squad will reign supreme in the final game.

[Edstyles]

From a balance point of view id rather it trigger fight right away , but thats me.

[Slippin Jimmy]

I dont think it should auto trigger combat exactly, but the AI should at least move towards the general area the shot came from. As it stands, when turn based mode is triggered by your first shot the AI stands perfectly still regardless of how many shots you take at them, just as long as you stealth then move away.

Theres also something wrong now with how the game is accounting for advantage/disadvantage when shooting from stealth.

[id795078477]

There is an argument on play style variety - i.e. allowing certain things to exist because it makes for a more diverse set of opportunities to approach encounters. Alas, the argument doesn't hold water in case the said opportunity is:
- Too universal (applies everywhere)
- Too powerful (outshines everything else)
- Too easy to pull off (no or very few planning or skill is required compared to other things)
- More than one or all of the above

Because if such a thing is still allowed to exist, one or more of these things will happen:
- It becomes the most effective way of playing thus rendering anything else obsolete
- The game starts to be balanced around this feature
- Replay value tanks because every time you do something else, you just handicap yourself balance-wise for no other reason than "trying something new"
- Certain game content such as classes / races that work less effectively with it become gimped - and maybe even useless
- It breaks in-lore setting, basic rule set, common sense or all of them

There's really no way to defend abusing the stealth. Those who argue "it's fun" just don't see long-term. It's fun "now", but it will stop being fun once they realize how shallow the game becomes and how difficult it is to make yourself play objectively worse choices (both psychologically and - well, mechanically as the game will punish way more).

[cl656]

Yes. Even though the A.I knows where you last went into stealth, stealth is still pretty overpowered. You can legit play the game like a stealth game for the most part if you wanted, especially if you are doing a stealth sniper.

[Slippin Jimmy]

Originally posted by cool-dude:

Yes. Even though the A.I knows where you last went into stealth, stealth is still pretty overpowered. You can legit play the game like a stealth game for the most part if you wanted, especially if you are doing a stealth sniper.

Yeah but it doesnt make sense. If you shoot from stealth, then hide again but stand in the same place, the AI knows where you are and reacts but if you move a few metres after hiding the AI freezes in place and forfeits its turn. Surely this is not an intentional mechanic?

[Pan Darius Cassandra]

Originally posted by Dellecross:

There is an argument on play style variety - i.e. allowing certain things to exist because it makes for a more diverse set of opportunities to approach encounters. Alas, the argument doesn't hold water in case the said opportunity is:
- Too universal (applies everywhere)
- Too powerful (outshines everything else)
- Too easy to pull off (no or very few planning or skill is required compared to other things)
- More than one or all of the above

Because if such a thing is still allowed to exist, one or more of these things will happen:
- It becomes the most effective way of playing thus rendering anything else obsolete
- The game starts to be balanced around this feature
- Replay value tanks because every time you do something else, you just handicap yourself balance-wise for no other reason than "trying something new"
- Certain game content such as classes / races that work less effectively with it become gimped - and maybe even useless
- It breaks in-lore setting, basic rule set, common sense or all of them

There's really no way to defend abusing the stealth. Those who argue "it's fun" just don't see long-term. It's fun "now", but it will stop being fun once they realize how shallow the game becomes and how difficult it is to make yourself play objectively worse choices (both psychologically and - well, mechanically as the game will punish way more).

As someone who regularly abuses stealth, I agree with all of the above.

The biggest issue, to me, is that enemies do not pursue the 'last known location' marker enough. If they did, then this would at least turn stealth (and the skirmishing playstyle in general) into a game of cat and mouse, as you would be forced to constantly reposition in order to maintain stealth. In many scenarios you would quickly run out of hiding spots (unless you had means of creating your own, such as with Fog Cloud or Darkness spells).

I know that this is already possible, because in fact sometimes enemies do in fact chase your last known location marker - the skeletal warrior in the Dank Crypt, for example, will chase it. As long as it's in his line of sight.

Larian needs to build some kind of "prowl/patrol/high alert" system for NPC's after they've been alerted to your presence, especially if you've gone into combat with them and then ended combat by moving out of range or if they spent a round not being able to find you (for example, if you leave your last known location marker in one room, then use stealth to sneak into another room, perhaps shutting a door behind you or something, the npc's will lose interest...) But they need multiple states of alertness, so that once they are alerted, they actively search for you.

I don't see any other way they can at least make stealth challenging and add some kind of cost to it, other than making it a full action again, which would be a bummer (and also wouldn't solve anything once we get the Skulker feat).

[Slippin Jimmy]

Originally posted by Pan Darius Kairos:

this would at least turn stealth (and the skirmishing playstyle in general) into a game of cat and mouse, as you would be forced to constantly reposition

Thats how I thought stealth would play out especialy in cave networks or confined alleys in towns. Imagining times when youv just pushed your luck too far, become cornered and your rogue has now been forced into close combat for so many turns as the rest of your party race to reinforce him.

Would add a far greater depth and immersion to the combat.

[id795078477]

The "cat-n-mouse" sounds nice... until you realize that PC can abuse it in several ways.
- First, it's possible to use stealth to get to inaccessible / very hard to get places. AI will never get there through searching. So still shooting fish in a barrel
- Second, laying traps / hazards on the way to PC will allow to exploit the knowledge of the fact AI will run to the "checkpoint"
- Third, boxes & barrels. Boxes - to cut off the routes to the place (don't even need a lot, just maybe 2-3 in most cases). Barrels - well, if they're nearby then gathering NPC around and blowing them up is a real abuse here.

Basically - any predictability in the behavior model can and will be exploited. It's not a bad idea to improve AI's reaction to the "last known location" but it's not nearly enough and if done wrong can only make matters worse.