Stealth Equipment.

[eyeofpestilence]

Mind you the argument of "There's no way someone could stay hidden in a room" will pop up. I'll simply counter with "There is no way someone can raise the dead or stop time". Better yet, there is no way the rings amulet and helms should be as overpowered relative to available sneak gear.

It's magic environment. Spot and Listen gear is Magic, wouldn't those interested in stealth have gear which makes them counter available Spot/Listen gear?

Without gear it's nearly impossible for a sneak to do so even with all feats. But in a realm where people can stop time and raise the dead, you can be sure someone would make darn sure they could do the dance in between you and the other person your speaking to without you knowing. It's called magic.

The NWN stealth system has a lot of variables people really don't know about but they are there behind the scenes. Know that I'm all for a dedicated spotter or listener to be able to catch sneakers, but a level 2 char dedicated to spotting shouldn't easily be able to catch someone 10 lvls plus, nor should non-dedicated spotters/listeners. 

My main point are:
1) Ease to make spotter/listener through just gear and buffs which are more common.
2) Difficulty in locating sneak gear to counter available detection gear.





For those curious as to the system modifiers:

Passive (default) mode
Trap detection radius: 5ft
Trap detection rate: 6 seconds (every round)
Trap detection roll: d20
Spot/Listen roll: d10

Active (Detect) mode
Trap detection radius: 10ft
Trap detection rate: 3 seconds (twice per round)
Trap detection roll: d20
Spot/Listen roll: d20

Stealth checks
Player detects stealth: 5 times per second
Player rolls for hide/move silently/spot/listen: 6 seconds
NPC detects stealth: 4 seconds
NPC rolls for hide/move silently/spot/listen: 6 seconds

Listen/Move Silently:

* Automatically cannot detect silenced creatures
* Can only detect invisible (or when you're blind) creatures within the max attack range.
* Cannot hear sanctuaried creatures
* If there is something between you and the target (including creatures) there's a modifier of +5 DC for every 40cm of thickness in outdoor areas
* In indoor areas, if the LOS is blocked and the target is within 4 tiles (dfs search) there's a modifier of +2 DC
* Area listen check modifiers
* +10 DC if you are in combat
* +5 DC if the target is standing still
* -5 DC if you are standing still
* +1 DC for every 3 meters of distance to the target
* Relative size modifiers (Tiny: +8, Small: +4, Medium: 0, Large: -4, Huge: -8)
* Favoured enemy bonuses

Spot/Hide In Shadows:

* Automatically cannot detect invisible creatures
* Automatically cannot detect anything while blinded
* Area spot check modifiers
* During Night, if you do not have a light on you (including weapon lights and darkvision) there is a +5 DC modifier
* During Night, if the target has a light on them, there is a -10 DC modifier
* For stealthed players only, there is a +5 DC if they are in the back arc
* +10 DC if you are in combat
* +5 DC if the target is standing still
* -5 DC if you are standing still
* Relative size modifiers (Tiny: +8, Small: +4, Medium: 0, Large: -4, Huge: -8)
* Favoured enemy bonuses

[Apocrypha]

not to derail the topic bet the way stealth works for nwn in general is a bit busted. a person who's hiding is NOT invisible. Yet a sneak can literally be right in front of you with nothing to hide behind on a snow covered field while wearing all black and be utterly invisible simply based on mechanics. seems a little silly and i would almost say there doesn't even need to be gear for hiding or moving silently since it essentially just allows a person to enhance an already OP game mechanic and further their goal of moving around like a ghost. when in fact they are very much a living breathing entity. sneaks must just all have Hide in plain sight i guess  

   That really just shows how biased you are approaching it.   Most people are real keen on getting angry at sneaks who hide in places they deem unrealistic, but they never look at the other side of the coin.

   Your character can not look every direction at once, but spot checks are made -even directly behind you- at a small penalty.  Also, ambient noise is not factored in.  You could be standing under a waterfall but your listen skill works just fine, allowing you to hear a leaf crunching 20 meters away.  And as for the mechanical places you can hide, they are limited to where you can stand.  It would be a lot easier for sneaks to portray a realistic stealth experience if we could hide under tables, in barrels, on rooftops...ect.  But we cant.


So I guess what I'm saying is that it goes both ways.  Something that involves multiple d20 rolls per second and a ton of modifiers is going to be near-impossible to balance perfectly anyways.   As far as the RP aspect of it, Invis and Camo spells would work WONDERS for someone trying to hide in the open.  It's possible.  You are not an android with heat vision, you are a person who likely does not have the iron will of attention span to stare out over a field unblinking and watch for sneaks while you converse with your buddy.

i don't really consider myself biased about it, it may come across that way and if it does i apologize. I'm not really against stealth or using it to acquire information or promote rp but inevitably it's not always used in such a fashion and can at times be used as an exploit of the system. Example: Ninja looting. My comment wasn't made as a jab at anyone or over anything, I simply stated something that has always bugged me about nwn's in general. There are times when players simply remain stealthed and witness events and thats obviously a perfectly feasible thing to do. I guess for me I'd just like an opportunity to actually have some manner of rp with the eavesdropper. There is a particular scene which always sticks out for me: Rica was having a meeting with lavina and dumas sort of snuck in. Rather than jump the gun and rp anything was amiss we made a series of rolls because I couldn't feasibly see him from my position and he beat me on a roll if i recall so he got to sort of listen in for a while. eventually Rica picked up his scent and he made a nice little getaway. The point i'm making is this sometimes people rely heavily on the base mechanics and miss out on an opportunity to allow the other party a chance at RPing with them. While I don't feel it's a requirement to do things this way sometimes it's nice to see other players conduct themselves in such a way, give some nice emotes about just how exactly they are listening in,etc.it's not like everyone can be trusted to display such a level of maturity and thats why for the most part stealthing is done in the way it is, and i get that. Plus .... Really its unlikely anything will ever change. It probably shouldn't .

Please see the Yellow Portion.  Ninja Looting is not an exploit of the system according to Server Admin and is quite allowed within the rules.  The normal use of the stealth skill has not been identified as exploiting, this includes corner sneaking or listening closely to the whispered conversations of others.  Also, I quite disagree with any statement saying that "inevitably stealth does not promote RP," since that is a bit ego centric to say that because you did not witness the RP it did not occur.
-kyomujinn

[Lucadia]

Well most of the rp happens after the stealth-ed event..as information is relayed to somebody or kepted to the sneak to do what ever he wished with it.

Its unfortunate emotes during stealth break it, and usually pcs start to behave differently once they realize somebody is there.

[Avatar6666]

not to derail the topic bet the way stealth works for nwn in general is a bit busted. a person who's hiding is NOT invisible. Yet a sneak can literally be right in front of you with nothing to hide behind on a snow covered field while wearing all black and be utterly invisible simply based on mechanics. seems a little silly and i would almost say there doesn't even need to be gear for hiding or moving silently since it essentially just allows a person to enhance an already OP game mechanic and further their goal of moving around like a ghost. when in fact they are very much a living breathing entity. sneaks must just all have Hide in plain sight i guess  

   That really just shows how biased you are approaching it.   Most people are real keen on getting angry at sneaks who hide in places they deem unrealistic, but they never look at the other side of the coin.

   Your character can not look every direction at once, but spot checks are made -even directly behind you- at a small penalty.  Also, ambient noise is not factored in.  You could be standing under a waterfall but your listen skill works just fine, allowing you to hear a leaf crunching 20 meters away.  And as for the mechanical places you can hide, they are limited to where you can stand.  It would be a lot easier for sneaks to portray a realistic stealth experience if we could hide under tables, in barrels, on rooftops...ect.  But we cant.


So I guess what I'm saying is that it goes both ways.  Something that involves multiple d20 rolls per second and a ton of modifiers is going to be near-impossible to balance perfectly anyways.   As far as the RP aspect of it, Invis and Camo spells would work WONDERS for someone trying to hide in the open.  It's possible.  You are not an android with heat vision, you are a person who likely does not have the iron will of attention span to stare out over a field unblinking and watch for sneaks while you converse with your buddy.

i don't really consider myself biased about it, it may come across that way and if it does i apologize. I'm not really against stealth or using it to acquire information or promote rp but inevitably it's not always used in such a fashion and can at times be used as an exploit of the system. Example: Ninja looting. My comment wasn't made as a jab at anyone or over anything, I simply stated something that has always bugged me about nwn's in general. There are times when players simply remain stealthed and witness events and thats obviously a perfectly feasible thing to do. I guess for me I'd just like an opportunity to actually have some manner of rp with the eavesdropper. There is a particular scene which always sticks out for me: Rica was having a meeting with lavina and dumas sort of snuck in. Rather than jump the gun and rp anything was amiss we made a series of rolls because I couldn't feasibly see him from my position and he beat me on a roll if i recall so he got to sort of listen in for a while. eventually Rica picked up his scent and he made a nice little getaway. The point i'm making is this sometimes people rely heavily on the base mechanics and miss out on an opportunity to allow the other party a chance at RPing with them. While I don't feel it's a requirement to do things this way sometimes it's nice to see other players conduct themselves in such a way, give some nice emotes about just how exactly they are listening in,etc.it's not like everyone can be trusted to display such a level of maturity and thats why for the most part stealthing is done in the way it is, and i get that. Plus .... Really its unlikely anything will ever change. It probably shouldn't .

Please see the Yellow Portion.  Ninja Looting is not an exploit of the system according to Server Admin and is quite allowed within the rules.  The normal use of the stealth skill has not been identified as exploiting, this includes corner sneaking or listening closely to the whispered conversations of others.  Also, I quite disagree with any statement saying that "inevitably stealth does not promote RP," since that is a bit ego centric to say that because you did not witness the RP it did not occur.
-kyomujinn

Easier to do so with a an invisible mage with haste then a rogue now...You got make some noise some where and all the mosters run at , then go grab the treasure....I use smaller summons. so what if they die....I see more people doing it with lower level char then higher level chars because the monsters are dangerous. So the argument that its a rogue thing to do is not correct. You can even so with a cleric and get away with it....Just rogues can move as fast and they get traped easier.

[Legion XXI]

Easier to do so with a an invisible mage with haste then a rogue now...You got make some noise some where and all the mosters run at , then go grab the treasure....I use smaller summons. so what if they die....I see more people doing it with lower level char then higher level chars because the monsters are dangerous. So the argument that its a rogue thing to do is not correct. You can even so with a cleric and get away with it....Just rogues can move as fast and they get traped easier.

   That's not entirely accurate.  Yeah, it might work on low lvl areas, but go out to somewhere like the Salamanders or Port Sewers and try to loot it without hide/ms.  There are  areas where the NPCs will cast See Invis or True Seeing if you fail even one MS check.

[ThePwush]

[She quietly writes down the missing ingredients to hit that sixty number, with an evil grin...]

 *still not hearing luca when he dont want to be *

[Won't stop her from trying!....needs another +5 to listen equipment and horn or amplify in permanent manner.........]

Some day, Luca, some day...[muttering] 
[/quote]

Good luck...he is one of the best stealthers on the server and so is cord. Besides I use cover alot more then normal stealthers do so good luck.
[/quote]

Well, I may not reach the chance to hear you two, but I know if I strive for it, I can get the other 99%.  My goal is to turn Rhetra into the best detector possible (Listen wise)

[Avatar6666]

Easier to do so with a an invisible mage with haste then a rogue now...You got make some noise some where and all the mosters run at , then go grab the treasure....I use smaller summons. so what if they die....I see more people doing it with lower level char then higher level chars because the monsters are dangerous. So the argument that its a rogue thing to do is not correct. You can even so with a cleric and get away with it....Just rogues can move as fast and they get traped easier.

   That's not entirely accurate.  Yeah, it might work on low lvl areas, but go out to somewhere like the Salamanders or Port Sewers and try to loot it without hide/ms.  There are  areas where the NPCs will cast See Invis or True Seeing if you fail even one MS check.

Actually looted Wererat lords this way...easy when somehting is making more noise then you are. Another option is still spell , I make no noise when summoning creature. dire bears make alot of noise by the way...

[Kaspar]

You're all not ninjalooting/destroying the correct dungeons that spawn the stealth gear. The dungeons that do drop it are being over-farmed by people that don't understand the value of the loot that drops at higher spawn. So the issue isn't with a buggy system, or that stealth gear drops more infrequently, it's because the stealth gear dungeons are being farmed more frequently than the dungeons that drop the spot/listen gear.

Does that make any sense to you guys? I've taken note of this occurring ever since January.

I also would like to point out that I've seen threads like this a dozen times now over the years. You're all beating dead horses, try to do a search for the same topic and read that! You'll see much of the same and perhaps have some questions answered without endlessly repeating yourselves and debating the same thing over and over again.  

Sneaks and sneak gear: http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=15609.0
Listen rings/necklace too abundant?: http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=19297.0
Listen vs MS: http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=20347.0
Stealth versus detection: http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=11739.0

Oh, and before you go on a tangent about ninjalooting:
http://www.nwnravenloft.com/forum/index.php?topic=23981.0

[ThePwush]

[Quietly pummeling a dead horse over and over with her fists as she trains....]

Eh....what?

 

[BahamutZ3RO]

On the topic of ninja-looting/people farming dungeons too often, I think it'd be a fun experiment to have dungeons generate their loot based on who enters and not on how long it's had to build up. One person enters to ninja-loot? 30 gp and an aventurine. Five people go in and take their time? Bigger score.

[ThePwush]

On the topic of ninja-looting/people farming dungeons too often, I think it'd be a fun experiment to have dungeons generate their loot based on who enters and not on how long it's had to build up. One person enters to ninja-loot? 30 gp and an aventurine. Five people go in and take their time? Bigger score.

Stupid question: Is that even possible with the NWN script?

[Crimson Shuriken]

On the topic of ninja-looting/people farming dungeons too often, I think it'd be a fun experiment to have dungeons generate their loot based on who enters and not on how long it's had to build up. One person enters to ninja-loot? 30 gp and an aventurine. Five people go in and take their time? Bigger score.

That shirks rewards to the 2-3 well oiled teammates who get the job done over the haphazardly put together or less impressive or even OOC group of 4-5 even though they overcame the same challenge. The 2-3 already by definition worked even harder due to their less margin of error, its rewarding the wrong thing (party composition) over the right thing (the challenge overcame). Same challenge should be same reward, or you encourage the wrong behavior by getting players to group up, not for what is sensible necessarily, not what their characters would even do necessarily, but because they don't want to get an aventurine when they are doing risky stuff.  It certainly is not a system I would support for that very reason, not to mention it would make zero sense to rob a dungeon anymore and essentially eliminates a dungeon variable needlessly, in looting.

[BahamutZ3RO]

The numbers were just an example, but I think ninja-looting is a detriment to the server and something should be done to remedy it.

[Legion XXI]

On the topic of ninja-looting/people farming dungeons too often, I think it'd be a fun experiment to have dungeons generate their loot based on who enters and not on how long it's had to build up. One person enters to ninja-loot? 30 gp and an aventurine. Five people go in and take their time? Bigger score.

That shirks rewards to the 2-3 well oiled teammates who get the job done over the haphazardly put together or less impressive or even OOC group of 4-5 even though they overcame the same challenge. The 2-3 already by definition worked even harder due to their less margin of error, its rewarding the wrong thing (party composition) over the right thing (the challenge overcame). Same challenge should be same reward, or you encourage the wrong behavior by getting players to group up, not for what is sensible necessarily, not what their characters would even do necessarily, but because they don't want to get an aventurine when they are doing risky stuff.  It certainly is not a system I would support for that very reason, not to mention it would make zero sense to rob a dungeon anymore and essentially eliminates a dungeon variable needlessly, in looting.

   Not to mention, I've ninjalooted in teams before.  If I thought it would get be better gear, you bet I'd do it again.  It would not be hard to find a few stealthy friends and get them to run down there with me if it's just a matter of warm bodies being there.   It may be one of those things that a lot of players hate, but it IS a legitimate thing, and you owe nearly all of your high-end gear to it.  There would not be nearly as many good items to go around if there were not ninjalooters.

   Which brings up something else to consider.  Ninjalooters don't loot just to outfit themselves and their friends.  No, they bring good to the masses because they can FARM them.  So if you take ninjalooting away, the "Upper tier/clique players" people that everyone always complains about are still going to have their good gear.  You are only hurting the people who try to form up random groups and the people who are not loaded enough to buy the items.

[eyeofpestilence]

The numbers were just an example, but I think ninja-looting is a detriment to the server and something should be done to remedy it.

I find it a detriment to server spawn to have groups go and trounce dungeons barely at mid spawn for xp and should be remedied.


As Blue points out...

The likelihood of an item showing up is determined by:

1. The gp value of the item
2. The strength of the dungeon's spawns
3. Which treasury pools the treasure chest is pulling from; some pools have duplicate items depending on the theme of the pool

[Ryltar/ Robert Archer]

   Not to mention, I've ninjalooted in teams before.  If I thought it would get be better gear, you bet I'd do it again.  It would not be hard to find a few stealthy friends and get them to run down there with me if it's just a matter of warm bodies being there.   It may be one of those things that a lot of players hate, but it IS a legitimate thing, and you owe nearly all of your high-end gear to it.  There would not be nearly as many good items to go around if there were not ninjalooters.

TBH if ninjalooting was 'fixed' / 'not allowed' i would be totoally fine with the lack of harder to get high tier gear because then it means likely more partying up to make up the differences and when you DO find that good gear its all the more rewarding 

[FullMoon]

   Not to mention, I've ninjalooted in teams before.  If I thought it would get be better gear, you bet I'd do it again.  It would not be hard to find a few stealthy friends and get them to run down there with me if it's just a matter of warm bodies being there.   It may be one of those things that a lot of players hate, but it IS a legitimate thing, and you owe nearly all of your high-end gear to it.  There would not be nearly as many good items to go around if there were not ninjalooters.

TBH if ninjalooting was 'fixed' / 'not allowed' i would be totoally fine with the lack of harder to get high tier gear because then it means likely more partying up to make up the differences and when you DO find that good gear its all the more rewarding 

Why all the hate for ninja looting ? As I understand it the loot respawns.

[shadymerchant]

I think folks are unaware of how much ninjalooting is done. also, that in many cases it is done by high levels to get around damaging a spawn. I know i am fully capable of forming a team that could wipe out every dungeon on the server nearly ever day, and we know when they are high. There's about 3 to 4 competing groups that could make the same claim. Between all of those groups, the result would be anyone less experienced losing out. Some of us would still get the best gear. Many would never get any.

[APorg]

I agree. Some of the best dungeons for loot rarely get to high spawn because of the Tragedy of the Commons effect. That isn't the fault of ninja looters.

[Crimson Shuriken]

Yupp. Shady nailed it.
And if you did not read the threads linked my Peasant and still remain convinved looting deprives you of anything I do encourage you to do so.

[DM Stygian Witch]

Tragedy of the Commons

Hardin

[dutchy]

these are my thoughts on it.

[Kaspar]

these are my thoughts on it.

I guess you guys better scoop up all that easily obtained detection gear and find it guys...