Rogues were awesome to begin with

[zDark Shadowz]

Sorry... I didn't mean to come off as a "ninja looter", I had no idea of the strength of the boss at the time. (Later, I found out it would have throttled me good, because it did just that).

The viewpoint I had at the time was one of a stressed and frustrated player/character who had had fun exploring the maze until one of the minotaur berserkers had thumped him into KO status, barely stabilising at -9HP left.

As the character, I didn't want to walk away empty-handed and without a token that said "yes he's done it!". He was weak, barely able to handle the 12ab minotaur berserkers, and when he spied around the corner and saw another one coupled by a particularly nasty brute (the minotaur maze master) he had no IC choice but to go invisible or die outright.

Going backwards would mean encountering more 12AB minotaurs, (mechanic-wise at 27 AC *after* expertise, the AB my character also being pitifully low in this state, my character was too inexperienced to be fighting them as it was) without healing kits, (had used the last of mine up) a desire to walk away with something after all this trouble (the maze is incomplete, dm said he wanted to add two more areas so that was probably why the treasure ALL the way up to that point was barely 20 lions at the most from any given barrel) lead to the IC conclusion of scanning the chests, which all contained similar maze junk except for the adamantine bar. I wasnt aware that this was ninja-looting at the time, because I had fought all the way up to this point, and had no other IC alternatives to my own safety but to use the invisibility potion, and I couldn't see why my character ICly would let the treasure slide, being right next to the exit. I'm sorry if it came across as ninja-looting, but it all seemed IC at the time...

The locked chest there, the primary treasure, I could not open.

[Deleted]

Jun 27, 2011 22:48:01 GMT -5 verycoldbeer said:

Yes yes you (I mean a general you not a specific you) alll are da master's at playing da rogue we get it.. and all the others who has problems soloing are simpltons and can not match you leet skillz (this might not be how you mean to come across but I'm just pointing it out because it's starting to seem that way to me.. I actually never care if my game play skillz are sort of crappy; This isn't a PvP Server; I enjoy killing things don't get me worng but the RP is super fantastic here.)

But I'll reiterate, I like that my rouge is more useful and that they can open locks and what have you.. *shrugs* and that they are super sneaky, but as stated before I think with listen and spot you get a d20 where move silently and hide are static, so better gear will give you all a much better chance to see the sneaky of the sneaky.

Move silently and hide are not static when the 'detect' opposed rolls are done. Certainly if one tries to lurk long enough, one will eventually roll a low # and they'll roll a high # though (it is re-rolled every 6 seconds ... more or less). Thus in practice, if you want to sneak right up to someone and spy on them for an extended period you'll need 20 more skill points than them for both stealth skills.

This leads to the claim that sneakers need to have higher stealth scores than detectors have detection scores in general ... or the deck is stacked against them. There is definitely some merit to this claim, but validating it depends on how one measures the fairness of detection. Is it fair to have an even chance of detection in one 6 second window? Or should it be an even chance of detection over a full minute of observing someone? Or longer? Should detection assume that the detector will always use both skills or will most detectors focus on only one of them?

If you want a 50% chance of detection in a single six second window then you'd need the detector to have 6 less spot than the sneaker's hide and 6 less listen than the sneaker's move silently. Why? Because they have ~26% chance to succeed on either roll & they only need to succeed on one roll to detect (though one can argue that it's more important to detect via spot).

Of course, one could also argue that it will be very rare that a detector will invest in BOTH spot and listen, while serious sneakers will invest heavily in both hide and ms. In that case a single detection skill being equal to its opposed skill will result in ~52% chance of detection (assuming the other detection skill has 0% chance of detecting).

If your definition of fair means that the sneak has a 50% chance to remain undetected for a longer period, then it requires stealth on average be even better than detection. For example, to give an evenish chance of being detected (~48%) in 1 minute (10 rolls) then you need the detector to have 13 less in one detection skill (and zero chance to detect in the other).

Table of probabilities for opposed rolls, with the difference being 'initiator - defender'. In nwn it appears that ties go to the initiator, so I counted ties as a win for the initiator (in this case that is the detector).

With skill diff: -20 win or tie with prob: 0
With skill diff: -19 win or tie with prob: 0.00257
With skill diff: -18 win or tie with prob: 0.00777
With skill diff: -17 win or tie with prob: 0.01546
With skill diff: -16 win or tie with prob: 0.02504
With skill diff: -15 win or tie with prob: 0.03701
With skill diff: -14 win or tie with prob: 0.05241
With skill diff: -13 win or tie with prob: 0.07016
With skill diff: -12 win or tie with prob: 0.08978
With skill diff: -11 win or tie with prob: 0.11186
With skill diff: -10 win or tie with prob: 0.13841
With skill diff: -9 win or tie with prob: 0.16732
With skill diff: -8 win or tie with prob: 0.19276
With skill diff: -7 win or tie with prob: 0.22695
With skill diff: -6 win or tie with prob: 0.26503
With skill diff: -5 win or tie with prob: 0.30188
With skill diff: -4 win or tie with prob: 0.33868
With skill diff: -3 win or tie with prob: 0.38261
With skill diff: -2 win or tie with prob: 0.42608
With skill diff: -1 win or tie with prob: 0.47727
With skill diff: 0 win or tie with prob: 0.52597
With skill diff: 1 win or tie with prob: 0.57649
With skill diff: 2 win or tie with prob: 0.62086
With skill diff: 3 win or tie with prob: 0.65841
With skill diff: 4 win or tie with prob: 0.69806
With skill diff: 5 win or tie with prob: 0.73678
With skill diff: 6 win or tie with prob: 0.77155
With skill diff: 7 win or tie with prob: 0.8052
With skill diff: 8 win or tie with prob: 0.83474
With skill diff: 9 win or tie with prob: 0.86157
With skill diff: 10 win or tie with prob: 0.88808
With skill diff: 11 win or tie with prob: 0.91103
With skill diff: 12 win or tie with prob: 0.92893
With skill diff: 13 win or tie with prob: 0.94778
With skill diff: 14 win or tie with prob: 0.96074
With skill diff: 15 win or tie with prob: 0.9754
With skill diff: 16 win or tie with prob: 0.98525
With skill diff: 17 win or tie with prob: 0.99223
With skill diff: 18 win or tie with prob: 0.99729
With skill diff: 19 win or tie with prob: 1

Note: I did this by running a simulation with dice (100K runs each difference) rather than calculating the probabilities, so there is likely to be a very small error for each # (less than 1%)

[zDark Shadowz]

The only real problem people have with stealth, mechanics-wise, is that someone who may want detection, may have only 10-12 wisdom, and not take feats such as alertness + skillfocus in both. A dexxer that intends on stealthing will have these, plus the dexterity modifier, putting them at an advantage.

So really, besides the obvious Zen Archer which is the ultimate wise sharpshooter in taking down scouts and such, only clerics/druids will make the best use out of spells such as true seeing, after crossclassing out of said class amd detracting from their character.

A detect character may not necessarily want to get ALL their equipment with detect, as it would detract from what their character wants to do when he is not detecting - mainly fighting stealthers after they are detected, or other such activities.

A stealther doesn't need to worry as much about this equipment, as being stealthed perfectly to attack and run around a corner is the best protection they would have, and so would seek out ALL the items, and perhaps (with the extremist stealthers) even equipment switch this and that running their finger along the hotkeys just before they strike anyway.

So it's more the nature of how spot/listen and hide/ms are acquired that give a preference toward the hide/ms end of the scale. Whether its significant enough depends on what spells and equipment BOTH players are using, not *just* one or the other.