Upcoming Change - Cover, Disguise and Examine

[Aniel]

Secret evil is a cool thing in general- Though admittedly it's something that isn't as cool when nearly every faction on the server is unabashedly evil. Then secret evil becomes another citizen where tags turn into 'you're just like us but server rules obligate us to be mean to you or else' but that's incredibly off topic.

As always, people who break rules / cause grief can be reported. None of that is relevant to the topic or the feedback being asked for really.

The goal behind any system such as this is of course to encourage roleplay: if someone is doing evil things, then ideally they should be held accountable for those actions. Tags such as outcast or especially pirate are not in the slightest necessary to condemning someone as immoral or evil.

To add onto a few things I see "The disguise system linked with wysiwyg, means they can wander around and feel fully justified in doing so, this cover system just adds another layer of protection to this behavior, you already know they are evil scumbags that are looking for a victim you just can't break the disguise to call them out on it(nothing against evil scumbags just an example)."

If you think they're suspicious or if you already know that they're evil "scumbags" and are out looking for victims, then you can already interact with that premise. There's no need for you to pierce the disguise in this situation. Unless what you mean to say is "I OOCly can metagame/powergame my way into confronting someone that I think might be evil to ruin their fun, but a mechanical system makes it hard to justify my behavior therefore it is bad." There's really not too many other ways to interpret this.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

Was my post overlooked in the barrage of anti-disguise posts? I thought it would be a neat feature.

[Nekonecro]

Perhaps make cover give a bonus to your disguise skill rather than outright negating the ability to break a disguise.

That's a viable option, but it has some downsides in my opinion:
First it gives an extra edge to strong bluffers vs strong spotters, I'm not certain how the spot vs bluff/perform balance is right now but changing it requires consideration.
Second and more importantly this means you still need to be a master bluffer just to hide your face instead of just putting on a piece of cloth/metal. having 10 bluff won't be enough to fool almost anyone if your PC didn't invest in bluff, and giving any more will disrupt the spot vs bluff balance further.

Perhaps as an additional thought, it only gives a buff up to a certain cap?

As an example, let's say the cover gives a +20 to your disguise and we put a cap on 40 disguise skill.

Someone with 10 bluff covers themselves, they get +20 to make 30 bluff.
Someone with 50 perform covers themselves, because they're over the cap of 40 they get no bonus.
Someone with 30 uses cover and they get a +10 to hit the cap of 40.

That way someone with a lower disguise skill can use the cover mechanic to bring their skill up with the trade off of looking suspicious.
Anyone with a super high disguise skill is likely to avoid using cover so they don't appear as suspicious.

Edit: Typo fixes.

[andthenthatwasthat]

Is there a skill that will guide how good somebody is at covering? Ability? I don't think my 6 WIS character will notice that they "missed" a spot.

I tried to look for this in the other posts, but could not find it (sorry if it was answered).

[chris a gogo]

If you think they're suspicious or if you already know that they're evil "scumbags" and are out looking for victims, then you can already interact with that premise. There's no need for you to pierce the disguise in this situation. Unless what you mean to say is "I OOCly can metagame/powergame my way into confronting someone that I think might be evil to ruin their fun, but a mechanical system makes it hard to justify my behavior therefore it is bad." There's really not too many other ways to interpret this.

Well okay lets use an example.

Group A. Mixed drow human group disguised fully buffed standing around chatting in a building in Cordor.

Character A .walks in is surprised fails to break the disguises makes an IC excuse and leaves.

Is then followed by members of group A into another public Tavern and is threatened and capture is attempted but character A knowing that this is clearly what is going to happen manages to escape by teleporting away before they get the teleport ward up.

The follow up is an unknown group of ten people that were hanging around the city and made threats and an attempted kidnapping.
Great adds the possibility of follow up RP but not against the individuals involved because fully warded and disguised but there was a chance that the disguises could of been broken allowing for follow up consequences..

Now add the Cover mechanic into the mix.

Player A walks into a room and Ten people of totally unknown and all -covered there is now zero chance of knowing who any of these people are so there is no chance at all for any follow up RP as they are completely immune to identification.

They are clearly up to no good as they were the first time the mechanic just adds a layer of immunity to them without the need for any character investment into hiding who they are.

That is my point about it adding nothing to role play in it's current form.

[Anachorn]

Hi all,

First, thanks for all the input, and keep it going! it helps us refine this idea into a better feature.

Second, please see the red emphasize I added in the first post, the cover is not unbreakable - there is a a spot check to bypass it, in fact it will be much easier to break than a disguise by a strong bluffer.

Carry on

[chris a gogo]

Ah missed that bit indeed.
Sorry I retract my previous posts.

[Nitro]

Assuming that the DC for piercing through covering is static, what is the DC? If numbers like these are not shared it's just going to end up with a situation where players test for themselves and only those lucky enough to be in discord groups with those testers knowing the DC.

[monkeywithstick]

If the cover is pierced, can an underlying disguise then be pierced also?

[Anachorn]

Assuming that the DC for piercing through covering is static, what is the DC? If numbers like these are not shared it's just going to end up with a situation where players test for themselves and only those lucky enough to be in discord groups with those testers knowing the DC.

It wasn't decided yet and may not be static, you make a good point but its slightly above my paygrade, I believe once the final mechanics are in place someone with more experience than me will decide if its better for the server to reveal or obscure the precise numbers.

If the cover is pierced, can an underlying disguise then be pierced also?

Yes, once cover is pierced there will be a text in the description alerting that this PC tried to cover its appearance but you managed to spot some details despite it, from that point the regular disguise behavior starts as if there wasn't a cover at all, spot vs bluff/perform, etc.

[chris a gogo]

So you have to examine someone twice to be able to pierce the disguise, will the cool down effect this meaning do you then have to wait until the timer runs out to try and breach the disguise part?

[Anachorn]

So you have to examine someone twice to be able to pierce the disguise, will the cool down effect this meaning do you then have to wait until the timer runs out to try and breach the disguise part?

No, I described what happens behind the scenes when you examine someone that is both covered and disguised, in any situation all you will need to do is examine someone once for everything to happen automatically afterward.

[WanderingPoet]

I'd suggest keeping the race mechanics for lore for cover. That is, an elf should be able to tell a drow is a drow and vice versa; and a dwarf a duegar and vice versa.

Drow and elves look very different, and while a human might be fooled by the half a foot difference in height; an elf is unlikely to fail to notice the differences between a cave elf and a forest elf just because they covered up their skin and hair.

Same with dwarves and duegar; mortal enemies don't need to see the skin to tell.

Overall I hope the value is relatively low to bypass; it's already unfortunate that if you don't heavily invest in spot that you lose out on beating stealth, disguise and mimic. Listen is weak in comparison (though it's easier to stack/harder to stack MS vs hide); as it only detects stealth and doesn't even do that well.

[DM Rex]

If you're not a moderator, please don't try to moderate other posts with your own. Report the post and move past it. Thank you.

[Diegovog]

My concern is that people are never ever cooperative in these situations.

It's interesting that you can tell they are actively covering themselves, which raises an alarm. And in the beginning I think people will bother investigating and asking to remove cover. But ultimately in order to keep some sanity and avoid constant conflict people will just shrug it off and let guards handle it in settlements that have them.

Ultimately to help people infiltrate/spy/access enemy settlements I don't think adding an extra layer of disguise is the most effective way. It's just about balancing disguise/stealth with detection. Nowadays it's too easy to reach 100+ spot and anyone can walk around with detection gear and simply swap should things become suspicious.

Edit: Also, might be even more confusing for people who aren't completely familiar with Arelith and all its systems. Can put off people to not understand when you can tell they are covering, but not disguising.

[Mattamue]

Nowadays it's too easy to reach 100+ spot and anyone can walk around with detection gear and simply swap should things become suspicious.

I disagree it's easy to get 100+ spot.

• Invest 33 in the skill -- not easy
• Roll a 20 on your check -- not controllable at all and subject to the cooldown
• Have a significant wis mod -- not easy, requires a wisdom focused or adjacent class combo
• Be a ranger FE -- not easy, requires a specific class
• spot on main gear -- not easy, requires sacrificing other important skills or attributes
• Having a 2nd spot gear set -- easy, but do you really change all your clothes and hold two daggers before you look at someone and then pray they don't see you do that and hostile you in your spotted pajamas?
• Hitting the +50 skill bonus max, +12 buffing your -8 wis, 33 invested, and getting a 20 roll for a 108 spot check -- not easy
• Cast or consumable clar/TS -- 25 to spot for 6s, this one is easy, but still takes lore

I think getting 25 is easy. 100+ is not easy and would always require some kind of investment.

This isn't directed at you Diegovog, but standing there and actively changing your clothes before looking at someone feels like a gross thing to do OOCly. Changing into your spot guard clothes in the barracks and then going out on patrol or changing in the sewers into your bluff gear and sneaking up to the square at night... feel like better ideas.

Otherwise, I like the change. Making the model visuals part of the mechanics of examine feels like the change is adding verisimilitude to the server. Streamlining something that was fuzzy and subject to feelings (and hurt feelings) before.

[Nitro]

Alright, now that I've given it some thought and slept on it I can see a couple of issues with the cover system.

• If the DC is too low it becomes a useless system, if it's not then classes that normally don't get bluff now get a bluff replacement for free with no investment.

• It actively encourages "Remove the helmet" gameplay and legitimizes people asking those with a disguise tag to unhelm, there's a big stonking tag in the description saying how suspicious this person is after all.

• It also legitimizes popping truesight and clairaudience/clairvoyance before examining someone, because unlike disguise this system declares someone to be suspicious before you break the disguise/cover.

• It doesn't discriminate between contexts. The all-covered rogue with a face mask going up to the bank is treated the same as the paladin in full plate clearing a dungeon, both are marked as suspicious and it makes sense to confront them about revealing themselves because the system encourages it.

• It's going to lead to some very silly PvP over what people are wearing.

So right now this really just seems like it gives a bluff replacement for free for those who can't or don't want to invest in bluff (Particularly drow, pirates, outcasts and such that don't even have to disguise to hide their status with this). It doesn't invalidate bluff, but it means that taking bluff unless you intend going deep into it becomes a pointless expenditure when you can just cover up instead. (Unless the DC is low, in which case the system becomes pointless anyway)

I'd much rather see being covered giving a bonus to bluff, and that's it. Bluff is still the primary system for disguising and this becomes a secondary supporting thing a disguiser can do to augment their disguise by covering up completely, rather than everyone covered up completely being suspicious by default.

[Morgy]

Nowadays it's too easy to reach 100+ spot and anyone can walk around with detection gear and simply swap should things become suspicious.

Having a 2nd spot gear set -- easy, but do you really change all your clothes and hold two daggers before you look at someone and then pray they don't see you do that and hostile you in your spotted pajamas?

Changing to spot gear with the intention to immediately examine them after seeing they have [Disguised] is meta-gaming.

[Kalopsia]

Nowadays it's too easy to reach 100+ spot and anyone can walk around with detection gear and simply swap should things become suspicious.

Having a 2nd spot gear set -- easy, but do you really change all your clothes and hold two daggers before you look at someone and then pray they don't see you do that and hostile you in your spotted pajamas?

Changing to spot gear with the intention to immediately examine them after seeing they have [Disguised] is meta-gaming. :P

And so is popping True Seeing and Clairvoyance :D
I'm always cautious about casting these spells around disguised people to avoid (justified) questions.

[Morgy]

Folks would have a reason to cast true seeing now for spot bonus if IC they find deeply hooded persons suspicious. Currently to gain true seeing purely to break a disguised tag with +20 spot, with no other evidence, would be considered a rule break in most cases.. To attempt to break through the concealment of an obviously concealing hood? Not so OOC at all. The bonus could potentially break through the disguise too, though.

Personally I don't think true seeing spot bonus should count towards breaking disguises, as it is too easily abused and rarely would anyone just happen to be in the rounds/level duration to benefit from breaking a random person's disguise.

[Gouge Away]

• If the DC is too low it becomes a useless system, if it's not then classes that normally don't get bluff now get a bluff replacement for free with no investment.

• It actively encourages "Remove the helmet" gameplay and legitimizes people asking those with a disguise tag to unhelm, there's a big stonking tag in the description saying how suspicious this person is after all.

• It also legitimizes popping truesight and clairaudience/clairvoyance before examining someone, because unlike disguise this system declares someone to be suspicious before you break the disguise/cover.

• It doesn't discriminate between contexts. The all-covered rogue with a face mask going up to the bank is treated the same as the paladin in full plate clearing a dungeon, both are marked as suspicious and it makes sense to confront them about revealing themselves because the system encourages it.

• It's going to lead to some very silly PvP over what people are wearing.

I think the overzealousness that this will almost surely cause with PC guards making visitors take off hoods (we do have such nice hoods now) and show their arns or worse, accosting people in the wild who have covered faces could very easily get grating. Yeah, it's RP, and guard RP is good, but this could become too much good.

[Nevrus]

I think this highlights a problem that already exists and is felt-

Spot gear is bad.

Bluff and Perform gear is readily available with much, much higher numbers. Spot gear comes down to:

1. Cloak of the Sight +5
2. Elven Helmet (If you are an elf or a UMD build) +4
3. Guardman's Armor +3 (If you can wear heavy armor which likely precludes being a spot-getting class)
Plate-wearing elves can get +12, with all other slots at +2 adding up to an additional +12 for a total of +24 without weapons.
Non-plate wearing non-elves get +5, maxing out at +21 without weapons.

Compare this to, say... For Perform...
1. Golden Crown +3
2. Ruby Pendant +5
3. Addy Bracers of Persuasion +6
4. Blue Suede Boots +5
5. Silk Shirt Line +2 (Or if you have bard levels Jester's Jubilant Attire +4)

Total of 21-23, with additional slots adding +8 unless there's specific loot drops for them, in which case it might be higher, for a total of 29-31. And these are available to all characters regardless of build with the exception of Jester's Attire.

Based on this math alone, I'd recommend that the DC for Cover be around 30 so that someone wearing full spot gear without skill investment can pierce it 70% of the time, or 25 for a much higher return on investment.

I'd also recommend adding some more craftable spot gear, and make them difficult or impossible to rune so that wearing it puts the wearer in a vulnerable position in order to gain this additional information.

Cover as a means of lowbies interacting with lowbies while still being vulnerable to detection by spotters? Sure. Ship it.

Cover as a means of avoiding even lowbie spotters with zero skill investment? No. Someone with decent wisdom and gear at level 10 (13 skill points and +5 wisdom and +4 from random gear for a total of 22) should have a reasonable shot at seeing through the crappy low-effort covering to get to the gooey disguise artist center. Without context of who people are or the lore to spot tags they probably won't be able to do much with it, but that's about where I'd set it.

It should be a system for tricking people with no detection investment at all, making it risky to deploy in large uncontrolled settings. It shouldn't be the go-to, it should be the last resort or the controlled interaction.

With that, I would find it an acceptable addition to the server- a tool for people who don't have the resources to get much more than what it offers to be used when they think they can get away with it. People without any spot investment who get a full gear set should be able to overcome it because hey, they have put on all of their gear to doing this one thing. Let them do that thing and feel special. It actually gives them a reason to get a detection set, to overcome this one hurdle. Making economics and gameplay.

And that's my rant.

TL;DR: If the DC is low enough to be risky this will be interesting. Let people with spot gear and no other investment have a good chance of beating it. Moar spot gear plz thx.

[Anachorn]

Folks would have a reason to cast true seeing now for spot bonus if IC they find deeply hooded persons suspicious. Currently to gain true seeing purely to break a disguised tag with +20 spot, with no other evidence, would be considered a rule break in most cases.. To attempt to break through the concealment of an obviously concealing hood? Not so OOC at all. The bonus could potentially break through the disguise too, though.

Personally I don't think true seeing spot bonus should count towards breaking disguises, as it is too easily abused and rarely would anyone just happen to be in the rounds/level duration to benefit from breaking a random person's disguise.

I agree, casting spells to better be able to penetrate a cover sounds completely reasonable to me.
Disguise is something you only know OOCly that you didn't break, and ICly you are supposed to be fooled by it and therefore shouldn't do anything to try penetrating it.
A cover you didn't break however is something you know ICly and can do whatever you want ICly with that knowledge - cast spells, wear glasses, whatever helps

[Quidix]

Spot gear is bad.

Bluff and Perform gear is readily available with much, much higher numbers. Spot gear comes down to:

1. Cloak of the Sight +5
2. Elven Helmet (If you are an elf or a UMD build) +4
3. Guardman's Armor +3 (If you can wear heavy armor which likely precludes being a spot-getting class)
Plate-wearing elves can get +12, with all other slots at +2 adding up to an additional +12 for a total of +24 without weapons.
Non-plate wearing non-elves get +5, maxing out at +21 without weapons.

Compare this to, say... For Perform...
1. Golden Crown +3
2. Ruby Pendant +5
3. Addy Bracers of Persuasion +6
4. Blue Suede Boots +5
5. Silk Shirt Line +2 (Or if you have bard levels Jester's Jubilant Attire +4)

There are several more pieces of spot gear, and it can easily match perform bonuses if you are willing to make the investment. Introducing even more spot gear would substantially shift the balance towards spotters:
+5 spot belt (belt of seeing)
+5 spot battleaxe (watchman) - note that this can be dual-wielded
+5 spot cloth armor (murder's rainment)
+5 spot helmet (twin-head)
+5 spot cloak (as already mentioned)

Beyond that, what is all the bluff gear mentioned? My understanding is that bluff is at a clear disadvantage to perform in terms of gear (especially as perform has a strong synergy with bard, the same not being true for bluff).

[CorsicanDoge]

Yeah if people are able to hit 120+ spot then there's obviously a way for people to hit the 50 skill cap. The gear/buffs is obviously out there.

The problem with the "there's more x gear" thing is that there could be daggers with +25 bluff out there but we're all capped out at +50 points and the only deciding factor is who has 33 SP, SF, ESF, +6 magical attribute bonus, a gift (if it's not cap'd) and more of the governing attribute. We could spreadsheet out all the gear there is currently for x stat and as long as you can get enough gear for 50 points, then it's effectively the same with how hard to acquire it is the only difference/slot usage.

In fact, the +50 skill cap is the dev's gift to balancing because you cannot beat this equation.

33 + 50 + Base Attribute + 6 Bonus Attribute + 3 (SF) + 10 (ESF) + 1d20 for highest possible detect/stealth. If gifts are not cap then stealth is mathematically at a disadvantage because stalker is +4/+4 with detect/disguise at the whims of 1d20 for absolutely dedicated high-end specialization for a particular role.