Arelith

This is a poor decision. I mean, it makes me more useful as a divination mage, but I guarantee that this will just push RP (illegally) into green text and discord for the have-nots and will do nothing to actually benefit sneaks.

Umberhulk is entirely able to be worked around if you do your homework as a corner sneak. Removing the polymorph safety blanket will just make people -more- cautious and will make the life of a rogue more difficult.

Playing a sneaky diviner, I'll say the detection isn't the problem from my perspective.

*Turns into an umber hulks* Yeah it's clear.

Is the problem. It looks daft and it's really hard to play straight.

I'd have no concern moving the enormously nerfed true sight to a 4th level slot so it's wandable as a replacement. I'm just happy to not have a core aesthetic of covert rp be "quick, everyone turn into a bug eyed monstrosity"

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:27 am

Nobs wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 12:56 am i can hit over 100 listen with ez on my toon if my bard pall is around if im alone it can still be over 80 with just 2 buffs...

With HIPS, I can wear full plate, tower shield, and have -5 hide/ms, and when I use hips your 100 detection means nothing- I will still vanish from your screen and break your entire action queue if targeting me is a part of it.

This is an engine limitation, and the only fix is to preemptively cast TS when dealing with HIPS- which is no longer possible (1 round duration).

Edit: Time to roll a shadow mage, I guess.

How come i some times still see the guy that hipses in front of me?
As in they dont vanish for me their name just turns grey

Good change. Turning into a big bug was kind of crazy, especially when it had the original TS capability that ignores what few line of sight blocking objects NWN has.

Troll is useful at low levels as it regenerates and can melee.

Pixie is useful as it is tiny and can avoid evards black tentacles and (I presume) go into small holes.

I think this spell has a lot of wasted potential though, as we could add 10 forms with various RP value, such as goblin, dog, crow, etc.

In a mechanical sense..

Its already been stated by several others, but i will have to simply agree that the umberhulk form just isn't that useful in PvP. Sometimes it might help, but it is always a risk when used, simply due to the fact that you can lose hundreds of hp, a.c., and other important combat stats, as well as the ability to cast. If it does work, its likely a mistake on the part of the stealther for not punishing the user.

In a thematic and roleplay sense..

You're literally turning into a monster. And not juat any monster; one of the single most ugly, creepy, and ridiculous ones. Not once have I ever seen a player roleplaying the use of the ability (spell, wand, or scroll) beyond a simple.. "Turns into an umber hulk" emote. I just cant believe ANYONE in their right mind, whether in a virtual world or a real one, would want to turn into a disgusting giant insect. This all diaregarding what it actually ~feels~ like both transforming, and just being an umber hulk. Definitely glad to see this gone.

As far as spotting stealthers goes, investing points will always just be better than anything the form has to offer. Hips may be powerful, but if they only have a single round to do something (if that), it loses a lot of that power. Plus, with the changes to amplify, it really is easy to brute force spotting. Even fully dedicated stealthers get easily busted by it- said having played many myself, some having 80-90 in each without buffs.

Nobs wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 11:52 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:27 am

Nobs wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 12:56 am i can hit over 100 listen with ez on my toon if my bard pall is around if im alone it can still be over 80 with just 2 buffs...

With HIPS, I can wear full plate, tower shield, and have -5 hide/ms, and when I use hips your 100 detection means nothing- I will still vanish from your screen and break your entire action queue if targeting me is a part of it.

This is an engine limitation, and the only fix is to preemptively cast TS when dealing with HIPS- which is no longer possible (1 round duration).

Edit: Time to roll a shadow mage, I guess.

How come i some times still see the guy that hipses in front of me?
As in they dont vanish for me their name just turns grey

Are these people non hostile/members of your party/ using the -reveal command? Is it their first use of stealth in the encounter (remember, HiPS does have a cooldown between triggers)?

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 9:33 pm

Nobs wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 11:52 am

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote: Mon Feb 10, 2020 3:27 am

With HIPS, I can wear full plate, tower shield, and have -5 hide/ms, and when I use hips your 100 detection means nothing- I will still vanish from your screen and break your entire action queue if targeting me is a part of it.

This is an engine limitation, and the only fix is to preemptively cast TS when dealing with HIPS- which is no longer possible (1 round duration).

Edit: Time to roll a shadow mage, I guess.

How come i some times still see the guy that hipses in front of me?
As in they dont vanish for me their name just turns grey

Are these people non hostile/members of your party/ using the -reveal command? Is it their first use of stealth in the encounter (remember, HiPS does have a cooldown between triggers)?

No not in my party nor using the -reveal

Stelf stuff dump, because several people's have asked me about this and it should be general knowledge

You can spot someone immediately when they HIPS. (Obviously difficult to do with Arelith SD's innate hide bonus)

If you spot someone it doesn't even momentarily break your action queue.

The argument for UH being a great pvp tool is poor, true seeing is objectively better, though I can see the argument for RP annoyance.

(Personally I'd leave it but increase the cost, so you maintain the ability for some not-invested builds to not be completely useless vs stealth, but ensure it's crippling to do a thousand times a day. Especially since TS now requires significantly more investment than pre-umd change and this therefore decreases the viability of another bunch of the dwindling build variances.)

If you're worried about people sneaking into your abode, announce to the nothingness that you're going to murder it and lay down some aoe 's after a few seconds, or caltrops. You'll look completely paranoid (which is true!), actually hit something, or bluff someone that you've noticed them.

Detect still has the advantage over stealth (intentionally), even for non wis characters. That has been eroded somewhat with recent changes (I assume unintentionally) but it still remains. The turns/ level amplify duration and available gear heavily incentivises listen detection, but listen is weaker in general than spot and needs to be more actively managed.

As a tip, if you're fighting someone who is hips'ing in your face, move immediately away. Don't back pedal with 's' because you won't move quickly enough. That will ensure you can put distance between your characters and stop them attacking you. This will give you a greater opportunity to detect them.

Make sure you stand still when you have enough distance. Then immediately relocate so they can't attack you. You get bonuses to detect standing still and out of combat, this pairs nicely with not having the keen senses feat because you also enter active detect mode when standing still, without needing to toggle it. (Familiarising yourself with all the modifiers to detect on nw wiki will help you a lot)

Combating stealth in pvp is probably as high as the skill level gets in nwn, which is why stealth is considered strong, but you'll only see "1 flurry corner sneakers" on (balanced) pvp servers because in reality it's not that tough to counter (1 on 1 anyway).

I welcome this change as well. It was always so cringy to see people turn into a big monster for the sake of seeing if the area is empty.

I very much agree with this change; TS shouldn't be a low level spell accessible to all. And it wasn't even lorewise correct anyway. Tremor Sense is nowhere near as powerful as TS is.

MissEvelyn wrote: Wed Feb 12, 2020 8:24 pm I welcome this change as well. It was always so cringy to see people turn into a big monster for the sake of seeing if the area is empty.

I very much agree with this change; TS shouldn't be a low level spell accessible to all. And it wasn't even lorewise correct anyway. Tremor Sense is nowhere near as powerful as TS is.

http://dnd.arkalseif.info/spells/player ... index.html

Lore-wise, Blindsight is a Player's Guide to Faerun(3.5 campaign setting), Magic of Faerun (supplement) and Underdark (supplement) core world spell, and is level three as of it's latest 3.5 iteration (the Spell Compendium). The tactic is not counter to lore- it never has been, and in fact it's more easily accessible by far in the actual game world of Forgotten Realms than it was ever made in Arelith.

It is in fact incredibly common to use such spells to force sneaks (and especially shadowdancers, assassins, and rangers who all have a means to HiPS) to maintain their distance or give themselves away - the range of the blindsight is limited to 30 feet.

Tremorsense, for the record, would work exactly like TS did for breaking stealth, so long as the sneaker was in contact with the ground. - https://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbili ... remorsense

A creature with tremorsense automatically senses the location of anything that is in contact with the ground and within range. Aquatic creatures with tremorsense can also sense the location of creatures moving through water.

Would be cool to have umberhulk have a small aura (Like the elementals size) that gives -50 to move silently then.

Or it gives +80 listen, but also makes you blind as if you were in a darkness spell.

They aren't literally blind without their tremorsense, though. I'm sure the giant compound eyes work just fine.