If this became a thing: Stealth Bonus

[CookieMonster]

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=21741

<3

I think we should all gather around and throw cookies at Irongron and whoever implements it.

[Opustus]

While it's certainly true that rogues have an excess of good feats to pick from, if stealth becomes practically uncounterable to other characters than high WIS characters, then it may pose somewhat of a balance threat and push the builds more in the monotonous direction of Rogue24/Fighter6. I don't know how important the devs think these two things are, but they can be assessed separately -- I, for one, consider build diversity more important than build balance although naturally they affect each other.

One problem with pushing stealth scores too high is that it actively benefits the rogue against everything except dragons and AoE spells, while Spot or Listen benefit the character only against stealth, which is a feature reserved to only one archetype of the many, so by comparison it is less useful for the character to invest highly in Spot or Listen than it is for the sneaky character to invest highly in MS and Hide. As always with things gamey, there's a simple balance of numbers to be found here. It only takes easy maths and an ounce of good sense for the devs to decide how high the moderately attainable skill cap to Hide and MS should be that the Spot and Listen must match in order to figure out which kind of characters should have the tools to counter stealth.

This change affects the balance explained above and should run through the numbers and judgment of devs tasked with issues of build balance and diversity.

[Queen Titania]

Moving to feedback, though I do not think the post was meant to be feedback, the response pretty much is.

[CookieMonster]

Not only Rogues use Stealth though.

Assassin, Shadow Dancer, Bard and variour other builds utilise the skills without receiving any additional mechanical boosts.

[Opustus]

Yus, I referred to the archetype of sneaks, so stealthy builds in general. I only spoke about rogues for the sake of example. I also wasn't trying to say that the suggestion was bad or silly, bundling feats, skills, abilities, anything like that, is a pretty clever way to fix or improve things!

[Sea Shanties]

Honestly, rogues themselves are among the best at detecting others in stealth as they get bonuses and have enough skill points to dedicate. Rangers are probably next up. Which is good, I like the idea of having rogue-hunting rogues around myself.

I personally think someone maxed in stealth should succeed a lot more than they fail or.. what's the point? It should be very difficult to bust a dedicated sneak.

[susitsu]

There are so many bonuses gained by spotters from being in cities and the wilderness. The stealth game itself is a teeth-gritting, one-sided nightmare where you require double the investment of a spotter to be out of their reach (the same for bluff,) and you can never realistically just remain above the bar of spotters. Investing in massive spot or listen is already inherently easier than investing in both hide and ms as is still required independent of the ESF change.

In addition to this, everyone can build for UMD. Everyone can build to have access to True Seeing scrolls, which worse yet with Arelith changes means spotters will never ever require an ESF investment to beat someone who does make the ESF investment in stealth.

I applaud the change. The concern is unfounded.

[CosmicOrderV]

There are so many bonuses gained by spotters from being in cities and the wilderness. The stealth game itself is a teeth-gritting, one-sided nightmare where you require double the investment of a spotter to be out of their reach (the same for bluff,) and you can never realistically just remain above the bar of spotters. Investing in massive spot or listen is already inherently easier than investing in both hide and ms as is still required independent of the ESF change.

In addition to this, everyone can build for UMD. Everyone can build to have access to True Seeing scrolls, which worse yet with Arelith changes means spotters will never ever require an ESF investment to beat someone who does make the ESF investment in stealth.

I applaud the change. The concern is unfounded.

[Halibutthead]

i can't express how much i dislike the boosts to spot. i understand why, but in an effort to ensure that someone who just dumps skillpoints can beat someone who dumps skillpoints and is using relevant stat has made it so that if you're not dex based, stealth isn't worth getting past 5-10 ranks, really (with gear, you're effectively invisible to monsters, and you'll never sneak past PCs anyway).

so, yeah. good change idea. i have no idea why spotters would mind