Items to help see peoples with hips!

[meldor]

I want to give my 2 cents about that.

First I agree that peoples who have low hiding and move silently and still take Hips with 3 levels of shadowdancer should be easy to spot.

But I want to make sure no items will be made to easily spot a pure rogue whois dedicated to hide and move silently. Rogues got really low base attack and without the surprise attack. It's really hard for them to succeed a hit.

As an example the frost Giant's.. at lvl 22 with all the best equipment available from stores I have 27 base attack on my first attack which is way not enough to hit the frost giant even on a sneak attack. Under 35 base attack you hardly can hit them.

I know some classes with spells that can easy reach higher AC then a frost giant with damages reduction like stoneskin making it almost impossible for us to hit them even on a 20. There are no adamantine weapons to bypass the DR so are normal low hits from a dagger, shortsword or kukri will never hurt them much.

I just want the dev to watch out carefully with those items they want to add about spotting hipser... I know the goal but dont make rogues more fragile as they are already.

Please

[adzling]

agree wholeheartedly meldor.

reposting this from the other thread for relevance.

just be careful of what you include for anti-hips items.

the existing in-game resources are very good for combating hips providing you know what you're doing.

for example: a bard without any magical items can easily spot almost every hipster out there. They have access to amplify at first level and clairaudience at 3rd level both of which alone add +30 to listen. Toss in buffs to wisdom, their competence aura and greater heroism and most bards (even moderate level ones) can spot any hipster.

On TFR people who actually invested points in listen and spot (well unfortunately most people just put ignore spot completely and put points in listen as it allows you target someone...gah exploit!) and had a wand/scroll of amplify & clairvoyance could function almost as well as a bard.

A druid or cleric with the above items could easily function as well as a bard due to high wisdom.

So be careful out there.
Everyone should NOT be able to spot a dedicated hipster.
It should take a dedicated spotter to see the better ones, and that is already in game.

Sometimes people just don't know how to spot people and that's their fault not the game.

[DM haunted]

I think a spot skill check still comes into play here....All hips is,is you may go into stealth while being visible to pc or npc...I dont think items for this should be necessary...Just invest in your spot skill...And I think far as the ShadowDancer goes,Hips should be moved to 6th level SD instead of cheesing that first level.

[adzling]

agreed re: SD haunted.
level 5 might be a good compromise.
SD is still the quickest route to epic dodge which is AMAZING.

Spot is irrelevant if you have a high listen because the game unfortunately makes visible someone you have heard but not seen (sure you're a darkened version of yourself but you can still be targeted by any attack just fine which excepting AoE spells is obviously an exploit due to bugsidian's implementation).
You should not be able to shoot an arrow or cast a spell that requires you to see someone at a sound heard in the distance.

Regardless given the low-magic setting of BGTOSC anyone with reasonable listen skill (not even maxed by any means) casting amplify and/or clairaudience on themselves will be able to HEAR and ATTACK any almost any HIPSTER out there.
Toss in wisdom buffs, greater heroism and bard aura's and you're talking almost impossible for even a dedicated hipster to function absent more powerful stealth items (well specifically MS items as exploit monkeys often just build for listen and ignore spot).

I just think this is a totally moot point as long as the spotter know what he is doing.

[hnefi]

The thing to remember about stealth in NWN2 is that the detection rolls are made several times every round. This means that unless the HiPSter has more than 20 ranks above the spotter, he will be detected - and it won't take very long either.

Without gear and spells, both HiPSters and detectors can reach equal levels in their respective skills. Base 33, +3 for skill focus and +2 for alertness/stealthy feats; +3 ms and +3 listen for familiars. But the detector only needs one skill (spot OR listen), whereas the hider needs two. If he gets beat on a roll on either spot vs hide or listen vs ms, he has lost his advantage. So spotters have the edge.

With spells, spotters have an even greater edge. Both HiPSters and spotters can make use of bard songs and Heroism, but spotters also have C&C and Amplify, giving them a +30 ranks in listen and +10 spot. HiPSters have camouflage and mass camouflage, but neither helps against that massive listen boost. Now, those are short-duration spells, so they usually don't help much on guard duty - but in combat, any mage, cleric with the knowledge domain, and especially bard who knows what they are doing will immediately spot a HiPSter. Druids have it easy too, due to high wisdom and Owl's insight.

So really, it's not hard to catch a HiPSter, unless there's gear that gives massive hide/ms bonuses on the server (on TFR, it's possible to reach the +50 bonus cap in those two skills). Assuming there is no such silly equipment here, I see no reason why special anti-HiPS items need to be added. The Iron Fist would do better to just hire some bards or clerics of Oghma. Preferrably elves, due to always being in Search mode (makes you roll a d20 instead of a d10 on the detection check, as well as roll twice as often).

[adzling]

thank you hnefi you brilliantly and concisely stated the situation.
karma to you.

[Zealote]

Well, I think that if we have stealthy characters, we also have scout characters. Not everybody is good at stealth, and not everybody is good at scouting, but just like you can be incredibly stealthy, there are also the other side of the coin and people can be incredibly good at spot/listen. The items shouldnt be like: Yeah, I got a ring, now i see through you. But they should give the guys focused on scouting the same advantage that the rogue items give the guys focused on hide/ms. Right now there are no items that allow you to enhance your spot/listen skill enough to see a hipster with the equipment that makes him so good at hiding in the first place. Not everybody will get the spot high enough, but those who invest on that, should have the same bonus as those who invest on hide/ms have IG right now.

BTW, my character uses Hips and there are guys with over 60 hide/ms.

[adzling]

agreed zealote, but per hnefi's comments above the game already provides a HUGE advantage to spotters vs. hiders.

like an effective +50 advantage to spotters.
(+30 from listen spells that have no counter for a hipster AND +20 from the fact that a hider must roll both ms AND hide EVERY ROUND so if the hider has anything less than 20 more than spotter\listener he will be spotted very rapidly).

If bugsidian had implemented the spell silence properly so you could cast it on yourself so that it moved with you as walked then hipsters would have a counter to these spells and the point would be mostly moot.

However absent that anyone who knows anything at all about these spells can spot a hipster every time EVEN if the hipster has a gear advantage of +20 to hide/MS.

Hnefi and I both know this first hand from playing for a long time on TFR.
This is first hand experience of experienced dedicated players not idle banter.

[luna]

Jan 12, 2009 12:08:22 GMT -5 meldor said:

I want to give my 2 cents about that.

First I agree that peoples who have low hiding and move silently and still take Hips with 3 levels of shadowdancer should be easy to spot.

But I want to make sure no items will be made to easily spot a pure rogue whois dedicated to hide and move silently. Rogues got really low base attack and without the surprise attack. It's really hard for them to succeed a hit.

As an example the frost Giant's.. at lvl 22 with all the best equipment available from stores I have 27 base attack on my first attack which is way not enough to hit the frost giant even on a sneak attack. Under 35 base attack you hardly can hit them.

I know some classes with spells that can easy reach higher AC then a frost giant with damages reduction like stoneskin making it almost impossible for us to hit them even on a 20. There are no adamantine weapons to bypass the DR so are normal low hits from a dagger, shortsword or kukri will never hurt them much.

I just want the dev to watch out carefully with those items they want to add about spotting hipser... I know the goal but dont make rogues more fragile as they are already.

Please

Meldor.. guess you havent' seen the theives shop yet. Plenty of stuff there to add to hide/ms.

Also, in the context of your arguement, you are using frost giants as a prime example.
Adding items to spot hiding people has nothing to do with your ability to fight against frost giants since we don't give them items with spot/listen bonuses

Are you worried about PvP?

To me it sounds like your more worried about PvP and or just the ability to be stealthed against other players but aren't comming out and saying it.

[hnefi]

Well, IMHO, due to the way stealth works, spot/listen equipment should cap at about 5 or 10 lower than hide/ms for some sort of balance to be reached. Of course, with amplify/c&c, there is no way for a stealther to beat a good spotter in a situation where the spotter is actively searching, unless he has a 50 skill point advantage.

60 hide/ms is easy to beat. I don't know what level that char is, so I'll use a lvl 20 bard with long-term buffs talking about secret things as a counterexample. 23 base + 6 (inspire competence) + 4 (greater heroism) + 2 (owls wisdom) + 2 (wisdom base 14, just as an example) + 2 (alertness) + 3 (skill focus) ends up at 42 listen. The stealther will be able to hide for a minute, maybe two, three if he's lucky and spy on the bard who has only long-term buffs up (and no equipment). Once the bard spots (or hears) the spy, he can cast C&C and Amplify for a +30 listen boost, and will now have 63 modified listen, meaning he has more than 50% chance to see the spotter at every roll - and rolls are made several times each round. At that point, HiPS is useless since the stealther will be spotted almost instantly.

At lvl 30, some of those numbers will obviously be significantly higher.

[luna]

Jan 12, 2009 12:44:12 GMT -5 hnefi said:

The thing to remember about stealth in NWN2 is that the detection rolls are made several times every round. This means that unless the HiPSter has more than 20 ranks above the spotter, he will be detected - and it won't take very long either.

Nah.. you don't need that much. 12 or 13 seems like the sweet spot.
You can stay hidden next to someone for a good ammount of time with your skill being only that much higher.

20 makes you undetectable if the other player is moving.
25 is the other player is standing still (they get a +5 listen if not moving).

[hnefi]

12 is enough if and only if the other person is not in detection mode, or if they are having a very bad day with their rolls *curses his constant stream of sub-6 d20 rolls*.

But on average, with a skill advantage of 19 against a person in detection mode, you'll be spotted after two minutes (IIRC). In combat, that's much, much more than enough. When spying on someone, it's not, IMHO.

Then, of course, the question is how easy it really should be to spy on someone. Do we want a bunch of sneaky rogues knowing things they shouldn't?

[Zealote]

I have the highest spot around and still cant see the hipsters. I know what im talking about.
Bards are the only one that can spot a hipster with huge hide/ms. And that is lame, since its a ability that bards have, they are not natural scouts. Im talking about a character built to be a scout.

[Iceshard]

I still dont need much more than 10 seconds to strike down someone.. 3 minutes is plenty of time for me to get what I need if I see you interesting at all

PLUS..if our rogues were to be asshats about Hips, they only need to go into Hips, and they still get a second or 2 before you make rolls to see them.. plenty of time to open another volly of sneak attacks.

Dont count them out on the skill checks, remember both parties are making the rolls, and the dice generator likes to roll low, so even if your level 20 bard with 63 listen comes around.. he has to roll higher and have higher skills than the Sneaky one..

-Ice

[DM Sir Carnifex]

I think another thing people have to remember here is that rogues have enormous amount of skill points and since stealth is generally one of their specialties, they undoubtedly will go up a lot in hide and move silently. On the other hand, those who are spotting quite often are fighters and wizards who generally need to distribute their meager skill points elsewhere. To put everything into spot and listen would mean neglecting other skills in which they could use the points.

In all my time playing this server, I have only had one character who has successfully detected HIPSters a few times... and yes, he's a bard. However, amplify doesn't do much good anyway to prevent pickpockets or the original sneak attack because the bard won't know to cast it until afterwards.