Hiding and Sneaking in the absence of Discern

[Amalia]

I think this topic has been discussed to some degree before, but I can't find a search option or the topic itself, and I feel it's worth bringing up again.

First off, I'd like to note that I'm not trying to point fingers at anyone here, I have nowhere near the details necessary to do so in any of the cases that I feel have even the potential to be cases of code abuse. It has, in fact, been something on my mind for quite a long time, and a couple recent conversations were the final motivation needed for this post.

From what I've heard, the discern skill-- the only ability that allows those without magical sight to see hidden mobiles or PCs-- has been disabled. I believe it is nearly verbatum from the previous thread to say that this makes it possible for rogues to use hide and sneak as invisibility, which is code abuse. Just as rogues are not supposed to sneak in forests, or smote speaking-- even in whispers, unless there is a good IC reason that the sound of a voice would be difficult to pinpoint-- they should not RP sneaking places or doing things while hidden that would reasonably reveal them. Entering an open space, for example, or even one with insufficient debris or shadows, would ICly reveal any sneaking rogue not also enspelled by magical invisibility.

I would like to put forth a plea that some counter for hide and sneak be (re)introduced to the game as soon as possible. Already there have been many cases where one of my PCs that has discern as a class skill would have been looking for hidden folk-- largely upon hearing footsteps, but not infrequently just to be paranoid or when it was important that nobody be around. Without that skill being functional, there is no way for someone who knows what to look for to check the room.

If I recall the previous thread correctly-- which I may not-- discern was disabled in anticipation of a different method to detect hidden mobiles being instituted. I would suggest that it might at least be less unbalancing to leave discern as it was before it was disabled until its replacement skill is fully coded, rather than leaving even masters of the sneaking arts unable to ferret out others practicing it.

[Kregor]

Just as rogues are not supposed to sneak in forests...

Come again?

Rogues can hide and sneak anywhere there is sufficient cover. The limitation of rangers hiding does not work in converse for rogues, never has. In fact, there are woodland rogues who would find themselves likely more at home hiding and sneaking in the forest, than in a city (I know, I play one, see the names below).

I would like to put forth a plea that some counter for hide and sneak be (re)introduced to the game as soon as possible. Already there have been many cases where one of my PCs that has discern as a class skill would have been looking for hidden folk-- largely upon hearing footsteps, but not infrequently just to be paranoid or when it was important that nobody be around. Without that skill being functional, there is no way for someone who knows what to look for to check the room.

While I agree for the need for a mundane way to detect hidden people, there IS at least one counter measure, True Sight, and EVERY cleric and wizard can learn to cast it. If you are discussing something VERY private, or holding something you want to keep safe, get one of the above with your group and have them look out. Just another way, meanwhile, that it pays to have a diverse party.

If I recall the previous thread correctly-- which I may not-- discern was disabled in anticipation of a different method to detect hidden mobiles being instituted. I would suggest that it might at least be less unbalancing to leave discern as it was before it was disabled until its replacement skill is fully coded, rather than leaving even masters of the sneaking arts unable to ferret out others practicing it.

Not exactly. Discern as it was, was just as imbalanced as a hide with no mundane counter is. Because, with it, as well, once you had it on, it never failed, and never did NOT see anything hidden, which means that instead the rogues were cheated out of any upper hand. Being the most-neglected class in the game, to date, the LAST thing rogues need is to see one of their primary abilities rendered useless.

[Shabanna]

The event in question... not to give away too much IC info other than the location...is hardly clear of debris or clutter or people.

The Market Square
N-Traders Way E-The Market S-The Market W-The Market
Bustling with activity, the market square teems with both stall holders and
shoppers. All manner of goods can be bought here, from fruits to fabrics. The
scent of herbs and spices fills the air, which is punctuated from time to
time with the cry of a hawker. To the west the spires of the Font of
Knowledge can be seen stretching towards the sky. A beautiful mermaid
fountain takes pride of place in the centre, around which people often seem
to congregate.

It has been said that there is activity in this area at all hours...

2nd
the fact that a rogue has a chance of failing at hide serves as a defense.
3rd
I have never read that a rogue can not sneak in a forest? If I am wrong please accept my apologies... I have just never heard this ?!?
4th
If a rogue lays in wait... and sees a crime of opportunity...and steals while hidden it is not using hide as invis...it is a crime of opportunity. I believe the rule in general is .. after a steal you must remain logged for at least 30 mins and allow RP opportunity for a person or persons to get the item back. I have never heard that a rogue is not allowed to hide and sneak...to steal. Just that they must follow the rules set forth. Am I missing something? If we say all rogue skills are in question and that because there is no " anti-steal or anti-sneak" spray in the game that all rogues are supposed to sit around drinking rum and throwing daggers for coin then I would have to raise a hand in objection.

As a player of a few rogues... I think the skills for being a rogue are sticky enough on the game. If you steal from a PC they usually get really mad and suddenly there are a rash of complaints about how their stuff was taken. If you sneak around people shout out " I saw you! " even when there was a bug on that and they were asked not to. Now... rogue skills and the lack of defense against them are being questioned again.

True sight and fairy fog are both effective against hidden rogues etc...That is already two classes that have a hefty defense against it. Add that to the fact that you have a chance to fail and I think you can not say that the skills are somehow ripe for abuse. If everyone can see a hidden rogue then what is the use of having the skill? I am normally not in the camp that feels that rogues are underpowered .. but I also feel like everytime a rogue does something clever and gets away with it... there is a witch hunt.

Rogues exist in FK and they have a very strict set of rules when it comes to their skills... If you see something you feel is abuse I would say that sending a email to complaints would be the best route so that the imms may look into it on a case by case basis . But, I am not sure I agree with adding back discern as it never failed... so the rogues were always at a disadvantage. I love playing rogues and try very hard to follow the rules and be creative. I think I have seen a lot of good choices made by rogues on the game of late and I would hate to discourage it.

I will also say that evil rogues exist on fk... and so the chance of having things taken from your PC exists. If you hav stuff that is valuable or important keep yourself surrounded by people with counter skills as that is part of RP as well... having a well balanced party or keeping your very very valuable things in your pack and out of your hands is a good start. If I had every item I ever saw that I could steal... i would be the richest rogue on the game... including mounds of coin that people forget to put back now that all coin has to be taken from pouches to pay.

Bear in mind this all is nothing personal...Just my opinion...even if it seems rash.

"The Banna"

[Tavik]

I agree that discern was a bit over powering for classes and races that got the skill and I back the decision to take it out. However, I do think that a mundane method of detecting hidden PCs would be a good idea. True sight works, I know, but not everyone can benefit from said spell. When you are dealing with the possibility of losing your things, I think you should be given at least a CHANCE at countering it. As it stands right now, the mundane classes just have to accept that their stuff can be stolen and there is nothing they can do about it, and I don't think that is right.

Another consideration that needs to be made is kindness to your fellow player. I don't think this is a problem, but I'll say it anyway: This is a game for everyone and everyone is entitled to have fun. If your actions could eliminate the fun for someone else, you should probably carefully consider it. I'm not saying not to steal. I'm simply saying that you should be mindful of what you take and if it is something someone put a lot of work into getting, you should at least give them a chance to get it back. Working one's rear end off to obtain something and then having it simply whisked away is not fun for anyone and is most likely what incites those 'witch hunts' (not to mention that would be the IC reaction as well). Again, I reiterate: THIS IS A GAME. Have fun, but don't ruin it for others.

[Amalia]

I wasn't aware discern never failed-- oddly enough, with a character of mine that did have discern a long while ago, it never worked. Has it been inactive that long?

Rogues in forests: maybe this isn't in effect anymore. Maybe it was incorrect when I read it. I do remember it being said that a rogue's hide and sneak were to apply in urban settings only, just as a ranger's were to apply in wilderness only. If this isn't the case, I'd very much like to know, as I've been following that rule.

I haven't heard it said that the market is active at all hours. I assumed that there were hours in which it was nigh-deserted; the anauroch, after all, says the burning sun makes you feel hot even if you're traveling through it in the middle of the night. It seemed to logically follow that other areas would be described as they are during the day, especially since all the merchant mobs in Waterdeep close down after a certain hour-- even the taverns. All the citizen mobs go home for the night. I took that to mean that the city streets were relatively empty.

True sight and fairy fog do not last, as far as I'm aware, for the length of time people spend in the Market Square, or even near it, if they want to get a fair amount of RP in. Running back and forth in and out of the square to avoid spamming people with one's casting is, I think, somewhat unreasonable to expect. Granted, this issue only becomes a problem in the Market Square where casting isn't allowed, assuming there even are individuals who tend to keep True Sight about them.

As for the chance of hiding to fail-- I know it has a chance to fail when initiated, but does it have a chance to fail after that? I don't think I've ever had any mob or PC see me once I was effectively hidden, making it perfectly natural to spam 'hide' in private until one is hidden and then go about secure in the knowledge that even if someone hears me, they won't know who it is, and I have the length of time it takes them to cast to get away if they do hear me. A skill of like effect would have no warning echo, and though I agree that an unfailing discern is "broken" now that I know that's how it was, I still feel there is an imbalance in the other direction without a weaker skill of the same variety.

A related question does come to mind-- since there is no way to put an item directly from "held" to "in a pack" in order to keep it safe as Shabanna suggests, is it acceptable to steal said item when a character is removing it from held and about to put it in a pack, or is it necessary to wait some length of time to indicate the character in question has indeed put the items in their pockets? This isn't a question that occurred to me before, and I think it might be an important consideration for the future.

[Laitaine]

In this thread Balek says you may not:

Steal something that a character is obviously paying attention to. For instance, if a character has just taken something from a pack, they are paying attention to both the pack and the object. If you RP distracting them, then stealing it is a possibility.

So I'd assume it works in reverse (ie putting something from held to a pack. This is my own interpretation though, so you might want a more official yay or nay )

I'm not sure how current it is, the thread is dated April 2005, but it contains lots of potentially useful info. Hope that helped.

[Solaghar]

The simplest solution to me should be that searching should give you a chance of finding someone who is hidden, hence giving you a reason to actually use your search skill. Someone who is hidden isn't magically gone, they're hiding in the shadows between a few crates, hidden under a wheel next to a cart, whatever. By searching, your character would be assumed to be looking around corners, checking under blankets, etc. Let people search and have the success of their search based on both their skill level at searching and the hidden person's hide skill.

It should go without saying that people who constantly searched couldn't really partake in any complicated RP as they'd be too busy running around peeking into boxes or something. Just make sure people are RPing the search so they can't just be pressing it constantly while pretending like they're not doing anything.

[Sindri]

Since I've played my rogue very little, I don't know much about how hide, steal, discern, etc. work (or what things are like overall for rogues). As far as "fair" stealing goes, and the incident that helped prompt this thread...

At the time it was really very aggravating (but I've had some sleep now ). In hindsight my PC was begging to be robbed. He was holding two items and was explaining to everyone in earshot just how valuable and important they were. Naturally they would make a great theft target.

It was frustrating to lose them since:
- they were in the process of going from held to inventory to bag
- they were needed for a planned event last night. I'm sure there are several ways to proceed from here (the items may not be of critical importance), but the interruption was an unpleasant surprise.

[Amalia]

I'd just like to note one more time (before I disappear into Missouri for a while) that the incident to which Sindri and Shabanna refer is only one of many incidents that have convinced me to start this line of inquiry up again. There have been a good few times over the past several months when I've known full well in an IC sense that someone was following me due to footsteps, and sometimes even smotes that would have done a lot to reveal their location came into play.

[Raona]

I'd like to second the observation that presently someone without magical prowess may hear trouble, but has no chance of actually spotting its source beyond failure on the part of the sneaker - which as mentioned above it is unclear is actually checked once they are hidden.

I've often heard people walk in on something, and smoted hearing this, and looking about...some people RP it fairly, giving my PC an opportunity of sorts, through smotes, to spot them; others immediately batter off. Mundane PC's thus have no chance of playing it cool and actually spotting a rogue sneaking about, without their realizing they have been spotted - which should be part of the risk of their trade.

It would be nice to see some way that one could get better at counteracting being snuck up on/stolen from. Street smarts, so to speak...

That said, I don't wish to see rogues again made the "wimpy" class!

Edited, 'cuz I was adding rouge to the world.

[Dalvyn]

Specific answer for yesterday's roleplay

I think that it was perfectly executed by the rogue. They hid in a busy market square; there were wizards and clerics around, so the rogue could have been detected. They smoted bumping into a character before stealing items from him. They then left the room but remained around and online. They also provided a way for people to get back what was stolen (although I think that the amount of money is most likely too high - but coins are not equally perceived by everybody).

The "good" chaps now, could have chosen not to speak about important matters on a public Market Square; they could have asked priests/wizards to check for hidden people/magic sensors; they could have put the gems back in a container more quickly; they could have rushed to the Magic Post office after learning that the stolen items were there.

All in all, I think that this turn of events adds to the whole roleplay. Don't let it frustrate you, don't worry about actions that you could have taken to avoid this: it's too late. Go on with the flow of the roleplay and enjoy.

General answer

I'm a firm believer that everything should be counter-balanced before it is put in the game. I hate it when energy drain (level loss) was put in the game, without a restoration spell, for example. So I clearly do not like the fact that hide is 100%-proof against all mundane (non-magical) means.

A perfect system, in my opinion, would be to code a Spot skill that would be constantly opposed to the rogue's Hide skill. Obviously, that only works well with a skill-point-based system, where you can spend your skill points EITHER on Spot OR on another skill. In the current system, everybody knows everything about all their skills. In a skill-point-based systems, people can be offered access to more skills, but they would have to choose where they spend their precious skill points.

If we just add a "Spot" skill (the first question would be: who/what guild would get it?), then everybody becomes good at spotting hidden rogues, and the situation is not really better.

In the current system, I do not think that Hide can be fixed in a satisfying manner.

Thieving rogues

Now, there's a last point I'd like to stress out. It's about the rogues' roleplay. In the special roleplay above, the rogue clearly stole the items to make the roleplay more interesting. The goal there is not just to get richer/gain a direct advantage, no matter how that pisses off other people; the goal is to further the roleplay.

But I am seriously wondering what the other kind of thieving rogues - those who steal just to get items that they will later sell off or use, giving the character who has been robbed no part in the roleplay and no chance of getting it back - ... I am seriously wondering what those characters add to FK. In my opinion, this kind of thieves are there only to piss off other players, and I wouldn't be opposed to simply getting rid of them.

I think the problem is not so much with the fact that Hide cannot be countered with mundane means currently, but more with how some thieving rogues use it.

[Kregor]

Since I've played my rogue very little, I don't know much about how hide, steal, discern, etc. work (or what things are like overall for rogues). As far as "fair" stealing goes, and the incident that helped prompt this thread...

At the time it was really very aggravating (but I've had some sleep now ). In hindsight my PC was begging to be robbed. He was holding two items and was explaining to everyone in earshot just how valuable and important they were. Naturally they would make a great theft target.

It was frustrating to lose them since:
- they were in the process of going from held to inventory to bag
- they were needed for a planned event last night. I'm sure there are several ways to proceed from here (the items may not be of critical importance), but the interruption was an unpleasant surprise.

In specific instance situations, the best recourse is to either raise an issue on question, or submit an email to complaints, rather than starting a thread in the forum that could be very ripe for inciting inflammatory rebuttal. Just a thought.

As far as the specific instance, this was an imm-run RP, so... the imms supervising the event already knew what was going on, the moment it happened, and even likely saw it coming before it happened. Imms see hidden and invis characters no matter what, and EVERY steal command done by ANY thief ANYwhere in the game is a logged event. So not only did the imm likely see the thief as the RP in the room was going on, but also saw them steal the items. At that point, had their been any possibility of it not being a clean steal, there would have undoubtedly been intervention in the occurence.

EDIT: And sure enough, imm ruling above comes as I'm posting. Thanks Dalvyn

Fact of the matter, everyone who ever gets slolen from feels like they were done wrong, and in fact, ICly, you have been... you were robbed! It sucks, it costs you something you might value, the natural reaction is to lash out at the circumstances and other factors surrounding the steal, beause our human reaction is to rebel against the feeling of "Damn, I'm an idiot" for being careless with our inventory in a crowded area. Many instances of P-steal are in fact, clean steals.

Part of the beauty and excitement of playing an imm-run RP... and an RPG in general, is that you shouldn't be able to always have everything go as planned. You have things happen you don't expect, and you have to roll with it. I have seen and heard RPs derailed by many things in the past, even relating to the RP that ties with the incident that spurred this thread, and some were colossal. Roll with it, make it right, and the DM will play along to help you right the consequences of unexpected actions, long as you do the right thing afterwards, it just means all the more time to enjoy the suspense of the final conclusion.

[Sindri]

Sorry for derailing the thread. As I said before: in several ways the PC was a big bright theft target, and I'm sure there are places to go from here.

*At the time* it was annoying for many reasons (I'll take Kregor's suggestion and not post any more, though it might be helpful to discuss them elsewhere). In hindsight? It's an ongoing story, and there was a plot twist (not the one I would've chosen, but hey, I'm not the only author).

[Dalvyn]

One last note on the particular event cited above though: since those events "derailed" a roleplay, I would expect that all those involved in it would try and log in as often as possible, so as to not stall the whole thing.

[Maybel]

I was wondering if we could update the helpfile for discern... it still states

Code: Select all

Discern

=======

Syntax: discern

It is the ability to detect hidden mobiles and characters that are in
the same room as you.

I was wondering if i could change it to match more of the help detect hidden helpfile seeing as it does not let you see hidden mobs

[Japcil]

Maybel - If the help file needs it, go for it.

Robert