the power of stealth

i was just reading some old threads about fighting the don and wanted to recount my most recent experience.

this was the three-man speed critters: ninja, monk, rogue, all working on strength and speed first, vitality third, senses fourth.

they hit trynton about level 11, and took on the don. i thought for sure i'd be reloading my last save and coming back to fight the don when i get the helm.

and sure enough, the fight with the don lasted over 50 rounds. it started with the canned elemental fizzling. and went on with the party used up all the superman, doubleman, and haste potions as well as all the rest all scrolls they had.

but, they hardly used any of their restorations and healing and won. how? the don sat and did nothing 2 out of 3 rounds. apparently our 80+ stealth was too hard for him to see. the monk was the real hero, but everyone got their licks in.

[Kakero]

yes, and 100 in stealth makes your character virtually invicible. Ialways train my stealth at the monastery before I go out. the game will be ridiculously easy by then.

[Loudhy]

Hi Sultan,

stealth is an experience I never made. All my parties had members without stealth ability. Because I wanted to start with a non-magic party ( Fighter,
Thief, 2xBard and 2x Gadgeteer) I have a question:
Is it enough to train the stealth ability for my thief only and will I get
the same bonus like you ( no attacks for some rounds ) or is there a need
to train this abilitiy for all members. That's intersting for me, because
in this case I have to start with other professions and change the class later.

[Deejax]

Enemies will ignore characters with high stealth scores.
If you fight an enemy without ranged attack and your front line character(s) have high stealth scores the enemy won't take any action.
If you have a character without stealth (or a low stealth score) in the front row, the enemy will ignore the charactes with high stealth scores and gang up on him. Not a good idea

So if you want to use a stealthy party, all your characters have to be trained in stealth.

Loudhy - deejax sums it up quite nicely. in some parties, i've had characters with stealth (for example, a monk and arogue) on either wing with an extended fighter sans stealth in the centre (for example, a valkyrie wielding polearm), with spellcasters in the back. any enemy attacking from the front will tend to focus on the valkyrie, and it becomes more so as the stealth of the monk and rogue rises. you can plan ahead for this by building high strength/vitality and making sure she gets the best armour as you go along. however, if you're attacked from the flanks, where only the monk or rogue is exposed, then, as stealth rises, you will find those attackers will stand around a fair bit.

i'm not a big proponent of stealth training, personally. even in this all-stealth-class party i didnt do any training. (of course, they were such whimps that fights took forever and they all had 75 stealth by the time we left the monastary anyway). i'm also not a big fan of class changing, particulary where those class changes do not contribute directly to the base skills of the primary class of the character i'm building.

but that's not to say that you shouldnt or that doing so is wrong. any discussion like this starts to skirt the whole cheat/exploit/ethics issues that really come down to: whatever is fun for you.

[EEWorzelle]

It is possible to have a party work where the characters without Stealth have Shield (which can also be trained if you are going to go that route). Like Sultan, for reasons of fun, I do not recommend training. On the other hand, if it is fun for you...

The characters with Shields and no Stealth will receive all the attacks, but that's what you want because most of the attacks will be harmlessly wasted against the shield. A Fighter without a shield can also work, especially if they have damage absorption, just because they are such a tank and can take so many hits. If you have a Samurai in such party, however, you might need to give him or her a shield instead of doing Dual Weapons.

Actually, the Fighter gets a bonus in Shield Skill (it's a Profession Skill, with a starting Bonus), can use +4 Shields, and will be better protected by that then even 100 in Iron Skin, but can then use only one, one-handed Weapon. I don't think the designers realized how many players would choose to use Dual Weapons and Two-Handed Weapons with their Fighters, and blow off the shield.

[ 09-14-2003, 10:31 PM: Message edited by: EEWorzelle ]

i have to admit that for the longest time i never used shields for any of my characters. then i had a party with 3 stealth characters and a bard. that's when i decided a bard with a shield was a pretty nice idea.

after that, i started experimenting with shield for classes that have lesser armour or no stealth bonus, such as priest and samurai.

on the back of that, i realised that shield was a potential answer for characters learning dual weapon who are somewhat less effective early in the game. in particular, the lord and samurai do a lot of "missing" early because their lower starting stats dont offset the dual weapons penalty (in spite of focusing on a single weapon - ie dual sword for samurai or dual mace for lord). by wearing a shield early, you give these front liners a little more protection while waiting for their weapon skill (and stats, if you're building dex or sen) to get to a high enough level that the dual weapons penalty no longer hurts (or hurts as much). you can further mitigate this by pumping points at level up into dual instead of shield (which you dont intend to keep). i've tried this to levels 10-14 and been happy with the results.

so there's really some creative applications for shields, aside from the tank who uses shield all game.

[Scatter]

But if you have a shield "on", your Dual won't go up at all in combat...

scatter, that's very true. however, what i've found is that by the time i equip that second mace, for example, my mace and close combat skills are both 50+. even with no dual weapons skill, you can still hit with both hands regularly.

and, if you plan ahead to do this, drop 3 points per level up into dual weapons. so you'll have 30-40 points in dual by then, too.

i've found this makes the dual-wielding character more effective during those first 6-8 awkward levels. even if they have to play a little catch-up later, they're better equipped, in terms of skills, attributes, and equipment, to deal with it.

of course, i'm not saying this is the best way to do it. just an alternative.

[Wereboar]

I agree with sultan. A while ago, i checked a samurai at quite low level, say around 8. He had 1 attack / 1 swing both primary and secondary. When i removed the wakazashi, he had 2 attacks / 2 swings with the katana. So using only one weapon made him a better fighter, and let him raise swords and close combat much faster. Later, with skills around 60, i was able switch to dual without loosing attacks.