Questions about Stealth- How much for it to no-fail?

[phalaeo]

I've been Googling for the past 10 mins, and haven't found an answer.

If you want to stealth on a character, what should you be able to hit on your Hide and MS skills at Level 20? Also, does Full Plate give you penalties to those skills?

Thanks!

[Crazyfruit]

Monsters' spot/listen skills vary a lot.

Somethings you'll need 60+ for, others you won't need more than 30, and it depends how close to them you get... To give you something to shoot for, a bit over 30 move silent will stop skeletons/mummies from rising out of the ground and attacking you. Epic Claw can be stealthed with 32 move silent + Invis, but only if you're extremely careful in how close you get.

Armor does penalize move silent if I remember correctly.

[Illiain]

There are also some monsters that I believe have tremorsense. These are mostly spiders, scorps, and other vermin, but there might be others out there with it. This is why you can't just sneak through and one shot ogres in Sleeping Dust.

"Tremorsense
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.

If no straight path exists through the ground from the creature to those that it’s sensing, then the range defines the maximum distance of the shortest indirect path. It must itself be in contact with the ground, and the creatures must be moving.

As long as the other creatures are taking physical actions, including casting spells with somatic components, they’re considered moving; they don’t have to move from place to place for a creature with tremorsense to detect them."

[hityawithastick]

"Tremorsense
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.

If no straight path exists through the ground from the creature to those that it’s sensing, then the range defines the maximum distance of the shortest indirect path. It must itself be in contact with the ground, and the creatures must be moving.

As long as the other creatures are taking physical actions, including casting spells with somatic components, they’re considered moving; they don’t have to move from place to place for a creature with tremorsense to detect them."

One thing to note: when falling and standing absolutely still, you are invisible to tremorsense and not prone to listen checks. Getting to high ground and featherfalling instead of walking somewhere can get you at least one solid strike. And even just freezing in place in stealth mode seems to be an effective way of not being seen. I use this trick on my wizzy and my sorc--seems that Hide and Move Silently are only actually checked when you're moving. (RP explanation: Easier to see you when you're moving than when you're hiding and being very quiet)

[phalaeo]

Ok, I've done some calculations, and I can get 68..... where will this be effective and where will I fail?

Another "odd" question I was thinking about while crunching numbers- Is there a no-fail number to hit? I mean, do the mobs roll to see if they can detect somebody in stealth, or is there no roll involved because it's a passive skill?

[Crazyfruit]

That should be enough to get through almost everything with no problems, except epic kobolds & von 4 (depends if they're active) iirc. A few areas, like Elite Sins of Attrition, will need you to be a lil tricky - some high level monsters will still notice you if you get extremely close.

If there is a roll, it's an invisible one.

edit: And monsters will still notice you if you step into their vision radius of course. That varies by monster.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

This is a complicated question/answer.

But let me point out that monsters have an auto-detect area about three feet in front of their noses, at roughly a 45 degree arc.

So no matter what you stealth or invis status, you cannot walk right past their faces without getting seen.

Spiders, Oozes, Bats... a few others. have senses that prevent sneaking past them in most cases.

I was told once that a 28 in stealth skils is enough for most monsters. I find that good advice for almost everything that is not a boss or an Epic monster.

Actually low 20's seem to work quite well most of the time.

Move Silently is more important than Hide. But lighting conditions can greatly effect Hide.

[Lithic]

68 should be plenty even for epics (though brenna would know better than I).

Just remember that monsters have auto-detection zones in front of them (Thanks Mr.Cow!). You have to be very close, and within a certain forward arc, but if you go there they will see you even with max stealth and invisibility. Beholders I believe have a 360 degree autodetect arc.

[HallowedOne]

I think my Rogue has about 50 ~ 70 on each. SOmewhere around that point and it's good enough since I can manage to do eClaw on Stealth way easily.