Stormreach Shadows: A Comprehensive Stealth Guide

[TeacherSyn]

That is an extremely good point I hadn't considered (simply because that's not something I've ever done! Wouldn't even occur to me, I don't think laterally enough). Yes, you are correct sir. Let me rephrase:

They should find a way to measure what constitutes a stealth run, and significantly up the XP bonus for achieving that.

This well may be impossible, but if it is possible... they should make it so.

Perhaps a simple record of DA being triggered? Yes, some stealth runs would be completely blown due to strange lag/detection effects like in Shavarath, and certain bugged quests. I know. But... if for the other however-many quests it is you could get a 30% bonus or something for a proper 'outwitted the enemy' type run, that would be great. Sometimes for stealth you will be using distraction and things which do deliberately aggro mobs (summonses, throwing a knife etc - I've been reading the guide, lol) so simple aggro shouldn't do it. But if you aggro enough at once that you trip DA?

Assuming DA is working correctly and all (i know, I know), why could that not be an appropriate trigger condition to maybe just put you back to the current maximum for a no-kills run?

Maybe they should keep the per quest bonus as it is, but add a Stealth Streak?

That's what I was thinking. Or, Listen checks. If they go above a certain threshold based on the percentage of enemies, DA or no, any stealth bonus is reduced. A failed invisizerg would kick DA on and that would also erase an increased stealth bonus. No stealth team should ever have Dungeon Alert.

[TeacherSyn]

I'm glad the whole topic of insidious cunning not being worth enough has been brought up. It takes much longer to stealth a quest than to zerg it and many people cannot stealth them anyway. A means up time/xp balance would be needed in order for stealth to be considered anything other than a niche playstyle.

Look at completion times for a zerg vs a stealthed run. Something like 2 - 4x is my best guess. Now imagine giving insidious cunning a 200-400% bonus... (thus evening the time/xp playing field.) But then you can zerg to the end and get the bonus... so...

Tie it to agro. Our current agro monitoring system is dungeon alert (as much as I hate it.)
Insideous cunning bonus starts at 200% (or 400 or 10000, whatever is deemed appropriate.) Each activation of dungeon alert is a minus to that number.
green -10% and another 10% every 10 seconds it remains.
yellow -10% stacking etc...

So in practice as the dungeon alert ramps up you get
green, -10
5 seconds later it hits yellow -10 more
5 seconds later green has been active for 10 seconds for another -10
5 seconds later yellow ticks for -10 more and then you clear it back down to green
5 seconds later green ticks again -10 and then you clear it back down to nothing.

So you see a yellow alert that lasted 21-25 seconds killed 50%.

If you get up to red you are -40 just as it stepped up and -40 every 10 seconds. Anyone zerging and triggering a lot of DA will not get the cunning bonus, but someone who is careful and doesn't get agro can get the whole bonus.

Note: not getting DA by means of killing doesn't get this bonus either, because it is the insidious cunning bonus and you can only get this or a kill bonus, not both.

There are quests where DA is broken and thus this would not work, but it could be a huge bonus in quests without broken DA.

Great formula. Allows forgiveness but not carelessness.

[TeacherSyn]

Yeah, he is tough. I knew the kiting tactics when I went in. It was just a really big disapointment that this whole quest, which is practically made for stealth mode, prohibits you from stealthing in the boss fight by making the boss locate you no matter what, bypassing stealth paramenters (no search icon appears, no red footsteps, no tremorsense etc). I went in way overlevel on normal with ~90 hide and move silently and he stil made a bee line towards me.

IMO, stealth is broken in the end fight. But as I gather from old info, it was "broken" on purpose by devs (or who ever called the shots at the time) that thought it was too easy to stealth. Opinions will differ, of course, but I hate this type of DM "cheating".

"Fixing" that boss would be a great way to encourage us stealthy folks to play. No boss should auto-see a stealthed player. I'd concede that you need superior stealth (as you need superior Disable with the super-trapped chest in "A Cabal of One") but it shouldn't be impossible.

[Skunk_City]

You mention in part 3 of the guide, "Tumbling also grants Reflex and AC bonuses for some classes, and is a silent action." There doesn't seem to be anything further in the guide concerning it.
I assume you are correct; It never even occurred to me that it might be silent.
If you are correct, tumbling may need a subsection in your guide. Thoughts:
- Could you conceivably use invisibility and ONLY tumble for perfect stealth? (regardless of MS skill)
- Maxing out tumble to 56+ so that a -20 sneak penalty would still allow you to forward dive past foes: maintaining sneak, potentially increasing movement speed, and briefly buffing
(such as Acrobatic's reflex save bonus from Shadowdancer ED)
- On these basis, should you "forward dive sneak" over short gaps rather than jump for guaranteed silence?
- Does Unearthly Reactions from Magister ED cause Tumble to make noise (I assume yes)

Great guide concept.
A+

[dunklezhan]

[insert dunklezhan's idea] would be an awesome idea!

You know, it's funny how often I have heard that over the years, but for some reason none of my stuff ever gets a 'read by a dev'. /meh.

[Saekee]

You know, it's funny how often I have heard that over the years, but for some reason none of my stuff ever gets a 'read by a dev'. /meh.

I know the feeling BUT at least someone said your idea was awesome!

[TeacherSyn]

You mention in part 3 of the guide, "Tumbling also grants Reflex and AC bonuses for some classes, and is a silent action." There doesn't seem to be anything further in the guide concerning it.
I assume you are correct; It never even occurred to me that it might be silent.
If you are correct, tumbling may need a subsection in your guide. Thoughts:
- Could you conceivably use invisibility and ONLY tumble for perfect stealth? (regardless of MS skill)
- Maxing out tumble to 56+ so that a -20 sneak penalty would still allow you to forward dive past foes: maintaining sneak, potentially increasing movement speed, and briefly buffing
(such as Acrobatic's reflex save bonus from Shadowdancer ED)
- On these basis, should you "forward dive sneak" over short gaps rather than jump for guaranteed silence?
- Does Unearthly Reactions from Magister ED cause Tumble to make noise (I assume yes)

Great guide concept.
A+

Thanks, Skunk.

On tumbling, I reread the DDO Wiki description and decided to revise that phrase to end as "appears to be a silent action." I'll need to test it to verify, but it should follow that a stealthed person that tumbles and stays in stealth keeps their MS protection. But if their MS skill is poor, they're vulnerable.

Increasing Tumble beyond 36, as far as I can tell, shows no real benefits for anyone.

Stealth requires you to be always well-hidden and well-silent. Your idea only works half of the problem. Move Silently works only in Sneak mode. And if you have poor MS while tumbling in stealth, you would be heard just as if you are sneaking with that score. You can compromise on Hide using gear and spells and sometimes invisibility, but MS is an absolute as enemies can always hear you and there is only one way to deafen them, provided you have a Druid with one particular spell in your party--and that's still a chance for the spell to fail or work very briefly.

People ignoring or forgetting how MS factors is the reason why "invisizerging" is a very risky thing to do. Being seen (or not) is one problem: being heard screws you over as enemies will still chase you while out of their line of sight but still in their hearing range.

The Mobility feat adds +4 AC when in a tumble. The Shadowdancer's Acrobatic ability adds successive AC and reflex bonuses while tumbling. I don't think other heroic enhancements offer that.

Jumping while in stealth is a silent action. Regardless of your Tumble skill, I think you travel the same distance, somersaulting or no.

Any movement, no matter what other feat, enhancement, or skill is available to the character, will make sound if you aren't in Sneak. Any movement outside of Sneak has an inherent MS of 0 (MS is inactive when not Sneaking). Whether it's Unearthly Reactions, Shadowdancer's Shadow Form, or Grandmaster of Flowers's Ubiquity, tumbling isn't silent unless sneaking.

[Skunk_City]

Oh, that makes more sense. Gotcha
http://youtu.be/7SqFZeeNVe4

I came up with 56 as it would allow you to forward dive in sneak mode.
I was doing it the other day on Lam while testing out a new Assassin build that uses the Harper tree and goes super-max Int & DC to see
if an EE Assassin would now be viable.
I like tumbling. Can ya tell?

[Caprice]

There are a couple other Tumbling-induced buffs I can remember. Halflings can get up to +6 AC while Tumbling through their racial tree. Rogue's Thief-Acrobat can gain a buff of +2 STR & DEX after Tumbling (w/ a commensurate slight skill boost to Jump and H/MS), can Tumble through enemies, and the T-A capstone also offers a combat buff after Tumbling.

[TeacherSyn]

Thanks Caprice. I may note that in the guide.

I love tumbling, too, Skunk.

Someone asked me recently how much H/MS is needed. Yesterday by happenstance I was playing a quest where I entered Kiricletica at L12 into Elite (no invisibility used). The enemy guards, fire reavers, were CR 19 while my H/MS were 38. I was getting detected despite being farther away.

So I postulate this to you and have added it to the guide as a rule-of-thumb:

"Your Hide or Move Silently training may fail against an enemy if either score, divided by 2, is equal or less than the enemy's Challenge Rating number."

[TeacherSyn]

Oh, that makes more sense. Gotcha
http://youtu.be/7SqFZeeNVe4

I came up with 56 as it would allow you to forward dive in sneak mode.
I was doing it the other day on Lam while testing out a new Assassin build that uses the Harper tree and goes super-max Int & DC to see
if an EE Assassin would now be viable.
I like tumbling. Can ya tell?

You're right. I neglected to remember the -20 Tumble penalty.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

You mention in part 3 of the guide, "Tumbling also grants Reflex and AC bonuses for some classes, and is a silent action." There doesn't seem to be anything further in the guide concerning it.
I assume you are correct; It never even occurred to me that it might be silent.
If you are correct, tumbling may need a subsection in your guide. Thoughts:
- Could you conceivably use invisibility and ONLY tumble for perfect stealth? (regardless of MS skill)
- Maxing out tumble to 56+ so that a -20 sneak penalty would still allow you to forward dive past foes: maintaining sneak, potentially increasing movement speed, and briefly buffing
(such as Acrobatic's reflex save bonus from Shadowdancer ED)
- On these basis, should you "forward dive sneak" over short gaps rather than jump for guaranteed silence?
- Does Unearthly Reactions from Magister ED cause Tumble to make noise (I assume yes)

Great guide concept.
A+

If this is true, it really surprises me.

However (in the old stealth system at least... not tested in new one) Leap of Faith like abilities "are" (were?) silent. And could not be detected by tremor sense either.

However, it seems that most things with tremor sense have a form of "see all" vision in their view arc that is impossible to hide or invis from. And some things with tremor sense, like oozes are just about impossible to tell which way they are facing. (however, new stealth system may have cured that problem with the eyeball symbol that now shows us when they are looking at us.)

Again.. this is old news and may not be current. Ghoste mentioned it and I did some testing with it and discovered the see all ability that goes with it. (and "I" actually got to tell Ghoste something he didn't already know about... muhuhahaha /patmyselfonback.)

[TeacherSyn]

If this is true, it really surprises me.

However (in the old stealth system at least... not tested in new one) Leap of Faith like abilities "are" (were?) silent. And could not be detected by tremor sense either.

However, it seems that most things with tremor sense have a form of "see all" vision in their view arc that is impossible to hide or invis from. And some things with tremor sense, like oozes are just about impossible to tell which way they are facing. (however, new stealth system may have cured that problem with the eyeball symbol that now shows us when they are looking at us.)

Again.. this is old news and may not be current. Ghoste mentioned it and I did some testing with it and discovered the see all ability that goes with it. (and "I" actually got to tell Ghoste something he didn't already know about... muhuhahaha /patmyselfonback.)

Good catch. A few things that Ghoste saw still have a bit of merit.

The leaping abilities I know are silent, at least the jump. But when you stop...? Don't think so. Since I can use Abundant Step while in Sneak, it's not something I test as I zoom through a pack of guards.

I now can confirm something about bats. They have See Invisibility and, the second they appear, red question marks show up even if you're still and in stealth. They have an unbeatable Listen check. Fits why stealth will never work with them.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

I'm glad the whole topic of insidious cunning not being worth enough has been brought up. It takes much longer to stealth a quest than to zerg it and many people cannot stealth them anyway. A means up time/xp balance would be needed in order for stealth to be considered anything other than a niche playstyle.

Look at completion times for a zerg vs a stealthed run. Something like 2 - 4x is my best guess. Now imagine giving insidious cunning a 200-400% bonus... (thus evening the time/xp playing field.) But then you can zerg to the end and get the bonus... so...

Tie it to agro. Our current agro monitoring system is dungeon alert (as much as I hate it.)
Insideous cunning bonus starts at 200% (or 400 or 10000, whatever is deemed appropriate.) Each activation of dungeon alert is a minus to that number.
green -10% and another 10% every 10 seconds it remains.
yellow -10% stacking etc...

So in practice as the dungeon alert ramps up you get
green, -10
5 seconds later it hits yellow -10 more
5 seconds later green has been active for 10 seconds for another -10
5 seconds later yellow ticks for -10 more and then you clear it back down to green
5 seconds later green ticks again -10 and then you clear it back down to nothing.

So you see a yellow alert that lasted 21-25 seconds killed 50%.

If you get up to red you are -40 just as it stepped up and -40 every 10 seconds. Anyone zerging and triggering a lot of DA will not get the cunning bonus, but someone who is careful and doesn't get agro can get the whole bonus.

Note: not getting DA by means of killing doesn't get this bonus either, because it is the insidious cunning bonus and you can only get this or a kill bonus, not both.

There are quests where DA is broken and thus this would not work, but it could be a huge bonus in quests without broken DA.

Alternatively, instead of having DAs subtract from your bonus (if I read you correctly), why not have tiered bonuses like for trapping (ingenious whatchamacallit), or the Vandal-Ransack bonuses?

e.g.
Insidious Cunning 10%
IC, no DA/red, 15% (or something)
IC, no yellow, 20%
IC, no green, 25-30%

[Phaeton_Seraph]

I wanted to ask about using traps. Noisemakers are mentioned in the guide, but there are many kinds of magical traps that may be useful, even in harder level content.

I'm not sure how they fit into your philosophy, but I thought I'd share my recent experiences.




Now these aren't really stealth tactics, but I tend to keep Grease, Web, and Deadly Force traps in inventory all the time. With the Rock boots Grease traps and sleet scrolls are great things to lay down before opening rough doors.
A grease trap on an incline/slope with a force trap at the top; they zerg through the grease, don't slip, but you shield block on top of the force trap, they get knocked down the slippery slope... (Thanks to Christine for showing me that.)


I have a shadar-kai and a couple arties. I guess I hadn't checked on my parts in quite some time (and I seem to recall farming them while waiting for parties to fill before my DDO-vacay). Yesterday, I realised that I had a metric butt-ton of magical trap parts (must be from the spellwards).

Anyway, I figured Web traps were still working for me on EH and some EE quests, so why not try more?

So I made up a variety of magical traps. I made Resistible Dance, Cause Fear (or was it Scare? it made a purplish mask appear overhead?), Blindness, and Hypnotic Pattern.


I took my level 24 Arcano-Tech Artie (not really trap specc'd but magical traps use the Int modifier) into EH Lords of Dust. And went through to the second altar depending mostly on my traps, and my Toaster (i.e. the dog), to actually kill things, and using the odd Tact-Det to get things outta my grill. Mostly I was laying traps.


Observations:

Resistible Dance, was so-so, it only worked on a single target, and I'm not sure if they were just passing through the AoE before they could be affected, but, it wasn't spectacular. Perhaps luring a single mob over such a trap would be of more use than a in a Hurly Burly fight. It requires further experimentation.

Fear or Scare, didn't make the dogs run away, didn't seem terribly effective at that level. Any mob affected overcame it quick. I need to go back and check what I made and try the other, and both of them under more controlled circumstances. It requires further experimentation.

Blindness, I don't know if they removed the Eye-con telling you that mobs are blind, or they're just really resistant, it didn't seem effective. Perhaps the Hurly Burly environment was the wrong place. It requires further experimentation.

Hypnotic Pattern, the winner of the event. It left a lot of creatures milling about. Surprisingly well. AoE spell/scrolls make the other stuff look useless.

Web, you just got to get them into the AoE and it's rather effective.



Conclusion:

I'll need to do more testing, in a more sneaky environment, to bait mobs over single target traps, but I think that there's a good chance they will prove effective for my rogue if I adopt the shadow life. He's pretty brainy.




Conjecture &c:

Primarily, I'm looking forward to Sleep and Deep Slumber, as I'm hoping the mobs will be less aggroed, when the effects wear off, than if I use Hold Person or Resistible Dance. As Deep Slumber is an AoE, I'm optimistic.

I have great expectations for Halt Undead traps, as I expect their AoE to be nearly as useful as the Hypnotic Pattern on the living.

I'm also now curious about Glitterdust.
I understand it will affect players "visually" but that just means it messes with our ability to see. It shouldn't reveal us, should it?
However, even if it doesn't blind them, it should affect the mobs' vision just as much as ours, shouldn't it?

It's too bad Fog Cloud can't be made into a trap...


Anyway, OP, if this isn't contrary to your philosophy of life in the shadows, I can post back more about this. Lemme know if it's of interest.

[TeacherSyn]

Alternatively, instead of having DAs subtract from your bonus (if I read you correctly), why not have tiered bonuses like for trapping (ingenious whatchamacallit), or the Vandal-Ransack bonuses?

e.g.
Insidious Cunning 10%
IC, no DA/red, 15% (or something)
IC, no yellow, 20%
IC, no green, 25-30%

That's just as cool to me, too.

[TeacherSyn]

I wanted to ask about using traps.

(snipping for brevity)

So I made up a variety of magical traps. I made Resistible Dance, Cause Fear (or was it Scare? it made a purplish mask appear overhead?), Blindness, and Hypnotic Pattern.

Hi.

Oh, your use of magical traps fits perfectly with the shadowy arts.

I'm only getting started in re-exploring the effectiveness of the many traps you've created, but I do know that Web traps can work even in EE.

In fact, you should look at Master Assassin nokowi's videos, here. He uses Web traps to stop enemies while running solo in EE in one of the most dangerous quests in the game, "Foundation of Discord."

So you are very much on the right path. It's a matter of getting the most bang out of your trap bucks. I'm favoring Web, but now you piqued my interest with Hypnotic Pattern.

Thanks for your information. While we've mentioned a bit about Rogue traps, it's not broken out to note each one's general effectiveness. I'll add your observations to this chapter as we expand that section out.

[TeacherSyn]

I'm also now curious about Glitterdust.
I understand it will affect players "visually" but that just means it messes with our ability to see. It shouldn't reveal us, should it?
However, even if it doesn't blind them, it should affect the mobs' vision just as much as ours, shouldn't it?

It's too bad Fog Cloud can't be made into a trap...


Anyway, OP, if this isn't contrary to your philosophy of life in the shadows, I can post back more about this. Lemme know if it's of interest.

On Glitterdust; it obscures enemies as well as us, so give it a go as a trap. It will also reveal hidden enemies, a good idea in a few places. My guess is that if you close enough for their Spot to see you, it won't work, but with enough distance it buys time.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Good catch. A few things that Ghoste saw still have a bit of merit.

The leaping abilities I know are silent, at least the jump. But when you stop...? Don't think so. Since I can use Abundant Step while in Sneak, it's not something I test as I zoom through a pack of guards.

I now can confirm something about bats. They have See Invisibility and, the second they appear, red question marks show up even if you're still and in stealth. They have an unbeatable Listen check. Fits why stealth will never work with them.

In theory, blindsense, tremorsense, and lifesense work differently. But in DDO they might be coded the same. (not sure.)

(remember, everything I am saying here is old news and may not be current)

Ghost showed me in the Subterrain, that when you exited a portal near the Fiendish spiders, that they did not become aware of you until you moved (since they were not facing you at the time you appeared.)

I also think he told me that Tharask Hounds have blindsense, but only in front of them.

Bats, I am unsure of.

Oozes and spiders have tremor sense that pretty much detects you as soon as you move no matter which way they are facing. Ghoste was pretty sure they actually had a front side to them, but that it was just about impossible to tell which way they were actually facing.

Dread Wraiths in the Orchard seem to have Lifesense, that so far seems to work just like Tremorsense as far as I know.

What I believe he discovered and commented on, was that he could move past some Oozes by using the Leap of Faith type abilities.

When I heard this, I decided to try it out. I took a high level Monk into Redfangs and attempted to sneak past the Spiders.
I could in fact, move behind them undetected. But I discovered that as soon as they faced me they saw me even if I was invisible.

So it seems that in addition to the tremor sense ability they have an added "see all" ability in their viewing arc.

I told Ghoste this and I believe he tested it too. Since he had been trying with Oozes (living spells actually_ he had not noticed that the direction they were facing made a difference. But I believe he later confirmed it.


I need to experiment with Tumbling. Tumbling used to force us out of sneak mode.
I never thought about whether Tumbling made noise or not.
(we can even tumble through monsters now.... might be interesting... )

[Saekee]

In theory, blindsense, tremorsense, and lifesense work differently. But in DDO they might be coded the same. (not sure.)

(remember, everything I am saying here is old news and may not be current)

Ghost showed me in the Subterrain, that when you exited a portal near the Fiendish spiders, that they did not become aware of you until you moved (since they were not facing you at the time you appeared.)

I also think he told me that Tharask Hounds have blindsense, but only in front of them.

Bats, I am unsure of.

Oozes and spiders have tremor sense that pretty much detects you as soon as you move no matter which way they are facing. Ghoste was pretty sure they actually had a front side to them, but that it was just about impossible to tell which way they were actually facing.

Dread Wraiths in the Orchard seem to have Lifesense, that so far seems to work just like Tremorsense as far as I know.

What I believe he discovered and commented on, was that he could move past some Oozes by using the Leap of Faith type abilities.

When I heard this, I decided to try it out. I took a high level Monk into Redfangs and attempted to sneak past the Spiders.
I could in fact, move behind them undetected. But I discovered that as soon as they faced me they saw me even if I was invisible.

So it seems that in addition to the tremor sense ability they have an added "see all" ability in their viewing arc.

I told Ghoste this and I believe he tested it too. Since he had been trying with Oozes (living spells actually_ he had not noticed that the direction they were facing made a difference. But I believe he later confirmed it.


I need to experiment with Tumbling. Tumbling used to force us out of sneak mode.
I never thought about whether Tumbling made noise or not.
(we can even tumble through monsters now.... might be interesting... )

You worked with Ghoste? Please consider testing or retesting these points.
In truth someone in Wraith form isn't touching the ground (so the epic version of shadowdancer also counts here) and do they should be able to avoid tremor sense. Shroud of the wraith means one should resist Life Sense. I haven't tested this but know that Ghoste took full advantage of wraith form