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Quote:

Hide in Plain Sight
There is a cool-down on Hide in Plain Sight. When stealth mode is deactivated, Hide in Plain Sight will not function for another six seconds. Do note that only Hide in Plain Sight is affected - a character may still enter Stealth Mode during this cool-down time.

This feat is gained at level 6, rather than level 1.

awesome... that is all.

Agreed. Yay!

A question on the mechanics, though, regarding "a character may still enter Stealth Mode during this cool-down time."

If I do that, does my stealth revert to HiPS stealth once the cooldown is elapsed? Or would I need to un-stealth and then re-stealth in order to re-establish HiPS?

You need to restealth to re-establish HiPS.

to engage plain stealth you need to break LOS... that would take more then 6 seconds in most cases

Dieu_Le_Fera wrote:

to engage plain stealth you need to break LOS... that would take more then 6 seconds in most cases

Not if you can cast Darkness. It works for stealth mechanics, right?

The cooldown begins when you leave stealth mode. So yes, if you go back into stealth too early and you're unable to break LOS you will probably need to leave stealth mode again and wait a full six seconds if you need to HiPS. Or, Darkess works too, if your foes can't see through magical darkness.

There's visual effect feedback that shows whether it's still on cooldown. It's subtle though, so you'll need to look for it.

Quote:

Not if you can cast Darkness. It works for stealth mechanics, right?

and if the opposing side has true sight or ultra vision.. you want to ignore that hmm?

Wait... People actually use stealth on Amia?

This seems more of a, "We nerfed it because we found out how" rather than a, "We nerfed it because it needed nerfing."

I can't wait till all the nerfing is done and it starts all over again. I belief it's a vicious circle.

Holy, fuck, YES.

I can finally stop whining!

kind of unfair for all the people who went higher then 6 into the shadowdancer class, given the server has afew 15 or higher ones as well and HiPS was the only thing they got from the class.

maybe it could be added so that 15+ shadowdancers dont have a cooldown, or do the staff have plans to change the shadowdancers skills to scale better?

corypx wrote:

kind of unfair for all the people who went higher then 6 into the shadowdancer class, given the server has afew 15 or higher ones as well and HiPS was the only thing they got from the class.

I don't understand your point. They didn't get hit any more or less than those with 6 levels. They never got any additional HiPS boons for taking those levels and they knew it, so why would it suddenly be unfair that they don't get any retroactively?

Not that this is up for serious consideration anyhow, I imagine.

Moth wrote:

Wait... People actually use stealth on Amia?

This seems more of a, "We nerfed it because we found out how" rather than a, "We nerfed it because it needed nerfing."

People didn't use Stealth on Amia.

They took 6 SD and abused the shit out of F1 F2 to never be hit.

Silvarus wrote:

Holy, fuck, YES.

I can finally stop whining!

*Very_Svensk likes you comment*
*Very_Svensk has shared your comment*

corypx wrote:

kind of unfair for all the people who went higher then 6 into the shadowdancer class, given the server has afew 15 or higher ones as well and HiPS was the only thing they got from the class.

maybe it could be added so that 15+ shadowdancers dont have a cooldown, or do the staff have plans to change the shadowdancers skills to scale better?

Omg....I love you Cory......*points to his post* Yes please!!!!! =D

Ninja edit: *reads a few more comments* Oh great, another SD debate...*waits for the lock*

The cool-down is there no matter how many Shadowdancer levels you're taking.

If you are good at stealth you will be able to hide no matter what. If you just know how to press F2 you indeed will be effected.

If this is the case, can the monster AI actually be fixed so that it leaves you alone after stealth/invis?

Delicious tears.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Delicious tears.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Delicious tears.

Yes, well, people generally design their builds with certain expectations in mind. Moving HIPS to level 6 was certainly a justifiable change, and I'm not exactly against the cooldown as-is. What I don't like is that there wasn't any discussion beforehand about the pending change so that adjustments could be planned for the characters affected. The problem is that now, personally at least, I have a build that doesn't work as I had intended it. Whether or not that the intended build is OP or not isn't relevant to my point, I built it around a viable, legal premise that no longer functions. Now I have just enough shadowdancer to get crappy HIPS but not enough for any of the other cool toys that come with 10+SD. Before the change, I considered that a reasonable tradeoff. Now, I'd like to either drop the class for a more functional build, or take -more- SD so that I can at least get the other toys if I'm going to be saddled with a class that doesn't do what it said it would on the box when I "bought" it. I'm trying not to rant, but I feel these are valid concerns.

The AI concern actually isn't an issue like 90% of the time. The monsters run to you and just stop there once they get to you. It is just scary seeing them chasing you as you hide. The toggling hips again did indeed make them stop in their tracks, but most of the time they were never going to attack you any ways.

Moth wrote:

Wait... People actually use stealth on Amia?

This seems more of a, "We nerfed it because we found out how" rather than a, "We nerfed it because it needed nerfing."

What? Seriously? Or are you trolling? If you are trolling, get out. If not, you're an idiot.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Delicious tears.

Yes, well, people generally design their builds with certain expectations in mind. Moving HIPS to level 6 was certainly a justifiable change, and I'm not exactly against the cooldown as-is. What I don't like is that there wasn't any discussion beforehand about the pending change so that adjustments could be planned for the characters affected. The problem is that now, personally at least, I have a build that doesn't work as I had intended it. Whether or not that the intended build is OP or not isn't relevant to my point, I built it around a viable, legal premise that no longer functions. Now I have just enough shadowdancer to get crappy HIPS but not enough for any of the other cool toys that come with 10+SD. Before the change, I considered that a reasonable tradeoff. Now, I'd like to either drop the class for a more functional build, or take -more- SD so that I can at least get the other toys if I'm going to be saddled with a class that doesn't do what it said it would on the box when I "bought" it. I'm trying not to rant, but I feel these are valid concerns.

There's been a lot of discussion about this. This has been a long time coming, and I think I first heard about it (in the GENERAL DISCUSSION forum, no less) about a year or so ago. It just finally got done due to prioritization. Search the forums and you will find it.

That said, if you build your character around the expectation that you can immediately break combat by spamming HiPS, then you are Doing It Wrong and you deserve to be screwed by this. In PnP HiPS is fine because the DM can immediately go 'No, seriously, stop that.' and limit you. In NWN, this has to be done on a grander scale.

Your build is not broken. Unless, of course, being able to immediately and nigh-unstoppably break your enemies' LOS and attack queue and immediately catch them flat footed is 'breaking the build'. Frankly, if that is your argument, it sickens me. The same goes for anyone else that tries to make it.

The class still functions as well as it always did. You just can't -spam- HiPS any more. I play one of the affected SD's, and after toying with HiPS a bit to see how it's been changed, well... It's really not all that different, except for maybe having to think more carefully about what you're doing in combat.

As far as there being "no discussion" - think again. It's been talked about, with suggestions made and debated, for a couple of years in various threads all over the forum. The DM team even hinted, several times, that there would eventually be a HiPS nerf implemented. "Eventually" ended up being today.

6 Second Cooldown on HiPS doesn't affect the majority of players, because most players disengage with the mouse rather than disengaging via F1 Disengage F2 HiPS F3 Knockdown. NinjaClarinets concern isn't exactly a Valid reason for a rebuild. The class does it exactly as it says, you can hide in plain sight as a free action, but that free action can't be used multiple times in a six second period now.

And please also note that the person behind this change main character is an SD. It doesn't cripple the class, and to be perfectly honest any class that can get the requirements for Epic Dodge from only 10 levels is never going to be crippled.

I play a SD. My verdict: Adapt.

Naivatkal wrote:

Moth wrote:

Wait... People actually use stealth on Amia?

This seems more of a, "We nerfed it because we found out how" rather than a, "We nerfed it because it needed nerfing."

What? Seriously? Or are you trolling? If you are trolling, get out. If not, you're an idiot.

NinjaClarinet wrote:

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Delicious tears.

Yes, well, people generally design their builds with certain expectations in mind. Moving HIPS to level 6 was certainly a justifiable change, and I'm not exactly against the cooldown as-is. What I don't like is that there wasn't any discussion beforehand about the pending change so that adjustments could be planned for the characters affected. The problem is that now, personally at least, I have a build that doesn't work as I had intended it. Whether or not that the intended build is OP or not isn't relevant to my point, I built it around a viable, legal premise that no longer functions. Now I have just enough shadowdancer to get crappy HIPS but not enough for any of the other cool toys that come with 10+SD. Before the change, I considered that a reasonable tradeoff. Now, I'd like to either drop the class for a more functional build, or take -more- SD so that I can at least get the other toys if I'm going to be saddled with a class that doesn't do what it said it would on the box when I "bought" it. I'm trying not to rant, but I feel these are valid concerns.

There's been a lot of discussion about this. This has been a long time coming, and I think I first heard about it (in the GENERAL DISCUSSION forum, no less) about a year or so ago. It just finally got done due to prioritization. Search the forums and you will find it.

That said, if you build your character around the expectation that you can immediately break combat by spamming HiPS, then you are Doing It Wrong and you deserve to be screwed by this. In PnP HiPS is fine because the DM can immediately go 'No, seriously, stop that.' and limit you. In NWN, this has to be done on a grander scale.

Your build is not broken. Unless, of course, being able to immediately and nigh-unstoppably break your enemies' LOS and attack queue and immediately catch them flat footed is 'breaking the build'. Frankly, if that is your argument, it sickens me. The same goes for anyone else that tries to make it.

My God you're being annoying and rude. Nowhere was I complaining about the change itself. Anyone that continues to press that point needs to learn to read and stop being an asshat. The change is good. I'd just like to be able to adjust my build to compensate for it.

You are as able to adjust your build as anyone else is.

well like shifters, it was "Monk wisdom AC makes you broken so we cant fix you till thats delt with" they removed monk wisdom AC and the forms got fixed

Shadowdancers HiPS was more or less Monk wisdom AC, it was taken by people to level 6 so they could spam HiPS, what I'm asking is now that HiPS has gotten nerfed, can Shadowdancers powers be upgraded at highers levels to make the class not worthless at higher levels then say 10.

Shadow evade lasts 5 rounds, AC stops at +4 and Conceal at 20% both gained at 10 shadowdancer levels, it could be nice if it scaled with levels better. cant Displacement be placed on potions anyway and thats 50% Conceal and last about the same time aswell 100% more effective?

nothing major, just minor tweaks because a level 20 shadowdancer being almost on par with a level 10 counter part is kind of silly, scaling should still increase to some extent

NinjaClarinet wrote:

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Delicious tears.

Yes, well, people generally design their builds with certain expectations in mind. Moving HIPS to level 6 was certainly a justifiable change, and I'm not exactly against the cooldown as-is. What I don't like is that there wasn't any discussion beforehand about the pending change so that adjustments could be planned for the characters affected. The problem is that now, personally at least, I have a build that doesn't work as I had intended it. Whether or not that the intended build is OP or not isn't relevant to my point, I built it around a viable, legal premise that no longer functions. Now I have just enough shadowdancer to get crappy HIPS but not enough for any of the other cool toys that come with 10+SD. Before the change, I considered that a reasonable tradeoff. Now, I'd like to either drop the class for a more functional build, or take -more- SD so that I can at least get the other toys if I'm going to be saddled with a class that doesn't do what it said it would on the box when I "bought" it. I'm trying not to rant, but I feel these are valid concerns.

This change was in discussion for like THREE YEARS, lol

We just haven't been able to DO IT.

IF you built around hitting F1 every half second you didn't reall build anything, you were just exploiting a broken mechanic.

It's not so much that it was built around the broken mechanic, but that the change moves the "capstone" of the class significantly higher by devaluing HIPS. If I was to rebuild I'd go much higher into the class to utilize imp. evasion, bigger summon, bonus feats, ect. I'll repeat, this is a good change, though I agree with Skeletor that even more higher end "capstone" goodies might be nice, though I don't think it needs -much- more love. I just wish I had some forewarning so I could have included more in the original build, heh.

Uhhhhhhh, HIPS is still the capstone of the class and hasn't moved at all.

Once again: If you needed to spam HIPS more than once every six seconds then it's your own fault.

Meh, Shadowdancer is a badly made class at its core and there's still only two reasons to go beyond 6 SD. 1: you don't have Rogue/Assassin in your build, 2: it fits your character concept.

What I'd do for the Pathfinder Shadowdancer...

Giving it UMD would help >_>

Shadowdancer is fine as is. If I didn't have a million characters already, I'd make one to prove it.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Shadowdancer is fine as is. If I didn't have a million characters already, I'd make one to prove it.

Wouldn't that be like your fifth SD?

Third! But I vaulted the other two!

How does the class not do what it says on the box though, where does it say "At level 6 the Shadowdancer gains the ability to hips spam"?

I got by with 6 SD levels just fine without hipspamming!

I play a Shadowdancer as my main and I'm torn between loving and hating this nerf. Shadowdancers can adapt, as has been said above, so we're not losing our great feat. There's always lots of nice tricks to break line of sight. Invisibility potion + hide, darkness, walls, corners, some trees, blindness, etc.

As far as the lore is concerned; Is there a particular IC way we need to treat not being able to use HiPS for 6 seconds? Something like: The shadowdancer takes a certain amount of time to recover the focus/energy needed to manipulate shadows. Is there a DM view on this, or are we free to RP whatever reason we like?

Also, in terms of the way SD's have used HiPS in the past, would SD's notice a change IC, or do we assume this was always the case?

Edit: Oh, one more question. Shadowdancers in PnP get HiPS at level 1. Since HiPS has now been nerfed appropriately, is it necessary to keep HiPS as a 6th level SD feat? I assume the 6 levels of SD were for balancing reasons, and the Shadowjump stuff was meant to encourage people to take the class in the first place. Now you would have the main ability of the PrC gained at 1st level like it should be, with various advantages of taking the class to higher levels.

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Shadowdancer is fine as is. If I didn't have a million characters already, I'd make one to prove it.

You really should see a doctor. You have a terrible case of altitis.

Gunz wrote:

DerkDerkistan wrote:

Shadowdancer is fine as is. If I didn't have a million characters already, I'd make one to prove it.

You really should see a doctor. You have a terrible case of altitis.

Him and I both.

TormakSaber wrote:

Once again: If you needed to spam HIPS more than once every six seconds then it's your own fault.

As someone who plays and enjoys SD characters' RP (evil and good), I really couldn't be less upset about the change

Gobbledygook wrote:

I play a Shadowdancer as my main and I'm torn between loving and hating this nerf. Shadowdancers can adapt, as has been said above, so we're not losing our great feat. There's always lots of nice tricks to break line of sight. Invisibility potion + hide, darkness, walls, corners, some trees, blindness, etc.

As far as the lore is concerned; Is there a particular IC way we need to treat not being able to use HiPS for 6 seconds? Something like: The shadowdancer takes a certain amount of time to recover the focus/energy needed to manipulate shadows. Is there a DM view on this, or are we free to RP whatever reason we like?

Also, in terms of the way SD's have used HiPS in the past, would SD's notice a change IC, or do we assume this was always the case?

Edit: Oh, one more question. Shadowdancers in PnP get HiPS at level 1. Since HiPS has now been nerfed appropriately, is it necessary to keep HiPS as a 6th level SD feat? I assume the 6 levels of SD were for balancing reasons, and the Shadowjump stuff was meant to encourage people to take the class in the first place. Now you would have the main ability of the PrC gained at 1st level like it should be, with various advantages of taking the class to higher levels.

They shouldn't notice a change because they shouldn't have even been doing it. And you don't need to roleplay any differently, I don't need to explain why my fighter doesn't have twenty attacks in -6- seconds, why does a HIPSTER need to explain why they can't HIPS 20 times in six seconds? It simply -is- what it -is.-

Mahtan Tasadur wrote:

The AI concern actually isn't an issue like 90% of the time. The monsters run to you and just stop there once they get to you. It is just scary seeing them chasing you as you hide. The toggling hips again did indeed make them stop in their tracks, but most of the time they were never going to attack you any ways.

About this, often when this happens (pre-HiPS-fix at least) the enemy does start getting at least a round (and occasionally two) of attacks. It's not a big deal but it's kind of annoying and pretty consistent. Am I just doing something wrong?

All I can say is - "Yay".

Silent2001 wrote:

Gobbledygook wrote:

What I said.

They shouldn't notice a change because they shouldn't have even been doing it. And you don't need to roleplay any differently, I don't need to explain why my fighter doesn't have twenty attacks in -6- seconds, why does a HIPSTER need to explain why they can't HIPS 20 times in six seconds? It simply -is- what it -is.-

That's not exactly what I mean. - The problem is that the cooldown begins when you leave stealth mode, rather than when you enter it. A Shadowdancer is using his ability to hide in plain sight when he enters stealth. So I'm suggesting that if i were ICly able to follow something for 10 minutes in stealth, perform a quick action, and not be able to immediately hide, then there's a problem. And the reason is that in that scenario, there's been 10 minutes between when the shadowdancer used the hide in plain sight ability and when he tried to use it again.

I understand that people spammed HiPS and shouldn't have. I'm talking about when people don't, such as in the example above.

Brilliant!!!!

Now if we could just nerf TS a little as well.

Marriah wrote:

Brilliant!!!!

Now if we could just nerf TS a little as well.

Which TS? Time Stop is nerfed and True Seeing is nerfed. Am I missing one? lol

Why? TS has been nerfed.

Gobbley, actions that break stealth break stealth. As was discussed here, you can corner sneak back if you like, as was said, or you have to wait the six seconds. Theres no need to roleplay anything, its just mechanics, again, its how things are. How they've always been essentially. We don't need to say "Oh, Shar was feeling like a bitch so now this happens." Or "Tempus was getting pissy, so now this happens." It simply is what it is.

HIPS nerf

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