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TormakSaber wrote:

The point of eavesdropping is that the victims don't know.

Yeah, telling people OOC just ruins things, to be honest. NC and others hit that point on the head. You're going to act different, it's only human (even if that means double-thinking yourself when trying to not act different). Plus, there's the point that if you are told and then use anti-sneak countermeasures that you always use you could get reported for metagaming... and then you are forced to prove you are innocent (which happens to be the case in a lot of OOC reports). That's unfair.

I think this thread has run it's course, though. We've covered the OP and all the relevant information; and frankly the DMs have stated the ruling so arguing is silly and pointless. Everyone knows that using tells or Skype for simple whispering is against the rules so argue all you wish, it's rule breaking

PassionateShadow wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

The point of eavesdropping is that the victims don't know.

Yes, this. Listen all you sneakers, feel free to eavesdrop on any of my characters. You don't have to tell me OOCly.

Same! I dare you to try.

Omg, please please try to sneak on Kaithan. See what happens.

I agree, nothing left to see here. I'll just call this out one more time, since it aligns with my own personal four-year crusade.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

... an uninvested character shouldn't be able to foil a character who invested in sneaking.

Down with umberhulks! Skill ranks forever! VIVA LA SNEAKS!!

Estara wrote:

Same! I dare you to try.

That was an interesting conversation with Di'Rien last night.

Not nearly enough swooning though. Overall, I give it two thumbs up.

Liz wrote:

Mr. Hackums wrote:

... an uninvested character shouldn't be able to foil a character who invested in sneaking.

Down with umberhulks! Skill ranks forever! VIVA LA SNEAKS!!

QFT.

Bwahah.

I will admit, though, that throughout this entire conversation I was always stifling a small giggle that Liz was able to approach a generally balanced outlook despite playing Kaithan, Queen of "I can't be Eavesdropped."

The more sensible approach to detection vs stealth that I advocate would make Kaithan's (admittedly ridiculous) Spot score even cooler, though, Hackums. Right now, Kaithan has three feats, 33 skill ranks, four mythal slots, and a nontrivial portion of her spellbook all invested in improving her Spot, all of which are essentially wasted. Any 1st-level barbarian can duplicate all that investment by spending a few hundred gp. Eliminating win buttons against sneaking also has the secondary effect of making actually legitimately obtained detection skill even more valuable.

Bioware TS was supposed to be removed, but never was, for reasons I don't know. It would be nice if the pseudodragon didn't have TS (but rather high-ish spot), and the umberhulk was reskinned into something without bioware TS. Same goes for shifter forms like dragons/wyrmlings, also Rakshasa; it would be nice to remove that ridiculous staff that gives them godlike vision.

Probably too much bitching from people who rely on these things, unfortunately, and then of course, you have the people who go.. "But .. but they're dragons!"

Liz wrote:

The more sensible approach to detection vs stealth that I advocate would make Kaithan's (admittedly ridiculous) Spot score even cooler, though, Hackums. Right now, Kaithan has three feats, 33 skill ranks, four mythal slots, and a nontrivial portion of her spellbook all invested in improving her Spot, all of which are essentially wasted. Any 1st-level barbarian can duplicate all that investment by spending a few hundred gp. Eliminating win buttons against sneaking also has the secondary effect of making actually legitimately obtained detection skill even more valuable.

*few thousand GP
*class with UMD, wizard or sorcerer

There's polymorph potions you can buy... so, yeah, no class requirement.

Last edited by serbiris on Tue, Jul 21 2015, 19:15 PM, edited 1 time in total.

The potions are randomised though, itd take a dozen to work. Oh, there is that other thing, but its like 4000 a pop and not everyone knows about it. 1st levels cant afford dat.

Incidentally, last year I had two PCs fail to detect me with umberhulk shapes. Any idea why? Human error?

Also yeah by P&P lore tremor/blindsense/sight can be fooled by a certain prestige class ability

4000 gp is like a third of one trip through the frontier orc caves. Lowbies can totally afford that. And even if not, "sorc, wiz, or class with UMD" is the enormous majority of the server. I may not understand the build forums much, but I can certainly read them, and "omg you need a tumbledrop and UMD for scrolls" is a perennial top 40 hit over there. No, I'm sticking by my story here.

Last edited by RaveN on Tue, Jul 21 2015, 19:18 PM, edited 1 time in total.

If you're bringing PnP into this, Tremor Sense functions completely differently than it does on Amia, and so does Hide/MS. I do agree with the backbone of what Liz is saying here. Personally I think one-button-demi-god-vision status is kind of lame.

Quote:

Incidentally, last year I had two PCs fail to detect me with umberhulk shapes. Any idea why? Human error?

Yes.

Its a majority of endbuilds, not lowlevels. 4k is a good run and not many 1st levels are gonna be soloing that...

Faded Wings wrote:

If you're bringing PnP into this, Tremor Sense functions completely differently than it does on Amia, and so does Hide/MS. I do agree with the backbone of what Liz is saying here. Personally I think one-button-demi-god-vision status is kind of lame.

Tremorsense doesnt function on Amia period - its just the explanation we use. My point was that all special senses - dragon or otherwise - can be fooled, and that should be taken into account.

Really I'm not arguing with you guys, just disputing figures >_>

Hahah, I just wanted to say to those who wrote here that want to be challenged....ugh guys

But since I showed up my head here I want to say that I'm okay with being sneaked upon (and am aware that I am), just as much as I'm sneaking on others. And I think that's how it should be (without ooc).

Faded Wings wrote:

Bioware TS was supposed to be removed, but never was, for reasons I don't know ...

Just out of curiosity, what ever did happen to that familiar rebalancing that was supposed to pull Bioware TS from pseudos and wyrmlings? I mean, clearly it's not a super priority project presently, but I'd been under the impression that it was nearing completion the last time we tossed this conversation around, and that was like two years ago. I'm totally not bitching here, just curious, did anything ever come of that?

Last edited by Naivatkal on Tue, Jul 21 2015, 19:40 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Bioware TS wasn't supposed to be pulled from wyrmling, if I remember correctly (or at least we were going to make some lore-better version) because all ages of dragons get the same Blindsense (which presently is presented as Bioware TS).

It's been unfinished because everyone that was working on it left, and we don't have a ton of people good with creature balancing.

edit: Thinking on it, I don't think it would be a bad idea to have the TS get delayed until Shifter level 11 or something; that's when you get epic wrymling forms and it shows that you gain more abilities as you progress. Plus it eliminates taking 1 shifter and getting TS (not that anyone would only take 1 Shifter level normally).

Seems Terra had some ideas, but I imagine that since nobody could come to a consensus it kind of just sat in limbo.

I used to use umber hulk all the time - as I was taught in Amian fashion that's fine and dandy and sneaks know it happens! Then I heard the other side of the argument and decided I would treat it differently. I don't use it much anymore. I admit to still using it in certain scenarios, but it's only because at this point it's become ICly legitimate to my oldest character and I'm imagining she's been around for enough years to understand the umber hulk form at this point. (And I still admit to it being a little unfair, but such is the life of limited NWN mechanics. One of the many reasons why I believe we should find a new platform for our community eventually. That and the graphics are just wearing on me...)

Naivatkal wrote:

... and frankly the DMs have stated the ruling so arguing is silly and pointless. Everyone knows that using tells or Skype for simple whispering is against the rules so argue all you wish, it's rule breaking.

To try to bring the thread back on topic... have the DMs really given a ruling, though? They've given opinions, but unless I missed it, I didn't see a formally stated rule anywhere. And I'm not really sure I'd want them to make a flat "Skype is cheating" ruling, either. Like, if I turned on my computer this morning and saw that a friend of mine was on Skype but not logged into the game, would I want it to be ruled to be cheating, or even thought to be underhanded in the slightest, if I were to just drop that player an IM saying "hey, I thought of this thing we could do in Winya Ravana to screw with those slimy Lolthites, wouldn't it be awesome to try so-and-so?" In the strictest realism, that conversation would have to have happened IC somewhere, sometime, and thus have given some enterprising drow sneak the opportunity to try to eavesdrop and sabotage our plans. But I wouldn't want that Skype conversation to be ruled illegal. I wouldn't even want to play on a server with rules that draconian.

How do we define the line between which IC conversations are ok to conduct via OOC channels and which ones aren't?

I don't think you CAN make a rule that about *all* IC communication outside of the game. However, I think it's also fair to say that if you are in-game, then using external communications for anything IC is cheating.

There unfortunately is an obvious loophole there, one that makes it impossible to really make any sort of hard and fast rule. Instead I think the best we can really do is come to an agreement of that standard, and hold to the intent rather than the letter. And that seems to mostly be true already.

I totally agree there, Lascer. So unfortunately what we're forced to fall back on is the fact that a rule which relies self-enforcement and the honor system is not a rule, it's a suggestion. And a "Skype is cheating" rule wouldn't be even as solid as that, really: it would be a rule which the enforcers couldn't even reliably detect being broken.

Re-read the part you even quoted, I said whispering. And that's what this is about, not other RPing. You said you wanted to get back on topic, yet talking about non-whispers is derailing it again. Let's not lump everything into one pot; for now we are talking about using tells/Skype for whispers that are happening while two people are logged in. That's cheating.

But what I'm saying is that that's not as bright a line as you're making it out to be. If whispering via Skype is illegal while both players are logged in, can't one player or both just log out to avoid the rule? If logging out to avoid the rule is not itself illegal, then the rule isn't enforceable. And if logging out to avoid the rule is a rule violation, then we're all the way down the rabbit hole of having to try to monitor peoples' Skype conversations.

I do get your argument: you're wanting to isolate just the specific circumstance of two people standing right next to each other in game using OOC means to avoid being eavesdropped by a sneak. But I don't think that one very specific circumstance is qualitatively very different from the circumstance next door, or the one across the street, and et cetera and et cetera.

Even if you're right, that Skype conversation is not detectable by the DMs. A rule for which violations can't be detected, can't be enforced, and therefore is not a rule.

AzureLuna wrote:

Estara wrote:

Same! I dare you to try.

That was an interesting conversation with Di'Rien last night.

Not nearly enough swooning though. Overall, I give it two thumbs up.

Liz wrote:

Mr. Hackums wrote:

... an uninvested character shouldn't be able to foil a character who invested in sneaking.

Down with umberhulks! Skill ranks forever! VIVA LA SNEAKS!!

QFT.

Sorry to bring the discussion back a few steps. Speaking as someone with a rogue as my main, hopefully I am not the only one who is actually content for Bioware TS remaining on umberhulk and some other creatures as it already is. There should be a lot more to espionage then a one-trick hide ability, and people should be able to have meetings in familiar room, comfortable that there are no sneaks skulking about. As it is, hiding is already fairly ridiculous. You can be wearing all black and successfully remain undetected from someone on a sunny day, in the middle of -desert-. And umberhulk is hardly a complete foil against sneaks in all areas, especially something as fast paced as combat.

Espionage and counter-espionage should not be summed up as some skill-point arms race between hide/move silently and spot/listen. If you want to spy on someone, sure, good luck, you should be able to follow them from a safe distance, or into unfamiliar territory, but there should be accessible counter options against something as simply as hiding in the same room.

If I want to spy on the Justicar's board meetings, it should take more than having a shadowdancer doing stake-out to do it. Intimidate attendees into giving information, break into the records office or something marginally creative.

All I am saying, is that spying should not be whittled down to a battle of two specific sets of skills. Hide is plenty useful as it is, but it should not be the do-all end-all for all spying matters.

I don't mean by focusing on Hide/MS vs Spot/Listen to dismiss all other forms of sneak RP. You're totally right, and those alternate intel-gathering scenarios you describe are perfectly valid and potentially awesome.

My only argument is that investment should only be countered by proportional investment. A character with lots and lots of character resources invested in sneaking should not be able to be reliably detected by a character who just dropped a few hundred thousand (thank you, Serbiris

) gold pieces on a polymorph scroll. It's just fundamentally contrary to the basic principles of gaming. A professional sneak didn't just pop an invisibility potion and expect to infiltrate the White House. She invested time, skill points, feats, gear, and often spellcasting choices into being able to sneak supremely well. The mechanics of the game absolutely need to respect that investment, not dismiss it as only being worth the price of a scroll.

I think his argument is that this change would not actually help Spy RP, only make it worse. If people don't feel like they can safely discuss anything if they are careful enough, they are going to move into secret talks without room for the mistake of messing up scrolls, forgetting to bring them, or accidentally discussing without checking. PMs, skype letters - there's no system for intercepting mail. As it is, the best opening for actual sneak espionage is in "right place, right time" and human error. And that is actually somewhat balanced, in a way.

Part of the problem has always been the nature of the game but as it's been said before - hide/ms vs listen/spot isn't a fair competition. Sneak investment is dismissed by default, polymorph scrolls don't really make it worse. Detection has the d20 advantage and sneaking, if it were suddenly to become infallible, would horribly imbalance espionage.

I kinda agree though. Us who play long-term spies have just kind of adapted to the shitty system.

serbiris wrote:

... sneaking, if it were suddenly to become infallible, would horribly imbalance espionage.

I'm not advocating that sneaking be infallible. Just that it be proportional. People who actually invest in detection *should* legitimately be able to actually detect. Dragonshape shifters *should* keep Bioware TS, it requires significant investment to get that much shifting power. Shapechange spells should keep it, you need lots of wizard/sorcerer levels to achieve that spell. Anyone with 1,209 gp (I'm looking at the price from Hil'rash right now as I type this) should not be able to achieve that much leverage over a dedicated professional sneak. It's just flat wrong.

Dedicated professional sneaks are disadvantage for a variety of other reasons in NWN, most notably the fact that skill points can be saved over from level to level. This puts everyone on the same level of 'dedication' (because anyone can be an expert with a single level). If anything, for this reason things should be weighted towards sneaks with a high sneak class dedication. I'm not really sure what the answer is there, since sneaking, and skills, are really just done so terribly in NWN.

Though, no one seems to mind too much that only rogues can detect traps over DC 35. Perhaps some things along this line.

I don't think anything as widely available as a polymorph scroll should negate an entire trope of character. We aren't even talking about one class that is countered so easily, but an entire playstyle. It's not fair or fun.

What Lascer said, but yeah. Is that really in proportion? The investment for reasonable detection is considerably less than that of a stealth build - the latter of which one tends to base their entire build around, not 33 skill points, some magic items, a feat (compare: 66pts, 1 or more feats and a high dex) and as few as one level in a class with the spot skill (much like Kaithan I believe, as Spot isn't a cleric skill). So by default it's weighted in the favour of detectors, who have advantages in versatility over other forms of detection anyway. Why is it that this level of disparity between sneaker and spotter acceptable, but not between spotters and item users? Bearing in mind that the legion of low-level losers doesn't really exist - the number of low-levels who get involved in the sort of politics worth spying on or indeed any events at all are extremely low. Those who do wouldn't have the money to shell out over 1000g for a secure conversation (money that can be spent on gear) if they even have UMD, 3000 without (I just checked also). No, it's more likely their buddies who have simply invested points in UMD instead of spot. And even still, there are significant disadvantages to scroll-detection which sneaks can actually rely on.

If it were truly in proportion, the pass/fail nature of stealth would make rogues infallible. So what you're really asking for is for it to be arbitrarily proportional?

It is fair when the alternative is to give a narrow margin of the playerbase an infallible stealth ability that trumps the majority of characters that couldn't build for it outright.

Put this into perspective, umberhulk form is usually used for a few seconds to check an area for people hiding, it is not something that is always available like a character's listen skill. The danger of getting caught only really presents itself if your spying on a single target for a prolonged period of time, the target is about to do something that involves a high deal of secrecy, or something has happened to tip characters off that they might be being spied on. If they do pop the umberhulk form and your close enough to get caught, then yeah, the spying mission is botched, but those are the risks you take with such a direct approach. It's no real secret that in stealth, the more you stay in one place, the higher the chance of being exposed. The rogue, who is meant to be the paragon on this field of work, has several avenues of approach to this that can range from intimidation to breaking and entering. If your concept of spying, is just being stealthed and standing next to the guy, then you really have shot yourself in the foot by throwing all your eggs in one basket.

I reject the idea that shapeshift scrolls negates the entire stealth playerbase. Aside from espionage, stealth is plenty useful in combat situations, which is where the shapeshift scrolls also begin to fall short. If someone does catch you with umberhulk form? Sure they can see you, but they have no chance of fighting or restraining you while still in the form and if they drop the form, then you can just go HIPS or corner sneak. Beyond that, it is also a effective skillets to have in events and advanced scouting. But there are always risks and a wide variety of things that can foil your hiding if you do not account for them, a lot more than we have mentioned here in fact.

I am fine with how things are now and I would prefer this area remains untouched as it has for the past years. Shapeshift scrolls are incredibly accessible, and they should be, especially for groups whos survival depends on secrect and do not have the resources to always have the one guy that can flush out the sneaks when they want to talk business. If you want to spy on these people, fine, you just need to know how to work with the obstacles you have and learn a direct approach isn't always going to work.

Faded Wings wrote:

...and the umberhulk was reskinned into something without bioware TS....

Unless there has been a major addition to the HAK which gives TS to Umberhulks, they have never had TS. It is endlessly hilarious to watch a player confident in the infallibility of the umberhulk shape wander around a room and then mistakenly determine that no one is there.

Bravo21 wrote:

Faded Wings wrote:

...and the umberhulk was reskinned into something without bioware TS....

Unless there has been a major addition to the HAK which gives TS to Umberhulks, they have never had TS. It is endlessly hilarious to watch a player confident in the infallibility of the umberhulk shape wander around a room and then mistakenly determine that no one is there.

It doesn't? Then what does it have?

NWN Wikia is perhaps the source of all universal truth to me in this, and it says it does.

If you -really- gotta get some information across and know for -sure- no one but the intended may see it unless they themselves send it to some one else just write an in character letter via the pm system.

The whisper game is just that. You want to talk about something meant to be kept hushed hushed and you have to do it right then and there? Take the chances or take the precautions. Even with precaution taken you can still beat things like bio-ware True seeing.

Just have fun and role play.

I'm not sure what Bravo's smokin', but Umber Hulks absolutely were given Bioware True Seeing. Amia has modified the spell 'True Seeing,' but the Bioware True Seeing ability has not yet been modified (Though it was extensively considered, and then dropped from some obstacle I can't remember).

And you're right, Drakos-- the presence of Bioware TS doesn't invalidate stealth. It does make it more challenging, and perhaps unnecessarily strong favor of the detector (Note, with d20 there is only ever a Sneaks Win system or Detectors Win, and I remain in favor of Detectors winning). But there are absolutely ways around the umber hulk and Dragon, or the wyrmling forms if you know the limitations of Bioware TS (The big one being Line of Sight).

I've still successfully and frequently spied on people who never thought to use those protection methods. I've also successfully spied on people who did, and when I was properly behind cover, they never caught me. So they proceeded to believe they were alright. And in combat as a sneak, I looove it when someone umber hulks to see me, because they're so much more vulnerable.

Bioware Truesight doesn't invalidate stealth. But it puts the ability to foil a dedicated stealth specialist in the hands of anyone with ~10 UMD and enough gold to purchase a 2000 gold scroll. If we made the change right now, it would be as Drakos said-- so many people wouldn't have the ability to detect sneaks, because they've been relying on items instead. But it will eventually make detectors much more important, and people will begin to make those kind of shifts toward actual investment.

I'm just repeating myself in this thread, so I'll just say...

Mr. Hackums wrote:

If we made the change right now, it would be as Drakos said-- so many people wouldn't have the ability to detect sneaks, because they've been relying on items instead. But it will eventually make detectors much more important, and people will begin to make those kind of shifts toward actual investment.

Yes please. That world sounds like an awesome place.

Mr. Hackums wrote:

Bioware Truesight doesn't invalidate stealth. But it puts the ability to foil a dedicated stealth specialist in the hands of anyone with ~10 UMD and enough gold to purchase a 2000 gold scroll. If we made the change right now, it would be as Drakos said-- so many people wouldn't have the ability to detect sneaks, because they've been relying on items instead. But it will eventually make detectors much more important, and people will begin to make those kind of shifts toward actual investment.

Alternatively, we could just screw the cheapskates and rogue skill dumpers by turning the hardcore rules for UMD on. :wink:

The sneaking system is ridiculous as it is already. I am with what Drakos said earlier.

Umberhulk... *snickers* Yeah keep using that to find sneakers. I don't use it with any of my characters since, well it's damn disgusting to change your shape from perfection *cof* drow *cof* to that creature.

And again, if you spent the time and effort to become a spy then you should have a reasonable opportunity to... well... spy.

Just be glad that you're character isn't able to be scryed at any time due to a DM storyine by a DM run NPC who can hear and see everything you can. So you guys who are able to whisper with some confidence at not being overheard got it easy, I tell ya!

Wait, so no one else wards against scrying when having secure conversations?

hmmm~

Listen to me! (Whispering)

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