Stealth and its applications

[Shirien 0]

I feel as if there is little reason to actually invest in Sneak & Hide from a practical standpoint. The mod is sweet, but it's Grandmaster-only and is the only thing with a true effect. So far as I can tell until you have it grandmastered all it does is let you have the first attack. Useful, sure, but not worth the price and useless in a duel. It's great for RP fluff, but for actual combat it's a little underwhelming. I have several ideas how to improve it, however! Let me just state that I am spitballing values, none are concrete.

Armor and Stealth

Now, first and foremost, for balancing reasons, I think heavy armor users need to have their stealth rating (defaulted as 10) debuffed. It's called heavy armor for a reason. Their footsteps are going to be deep and loud, and the armor itself is going to make noise.  That's just common sense to me. I am not suggesting light armor be buffed though, that should just be the natural state. If you wanted to invent a 'soundless' enhancement to negate the debuff (or just negate it indirectly by having it be +1 or +2 to stealth rating, which would make it applicable to light armor too) but that's up to you.

Entering Stealth Mid-Combat

The second thing I would suggest is a method to return to stealth after exiting or after being jumped. In many games you would throw down a flashbang or smokebomb to enter stealth. If inventing a new item is too large a task due to the possibility of having LOTS of that item, which I'd balance by only having a limited number allowed at ready, I'd like to suggest that a stun or paralysis grant the player the chance to enter stealth again. The way I imagine it is this. (Player uses Stun/Lands a paralysis poisoned weapon effect)->(Other player is stunned)->(Player doesn't follow up but instead enters stealth.) Now, I think entering stealth from combat SHOULD have consequences. For example, the mod and charge can't be used to boost damage since the stalked player or enemy is now aware you are around. Perhaps it would also debuff the user's stealth rating for the same reason, allowing an alerted player to detect someone easier. Naturally one can attempt to find the player once their stun wears off, as they will have a free turn to do so. Maybe even try to turtle up! The stealth user can't stun them for three turns after a stun as is the rule. But what does that do for a stealth user though as opposed to just attacking when they are stunned?
Edit: I think I should mention that I am mentally imagining that searching for a player via roll in this situation should be treated as a free action, but if you make the roll and your BD doesn't size up to attacking, you can't parry or such. Turtling up should be a separate action for balancing. Even if you don't land a hit you are still negating all of their stealth benefits if you detect them.

Increased Odds of Poison/Bleed

The third thing, increased chance of DoT(Damage over Time) effects. Poison and assassination has gone hand in hand since the dawn of time. As would wounds that don't close easily and risk the victim bleeding out. Let me just state I don't think this should apply to paralysis due to spam, unless the debuff to re-entering stealth is considerable.  I do however think it should apply to enhancements like Bleed, Envenom, Blight, and possibly Burning. If not the latter two, then at least the former! I feel that as a stealth character sneaking up to someone should provide a slight bonus to triggering a status effect. Like for example if my natural roll was 7 and I needed 8 to trigger a poison effect, from stealth it would trigger that effect but not boost the accuracy of the attack or the poison's damage. This would make weapons with bleed a little more useful to a stealth/light armor character as opposed to simply just getting that Damage enhancement for a guaranteed damage boost all the time.

If not the above suggestions, then how about...

More mods? The above status boost idea could easily be worked into a mod for stealth. So could a mod that would allow someone to enter stealth with diminished effect or diminishing returns each time it is used. Maybe some tiny side-perks that are packaged with stealth ranks that only trigger from stealth if you don't want them as mods?

In closing!

As it stands I feel like stealth could use improvements to make it more viable, as well as more conditions to make it less attractive to that guy with the claymore and full platemail. Claws, whips, daggers, even katanas and maybe longswords should probably not be debuffed in stealth situations though.
Also please try not to brush me off as an upstart just because I am new  <3

Edited April 29, 2016 by Shirien