invisibility, again

[Regas]

Changing invis to hide breaks something that's fixed. NWN2 correctly sets pcs at 50% concealment and makes them targetable if they are set to hostile and initiate invisibility within a certain distance to others within melee; why not consider adding an rp rule requiring Warlocks (and others) to 'decloak' and 'reset' their invis while set to hostile with those in the vicinity that care, thus making the invisible pc tagetable but concealed. This is how 3.5 works and is easily accomplished with the engine. Adding duration and uses per day, even if significantly tweaked (e.g. triple duration, level plus one uses per day) would solve the balance and abuse issues. I don't know how difficult this is to tool set though, that may still be an issue.

[Brokenbone]

give them all a bonus to spot checks equal to the bonus to hide checks invisibility and its relatives would get?

Currently, if I cast see invisibility or blindsight, im pretty sure i can see hidden creatures (using Hide) anyway, blindsight I know definitely works that way, would have to test see invisibility and the others though.

Hopefully See Invisibility & Blindsight aren't busting non-magical stealth... yuck. Separate topic though, except as related to the idea that if you change one spell, you may end up needing to change a bunch of related ones out of fairness. Again, all trying to work around a bug as compared to anything else, which is why I guess I'm a little disturbed the Warlock class is suggested to be subject to different treatment (incredibly limited invocations but do them as much as you want, sort of like a step above sorcerers for "few tricks but can do often.")

Just so everyone remembers, what is the exact nature of the bug here anyhow? Basically "no one gets a listen roll vs. an invisible guy, no matter how terrible the invisible guy's MS score is (or if he is running around in non stealth"? Or was it "just NPCs" who didn't enjoy the countermeasures? I'm sure it's summarized somewhere either on Obsidian forums or here in ALFA. Again, a super wary 20 listen ranger being "stalked" by a full plate and shield -28 to move silently tank who drank a couple hundred gp potion is an example of the unfair situation I thought we were hoping to avoid.

[Blindhamsterman]

Blindsight actually should break non magical hiding as per pnp, it acts the same way as a dragons blindsight, i.e. senses increased to phenominal levels to make up for no sight, like a bats sonar (bats also have blindsight I believe)

and, Regas' solution sounds good if it actually works that way (creates the 50% concealment if already close etc), A restriction in the form of uses/day for warlock walk unseen also seems a good idea. I believe that nobody is getting the listen roll Brokenbone.

[Regalis]

The problem is the removal of listen checks, which leads to the scenario BB just stated. I'm not really sure what a lot of the discussion on this thread is about, but it seems entirely unrelated to the 1.23 update.

Visibility lists cannot be altered with scripts. It requires creating NWNx plugins. The risks of server instability would be pretty extreme if someone who hadn't spent endless hours working with NWNx created them. (We could try begging Skywing or something.)

The only other approach is to give PCs and NPCs a chance to get the message that they hear something somewhere nearby. What we can't do is add the beat by 20 functionality of pinpointing the invisible creature because there is no way (short of described above) to alter visibility lists for just one character.

Instead, what I would propose is the Han Solo solution. "Han Solo solution," you say? Yes, on Endor, when Han Solo was trying to sneak up behind the Stormtrooper, he stepped on a twig and revealed himself to everyone. Basically, set a default DC (that should be pretty low) and allow for a custom DC to be set on an area via a variable, and have whoever is invisible roll their move silently skill against that. If they fail, they've stepped on a twig, kicked a rock, twisted their ankle and grunted, or otherwise done something to reveal themselves to everyone in the area.

Beyond that, you make sure that potions of See Invisibility are more commonly sold than potions of Invisibility. That way when people get the message that they've heard something, they can quaff a See Invis potion.

I scoured the interwebs looking for a better solution, but there aren't any out there that I could find. Someone did a NWNx visibility list plugin for Linux servers. Two problems. One problem being I don't have a linux server setup to test it on. The other being that I don't have the experience to test the stability issues. Even if it works on a nearly empty module, that's no guarantee of how it would behave on a mature server or under averse latency or load conditions. The visibility lists are among the most resource intensive elements of the game engine and anything that messes with them is therefore "high risk."

EDIT: And, of course, the mechanics completely ignore the keen sense of smell that many animals would have that would utterly bypass both sneaking and invisibility.

[hollyfant]

EDIT: And, of course, the mechanics completely ignore the keen sense of smell that many animals would have that would utterly bypass both sneaking and invisibility.

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Scent

Do invisible characters show up on the map of a tracking player?

[Analogkid]

walk unseen has infinite uses, so simple, ban invisibility wands, allow potions (and allow the use of them to get out of a sticky situation, its the only reason most people currently used it anyway)

Walk unseen is considered broken because it can be cast as many times as the user likes perhaps a restriction of x/day for it would make it more fair.

I'd say if someone had to cast walk unseen once every few minutes rather than having it be 24 hr it'd be a reasonable "nerf"

According to the sourcebooks the spell shouldn't be 24 hr anyway, it's just invisibility as per the level the person is (meaning a few minutes)

Walk Unseen(CArc p136)
<Invocation, S, 1StdAct, Personal, 24hrs(D)>
– The invoker becomes Invisible.
Effective Spell Level: 2nd.

[paazin]

Walk Unseen(CArc p136)
<Invocation, S, 1StdAct, Personal, 24hrs(D)>
– The invoker becomes Invisible.
Effective Spell Level: 2nd.

Aha! Thanks for catching that analog, I always took the description from just p. 10 (invisibility (self only) as the spell) to mean that it was at the level of the caster - didn't realize actually expanded on the description in the back.

[paazin]

Blindsight actually should break non magical hiding as per pnp, it acts the same way as a dragons blindsight, i.e. senses increased to phenominal levels to make up for no sight, like a bats sonar (bats also have blindsight I believe)

Currently it doesn't? iirc anyway, the spell was an OIE addition... and I'm not even sure _why_ they added it ...

[Analogkid]

What exactly is the problem with simply having an invisible PC inform the DM of what hes up to? or even sending tells to other PCs directly and then requesting opposed rolls? I am sure we're all mature enough to be able to then take into account the differences between a leather or even cloth wearing warlock with good MS or such, who's doing his damn best to not make a sound over a full plate wearing fighter who just drank a potion of invisibility?

Look I know that the spark for much of this issue was the fear that I would use my warlock PC's walk unseen invocation for purposes of CvC, and the truth is...yeah I would and nearly did. Now at first I didnt even know it was bugged and just assumed it worked like a super duper high hide skill, but once I was informed of the issue I agreed that CvC couldnt happen without a DM, and if for some reason that wasn't possible....well I sure better have the logs and screen shots as to why. I think in certain situations no player would come out against rolling opposed rolls and then acting on those.

In regards to monsters and animals. Until, invis can be changed to give a +99 to hide, leave it as is and let common sense be our guide. Let DM's know whats going on if there would be a question in ones mind.

[Veilan]

What exactly is the problem with simply having an invisible PC inform the DM of what hes up to? or even sending tells to other PCs directly and then requesting opposed rolls?

The problem is DMs arbitrate the world, not players.

I understand the spirit of your take, but something like that works only when both parties consent, which requires a somewhat cordial situation. Sadly, you don't always have that in game, even though we should remember we're playing partners here together to have fun, even when our characters might be about to duke it out.

So, letting players arbitrate and try to tell other players the rules is a Bad Thing.

[Blindhamsterman]

yup, from previous experience, the above just doesn't happen sadly. Much as the intent behind the suggestion is great, I just don't believe it'd always happen, and likely the times it wouldn't would be when it matters most.

[Brokenbone]

yup, from previous experience, the above just doesn't happen sadly. Much as the intent behind the suggestion is great, I just don't believe it'd always happen, and likely the times it wouldn't would be when it matters most.

Well, what if any victim of invisibility-laden CvC got to start their next PC at 2nd level?

Kidding.

But yeah, thanks for confirming it was the "listen rolls" problem above. Those are something that in a detection cycle I thought were rolled approximately every six seconds, which just like all other sorts of stealth, can work very well against a single target with terrible listen skills, but if sneaking past five PCs or ten orcs or whatever, SOMEONE is going to luck out with a "20" within one of the detection cycles pretty quickly. Manual tells back and forth is an interesting "honor" solution which may not be appropriate without the actual DM adjudicating, but you'd be dicing every six seconds on that basis... bah.

[hollyfant]

The sad thing is, the problem wouldn't be solved with allowing Listen vs. Move Silent rolls alone. While invisible, PCs can speak, make music, cast (non-hostile) spells and even use their Bard Song without breaking out of their cloaking. That's not covered under any skill roll.

[Analogkid]

i agree, make walk unseen work as invisibility (1min/level) with a number of casts per day equal to level+1 or similar. Still makes them better at doing such things than a wizard, possibly not as good as a sorc who knows invis.

So in other words, make my PC, and other warlocks into sorcerers practically, just with much more limited choices when it comes to invo....I mean spell selection.

[Happycrow]

Well, can I ask a question?

Has it actually been abused? Or is this a thread about the possibility of its abuse? If the former, then, okay, something needs to be done. If the latter, then I think DM-handling when appropriate simply makes sense, rather than engaging in nerfs (which will eventually serve to further increase the relative power of clerics, who are otherwise the indisputable king of the heap at these levels, especially with Living Undeath in the engine).

Even if it's CvC, I'd like to think that as a server, we were mature enough to handle a reasonable number of rolls here and there, with a DM riding herd to prevent explicitly ooc or metagamey behavior on the part of those who for whatever reason start taking the game too seriously.