HiPs while talking

[Egg Shen]

You all do know HiPS is a Super Natural ability right?

It s like better then magic in some ways.... you get to trigger Hide checks constantly...

Speaking is a sound so its an Move Silent ability, and as such when they whisper to you they have revealed they are there. But not where.. because you can be whispered at and not know if they are on the right or left of you. Considering the ventriloquism dc for such would be so negligible on these characters this is rather silly to be considering.

Yes, HiPS is supernatural, the person can be 5 feet from your face and there is nothing you can do about it but gain more spot. As long as they are with in 10 feet of a shadow, and your shadow counts! Im not sure how HiPS is messing with a characters mind... is it some spell like ability that is convincing you they are not there? Do your eyes get shut off to the possibility of their existence? Im not sure, but what I do know and is Fact, HiPS is supernatural and that is how it acts. They can scream all day at you, and your eyes can not perceive them.



Want to fix metagaming? add the spot and Listen checks to invisibility.


Anyways In the end, stealth has enough issues, lets not pick on it more.

Nope. That is not at all what HIPS allows, but that's really neither here nor there, because the sort of mechanics we're talking about don't actually have anything at all to do with HIPS. A character without HIPS, who has gone about entering stealth in the traditional way, can ALSO scream at the top of his lungs while standing directly in front of a character without giving his position away.

Now, I can grab source books and quote them to break down how stealth, hide, ms, HIPS, invisibility, spot, listen etc. are supposed to act in the pnp version of the game, but for what we're discussing here, we really shouldn't have to do that. Because the scenario I mentioned in the former paragraph makes absolutely no sense and is distractingly stupid to try to roleplay through...

Now I will admit there are ways to throw your voice around in the DnD/Forgotten Realms universe, but if that's how we want to roll then we need to include the necessary skills/feats/spells which make such trickery possible. So that if verbally taunting the blind fools who can't spot you from stealth is important to you (and I'll admit I do sort of like watching everybody get all riled up when this happens in game), you can still do it, but you've invested in the mechanics that allow it.

[Dagesh]

Let's not discount the need for regular chat while in stealth.

Overall it seems a flavor thing from what I see folks post. Many want a mechanical change but I'm not convinced of the reasons myself.

Abuse? Screeny and send to DMs for those occasions. Asking for a blanket adjustment (to pop folks out of stealth or prevent it period) is essentially an overall DM ruling for all chatter beyond whisper while stealthed. It assumes all stealthed chatter beyond a whisper is breaking the game.

Because it wouldn't work like that? If one wants realism, nwn2 is not the game.

I think we can get through this one together.

[Egg Shen]

Obviously, people have different interpretations on what's okay and what's not. What's 'abuse' and what's not. Are we reading the same thread, here?

Sending screenies to a DM will do nothing but annoy them if we're sending screenies of something that isn't actually considered a problem worthy of their attention. I've asked for clarification from the staff earlier in the thread. Have yet to receive it. I'd rather have an official ruling from them before we start reporting what may or may not be abuse.

What sort of "regular chat" are you referring to? OOC chat? Why would you ever need to be stealthed if you're in an area or a situation where OOC chat is happening? Can't you just restealth after the regular chat is concluded?

And there is always realism within the context of any system of rules. Just because magic exists, doesn't mean that all human motivation, all reasonable behaviors, all the laws of physics simply cease to be. Things should be as realistic as possible within the context of the setting. It's just lazy to pretend that wanting a little common sense (i.e. realism) is too much to ask because. . . you know. . . magic??

[Dagesh]

If nothing else, wait for a DM ruling.

Regular chat that isn't OOC that uses the normal text.

NWN2 isn't RL and realism will never exist in this video game.

[Egg Shen]

So it's actually impossible for something to be unrealistic at bgtscc? There are no limits, because video game. The ol' trump card for all occassions, eh?

I play sneakers and if I'm planning on having a regular, in character conversation, I leave stealth. I'm struggling to understand how or why that would ever be a problem, but am willing to admit I'm probably missing something.

Agree re: waiting on a ruling.

[Dagesh]

I'm still not seeing the thrust for adding mechanics to text while stealthed.

We can grind giants (or their new spawns), serpent people, Xvarts, and what not and they'll never go extinct. We can grow in strength by chatting to people (RP XP). We can span miles on foot, w/o spells, in minutes. We can turn into dragons and converse w/ Myrkul to come on back cuz our time wasn't up yet. We're worried about chat text while stealthing because realism?

[Egg Shen]

Grinding things forever is absurd and unrealistic, not to mention tedious and boring. I agree with you. But I also know that we're making a "persistent world" and there are concessions to be made so that everybody can actually play the game. These are limitations of the medium, not of the setting. No sourcebooks would condone what we do, and there are no epic novels about killing the same halfling every week as an easy way to earn a few coin.

RP Xp is again a concession to the fact that we're frequently playing without a DM present to hand out proper Xp and a concession to the fact that we want to encourage role playing on our role playing server. Perhaps it simulates the training our character might be doing while we're offline. Yeah, the FR sourcebooks aren't going to condone going from level 0-30 by chatting around a fire. The lack of realism here is again more about the medium than the setting.

Spanning miles on foot in seconds is obviously a hardware restriction as well as a gameplay choice. Having a to-scale server would be crazy awesome, but also incredibly boring as we'd never bump into one another (no man's sky?).

Sure permadeath is more realistic. Also, not fun for most people. Medium, not setting.

The only thing you mentioned that's in the same realm of realism as the topic of remaining in stealth while having a conversation is the bit about turning into a dragon. But that IS realistic in this setting. The rules of the world we are playing in allow for it. They don't allow for me to talk to a group of 20 people without giving my position away because I'm super sneaky.

Hopefully I'm making sense with this totally off topic blathering. To me, the difference is so obvious that it feels like you're trolling me, but I don't think that's the case. Maybe somebody else can explain it better.

[Lambe]

Let's not discount the need for regular chat while in stealth.

Overall it seems a flavor thing from what I see folks post. Many want a mechanical change but I'm not convinced of the reasons myself.

Abuse? Screeny and send to DMs for those occasions. Asking for a blanket adjustment (to pop folks out of stealth or prevent it period) is essentially an overall DM ruling for all chatter beyond whisper while stealthed. It assumes all stealthed chatter beyond a whisper is breaking the game.

Because it wouldn't work like that? If one wants realism, nwn2 is not the game.

I think we can get through this one together.

I agree. I find it sometimes helps and adds to rp emoting while stealthed, even if it causes godmodding from the other party.

I think most of us can tell if someone's whispering right next to our ears, those should be dead giveaways. Further out though, a really well-hidden person can whisper and even yell out without having to reveal himself without a search attempt from other party. Hiding is supposed to be an active action, meaning someone's trying to stay out of sight, not go invisible out in the open. Unfortunately there's no way to add more cover like placeables and other graphical additions without straining the module. Heck, even trees fade out in this game.

As it stands right now stealthers are already at a disadvantage whenever they speak out in local, simply because there's a floating text that reveals exactly where they are and follows their movements for a few seconds more.

[Tsidkenu]

As it stands right now stealthers are already at a disadvantage whenever they speak out in local, simply because there's a floating text that reveals exactly where they are and follows their movements for a few seconds more.

Implosion away!

[Brother Bruce]

Psh, you guys can't find me even if I yelled while hiding in plain sight. HiPSster and master ventriloquist

You all just never thought to max that perform along with hide/ms *laughs in two places at once*

[Hoihe]

I'll leave this out here.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm

DC Task
80 Swim up waterfall

[aaron22]

I'll leave this out here.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm

DC Task
80 Swim up waterfall

PSH... thats just my warm up to balancing on a cloud.

[Hoihe]

So, considering we can balance on clouds and swim up waterfalls...

Is it really that big of a stretch that someone with 60+ points in H/MS is able to reliably whisper, or throw their voice occasionally?

[JCVD1]

So, considering we can balance on clouds and swim up waterfalls...

Is it really that big of a stretch that someone with 60+ points in H/MS is able to reliably whisper, or throw their voice occasionally?

I thought we were only half our current level on this server

[Egg Shen]

So, considering we can balance on clouds and swim up waterfalls...

Is it really that big of a stretch that someone with 60+ points in H/MS is able to reliably whisper, or throw their voice occasionally?

Yes. It is that big of a stretch. It's a completely different skill. I'm fine with it if we want to make a new skill or tie it into perform or something. Add a feat or some magic spells to make it happen. But assuming that somebody who has perfected stealth has also perfected ventriloquism or throwing their voice doesn't seem right to me. That argument seems like it could be used to tie together some very loosely associated things, and not for the betterment of our gameplay experience. Well, 80 swim can swim up a waterfall, so you need to roll a DC based on my 80 intimidate or give me all your gold and crap your pants (and that's actually much more closely linked than sneaking = voice throwing...).

And let's not forget that spot and listen Checks, according to that same page, can do some pretty amazing things as well that aren't currently represented in game.