How do Stealth/Awareness checks work in TSL?

[Darth Frog]

I am having a couple of problems understanding how the Awareness vs. Stealth skill checks work in this game. Based on past experience with d20 games like KotOR, NWN etc. I thought that it would be something like

 

   awareness_roll = roll(d20) + effective_awareness_skill + movement_mod
  stealth_roll = roll(d20) + effective_stealth_skill + movement_mod

  detected = awareness_roll >= stealth_roll

 

where effective_xxx_skill is the effective skill rank as modified by items and attribute mods as usual and movement_mod is +5 for standing still, 0 for walking and -5 for running (at least in the case of Awareness).

 

However, during an outing on the surface of a certain planet one of my NPCs was unexpectedly detected while on the way to recovering some mines, and the feedback log showed

 

   Sentry Droid successfully detects Bao-Dur
  awareness 26 vs. stealth 29

 

WTF? IMHO the droid clearly failed the awareness check!

 

On a related note, for me the number one cause of workplace-related accidents in this game was the fact that all cutscenes and similar things cancel Stealth mode and many of them teleport your whole party to where the controlled character is.

 

So if you see a bunch of thugs standing somewhere and stealth close in order to recover any mines or just generally scout the area then you will suddenly find yourself and your whole party standing there looking at the wrong end of half a dozen blasters. Or you stealth up to some door and suddenly the game tells you to look for an override or terminal nearby, unstealthing you right in front of a bunch of thugs who are very expertly wielding some very sharp things.

 

I would not mind a character getting detected because of a failed Stealth check (or, conversely, a successful Awareness check by the enemy) but getting dropped out of Stealth into a situation with severe tactical disadvantage simply because of mindboggingly stupid scripting is rather annoying.

 

The worst such incident was when my second-tier team was visiting a certain tomb while the primary attack group was busy elsewhere. Upon spying a triplet of dark Jedi at the end of a very long corridor I sent the stealthed party leader to scout out things and maybe disable/recover any mines. When she got close to the enemy she triggered a cutscene, at the end of which she stood completely de-buffed and uncloaked in front of three light sabre wielders. As she was not cut out for this kind of odds I decided to have her run back and lead the enemy to the other end of the long corridor, where T3 and a soldier were lying in ambush for just such an eventuality. However, she ran into an invisible wall and by the time I realized that it was the game that prevented her from going to the corridor and not merely some ineptness on my part like trying to make her run over a pot shard or some other obstacle, several combat rounds had passed. However slim her chances of defeating the three Dark Jedi had been to begin with, now they were zero, and down she went.

 

Okay, so I used the soldier's (meager but sufficient) Stealth ability to split the enemy group and lured two of them into a trap that consisted mainly of T3 hiding behind a pillar. With only one enemy remaining, frontal assault was as good an option as any and so I had T3 and his companion charge down the corridor. During the commotion, the last enemy had advanced roughly to the middle of the corridor and my party leader had regained consciousness, so I healed her up and sent her to attack the enemy from the rear. Bad move. She ran into the invisible wall again ("You may not leave the battle at this time" or something like that) and the rest of the attack group was teleported to where she was. And so my entire strike group was on the wrong side of an invisible wall, unable to get near the last enemy that had to be struck down in order for the story to continue ...

[213374U]

I would not mind a character getting detected because of a failed Stealth check (or, conversely, a successful Awareness check by the enemy) but getting dropped out of Stealth into a situation with severe tactical disadvantage simply because of mindboggingly stupid scripting is rather annoying.

Yep. That severely decreases the overall effectiveness of the Stealth mode. A pity, because stealthy characters are a lot of fun to play.

[Jedi_Master_Darkor]

I would not mind a character getting detected because of a failed Stealth check (or, conversely, a successful Awareness check by the enemy) but getting dropped out of Stealth into a situation with severe tactical disadvantage simply because of mindboggingly stupid scripting is rather annoying.

Yep. That severely decreases the overall effectiveness of the Stealth mode. A pity, because stealthy characters are a lot of fun to play.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

With Sneak Attack. (w00t)