A problem with Stealth + Discovering traps.

[Bazy]

Any toon who is good at stealth will be bad at "discovering" traps (mechanics) and will trigger them anyway. Rendering scouting ineffective in a lot of situations. 

 

Any toon who is good at "discovering" traps will be bad at stealth and thus not good at scouting.

 

Add in trap/lock xp and you've got quite a little cluster****

[Luckmann]

Any toon who is good at stealth will be bad at "discovering" traps (mechanics) and will trigger them anyway. Rendering scouting ineffective in a lot of situations. 

 

Any toon who is good at "discovering" traps will be bad at stealth and thus not good at scouting.

 

Add in trap/lock xp and you've got quite a little cluster****

I think this largely comes down to how it actually works "in the wild", which is hard to tell right now, but it is definitely a potential issue.

 

I feel that out of what you mention, though, the trap/lock XP is by far the worse thing.

 

Honestly, you'd expect "Stealth" to be the "finder" Skill, even if Mechanics would be for disarming, simply because someone Stealthing would likely be more alert on where to hide things.

[Sensuki]

I'm good at finding bugs, but I'm not good at fixing them.

[Osvir]

I don't feel this is an issue, but rather a perceived issue (at least from my experience in the BB).

You can focus on 2 Skills (Stealth and Mechanics) and it works pretty well together (in the Backer Beta). Or, you can make a scouting duo even (6 characters after all), one being "Only Stealth Skill" and the other being "Only Mechanic Skill" and have them scout/disarm together.

If you see an enemy before you see a trap, withdraw and prepare for combat. If you see a trap before you see an enemy, disarm it and continue scouting.

 

Oh, be careful and walk slowly too  and observe walls and the surroundings (some traps can be spotted by you).

Traps are supposed to be an obstacle, a hindrance, trouble, an issue in-game, i.e. a problem for your characters. I love it use the tools you are given to solve it.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Osvir

[Grinsevent]

I think you don't have to scout where there are traps, and you don't have to find traps when you need to spot enemies... Your ranger could be the stealthy and your rogue the mecanist ...

Edited March 17, 2015 by Grinsevent

[Bazy]

Or, you can make a scouting duo even (6 characters after all), one being "Only Stealth Skill" and the other being "Only Mechanic Skill" and have them scout/disarm together.

That's my point.... You can't do that. You're under the assumption that the scouter can detect traps. He can't. 

 

You cannot be a good scouter without the ability to detect traps. Regardless of whether you can disarm them or not.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Bazy

[wanderon]

In the backer beta I never put more than 3 levels of stealth (and I did it for everyone) and it was effective to the point of being able to see enemies and remain hidden at a distance and based on the traps in the BB I didn't see any issues in building a combination scout/disarmer - altho in the real game you could certainly run across places where even a character maxed out for your level would be in over his head off the critical path.

[Diogenes]

You won't always need to worry about searching for traps while scouting in stealth and you won't always need to be perfectly in stealth while searching for traps.

[Osvir]

 

Or, you can make a scouting duo even (6 characters after all), one being "Only Stealth Skill" and the other being "Only Mechanic Skill" and have them scout/disarm together.

That's my point.... You can't do that. You're under the assumption that the scouter can detect traps. He can't. 

 

You cannot be a good scouter without the ability to detect traps. Regardless of whether you can disarm them or not.

 

Of course you can (Read the quote you took out of context one more time )

 

2 characters, walking beside each other, carefully and slowly. One disarms traps, the other keeps an eye out for enemies. You don't have to click on the other side of a suspicious looking room, or on the other side of a map, when you're walking around. Be careful, take one step at a time and observe the surroundings.

 

Be careful around corners too.

 

Also, Stealth in Pillars of Eternity is not "Hide in Shadows: Also Known as 'I can walk through you without you noticing'". Stealth in Pillars of Eternity is more or less "Scout until you see an encounter/a mob/a group". It is really difficult to Stealth past enemies standing in a room, for instance.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Osvir

[Bazy]

 

 

Or, you can make a scouting duo even (6 characters after all), one being "Only Stealth Skill" and the other being "Only Mechanic Skill" and have them scout/disarm together.

That's my point.... You can't do that. You're under the assumption that the scouter can detect traps. He can't. 

 

You cannot be a good scouter without the ability to detect traps. Regardless of whether you can disarm them or not.

 

Of course you can (Read the quote you took out of context one more time )

 

2 characters, walking beside each other, carefully and slowly. One disarms traps, the other keeps an eye out for enemies. You don't have to click on the other side of a suspicious looking room, or on the other side of a map, when you're walking around. Be careful, take one step at a time and observe the surroundings.

 

Be careful around corners too.

 

I don't think you understand....

 

A stealthy character can move close to enemies. The mechanics guy cannot. 

 

You highlight the problem yourself with the corners example. Say there is a group of enemies right around a corner. But there is also a trap right in front of them.... If you send your scout in he can see the enemies... but NOT the trap. If you send the mechanics guy in he see the trap, but he gets killed by the enemies. It's a no win situation.

 

Sending them both in together just gets everyone killed. 

Edited March 17, 2015 by Bazy

[Osvir]

I tried playing a Solo Rogue with as much Stealth as I could put into it. I still couldn't sneak past many encounters.

In essence:

- You encounter a trap = Stop. Disarm it, and if your skill is too low, see if you can walk around the AoE of the trap (unless it clogs the path).
- You encounter a group of enemies = Stop/Withdraw/Regroup and prepare for combat (Or explore/scout another path).
- You encounter a patrol or an enemy that stands a bit to the side = Yellow Detection will start, and you'll be able to sneak past before it goes Red or it starts going to Red but you'll get far enough away to avoid detection (Happened several times for me with 3 in Stealth).

There'll most likely also be gear that enhances Stealth (Just like there's gear that enhances Athletics, e.g. Angio's Gambeson at Wynfrith).

Around corners: I'm highlighting what problem? That you should be careful in a dangerous dungeon with monsters, traps and who knows what? That it'd be wise to walk slowly and gain some slight vision around the corner (peeking) and if there's anything dangerous around it you should back up before getting detected?

wanderon points it out too, enemies won't be all "THERE HE IS!!!" if you are in Scout mode. Not until it hits full Red Detection. Most often than not you have time to react, pause and observe, then back off, and try again and/or find another solution to get past (which mostly involves combat).

Or you give your Rogue Shadowing Beyond and you won't ever need to put a single point into Stealth and you'll be able to Scout past 1 encounter before returning to the party to Rest/replenish the ability.

Edited March 17, 2015 by Osvir

[Enoch]

A stealthy character can move close to enemies. The mechanics guy cannot. 

 

You highlight the problem yourself with the corners example. Say there is a group of enemies right around a corner. But there is also a trap right in front of them.... If you send your scout in he can see the enemies... but NOT the trap. If you send the mechanics guy in he see the trap, but he gets killed by the enemies. It's a no win situation.

 

 

Yep, an encounter with built-in trap support would appear to present a problem to a party without a unified Rogue-archetype.  But I wouldn't go so far as calling it "no win."  It's an additional tactical challenge.  Obsidz level designers presumably have included the trap in their planning for the projected difficulty of the encounter.  Having a Sneaky/Trappy Rogue gets the party a good advantage in that case, and maybe lets them take down an encounter that is generally scaled for a more advanced party.  That's a nice "reward the player for skill investment" moment.  (And, presumably, there will be other, similar moments for other skill synergies.) 

 

The problem is that, at present, a party that disarms the trap gets more XP than the party that overcomes it in combat or avoids the whole encounter via stealth or dialogue.  Which is pretty silly. 

Edited March 17, 2015 by Enoch