The World of Avlis

A question just to satisfy my curiosity, no bashing of dead horses here. The question is addressed to characters with stealth as a primary focus, who have invested skill points and feats in hide and move silently and also wear regularly equipment or use spells to boost those skills further. No weekend sneakers, please.

Aqua would need a really good reason to become a SD... like the fall of T'Nanshi for example.

Well.. as a character who plans to invest in stealth heavily.. I would become SD if:

1) I wouldn't already have three classes.
2) HiPS wouldn't be broken.
3) Dirks wouldn't be in control of it.

SD would fit the character concept well enough, but with the way it is implemented in NWN, it's like playing with invulnerability.

For the record my old abandoned character was going for SD, but I stopped playing it.

My charater Green Raven have been sneaky since she was born, a shadow in the wood i would say. She have at the moment 9 lvl in SD and planning a few more together with more ranger lvls.

If you are 10 or higher, you can train SDs yourself. I know there are works on this, and it is good not only ONE guild can train them.

I have a mage who will try to take Shadowdancer as soon as he qualifies. Should take a while, cause I'm going pure wizard till then. Hopefully I can learn it from someone other than the Shadow Dirks.

Baws, just voted for no, but planning to, instead of no, doesn't fit my concept. natch.

Voted don't like the class, but the reasons are not fit for print

Yep. Ray ... er... Xen, is a stealth specialist. Uses it constantly and likes to play around in the darkness. It also symbolises his control over any evil he ever possesses and such.

As a pale master I tend to let my summon take care of business while I hide. I invest a lot of skill points into it and boost it with items. SD levels and especially HIPS would be great for my character concept then, but he doesn't meet the requirements, and likely never will.

szabot wrote:As a pale master I tend to let my summon take care of business while I hide. I invest a lot of skill points into it and boost it with items. SD levels and especially HIPS would be great for my character concept then, but he doesn't meet the requirements, and likely never will.

yet another confident vote in favor of "we wish bioware did not fuck up and limit everyone to three classes."

Friday has been a stealth and dex based character from the get go. I would have taken even more feats to start with but when she was started there were no 'fancy dancy' expansion packs with expanded feat options. I have since put in feat into stealthy (+2hide/+2MS). I have both skills maxxed and plan to stay that way. She specializes in hit and fade tactics using stealth to scout out situation beforehand. If she feels she has lost advantage she has no qualms about HIPS and either figure out how to bring advantage back or hightailing it out.

Friday is a Rogue/SD/Ranger. I took ranger early on to put a little stealth fighter into the fray but do not plan to take any more. I will take More SD and rogue levels as time passes. I would eventually like to get to at least 10th level SD and be able to take on a apprentice.

2 pc's with maxed hide/MS, neither have interest in dancing in shadows.

(doesn't fit concept)

My ranger has maxed stealth (hide and move silently). But he uses
stealth mode to plant traps and scout ahead. So really no point in
getting hips. Though I'm contemplating taking some rogue lvls...

Besides the fact that when you plant traps you become visible and must hide again......great with HIPS. Friday will see some critters that seem a bit hard for the party and use this to soften em up.

Aerill wrote:SD would fit the character concept well enough, but with the way it is implemented in NWN, it's like playing with invulnerability.

As someone who has both played and DM'ed using HiPS capable characters and creatures, you and I have a seriously different outlook on invulnerability then.

As with any class, skill or feat the game engine can be exploited to give the user an advantage - it's the nature of the NWN beast. However, if the player behind the avatar chooses to play responsibly and fairly, taking the other players they are gaming with into consideration, then the so-called 'invulnerability' granted by HiPS becomes a non-issue.

Learning not to exploit the feat goes a long way to making things fun for everybody involved.

I have the class and I love it

Hiding in plain sight is the most important thing, I won't denie that, but it is not the only!

If anyone has seen Amy while she is bored, she usually starts picking shadows from things and switching them, merging them, breaking them...


That isn't probably how a shadow dancer should be roleplayed, but if Amy can summon shadows to protect her, a shadow to fight with her, and daze people with shadows, why not do even more simple things?

Rain&Clouds wrote:If anyone has seen Amy while she is bored, she usually starts picking shadows from things and switching them, merging them, breaking them...

Excellent. There needs to be more stuff like this being RPed by shadowdancers.

Well when my Sneak was created being a SD was going to be the end stage of developement. But as she has evolved being a SD was just not fitting for her.

She is not a fighter type of rogue, but watch out for the silverware and fine linens. Yes she got the rapid fire feat because it was right for her at that time and still is.

Walking thru a group of NPC's and then selecting her target with care after the party has attacked from the front is very nice.

Being able to sneak heal someone is also very cool. She was able to sneak heal a dwarf with the last name of Axswinger many times, while he fought some of Undead Child's Flaming Skelectons that normally would have slain him. I did like the reaction the DM gave the Undead Child when the dwarf was not slain. "HUH?"

She likes being able to sneak around listening to converstions between PC's and NPC's, then deal with the info.

I feel that HIPS would tend to make here more combat oriented than I would like her to be.

The shadow summonig is not that big a thing from her viewpoint.

As for her Sneaking ability, well in Mikona during the Food Convoy effort in the Docks, none of the Sword noticed her, even Vian with True sight did not notice her. Then the crashes came..... Never got to play that one out, right place, right time, right character would have been nice.

Elenya is a strength-based rogue/fighter who never planned to take SD, and so didn't have the feats. But then things changed for her, and now she is considering it. However, her concentration on strength has left her a bit heavy-footed, so she's going to have to work at it (ie earn the feats in a few more levels) before she can dance with the shadows. Level 20 will be SD if she's around that long.

I voted for no, because I don't like it, but the real reason is just that I don't like to see it abused. The idea is way too freakin' cool to hand over to any idiot who wants to spam it and own everything in site with no notable tactics.

So, the truth... I love the class concept. I hate how it's been implemented. Or broken, however you want to look at it.

My stealthbased char might eventually become a shadowdancer.. but i still can't choose between Assasin and Shadowdancer. Bothclasses fit her, and she allready has two other classes.

TheElvenKing wrote:Learning not to exploit the feat goes a long way to making things fun for everybody involved.

Perhaps, but is there a clear definition of what is considered an exploit with this feat and what is not? Don't think so.

Is disengaging from combat and hiding to set the enemy flatfooted and break their attack an exploit?

Is the ability to cancel any spell fired at you with a hit of one button unlimited amount of times / day an exploit?

Is the ability to leave any combat you are losing and disappear to heal and prepare an exploit?

Is the ability to fire a few called shot sneak attacks at the enemy and disappear just to keep the distance and repeat it an exploit?

No other single feat, spell, skill or whatever else gives that or even anything similar. If the things listed above are used there is no way for a monster to deal with SD short of having Bioware True Seeing or having very high spot/listen checks which few creatures do. Not even bringing up CvC. If what I have listed above are exploits and shouldn't be done - fine, I hope all SDs will note that.

And I know well what I am talking about. Have been playing an SD for a long while myself, thank you.

Sorry for beating the dead horse, but it always seems to come back.

As Nightshade, I love the character concept. Just the way it is implemented is what screws it.

Another one for what Nightshade said.

On a total aside, (and I will get flamed for this, wait and see!) I find HiPS to be, in general, a crutch.

Lots of people take SD because they want to be a stealth specialist assassin type... yeah, the Assassin PrC is there for that. Many, many, many SDs I have seen just treat SD like being a rogue with a trick up their sleeve... uh-uh. SD is all about a supernatural connection to shadows, sometimes a desire to find out more about them, sometimes as a religious outlook, whatever... regardless, you need shadows nearby to use HiPS, something the engine ignores. There's a depth to the PrC that is often forgotten, and that's pretty shitty.

I find it to be a crutch (here's the flamey bit) because it removes the skill aspect of being a stealthy character. Particularly in that "Oh, I want to be an assassin type character" scenario. A big part of teh rogue/ranger/assassin/etc. stealth playstyle is the fact that you do have the ability to surprise your enemy, and pick your fights before they start, if you're smart. Personally, I find HiPS to be a complete afront to this mentality, and basically is a cop out in the sense that you can escape pretty much any situation without actually having to resort to some skill.

Non-SD stealthers know what I'm talking about... and I think Xeo would have something to say on an observation note about how effective plain stealth can be if the player knows what they're doing. My stealth char isn't an SD, but I've escaped from fights with quick use of stealth... it's not impossible... it's not even that hard. It's an issue of using what the engine gives you... buildings, trees, rocks, things that break your line of sight... thus, you want to ambush someone, you lure them to those sorts of places, so you can lose them around a corner if the shit hits the fan. I've done it before.
Notice the logic to this sort of setup? Makes mroe sense than backstabbing someone in the middle of a field, then vanishing again right before their eyes in broad daylight at high noon. (and yes, I've seen an SD do this)

To the specific case of the SD assassin people, that take SD rather than Assassin because they feel it's a "better" assassin PrC than the actual Assassin one... good for you. To me, taking SD when it's more IC to take Assassin is just 100% a copout, and you've basically proclaimed that you lack the skill to seriously RP your character concept, at least in my eyes. Assassin (the PrC) has certain specific tools laid down for it intentionally, such that you can be EXTREMELY effective if you know what you're doing and play well. The number of "ooo, I'm an assassin and I'm gonna stab you in the back!" SDs I've seen is just plain pitiful. Vett, feel free to throw in your own commentary.

Flame away.

Fuzz wrote:Another one for what Nightshade said.

On a total aside, (and I will get flamed for this, wait and see!) I find HiPS to be, in general, a crutch.

Lots of people take SD because they want to be a stealth specialist assassin type... yeah, the Assassin PrC is there for that. Many, many, many SDs I have seen just treat SD like being a rogue with a trick up their sleeve... uh-uh. SD is all about a supernatural connection to shadows, sometimes a desire to find out more about them, sometimes as a religious outlook, whatever... regardless, you need shadows nearby to use HiPS, something the engine ignores. There's a depth to the PrC that is often forgotten, and that's pretty shitty.

I find it to be a crutch (here's the flamey bit) because it removes the skill aspect of being a stealthy character. Particularly in that "Oh, I want to be an assassin type character" scenario. A big part of teh rogue/ranger/assassin/etc. stealth playstyle is the fact that you do have the ability to surprise your enemy, and pick your fights before they start, if you're smart. Personally, I find HiPS to be a complete afront to this mentality, and basically is a cop out in the sense that you can escape pretty much any situation without actually having to resort to some skill.

Non-SD stealthers know what I'm talking about... and I think Xeo would have something to say on an observation note about how effective plain stealth can be if the player knows what they're doing. My stealth char isn't an SD, but I've escaped from fights with quick use of stealth... it's not impossible... it's not even that hard. It's an issue of using what the engine gives you... buildings, trees, rocks, things that break your line of sight... thus, you want to ambush someone, you lure them to those sorts of places, so you can lose them around a corner if the shit hits the fan. I've done it before.
Notice the logic to this sort of setup? Makes mroe sense than backstabbing someone in the middle of a field, then vanishing again right before their eyes in broad daylight at high noon. (and yes, I've seen an SD do this)

To the specific case of the SD assassin people, that take SD rather than Assassin because they feel it's a "better" assassin PrC than the actual Assassin one... good for you. To me, taking SD when it's more IC to take Assassin is just 100% a copout, and you've basically proclaimed that you lack the skill to seriously RP your character concept, at least in my eyes. Assassin (the PrC) has certain specific tools laid down for it intentionally, such that you can be EXTREMELY effective if you know what you're doing and play well. The number of "ooo, I'm an assassin and I'm gonna stab you in the back!" SDs I've seen is just plain pitiful. Vett, feel free to throw in your own commentary.

Flame away.

I agree with this 100%.......

I play a thief and will not take SD as a PrC.... more challenging useing hide skill.....

Fuzz is damn right on this

Yes! Keep bashing the shadowdancers! My legacy lives on.... lol