Hey, I like this topic! Assassin main here.
I like stealth in BG/BG2 well enough (mostly BG2, with the Assassin kit). I won't say it's the best stealth implementation in existence, but I've been playing these games with heavily modded AI and encounters in general, so it works well enough for me. (When I mention "BG2", I will mostly mean a modded game, not vanilla.) One thing about stealth that BG2 conveys well is that, in ideal situations, stealth and backstabs are extremely powerful. One single backstab can kill many powerful enemies. It feels good to land a backstab. It's as simple as that. So how do you keep it from being too broken? Also very simple: with NearInfinity you can easily assign the properties "Immune to Backstab", "Immune to Critical Hits", and "Invisibility Detection" to any character.
What this means is that, you have some flexibility in customizing an encounter. This mage is very powerful, but the moment his protections are down, you can oneshot him with a backstab. On the other hand, you don't want the two bruisers to be taken down by two backstabs, then you can make them immune to backstabs, either by giving them special equipment, or just making them Barbarians. It's fun to play around with this system. A nice touch here is that, because the game is in real time, there's this element of "having a small time window to land a backstab, then successfully landing it". With modded AI, what usually happens is, after a mage's initlial protections are down, you will have about 2 or 3 seconds to move your assassin into position to land a backstab, before the mage's contingencies/sequencers are activated. If you fail this chance, your party may be wiped out because this mage proceeds to summon Balors and Glabrezus like there's no tomorrow. This is a rather specific example, but it does happen.
All these details convey the role and the playstyle of the assassin: you move in for the kill without anyone knowing, you have a small time window to make your move, you capitalize on that chance, take down the critical target in a blink, then move back into the shadows before other enemies can focus you. That's the essence of it.
Another game that does the stealth and assassin thing well is Borderlands 2. The Assassin class was the reason why I fell in love with that game and kept playing it until now. No, it's not an RPG, but it conveys the same key thing about the Assassin: in ideal situations, the assassin can do a ridiculous amount of damage to a single target. Without the conditions that make the situation "ideal", the assassin becomes much, much less effective. I've played all BL2 classes, and Zer0 is the most engaging character to play. His melee build rewards skill, speed, precision, positioning, and the ability to plan ahead and think ahead in a short amount of time. Also, there's the "high risk, high reward" element. You are greatly rewarded by investing the extra effort into making your attacks effective; your performance will be very underwhelming otherwise.
But I digress.
I was thoroughly disappointed by DOS2 stealth (it barely exists, to be honest). Basically you have to spend the extra effort to position your rogue and land backstabs in order to deal damage comparable to a bruiser who can just walk up to an enemy's face. The ROGUE talents don't even have an ability to stealth. Instead, you have to grab Chameleon from Polymorph. Mortal Blow is a total joke. First playthorugh I played Sebille, intent on making the ultimate ASSASSIN. Eh. Wasn't much. Second playthrough I played a Pyro/Geo mage. During this playthrough I kept asking myself so why the hell would I even want to play a rogue archetype? There are other things I can whine about, but there's no need here.
I don't know much about stealth in DnD 5e. I know just a little, because I watched a few episodes of Critical Role. Apparently, the assassin can still do pretty decent damage when they land a flanking attack, especially if it's a crit. The rogue of their party would do way more damage than their barbarian - again, when the conditions are favorable. That's about all I know.
I understand to implement a solid stealth system can be tricky. A lot of work has to go into AI; just opening up some skills and adjusting the numbers won't be quite enough. You have to code the AI in a way such that it takes into account all the things that are enabled by stealth. Over the years I have played around with AI in the BG games as well as DAO, and things can get pretty complicated sometimes.
I really, seriously, hope they come up with something at least enjoyable to some extent in BG3.
Last edited by Try2Handing; 21/07/19 11:32 PM.
