Many good ideas here. However, I would have liked to see an even playing field for better gameplay. I'd like a gatekeeper mechanic for all potential Stealth situations where a hidden Stealth (lowest nearby party member) contested by NPC perception (highest nearby NPCs) check is required for any stealthing. Implement realistic modifiers like using light-sources in darkness leading to a penalty. Such a mechanic would make the Pass Without Trace Ranger-spell (+10 party wide Stealth) very viable.
1. Very much for a passive hearing radius triggering hidden Stealth checks. Makes the Silence spell more viable as it allows for creative use in such situations.
2. Starting turn-based phase for the entire party when combat is initiated is a necessity. Perfect surprise turns should be the exception, not the rule.
3. Wider, longer and hidden NPC vision cones. NPCs should be less predictable, glance around more.
4. AI refinements. Like a small party of goblins being more defensive, perhaps retreating to alert their allies. Reacting in a believable manner to player actions. An intelligent creature would for instance be on alert (hidden Perception check?) after first having been tricked by Minor Illusion and definitely react to taking damage by alerting allies.
I honestly feel like stealthing in the game is pretty broken. However, I'm a big fan of self policing in D&D. When it comes to doing broken things in single player video games, I personally don't see a need for the game developers to step in on every one of them. I don't see things like this as a high or even mid priority for a game developer to address.
Don't give Larian an excuse. Exploits could be considered as core mechanic in their games so far lol. Player agency and cheap laughs is a priority - while balancing and immersion/realism seems to be considered a resource intensive chore. Another word for "self-policing" is "self-nerfing", and the problem with that should be obvious: If you happen to like stealth and smart plays you're just sh!t out of luck, cause the system is so dumb you feel cheap for engaging with it. Now you can't play a certain way in order not to trivialize challenge. However, long before most players realize the system is basically a broken exploit, the lack of balance will have heavily incentivized players to engage in repetitive tactics that makes for a more predictable and boring gameplay than would be possible in a properly balanced system. Besides, optimization is a fundamental aspect of RPG gameplay. You try to find character build synergies and tactics that plays to the strengths of party. Self-policing/nerfing is the antithesis to that.
Fortunately Larian stated in the very early stages of EA that they were aware of the pitfall of making some combat tactics too strong: That it would incentivize repetitive and more boring gameplay. Larian said they therefore wanted to make more varied tactics viable. I really hope they remember those words...especially considering it kind of goes against their core game design philosophy.
