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Volunteer Moderator
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Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
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Honestly, there are worse ways to cheese at Level 2-4 than stealth. All you need is a portable explosive barrel and Astarion's fire arrow cantrip.
What gets me is that stealth is not fun to play. Yeah … I know others have also said it, and I agree … barrelmancy doesn’t bother me nearly as much as stealth. I mean, I guess you could make it so explosive barrels could only be moved and not actually picked up, which I think might already the case for some objects like rocks? That would make shifting them any distance extremely tedious. I’m not desperately keen to rain on the parade of anyone who enjoys using barrels for cheesing, though, as I can quite easily ignore the fact that I can run around with and effectively teleport barrels and instead just use them when I consider “fair†(ie when they’re already near or on the battlefield). Whereas, as you say, given the way they’re implemented, we can’t actually use ambush and stealth in combat in a way that feels smooth, fair or fun. And I really think we should be able to.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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I've really kind of given up on a lot of elements in this game that I think need to be fixed to make this a really awesome game. I am now focusing more on just the ones that, if they don't do something about it, we'll totally ruin this game and take it completely out of the running as even remotely good. Stealth the way it is completely destroys gameplay. You could dress up in the noisiest armor and have the biggest weapons and sneak up too and enemy from behind without a problem. And again, even the least stealthiest character in the whole game can do the whole shoot stealth shoot tactic and win.
You can't tell me that's good mechanics.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Sep 2020
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What about if the surprise attack works only for any character in stealth? First hidden character attacks, then non stealthed characters get brought into initiative like normal, any others in stealth get to make their surprise attack first then added to the initiative order. I’m not sure I’m understanding this suggestion. I suspect I may just not be getting your point. But in case I am, let’s take the two alternatives in turn. We’ll assume that our whole party is in stealth, then one attacks, surprising the enemies. At that point, their attention drawn, the enemy should have an opportunity to spot their attacker and anyone nearby, but for the sake of simplicity we’ll say any other party members forced to make a stealth check succeed, so the whole party remains in stealth except for the attacker. So the proposal is that combat always starts at that point, and let's say that the “surprising†character always gets first spot in the initiative queue as per mrfuji3’s good suggestion. We have suggested that all enemies and party members enter combat, roll for initiative and get slotted into the queue, then our initial character gets to complete any other actions and bonus actions (beyond their initial attack) before ending their turn. Any enemies would effectively skip their turns in this first round as they’re all surprised, so what actually happens in this first round is that the rest of our party get to take their actions and bonus actions, with the advantage of starting their turn in stealth as they were hidden when combat started. Our "surprising" character then gets to make their second attack, but by then enemies can take reactions and then combat proceeds as normal. In summary, in the first round our whole party gets to take their actions and bonus actions with the advantage of stealth on their first attack, and the enemy gets to do nothing. Is your suggestion that only your surprising character actually joins combat at first? If so, let’s work that through. If they then complete any other actions and bonus actions without you bringing in the rest of your party and you end the turn then all the enemies will get to complete a surprise round but you won’t have chance to bring the rest of your party into the combat as you need to do that on the turn of one of your party, when combat is paused for you. So instead of ending the first character’s turn, you have the rest of your party attack one by one. They get their initial attack with advantage of stealth, then roll for initiative and get slotted into the combat queue, but it’s still your first character’s turn so they can’t do anything else yet. Then once you have all your party in combat, you end the turn of your first party members, and in this first round all enemies just get to gape in surprise while the rest of your party get to make any remaining actions and bonus actions in turn. What this means is, in the first round, your whole party gets to take their actions and bonus actions with the advantage of stealth on their first attack, and the enemy gets to do nothing. That is, exactly the same as option one except that you have to manually bring the rest of your party in, there are questions that need to be addressed about whether your party members who stay outside combat are still in turn based mode aligned to the combat (and potential cheese if they’re not) and complications if you don’t bring all your party members in at once and instead bring one in, end the first character’s turn, bring in another and then they roll better initiative than the character you’ve already moved to. That’s why I think I’ve misunderstood your suggestion! I think you might alternatively be suggesting that subsequent party members might be able to join the combat in later rounds and newly surprise the enemy, which sounds hard to implement in practice. Surely there shouldn’t be a whole other round with surprised enemies, and it’s not clear what it would mean for one enemy to be surprised (do just they miss their next turn?) or enemies to be surprised only by one of your party. And anyway, I would suggest that any “surprise†caused by later party members joining the battle is represented by the advantage they’re getting from attacking from stealth, so adding a surprise turn at that point would be double counting. Or perhaps I’m still misunderstanding …. I think I am just not good at explaining things well. What I was suggesting with this stealth part, was that in essence, all of our characters are being brought into combat at once, but only the ones in stealth are making surprise attacks because the enemy can see the others. Those in stealth who weren't first to attack would be automatically added at the beginning of initiative, but the non stealthed ones would be added in wherever. It was more meant as an option for those who find the whole surprise attack thing too much cheese, but please disregard it because it was a stupid random insomnia fueled idea and it would be even more of a pain to implement than other things. Basically what @The_Red_Queen says above. This: What about if the surprise attack works only for any character in stealth? First hidden character attacks, then non stealthed characters get brought into initiative like normal, any others in stealth get to make their surprise attack first then added to the initiative order. seems basically the same as We have suggested that all enemies and party members enter combat, roll for initiative and get slotted into the queue, then our initial character gets to complete any other actions and bonus actions (beyond their initial attack) before ending their turn. Any enemies would effectively skip their turns in this first round as they’re all surprised, so what actually happens in this first round is that the rest of our party get to take their actions and bonus actions, with the advantage of starting their turn in stealth as they were hidden when combat started. Our "surprising" character then gets to make their second attack, but by then enemies can take reactions and then combat proceeds as normal. But the first suggestion means that players must manually bring each stealthed party member into initiative. This is needless work and in multiplayer, this means that any players in TB mode have to wait even if it's their turn, otherwise they'll advance the turn order and enemies might be able to go before the stealthed characters make their surprise attacks to enter the initiative. The main mechanical hurdle of the latter suggestion is making sure all enemies are Surprised for their first turn. But BG3 already does something like this, no? I've seen many reports that attacking from stealth leads to the PCs getting an entire turn or two before the enemies can go. I was hoping things would be changed to automatically bring everyone into initiative, but please disregard that idea anyway. A side note about multiplayer, tested surprise attack/ambush with two people earlier. It is possible to both attack at the same time as expected. Don't have two more people to test with, but since it worked with two, I am sure it works with four. Currently the game allows the ambush/surprise attack as you said, but people have been complaining that one character is getting dogpiled by all the enemies. Some have had a kneejerk reaction to this in other threads and have requested that all characters be brought into initiative immediately no matter what, disregarding that doing this in singleplayer would remove the ability to surprise attack from all but the first character. The main thing I want is some sort of system to make ambush/surprise attack less tedious and also to bring everyone into combat so other people don't have their issue any more, but without ruining a useful strategy to do it. Think we have had some good discussion on ideas for this. Honestly, there are worse ways to cheese at Level 2-4 than stealth. All you need is a portable explosive barrel and Astarion's fire arrow cantrip.
What gets me is that stealth is not fun to play. Yeah … I know others have also said it, and I agree … barrelmancy doesn’t bother me nearly as much as stealth. I mean, I guess you could make it so explosive barrels could only be moved and not actually picked up, which I think might already the case for some objects like rocks? That would make shifting them any distance extremely tedious. I’m not desperately keen to rain on the parade of anyone who enjoys using barrels for cheesing, though, as I can quite easily ignore the fact that I can run around with and effectively teleport barrels and instead just use them when I consider “fair†(ie when they’re already near or on the battlefield). Whereas, as you say, given the way they’re implemented, we can’t actually use ambush and stealth in combat in a way that feels smooth, fair or fun. And I really think we should be able to. I had thought of something a while back for barrels, you can only carry them in hand and enemies could stop you if they saw you moving furniture. Now I really don't care about loading backpacks with barrels, dipping, and send to camp, these are cheese options that I can easily ignore and unlike shove, they do not get used against me so I can pretend they do not exist. Stealth really needs work to be less tedious and more immersive, and shove needs to be fixed.
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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I'm playing Solasta Lost Valley again, and I really think Larian needs to take SOME of their stealth mechanics. Not the whole thing, but make something closer.
For example, you shoot, and enemies roll Perception versus your stealth. If you succeed, you stay hidden. If they succeed, you're no longer hidden. Then, you have to find some sort of serious shadows or cover to hide again. If you're even in an enemy's line of sight at all, forget it - unless maybe you have a special feat, something that would allow you to hide in plain sight, or something like that.
I guess what I'm getting at is Solasta is more like tabletop. If you can draw a line from an enemy to one of your characters, that's line of sight. That means that they can detect you in combat. No sight cones, and you can't see the enemy's detection zones. There is an indicator over your characters if they are sneaking, and if you are moving into an enemy's detection zones, the indicator starts to turn yellow and then red to let you know that you are getting close to being detected.
What I don't like about Solasta's stealth is that it is a bit to the other extreme. I don't feel like I can use stealth enough. My thief has +7, but I have to run around hunting for places where I can finally try to hide. So even with my thief, I still can't do the stealth, snipe, stealth thing very often.
So I'm looking for a middle ground here. I know it's difficult in a video game, but it exists.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2014
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The vision cones need to be at least 180 degrees to account for peripheral vision and simply turning your head.
But then, as mentioned many times before, when you account for hearing and smell they should really be using a detection radius instead. If they want to gamify stealth, they could make your Perception rank increase the possible detection radius. Like 15m + Perception modifier. I would get rid of the cones entirely and use a radius instead. If they insist on keeping their flawed cones, they need to add a hearing radius on top of it. And then the whole thing will just be needlessly complicated.
Abusing some narrow gamey cones in turn based mode to "sneak" with your -1 Stealth Disadvantage PC while enemies are frozen in time is not fun gameplay. And it takes away from actually stealthy builds. Larian need to stop overriding D&D mechanics with their silly gamey inventions.
And cut back on the abundance of Invisibility potions, please. A character in medium or heavy armor with Stealth disadvantage would still make noise while invisible and should be easily detectable. Stealth disadvantage should be meaningful. It's one reason to wear a Breastplate or invest in the Medium Armor Master feat. Surprising enemies and getting surprised on a high Perception character are both too easy.
Last edited by 1varangian; 04/01/23 12:47 PM.
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apprentice
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apprentice
Joined: Oct 2020
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I'm playing Solasta Lost Valley again, and I really think Larian needs to take SOME of their stealth mechanics. Not the whole thing, but make something closer. I agree. It's a much simpler implementation and it works. A lot of what is wrong with BG3's implementation comes from over complicating things. Bonus action hide cranks the problem to 11 in BG3 but even for characters with cunning action the system is functional in Solasta. For example vision cones, they don't really make sense as a perception role is an abstraction of situational awareness. A character's head won't be fixed in one direction for the six seconds that a round of combat represents, and that's before considering other senses. They should have a chance of perceiving anything they could possibly perceive. That's both RAW and more or less a tautological statement. TBH I think over complication is where a lot of BG3's system weirdness stems from without much/any benefit.
Last edited by Panda Warlord; 04/01/23 08:27 PM.
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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I still think using Passive Perception and Stealth skills as a basic tool would work. Passive Perception of 13 means that a Stealth roll is not necessary until your character gets to within 13 feet, if sneaking up from behind. If from the side, double the range. Stealth check at 26 feet away. Front arc? Line of sight using lighting and terrain.
So, you are sneaking into Blighted Village via the east gate. Stealth check as soon as you pass through the gate because you are in line of sight front arc. Coming from the south, you take out the goblins at the south gate and sneak up on the goblins on the roof of the apothecary. You are in their rear arc. No roll is necessary until you get within like 9 feet - I think their Passive Perception is 9.
One roll is all that's needed per character per arc except Front arc. None of this having to roll every 6 seconds stuff because of the mechanics where some are yanked into battle while some are not. Front arc is the exception where you still roll every 6 seconds.
Then, if Stealth is successful, it's like invisibility. If you attack, you roll again. Period. No matter the arc. Make Stealth an Action except for Rogue Cunning Action and viola. Stealth fixed.
Last edited by GM4Him; 05/01/23 12:06 AM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Sep 2020
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Larian could also adapt the One D&D current proposal for Hide With the Hide Action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must make a DC 15 Dexterity Check (Stealth) while you’re Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover,and you must be out of any visible enemy’s line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you. On a successful check,you are Hidden.Make note of your check’s total,which becomes the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom Check (Perception) Just make a DC 15 stealth check, at appropriate (dis)advantage, and you become automatically un-hidden if you enter a creature's line of sight. Very simple, and won't clutter up the combat log with numerous perception checks. Is this how stealing works in BG3: a check against a static DC, vs a contested X vs Perception?
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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Is there no in between? So, I'm fighting the skeletons in the crypt, and Astarion succeeds on his first Stealth check... but the game made him roll 2 more times before I even got a chance to use his Sneak Attack. By the time I clicked on Sneak Attack, the third roll failed (2nd also succeeded). He lost his stealth prior to being able to shoot. Why?
Man! Stealth stinks in this game.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2023
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Adding onto Astarion, I've had problems with phase spiders seeing him who technically didn't have him in their red cone. (He was on the layer above it and not getting stealth checks).
The spider queen also sometimes behaves this way. However, unlike the small ones, combat doesn't start and she spits an infinite amount of acid. Unless you get too near, anyway. Makes me worry about more bugged enemies existing. The current cone system is prone to error, display or otherwise.
It took me a lot of reloads to sneak past her because the cone was worth nothing. In the end, she got stuck staring at my remaining party. 2 minutes. 5 minutes. Wouldn't budge. Had to thunderwave scroll her off the platform. I don't think this was broken in patch 8. Some enemies got noteably wonky instead of smarter.
The medium two in that fight pretty much wasted all their turns trying to find Astarion. I think, anyway, because they kept teleporting up there and not attacking. Maybe they accidentally broke sight on the remaining party? I don't even know
(The second spider getting jumpscared after finally detecting him was funny as hell, though. They're dumbasses, so it just screamed and froze. Maybe, it was a sound of joy after teleporting into that net to attack with advantage and instead doing nothing finally paid off (out of movement, eh?).
Last edited by Silver/; 05/01/23 10:19 PM. Reason: Addition
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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I'm sorry. I have to bring this back to life. Larian. Sneak sucks. It's garbage.
This time, I wasn't even sneaking, but because I was outside their sight cones and they weren't facing me, they didn't trigger combat. I had to literally take my character after doing one round of hits from everyone, and I had to make him walk into the sight cone of the closest enemy to initiate combat just so I could play fair.
So, to be clear, I shot once with each of my four people, hitting enemies outside of sight cones with their backs to me. Each time I hit, my characters made auto-stealth checks and succeeded, EVEN THOUGH THEY WEREN'T CROUCHING IN STEALTH MODE. Because they succeeded in stealth EVEN THOUGH THEY WEREN'T IN STEALTH MODE, they didn't trigger combat. The enemies didn't turn around and face me or search for me or nothing. They just didn't do anything but stand there or do their typical routines.
That's GOT to go. That's terrible terrible game mechanics. We absolutely need a better stealth system before this game is fully released.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Aug 2022
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Like GM4Him, I feel like a need to bring this up :
I've recently repeated the Nautiloid part of the game (to test some things) a good number of times, and I must say : almost every time I attacked the imps, I would successfully pass a Stealth check. Mind you, I was in plain sight and not hiding 😬
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Volunteer Moderator
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Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
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Like GM4Him, I feel like a need to bring this up :
I've recently repeated the Nautiloid part of the game (to test some things) a good number of times, and I must say : almost every time I attacked the imps, I would successfully pass a Stealth check. Mind you, I was in plain sight and not hiding 😬 Yep, those imps in the prologue are particularly rubbish at spotting us firing at them in plain sight from not all that far away: the first bunch after meeting Lae’zel are bad, then the two on the deck seem even worse.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Aug 2014
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Like GM4Him, I feel like a need to bring this up :
I've recently repeated the Nautiloid part of the game (to test some things) a good number of times, and I must say : almost every time I attacked the imps, I would successfully pass a Stealth check. Mind you, I was in plain sight and not hiding Yep, those imps in the prologue are particularly rubbish at spotting us firing at them in plain sight from not all that far away: the first bunch after meeting Lae’zel are bad, then the two on the deck seem even worse. Why is there even a check if you're standing in plain sight and not trying to hide? And if there is a check to not initiate combat when attacking, eventually a Rogue with maxed out expertise Stealth with proper gear won't ever fail that check anyway. I don't understand why Stealth is so poorly designed. 
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Volunteer Moderator
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Volunteer Moderator
Joined: Feb 2022
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Why is there even a check if you're standing in plain sight and not trying to hide? I’m guessing it’s there as a sort of proxy check for whether the enemy spots where the attack came from, if you’re not in their line of sight. Though with the imps in particular often it seems as though you should be, and even if it does make some kind of sense I would definitely rather it were removed and combat just started. Though actually, as I’ve said elsewhere, I’d rather combat started immediately even if we are in stealth so that’s a given.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
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veteran
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OP
veteran
Joined: Feb 2021
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Im sorry. For me, it is a given. You shoot and hit an enemy, combat should start. Period. You HIT them. They know you're there, even if not totally aware of where you are. Everyone within a certain radius should be immediately drawn in. You HIT an enemy. ANY movement at that point could cause them to spot you because they are aware of your presence.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jul 2017
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Cheese does not bother me as long as the gameplay and difficulty is not built around it. I never used and use barrels, I never hide chars in combat (except Astarion who is seldomly in my party), I don't use scrolls, or much shoving (4 times till lvl 5 in my current campaign). I don't care about jumping, but I would be entirely ok if "move distance + jump distance = move distance".
But stealth, or more generally the reaction of enemies to attacks, indeed is problematic. Surprise attacks from stealth are almost always a natural option if NPCs are known as enemies before the fight (therefore I never start the Gith fight other than from the dialog), so you have to deal with it all the time, it's omnipresent, and has to be right. Set bugs apart (several enemies in my current playthrough did not react at all, standing just around), there should be some changes. Some ideas in the thread sound nice, in the doubtful case I really did understand them.
My homebrew thoughts (I'm not a DnD guy) are more or less:
Stealth should be mainly for rogues and alike, the other classes shouldn't be able to use it once in combat. When starting combat you should have different possibilities. If the party is close together, to make it easy to decide, all members should be in combat and out of stealth if an NPC is hit, and able to attack with advantage in their normal turn; no double attacks but they should go first all in initiative. If they are further afar and not immediately in combat (that should be possible), so they cannot "shoot together" and have to move, they should have a stealth check but never be able to attack with advantage, stealthed or not (the person hit knows that heroes always travel in packs and expects more attacks to come, as do his/her companions).
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Mar 2020
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Im sorry. For me, it is a given. You shoot and hit an enemy, combat should start. Period. You HIT them. Yup. Combat has been initiated by the player and everyone who could participate should enter the combat phase.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Aug 2022
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Yes, at first, I admittedly didn't really understand the complain about Stealth (well, outside of "hide" being a bonus action), because I didn't really encounters that issue before Patch 9. Or I probably didn't make great note of it because it didn't happen to me enough.
However, since Patch 9, it happens seemingly all the times. Or at least, way too often not to notice the issue.
So, yeah, I'm now fully on the "fix stealth" bandwagon 😅
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Dec 2022
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It doesn't even have to be that complicated.
The monster AI doesn't need anything more than the following to stop the stealth cheese:
if (in combat && no target)
then (walk a set path)
else if (in combat && target)
then (kill it)
Then, like clever game designers are want to do, the pathing can overlap and create sneaking puzzles ... not that anyone actually wants to do rogue stuff other than pick locks and sneak attack, right?
edit: and, to add voice to the above .. when one party member is in combat ... ALL members within the same map set should be in combat. Example: the catacombs on the beach have two distinct inner areas separated by zone doors - within a given zone, combat should trigger everyone. Outdoor areas and cityscapes would have, naturally, a radius beyond which combat isn't entered when the party is split (obviously so as not to aggro a whole city at once).
Last edited by pachanj; 01/02/23 05:02 PM.
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