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Listen vs Spot.

If a person listens and hears a sneak, do they see that person too? Do they recognize who it is?

I'm asking because this came up, and... I don't really see how "listening" equals "seeing".

Official concepts?

I'd assume you'd hear the noise and recognize that it was a person trying to sneak about, not another random source of noise. It would be like when you're playing hide and seek as a little kid; eventually you hear something and realize that it is a person and know generally where to look for them. Or where to swing your ax, in NWN. Stuff like their general weight or size(big footfalls, little footfalls) I could see someone inferring too.

But "hearing" someone and automatically knowing what colors they're wearing, their race, what their character model looks like besides hearing cloth, chain, or plate armor? I'd say that's a visual limitation of the game. Granted, with most scouts and stuff, they'll spot you before they hear you anyway. In any case, it would be great if we had some sort of minor VFX when people are in stealth mode so when you spot them, you can tell they're trying to hide from you and not idly standing in a corner. The sneaky walk animation was one of the few things NWN2 got right.

Edit: Or, maybe you do see them, on second thought. Detection(Spot and Listen) are both just ways to notice a target. Once you hear them, you've noticed them. Which means their stealth, the mechanical inability to see them, is broken. I don't know, this is actually a deeper question now that I think about it. I'll be interested to see the team's take on it.

Dark Immolation wrote:

I'd assume you'd hear the noise and recognize that it was a person trying to sneak about, not another random source of noise. It would be like when you're playing hide and seek as a little kid; eventually you hear something and realize that it is a person and know generally where to look for them. Or where to swing your ax, in NWN. Stuff like their general weight or size(big footfalls, little footfalls) I could see someone inferring too.

But "hearing" someone and automatically knowing what colors they're wearing, their race, what their character model looks like besides hearing cloth, chain, or plate armor? I'd say that's a visual limitation of the game. Granted, with most scouts and stuff, they'll spot you before they hear you anyway. In any case, it would be great if we had some sort of minor VFX when people are in stealth mode so when you spot them, you can tell they're trying to hide from you and not idly standing in a corner. The sneaky walk animation was one of the few things NWN2 got right.

Edit: Or, maybe you do see them, on second thought. Detection(Spot and Listen) are both just ways to notice a target. Once you hear them, you've noticed them. Which means their stealth, the mechanical inability to see them, is broken. I don't know, this is actually a deeper question now that I think about it. I'll be interested to see the team's take on it.

As was relayed to me via another player.. a DM said your last part was correct.

The last part doesn't really make sense though. You still don't lose the minus in AB for fighting an unseen target. You have a very good idea where he is, but according to mechanics at least you still csn't see him. You can't target him directly with spells, you can, I think, also 'un-listen' the person, but not unsee them. So it wouldn't really make sense. It's like somone who is invisible. You don't avtually know they are next to you, although you can hesr them, because they are making no effort to hide. But you can't see them.

If I am really good at hiding, you might have a general idea where I am, but it wouldn't mean you cpuld see me just because you heard me.

On the other hand, it's not like NWN stealth is logical anyway...

Well like pointed out already. Detection is detection, weather it's because you directly spotted them or heard where they are, the hiding is broken and they know exactly where you are and see you plain as day because you were detected, it's not the same as when someone is invisible. in Pnp once you're detected there's no benefits from hiding, unless you manage to get far enough away to slip back into cover or disappear (or have hide in plain sight or similar abilities). In game there is no penalty to hit anyone you've detected trough listen unlike in pnp where you have to beat the check by a set amount to pinpoint their location rather than just know the general area.

To spot or hear someone using invisibility spells, you actually need to roll insanely high, and then it's vs the invisibility spell not vs their hide or ms. The DC for both is 80, which also allows you to defeat other types of illusion spells (with auditory or visual components respectively) thus negating the need for a will save. Though this mechanic isn't represented in game very well, and more applies in pnp. In game for instance, you can "hear" an invisible creature when they are within melee attack range (it's why you can see them but they still have a 50% concealment bonus, because you've detected them but not broken the illusion spell. Try to have someone with invisibility and silence on stand next to you, you shouldn't be able to see them at all because they are silenced, which makes you undetectable by listen. Same should happen if you have someone with invisibility and high MS but no Spot hide next to a person with high spot and no listen.) and spot never works against invisible creatures.

There are also more nuances to detection and hiding skills than what is represented in game, but given what they had to work with and the fact that the game is 15 years old it holds up better than most hiding/spotting mechanics in other games and they include more factors than most people realize. For instance in pnp, you need to defeat the MS check by a set amount with listen to pinpoint them, otherwise you simply know someone is "over there". However from a game mechanic balancing standpoint, if spot made you instantly able to attack or see someone but listen only told you someone was there, there would never be any point for anyone to go listen and you would simply go spot (which most people tend to do anyway), and would thus make high listen and high ms almost completely pointless. By having them essentially do the same thing and negating the attempt to conceal yourself, it levels the playing field and puts an importance on both skills and on both hide and ms when it comes to hiding and detecting.

And given the various uses of both spot and listen in pnp, they don't scale all that well up to the numbers we're used to on Amia, and makes all four skills far more limited than what they would be in pnp (Though the other uses for them could be good guidelines for RP stuff). For instance, 30 listen would let you hear an owl gliding in for a kill on an animal (which is pretty effing quiet), spot lets you read lips at at DC of 15ish and extreme hide can allow you to hide one or more people at a penalty.

I read somewhere that if a creature is silenced you can't hear it... so I'm guessing detected it as well? One would assume that if a character is deafened/blinded then they should hear or see...?

Well, I got the answer I needed, but thanks guys for the input. Again, I just needed the "official" word, and got it quite quickly. That said! Spot is still superior imho due to one little thing.

Also, I probably got my ideas on listen from the Avlis server I used to play on... there, if you "heard" someone, you couldn't identify them, which, makes sense, especially with the one flaw in listen over spot that is mechanically built into NWN that, now that I think about it I need to test to make sure it's there and not something added by the other server!

Okay, now I'm rambling, point is, I didn't ask for an argument, I didn't ask for debate, simply "Does a listener have the ability to ID you as a sneaker?" The answer is yes. Done. Thank you!

-TG

walnutboy wrote:

I read somewhere that if a creature is silenced you can't hear it... so I'm guessing detected it as well? One would assume that if a character is deafened/blinded then they should hear or see...?

Good question!

I wonder if a listener can hear a silenced person, or, if a detector can hear/see if they are blinded/deafened.

Hmm.... never played with that.

Considering what they do, they should not be able to see or hear.

A silenced person, if it makes them mute, I guess that is the only part one cannot hear, If it makes a silent field around them, they should not be heard.

But then we go into game mechanics...and that might be totally different. NWN is pretty bad at portraying stealth as it is since you can sneak down the most narrow hallway, fully lit with 200 guards just staring down where you casually walk by the without them noticing you.

Well, yes, you can, but... any spotter with up to 20 less spot than your hide will see you. It's easier to be a spotter than a sneak in NWN, so... I let little things like your situation go. It makes my brain hurt less

That Guy wrote:

Well, yes, you can, but... any spotter with up to 20 less spot than your hide will see you. It's easier to be a spotter than a sneak in NWN, so... I let little things like your situation go. It makes my brain hurt less

Oh I morely mean that stealth as far as I know is just stealth right? Nothing magical about it? Even if I hear some proclaim it is. To me stealth is about melting in and able to use the shadows and such for cover. Sneaking up a well lit hallway with guards on high alert is impossible without supernatural abilities.

Least in how I portray it in my mind or so. That is morely how I mean the engine in NWN is bit bad at portraying the whole deal.

Budly wrote:

That Guy wrote:

Well, yes, you can, but... any spotter with up to 20 less spot than your hide will see you. It's easier to be a spotter than a sneak in NWN, so... I let little things like your situation go. It makes my brain hurt less

Oh I morely mean that stealth as far as I know is just stealth right? Nothing magical about it? Even if I hear some proclaim it is. To me stealth is about melting in and able to use the shadows and such for cover. Sneaking up a well lit hallway with guards on high alert is impossible without supernatural abilities.

Least in how I portray it in my mind or so. That is morely how I mean the engine in NWN is bit bad at portraying the whole deal.

Well... to play on Amia, or NWN in general, my best advice is, "Suspend your sense of reality.". I mean... yes, it's got nothing to do with supernatural, but... we have this thing called... "magic". To get twisted over stealth and say, "yeah, sure, they can make the entire area blow up with a word and a hand gesture", ehh, not worth getting upset about. It is what it is.

That Guy wrote:

Budly wrote:

That Guy wrote:

Well, yes, you can, but... any spotter with up to 20 less spot than your hide will see you. It's easier to be a spotter than a sneak in NWN, so... I let little things like your situation go. It makes my brain hurt less

Oh I morely mean that stealth as far as I know is just stealth right? Nothing magical about it? Even if I hear some proclaim it is. To me stealth is about melting in and able to use the shadows and such for cover. Sneaking up a well lit hallway with guards on high alert is impossible without supernatural abilities.

Least in how I portray it in my mind or so. That is morely how I mean the engine in NWN is bit bad at portraying the whole deal.

Well... to play on Amia, or NWN in general, my best advice is, "Suspend your sense of reality.". I mean... yes, it's got nothing to do with supernatural, but... we have this thing called... "magic". To get twisted over stealth and say, "yeah, sure, they can make the entire area blow up with a word and a hand gesture", ehh, not worth getting upset about. It is what it is.

I think the biggest problem with DnD is that there is not that many magical items or mages to be fair. But video games make it seem like it. I think I heard somewhere 1 in 100.000 or a million is a mage or has magical powers. And most of these are never going to reach over lvl 10 or even 5. Same with Clerics. The village cleric might only do some healing of disease and mending of wounds in their life. Some classes are just "martial" in their abilities.

Either way. I want to know the asnwer for being silenced, deaf and blind now! That is the main topic right

been gone a month

what did I miss

Official Response needed please!

I see that Dragon Disciples can be many types.... I noted also that ferrous and gem dragons aren't on that list. If I wanted to play a gem dragon, is a request necessary or can I just ask ingame like the other types?

Also... if a request is needed, does it need to be written before the character is made?

Also! Is it now considered a "special character" and needs the... very long, very detailed request type?

A lot of questions, I know, but... I'm very interested and don't want to mess up a concept before it becomes reality.

Thank you,

-TG

What I had to do;

viewtopic.php?f=151&t=87722

Feel free to use as example.

Quote:

is a request necessary

Yep.

Quote:

Also... if a request is needed, does it need to be written before the character is made?

Yep.

Quote:

Also! Is it now considered a "special character" and needs the... very long, very detailed request type?

It should be a request that you put effort into like any other.

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

is a request necessary

Yep.

Quote:

Also... if a request is needed, does it need to be written before the character is made?

Yep.

Quote:

Also! Is it now considered a "special character" and needs the... very long, very detailed request type?

It should be a request that you put effort into like any other.

Thanks, but what I meant was... there are some things you can say, "I'd like this thing, and here's a bit of roleplay toward that end." and there are others where you spell out your character's conception, childhood, personality, build, life story, goals, ambitions and hope you mapped it out well enough.

Effort is still required for both, but, the special character requests... IMHO I think so much work goes into them and they pigeonhole the character so much, that -most- of those never see their true potential and many of those pc's get left on the shelf.

Anyway, sorry for the rant, thanks for the information.

You need a request to explain why your character has that exotic blood in the bloodline and so the DM's know that YOU know whats expected of you to role-play that bloods influence on your decision making.

The more exotic the dragon the more esoteric the blood. What does a Ruby dragon what? What does a Pyroclastic? How does that translate to 'mortal' desires when you're just some Ork/Human/Elf trying to purify their blood and have those wants increasingly impressed upon you.

Commie wrote:

You need a request to explain why your character has that exotic blood in the bloodline and so the DM's know that YOU know whats expected of you to role-play that bloods influence on your decision making.

The more exotic the dragon the more esoteric the blood. What does a Ruby dragon what? What does a Pyroclastic? How does that translate to 'mortal' desires when you're just some Ork/Human/Elf trying to purify their blood and have those wants increasingly impressed upon you.

Oh I get it, but by that reasoning, any DD should need a request of that caliber.

I mean, yes, ideally every character is well thought out, but the definition of aspecial character request is that you need to present it to the DMs.

quantity is not necessarily quality, btw.

That Guy wrote:

Commie wrote:

You need a request to explain why your character has that exotic blood in the bloodline and so the DM's know that YOU know whats expected of you to role-play that bloods influence on your decision making.

The more exotic the dragon the more esoteric the blood. What does a Ruby dragon what? What does a Pyroclastic? How does that translate to 'mortal' desires when you're just some Ork/Human/Elf trying to purify their blood and have those wants increasingly impressed upon you.

Oh I get it, but by that reasoning, any DD should need a request of that caliber.

You don't really need to explain why your character has that blood (because x dragon got it on with y ancestor, duh). The main thing is to express, "Yes, I know what this exotic dragon type is and I won't make it a cuddly evil type who's just misunderstood." It just cuts down on corrective measures later and keeps the sheer number of "rarer" dragon types down. Same reason you can't just pick a Snow Elf, but you can pick a Wood Elf. You just have to show you know what it is. The rest is just fluff for the character at that point, but good to note to the DMs.

Jes wrote:

Same reason you can't just pick a Snow Elf, but you can pick a Wood Elf.

You can't request Snow Elves and Shadow Elves anymore.

You can request anything. It may not be approved though.

Both of those subraces have gone the way of the Faerie. Could you, yeah, but I don't see us reversing those decisions.

For Faerie it was mechanical... the Dex Bonus made playing a Faerie Monk or Rogue insane. For Snow and Shadow, I think it was a lore decision. Both are homebrew, and while extensively detailed, they never really seemed to have a place in the setting. They were extremely reclusive and xenophobic races, so the few instances when you had two or three being played, they tended to stick to themselves. In lore, their numbers or fertility have dropped to the point that the current generation is likely to be the last.

Now, that's the reasoning given IIRC. I don't really see how they're any more untenable than any number of other things that get requested. But again, I understood sunsetting the races as an attempt to streamline lore, not curtail the RP behind them. I feel like a Wild Elf from some sort of arctic area could be played much the same as a Snow Elf. There were so few Shadow Elves, you might as well make something homebrew.

I forgot they removed those. But that is totally not the point.

The special DD types don't get mechanical bonuses, either (unless you pick one that happens to have something public scripted already). It was just an example.

Replace Snow Elf with Aquatic Elf. Or Avariel. Or Fey'ri. Or Elfling. All just rarer subtypes of types readily playable, but you have to show you know a thing or two about them before you can play them. It's the same reasoning with rarer dragon disciples.

Amia lives again, forum wise anyway!

Guessing the hosting company went down or something?

Server is back up!

Has Bioware TS been removed from the dragon form now too?

To my knowledge it should still be on there.

Was unable to see a stealthed person while shapechanged to a dragon so was wondering.

Yup just tested it with a stealther friend.

Dragon form on shapechange does not see stealthed chars anymore.

Does this mean Bioware TS has also been removed from normal dragons?

Was this intentional? I remember Umber Hulk Bioware TS was removed.

EDK and the Druid Dragon Forms till has it.

Leaving TS out of the Shapechange was a slight mistake on my part. Once I get around to it I will slip it back in for the epic transmutation version of the form, giving that three feat investment a bit more weight.

TBH I encourage allowing it to normally have TS because it is almost the only real way a wizard can fight a shadowdancer.

Most things other than a Shifter or Dragon druid shifting into a form to fight rather than detect an SD are in for a bad time. Generally speaking, anything that as a caster makes you give up your spells does not benefit you unless you're built to capitalize on it(Tenser's, Polymorphs, Barbarian Rage).

Idea:

What if appropriate forms had a cycling script that gives TS for a brief moment every so often? That might be a decent representation for some sort of tremorsense without letting stealthers be immediately spotted at the drop of a scroll/spell from just anyone? Pure forms that are supposed to have it constantly(Shifter and Druid dragon) have it constantly. Shapechange(Dragon) and Polymorph(Hulk) only get it for like 1 round every 4 rounds. Transmutation feats decrease the time by one round until at Epic it's back at constant again. Three rounds(18 seconds) seems like it would be enough to slink off somewhere before being spotted, or at least re-position yourself if you're paying attention.

Which shifter forms can or can't talk?

Also, is Rakshasa shifter form magic staff or quarterstaff?

robbi320 wrote:

Which shifter forms can or can't talk?

Any from which can usually talk, can talk(humanoids and such). Animals and others, I think I'll leave that to others. (this is all afaik)

robbi320 wrote:

Also, is Rakshasa shifter form magic staff or quarterstaff?

It looks to me like a quarterstaff. (though my char sheet says SHF_WP_RAKSHASA)

Yup. Any creature that can actually 'talk' can also talk as shifter form.

Wyrmling, Medusa, Minotraur, Drow, Lizardmen, Golem....

It does not matter what language the original creature speaks, as long as it is actually capable of normal speech.

So yeah, animals cannot speak. Neither can a few magical creatures.

Humanoids, Outsiders, Abberations, Dragons, Elementals, Golems can almost all speak.

Ok, thanks. I was unsure about most of the ones listed.

Thanks for the weapon. I might just take that gamble then, and assume it's a qstaff.

CratzBlade113 wrote:

robbi320 wrote:

Also, is Rakshasa shifter form magic staff or quarterstaff?

It looks to me like a quarterstaff. (though my char sheet says SHF_WP_RAKSHASA)

It's a magic staff.

Reading is overrated.

Is it possible to request an item that simply plays audio from the soundset on request? There are all kinds of ambient noises in the soundset. I'm thinking about things like hammering sounds when you are crafting, or kitchen sounds when cooking and so on.

Not that I'm aware off sadly, unless its associated with a vfx, presently.

So let's say you got a vfx, is there a default sound with it or can you select a sound that plays with it? For example if you got light orange 5ft could you have forge hammering sounds attached to that vfx??

Some VFX have sound attached to them, yes. Usually Fire-and-forget ones, like spell explosions, buff animations, etc. Some of them are silent, though.

With your case in particular, I believe all light VFX are silent. So you could indeed have something create an orange light and play a gong sound. You could attach a sound to any VFX really, just know that if the VFX already has a sound, that would play with it and it might not sound as clear as you want it.

Edit:

maglorine wrote:

Is it possible to request an item that simply plays audio from the soundset on request? There are all kinds of ambient noises in the soundset. I'm thinking about things like hammering sounds when you are crafting, or kitchen sounds when cooking and so on.

I'm pretty sure there is. For a plot, we had a flute item that did nothing but play the two flute noises when used. Devs correct me on this, but would that be the function PlaySound?

Is it possible to get a panther animal companion to go into stealth? I've tried everything I could think of.

maglorine wrote:

Is it possible to get a panther animal companion to go into stealth? I've tried everything I could think of.

Nope, it's not.

Amarice-Elaraliel wrote:

maglorine wrote:

Is it possible to get a panther animal companion to go into stealth? I've tried everything I could think of.

Nope, it's not.

And here's why:

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