The Drunken Lizard Pub

Can anyone who's played through the game tell me if MS and HiS are worth the skill points? From what I've played of the demo, it seems that these skills don't give you any sort of backstabbing double damage multiplier, nor do they seem very necessary for robbing NPCs. It seems like a waste of points if all these skills do is allow you to avoid enemies, since confronting enemies is how you get a large share of XP in an RPG. Or am I missing something?

HiS helped me greatly in my thief shady dealings in cities like steal from all chests.

Considering that spell or potion of invisibility lets you attack creatures without being hit back, im guessing if you dont lose hide status you can stab things as much as you want without retaliation.

Invisibility has limited duration, but for some places it's the best way to get past obstacles.

For instance standing in front of the dwarf lord's treasury and quaffing a potion before picking the lock to go inside and loot.

Hide in Shadows and Move Silently work well in most towns at night for looting without being caught. In certain dark places it also works well for avoiding being attacked while you attack. Or if you just want to sneak past monsters to achieve a goal without fighting.

That said you need a lot of each to not get caught. Even invisibility will only reduce you chance of being hit if you aren't silent. You need more than in Book 1 to be effective.

To that I have another question.

Is Hide in shadows any use without Move Silently ?

If you are just picking a lock or removing a trap, wait (use space bar) until the silent icon appears in the status box.

If you are in combat then it's harder to stay silent, but not impossible.

To his original point tho, if you're in shadow and silent, there's still no surprise double-damage super-secret bonus on attack, right?

The point of Hide in Shadows in combat is, if you combine it with general darkness and a few relevant buffs (Cat's Eyes, Predator Sight, etc), you can maintain a quality hit rate against your enemy, while being able to dodge most attacks from HIS.

There's no "backstab" ability in Eschalon. The closest to this you'll get is taking the Nefarious Axiom.

If you have a high enough HiS/Move Silently, you can repeatedly attack an enemy without being detected. This pretty much negates the need for a sneak attack.

Yeah, that sounds like it could be pretty handy. Has anyone actually tried beefing HiS and MS to the point where you can do this? How viable is it compared to sinking points into the usual melee fighting skills? I'm not a power gamer or anything, but I do like playing as thief classes, and I'm curious to know if playing one in Eschalon is going to be hell on earth, combat wise. Sadly that's usually the case for thieves in RPGs.

I had a few places in Hammerlorne with HIS at 12 where the dwarven miners just milled around me while I attacked them without getting hit. I didn't even need cat's eyes or predator sight since I wasn't taking damage and could take my time.

I studied this pretty carefully in Book 1 - unfortunately, several aspects of the move silently / hide system were pretty much broken at that point (I still had fun with it though).

I'm very interested to see how it's been fixed up for Book 2. For example, does dexterity now help with move silently? If you are silent and invisible and silently shoot someone will they still unerringly find you? Also looking forward to fiddling with hide and invisible to see how they compare this time round (they did very different things last time, maybe this time too?).

Farwalker wrote:...
I'm very interested to see how it's been fixed up for Book 2. For example, does dexterity now help with move silently? If you are silent and invisible and silently shoot someone will they still unerringly find you? Also looking forward to fiddling with hide and invisible to see how they compare this time round (they did very different things last time, maybe this time too?).

I'm also playing a rogue-type character and focusing on hide in shadows and move silenty. I pumped up my dexterity up to 26 now on level 2. I can tell that I am pretty often moving silently and in dark places i also often am hiding in the shadows. especially, when moving close to walls etc.

So my guess is that my high Dexterity is working.

my char

cal1s wrote:I can tell that I am pretty often moving silently

Here's a test you can try: with light armor on feet, legs and torso find a stationary person somewhere (say a guard or something) and walk toward them on a direct line (not diagonal). How many squares away can you be without losing silence?

Note that it's possible that different monsters have different perceptions - some may have very good ears - but I did this test with a guard in Book 1 and came up with:

Move Silent Skill - Silent ? squares away (walking)
16 - 4
18 - 3
21 - 2
24 - 1

I also found you needed a skill of 19 to stand silently directly next to someone (not walking).

But in Book 1 Dexterity had no effect - now perhaps getting to these points may be more reasonable with help from Dexterity?

I tried that one out now and the result is as follows:

## Dexterity 26 and +2 Move Silently Ring ##

Note: Light Armor is on, although I have not the appropriate skill yet.
-- At night --

At Constable's house in Eastwillow, although diagonal


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City Guard in Eastwillow, 6 squares


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-- At daylight --

City Guard in Eastwillow, diagonal


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City Guard in Eastwillow, 4 squares