Insane stealth

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

I'm currently playing hobbit rogue, and I lack decent weapon to get to endgame (BoC of Acid (+14,+14) is best I have found), but I'm having insane stealth. With Trickery +3, Belegennon (I can use pretty much anything I choose here) and Elven cloak of Magi +4 {ESP} I have +11 to stealth and because even starting hobbit rogue is already very stealthy I can wipe out whole vaults without waking anything up.

Is there some cap how high stealth can go? Some effective cap, if not actual cap? I have Balli Stonehand in home and that adds another +3 to stealth (and it isn't bad as weapon either if I add Ring of Acid, unfortunately that would mean -10 speed making permanent speed lower than +20).

[scud]

A few weeks ago I mentioned my new-found ability to stroll up to druj / drujes / drujii. I'm sure 'something' has changed with 's', if not with stealth itself.

It would be good if the clanging and screams of melee increased the chances of nearby things waking up. There are very, very sound sleepers down there...

[Scraper]

I can wipe out whole vaults without waking anything up.

I don't know the answer to your questions, but that is awesome

[scud]

I must try writing a rude word using corpses in an orc pit...

[kingvictory2003]

A few weeks ago I mentioned my new-found ability to stroll up to druj / drujes / drujii. I'm sure 'something' has changed with 's', if not with stealth itself.

It would be good if the clanging and screams of melee increased the chances of nearby things waking up. There are very, very sound sleepers down there...

Now, now. Drujs don't really move around much--their cardiovascular fitness isn't great, so they need a lot of rest after even small exertions.

[Timo Pietilä]

I must try writing a rude word using corpses in an orc pit...

Pits are generated always awake. Vaults are not.

[scud]

I must try writing a rude word using corpses in a large room with a high population density comprising entirely of orcs...

[Timo Pietilä]

I must try writing a rude word using corpses in a large room with a high population density comprising entirely of orcs...

Well, considering that last vault I killed about 30 nether hounds, five giants, 20 or so black puddings, one Hell Wyrm, one Ancient Bronze, One Great Wyrm of Balance, few basic four Ancient dragons and numerous trolls before going after Black Reaver which was still asleep, I think that is entirely possible. I actually cleared some of the floor from interesting items in case Reaver uses manastorm before hitting it.

(Hounds and most of the puddings were awake, everything else was asleep until I attacked them)....and I just realized that most of the time I had only +3 magi (the +4 one was loot from that vault) and Elessar instead of Trickery on, I put trickery on to cover nexus about half-way thru because there was nexus vortex in the vault. I wonder if putting that on before digging to the front door would have prevented those puddings from waking up.

[Derakon]

Here's how stealth works, by my reading:

The player's "noise rating" is given as 2 ^ (30 - stealth skill). Functionally this should cap at a noise rating of 1. In process_monster (which I believe is called once per monster turn), we generate a random number from 0 to 1023 inclusive, then cube the result. If the result is less than or equal to the player's noise rating, then we try to disturb the monster. The amount of disturbance is 100 / (distance from monster to player), capped to an int. We subtract the disturbance value from the monster's sleep value, and if it goes below zero, the monster wakes up.

Initial sleep values are set based on the last entry in the I: line in monster.txt: a specific monster's sleep value is that number * 2, plus 1d(number * 10). Black reavers have a value of 50 here, which means that even an absolutely noisy character standing right next to the reaver has at least 1 turn in which it will remain asleep.

[will_asher]

I must try writing a rude word using corpses in an orc pit...

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/2010/12/12/

[Magnate]

Here's how stealth works, by my reading:

The player's "noise rating" is given as 2 ^ (30 - stealth skill). Functionally this should cap at a noise rating of 1. In process_monster (which I believe is called once per monster turn), we generate a random number from 0 to 1023 inclusive, then cube the result. If the result is less than or equal to the player's noise rating, then we try to disturb the monster. The amount of disturbance is 100 / (distance from monster to player), capped to an int. We subtract the disturbance value from the monster's sleep value, and if it goes below zero, the monster wakes up.

Initial sleep values are set based on the last entry in the I: line in monster.txt: a specific monster's sleep value is that number * 2, plus 1d(number * 10). Black reavers have a value of 50 here, which means that even an absolutely noisy character standing right next to the reaver has at least 1 turn in which it will remain asleep.

Thank you. So the answer to Timo's earlier question is that the limit of useful stealth is 30, including the intrinsic racial and class stealth. It is also worth noting that +1 is added to the race and class stealth numbers in birth.txt, so the maximum useful stealth for a hobbit or kobold rogue is +20. Still a way to go then Timo ...

[Derakon]

Thank you. So the answer to Timo's earlier question is that the limit of useful stealth is 30, including the intrinsic racial and class stealth. It is also worth noting that +1 is added to the race and class stealth numbers in birth.txt, so the maximum useful stealth for a hobbit or kobold rogue is +20. Still a way to go then Timo ...

And some quick numbers for about how likely a monster is to be disturbed (not necessarily woken up, but moved closer to waking) by a player with the following stealth skill levels (determined Monte Carlo style since I'm too lazy to actually do the probability calculations just now):

import random
for i in xrange(31):
    count = 0
    for j in xrange(100000):
        if random.randint(0, 1023) ** 3 <= 2 ** (30 - i):
            count += 1
    print "%2d: %5.2f%%" % (i, count / 1000.0)

 0: 100.00%
 1: 79.34%
 2: 63.25%
 3: 50.12%
 4: 39.64%
 5: 31.45%
 6: 25.33%
 7: 19.95%
 8: 15.68%
 9: 12.48%
10:  9.83%
11:  7.91%
12:  6.33%
13:  5.02%
14:  4.00%
15:  3.12%
16:  2.57%
17:  2.05%
18:  1.66%
19:  1.29%
20:  1.12%
21:  0.88%
22:  0.69%
23:  0.55%
24:  0.49%
25:  0.35%
26:  0.27%
27:  0.27%
28:  0.18%
29:  0.21%
30:  0.20%

Generally, every +3 stealth you gets doubles your effective stealthiness. Doubling your speed also effectively doubles your stealthiness, since monsters get turns (and thus chances to be disturbed) half as often.

Hobbits and kobolds have +5 stealth, elves, high-elves, and gnomes have +4, dunadan have +3. Rogues have +6 stealth, rangers +4, mages and priests +3, warriors and paladins +2. This is all adding on the +1 that Magnate mentioned. Thus a naked hobbit rogue has about an 8% chance of disturbing a monster each turn.

[Magnate]

Hobbits and kobolds have +5 stealth, elves, high-elves, and gnomes have +4, dunadan have +3. Rogues have +6 stealth, rangers +4, mages and priests +3, warriors and paladins +2. This is all adding on the +1 that Magnate mentioned. Thus a naked hobbit rogue has about an 8% chance of disturbing a monster each turn.

Haven't you added the +1 twice? I have it as 1 + 4(race) + 5(class) for a hobbit rogue.

Interesting point about speed. What would people think about subtracting (speed - 3) / 3 from stealth, to balance this out? Note that this would *not* make fast characters less stealthy, it would merely prevent them becoming more stealthy.

EDIT: obviously where speed is >0 ...

EDIT2: er, that's not obvious at all, is it. Slower characters generate more chances for monsters to wake up, so the same should apply. Sorry - babybrain.

[Derakon]

Ah, I thought you meant "each value in p_race and p_class is one lower than it should be", not "the sum of the values in p_race and p_class is one lower than it should be". My mistake.

As for speed's effects on stealth, it should balance out on the whole by monsters becoming faster too. If you wanted to make it so speed had no impact on stealth, then you should modify the disturbance odds by the ratio of the player's speed to the monster's speed.

[PowerDiver]

Interesting point about speed. What would people think about subtracting (speed - 3) / 3 from stealth, to balance this out? Note that this would *not* make fast characters less stealthy, it would merely prevent them becoming more stealthy.

That change feels wrong to me. That they are less likely to wake up because you spend less time near them seems entirely appropriate.