[Poschengband] Stealth Mechanics

[DBrickShaw]

Does anyone know exactly how stealth works in PosChengband? I'm not finding anything on the topic in the in-game help. In particular, I'd like to know:

- Are mobs always aware of your location once awake, or is there an unaware/hunting state?

- Do mobs ever go back to sleep / back to being unaware if they lose sight of you?

- What impacts your chance of being detected? Does walking carefully (shift-S) matter? Does carrying a light / being on a lit tile matter? Proximity to walls? Encumbrance?

- Are there bonuses for attacking a mob while it's asleep?

This is the first Angband variant I've put any real time into, so I'm ignorant of these things even if they're the same as vanilla Angband.

[Pete Mack]

In pos--as in most variants--only stealth and indirectly speed matter. Awake monsters never go back to sleep. There is no "unaware" state; only out of range. Finally, running is only short hand for walking. There is no meaningful difference.

[debo]

If you want some extra stealth mechanic type stuff, it's worth looking at the ninja class.

[DBrickShaw]

Cool, thanks for the info.

Finally, running is only short hand for walking. There is no meaningful difference.

So if I'm understanding correctly, walking carefully is just a macro for (move + search), meaning that you're actually taking two actions every time you move while walking carefully. This would mean that walking carefully makes it more likely to wake up nearby mobs, as you're effectively spending twice as much time in close proximity to them, correct?

For others who are interested, I also found some discussion on the vanilla Angband stealth mechanics here, and I assume the points raised there also apply to PosChengband. Most notably, line of sight and the terrain between your character and the mob are not accounted for when determining the chance to wake up a mob. The only distance that matters is the straight line distance between you and the mob.

[GenericPseudonym]

- Are mobs always aware of your location once awake, or is there an unaware/hunting state?

For the most part, yes they are always aware. But note that monsters have a different max distance where they'll be aware of you. The Serpent of Chaos can tell where you are from 2200' away so it'll always follow you to your new position even after you teleport. Meanwhile Meng Huo only has 200', so if you teleport and land 40+ tiles away he'll be unaware of you so he'll just stay put and wait until you get close enough again.

Ninja's superstealth uses an entirely different mechanic and it works even on awake mobs. (But it's still based on your stealth skill, among other things.)

- Do mobs ever go back to sleep / back to being unaware if they lose sight of you?

Never, unless you use a device of sleep monster. The exception is, again, the Ninja. Their special stealth mechanic rolls the check again every turn, so even if an awake monster notices you one turn it might not see you the next turn.

- What impacts your chance of being detected? Does walking carefully (shift-S) matter? Does carrying a light / being on a lit tile matter? Proximity to walls? Encumbrance?

Just your stealth score (press C), and your distance to the monster. And, as Pete Mack mentioned, speed helps indirectly. If you get to move twice as fast you only have to pass half as many stealth checks to avoid waking things up.

- Are there bonuses for attacking a mob while it's asleep?

Not for normal classes, but Rogue, Ninja, Scout, Skillmaster, and Daggermaster can all get bonuses for this. I might be missing one or two in this list.

walking carefully is just a macro for (move + search)

It's actually a bit better than this. It automatically searches every turn but it only gives you -10 to speed, so a character running around with +20 speed (3x normal speed) will only drop to +10 (2x normal). Of course by the time a character has that much speed they can probably afford to buy a source of trap detection. Especially since staves recharge like rods in PCB, so you can grab a staff of trap detection for ~700 gold from the starting town and satisfy your detection needs forever.