remove stealth factor?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Ogre case study: An ogre's stealth aptitude can be deceptive: -1 is one of the worst if you look at all other species, but not all that terrible by itself. However, ogre's stealth factor makes stealth skill less beneficial than normal. Stealth skill gives you (Stealth skill)x(stealth factor) amount of stealth. It is 9 for ogres, 15 for most species. Here's a diagram comparing ogre stealth to a hypothetical species that gets similar returns with a stealth factor of 15 (the one on the left wavers more because DCSS has unevenly increasing skill level costs):

Untitled.png (11.44 KiB) Viewed 1059 times

If removing stealth factor:

• one less hidden mechanic
• ogres etc. could theoretically break their current stealth cap, get lots of stealth very late-game, though it would be hugely expensive
• conversely, spriggans etc would be more limited in how much stealth they could accumulate
• stabbing depends on stealth skill rather than stealth, so spriggan stabbing would get buffed and ogre stabbing would get nerfed
• using transmutations to get stealth (e.g. ogre in spider-form) would not work, but is that something people really do and something we want to be possible? tree-form bonus is so big it can be just an umbra-like multiplier with little difference, and surely other forms could give flat or multiplying stealth bonuses/maluses (or decrease monster awareness) if we wanted, and ditto for species modifiers: we can just have some innate mutation that give or take stealth (and flat modifiers would be quite influential, in the early/mid-game especially), in fact we already have some such mutations already, or we could buff the stealth apt of ogres etc. and give them a mutation that halves their return on stealth skill (and mutations can of course be suppressed in forms, if this is really wanted, for maximum transparency and minimum rebalancing)

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Removing the hidden number and adjusting the aptitude seems quite reasonable!

Out of curiosity, is the stealth factor communicated somewhere in the manual? (I.e. larger races are less sneaky)

[Sar]

A flat bonus/malus seems reasonable, but a hidden multiplier is pretty silly.