Blades Runner
Posts: 616
Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19
Re: Stealthier when still
If you move one at them, while they move one at you, you might end up next to them to get the stab, but, you will have also possibly compromised your escape route and/or placed yourself into LOS of two of those other orcs seeking you but that didn't round this particular corner. On the other hand, if you pause, in wait a turn, and that orc takes two steps towards you, you maintain your position for a strategic reason, and as he steps in front of you, *blam*, ambushed him. It makes sense to me, the assassin is crouched in wait, in the shadows, being as silent as possible during that time period.
My suggestion, although it is a bit more complex would be to have a totally different command rather than rest ".", that is something like an "ambush" command, which expends some energy to boost your stealth and lay in wait in one position until the first movement is seen from any creature at any speed and then it interrupts giving you a chance to take an action. This ambush skill's effectiveness would be tied to stealth skill. It would eventually put you into an exhausted state similar to berserk where you cannot maintain it any longer. This would put a damper on general non-stealth characters from trying to use it in any sort of non-specific, non-tactical manner like a stutter-step move . move . move . thing which could be more difficult to fully assess the entire game impact.
To say that it is always safer to move out of LOS rather than to try to ambush it, implies that you're not really ever going to kill it.. and/or that the current means of stealth without an ambush-like tactic for stealth characters would be more simplistic, less interesting and less reliant on player skill and tactics.
One more thing, I think a command such as this ambush should probably require that you be standing next to a wall of some sort, rather than out in the wide open.