Remove stealth skill from Mage backgrounds

[duvessa]

There's no reason for this entire category to get 2 starting levels of stealth skill. Mage backgrounds are already extremely strong except for VM, and none of them have more reason to have stealth than hunter and AM do. Starting with dodging makes sense, since every background aside from Wn gets either dodging or armour, but there is no such convention for stealth. If there is some desire to keep their starting skill point amount the same, remove the 2 levels of stealth and increase their starting dodging from 2 to 3; this leaves them with the exact same total skill points* and is still a slight nerf overall.

It is also strange that Monk gets stealth. I guess that's for flavour reasons, like everything else about Monk...



*well, potentially off by 1 because of rounding

[Hurkyl]

I don't have strong feelings here, but to devil's advocate:

• It signals that stealth is a skill of interest to mages
• Since MP runs out and refills rather slowly, mages with just their starting equipment have somewhat more of a need to avoid attracting attention, as well as shaking off monsters whose attention they have attracted

The second point was probably more important when there were still jackal and gnoll packs in the initial D:1 spawns.

[duvessa]

I don't have strong feelings here, but to devil's advocate:

So you don't have strong feelings but you'd rather side with the devil than with me?

It signals that stealth is a skill of interest to mages

Then why doesn't AM have stealth skill? Why doesn't Hu have 2 stealth instead of 1? Stealth is of much more interest to those backgrounds than it is to the mage backgrounds.

Since MP runs out and refills rather slowly, mages with just their starting equipment have somewhat more of a need to avoid attracting attention, as well as shaking off monsters whose attention they have attracted

HP also runs out and regenerates slowly, yet backgrounds with melee weapons don't get stealth skill by default.

The second point was probably more important when there were still jackal and gnoll packs in the initial D:1 spawns.

There are still jackal and gnoll packs in the initial D:1 spawns.
It sounds like you are overrating stealth.

[yesno]

please don't.

[amaril]

I don't understand, Duvessa. It seems like you are simultaneously saying that Mages need a nerf and therefore shouldn't get stealth, and that Mages don't particularly need stealth and therefore shouldn't get stealth. Both of these can be true--cutting stealth (which helps but ultimately doesn't matter much) would be a minor, deserved nerf for Mages. Is this what you mean?

If these are the points you are arguing, I'm not sure I agree with either of them. In terms of needing stealth, I agree w/ Hurkyl that Mages want stealth more than classes that begin with a primary melee attack--it tends to be easier for melee characters to fight several weak enemies in succession. Mages have to pillar dance more than fighters (even if they are equally strong starts) and I think that removing their early stealth would only force them to pillar dance more.

As for the second point (that Mages need a nerf), well, all starts don't have to be balanced. For most races, Berserker (and Gladiator, Assassin, among others) feels like a stronger start than most magic classes. Maybe IE could use a nerf. But you are almost definitely better at this game than me, so my judgement could be off.

[duvessa]

I'm saying that there's no good reason for mage backgrounds to have stealth, therefore they should not have stealth.

[amaril]

...Except that they want stealth? Mages are more likely to use light armor than characters from any non-magic background. They also often have a second HP bar/less HP and defenses, so they retreat more than melee characters do.

edit. I guess a counterpoint is that a lot of magic is noisy? Plus every early game character wants stealth, but I think it is fine that some classes have different distributions of universally valuable defensive skills.

[Shard1697]

I'm saying that there's no good reason for mage backgrounds to have stealth, therefore they should not have stealth.

I don't agree with this, but even if I did there's no good reason for them to not have stealth either.

[duvessa]

So they should have 2 levels of every other skill in the game, then?

[amaril]

Do you believe that every class should start with a 'hypothetically optimal' distribution of skills?

[Wahaha]

It signals that stealth is a skill of interest to mages

Then why doesn't AM have stealth skill? Why doesn't Hu have 2 stealth instead of 1? Stealth is of much more interest to those backgrounds than it is to the mage backgrounds.

Can you please explain why AM and Hu might benefit more from stealth than spellcasters? I believe that's not correct for the following reason. For spellcasters there is a greater risk attached to getting noticed by an enemy you don't want to be noticed by. The reason for that is that spellcasters have only like 4 mp, and if 4 casts is not enough to deal with something, they have to pillar dance (there is some risk attached to pillar dancing, if a pillar exists in the first place) or hit with weak melee (this is bad too). So not getting noticed by things they don't want to fight is important for them. On the other hand AM and Hu have good attacks that will not run out in 1 fight. They are capable of handling harder situations than a spellcaster at the start of the game. Therefore stealth matters less for them than it does for spellcasters. This is all about the start of D:1 of course.

I don't care if mage backgrounds lose stealth. But maybe all backgrounds except enchanter should lose stealth?

[duvessa]

I would love to take away stealth from Hu, Ar, and Mo as well, yes. And As should really be merged into Hu.

Can you please explain why AM and Hu might benefit more from stealth than spellcasters?

Um, because AM and Hu start with missiles and mages don't. That's really the entire reason. Stealth with ranged combat is a lot better than stealth with anything else except maybe stabbing. And they certainly have more reason to actually train stealth (not that anyone except En should be going anywhere near training stealth early game), since they don't have a bunch of magic skills competing for xp.
It sounds like you are thinking of noise. All starting books except callings and ice have at least one loud spell that the player is presumably intended to use, and spells always make noise at the caster's square (after making noise at the target square if the spell was a beam) whereas missiles always have LOS range and only make noise at the destination square and it's not very much.
If you are not thinking of noise (which is actually the correct way to approach this), not running out of ammo on D:1 is important and screwing it up can't be corrected by dancing, and running out of MP should not be happening much more often, unless you are a VM.
Hu also starts with a short sword for some reason but that's so marginal it's irrelevant.

They are capable of handling harder situations than a spellcaster at the start of the game. Therefore stealth matters less for them than it does for spellcasters.

Perhaps, but if so, you're only saying that missile backgrounds are better than mage backgrounds. Which is only a defense of giving more stealth to mage backgrounds if you also give more stealth to the other worse backgrounds, like Fi, Gl, Sk, and Tm.* You could make stealth a universal starting skill like armour/dodging but that seems completely unnecessary and inelegant.

*It's also not true anyway (IE is still either the best or second best background in the game, alongside berserker).

Do you believe that every class should start with a 'hypothetically optimal' distribution of skills?

I explicitly proposed a worse distribution of skill points in the first post!

I'm actually surprised by the resistance to this. I thought the intent of starting skills was to pick a minimal number of skills that are the most relevant to the background's starting items, plus armour/dodging. Stealth has little to no relation to mage backgrounds' starting items, so it makes sense to cut it. Then again, EE still starts with transmutation skill and not conjurations skill...

[Wahaha]

I'm not thinking of noise. I'm talking about moving into the LOS of an enemy. Especially if one step reveals more than one enemy, and they both wake up, and you don't have enough MP to kill both (and would have enough ammo).
Just to be clear, I'm talking about the start of D:1, because later you can pillar dance easily and take stairs to escape/regain mp. After D:1 I think there's basically no difference in the usefulness of stealth for different backgrounds.

Which is only a defense of giving more stealth to mage backgrounds if you also give more stealth to the other worse backgrounds, like Fi, Gl, Sk, and Tm.* You could make stealth a universal starting skill like armour/dodging but that seems completely unnecessary and inelegant.

Yeah this is why I said I don't care if mage backgrounds lose stealth and maybe everyone loses stealth. Because I agree with removing unrelated skills. I just wanted to know why you think missile backgrounds benefit more from stealth.

[Tiktacy]

I completely agree with the proposal, but the reason there is resistance probably has to do with the scattered reasoning for the proposal.

Ultimately, what it comes down to is that mage backgrounds are vastly more powerful than the other backgrounds besides maybe 1 or 2. They deserve a nerf, and hitting stealth is a good way to do that and even helps differentiate the class from the others.

[Hurkyl]

They deserve a nerf, and hitting stealth is a good way to do that and even helps differentiate the class from the others.

Why? It's a way to nerf them, but why is it a good way?

[WingedEspeon]

Why do they need a nerf? last Time I rolled HuFE I fealt incredibly weak.

[duvessa]

because they're better than most of the other backgrounds (or, in the case of IE, all of them)

[WingedEspeon]

because they're better than most of the other backgrounds (or, in the case of IE, all of them)

I maintain that Be is better than any casting background.

Mages also see to have trouble with D:1 jackels. Not just the packs, a single one can kill you with pretty much nothing you can do.

[Tiktacy]

because they're better than most of the other backgrounds (or, in the case of IE, all of them)

I maintain that Be is better than any casting background.

Mages also see to have trouble with D:1 jackels. Not just the packs, a single one can kill you with pretty much nothing you can do.

I find that the difficulty a person has with a jackel depends more so on the species rather than the background.

Most of the time Be is better, but ultimately that's not what matters here. Casters deserve a nerf, as do Be, but this thread is about caster backgrounds, not Be.

[TeshiAlair]

I don't know if I've ever agreed with Duvessa before, but stealth on casters has always kinda bugged me (as has transmutations on EE but that's a different topic entirely)

What purpose does it have? Allowing you to get one square closer before you utterly fail to actually get to a sleeping monster? If anything, it almost leads to more dangerous situations because it let's people get caught more easily in an open room.

Like, you might as well say "well mages should start out with armour and fighting skill because they will probably want to hybridize"

I think if a player wants to go into stealth as a mage, that should be a conscious choice and not just some free points. It's not like mages are hard for the first few levels, or that stealth is particularly difficult to train. If there is concern about it being a nerf, I'd actually buff spellcasting skill across the board- it's not the most useful, but it allows for a TINY bit more flexibility with early spellbooks and makes early game hunger less annoying.

[Sar]

Allowing you to get one square closer before you utterly fail to actually get to a sleeping monster?

How about allowing you to take one step back and place an exclusion on that monster, provided you aren't sure you can take on it yet?

[TeshiAlair]

Allowing you to get one square closer before you utterly fail to actually get to a sleeping monster?

How about allowing you to take one step back and place an exclusion on that monster, provided you aren't sure you can take on it yet?

Being able to safeguard against monsters as they come into LOS should be something you have to opt into as a player.

[archaeo]

By that logic, TeshiAlair, why are any skill decisions made for the player?

[HardboiledGargoyle]

^^ unfortunately, two consecutive non-sequitur posts do not cancel each other out

e: OK I guess TA tried to say "stealth should be an optional skill you must choose to train" but you can and often do have some stealth without any stealth skill

[archaeo]

How is it a non-sequitur? Why should stealth be "opt-in" but not any of the other skills? Why shouldn't it be part of a background set of skills?

As for the OP, I sincerely don't care much; it's more or less a cosmetic change, with the exception that you'd get fewer chances to do what Sar suggests above. I guess it's possible that it would nudge new players toward investing in dodging instead of stealth, but I doubt it'd have much of an effect. Given that it's a pretty small change, duvessa would probably have better luck submitting it as a patch if they want dev input.

[adozu]

well maybe mage backgrounds are socially awkward geeks and monsters just don't pay them as much attention?

[neil]

Some numbers: total starting skill points for a human of every background. This doesn't generally change with aptitudes (so "human" isn't all that relevant), but might change for species like felids who have substitutions because of unlearnable skills.

Warriors:

  Code:

  Fi: 1054
  Gl: 904
  Mo: 1230 (!!!)
  Hu: 846
  As: 925

Adventurers:

  Code:

  Ar: 597 (!)
  Wn: varies (in 10 trials, I got between 593 and 947)

Zealots:

  Code:

  Be: 904
  AK: 781
  CK: 804

Warrior-Mages:

  Code:

  Sk: 884
  Tm: 833
  Wr: 1035
  AM: 714
  En: 935

Mages: with (without) stealth

  Code:

  Wz: 788 (661)
  Cj: 958 (831)
  Su: 958 (831)
  Ne: 958 (831)
  FE: 809 (682)
  IE: 809 (682)
  AE: 809 (682)
  EE: 809 (682)
  VM: 958 (831)

Single-school mages (VM, Cj, Su, Ne) tend to start with relatively high numbers of skill points, because level 4 of a skill costs significantly more (501 s.p.) than level 3 of one skill plus level 1 of another (301 + 51 = 352). Taking stealth away from FE IE AE EE, without any compensation, would leave them with the fewest starting skill points of all backgrounds except Artificer. Perhaps their books make up for that.

Edit: Increasing dodging from 2 to 3 to compensate would, as duvessa points out, leave them with just one fewer skill point than currently. Probably that's a buff overall.

Taking stealth away from Monk with no compensation would still leave them with the most starting skill points of all backgrounds.

[WingedEspeon]

Giving dodging instead of stealth sounds good. Should help with D:1 jackels.

[duvessa]

Edit: Increasing dodging from 2 to 3 to compensate would, as duvessa points out, leave them with just one fewer skill point than currently. Probably that's a buff overall.

No. It is definitely a nerf. I am the last person who would claim stealth is good, but it still has more application than dodging skill on d:1.

Mo has a lot of skill points because it has no starting equipment. It manages to be the weakest background in the game even with having the most skill points.

[Siegurt]

Giving dodging instead of stealth sounds good. Should help with D:1 jackels.

I would bet that on the whole it will acutally make a properly played d1 mage slightly worse at handling jackals on average.

[TeshiAlair]

By that logic, TeshiAlair, why are any skill decisions made for the player?

because if you dont have any points in magic skills as a mage then you can't cast spells and that would make playing a mage feel really shitty

because if you don't have any points in combat skills as a fighter then you can't kill things with a sword easily and that would make playing a fighter feel really shitty

because if you don't have any points in stealth as an assassin you can't stab things with a knife easily and that would make playing an assassin feel really shitty

I don't think the "get skill points for the thing your background needs to do, and not get skill points for the things that are nice to have but not core" is a super terrible idea.

[duvessa]

This Tavern obsession with jackals is getting ridiculous. Early game balance doesn't revolve around jackals. It's rare for them to be a bigger problem than giant geckos, hobgoblins, kobolds, or adders. And yes, this makes mage backgrounds a little worse against jackals on d:1 (and everything else, that's why it's a nerf), but every mage background deals with d:1 jackals pretty easily anyway.

[amaril]

because if you dont have any points in magic skills as a mage then you can't cast spells and that would make playing a mage feel really shitty

But the fact is that having defenses is also part of what makes playing any given class 'feel' not shitty. A gladiator shouldn't just have staves skill (or whatever)--they should also have some fighting/dodging, and I think you would agree with me. So (assuming class imbalance is unrelated to the core proposal) the issue with stealth is that it is seen as a 'tangential' skill, which has tactical application but is never really necessary in the way that core defensive skills are.

My point of contention with the idea lies in the fact that I see stealth as a real defensive skill, for early game characters in light armour. Therefore stealth (to me) has as much a place in a character's starting package as dodging.

[TeshiAlair]

Stealth is both an offensive and defensive skill. I would be happy if some extra points were added to Dodging as a counterbalence; I don't think it is remotely necessary but if it would make people complain less than sure.

Stealth should be on enchantment based mages because it is tied into their ability to fight. It is fairly senseless that a fire elementalist should be allowed to sneak up on something before blowing its head off with a fireball.

Are you saying that Gladiators should start with Armour because they are likely to pick up heavy armour?

Tangential: Hunters should start out with Stealth 2, Dodging 1, or even something like Stealth 2.5, Dodging 0.

[amaril]

Are you saying that Gladiators should start with Armour because they are likely to pick up heavy armour?

No, and I think this is clearly different--for a gladiator in leather armour, early armour skill is basically useless. It would be like starting with throwing skill but no projectiles.

Stealth is actually useful for light-armoured characters though, and IMO 'being selective in which fights you engage' (not 'sneaking up on enemies': this is a negligibly useful benefit of stealth) is an important part of playing most magic classes in the early game.

edit: it is fair to disagree with this, of course. That just means that you think that 'combat selectivity' is not a core part of mage gameplay.

[dynast]

I dont think the problem is starting or not with stealth, but that having 2 pips of stealth is just too good. I think it is stealth itself that needs a proper rebalance.

[Reptisaurus]

Nah, don't agree. Stealth makes early game quite a bit easier for casters who generally have a tougher time of it; It gives players a couple turns to reposition or a chance to avoid fights entirely - Basically it makes for an easier learning curve if the monsters aren't on top of you the minute you come into line of sight, especially since a disproportionately large # of d:1 enemies are faster than speed 10. I think that's a good thing.

[yesno]

having stealth is one of the few things that lets players choose to limit the amount of random bad luck they are exposed to in the early game and playing a mage without it would simply suck a lot more and be a lot less fun, especially all the ones that aren't IE or EE

[dynast]

Yeah, and thus removing stealth from mages only forces the player to train it back, because it is pretty much mandatory to be optimal to have some stealth, because having "some stealth" is just too good. Makes me wonder why stealth skill is even a thing and that can be increased to 27 for no reasons other than to fool people into playing stabbers.

[duvessa]

training stealth early game on anything other than En is a bad idea now and would remain a bad idea after this change, being able to cast your spells/use your weapon is a lot more important

[dynast]

Training stealh on a En... Next you are going to tell me to use sblades as well... Yeah no, lets just discord and stop here.

[TeshiAlair]

Why not just increase baseline stealth then, to make the early game more pleasant for all characters?

[Lasty]

The arguments I see for removing Stealth from book backgrounds are:

1) book backgrounds are already mostly stronger than other backgrounds and need a nerf,
2) Dodging/Armour are universal skills, but Stealth is not,
3) backgrounds need a reason to have a skill and book backgrounds have no reason to have Stealth

I agree that book backgrounds tend to be strong, though I know a lot of skilled players that disagree. It's possible that they need a nerf at present, but we don't have a principle that all backgrounds must start equal.

Stealth is a useful defensive skill, and it's useful to some degree for all characters, though of course many characters wear heavy enough armour to make stealth fairly pointless. I don't see any problem with giving book backgrounds two defensive skills, and of the defensive skills they could get, Stealth is generally sooner applicable than Armour. Book backgrounds are among the backgrounds that tend to spend the most time in light armour, where Stealth matters most. Arguably that some book backgrounds are loud is more reason for them to get Stealth; noise wakes and attracts monsters, and Stealth decreases the chances that a monster becomes aware of them, as well as decreasing the length of time the monster will stay aware of them off-screen.

As for backgrounds needing a reason to have a skill, I think it's easy to make the case that all backgrounds needs defenses, and Stealth is a defense. As to whether the defense that book backgrounds need is Stealth, or whether it makes sense for book backgrounds to have two defenses, there's probably a lot of room for disagreement. As has already been pointed out, all characters can make use of just about every skill, which means we have to choose whether we want to aim for maximum parsimony, stripping any skill where one could argue it isn't strictly necessary, or if we're aiming for something else.

I tend to assume that book backgrounds were given Stealth primarily for flavor reasons, but I think in practice it's a good for gameplay. Perhaps the same argument applies to all backgrounds; if it does, is there any reason to think that stripping Stealth from as many backgrounds as possible is a better option that giving some stealth to every background?.

[ydeve]

The argument in the OP (and the only one that makes sense) is that there's no reason why mage backgrounds should start with Stealth when others don't. The flavor argument for mages being stealthy is dubious at best. Stealth is just as good for all backgrounds; why should mages have stealth and dodging while otherwise similar backgrounds start with dodging and not stealth?

[Hurkyl]

The argument in the OP (and the only one that makes sense) is that there's no reason why mage backgrounds should start with Stealth when others don't. The flavor argument for mages being stealthy is dubious at best. Stealth is just as good for all backgrounds; why should mages have stealth and dodging while otherwise similar backgrounds start with dodging and not stealth?

This line of reasoning has a fatal flaw -- it hasn't actually gone anywhere. It (allegedly) points out inconsistency, but says absolutely nothing about why it should be resolved in one way or the other, or even that it needs to be resolved.

Also, I think it's coming at the problem from the wrong perspective. IMO the relevant question is to look at a background and ask how skills should be assigned to it. It doesn't seem relevant to look at a skill and ask how to assign it to backgrounds.

[duvessa]

is there any reason to think that stripping Stealth from as many backgrounds as possible is a better option that giving some stealth to every background?.

power creep
you could also just as well say "is there any reason to think that stripping Fighting from as many backgrounds as possible is a better option that giving some fighting to every background?"
but that won't be said, because stealth is the only skill that is actually on a lot of backgrounds for unclear reasons. apparently even the development team doesn't actually know why mages have stealth, whereas every other starting skill has very obvious reasons behind it, even if they're silly sometimes like EE starting with tmut but not conj. that's why this argument isn't happening for other skills

[Hurkyl]

is there any reason to think that stripping Stealth from as many backgrounds as possible is a better option that giving some stealth to every background?.

power creep

It can, of course, come with a compensating subtraction. (much like your original proposal for stripping stealth came with a compensating addition)

[Lasty]

you could also just as well say "is there any reason to think that stripping Fighting from as many backgrounds as possible is a better option that giving some fighting to every background?"

You certainly could, and it's a fair question. Like Stealth or Dodging, it's a skill that has somewhat more applicability to some backgrounds than others, but that (almost) all backgrounds could make use of.

apparently even the development team doesn't actually know why mages have stealth, whereas every other starting skill has very obvious reasons behind it

TIL that I'm the development team. Does that mean that you are the tavern community, or perhaps even the player base?

It's pretty silly to respond to a clear argument ("it's a defensive skill; backgrounds get defensive skills") by claiming that I don't "actually know why". I'm sure there is a historical "actually why" here, and I don't know exactly what that is, but I can come up with a few reasonable guesses, one of which I provided. If you think the historical reason is important and known, just say it. If you don't think so, then this is just dismissing my argument out of hand.

[duvessa]

apparently even the development team doesn't actually know why mages have stealth, whereas every other starting skill has very obvious reasons behind it

TIL that I'm the development team. Does that mean that you are the tavern community, or perhaps even the player base?

you are not the only dev I have asked...

[dynast]

If you start a mage and have to choose between stealth, armor or dodging, what would you choose? The answer is pretty obvious: Fighting.