Stealth and combat

For combat stuff that doesn't fit into any of the other forums.
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Ily
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Joined: Sun Apr 21, 2019 9:27 am

Stealth and combat

Post by Ily »

Looking at the abilities presented so far for stealth characters that I've seen, and having played a stealthy character for a little while here, I'm slightly worried about the direction it's taking. My stealth isn't incredibly high, but the ability to walk around relatively safely is already immensely helpful, and ranged attacks from hiding basically give you combat immunity. I do understand that some things have higher perception, but I personally don't believe perception alone should be the entirety of defense against stealth attacks.


Stealth as a melee combatant

Now, granted, it isn't as if being a stealthy melee combatant is an instant win, but I can easily see how flip, tumble, dirtkick, and decent stealth will quickly make combat a breeze, even with a timer on rehiding. I'm not going to pretend I know the direction stealth is intended to take, but what I would like to see is a system that encourages patient, properly setup ambushes over attacking and hiding over and over again. To this end, I think balance and risk should be the main bottlenecks for stealthy characters.

The very first stealth attack could rely entirely on perception vs stealth, as the enemy has no idea the attack is coming. This would be their ambushers chance to set up the rest of the fight and help keep them from getting steamrolled by heavily armored opponents who they don't immediately take down. After the first attack by the stealthy character, it shouldn't be possible to repeatedly hide and attack. Hiding from somebody you are in combat with, even after breaking engagement, shouldn't be the norm. Instead, I think stealth abilities offered that allow the character to really make the most of balance, and attacks from the open that still take advantage of stealth, in addition to managing engagement, would make combat more interesting.

Abilities like dirtkick and sweep already give stealth fighters some degree of control over the flow of combat, and, with other abilities, could make stealth a more interesting, managed fighting style:

Distract:
Make use of the environment to get your opponents eyes off of you. At least long enough to make your next play.
Lower enemy perception, balance, and decrease risk slightly.

Lure:
Take a risk and lure your enemy closer to you. They might know you're coming, but you'll get to react first. (Doesn't work on PCs? I dunno, seems silly for most intelligent humanoid creatures to really fall for it).
Increase risk and enemy perception, but setting yourself up to attack them increases your balance and decreases theirs, if it lands.

Blackjack:
Hit your opponent over the back of the head, staggering them and setting you up for your next attack.
stuns the target, but does minimal damage.

Disengage
Compares your opponents balance vs your own. The bigger the positive difference between the two, the greater your success. If you succeed, you put some distance between the two of you to take advantage of ranged attacks or a chance to slip back in stealth. Multiple opponents require a comparison against every enemy, and considers you flanked for purposes of this ability.

Backstab:
Rush from your hiding place and stick your dagger in the guy's back
A very risky maneuver with a lot of damage potential.

The idea of these abilities is to require stealthy characters to carefully manage their balance in order to make best use of their abilities, while still preventing them from hiding over and over again through risk. Initial melee attacks from stealth greatly increase risk, and either abilities or plain old waiting are required to lower it enough to hide again.


Fending off a stealthy melee combatant

Perhaps just as important as making sure stealth is fun to play, is making sure fighting against it is not obnoxious or frustrating. To that end, I think melee skill should factor more greatly into both stealth attacks and defending from them. After the first ambush, once you are considered "in combat", further attacks from stealth are limited by the ability of the stealthy combatant to work the battlefield, so to speak. Here, melee combat would represent positioning and timing. This prevents characters from capping stealth and keeping melee incredibly low and still matching other characters who have very high melee.

Furthermore, risk would play a big part in stealth combat, preventing somebody with high stealth from just chipping away at tougher opponents with no danger to themselves.

Stealth as a ranged combatant

Here, I think the focus would land less on managing balance and ensuring your first attack is sufficiently powerful enough, and more on staying hidden and doing high damage as long as possible. A smart sniper carefully manages risk above all else, and takes care in firing at the right times to do the most damage they can while exposing themselves as little as possible.

Making risk gain for combat options variable would be a good start. Moving through empty squares causing minimal gain, while attacking an undistracted group of enemies causing the most risk. A decent way to simulate this might be to have enemy roundtime effect risk gained and their chance of spotting you. This requires snipers in groups to carefully watch their allies attacks to maximize their damage and minimize their risk. For solo snipers, they'll want to use abilities that cause roundtime, stuns, or distractions, and take care to wait for opponents to separate.

Tactics: Guerilla:
Watch your foes carefully and focus on avoiding detection.
Reduced risk gain, slightly decreased damage and accuracy, but increased stealth to compensate. Using offensive abilities automatically removes you from this tactic, or is otherwise not allowed.

Pinning Shot:
Sometimes, all you need is to keep something still long enough to get the next shot off.
Acts as "Press" but from ranged

Focus:
By focusing exclusively on a single opponent, to the exclusion of others, you can make your attacks when they least expect it.
Automatically fire at a target on an interval, with each subsequent attack increasing in accuracy, damage, and risk gain.
Dramatically increased chance to be spotted by others n the area.

Relocate:
A good sniper keeps moving, and is careful about doing it.
Significantly reduces risk, lowers balance slightly, and gives the enemy a chance to spot you.

The idea of ranged stealth abilities is to minimize risk where possible, as increasing risk will eventually lead to discovery. If discovered, a ranged combatant can either try to disengage and keep their distance while still fighting, or leave, wait for risk to reduce to manageable levels, and try again.

Fending off ranged combatants

When facing off against ranged combatants, searching and defending should be the best way to go about things. Searching would increase risk for the hidden greatly, and ranged combatants in stealth should be focused on finishing the battle very quickly, or planning their escape if they are spotted. Heavily armored combatants with shields and such always have the option of turtling and hoping they spot the enemy before they are finished off, but lightly armored combatants should expect to employ significant perception to overcome the limits in survivability of their armor. Alternatively, they can also hide and take advantage of the reduced risk they would have over their opponent, seeing as they hid later.
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Rias
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Re: Stealth and combat

Post by Rias »

Stealth combat hasn't really been worked on at all yet, so don't worry about how broken it currently feels. Or rather, worry about how broken it is now, but rest assured it will be different once I actually work on that aspect of combat.

I do intend to have it not be a win button against low-perception targets, as it'll still take the target's defensive skills partially into account regardless of stealth vs perception rolls. And I do have plans for it to require setup steps, rather than just: hide, ambushmurder, repeat.

Lots of good ideas here, so thanks for posting them. Please add any more you (or anyone else) might have!
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malasai
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Re: Stealth and combat

Post by malasai »

Just wondering where stealth combat is in terms of priorities? If it's really low I'll spend points on non-stealth combat, but if it's high I'll wait it out.
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Rias
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Re: Stealth and combat

Post by Rias »

Middling priority? I need to finish some work on the basics of occultism and guilds, and stealth combat could possibly come next.

The more interest I see and suggestions I get, the more likely it is to be worked on sooner.
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