THIEVES, ROGUES, RAPSCALLIONS AND THE RULES THAT LOVE THEM

Alright, since we have a thread for straight up combat, and one for the details of magic, here is one for the more subtle arts. How are we going to calculate sneaking effectiveness? Pickpocketing? Backstab bonuses and penalties? Lockpicking and trap disarming? Will we allow our rogues to lock doors and set traps? How will they detect traps; will they automatically sense the trap or have to use security to roll for them? What kind of traps will be available; just the standard exploding door, or perhaps ones closer to in Oblivion, where there could be physical hazards if you weren't careful.

This is just to get the ball rolling of course, setting up some questions we'll need to answer at some point or another.

For security in the field of picking locks, I was thinking a simple (security)+(lockpick quality) - lock level. Thus a level 100 security thief would still need a good lockpick to pick a level 100 door.

Lockpicks would range from novice ones that add maybe +5 to grandmaster which add +80 or so, I'd think. The Skeleton key would have something huge, like +150, if the characters would get that.

This is a pretty basic system, which I admit is derived (stolen) completely from our combat hit rate threads.

We could also just go with the way the game did it, which I think had the lockpicks multiply security, not add. So a low quality lockpick actually HURT your chances to pick a lock, while a high quality one increased it greatly. But I could be mistaken, I'll have to check. Does this sound like a better system, or worse?

For open spells, perhaps it could be ((Skill level)+(Spell strength))-((Lock level)+(spell difficulty))

How does this formula work? Also, should we have the open spell disarm traps? Maybe make the first cast disarm the trap if it succeeds, the second unlock the door? Or should we have a seperate spell for trap disarming?

Open spells were a little overpowered in Morrowind, I'd like to see normal lockpicking be an alternative to enchanting an amulet with a 100 point open spell.

Well, I would have anyone with a security skill of 50+, assuming that we're using skill perks of some sort, automatically attempt to detect traps within a radius X. The GM would make a secret roll against security, plus or minus environmental modifiers as always. As in, detecting traps in pitch blackness while being eaten by rats is a lot harder than detecting traps in a well-lit room. Do disarm, it would be, as you suggested, (Skill + Modifiers - Trap Difficulty). It concerns me that a master locksmith with apprentice tools would only have a 5% chance to pick a master lock, though. As for how lockpicks work, I think that a flat bonus would be better than a multiplier due to ease of use.

So I assume nighteye would give a bonus to trap detection unless it was already perfectly bright out? and that the blindness effect would give a negative?

I can imagine that it might be worth it to cast blindness on an enemy, so they'd be easy to sneak around, backstab and lure into traps that the thief had laid, if we include trap setting.

Speaking of trapsetting, mages could be allowed to set magic onto items pretty easily using a mixture of the school the spell they are making the trap with and their enchant skill, so that they are basically enchanting an item to blast the next person to touch it.

Perhaps: (Enchant)+(Spell school/2)-(spell difficulty level)

How does that sound?

EDIT: I am imagining this could allow mages to be huge dicks and cast trap spells on everything from coins to dwemer golems, if dwemer golems can be counted as an object as well as a monster.

Why don't we do spells exactly like lockpick skills, except you're using magicka instead of a bent rod (hur hur).

(Alteration + Open level) - (lock level)

That way we don't have two separate lockpickan formulas. Just a plain old (skill + tool) - (difficulty + modifiers)

So it wouldn't be possible to fumble open spells? They'd all have a difficulty of 0 whether the strength is 1 or 100? That's why I included the spell difficulty modifier. Although that does complicate things a bit.

I think it would be betterto just have a penalty to low or no light than to actually provide a bonus for nighteye. Just say nighteye allows you to ignore any darkness penalties.

Outlander wrote:I think it would be betterto just have a penalty to low or no light than to actually provide a bonus for nighteye. Just say nighteye allows you to ignore any darkness penalties.

Yes, that's what I meant, sorry that I phrased it poorly.

Now on to figuring out how sneaking would work. I imagine it would be something similar to (sneak+agility) - (enemy's sneak). The question at hand is how often sneak checks would have to be made? Once when you start sneaking, and perhaps everytime you make an action around someone not in the part it would add a penalty that might get you detected. So if there is a guard and you sneak past and grab some loot, you have:
Sneak(55)+agility(60) - lookout's sneak(40)+grab loot(35)
So You'd have a 40% chance of not being detected. Having the guard be blinded would increase your risk of success, as would chameleon spells.

But what if you are just sneaking around, gathering info or scouting ahead? How often would sneak checks need to be made?

Make a sneak check once to initiate sneaking, and once every time you try to do something more daring than creep about slowly in the shadows.

Invisiblity would work where you calculate to cast the spell, then are automatically perfectly stealthed if successful until you make an action requiring a stealth check. Sound good?

How about pickpocketing? Should we give it a formula, perhaps

(Stealth)+(agility)-(mark's agility)

This formula seems flawed, since at 100 in stealth and agility, you never fail pickpocketing. Of course, at 100 in each you are basically the most stealthy thief ever. Perhaps we should add in the target's stealth score as well?

I believe that's how the CPRG did it, where stealth was your sneakiness and their change to notice you being sneaky.

Actually, a master lockpicker still having a hard time opening a master lock with crap tools makes perfect sense. If all you've got is a hairpin and a screwdriver and you're trying to open a Dwemer gizmo with 7 triggers, 4 false latches, two combinations, eight keyholes, and four hidden bombs... yeah, that should probably be pretty fookin hard to do.

I sort of implied it before, but to spell it out, blind and chameleon just work as bonuses when used, with the numbers in the formula added based on the strength of the spell. As an added bonus of this fact, it means that even if you have 100 chameleon you aren't completely invisible forever, even if you are still very, very hard to detect.
So if you have:
(sneak(40)+agility(40)+chameleon(40)) - (enemies sneak(90) - blinded(40))
120-50= 70, so a 70% chance of successful sneaking.

We may want to have the enemies agility factor into the equation too somehow, I just don't want it to be too hard to sneak without substantial magic.

P.S. Also, it's very late here, so I'm going to sleep. You guys need to get on the forum earlier in the day, jeez.

For stealing or just picking up an item while being stealthy, here is an idea to help standardize the formula. The difficulty of the action would be 10+ the encumberance of the item being taken. This would make it so items with more or less 0 encumberance would stil have some difficulty stealing, such as coins.

For instance, this example.
Finds-his-gifts is sneaking along past a guard and see's a *shiny* dwemer warhammer leaning against a wall. He decides this is obviously left there as a gift for him, so he scurries over and picks it up. The formula to see if he gets spotted would be:

(FHG's stealth (65) + agility(70))-(Guard's stealth(45) + difficulty of the action(10+the warhammer's encumberance(32)))
So 135-87=48.

Finds-his-gifts would need to roll a 48 or under to successfully steal PICK UP the warhammer.

Backstab! How will it work? I think perhaps make it be a test similar to normal when sneaking, with the difficulty of the action changing with the weapon and your backstab skill. It can do perhaps double damage of normal, and be a sure hit if you pass the test. Different styles of weapons would give a bonus or negative to successful backstabbery. A Warhammer might have -50 on backstab, but the increased damage might make it worth the risk. On the other hand, a dagger might have a +20 bonus to successful backstabbery. You still are unstealth moded if you succeed in the roll, of course. Perhaps make the equation something like:

(stealth/4+backstab+agility/4)-(enemy agility/2+enemy stealth/2+your weapon's penalty to backstab if it has one)
Something like that perhaps. The only flaw I see is this doesn't work in the enemy armor, but perhaps we could make the odds of backstabbing harder, and have that be part of the bonus of backstabbing, so it ignores their armor.

Another way to work backstab is instead of making the maximum damage be double, make it so you always hit the max damage if you succeed in backstabbing. Thus a successful dagger backstab would still be weaker than a successful warhammer, although with a much better chance of success.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Blinding the opponent and chameleoning yourself would also give this a better chance to work, but they would be factored into your stealth bonus, and as such would still not play as large a part as the actual backstab skill.

Sorry to make another post, but I didn't want to run out of room on the other one. Another idea to make backstab more useful is to allow it when not stealthed, just with a much harder chance of success. Remove the bonus you get from stealth and lower the backstab bonus, and perhaps make the amount the enemy gets from agility higher, so it would look something like:

(Backstab/2+agility/4+weapon bonus if any) - (Enemy stealth/4+enemy agility+any weapon negative you get)

So as an example:

Look-behind-you the argonian is in battle with a big ugly whatever. He was caught by surprise, but wants to strike for alot of damage since he is not good for straight combat, so he attempts to backstab with his tanto. He has 80 agility and 80 backstab. His enemy jas 40 stealth and 50 agility.

(80/2 + 80/4 + 15 from tanto) - (40/10 + 50)
(40+20+15) - (10 + 50)
75 - 60 = 15

So he would have a 15% chance of successfully backstabbing in the middle of combat. This is actually quite low when you consider that based on stats, LBY probably has a much higher level than his enemy. But since he has relatively low strength and endurance, he would like to attempt end the fight quickly.

Thoughts on this? Suggestions on improving the idea?

EDIT: Also, unlike the other backstab while stealthed, this backstab unstealthed doesn't get a bonus from any chameleon effect you might have. I'm not sure if blindness should affect it though, but if it does it wouldn't be by that much.

For simplicity's sake I think you should just make backstab an additional standard stealth test (or if we have a backstab skill test, that vs. the opponent's stealth) then do double damage. Less numbers that way.

I think since we have a backstab skill, it should play the largest role in success with backstabbing.
Also, the formula sound more complex than they are, I think. Since skills and stats would only be changing at the end of each adventure or session (form what I've understood, anyways), most of the statistics would remain unchanged, with the only ones changing being the opponent's numbers. I'll look for ways to simplify it though.

Also, any thoughts on the idea of backstabbing out of stealth? That's part of the reason I had more things in the formula, so the two could be different, with stealth helping, but not completely needed. Afterall, I don't want one skill to be ENTIRELY dependent on another.

I suppose it could work so long as the target enemy wasn't actively engaging you, but it seems kind of weird for you to be able to backstab a guy directly facing you.

Dagoth Durr wrote:I suppose it could work so long as the target enemy wasn't actively engaging you, but it seems kind of weird for you to be able to backstab a guy directly facing you.

Hence it is more difficult to do in the formula, with a much much reduced chance of success. If you noticed, the only reason LBY had a chance of success at all with backstabbing was the bonus from his weapon. Otherwise, he'd be out of luck.

I figure it would work in a similar fashion to giving someone a kidney punch; a quick reach around to jab them in the back.

We could perhaps have it be simplier though if the person isn't engaged with you. Perhaps the tiers of difficulty could be sneaking backstab easiest, nonsneaking nonengaged harder, nonsneaking engaged in combat with you hardest.

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We could just use the same formula for backstab that we do for stealth. Roll against it, subtract weapon Encumbrance value (and a perk can be to count this value as lower than it is).

Question:
Will a Backstab roll be treated as an attack roll, or is it something we check against once an elligible attack has hit?

That is, could someone with shit weapon skill get away with backstabs and then be useless during face-to-face combat? That could help rogue-type guys who don't want to waste all their time improving weapon skills but still want to deal decent damage.