Hide in Shadows OR Move silently on magic items?

the_spyder

So, I picked up the Ring of shadows and it gives +15% to Hide in Shadows. Makes sense, right? But it got me to thinking on who to give it too. I have a Ranger in my group as well as a Mage/Thief. Now, rangers get a stock percentage increase on level up to both HiS and MS, thus keeping things equal. My Mage/Thief on the other hand, has a chose to spend (or not) on either or both.

Considering that the net chance to remain hidden is a combination of both scores, it seems that giving the ring to my Ranger means that I am taking the ring at half efficiency unless I find another item that gives the other piece of the equation.

I am not saying the item is of no value, merely that it is of lesser value to someone who can't tailor their scores to the items that they receive.

Thoughts?

CaptRory

Doesn't Hide improve your chances of stealthing in the first place? When swiping things sometimes you just need to hide for a few seconds to reach the stairs and dodge the guards.

the_spyder

I could be wrong, but as I understand it (as with the BG games) the ability to remain unseen is a function of HiS and MS averaged out. So if you have a 60 HiS and a 40 MS, it works out to be 50 on your roll. Thus a bonus of +15 to one, when they are both at 50 it takes your chance to "hide" from 50 ((50+50)/2) to 57.5 ((50+65)/2).

On the other hand, if you plan around this (either before or after you get the item) and are a thief, you can simply put all 15 points into the reciprocal ability and thus realize a +15 benefit instead of a +7.5 benefit. Rangers, on the other hand, are SOL and only ever get the +7.5 because their ability scores progress at a static rate.

Now, racial benefits may alter this slightly so....

Again, unless I am mistaken about the way it works.

Wowo

I'm pretty sure that the stealth skill is just a combination of the two scores so it doesn't matter if one is higher than the other.

Though I have heard a rumor that it's better to increase move silently first.

TJ_Hooker

the_spyder said:

I could be wrong, but as I understand it (as with the BG games) the ability to remain unseen is a function of HiS and MS averaged out. So if you have a 60 HiS and a 40 MS, it works out to be 50 on your roll. Thus a bonus of +15 to one, when they are both at 50 it takes your chance to "hide" from 50 ((50+50)/2) to 57.5 ((50+65)/2).

Yes, a while back Dee stated that the Overhaul team took a look at the code and your stealth ability is just the average of the 2 skills.

the_spyder said:

On the other hand, if you plan around this (either before or after you get the item) and are a thief, you can simply put all 15 points into the reciprocal ability and thus realize a +15 benefit instead of a +7.5 benefit. Rangers, on the other hand, are SOL and only ever get the +7.5 because their ability scores progress at a static rate.

I don't follow your reasoning. Regardless of who wears the ring, they're going to get a +7.5% increase to stealth chance. It doesn't matter what there skill levels are or whether the skill levels are matched. In that example, yes thief will be better at stealth, but only because they've already invested additional skill points into their stealth abilities. They got +7.5% from the skill points they invested, and +7.5% from the ring. The bonus they get from the ring is the same as it would be for the ranger.

jackjack

Agreed ^ ^
Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

the_spyder

TJ_Hooker said:

I don't follow your reasoning. Regardless of who wears the ring, they're going to get a +7.5% increase to stealth chance. It doesn't matter what there skill levels are or whether the skill levels are matched. In that example, yes thief will be better at stealth, but only because they've already invested additional skill points into their stealth abilities. They got +7.5% from the skill points they invested, and +7.5% from the ring. The bonus they get from the ring is the same as it would be for the ranger.

Actually, not true. If my thief invests points such that her HiS is 50 and her MS is 65, she gets the full +15 lift as 65+65/2 = 65. Rangers, on the other hand, don't have that option and will always only get 7.5

And that is the essence of my point. From a real world RPG perspective, my thief gets the ring and spends the next few levels working on the reciprocal skill set exclusively and gets the 'Full' bonus. That means that the thief has those 15 points to spend elsewhere with no "penalty". Granted, if they do keep the 'base' skills equal, they lose out just the same way as Rangers, but why then would they?

At the end of the day, it is a small lift, but mathematically, it is not zero. Just wondered if people had given it much thought and if anyone cared that much.

jackjack

the_spyder said:

TJ_Hooker said:

I don't follow your reasoning. Regardless of who wears the ring, they're going to get a +7.5% increase to stealth chance. It doesn't matter what there skill levels are or whether the skill levels are matched. In that example, yes thief will be better at stealth, but only because they've already invested additional skill points into their stealth abilities. They got +7.5% from the skill points they invested, and +7.5% from the ring. The bonus they get from the ring is the same as it would be for the ranger.

Actually, not true. If my thief invests points such that her HiS is 50 and her MS is 65, she gets the full +15 lift as 65+65/2 = 65. Rangers, on the other hand, don't have that option and will always only get 7.5

But before the ring, her stealth average is (65+50)/2 = 57.5
So the jump to 65 is still only a 7.5% bump. If instead it bumped up MS to 80, you still end up with (80+50)/2 = 65, the same 7.5% increase.

TJ_Hooker

Let H equal your Hide In Shadows skill value, and M equal your Move Silently skill value. Let S1 be your intial over all stealth skill:
S1 = (M+H)/2.

If we equip the ring, we add 15 to H. Let S2 equal your new overall stealth ability with the ring equipped.

S2 = [M+(H+15)]/2 = [(M+H)+15]/2 = (M+H)/2 + 15/2 = (M+H)/2 + 7.5 = S1 + 7.5

So you can see that equipping the ring will always result in a +7.5% increase to stealth, regardess of the individual skill values.

the_spyder

So, to make it clear, their percent goes up by 7.5, but they have 15 points to put elsewhere. Meaning that a thief actually gets a 22.5 bump whereas the ranger gets the 7.5.

And before this becomes another math lesson, clearly no one thinks it is an issue, so let's just drop it entirely.

Thanks for the feedback folks.

Wowo

Who gets the ring is easy - it depends on who uses stealth.

A thief doesn't need to invest in stealth really as you can just equip all the stealth items and then stand in a shadow and retry until you succeed.

A ranger doesn't need any stealth items at all after a certain point as their stealth goes up naturally until it gets so high that it rarely fails. However, if you enjoy using a ranger as a scout and pulling trash with a bow then it can work well.

Overall, I like stealth gear for the rogue as it lets you utilise backstab without investing in stealth though in IWD you have sneak attack so it's not such a big deal.

As far as the maths goes it's +7.5 to the skill for either character, the opportunity cost of that depends on success rate and play style.

Belanos

the_spyder said:

...it seems that giving the ring to my Ranger means that I am taking the ring at half efficiency unless I find another item that gives the other piece of the equation.

Which you are most likely to. I usually find both that ring you mention plus some bots to balance things out. Not always, as the boots are a random drop, but they do exist in the game.