Hide in shadows vs move silently

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What is the difference between the hide in shadows thief skill and the move silently thief skill?

In D&D 3rd edition hide in shadows is checked against spot while move silently is checked against listen however spot and listen aren't skills in D&D 2nd edition.

Can anybody explain the difference between the two skills and also the stealth skill used by rangers?

JuliusBorisov

To quote @Gallowglass , "Hide in Shadows and Move Silently enable your Thief to go into Stealth (i.e. become invisible without needing to use a potion or spell) when you press the Stealth button (the half-shadowed face) on your Thief's control bar. It doesn't work if an enemy can see the Thief, and it usually doesn't work if the Thief is standing in bright light, so your Thief needs to be out of the enemy's line of sight and standing in a shadow (or outside at night). (Exception: unlike ordinary Thieves, a Shadowdancer can go into Stealth even when an enemy is watching him.) However, once you've successfully entered Stealth, then you can walk back into bright light and you'll still be invisible."

The stealth skill by a Ranger works the same.

There's no difference between Hide in Shadows and Move Silently skills. The game just averages the two scores together every time (i.e. (HiS + MS)/2)

Here's the Dev's post about it: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/370098/#Comment_370098

Also, check this discussion: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/34394/what-does-move-silently-hide-in-shadows-really-do

Belanos

It's actually kind of pointless to separate the two as they both work together. There should really only be one value, Stealth, that determines a character's ability to hide.

Daevelon

Belanos said:

It's actually kind of pointless to separate the two as they both work together. There should really only be one value, Stealth, that determines a character's ability to hide.

But like this it will need half the points.

mahe4

actually they aren't quite the same.
you need HiS and MS to innitiate stealth.
Formula: HiS/2+MS/2 + environmental boni/mali = chance to hide
in daylight you get a huge malus, i think about 90 or something
and you get a bonus when staying in shadows, or in darkness.

now to the difference between HiS and MS:
you need HiS+MS to initiate stealth, but you only need MS to stay in stealth mode.
after you initiated stealth mode, only MS is tested, if you stay in stealth.
so if you want to minmax those skills, only put points in MS
and if you hit the cap (250) and you want to always get in stealth mode (even in daylight) put some points in HiS.
otherwise, just ignore HiS.

Yamcha

mahe4 , where'd you get that formula ?

afaik it's like bengoshi quoted

JoshBG

Belanos said:

It's actually kind of pointless to separate the two as they both work together. There should really only be one value, Stealth, that determines a character's ability to hide.

In video game - yes. In PnP - no, they are distinct skills with defined purposes.

I think Bioware found a nice way to not let the players to flourish with skill-points. And: "Hey, it's by PnP! Not our fault!"

P.S In PnP, the Ranger only gets half of his stealth skills in urban enviroment(Stalker kit negates that), and full in the wilderness. I think it shoul've been implemented.

JoshBG

mahe4 said:

actually they aren't quite the same.
you need HiS and MS to innitiate stealth.
Formula: HiS/2+MS/2 + environmental boni/mali = chance to hide
in daylight you get a huge malus, i think about 90 or something
and you get a bonus when staying in shadows, or in darkness.

now to the difference between HiS and MS:
you need HiS+MS to initiate stealth, but you only need MS to stay in stealth mode.
after you initiated stealth mode, only MS is tested, if you stay in stealth.
so if you want to minmax those skills, only put points in MS
and if you hit the cap (250) and you want to always get in stealth mode (even in daylight) put some points in HiS.
otherwise, just ignore HiS.

I think it's just one of those myths. Like "you need your main hand to have lower speed factor than your off-hand, otherwise you'll backstab with the off-hand"

It sound more like: HiS+MS/2 to initiate(with penalties for daytime) and re-check with the same formula each round.

Jarrakul

I'm pretty sure the devs have said that HiS+MS/2 is used for all checks, but I don't have the citation at hand.

JuliusBorisov

@mahe4 What you say is indeed a myth and it has been bustered.

Check a detailed post by @FinaLfront : http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/500058/#Comment_500058 and re-read the Dee's post I mentioned in the previous comment here.

So, what I, @Yamcha , @JoshBG and @Jarrakul say is right

mahe4

bengoshi said:

@mahe4 What you say is indeed a myth and it has been bustered.

Check a detailed post by @FinaLfront : http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/500058/#Comment_500058 and re-read the Dee's post I mentioned in the previous comment here.

So, what I, @Yamcha , @JoshBG and @Jarrakul say is right

you are right, i just tested it myself... there is no difference between the two.
but the formula should still apply, but just for both cases.

TJ_Hooker

mahe4 said:

Formula: HiS/2+MS/2 + environmental boni/mali = chance to hide
in daylight you get a huge malus, i think about 90 or something
and you get a bonus when staying in shadows, or in darkness.

I think the environmental is a multiplcative factor, not an additive one. Some guy did some tests way back, and IIRC the results suggested that the factor for being is 0.5 for direct sunlight , 2/3 for indoors light, and 1 for in shadows/nighttime. Don't take this as gospel though.

mahe4

TJ_Hooker said:

mahe4 said:

Formula: HiS/2+MS/2 + environmental boni/mali = chance to hide
in daylight you get a huge malus, i think about 90 or something
and you get a bonus when staying in shadows, or in darkness.

I think the environmental is a multiplcative factor, not an additive one. Some guy did some tests way back, and IIRC the results suggested that the factor for being is 0.5 for direct sunlight , 2/3 for indoors light, and 1 for in shadows/nighttime. Don't take this as gospel though.

okay that could be the case, i'm not sure if it is multiplicative or additive...

lroumen

What if you are hidden and only stand still. Does it go via hide in shadows or move silently (since you are technically not moving)?

Daevelon

lroumen said:

What if you are hidden and only stand still. Does it go via hide in shadows or move silently (since you are technically not moving)?

Just read the previous posts and you will have your answer

elminster

lroumen said:

What if you are hidden and only stand still. Does it go via hide in shadows or move silently (since you are technically not moving)?

Move Silently is just a name. Putting towards it isn't any different than putting towards Hide in Shadows.

lroumen

Hmmm.... so is there a feature request to split them? In the end they could have kept normal bg1 stealth then.

TJ_Hooker

lroumen said:

Hmmm.... so is there a feature request to split them? In the end they could have kept normal bg1 stealth then.

I'm pretty sure the reason it was implemented this way in BG2 was that thieves already have lots of points to spread around by the time they're at BG2 levels. It acts as a form of balance by making it take more points to max out their stealth skill. It's the same idea as making the proficiency categories weapon-specific for BG2. These changes got ported into BG1:EE because the engine is based on the BG2 engine. I would have actually preferred that they keep these things the way they were in BG1 for BG1:EE, but I can see why they decided to do it the way they did.

lroumen

I understand the reasoning, but at least the skills could have actually had the effect their name suggests. So hiding would go via hide in shadows and moving while hidden goes via move silently. As it works now they could just as well have given 0.5% per point.

Gallowglass

@Iroumen - yes, it might have caused less confusion if they'd amalgamated HiS and MS into a single Stealth skill, but explicitly made it "twice the price" in skill points as other thieving skills. Since HiS and MS (as interpreted by the game engine, not PnP rules) are actually identical skills, that'd have exactly the same effect as what we now have.

However, that'd have needed significant additional work from the Beamdog devs to change the engine code, so it was undoubtedly easier to leave it the way Bioware originally did it.

Why Bioware originally did it this way was presumably because they originally intended to follow PnP rules by making these two skills work differently, but I guess the distinction between the two skills was one of the numerous things that they didn't have time to implement.

Incidentally, this presumption (that Bioware originally intended that there'd be a difference between HiS and MS) is evidenced by certain items in the game which are pointless unless the skills are different. For example, the way the system was actually implemented means that the late-SoA unique-item Boots of Elvenkind are inferior under all circumstances to the Boots of Stealth which are available (with more than one copy) much earlier in SoA (and also available even in BG1) - the Boots of Elvenkind simply add 15% to the calculated Stealth ability of your Thief or Ranger, whereas the Boots of Stealth (which s/he's probably already wearing) add 17.5%, and neither item has any other effect. The Boots of Elvenkind might have had some utility if the two skills worked differently from one another, but as things stand they're a completely pointless item, which Bioware surely wouldn't have bothered to develop unless they had originally intended that there would sometimes be a use.