[bug] Thieves skill related interface and engine bugs

Lunever

Thieves skills:
IMPORTANT topic, the original thieves skills contain several bugs and inconveniences, some of them apply especially when applying the BG2 engine to BG1 maps like in Tutu or BG trilogy.

a) Stealth

Current behaviour:
Rangers have STEALTH that is internally applied to Move Silently AND Hide in Shadows, but thieves only have Move Silently, and an internal Hide in Shadows skill of 0. No hiding place for thieves.

Expected behaviour:
Thieves should, like Rangers, have the skill STEALTH (not only move silently).

b) Triggering an alarm, getting caught:

Current behaviour:
In BG1 you could wait until an NPC was walking away and then search his room for loot. However if you do this in the BG2 engine, even being totally improved invisible AND non-detectable AND sneaking AND no witnesses present, you will be harassed be the alarm/guards when the NPC returns, even if you've already left - even if you didn't take anything but only opened a container, left without getting caught and later return to that map. Also, the alarm conditions in various maps are programmed very differently, in some maps they work halfway acceptable, and in some maps the guards will be called if you just click on an open table, some maps don't even check at all for witnesses. Oh, and sleeping NPCs shouldn't raise an alarm either, but usually do.

Expected behaviour:
You should trigger an alarm only if you are actually taking an item out of a locked container and are visibly observed inflagranti by a conscious NPC.

c) Allowed actions while staying invisible:

Current behaviour:
Many things that would not lift invisiblity in paper&pen A/DnD do so in BG. Searchng for traps, opening doors, opening chests, entering a new map. They just shoudln't.

Expected behaviour:
Opening doors oder containers or searching for or disarming trap or entering a new map should not end invisibility. Sneaking and searching traps should be truned on/off independently with both being on just slowing down the character (I believe ToEE did this?).

d) Getting visible after trying to backstab:

Current behaviour:
Hidden/invisible NPC assassins only get visible after they've successfully hit. So if you're facing some stealthed muggers with your AC -15 Sir Knight you may get the 20th message, that "mugger attacks Sir Knight", but still can't defend yourself.

Expected behviour:
After a missed backstab attack any PC or NPC who does not have IMPROVED invisibility should get visible at some piint. He might still get his off-hand attack and/or remaining attacks for that round, but with the start of the following round he should be targetable.

e) Backstabbing position:

Current behaviour:
NPC assassins can backstab without standing behind someone, PCs have to position correctly (except in unpatched pre-ToSC-BG1). I'd recommend going more 3rd edition there and ditch this retriction along with the restriction of allowing backstabbing only with certain weapons.

Expected behaviour:
Like in unpatched BG1 as well as in 3rd Edition you should be able to backstab/sneak attack from any position as long as you are successfully hidden.



EDIT: ... suggestions 4) moved elsewhere: http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/979/draining-kills-memorization-selection

Space_hamster

Interesting suggestions. IMO, most of those points were probably discussed by the developers and the decisions made probably had more to do with playability rather than sticking with the written D&D rules.

Saberstorm

hey this is quite a good post you got here. I think the devs will find your information quite handy. Since so many like to thief at least a little with their thief comarade or thief protaganist this is important.

Winthal

@Lunever Welcome to the forums, good first post out of all your points, I have to say No4 strikes me as the most in need of attention, it really, reeeally is annoying for casters to become level drained and have to re-memorize every single spell!

Lunever

EDIT: content moved.

Lunever

I just remember another thieves skill bug: You can't pick pocket large creatures. Not because they are so mean, but because the pathfinding AI tries to get closer to the center of the creature position than its space occupying circle allows.
Please fix this and allow pickpocketing vs. all creature sizes.

Lunever

This accumulation of stuff got bigger than I originally intended - I gonna have split of all non-thief related items elsewehere.

Bhryaen

a.) I'd rather have the option to branch out into Hide in Shadows or Move Silently actually. If you're high in HiS and jump in shadows, you're good to go. If you're up on MS you know you can maneuver without tripping out of stealth. Unless you're good in both, you have to watch yourself accordingly... so... fun. Rangers getting only stealth is a function of them not really specializing- or being able to specialize- in the skill of stealth. It just becomes more and more natural for them... in natural environments only, no? After all, rangers just get small boosts per level, not allocation points, and thieves can choose to allocate them elsewhere, max them up early or never- their choice. Having two to invest in also just means that maxing out requires double the points of other thief skills- and stealth for a backstabber is very powerful, so, not a bad idea for balance. So it's a differentiation between classes. Plus it's not a bug.

b.) This trigger issue may just be a BG2 thing since BG1 works just fine generally. Likely that those aren't issues in BGEE, but don't ask how I know... The sleeping-NPC-catches-me-stealing fix was addressed here:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/1174/bg1-bug-sleeping-creatures-catching-you-stealing

c.) To have Inviso (but not Stealth, I presume) strengthened so that opening containers and doors doesn't break it is a Feature Request to change core game rules... Not that I wouldn't relish it, but still... not a bug...

d.) That may be a bug, but not in the way you're describing. The bug aspect is in the combat info showing up in the message bar, not necessarily them maintaining stealth while attacking and missing. If they're stealthed, we shouldn't know what they're doing. That's worth a mention...

e.) To turn BG into NWN... is another Feature Request. And here I'd rather defer to good ol' BG's 2E rules... That vanilla BG allowed enemy NPCs to get illegal backstabs in, well, was a bug... but BGEE's use of the ToB engine will have resolved that fortunately...

Lunever

a) I disagree - There's a good reason that later editions merged HiS and MS into stealth, since you usually almost always use both at the same time anyway.

b) The trigger issue is a BG2 thing, and occurs even worse in Tutu, so it is very likely, that EE will suffer from this too unless it is fixed.

c) Actually that is, what in P&P makes the difference between sneaking and being invisible. Inivisibility only gets canceled by attacking someone or casting an offensive spell.

d) In P&P, no matter whether you're sneaking or whether you're invisible (unless 4th lvlv spell improved i. is used), you get visible once you tried to attack someone, no matter whether you succeeded or failed. Especially for sneaking this makes sense - an assassin jumps unto you, but fails to shove his dagger into a slit of your helmet vizor - and you don't notice it? Hardly imaginable.

e) Actually, unpatched BG1 did let you backstab from any angle, just like 3e does, and I find this to be the better behaviour game-wise. Especially, since NPCs do it, and a good engine has mostly the same rules for PCs and NPCs alike. At least it needs to be adressed, since in ToB as well as in Tutu this problem is still there.

TJ_Hooker

With regards to d) I believe that the "mugger attacks character" message simply indicates that the mugger has targetted the character, not that the mugger is actually next to the character and has just attacked and missed. So what happens is when Sir Knight enters the line of sight of the invisible mugger you get the "mugger attacks Sir Knight" message almost right away, but then the mugger has to actually make his way over to Sir Knight in order to attack. For me the "mugger attacks" line was always a warning that I was going to get backstabbed in about 5 seconds or something, so I better try to dispel invisibility somehow.

This is what I remember from BG2/BGtutu anyways. It's been a while since I've played so I could be wrong

Lunever

Nope, I just recently tested it in BG2. Mugger kills mage with his sneak damage. Reload. I scout with the heavily armed tank, he gets attacked again and again from the hidden assassin, until that assassin finally hits and does a bad amount of sneak damage. By now, I strip the tank from all armour and protection items in order to make his armour class worse, so I can get over with that silly procedure more quickly.

Bhryaen

Actually I've changed my stance on this. I think @Lunever is right on d): if CHARNAME is in stealth and attacks someone for a backstab... and fails... Out of stealth CHARNAME goes. Same should apply to NPCs. It shouldn't be "successful hit" = stealth drops, but "attack successfully attempted (whether or not it hits)" = stealth drops. The attack feedback should, however, be blocked from the bottom bar until after the mugger/ assassin/ hoodlum drops out of stealth.

Bercon

IMO all points mentioned by OP should be very high on devs todo list. These are critical bugs because they make thieves extremely annoying to play. Switching weapon you have in your hand cancels stealth etc.

Just imagine what pain new users go through when their thieves constantly become visible when they don't even do anything.