Walk silently - What's it for?

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Well, since I´m making a thief I´d olike to know what walk silently does. Does it improve the backstabbing chance or what?
Stop laughing, I haven´t played a thief that much


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PS. Or is it called move silently?

[This message has been edited by Zaragoth (edited July 10, 2001).]

 

I have always thought that it made it easier to hide in shadows. cos you are not making any noise so people will not know you are behind them

 

Actually, i have always thought that is is what spud said, but have never been possitive, and therefore never put points into it with my thievs. can someone clairfy if i am missing somthing very important about this?

 

IMHO when you have Hide in Shadows activated and move - that is ability that is used to determine if you are to be detected by nearby creatures.


Whatever, even I never put points in that ability since I was playing F/M/T with Invisibility spells.

 

Extremist: Is playing a F/M/T fun? Do you think it´s worth it?
Instead of playing a thief for example and bringing a fighter and a mage?

 

Actually IT IS FUN!

You don't have to think much about combining the right party. But you have to think hard what ability will you improve next in fighter's or thief's abilities and what exact spells you'll memorize...

And you are not allowed to use XPCap remover - that IS NOT fun.

 

I´m thinking a little about playing as a human Cleric - Talos dualled to a thief.
and you think what about that? Would it be good?

 

About the original topic

Example:

• A thief with low MS tries to sneak up on a wizard and backstab him/her. Wizard starts casting up true sight and detects the thief.
• A thief with high MS tries to sneak up on the wizard and succeedes, backstabbing the thing.

It is worth to spend points onMS for the type of char who enjoys backstabbing and doing quests with as little fight as possible


[This message has been edited by ayecapitan (edited July 10, 2001).]

 

So you think that it´s worth spending points on Move Silently?

 

No Zaragoth, you misunderstood him: He said it is useful to spend points on move silent when you play a char the way he will need it. If you like your thieve standing around in the background, using the bow of the Tuigan and looking for traps you won't need it. My chars *do* need it.

Move silent cooperates with hide in shadows and for my thieves both are the first (for IMHO absolut necessary thieving abilities) abilities I develop on my chars. Thieves are weak on hitpoints and armor class so I like them to be undetected if at all possible or the'll be dead soon when scouting an area.

Now, when your char is hidden in shadows (due to his good skill here) and steps out of his dark corner to sneak to an enemy to backstabb him he needs to move silent to avoid to be detected (and if he fails - just imagine him kicking a pile of kettles around - he will be detected then).

In BG-1 both abilities were summed up in "Stealth" for a char wouldn't have been able to level up high enough to be good in the other "real" thieving abilities like detect traps, pick pockets or open locks.

btw - a fmt is an awesome class to play, uniting all the things I like my chars to have (thieving abilities, stealth & backstabbing/ good overt fighting/ spellcasting) with one major drawback: He'll never gain really high levels to develop his abilities to the max in all his three classes.
So when a mc fighter-thief / fighter-mage is considered to be mediocre in all respects, consider the effect on sharing all the xp for *three* classes ....

 

Well now, thanks Ragusa for spending that much time on me
Perhaps I´ll play a f/m/t then..
It seems pretty cool.

 

I thought the hide in shadows percentage was for the initial chance to hide and the move silently was the percentage used to remain hidden. I read that somewhere, at least.

 

I definitely think this should have been better documented for this game. But, in general they try and follow 2nd Edition AD&D rules, so we will go by them. In general, in order to sneak by someone, or sneak up on them to backstab you need two skills, move silently, and hide in shadows. Move silently is your ability to walk quietly without making a sound either in your footfalls, or your equipment (which is why it takes a large penalty if you are wearing armor), and hide in shadows is your ability to pick out where you won't be noticed and hide. Generally to sneak a hide in shadows check and a move silently check will be applied, and given difficulty modifiers depending on the lighting, and the surface you are walking on. If you are invisible you do not need to hide in shadows, but you can still be detected if you are unable to move silently.

Now how exactly Black Isle implemented this, I'm not sure. Rangers have a stealth ability, rather than separate move silently and hide abilities. One possibility is that the two skills are internally combined into one. Another is that hide in shadows is your chance of becoming invisible, and move silently is your chance at staying that way when you are moving. Or perhaps move silently is only checked when you are actually backstabbing. You never seem to see a failed move silently message, so how it works seems to be hidden somewhere in the engine. It might be a good question for the developer boards.

 

F/M/T without XP cap remover is great coz u level out at lvl 11 or 13.. not sure.. so its harder coz your character aint very powerful and so you really have to depend on your party and plan ur tactics better.. spend ur char points wisely and all that.. whats nicer is that.. at the end of the game.. u can save ur character and import him and restart the game.. try a diff stronghold this time.. do this another time and walla.. uve got a character for ToB thats super resistent to many things...

 

Lord Praetor, that is nice what you say, but the problem is when you restart the game with the previous hero - you get highest class spawned monsters, i.e. instead of Iron Golems you find Adamantite ones...
And you're left without all those nifty items...ARGH!

But trully, new challenges with playing previous hero kicks ass! And yes, now you choose another stronghold to prevent getting bored of it... If you are DC or MC, of course.