Faking "hide in plain sight".

[RoyalProtector]

I'm toying with some ideas to overhaul parts of the shadowdancer kit. Because I think hiding in plain sight is a little broken (and also there are other bugs present, such as simulacrums able to retry hiding over and over), I was thinking that perhaps it could be reimplemented as an ability with a cooldown -- leaving the normal hiding in shadows that thieves have intact.

Perhaps an innate to cast invisibility, but that returns to your abilities after, say, 3 rounds. Is that feasible? Since it's supposed to function as hiding and not actual invisibility, I'm not sure if there are quirks of how invisibility works that way as opposed to normal hiding, that I would need to take into account, or the fact that it's a spell vs an ability...

Anyone has some ideas or thoughts on this? I'd love a bit of brainstorming. Thanks

[subtledoctor]

I mean HiPS is basically the same as casting invisibility. Not just in application, but also in concept - I don't know what it means to "hide" when you are right in front of someone. That basically sounds like you are casting Invisibility. So, giving an at-will Invisibility power is not so crazy.

Bonus, on the EE engine with judicious use of opcode 326 and 10-20 subspells, you can even tie its success to your current Hide in Shadows score...

[RoyalProtector]

6 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Bonus, on the EE engine with judicious use of opcode 326 and 10-20 subspells, you can even tie its success to your current Hide in Shadows score...

Interesting. Sounds tedious to implement. Not sure how that opcode works, but I'll take a look, thanks.

[RoyalProtector]

9 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I mean HiPS is basically the same as casting invisibility. Not just in application, but also in concept - I don't know what it means to "hide" when you are right in front of someone. That basically sounds like you are casting Invisibility. So, giving an at-will Invisibility power is not so crazy.

Fair. It would be nice if I could squeeze the gap between the two functionally. For example, it would be nice if the spell is impossible to interrupt AND doesn't consume any actions for that round. Is that possible? ( for the latter, I'm thinking right now of trying a one second aura cleansing to see if that hack works, not sure...) -> EDIT: Nope, that doesn't work... 

Edited May 12 by RoyalProtector

[jmerry]

Uninterruptible spells that don't cost player actions? Just look at how various subspells are handled; True Sight casts a spell every round, for example. It's really easy to do with the various "cast a spell" opcodes.

Conscious player actions are the hardest part of this to deal with, because that's where aura delays come in. How are you imagining this to work with player actions?

[RoyalProtector]

Just now, jmerry said:

Conscious player actions are the hardest part of this to deal with, because that's where aura delays come in. How are you imagining this to work with player actions?

The player casting the spell without any chance of being interrupted by damage, and capable of casting something else immediately, like you would if you use the thief's hide in shadows ability.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, RoyalProtector said:

Sounds tedious to implement.

Not that tedious. Add ten op326 effects to your innate ability, keyed to ten subspells. Make one invisibility subspell, then copy the file nine times, and adjust the probability of success of each one. As tedious things go, it’s not bad. Oh, and you might have to add a line to SPLPROT.2da for the op326 effects. 

3 hours ago, RoyalProtector said:

For example, it would be nice if the spell is impossible to interrupt AND doesn't consume any actions for that round. Is that possible? ( for the latter, I'm thinking right now of trying a one second aura cleansing to see if that hack works, not sure...) -> EDIT: Nope, that doesn't work... 

Don’t mess with aura cleansing, I have made that work but it is wonky and not worth the effort. There is a much easier way to achieve this.

BUT, I’m not sure what the point is? Give the ability a casting time of zero, now it is uninterruptible. As far as “doesn’t consume an action:” using an innate spell like this does not stop you from immediately attacking. Spellcasting and attack actions are on separate ‘clocks,’ so to speak. So you could go invisible and then immediately backstab. 

The sura cleansing thing would make it so you could go invisible and then immediately cast another spell. But you don’t go invisible to cast spells; casting spells just makes you visible again! So I think just giving this a casting time of zero would get the job done.

[RoyalProtector]

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Give the ability a casting time of zero, now it is uninterruptible.

It's already like that, and it doesn't make it uninterruptible. Not in my experience, it relies on luck.

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

As far as “doesn’t consume an action:” using an innate spell like this does not stop you from immediately attacking

I'm aware of this, but I'd like to be able to cast something too if I wanted (or use an item). I think I've seen that before. In one of your mods, actually... I believe something about monks activating or deactivating something about their fists...? I only have a faint memory of that.

8 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

The sura cleansing thing would make it so you could go invisible and then immediately cast another spell. But you don’t go invisible to cast spells; casting spells just makes you visible again!

That's fair, actually, but things like drinking potions would still be a problem. It's rather annoying, but I think there's no way around it, I guess. To be fair, since I'm going for limiting the power of Hiding in Plain Sight, perhaps it should stay this way.

Edited May 12 by RoyalProtector

[suy]

Small remark: Invisibility at will is way more powerful than Hide in Plain Sight, IMHO. You get out of Stealth when you drink a potion or cast a spell, or use any other ability. Even switching weapon by clicking the to make a backstab will get you out of stealth. You can't detect traps/illusions either. Invisibility is way, way better.

[RoyalProtector]

Sure. I think I'm okay with that. I could always limit its duration for balance... Like 7 to 12 seconds.

Only casting a spell on others takes you out immediately though. You can always reapply Stealth for other situations. Even detecting traps is feasible.

Edited May 12 by RoyalProtector