Infravision and Heightened Senses - Why?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Why are these 2 effects split? They accomplish exactly the same thing, but won't stack with each other. Is there some logical reason they shouldn't be either allowed to stack, or merged into a single effect? Or should one versus the other gain some extra benefits?

Thoughts?

[Davion Fuxa]

Light, Infravision, and Detection of Hidden Enemies. They all are very similar but yet all very different.

Light simply lights up your field of view so you can see farther from your position. Infravision doesn't reveal terrain but it will let you see enemies if lying outside the Lighted radius of your characters LoS. Detection I assume will simply allow you to identify cloaked or invisible enemies that are somewhere in your field of vision.

It seems like they are all distinct enough to me. However, I will add one thing - Infravision seems quite underpowered. I actually wouldn't mind seeing Infravision getting a bit of a buff so it could be more usable.

[HousePet]

Davion Fuxa, you missed the point. This is about why there are two stats which do identical things, Infravision and Heightened Senses.

Doesn't Infravision give an effective light radius of Infravision/4. I'm not sure if Heightened Senses does the same thing.
Regardless, I don't see any need for both of these stats to exist.

[Davion Fuxa]

Infravision and Heightened Senses definitely shouldn't thematically do the same thing in game for sure, while being different.

Personally to sort of fix things up, I think that Piercing Sight and Heightened Senses Talents should be merged with each other into one Talent. Piercing Sights abilities to spot things would be limited by Heightened Senses range (5 tiles with only 1 talent point invested, increasing to 9) while for Heightened Senses abilities to see things outside of your Light Radius/Infravision it would be based on Piercing Sights ability to detect hidden enemies - with the assumption that enemies outside your Light Radius could be treated as if they were trying to be in Stealth or be Invisible.

The Infravision effect could be left on its own as a way of 'seeing' enemies automatically without a Light; additionally an Infravision related skill could be added to replace the open spot left by merging Piercing Sight and Heightened Senses above.

[bpat]

Infravision and Heightened Senses definitely shouldn't thematically do the same thing in game for sure, while being different.

Personally to sort of fix things up, I think that Piercing Sight and Heightened Senses Talents should be merged with each other into one Talent. Piercing Sights abilities to spot things would be limited by Heightened Senses range (5 tiles with only 1 talent point invested, increasing to 9) while for Heightened Senses abilities to see things outside of your Light Radius/Infravision it would be based on Piercing Sights ability to detect hidden enemies - with the assumption that enemies outside your Light Radius could be treated as if they were trying to be in Stealth or be Invisible.

The Infravision effect could be left on its own as a way of 'seeing' enemies automatically without a Light; additionally an Infravision related skill could be added to replace the open spot left by merging Piercing Sight and Heightened Senses above.

I absolutely agree that Heightened Senses and Piercing Sight should be merged, especially since this would allow Track to be moved to Survival and made learnable from Thief escorts to allow all classes to get it. However, Heightened Senses should probably be buffed from 5-9 to 6-10 or maybe even 6-11 so people would have an incentive to put more than a single point into it.

[HousePet]

So the range that you could spot invis/stealth creatures would be limited by Heightened Senses range?
Not sure if this is a good thing.

[grayswandir]

If they were merged, and heightened senses stacked with infravision, I wouldn't mind it actually starting out pretty low. Like what if it gave you vision out to 2 * talent level? If you find some decent infravision gear you could get away with just a point or two in it and have a decent vision range.


Alternatively, I do really like the idea of relying on the stealth framework. So like, instead of heightened senses giving you an infravision like effect, it would give you a chance to see enemies on unlit tiles out to your sight range (cutting through magical darkness, even). It would give them a fake stealth strength of [20 down to 5 with talent level] per tile distance between you and them, added to any existing stealth if they are stealthed.

On a related note, stealth power should probably scale like saves do instead of flat.

[Massimiliano Marangio]

In the past, Infravision and Heightened Senses stacked. They were split and the infravision bonuses of objects reduced partly because the PCs and NPCs could get a large detection radius, which made sniping from outside of sight range possible. One post even mentioned an infravision range of 30 which gave a light radius of 7.

[Davion Fuxa]

So the range that you could spot invis/stealth creatures would be limited by Heightened Senses range?
Not sure if this is a good thing.

Outside of adjusting the ranges of Stealth/Invisible detection, and to make the new talent horribly confusing - we could make it so that the Detection of Invisible Creatures or Stealthed Enemies could still be detected anywhere in your current Light Radius, Infravision, or Heightened Senses Radius as it normally does now. So even with just 1 talent point invested you could see up to your maximum range of 10 + Eyes of the Overseer + Whatever else boosts sight any Hidden Enemies in a place like Trollmire for example.

But personally I like the idea of a limited range on Heightened Senses that could scale up to 9 or even 10 (an extra tile on the 5th talent point invested perhaps) because it encourages players to invest more then a Talent point or two in the Talent as some might do now.

Another thought I'll throw in here is that the new Talent could also counteract Blind - since you wouldn't be completely reliant on your normal sight - maybe with 4 or 5 Talent points invested.

[PureQuestion]

They used to be the same stat but it was actually just way too powerful when they stacked.

[HousePet]

If you want to limit the range of see stealth/invis, how about reducing you effective score by 1 for every tile away the target is?
Possibly -2 for every unlit tile.

[Davion Fuxa]

If you want to limit the range of see stealth/invis, how about reducing you effective score by 1 for every tile away the target is?
Possibly -2 for every unlit tile.

That could work though perhaps regardless of whether they are stealthed or invisible or not, we'll consider them all hidden outside the players Light Radius or Infravision. To sum up some thoughts:

• For any Enemy that is Stealthed or Invisible in your Vision Range and inside your Light Radius, Infravision, or standing on a Lit Tile while you're not Blinded: add if greater then 0 ((-1*Tiles Away) + (Talent Level*Cun*0.15)) to your See Invisible or See Stealth Score and roll a spot check
  
  For any Enemy (Stealthed, Invisible, or Not At All) and in your Vision Range but outside your Light Radius, Infravision, and not standing on a Lit Tile while you're not Blinded: add if greater then 0 ((-2*Tiles Away) + (Talent Level*Cun*0.15)) to your See Invisible or See Stealth Score and roll a spot check; if not greater then 0 then you don't detect them
  
  For any Enemy (Stealthed, Invisible, or Not At All) and in your Vision Range while you're Blinded and having a Talent Level of 4: add if greater then 0 ((-2*Tiles Away) + (Talent Level*Cun*0.15)) to your See Invisible or See Stealth Score and roll a spot check; if not greater then 0 then you don't detect them