January and Beyond!

[Aegeri]

in a combat, yes... out of combat on a marketplace i would count people not actively trying to hit you as cover.

They are not your allies though and so do not count for the purposes of the power. 4E has "Creature" (which is everything), "Ally" and "Enemy". Enemies are just things that are not your allies and your allies are your companions (willing recipients of your effects). A random crowd who has no idea who you are would at best be an enemy if they counted as anything at all really. I definitely do not see them counting as allies. Then again that could make defiling in Dark Sun extremely amusing in a marketplace or something.

Also if you read carefully, bystanders are ok per rules:

Nope, because those bystanders in terms of effects in 4E are not your allies. This is massive stretching. At worst they are enemies and at best - actually 4E only has "ally" and "enemy" - a kind of nebulously defined "creature". The power in question is relying on these creatures being allies of yours - in other words that they are willing recipients of your powers effects. A random crowd of bystanders definitely does not fit this definition.

I would argue though that a dense crowd could definitely give you concealment and even total concealment if dense enough. Not from individuals in the crowd, but from someone on the outside looking in that's exactly the sort of effect a crowd would have. But then we don't need this specific racial power to do this.

Even if they are not your allies, bystanders are also not enemy´s allies.

They are not your allies either and due to the fact they are not willing recipients of your effects (which is the generally regarded definition of ally in 4E). Also you seem to be confused with the definition of enemy/ally in 4E. Ally and enemy are relative, the crowd can be (for effects) your enemy and it is also equally the enemy of your "enemies" (say the town guard). Just because the crowd isn't an ally of your enemies doesn't make it your ally. It doesn't have to be anyone's ally. In fact going a step further, nobody in the crowd has to be the ally of anyone else in the crowd.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Ok, i agree then. Per RAW the power may be not useful at all...

I really believe someone not putting RAW above RAI may find a lot of uses for this power. Walking in the shadows of other creatures easily is only one of them.

I don´t even start questioning if a bystander may be a willing reciepient of my powers. If i use diplomacy they will surely cover me and are willing to receive my power... maybe I am a bard and have played a nice song and every girl out there would now gladly be the receipient of my power...

Distinguing between allies and enemies out of combat is a more ore less impossible thing.

And the action economy is a strawman argument here, sorry. Not all games are hackfests. If you value one more attack per round that high, no race can stand against a dragnborn, who can sneak in a massive extra area attack in addition to his stadard action!

But letssettle this argument down. It is more or less redundant, as i agree, that there could be an extra racial encounter which allows for a minor combat advantage.

 

[Aegeri]

I'm sorry, but it's the exact opposite of a strawman argument. What you've just accused me of is creating an illusion of "winning" an argument by making an absurd position and then knocking that down to show my argument is clearly superior. I'm going to tell you right now, needing to use a standard action AND a move action to use your racial is flat out poor. I do not need to erect any strawman to defend this position whatsoever. Most racial powers are minor actions, free actions or just work anyway depending on a condition.

The point about the action economy is incredibly valid. A standard action + move action sink minimum to use a racial power is terrible for any class' action economy. The classes the shade suits, many strikers, get limited utility out of it because it basically means they spend an entire round doing zero damage. You can bemoan "hacking and slashing" all you want, if you're a striker you are there to kill things. You are there to kill things as fast as possible. If you are waffling around taking an entire turn to become hidden you are failing at your role as a striker. Not that other classes can afford to stand around an entire turn, for essentially what amounts to getting combat advantage in an extremely roundabout and delayed manner. Bear in mind you're using your two most important actions (arguably) in your standard and move action to do this.

If you go back a couple of pages, I showed how the Shade slayer was inferior to the half-orc slayer. I also did it without considering the racial power of the half orc. So despite being able to pick the worst situation I could for the shade, I didn't and even when I didn't I still out damaged them significantly: the simple reason was the action sink in becoming hidden (using the power) reduced their damage over the combat. That's not an insignificant margin at all.

To be frank, I'm not letting you get away with calling my argument a strawman and then not justifying that. Can you explain why a standard action + move action minimum racial power to use in combat is equivalent to other races? How is my argument here a strawman, because I'm not even stacking the deck in my example I posted a couple of pages ago.

 

[Prestidigitalis]

I would XP Saeviomagy for this if I could. The point about building to an archtype and expecting it to be effective is an important one.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Because in your example, using this power does not help at all. So it is not a useful application of that power.
Maybe you are right with the RAW stealth etc., but creating a scenario where any race, not using any racial power is better than trying to use a power in a way it is not useful is a strawman argument.

I bet a shade not using that power is better than a shade using that power in this situation is better.

If there is a situation where becoming hidden in the shadow of a creature is advantageous, then the half-orc can do nil.

I agree, that stealth rules interpreted very very strictly and not allowing any creature to hide is a hard damper for this power. I actually overvalued this part a bit and the part that any person can hide in plain sight now when he was hidden before.

I however still can imagine many situation where i rathe be a shade with any class i want with the ability to hide with only concealment than beeing a rogue or walock of any class i chose to be.

The opportunity cost of beeing limited to a certain class and class built seems too much. So comparing apples (Race) with oranges (a Class) makes no sense for me here. Which was exactly the part you did not understand right in my first post.

@ Dark sun defiling argument: In Dark sun, any magic user trying to do something is first considered an enemy by default. In a world, where mages are generous and it counts as a bessing beeing enchanted by them, everyone is pleased to serve as your ally. Again, apples and oranges.

 

[Aegeri]

Because in your example, using this power does not help at all. So it is not a useful application of that power.

I hate to say it, but in a great majority of cases that's exactly what is going to happen. It's not going to be useful whatsoever. That's actually the entire point I am making as to why a standard action power (that then requires a move action) is a huge action sink! My entire point is that being a standard action makes it a gigantic trap power, that will only reduce your effectiveness in the vast majority of cases. It is an incredibly niche power that will only be useful in rare circumstances, but otherwise never worth using. While a Dragonborn, Human, Half-Elf, Elf, Eladrin, Gnome, Halfling and so many others will get good use out of their features consistently. Not to mention and returning to an even older argument, they don't pick up any penalty for no tradeoff whatsoever.

This is the key argument.

but creating a scenario where any race, not using any racial power is better than trying to use a power in a way it is not useful is a strawman argument.

Where would the power be useful in combat may I ask? Bear in mind that regardless of when it is used, it costs a standard and a move action. A huge action sink. If you are dazed for example, you have no chance of using this because you can't get the two actions required to even use it. Just an example.

If there is a situation where becoming hidden in the shadow of a creature is advantageous, then the half-orc can do nil.

The shade can only become hidden when his allies provide cover to him - not his enemies. So this doesn't even really work the majority of the time. It's interesting you called this a strawman argument, because I actually setup maptools in the afternoon and tried the melee shade slayer posted earlier. For one I found that maintaining stealth from an ally was pretty impossible. It was easy to break the cover (therefore the hidden) by moving the creature in the first place. It also extremely tactically limited the ally the shade hid behind as I mentioned - almost pinning them like a pawn between a queen and a king in chess. In effect the cost in actions was ultimately not worth it and contributed very little. It was far better just to hit the creature in the first place and not bother with the racial power.

When things got hard to deal with, the standard action + move requirement (provoking an OA btw, as you don't become hidden until the end of the movement) didn't help them whatsoever in escaping I should add.

I agree, that stealth rules interpreted very very strictly and not allowing any creature to hide is a hard damper for this power.

This is the powers restriction, which is allies only and not creatures. The power creates the restriction and not the stealth rules.

I however still can imagine many situation where i rathe be a shade with any class i want with the ability to hide with only concealment than beeing a rogue or walock of any class i chose to be.

I honestly cannot think of many defenders/leaders that have the action economy to burn on doing nothing except becoming hidden to be honest. Sure they could get some utility out of it, but I doubt they get more than just taking stealth training and a better racial option for their class.

The opportunity cost of beeing limited to a certain class and class built seems too much. So comparing apples (Race) with oranges (a Class) makes no sense for me here. Which was exactly the part you did not understand right in my first post.

I did understand it, but it's irrelevant because you haven't realized the shade actually fits those classes best with its stats. Yet those classes have the best options for stealth and get stealth training often anyway. So the shade is a race that is far behind the eight ball, so going to classes that it is even more poorly suited for as it won't match stats is putting it further behind. As I've argued through the thread, the racial is not a huge benefit as its mostly irrelevant outside of combat and such a huge action sink in combat it is barely useful.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would XP Saeviomagy for this if I could. The point about building to an archtype and expecting it to be effective is an important one.

Sorry to be the one to say that:

Building an archetype is good. Expecting that the shade makes an exeptional strong person of that archetype could be fallacy.

Maybe the shade is a different approach to dip into that archetype. The stealth extra skill may hint, that a shade rogue is actually redundant, because a rogue can nearly do everything the shade class can do.

But instead it is a way to make a slayer that sometimes fullfills the tasks that usually a rogue would do.

The racial power beeing at-will may also hint, that this power in no way should be miles ahead of other powers, but a constant benefit of a shade in stelth mode.


I also disagree with the damage mitigation part by vanishing from sight and forcing enemies to attack a more undesirable target. Maybe one target closer to the defender. Or vanishing and positioning at a point the enemy has to run across and use you Opportunity Attack.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Where would the power be useful in combat may I ask? Bear in mind that regardless of when it is used, it costs a standard and a move action. A huge action sink. If you are dazed for example, you have no chance of using this because you can't get the two actions required to even use it. Just an example.

But you just don´t use it when the situation, like it is in your exmple, does not warrant its use.

The shade can only become hidden when his allies provide cover to him...

Or when he has any concealment.

This is the powers restriction, which is allies only and not creatures. The power creates the restriction and not the stealth rules.

My bad... i somehow read creatures there al the time. I thought your argument of allies came from the stealth rules so i quoted them. Now I can see why this part of the power looks quite useless...

I did understand it, but it's irrelevant because you haven't realized the shade actually fits those classes best with its stats. Yet those classes have the best options for stealth and get stealth training often anyway. So the shade is a race that is far behind the eight ball, so going to classes that it is even more poorly suited for as it won't match stats is putting it further behind. As I've argued through the thread, the racial is not a huge benefit as its mostly irrelevant outside of combat and such a huge action sink in combat it is barely useful.

Look at my previous post. There are many classes who could make use of those stats and that could make good use of sneakiness as a different approach to survivability as one additional HS.

A wizard who sustains a daily with a minor could make good use of stealth in plain sight. Edit: +2 Arcana and +2 int as option may be a hint to this approach...

 

[Aegeri]

I also disagree with the damage mitigation part by vanishing from sight and forcing enemies to attack a more undesirable target.

Except that the slayer shade will rovoke an OA when trying to move away to use his stealth check. Bearing in mind you first need to use a standard action for the racial, so you can't shift + move away. So your next action has to be a move action to behind an ally, which is often not a single shift away. You are not hidden at any point here until the end of that movement, so you'll eat the OA. This effectively makes any damage mitigation pointless, because you need to absorb another attack to try to hide.

This is also assuming the creature doesn't just then slam out a burst attack, or simply shift to another square beside your ally exposing you instantly and attacking you anyway. I mean, given you've sunk all your actions into becoming hidden you aren't going very far from where it last saw you. Making this very easy to counter for all but the stupidest monsters (who you probably never needed to hide from in the first place).

Or vanishing and positioning at a point the enemy has to run across and use you Opportunity Attack.

You need to maintain cover/concealment at this point. If you can find an area the enemy needs to move across that will have cover or concealment, then this can certainly work. But again, you need to have an entire round to set that up.

Edit:

Or when he has any concealment.

This is not relevant when discussing creatures, which was the example you used. I see you've now acknowledged the mistake in your next point though.

A wizard who sustains a daily with a minor could make good use of stealth in plain sight.

Spending a standard action and a minor action, for the potential chance that a monster won't just walk around your ally you are using as cover and kill you anyway (because you'll no longer have cover) to sustain a minor is horrible tactically. Again it's the action sink that we keep going back to and a wizard with sustains is being hugely pressed for actions. He's not going to be interested at all in a power that basically drains him of vital actions he'll need, not to mention the use of better encounter and other powers.

Additionally, I severely question the benefit of this given that wizards have good options for breaking line of sight for stealth or hiding as it is (like Wall of Fog).

 

[Prestidigitalis]

Building an archetype is good. Expecting that the shade makes an exeptional strong person of that archetype could be fallacy.

Huh? Are you really saying that a player who combines a race with stealthy features + a class with stealthy features cannot reasonably expect the resulting character to be effective?

If the key to your point is the word "ex[c]eptional", all I can say is that I did not use that word myself. I said "effective", period.

If not, then I think that you and I have very different views on how character construction should work in an RPG. Archetypal concepts should be the easiest and most obvious to build. There is still room for non-archetypal Twin Striking Half-Elf Avenger Daggermaster CharOp nightmares for players who "go that way", but archetypes should work out of the box, period. There shouldn't be any traps.

Note: WotC doesn't necessarily support "out of the box" concepts very well with their tools -- their suggestions for feats and powers are often absurd. But I'm not talking about that.