Development Info The Broken Hourglass - Stealth Mechanics

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Tags: Planewalker Games; The Broken Hourglass

<a href=http://www.planewalkergames.com/content/view/74/1/>Hiding and Finding</a> is the subject of this week's update on <a href=http://www.planewalkergames.com/>Planewalker Games</a>' CRPG in the making, <a href=http://www.planewalkergames.com/content/view/32/46/>The Broken Hourglass</a>. The piece talks about stealth and how it's integrated into party mechanics.
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<blockquote>Hiding Traps, Doors, and Containers
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Inanimate objects may also be hidden from view or otherwise conceal some sort of secret. The usual categories for hidden objects are traps, doors, and containers. Although each serves a very different purpose, the mechanics for finding each one is essentially the same. The object to be hidden is assigned a Perception score, which indicates the Perception a searching party must possess in order to find the object.
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If you have a sufficient Perception score, you find the hidden object-it illuminates on the screen and the character which found it alerts you to its presence. Traps can also be "found" the hard way-by walking into one unaware and suffering its attack. Some traps will automatically disarm themselves after firing once, while others can fire again and again. Either way, you only see the trap's danger zone if you beat the Perception check. Hidden doors and containers typically have no such clues. Because perception is shared across the party, once a hidden object is located once, the members of the locating party can see it again on subsequent visits.</blockquote>Ninja cartographers rule.
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Thanks, <b>jcompton</b>!

 

[denizsi]

What about traps that would trigger only after you enter and then leave the danger zone? Detecting the trap would require high perception, but detecting that you just activated a trap and that it will trigger once you step off the danger zone would require lower perception, giving you the chance to attempt disarming it with higher stakes; might be fun in a way.

Thanks for bringing the news, Role-Player. Reading these segments of game-mechanics from TBH is one of few kinds of the news I find enjoyable.

 

[M0RBUS]

So Role-Player, what about that one article about... that?

(I can't PM cause I have too few posts)

 

[Diogo Ribeiro]

Thanks for bringing the news, Role-Player. Reading these segments of game-mechanics from TBH is one of few kinds of the news I find enjoyable.

You're welcome

So Role-Player, what about that one article about... that?

Whazzat?

Ah. O da história vs. jogo? Assim que possível

 

[FrancoTAU]

Is your perception alwasy "On" like the later Wizardries? I always preferred that over the AD&D PC games where you had to constantly manually get your theif to check for traps.

 

[Mr Happy]

Yeah, based on

Your party is considered to be constantly on the lookout for hidden opponents, secret doors, traps, and hidden containers. You do not have to enter a special "search mode", bump up endlessly against walls, etc. in order to locate special goodies.

Definately a plus for me as well.

- Generally speaking, anyone not in the player party does not search for hidden containers, doors, or traps-they only search for other hidden creatures. Searching for hidden objects is the player's privilege. Conversely, it is safe to assume that any trap you find is intended to keep you away from whatever it is guarding.

I think it would be interesting to have an enemy find a trap of yours once in a while. I might turn into a "battle of the perception skills" then, which would be fun.


Now I'll have to find time read all these updates (group skills sounds nice), I'm ashamed to say I haven't been following this game very closely until now. 2007 is actually looking moderatly hawt.