A Sneaker's Manifesto (Discussion on Stealth)

My personal problem with this right now is that it's essentially impossible to detect that people that invest in stealth, regardless of what you do.

There are people walking around with 35-40 base H/MS before taking into account circumstantial bonuses, class bonuses, spells, etc. There are plenty of long duration buffs to stealth that are easily available, such as One with the land, Camouflage, even invis potions/spells etc. With these situational/spell bonuses you can and will easily hit 50 in these skills. These builds are also highly encouraged to invest in dex, and stealth gear has dex bonuses too. This helps them be very potent characters in both melee (with finesse) and ranged combat, as well as keeping a good AC, whilst still maximising the skills for them.

The counter story is rough as heck. If you have a 20 Wis Elf with max listen/spot they'll have a Spot/Listen check of 18. 21 with skill focus. 23 with some fairly easily accessible gear, max of 30ish with endgame stuff. Those numbers initially sound fairly reasonable, except they're not. Consider that this is comparing the perfect race with a high stat that has practically zero use outside of divine casting classes and skill + feat investment that is utterly useless in pve, vs characters that can be any race with no feat investment using skills which are EXTREMELY useful in pve or pvp. A human with 12 wis and max spot/listen will have a base 12 before items, and roughly 24 with the best spot/listen gear in the game. This is with the same feat investment into counter skills as the sneaks have had to take in stealth.

So there's amplify and claiyvoyance, but that's wasting some very limited spell selection options for bard/arcane casters into something that doesn't work at all vs the undead. They burn a spell slot and the spells only last a few rounds, and you have to actively know someone is stealthing in the area in order to use these short duration counter spells. I was able to get my listen up to 26 and couldn't hear four people that were stealthed at various distances around me, including standing right next to me. Most characters will never achieve a 26, no matter what they do or how hide they pump these skills.

I've heard people saying that you balance stealth gear by making stealth gear +20 higher than spot/listen, but that mathematically doesn't work at all. This seems to be ignoring the fact that the stealther also rolls a d20 on their checks. If your skill is 20 higher than my skill you win 100% of opposed rolls, no matter what I roll - it is completely impossible for me to ever detect you. And that's standing next to me! This isn't even for players that are standing at range, behind cover, in dark light, being clever sneaks etc. These are numbers for people breathing down my neck. This +20 balance equation also ignores something I really dislike - it favours a sneak that is trying to stealth directly next to someone, rather than rewarding players that take advantage of situational bonuses. The better balance is to aim for around +5-10 difference. With this difference a clever sneak can easily push the situational bonuses (standing behind objects, in the dark, not moving etc) to a level that makes them hard/impossible to spot, but someone standing right next to a person with a lantern will be fairly boned.