Stealth, the elusive quarry

What is stealth? How does it aid a character? Is stealth only useful in an offensive capacity? How often does a character receive stealth? These are but a few of the questions surrounding GSI's most mystical of Special Nation Abilities. One is more likely to achieve a US government sponsored tour of AREA 51 than to receive the actual mechanics of stealth from GSI. Of the numerous topics that I discussed with my allies in the quest for MEPBM competency, none gave the myriad of possibilities as did the response for stealth mechanics. With this being said, I set out to do some research on my own and see if any patterns were evident. In this article, I will cover my interpretation of the major points of stealth as defined in the 2950 rule book (pg. 19), my experience that correlates to these stealth definitions, along with the two predominate theories that I uncovered. There will also be a sprinkling of ideas on stealth agent usage among other things and authentic numerical stealth data. The data gathered so far is not enough to draw legitimate "stealth theories" but it does provide a baseline measurement. This will someday be the basis for a host of accepted stealth rules (as can be determined from the gamer's perspective).

The information expressed below are my opinions and, for the most part, information that I have gathered from non-GSI sources along with a 100+ turns of gaming with the Stealth SNA. They are not meant to be absolute but merely my experiences. The numerical probability/average data at the end of this article is, however, absolute and seems unchanged between the 2950 and Fourth Age scenarios

Stealth is an innate ability, that is you are born with it or not. Stealth rank ranges from 0-100. Most characters will have 0 stealth when named. I believe that actual stealth rank when awarded is from 10-40. I have never had less than 10 and have only seen 40 stealth twice. Both times the 40 stealth characters were Noldo Elves. I am not sure if anything should be drawn from this and would welcome data from players of the Woodmen, Dragon Lord, Dog Lord, Cloud Lord and Ice King.

Stealth can never be increased except by the acquisition of a stealth artifact. Unlike other artifacts that are not usable by a character without natural skill akin to that of the artifact, a stealth artifact affords its bonus automatically upon acquisition. For example a single class 60 mage can recover a command, agent or emissary artifact and he is still a 60 mage, only. He does not gain use of the artifact since he has 0 natural skill in those character attributes. However, if the same 60 mage picks up a stealth artifact, he immediately gains a stealth rank equal to that of the stealth artifact. GSI confirmed in a recent communication that "stealth is stealth no matter the source". The two main disadvantages to artifact generated stealth are that artifacts can be lost or stolen and that a competent opponent can cast Locate Artifact or Locate Artifact True every turn as a means to track your stealthy agent. One of the ways to defeat "tracking" of your agent is to move the artifact generated stealth agent around in a small company or by himself while your main agent company lands in another place to wreak havoc. Competent agent play will make up any negative effect from a stealth artifact. Besides if you are worried about your agent being tracked, you can find any number of players that would happily trade or take any stealth artifact off your hands, myself being at the front of the line. The three major stealth artifacts are Collohwesta, Cloak of the Abyss and the Bracers of the Mists (in 2950 and Fourth Age). While they will vary in power from game to game, Cloak of the Abyss will be in the 30 to 40 stealth range. Collohwesta and Bracers of the Mists will add 25 to 35 stealth each. (For any new players, all artifacts vary plus or minus 5 ranks from game to game with minimum of 10. For example, Cloak of the Abyss could be plus 30, 35 or 40 to stealth.)

The description in GSI's rule book indicates that stealth is taken into account when guarding. The only theory that I have found pertaining to guarding is that 1/2 the stealth rank is added to the net agent rank before calculation of the guarding action. This theory was told to me about a year ago from two different persons whom I have a lot of respect for their game knowledge. I rarely guard with my stealth agents so I have little to offer other than to say I think it is a logical hypothesis. If at all possible, I believe any agent or multi-class agent that comes with stealth should guard once and move into an offensive mode. That is to say, stealth agents can immediately move to camps for gold stealing (agent training) much sooner than the generally accepted 40 rank threshold. My personal lowest ranked agent to steal gold was a 23 agent that had 19 stealth. These characters will get generally get a nice agent rank increase, +7 or better most times. Needless to say, I am an offensive oriented person when it comes to character warfare

In the scout for characters order, it is certain that stealth agents are more difficult to spot. In this manner, stealth can indirectly affect an enemy agent's actions against you. This occurs because, for any type of character action, a five character alpha string (more commonly known as the character's ID) is needed to direct the issuing character's actions. More simply put you cannot harm a character without knowing his unique five character ID. The main means for determining a character's ID is from the scout for characters order, the pop center report and the tracking of nation messages. I have yet to determine if a stealth bonus makes characters harder to spot as foreign characters on the population center reports. My personal experience is that most players do not track the nation messages even in some grudge games. Arcane means such as divine character with forces will also give all ID's of characters attached to a known army commander. This is circumvented by NOT using your stealth agents as army guards. They should be your elite assassins. Guard their names carefully.

A related theory that a couple of my allies proposed indicates that agent with stealth will get a better scout for characters than an agent without stealth. I have tested this theory four times in a fourth age game using two 100 Agents, both with +20 to scout, one with 10 natural stealth the other with 15 natural stealth modified to 55. Three of the four times I scouted and received the same information. All four of these times there were very few characters in the hex which should have made the scout easier. The last time however the agent with the 55 stealth picked a character with a +30 stealth artifact while the agent with 10 stealth got a bogus scout. Being enthralled at this discovery, I felt it only fitting to relieve said character of his artifacts and his pitiful existence. My personal opinion is that when a Scout for Characters order is issued, 1/2 of the issuing agent's stealth rank is added to his agent rank before the scouting calculation is run. GSI recently confirmed that an agent with stealth gets a bonus when issuing a Scout for Characters order along with a bonus to evade said order when issued by another agent.

All of the above is well and good but it does not cover the main benefit of this SNA. Stealth's true power comes from its positive modification to agent actions. Stealth is good on any character but a stealth agent is the most beneficial of all character types. There were two theories that I encountered as I was trying to understand this ability some 18 months ago. One theory stated that stealth was a straight positive modifier to agent rank when used for offensive purposes. For example a 60 Agent with 60 Stealth was thought to be a "120 point Ji Indur has nothing on me" super assassin. The second theory was radically different in that each time an agent with stealth attempted an action a random number from 1 to X (X equaling the net stealth rank) was added to the agent's rank. In the above example the 60A would have an effective rank of 61-120. Currently most people that I have talked with believe the second theory to be correct. If stealth were a straight positive modifier to agent rank then high powered stealth agents (110 combined ranks) would almost never miss. Allowing for a 10% failure rate, I still find the 60 Agent with 60 Stealth to miss much more often then he should for an effective 120 rank agent. Hence, my experience with the stealth SNA leads me to concur with the "random theory".

This brings us to another important aspect of the Stealth SNA. How often is it awarded to a character? Not enough for from my standpoint and probably too much in the eyes of my opponents. It does little good to have a "better chance of stealth for new characters" if you never receive stealth. Only having a better chance of stealth is the main criticism that most persons have of this SNA. Here are the mechanics for the awarding of the stealth bonus. When a character is generated by any nation there is a certain chance for a random bonus skill to be awarded. This bonus skill could be double healing, challenge bonus, stealth bonus, or a bonus to one the four main character attributes. When a nation has the Stealth SNA, more often than not, any bonus will be of the stealth variety, hence the term "better chance of stealth for new characters". The stealth SNA does not directly enhance the chance for a new character to have stealth. It does, however increase the chance that any normal character bonus will be stealth. In my experience I can only once remember getting another type of bonus while I had the stealth SNA. I think that with the stealth SNA the odds of getting stealth, when the normal bonus is awarded, is probably 85% or greater. Like all of the above ramblings, this is my opinion only.

Up to this point, I have discussed theories and guesswork. Now for those afflicted with the affinity of statistics, I present indisputable data taken from actual GSI run turns. All of this data was taken from hard copy or a pdf file. Two nation's worth of data from the Fourth Age scenario came from allies, however I actually have their turns so this data is also indisputable

I will divide my data into two categories the first set taken from three games of the 2950 scenario, two as the Silvan Elves and one as the Dog Lord. In the 2950 games a total of 35 characters were named, 8 of these characters came with a bonus to their stealth rank. The least stealth was 18 the most 34. These numbers indicate that stealth was awarded 22.86% of the time with an average stealth rank of 22.88. Of these 8 named characters with stealth, 1 was an emissary, 4 were straight agents and 3 were commander/agents.

The other set is derived from the Fourth Age scenario with the Stealth SNA built into nation design. In the Fourth Age games a total of 58 characters were named, 15 of these characters came with a bonus to their stealth rank. The least stealth was 15 the most 30. In these games the stealth bonus was awarded 25.86% of the time with an average stealth rank of 22.67. Of these 15 characters named with stealth, 3 were straight agents, 1 was a commander/emissary and 11 were commander/agents. (As a side note every time that I have taken the stealth SNA in the Fourth Age scenario, my bonus character ability has been 10 stealth.)

Combining both sets of data, results in 23 of 93 named characters coming with a stealth bonus or a 24.73% occurrence. The average stealth rank was 22.74 for all characters.

In closing I would like to again state that above assumptions apart from the numerical data are my opinions based on my observations. Contradictory data may have been collected and transcribed elsewhere. The aforementioned numerical data was gathered since the summer of 96 and is accurate. Although this article may paint me as a stealth fanatic, I would never take it in a Fourth Age grudge game. "Name 40 rank agents" is better suited for use against competent opponents. The stealth SNA in Fourth Age is only the fourth best agent ability available and is better suited for solo play where you can retire non stealth characters and name new ones. I welcome other viewpoints.

Good luck with your stealth SNA and may we all achieve that elusive 40 point stealth agent at least once.