Hiding & Stealth

This page covers staying unseen: Hiding to vanish, Stealth to move while hidden, Detecting Hidden and Tracking to find others, and what gives you away. Combat use of escaping is in Combat basics → Fleeing.

Hiding — vanishing on the spot

To hide:

Activate the Hiding skill (open your skill list and use Hiding, or use a hide hotkey/macro). Plain Hiding does not let you move while hidden — that needs Stealth — but the server has no “must stand still” check on the hide attempt itself.
On success you become invisible to other players and most creatures: “You have hidden yourself well.”; if the skill check fails: “You can’t seem to hide here.”

Your success chance scales with your Hiding skill — the attempt is a skill check on a 0.0–100.0 difficulty band (Hiding.cs CheckSkill(Hiding, 0.0 - bonus, 100.0 - bonus)). Being inside a house you own or are friended to lowers the difficulty (a large bonus), making hiding far more reliable indoors.

You cannot hide while a nearby enemy is actively in combat with you: if any combatant who can see you is within range (roughly (100 - skill) / 2 + 8, capped at 18 tiles), the attempt is refused with “You can’t seem to hide right now.” and the act of trying reveals you. (Hiding.cs combat-range check.)

On a successful hide your character also drops out of war mode (Hiding.cs sets Warmode = false). While hidden you do not appear on screen to others and are skipped by many auto-targeting attacks — until something reveals you (see below).

Stealth — moving while hidden

Plain Hiding drops the moment you take a step. Stealth lets you move without breaking your hidden state:

To stealth:

Hide first (you must already be hidden to begin stealthing — otherwise you get “You must hide first.”). You also need Hiding of at least 30 to stealth at all on this shard (“You are not hidden well enough. Become better at hiding.” below that).
Move one tile at a time; the Stealth skill is checked on each step.

Each successful stealth activation grants a budget of steps equal to your Stealth value divided by 5 (minimum 1) on this shard — so GM Stealth gives 20 quiet steps before you must re-check. (Stealth.cs: steps = Value / 5.0 in the AOS+ branch that applies to our EJ shard; the older pre-AOS rule was value/10.)
Stealthing works best unarmored or in light armor. Your worn armor is summed into an armor rating, and the more you wear the harder the per-step check becomes (CheckSkill(Stealth, -20 + armorRating*2, 60 + armorRating*2)). If your armor rating exceeds the cap (42 on this AOS+ shard) you simply cannot move quietly — “You could not hope to move quietly wearing this much armor.”
A failed Stealth step reveals you (“You fail in your attempt to move unnoticed.”); re-hide and continue. A success shows “You begin to move quietly.”

Detecting Hidden — revealing others

Detecting Hidden finds nearby hidden players and creatures.

To detect:

Use the Detecting Hidden skill (“Where will you search?”).
Target an area/spot you suspect a hidden character is in (the cursor reaches up to 12 tiles).
Any hidden target within range that you out-roll is revealed (“You have been revealed!”); if none, you see “You can see nothing hidden there.”

Your search range scales with skill — max(2, DetectHidden / 10) tiles, halved if your skill check fails, and raised to 22 inside a house you are friended to (DetectHidden.cs). Whether each hidden mobile is revealed is a contest: your DetectHidden ±10 versus the hider’s Hiding ±10 (DetectHidden.cs), so higher Detecting Hidden relative to the hider’s Hiding wins more often. This is the active counter to stealthers — guards, anti-thieves, and PvPers train it.

Tracking — finding creatures and players

Tracking locates nearby mobiles even if they are not in view.

To track:

Use the Tracking skill.
Choose one of four categories from the menu — Animals, Monsters, Human NPCs, or Players (Tracking.cs TrackWhatGump).
You get a list and a direction toward the nearest matching targets within range.

Your tracking range is 10 + Tracking / 10 tiles (Tracking.cs), so higher skill finds targets farther off. Against hidden players Tracking runs a difficulty check that weighs your Tracking (and Detect Hidden) against the target’s Hiding + Stealth — you only get a fix on them if that check passes. Note Tracking locates but does not reveal: it can tell you a stealther’s presence and direction, but you still need Detecting Hidden (or a Reveal spell) to actually unhide them. Useful for hunting, scouting, and catching thieves.

What reveals you

You lose your hidden state when you:

Attack or take a hostile action (e.g. Double Strike / Whirlwind call RevealingAction).
Cast a spell (a normal cast reveals you — Spell.cs RevealOnCast is true, calling RevealingAction()).
Use a bandage (the bandage code calls RevealingAction() on both double-click and target — Bandage.cs — see Healing).
Take damage / are hit.
Are adjacent to certain creatures or stand too close for too long (proximity reveal — unverified specifics).
Are caught by Detecting Hidden or a Reveal spell (Magery 6th circle, confirmed in Scripts/Spells/Sixth/Reveal.cs), which forcibly unhides characters in an area.

In short: acting reveals you. Hiding/Stealth is for moving and observing, not for acting while invisible.

Uses for hiding and stealth

Escaping — break line of sight, then Hide to drop pursuers and recover or Recall away.
Scouting — Stealth into a dungeon or PvP zone to spot enemies, count numbers, and find loot without being seen.
Thief play — Stealing and Snooping pair with Hiding/Stealth to lift items and slip away; see Notoriety & PvP for the criminal flags this triggers.
Assassin play — Stealth into position, open with a strong hit or a Ninjitsu move; note attacking immediately reveals you.