Now you see me...

[Silentus]

Naraldur, I read every word you said and chose not to put in in yet for the simple reason that what you and addicted wrote appeared to contradict each other to some degree with reguards to the sanctuary effects - subsequently I was simply waiting for more input from others. I wrote what I remembered and what seemed to jibe with addicteds post as this has been brought up on the forums before (and I misremebered cause frinkly I never really personally cared and still dont). I also left it in red indicating that it was very likely incorrect and needed work.

Reminder to everyone - please try not to be quick to judge - this medium suffers alot from misinterpeting the tone of messages.

I do very little other than to attempt to help out. Quite often I am putting together data that I really have little interest in (this is one of those topics) yet I still spend my time doing it because I see that others do care and would like clarification. I'm quite aware that Im fallible, but I am not aware of ever being rude to anyone. Please extend that courtesy back to me.

BTW I will be doing no updates on this or most of the forums until monday as Im off to vacation for an extended weekend - please post away though, by monday we'll probably have all the answers we need

[addicted2rpg]

We love you Naraldur

I do confess not to be a master of sanctuary. I have certaintly seen the people with the purple/blue spirals around them, and I have learned I could not attack them or cast spells, but dispelling the ground adjacent to them seemed to be a useful work-around

With my historical background in PvP servers, I recalled that is just the solution to anyone with blue spirals, and I never gave it a second thought on how it fully effects the game, or the notion of "visibility." But it is certaintly worth knowing

There is some truth in what Naralder said about True Sight having an effect. My suspicion is that it has two behaviors, one for failing the will save, and one for succeeding it, but even on success certain benefits are still applied to the caster regardless? Whatever they are, I will leave for others to comment or until I bother to pickup my hotU manual after I get home, which I won't, because I got an event tonight and then I got to go out .

Darkness and UV cleanup:

Yep, phoenix is right. UV definitely sees through darkness.
Darkness can be treated as a "corner" for sneaking. You can run into it, hide, and come out (as hidden/moving silently). I've definitely done this on many occasions against opponents who didn't have any vision enhancing spells.

When I say that UV sees through darkness, that means when you hold your tab key or are running around in darkness, the other player is visible within the cloud. You also do not incurr the attack and AC penalties (which I do not know what they are, but you can slap people around in darkness as though they are flat footed or worse, and for rogues against a non-UV opponent they always get a sneak attack inside the cloud, even on people outside the cloud as long as the rogue is standing inside the cloud still).

The speculative question is whether or not Bioware was smart enough to say, "Heh, this person has UV so when that guy hits Hide in the darkness cloud, let's make him not disappear for that person." It *shouldn't*, but I was never in a situation where someone tried to hide/move silenetly right in front of me with UV on, so I just don't know. Maybe Phoenix knows. The "should" of it is UV sees the person and without hide in plain sight, hiding in the darkness shouldn't matter. I'm just saying i never actually *did* it. It is important to bring that up. The manual will even tell you wrong. Only on the ground action is the way to tell, and even then, any understanding could be blown away when a new version comes up. I'd also like to add that although Bioware has thorough release notes, not all changes make in those either!!!! What a bummer

[Phoenix]

I have not tested that specificaly, however the code for being able to hide depends on line of sight. Which is also key for targeting enemies with spells. If you are in the darkness and I have UV, I will always be able to target you. I would expect hiding works the same...

[Silentus]

Hide and Seek Synopses
NOTE: The methods listed may not be correct - Im looking for verifiaction/explainations. Anyone who is certain of any of these, please respond with how they work. Avoid speculation please.

Green indicates high confidence/verified fact
Yellow indicates some data may need clarification
Red indicates very speculative

DETECTION
True Sight - magical - (vs All) Exposes every method of concealing location
Spot - visual - (vs Hide) examines for all non-magically hidden creatures in front of you (probably 120deg forward arc) if in line of sight
Listen - audible - (vs Move silent) examines for all non-magically hidden moving creatures in 360deg including around corners
Adjecentcy - physical - (vs Invisibility but not Sanctuary) Exposes invisibile creatures (ie Inv or Impr Inv spell and spell like effects) if very near to them - no effect on other forms of concealment though.
Ultravision - magical - (vs Darkness) Enables tageting of creatures in darkness
Dispelling - magical - (vs Darkness, Sanctuarties) Cancels Darkness, Invisibility, Sanctuary and Greater Sancuary
Blind Fighting Feat - physcal - (vs darkness) Enabels targeting of adjecent creaures in darkness

EVASION
Hide - Increases difficulty vs spot - fails if within line of sight (unless very far away)
Hide in plain sight - Same as hide, but can be in line of sight
Move Silent - Increases difficulty vs Listen
Darkness - Hides creatures in area of effect, prevents targeting, allows place to rehide
Invisibility - Determinable via adjacentcy or magical detectoin/dispelling. Renders Spot and Listen checks useless.
Sanctuary - Invisibile to others if they fail a DC
Greater Sanctuary - Ethereal, prevents tageting, cancels upon attack or hostile action

Couple questions for anyone who knows the answer:
1. Does Truesight allow you to target Greater Sanctuaried opponents? (I believe it does not)
2. Is Greater Sanctuary really cancelled upon attack? (I thought I remember it lasting a while after attacking but am likely incorrect)
3. Will dispelling remove Greater Sanctuary? (I believe it does)
4. Does ultravision have any evvect against either form of sanctuary?
5. Does blind fighting allow you to target nearby creatures in darkness that are not attacking?
6. Is anything listed above incorrect? (please include correction)
7. Are there any methods of Evasion or detection that I missed? (and if so, add whatever particulars you are aware of)

[clark625]

Just so everyone's aware... there's some weird bug with at least wizards casting greater sanctuary, and it might affect all arcane casters for all I know. There's also another bug that everyone else experiences.

IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO CAST HIGH-LEVEL SPELLS, then you can buy the cloak of greater sanctuary and it works (but it IS bugged). The bug is rather helpful--you can cast greater sanctuary and it will not ever wear off unless/until you perform a hostile action or rest. That means you can explore all of Fredian with (practically) all hostile creatures ignoring you. I would do this all the time with a rogue character. Just make sure you never act hostile, and you can go everywhere.


IF YOU CAN CAST GREATER SANCTUARY, then when you cast it, the icon that appears is either one of greater sanctuary or sanctuary. The effects of this are huge: if the greater sanctuary icon appears, any creature with true seeing, and sometimes creatures without, will spot you and attack--and you will take damage. This really blows if you're a mage. If the sanctuary icon appears, then everything behaves (mostly) properly.

Of course--here's the best kicker: if you're a mage and cast greater sanctuary, regardless of what icon appears, it will only last for 1 round per caster level. To make this even more exciting, when it does wear off, the icons won't disappear, and you'll still have those funny strings circling your avatar. So you really won't know whether it's worn off or not, at least, not until something attacks.


Then again.... a few times I've had sanctuary last nearly forever (until I rested or attacked). But, it's been rather rare. Oh, and if you're a high-level mage and use the cloak of GS, it acts just like you had casted it, so don't expect that little bug to save you. It's a real pain.

[Hanah]

Thanks a lot for that analysis, clark625. There's been something kooky with Sanc/Greater Sanc for a while. I will try to take the time to confirm your findings for clerics as well.

Hanah

[W(ie-ei)rdness]

True seeing pierces through GS, however, greater sanctuary makes you untargetable by any means, unless dispelled. I have seen no save whatsoever. Because GS is basically a fail safe sanctuary, otherwise you would see will-save DC checks all over the place when players cast it.

[addicted2rpg]

Blind fighting - also effects improved invis. 100% sure on this. You get to reroll as the feat describes if improved invis' concealment bonus works against you.

Sanc/Greater sanc: Be wary what you assume about these two, both in visibility and in action prohibition, caster use vs. item use. Its not pretty

For testing, I know that Damien Swift has true sight, and people have reported that he attacks through GS no matter what. Yet I have seen him just stand there and watch people with GS too. I've heard its use before/after it spawns may have an effect on this. This may be only for true sighted creatures, while non-truesighted probably suffer a more blanket effect.

[W(ie-ei)rdness]

I've noticed the damien bit too... But I stay relatively far away from him since I'm usually walking to the plane.

[clark625]

I'll add some of my other "odd" things I've seen with the whole sanctuary/greater sanctuary issue. I do realize what the book/manuals/etc say about these, but in-game, they aren't at all as prescribed. I've rarely, if ever, seen it work as even the in-game scroll descriptions say.


A rogue character of mine could use the cloak of greater sanctuary at nearly any time. Creatures with true seeing would ignore this character. I could open doors, disable traps, and loot chests without ever being attacked or acted upon (sometimes RL hours at a time). I would wander by extremely powerful baddies and they would just ignore me--even Reman (never tried Damien).


On the other hand, a high-level wizard character of mine would get attacked by the oddest of things less than thirty seconds after casting greater sanctuary. The thing that really threw me was when the snakes in the Fredian Swamps would attack 1 in about 3 times I would test it--it just wasn't right to think about those snakes having true seeing. Trolls, orcs, and all the other simple critters would all not only see me, but immediately attack and injure me. It'd be one thing if we were talking about uber-creatures that has true seeing and would dispell on every hit or somesuch... but these were simpletons.


So the thing that I always find the most silly is that even though I cast greater sanctuary, the "sanctuary" icon gives the desired results, but the "greater sanctuary" icon showing means (for me, at least) that I'm going to start a train of baddies following me as I run about. It's just a funky bug in the NWN engine I guess--and it certainly conflicts with how these spells are supposed to work.


The only thing I haven't tested officially yet is whether casting GS works as prescribed for PvP-type stuff. Maybe I'll do that with someone tonight if you catch me online (Octo Morenkind). Or, better yet, maybe a dm would like to help test by spawning a few varied creatures after I'm supposedly in GS. I remember talking to Makz about this a while ago--he said that the bugginess it known, and a fix is expected with 1.63; but I'm not sure anyone's detailed the bugginess. For the moment, anyway, I would be very careful about playing a mage and expecting to be invulnerable at any moment.