Re: MEPBM Stealth addition to agent actions

From: Patrick F. McGehearty <patrick@convex.COM>

Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 00:00:00 +0000

In article <53mlg7$1h8@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Wraithling <wraithling@aol.com> wrote:
> I have heard some theories regarding stealth and agent activites. I would
>like some more info on this subject from experienced players. Also any
>info on the difficulity of assassinations against the various character
>type.(ie agent vs non-agent, agent vs agent, agent vs guarded character,
>agent rank vs primary skill rank of victim and how stealth in adds to the
>above if at all).
>
>Thanks in advance,
>   Wraithling@aol.com
>
>PS I have all the MOSauron issues but have not found one prevailing
>opinion in the issues that I have scanned over.

Somewhere I read the following hypothesis: For any agent ability where
stealth applies (includes stealing, killing, etc, but not scouting), add a
random number between 1 and the stealth ability to your agent rank.  Then
use the new sum to evaluate success chances.  For example, consider a
character with Agent skill of 35 and stealth rank of 20.  If he tries to
steal gold, he will have an effective skill between 36 and 55, with an
average chance around 45.  Informal observation of this hypothesis has not
found any glaring contradictions.  High stealth also seems to help protect
an agent from assassination attempts by other agents.  It also makes a
character harder to find by others doing a scout for chars.  A nice benefit
of stealth is that rank increase for success is based on the agent skill
without the stealth taken into account.  So the agent mentioned above with
skill 35 and stealth 20 will get more of a skill bonus than an agent of
skill 45 for the same effort.

Agents with skill around 65 can start trying 'easy' kills with good chances
of success.  Agents are harder to kill than non-agents, provided the agent
rank is near that of the attacker.  Guarding is rumored to be at double the
agent rank of the guard, so a 40point agent supposedly has a good chance of
stopping an 80 point agent.  However, 100 point agents are not necessarily
stopped by anybody.  Higher rank characters are reputed to be harder to kill
than lower rank characters, but I don't have any hard data.

- Patrick McGehearty
patrick@convex.hp.com

References

MEPBM Stealth addition to agent actions
wraithling@aol.com (Wraithling)
Fri, 11 Oct 1996 00:00:00 +0000