Posted February 27, 2019
The handbook minimizes the importance of stealth, basically saying "if you don't have it, it just leads to more fighting."
Not true.
The primary value of having high stealth comes up in one encounter, but it's one of the most important in the game: the opportunity to save the Schrat. If you have good stealth (20+), you can choose the option of using your stealth to hide the schrat, and yourselves, from the Hunt. That avoids the combat, which isn't so important for yourself, but if you end up in a fight, the schrat dies about half the time. High stealth avoids that fight, saves the schrat, and gets you the fruit to increase one character's strength.
I set up my party's characters on the assumption that I'm going to get two or three of those magic fruits over the first few years of play. I start my leader at 35 End and 27 Str, with the intention of getting her to 35-35, enough to carry plate armour, a dagger, javelins, and medium shield (69 weight). My priest/healer I set up at 40-36, so he can take one fruit and get to 40-40.
Stealth is so easy to build up just by constantly going to the marketplace at night and sneaking upstairs. (Then once up there, try to open each of the doors, whether you're on a quest or not. Once every fifteen or twenty tries you get a +3 artifice boost. Occasionally your guy will get his face blown off by a dangerous booby trap, so it's best if you don't have a lot of charisma invested in your artificier.) If the night watch is in the area, you don't even need to try and get past them - you get a stealth increase by going to the marketplace and then just leaving.
Not true.
The primary value of having high stealth comes up in one encounter, but it's one of the most important in the game: the opportunity to save the Schrat. If you have good stealth (20+), you can choose the option of using your stealth to hide the schrat, and yourselves, from the Hunt. That avoids the combat, which isn't so important for yourself, but if you end up in a fight, the schrat dies about half the time. High stealth avoids that fight, saves the schrat, and gets you the fruit to increase one character's strength.
I set up my party's characters on the assumption that I'm going to get two or three of those magic fruits over the first few years of play. I start my leader at 35 End and 27 Str, with the intention of getting her to 35-35, enough to carry plate armour, a dagger, javelins, and medium shield (69 weight). My priest/healer I set up at 40-36, so he can take one fruit and get to 40-40.
Stealth is so easy to build up just by constantly going to the marketplace at night and sneaking upstairs. (Then once up there, try to open each of the doors, whether you're on a quest or not. Once every fifteen or twenty tries you get a +3 artifice boost. Occasionally your guy will get his face blown off by a dangerous booby trap, so it's best if you don't have a lot of charisma invested in your artificier.) If the night watch is in the area, you don't even need to try and get past them - you get a stealth increase by going to the marketplace and then just leaving.
