Stealth and bard song bug?

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I just started a game of IWD and so far it's going great. I've come across a few strange things though. I'm suprised by how easily I've been able to use backstab as a low level thief compared to BG1. I seem to succeed at hiding alot more often. But...there seems to be a delay when I hit the stealth button sometimes. It will be highlighted in red but the stealth won't activate for another 5-10 sec. This happens when I hit bard song as well. Sometimes it just won't go off even though its highlighted OR there will be a delay. Very odd. Is this intended?

 

This thread seems to relate to your issue. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that anybody found a solution.

 

In my last play through tho we had similiar thing with hiding in shawdows sometimes we had to wait for like 15s or more for hide to work, but it was minor issue with bard song I guess it can be real pain :/

well if it's a bug..
did you install iwd then patch then How then howpatch then totl?
mby reinstall with all patches would help

 

Stealth starts at the beginning of the next turn/round ... it ends at the end of a turn if it fails. Both stealth and the bard song are like a spell -- if you've done an action during the round (like move) the stealth/bard song/spell begins at the start of the next round.

 

This might be what it is. The only thing is I never experienced it in any of the BG series. When you hit stealth, it showed immediately whether you succeeded or failed. This is of course allowed hit and run tactics where you could run behind a corner and restealth. With IWD, I'll run behind a corner and hit stealth and...nothing...the stealth button is highlighted but no stealth. This might be intended, I don't know. But since I've always played thieves/assassins in the BG series, this was very noticeable.

As far as patching goes, this is what I did. Let me know if I got it right.

-IWD
-HoW (which I assumed would update IWD to current)
-TotLM (Patch 1.42)
-G3 Fix Pack

Is there a plain IWD patch I should've installed?

 

hmph anyway i had fully patched game and sometimes stay button stayed pressed on for like 30s or so, id showed i was hidden but i was not and couldn't hide im not sure we talk about same thing ^^

 

Yea I'm pretty disappointed at this stealth issue since I use backstab a ton in the BG series. So now I've switched to sneak attack to see how that works since it doesn't require stealth. Still curious if this was intended or not. Maybe better question is has anyone NOT had this issue?


Ok some new events on the stealth thing have arisen. It begin with my figher/thief using an oil of speed potion to grant me haste. (Boy can't wait for boots of speed) At any rate I noticed the delay on stealth going off was much less and on top of that I was able to stealth while still in LOS of the monster..lol. What I did is as soon as my backstab went off, I would hit the stealth button and start running away. My stealth would enable almost a few seconds later and I would only be an inch or so away from the chasing monster who can clearly see me. I would all of sudden restealth. This worked over and over. So it seems that haste reduces the delay but regardless you can restealth without having to break LOS. How ya like that? lol


LOL!!! Okay another update. You don't even need haste to restealth quickly right in front of the enemy and I do mean RIGHT in front of it. Pretty Sweet.

 

If anyone finds any new information on this I would greatly appreciate it. Honestly I just want to know if this delay in stealth is intended or not. I have all the expansions installed. Thanks

 

I don't know if this helps or not, but if you uninstall the game, delete everything, and then install only the Icewind Dale game plus the patch from Sorcerer's place WITHOUT Heart of Winter (Or Trials of the Luremaster), the bug may disappear.

I never experienced it in IWD until I finally got my hands on Heart of Winter.

I haven't been able to get rid of it with HoW installed, although it doesn't always happen. It also seems to happen much less frequently on an ancient laptop I have than on my old Desktop.
I'll have to experiment with playing the game on my more modern computers. I haven't tried it on anything built before 2002 since my old systems can handle it just fine.

 

Well let me ask you a question. If you don't install HoW, don't lose out on all that stuff the HoW added? I'm not talking about the new adventure it brings but the better items and graphics etc...

 

I personally never had a problem with the "bug". That my thief does not go instantly into stealth is not a big deal -- it's not a problem for me if I have to wait 15 to 30 seconds before the thief takes off (the reverse also happens, the fail sound occurs and you have 15 to 30 seconds to get out of line-of-sight). I personally always felt the "instant stealth" in BG and PS:T was a bug, albeit one that was fun to exploit.

What you gain with the expansions is worth the mild inconvenience of waiting for stealth.

 

Yes, you do, especially the bags of holding and other containers like scroll cases, gem bags, and potion cases. The Ease-of-Use patch (or was it the g3 tweaks only) offers to add them, but if you do so, the game will crash if you buy one form Pomab. I don't recall if it crashes when you buy it or when you try to use it.

For me, each expansion also introduced a problem.
Heart of Winter: Stealth Bug
Trials of the Luremaster: Attack Sound Bug

If anybody has any suggestions on how to fix the latter, please reply by necroing the old thread where I addressed the issue so that others searching for it can find a solution.

I found it interesting that while that attack sound bug happens in my Dell Optiplex GX110, it does NOT happen on my NEC Ready 440T laptop.
I've never tried IWD on any other computers I own. Why bother with coaxing it to run on a modern system when I can run it on my old system just fine?

 

I definitely agree cause for the most part I prefer IWD1 over IWD2. Its a better story for me as well as I enjoy 2nd rules more and really the only main issue I have with 3rd edition is I don't like all these mixtures of classes you can have like Monk1, Bard3, Fighter 8, Cleric2 or something like that. Now it does open up alot more options but I think it makes the classes and the resulting character less unique since now you can make a whole slew of jack of all trades. I'm currently in the Goblin Fortress of IWD2. Its going pretty good and I plan on finishing it but I was enjoying IWD1 more and it also took me alot longer to figure out my characters. Different strokes for different folks I guess. Anyways back to the stealth bug. Yea its not really a big deal since it also allows you to restealth right in clear sight of the monster. So yea there's a delay but you also don't have to break LOS. Not a bad trade really. Who knows maybe it was intended.

 

I didn't know that you could restealth in sight of monsters.
Could you go over then the new rules for using stealth? Do you have to be out of sight when you hit the stealth button, or do you have to be out of sight when the stealth kicks in, or does it completely ignore the presence of monsters, much like the shadowdancer's "hide in plain sight" in Neverwinter Nights?

I thought stealth worked the same in all the infinity Engine games. So, could you give the details on how you would use it differently from Baldur's Gate to take advantage of this fact?

 

Hey Slick,

Well normally in BG, BG2 you have to break line of sight to re-stealth. Example of this, of course, is to simply run around a corner real quick. With IWD, you hit stealth and it usually activated about 6 sec later. Sometimes its sooner, sometimes its later. Either way, you DON'T have to break line of sight. Its pretty awesome if ya think about it. Now I doubt that it was intended to work that way. So anyways this is what I do:

I'm in stealth and I move behind the a target and backstab it. I immediately pause the game and hit my stealth button. Unpause the game and simple run wherever you want to and you'll restealth. I've even ran circles around a monster restealthed right in its face. So it doesn't matter where you run too. Run away, run around in circles, etc...You'll eventually restealth regardless of whether there are monsters present or not. But once you restealth, the monsters will just go after your party anyways even if they're on the other side of the map. So you'll have to do your hit and run tactics while the monster is moving which is tougher but doable. There ya go man. Hide in Plain Sight to your hearts content.

 

Cool, I never noticed this. I think I might have to start a new game up after I finish the last term paper for my night school class. Between temp jobs and night school I haven't had much time for games lately, but I'm hoping getting a higher college degree will let me finally land my first permanent job in 3.5 years.