Stealth

Stealth in Barony is a skill that governs a character's ability to hide from enemies and damage them with sneak attacks. Despite the relevant attribute for stealth being Dexterity, a player's dexterity score has no impact on their stealth skill. The only relationship is that training in stealth increases chances to gain bonus points of Dexterity on Level up.

## Skill Bonuses

Gaining levels in Stealth will improve your character's abilities in the following ways:

* Reduces the radius at which the player can be detected by enemies
* Increases the attack damage bonus from sneak attacks
* Increases the distance that the character can see while sneaking.

### Legend Bonus

By reaching level 100 in Stealth your character will become invisible while sneaking and their backstab damage bonus will be doubled.

## Advancement

Stealth Skill levels are granted with a certain probability based on player actions as detailed in the table below.

 Successfully backstabbing an enemy

## Mechanics

The player is able to initiate sneaking by pressing the SNEAK key (Space bar by default) when no item is equipped in the shield slot. Players may also sneak while carrying a quiver of arrows in the shield slot. Sneaking reduces the character's speed by 50% compared to walking normally. While sneaking, a small eye shaped crosshair will surround the player's normal crosshair, being replaced only by the bracket crosshair when looking at items with which the character can be interact.

### Visibility

Every character has a visibility measurement whether they are sneaking or not. This measurement determines whether enemies can see the character under any circumstances, whether sneaking or fighting, whether in bright light or complete darkness. Visibility is measured in a radius around the character and is measured in game units which are divided by 16 and displayed to the player in terms of "tiles". One tile in this context is equal to a single map block. The player may never have a visibility radius that is smaller than 32 units, or two tiles. Whenever "Units" are mentioned in this section they refer to this measurement of 1/16 of a tile.

Visibility is increased based on the light level at the character's location. This is influenced by any light source in the dungeon, whether the light is carried by the character, is emanating from a nearby torch or spell, or caused by a nearby creature being on fire. A character's visibility cannot be increased beyond 255. The following table shows various light sources and their effect on starting visibility.

Caption
 Being on fire | +5 tiles of visibility

There are two modes of visibility used in the game - the visibility of the character when being observed by a specific entity, and the visibility of the character when not being observed.

When being observed, the character's visibility radius is increased by four units for every point of perception the observer has. For example, if the observer has a perception score of 16, that would increase the character's visibility by 64 units, or four tiles. If the observer has a perception score of negative four, it would decrease the character's visibility by 16 units, or one tile.

Whether being observed or not, the character's visibility is further reduced by 50% if they are sneaking. Finally, the character's visibility is reduced by a certain percentage depending on their stealth skill, down to the minimum of 32 units. The formula for that calculation could be described this way:

# VisAfterStealth
VisBeforeStealth
×
(
1
−
Stealth

/

100
)
(
32
×
Stealth

/

100
)

{\displaystyle \text{VisAfterStealth}=\text{VisBeforeStealth}\times(1-\text{Stealth}/100)+(32\times\text{Stealth}/100)}

This calculation is performed after everything else, so no matter what influences there are on your visibility, your stealth skill will always bring your visibility down to 32 units (two tiles) if your skill level is at 100. This includes visibility effects from sources of light, meaning you can conceal lanterns and torches with stealth skill. Notably, with 100 stealth, your visibility will always be at the minimum 32 units even without sneaking.

## Trivia

* As of version 4.0.2.2023.09.22 it is possible to be less visible with 0 stealth skill if you are in complete darkness than if you have 100 stealth skill. Your minimum starting visibility is 1.5 tiles, or 24. Divide that by two, to get 12, apply the stealth skill which changes nothing. Versus starting visibility of 24, divide by 2 to get 12, apply the stealth skill to subtract negative 8.