Sneak (skill)

Skill

The "Sneak" skill allows you to move unnoticed by enemies or to attack them from ambush, suddenly and deadly.

* Each invested skill point makes you harder to be noticed or heard.
* With each skill level a chance to deal critical damage to an enemy who hasn`t seen you is increased by 5%. It also helps you to shut down alarm systems.

## Usage

Enemies can be completely avoided if they never notice you. This can be used to scout out entire areas for loot without getting hurt, damaging armor and weapons or using up ammo. Experience can be gained by collecting horseshoes and getting a "sneak bonus" - if you collect all 5 horseshoes in a room and no enemy spots you, you receive experience bonus equal to the sum of experience that you would've gained by killing all enemies. After receiving sneak bonus you won't get any more experience from killing enemies in that room.

When you first enter a room, you get several seconds where no enemy will notice you at all unless you make loud noise like firing your weapon. Afterwards a variety of things will alert enemies to your presence. Certain things will alert enemies more then others. They include:

* Being in an enemy's line of sight.
* Shooting a weapon or casting an offensive spell.
* Dealing damage, even with a melee weapon. Enemies killed in a single attack will not be alerted.
* Detonating an explosive.
* Telekinetically moving objects in their line of sight.
* Triggering an alarm or can trail trap.
* Breaking walls or doors.
* Causing objects to fall, worse with heavier objects and greater distance.
* Running.

Enemies will become suspicious if they are alerted a little, moving around more often and jumping when needed. If they are alerted more they will become alarmed, moving quickly and triggering any alarm buttons they pass by. If your stealth is broken and they can see you, they will become hostile and attack.

As long as nothing is looking at you, having your stealth be broken will not cause enemies to notice you and become hostile, however they may become suspicious or alarmed from the noise instead. After some time, enemies will calm down from being alarmed or suspicious, even after spotting you and becoming hostile.

Warning: Bosses will always be able to spot you and will always be hostile to you, even with 100% stealth.

### Increasing stealth

Besides increasing your sneak skill, there are a variety of ways to make it harder for enemies to see you:

* Equipping armor and amulets that boost stealth.
* Using a stealthbuck or potion of shadows.
* Obtaining equipment that passively boost stealth.
* Hiding in holes in the wall, or behind furniture and boxes.
* Crouching down with the [S] key.

### Stealth indicator

When using any equipment that actively boosts your stealth (armor, amulet, stealthbuck) you will get an indicator above your head. This shows you how close you are to having your stealth broken and being noticed. A red X will indicate when your stealth has been broken.

### Shutting down alarms

The sneak skill will allow you to shut down alarms protecting doors, safes and security systems as well as can trail alarms. Higher levels mean you have a better chance of shutting them down.

Moving your mouse over a protected object will give you the prompt to shut it down. ([E] hold - shut down) Depending on your skill level and the level of the alarm, the difficulty will vary. Difficulty ranges from easy, average (no difficulty rating), hard, very hard and unreal. Alarms that are hard or tougher have a chance to accidentally trigger, alerting all enemies in the room and calling in reinforcements (If they haven't already been called in).

Can trail alarms have a skill level that must be achieved, otherwise they cannot be disarmed at all.

## Perks

There are several perks that are associated with sneak:

* Bullet dodger 1/2/3 (Sneak 1/3/5): Increases your evasion by 15% per level.
* Jumper (Level 8, Sneak 3): Increases your maximum jump height by half a block.
* Light step (Level 12, Sneak 4, Explosives 2): You never activate traps or pressure plates, and enemy mines are triggered with a delay.

## Sneak alternatives

There are several ways to avoid having to sneak around:

* Telekinesis: Master of telekinesis perk allows you to move things around even when they're not in your line of sight, and therefore, not in theirs. You can also disarm ceiling turrets and move away other enemies to avoid being spotted.
* Melee weapons/Firearms/Energy weapons/Explosives/Magic: Simply put, don't. Just shoot, stab and blow up everything in your path. Mines may still be used to take out enemies without being spotted.
* Lockpicking/Science: The ability to lockpick doors and hack terminals will give you more freedom to go where you want, reducing the need to sneak past enemies. Additionally with the Security expert perk you can hack turrets to fight for you, killing off those that may spot you.
* Survival: The potion of shadows can be used to give you perfect stealth at the cost of the ability to attack, telekinetically move objects or break walls.