Stealth Wars

INTRODUCTION: Imagine, you’re sitting in the dark corner there, waiting for that lone bandit to turn his back. You quietly sneak up on him from behind, weapon readied for striking death. As you take a couple of silent steps, something catches your eye to the left of you, a faint glimmer of metal upon light, but nothing is there. Could one of those assassins have found you again? No way. Going back to what you were doing, you make your strike, ending the bandit’s foul life, and stand up with a smile over your successful sneak attack. Then suddenly from the left, a sword’s blade is swung at you from out of nowhere. . . .

DESCRIPTION: After reading through Reneer's Sneak Mod I got to reminiscing about my days with the MMORPG Dark Ages of Camelot (DAoC) and the stealth wars that would occur there with stealthy players. Reneer's mod adds an element of surprise by making NPCs have a sort of invisibility to them if your sneak skill was below theirs. Anyways, in DAoC while an assassin was on the prowl hunting or setting up an attack on an unsuspecting player, there was always the chance that another stealther was nearby, possibly hunting you, or after seeing you attack someone while they were waiting, ambush the ambusher (so to speak).

While it would be hard to completely recreate that experience, this mod seeks to do so as much as it can. There are a total of 15 different assassins, all of which have unique armor and weaponry, all who have only one goal . . . to kill you. They will track and hunt you down and catch you off guard quite often. They will be quite a challenge at any level, so be prepared for some rough fights. There will also be a chance for more than one to appear, even up to four a time, but just one of these guys will be more than enough. Further, there is even a chance that they will have back up hidden from your sight that will attack you when you least expect it. You may even want a companion with you at times. Depending on your stealth skill, you may see them coming and you can hide from their sights and try to get the jump on them instead. If they have a greater stealth skill than you, you will not see them coming, but don’t fret because their skill will vary at times. Sometimes their sneak level will be higher, other times it’ll be much lower. Why? Because sometimes an assassin can mess up and reveal his/her position.

Obviously, having permanent or long term life detection on all the time would spoil the fun in being caught by surprise when the assassins attempt to get the jump on you. I would discourage you from using such enchantments, but it also wouldn’t be a bad idea to use a temporary spell every so often if you think you’re about to be attacked.

To start the mod, seek out Artueus in the Imperial City Talos Plaza. If you can’t find him, he should seek you out after a few minutes of being there.

Also, as a warning,