Carpe noctem, an (out-of-date) guide to Hiding on Requiem
Eden is a world full of perils, horrors and unpleasant circumstances. Some decide to tackle them head on while others may be more inclined to find an alternative. Hiding and Stealth skills that we know from OSI are here combined into a single skill which allow players to tailor it to their needs. Requiem is first and foremost a Roleplaying shard and this applies heavily on the use of Hiding skill. While there are not many mechanical limitations placed upon the use of the skill, it is generally frowned upon to use it unrealistically. It is perfectly understandable for a character to “disappear” in the crowd or in a thick forest, but you cannot keep running stealthed around people in an open field and expect them to be ok with it. It is pretty common sense. Hiding is countered by Perception skill.
Main Skill, its Perks and Supporting skills
Hiding is a straight forward skill, initialized by the [hiding command. The success of the action is governed by your skill, equipment you are wearing and the environment; time of day, objects and mobiles in the vicinity, number and proximity to light sources and luck.Hiding also has an internal timer of approximately 10 seconds between hiding attempts.
Majority of the abilities deal with the act of stealthing (moving while hidden). At 50% skill, you are able to buy Stealthing ability which allows you to active [stealth after a successful hiding attempt. You are granted several steps after which you will be forced to use [stealth command again if you wish to remain hidden. Wearing any sort of armor will greatly impair your chances to successfully walk around hidden. Running also counts as “double” steps and should be avoided at the skill level. At 70% skill, the Master Of Shadows ability becomes available and allows for automatic use of [stealth command after you successfully hide yourself and when another check is up after a certain amount of steps are taken. At this point, you should be able to walk around stealthed with ease without armor. Finally, at 100% skill, Stealth Expertise becomes available which greatly increases the initial steps granted and allows for easy running while stealthed. It also displays the number of remaining steps in the journal (which can be toggled off using [ToggleStealthMessages command).
Several abilities increase the ease of stealthing in certain situations: Nightstalker perks allow for easier stealthing at night, Cloak Of Darkness allows for easier hiding close to the light sources and Armored Stealth perks grant the ability to walk around armored (it eliminates the armor penalty when using light armors at Rank III).
Hiding Grandmastery is used primarily to counter Perception skill and improve combat abilities that are based on your stealth “steps”.
Getting started
You can start training Hiding right away with [hiding command. The skill gain is slow but you can easily incorporate it into your gameplay. At higher skill% (90+) it is necessary to utilize stealth and armor in order to increase the difficulty of the skill gain checks.