Stealth Abilities and RP

[Whittledown]

Hey there folks, now that people have had some time to play their Rogues and Ninjas and such I thought I would ask a question about how you are playing the 'Stealth' aspect of things.

 

Anyone who plays a stealthy character or has interacted with such please provide your insight on how stealth works in interactions with other PC's who may perceive you.

 

I'm interested to hear what the community at large has to say about this topic.

[Warren Castille]

I, too, am looking forward to people's take on this. I personally would liken it to a more "blending" type skill a la Assassin's Creed rather than Ability-Based Invisibility but the rogue quests make it pretty accurate that's precisely how the skill works mechanically.

 

There's just something about perfect, undetectable stealth that rubs me the wrong way (as I'm sure you're all completely surprised to read). I am pleased to say that the one and so far only time someone's used Hide ICly, they went along with being discovered. It didn't help they were standing less than a foot away from two very prepared combat-based characters who noticed extra footsteps and depressions in the ground, but I was terribly worried it would get ugly.

[Gegenji]

I personally just use it as a way to "lurk" and observe other RPs, since my character is only using Ninja for its doofy run that I feel fits his character.

 

However, I have seen a couple instances of it being used in RP. One was an individual "counter-pickpocketing" another character who had lifted a gil pouch off someone. She basically just emoted what she was doing, dropped into stealth, walked over to the other person, emoted the actual counter-pickpocketing, and then walked back before de-stealthing. She used the usual non-committal descriptions to allow for the other player to react to it (which their deigned not to so as to be surprised and angry about the missing pouch instead), and it flowed pretty well.

 

The other way was someone stalking another character - which was actually the instance Warren alludes to above. They were first asked if they were actually stalking IC or just OOCly lurking, to avoid any confusion. Then one of the other participants - a miqo'te martial artist - emoted hearing the stalker's approach and kicked up a cloud of dust to try to reveal her. She assented via emote and an interesting conversation followed.

 

Overall, I'm of the feeling that you treat moving in stealth like any other potentially "offensive" (offensive in the combat sense, not "insulting" offensive) action and leave it nebulous enough to allow people to react to it accordingly. Basically, don't emote that you 100% snuck up on that Roe and stole everything but his smallclothes without him noticing and I think you should be fine. Even if the game "says" straight invisibility, I think working with it in this manner should avoid most issues.

[Zhavi]

Honestly, I rped Zhi as stealthy before rogue went live, so now that it's live .... I'll use the skill as a visual cue, but otherwise I'll keep rping her the same: she's sneaky, but if anyone looks in the right direction or smells her or uses other cues then she'll be caught.

 

 

...I should really get her to fifty and start leveling rogue.

 

/failure

[Coatleque]

If someone is cleverly hidden at the corner of a wall or behind crates or the like, and using stealth, then I will give them the benefit of the doubt and RP as if I didn't see them.

 

If someone is standing blatantly out in the open or right behind me, it's fair game at that point.

[Telluride]

Also, if your character reeks of dirt, booze, sweat, or worse, that could give you away.

 

Also, it's one thing to stay in a shady corner and remain unseen, but once you start moving, it's different.

 

To be honest, I tend to be suspicious of stealth-lurkers both IC and OOC, having seen way too many people use it for trolling and general asshattery in other games. If you intend to use a game ability as part of RP, you should be backing it up with proper emotes and respect for the other RPers in the area, or don't expect that your stealth will automatically be respected.

 

Because if you are invisible IC, then I get to have The Echo IC, and I can feel you coming. Too bad.

[Havoc Snow]

I think it's difficult to say. As far as fairness goes, I'd say that there needs to be a level of realism and ability to detect the person hiding, however we see in numerous cases where stealth is pretty much used to vanish into thin air.

 

For example:

 

 

At the end of the Rogue quest Jacke walks off and in the blink of an eye when a passerby obstructs your view for only a moment he vanishes without a trace. There are a few instances in the Ninja quest where we see stealth being used to basically become invisible, and then lastly there is the Man of Many Faces from the Hildibrand quest who is capable of vanishing completely with a snap of his fingers (often followed by a cloud of smoke).

 

 

All these things considered I'd say the game lore treats Hide as being a form of invisibility more or less. Think perhaps something akin to Prism Powder from FFXI, the Rogue/Ninja is capable of using Aether to bend light around them and turn them invisible, though perhaps to prevent being completely undetectable it would work similar to the cloaking device the Predator uses, causing the user to shimmer faintly when they move.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that there are some mobs immune to Hide, typically creatures that use non-visual methods of aggro, so it could easily be said that a keen sense of hearing or smell could defeat a skilled sneaker.

[Erik Mynhier]

I know Clio got her take from several RP ninjas, focusing the aether around her to bend the light. As the OP-check to this, she and others who do it this way state the concentration needed to maintain this is extremely high, and that any shock, even an unexpected loud noise can break the enchantment.

[Enteris]

I'd argue for the ability to lurk in the shadows exceedingly well as opposed to flat out invisibility. Or even the capability to blend in with the crowd like in Assassin's Creed as was mentioned. 

 

I'd be willing to accept the aetheric bending of light to a degree, so long as they agree to pretty much what was mentioned... that even the slightest disturbance would make it go away. In other words, no mystical voices on the wind or ability to stab or attack WHILE invisible. Moving, speaking or any other shock, as was said, would instantly drop the aetheric control, imo.

 

I, unfortunately, have already run into some RP where the people in question were in a fairly obvious position when they were stealthed and then acted as a voice on the wind. For the sake of continuing  on with the RP, I shrugged it off... but in a combat situation... I wouldn't let that fly. A rogue/ninja needs to be in the shadows, behind crates or other covering, or be entirely focused on controling their aetheric invisibility, imo. Otherwise it becomes a bit too unfair to their victims.

[Dasair]

I haven't actually played Rogue or Ninja in this game, but back in NWN I did play a character who, almost always, would run around invisible to avoid unwanted attention, as Invisibility was a particular spell in that game.  That said, there were a number of ways to counter it, some being spells that last a certain amount of time that directly allow one to see something hidden under Invisibility (aka 'True Seeing', 'See Invisibility', 'Glitterdust' which is kind of like the 'throwing up sand' thing that was mentioned, etc.), or if the person themselves made an 'aggressive' action while under Invisibility, the spell would break, and they'd be out in clear view again.  Certain proximities also gave it away; there would be a faint in-game sound if someone who was invisible walked by you, and they'd become faintly able to be seen around your character while they were there.  In addition, the spell would only last certain amounts of time, etc.  It had lots of counters, and even if none were being taken and my character was around someone being a creeper, I would often emote something nearby someone, and so forth in that vein.

 

Here in FFXIV, I don't know what countermeasures Hide has; if there are means of detection for  it or not.  But I would play it out most like what other people are saying.  Either ICly or OOCly make it known that you are present, yet hidden.  Potentially emote sounds, traces you've left behind, shifts in the air if someone is really close, and allow the other person to react if they'd notice or not.  Maybe they accidentally run into something, and cause it to move.  Or maybe they can't keep the ability up that long / that well, and people might see strange 'ripples' in the air where the person is, or something (if it's being treated more like Aetherical distortion than flat out hiding and sneaking).  Perhaps it even reacts to certain areas or situations, such as creating a strange 'smear' in the air if the person moves too quickly, or distorts the air around a person if they're in a place of high/low Aetherical potency.  I'd think that the 'restrictions' one can come up with would actually be quite a bit of fun.

 

But that's just how I'd handle it, and some of that is to say I don't know the exact lore of the action (yet) so I'm not sure if it's all plausible. Still, I wouldn't go about it as 'impervious invisibility' either.

[Mae]

I (still) RP a Thief in XI, and I play her Hide/Jig/Camouflage/Tonko (depending on her subjob) as being like the concept of optical camouflage -- she's not really invisible, she's using the associated elemental properties to 'bend' light around her to obscure her. The observant CAN see her when she's within a certain distance in full light because her presence creates a distortion and she still casts a shadow and leaves footprints. 

 

Like this:

[Edit: Or like Predators. And does disappear when in combat. Video clip was to illustrate the distortion effect]

 

Only when she's in shadows does the illusion begin to approach 'perfect' enough to avoid being visually detected by anyone who's not actively and specifically searching for her.

 

If I ever decide to RP rogue/ninja here, I'll probably adopt a similar stance.

 

More importantly for me, though, is how do people justify hearing/smelling someone who's hiding/being stealthy? For example, at what point does "superior Miqo'te/Elezen/Lalafell hearing" override "trained to move in near silence", or "keen sense of smell" allow someone to become alert to a stranger they've never met that's lurking on the far side of a room full of even more strangers?

[Antain]

Like Zhi (and a few others here), I've always played Vaughn as a "stealthy" sort. As in, he's just never noticed. He has been a spy for and on a few people wandering around the RPC (sorry!). I've also been blatantly RPing with people, and the next second, a random person walks up for RP and ignores Vaughn altogether.

 

Maybe he just doesn't really exist and is an imaginary friend for those I have managed to catch the attentions of....

[Knight Kat]

I'd argue for the ability to lurk in the shadows exceedingly well as opposed to flat out invisibility. Or even the capability to blend in with the crowd like in Assassin's Creed as was mentioned. 

 

I'd be willing to accept the aetheric bending of light to a degree, so long as they agree to pretty much what was mentioned... that even the slightest disturbance would make it go away. In other words, no mystical voices on the wind or ability to stab or attack WHILE invisible. Moving, speaking or any other shock, as was said, would instantly drop the aetheric control, imo.

 

I, unfortunately, have already run into some RP where the people in question were in a fairly obvious position when they were stealthed and then acted as a voice on the wind. For the sake of continuing  on with the RP, I shrugged it off... but in a combat situation... I wouldn't let that fly. A rogue/ninja needs to be in the shadows, behind crates or other covering, or be entirely focused on controling their aetheric invisibility, imo. Otherwise it becomes a bit too unfair to their victims.

 

^ This is my take on it too.

 

Also, some of this has already been stated, but there are many other ways to detect people.

 

1. Scent (Especially for Miqo'te).
   
2. Footprints, or effects of feet on the terrain.
   
3. The invisible body obstructing the breeze/wind.
   
4. Sounds of breathing, and/or movement; such as clothes, or feet meeting the ground (Especially for Elezen).
   

 

These would be minimized at a distance, but when the invisible person gets close, it gets easier for things to get noticed.

 

Another thing is, if a character can detect aether, and the stealth ability uses aether, they should be able to detect the aether-stealthed person. Then again, I am not familiar with lore on aether detection.

[Val]

Also, some of this has already been stated, but there are many other ways to detect people.

 

1. Scent (Especially for Miqo'te).
   
2. Footprints, or effects of feet on the terrain.
   
3. The invisible body obstructing the breeze/wind.
   
4. Sounds of breathing, and/or movement; such as clothes, or feet meeting the ground (Especially for Elezen).  
   

 

These would be minimized at a distance, but when the invisible person gets close, it gets easier for things to get noticed.

 

Another thing is, if a character can detect aether, and the stealth ability uses aether, they should be able to detect the aether-stealthed person. Then again, I am not familiar with lore on aether detection.

 

I pretty much agree with what's been stated, and this as well. There are many ways to detect people, so outright invisibility isn't going to work. If they do try to use some aetheric bending of the light, then it would cause a shimmer when the person moves so they'd have to remain perfectly still the entire time--and even then, I'd be very skeptical. Stealth works as a game mechanic, and that's strictly it. It does not make the person invisible. I don't mind using the animation to denote sneaking so long as the person realizes that they aren't 100% invisible.

[allgivenover]

This is another toughie that's liable to spark a ton of debate, and evidence for either extreme can be found in the dialogue and game mechanics, but here goes.

 

I don't accept that you could stand in front of someone and speak while remaining completely invisible otherwise. Here's why.

 

• V'kebbe tells you that being quiet and "skulking" is necessary for the hide to work. Once you're noticed that's it. We don't get to go back into hiding until everything that's noticed us is gone.
   
  
• She also says it's "part concealment, part distraction".
   
  
• The game itself forces you to slow down a great deal, and any action breaks it.
  

But there absolutely must be some aetheric component to it, a few reasons being:

 

• Many of the quests have you using hide to walk right under the noses of guards or thugs, and in many cases you're doing it in locations where there's barely any environment to blend into, for example the docks in Limsa Lominsa, and a boarding house in Aleport, both are brightly lit. No amount of non-magical skulking would get you by unnoticed in these situations.
   
  
• The game itself tells you to approach NPCs in the open with your hide ability "cloaking" you to eavesdrop on what they're saying. In all of these situations you are standing mere feet away from them, completely unnoticed.
   
  
• Jacke vanishes completely when someone walks in front of him at the end of the final Rogue quest. There's no crowd to blend in with, the environment is totally open and well-lit, and he does so in a half-second. This happens in a cutscene, so it's lore.
  

As always they don't give us enough to know how much is natural ability and how much is magical - in fact they don't allude to it being magical at all in dialogue, but the way it's used mechanically and portrayed in cut-scenes suggest it simply cannot be only physical, and seeing how there's no official word whatsoever on if we're supposed to be ignoring game mechanics to understand the lore or considering them we just have to take it at face value and make our own (hopefully reasonable) conclusions as we go.

 

My take on it lies somewhere between. It can't be totally non-magical, and it can't be complete magical invisibility either. In much the same way our characters are able to take blows that would kill a regular human, perform feats of strength that would be physically impossible (looking at you Lalafells) without magic, and you know cast magical spells, Rogues amplify their natural physical ability with aether. In this case it's skulking about unnoticed. How far you can push that magical component is up to you.

 

When I RP it with my alt I don't have her standing directly in front of people, and I have her move very slowly to avoid making any noise, but I also have her hiding in places that could not be done without some magical aid. In every case I give other characters a reasonable chance to detect her.

[Gegenji]

But there absolutely must be some aetheric component to it, a few reasons being:

 

• Many of the quests have you using hide to walk right under the noses of guards or thugs, and in many cases you're doing it in locations where there's barely any environment to blend into, for example the docks in Limsa Lominsa, and a boarding house in Aleport, both are brightly lit. No amount of non-magical skulking would get you by unnoticed in these situations.
   
  
• The game itself tells you to approach NPCs in the open with your hide ability "cloaking" you to eavesdrop on what they're saying. In all of these situations you are standing mere feet away from them, completely unnoticed.
   
  
• Jacke vanishes completely when someone walks in front of him at the end of the final Rogue quest. There's no crowd to blend in with, the environment is totally open and well-lit, and he does so in a half-second. This happens in a cutscene, so it's lore.
  

 

If I may provide counterpoints on these...

 

One of the things you need to keep in mind is that this is a mechanic designed to be used in an MMORPG game, not a stealth game. Things like using cover and generally being Solid Snake would require a lot of changes to the game to accommodate for them, so there will be concessions. Of course, they could've had the missions where you stealth having you move from "sneak point" to "sneak point" rather than walk blatantly out in the open, but hey.

 

However, that's a nerdy programmer way of looking at it (which I am, regrettably). So let's make this a little more creative.

 

It's a standard notion in the game that there is more to the cities and such that you're not seeing. So, it couldn't be that hard of a stretch that the docks and such would be loaded down with a lot more crates and potential cover than you're seeing in-game. After all, moving things by ship is kinda Limsa's main way to do trade. I would easily be able to re-imagine your sneaking in such situations to be much more physical in the aspect that you're doing the MGS-style sneaking from cover to cover. Even the boarding house has stuff you could use to stealth up on the kidnappers, with the noise you'd expect in a boarding house full of people to help cover your footsteps.

 

As for eavesdropping, that's really just a matter of getting close enough to overhear conversation. You can probably do this without even being able to turn invisible, since people do that in the Quicksand all the time! Substituting the straight stealth invisibility for "being sneaky" could also mean that you're just skulking up to overhear without being noticed for it.

 

And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

 

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

[allgivenover]

 

And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

 

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

 

 

That's cherry-picking. We have no way to do know what the devs intend us to consider lore worthy or simple game mechanics and given SE's treatment of it so far we're unlikely to ever get an official word on it. 

Even so, if we strip out the mechanics entirely there's still the scene with Jacke, that alone is reason enough to discard the notion that it's not magical in the slightest.

 

I'm a software engineer too, but I don't see how that gives me or anyone authority on this.

[Val]

This is another toughie that's liable to spark a ton of debate, and evidence for either extreme can be found in the dialogue and game mechanics, but here goes.

 

I don't accept that you could stand in front of someone and speak while remaining completely invisible otherwise. Here's why.

 

• V'kebbe tells you that being quiet and "skulking" is necessary for the hide to work. Once you're noticed that's it. We don't get to go back into hiding until everything that's noticed us is gone.
   
  
• She also says it's "part concealment, part distraction".
   
  
• The game itself forces you to slow down a great deal, and any action breaks it.
  

But there absolutely must be some aetheric component to it, a few reasons being:

 

• Many of the quests have you using hide to walk right under the noses of guards or thugs, and in many cases you're doing it in locations where there's barely any environment to blend into, for example the docks in Limsa Lominsa, and a boarding house in Aleport, both are brightly lit. No amount of non-magical skulking would get you by unnoticed in these situations.
   
  
• The game itself tells you to approach NPCs in the open with your hide ability "cloaking" you to eavesdrop on what they're saying. In all of these situations you are standing mere feet away from them, completely unnoticed.
   
  
• Jacke vanishes completely when someone walks in front of him at the end of the final Rogue quest. There's no crowd to blend in with, the environment is totally open and well-lit, and he does so in a half-second. This happens in a cutscene, so it's lore.
  

As always they don't give us enough to know how much is natural ability and how much is magical - in fact they don't allude to it being magical at all in dialogue, but the way it's used mechanically and portrayed in cut-scenes suggest it simply cannot be only physical, and seeing how there's no official word whatsoever on if we're supposed to be ignoring game mechanics to understand the lore or considering them we just have to take it at face value and make our own (hopefully reasonable) conclusions as we go.

 

My take on it lies somewhere between. It can't be totally non-magical, and it can't be complete magical invisibility either. In much the same way our characters are able to take blows that would kill a regular human, perform feats of strength that would be physically impossible (looking at you Lalafells) without magic, and you know cast magical spells, Rogues amplify their natural physical ability with aether. In this case it's skulking about unnoticed. How far you can push that magical component is up to you.

 

When I RP it with my alt I don't have her standing directly in front of people, and I have her move very slowly to avoid making any noise, but I also have her hiding in places that could not be done without some magical aid. In every case I give other characters a reasonable chance to detect her.

 

The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

[allgivenover]

The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

 

That's the thing, we don't get to decide what's "just game mechanics" and what isn't. We could debate until we're both blue in the face about what counts as lore and what counts as just a mechanic, and we'd both be cherry-picking.

 

It doesn't matter anyway, even if we discard all mechanics evidence the scene with Jacke at the end is enough.

[Gegenji]

 

And on the subject of Jacke, I wouldn't put too much stock into that cutscene counting as straight lore. It's a literary device (slipping into nerd again, augh!) oft-used to show sneaky thief/ninja types moving away faster than the eye can follow. It's a "badass" establishing shot; he didn't turn an invisible through Stealth, he's just straight up gone. Same with the Ninja you come across.

 

Basically, while you CAN make an argument that aether must be being used, it's just as easy to be able to explain away how you can do it without.

 

 

That's cherry-picking. We have no way to do know what the devs intend us to consider lore worthy or simple game mechanics and given SE's treatment of it so far we're unlikely to ever get an official word on it. 

Even so, if we strip out the mechanics entirely there's still the scene with Jacke, that alone is reason enough to discard the notion that it's not magical in the slightest.

 

I'm a software engineer too, but I don't see how that gives me or anyone authority on this.

 

So because the super-awesome thief that obviously has mad skills disappears in the brief moment of distraction caused by someone walking between the MC and him, it has to be aetheric? I'm not saying it's not - far from it - I'm just saying that you could explain it as him just having agility and speed beyond most normal folks, which is fitting to what is supposed to be the best Rogue ever (considering he's leading the entire Rogue's Guild). I'm basically arguing that there doesn't "have" to be an aetheric component to it like you posited. I'm basically just nitpicking your usage of "absolutely must" and providing a non-aetheric alternative to explain why it doesn't.

 

And, I should probably note, I'm not using my programming knowledge as a source of authority. I just mentioned it because of a deep-seated need to explain why I jumped to that answer first and foremost. Just like that guy from Ancient Aliens always jumps to "I'm not saying it's aliens, but ALIENS." :blush:

[Val]

The majority of what you've listed here are just game mechanics. Hide suddenly doesn't work anymore in level 50 dungeons because game mechanics. The creatures don't have any super special ability to suddenly see it. People simply shouldn't be able to hide in the open.

 

That's the thing, we don't get to decide what's "just game mechanics" and what isn't. We could debate until we're both blue in the face about what counts as lore and what counts as just a mechanic, and we'd both be cherry-picking.

 

It doesn't matter anyway, even if we discard all mechanics evidence the scene with Jacke at the end is enough.

 

I think it's pretty obvious what is and isn't game mechanics. I feel that deciding not to say something is a game mechanic is little more than accepted ignorance just to justify playing it a way that someone wants to play it. 

 

And SE has on more than one occasion came up with some dumb reason to have a game mechanic work a specific way. Even then, Jacke isn't your character. The character you play in the story and the NPCs you encounter are super special powerful people. Our PCs simply aren't. 

 

And, as someone else already said, it's little more than a literary device--a very, VERY obvious one. If we go with that logic, I guess Val can ninja flip everywhere and defy physics entirely because Thancred did in a cutscene earlier.

[allgivenover]

I think it's pretty obvious what is and isn't game mechanics.

 

We're just going to have to agree to disagree because what is "obvious" to you may be ambiguous to someone else. It's not as if I'm going to step into your RP and correct you over it, and really in the grand scheme of RP people get away with far worse than a stealth ability that's greater than it could be in real life.

[Iex]

I would say this thread is very similar to the thread about how far can you take 'because aether' or discussion of Dragoon abilities. As some folks said before, as far as you like depending on the narrative. Val could be able to do flips and what not all he wants if he used aether to enhance his physical ability (see the lalafell bros throwing people) or... he could not depending on what Val's player wants.

 

When you RP with other folks you just need to work with them on what they think will work. Maybe someone can use the aether to make themselves less noticeable all the way to invisible... or maybe they are just good at blending in to the environment or sometimes it is just easier to BS the whole thing and merely have the character unnoticed rather than trying to explain it.

 

The ending Rogue quest scene was a dramatic flair that is used ALL the time when a character needs to disappear. Frankly if you look too into it... you can start asking yourself did any of this actually happen, have I just gone mad?

 

However, if we apply realism too much to a world with some sort of trait that makes it supernatural (aether in FFXIV) it starts making things tricky. A Roegadyn Rogue or Ninja starts to seem silly, a Lalafell Warrior or Paladin seems unwise, and Dragoons start becoming red pancakes or you just see them jumping up and down (with the amount of armor probably only a foot up) trying to poke Dragon's bellies as they swoop down. (Not to mention how can dragons fly much less hover.)

[Blue]

Personally I am a bit confused at how much negativity there is about aether and its uses in Eorzea. Surely there are people who do not want to be magic users, but we have to remember that aether is not simply "a magic substance". It's the prime matter of all things.

 

In a real-world aspect, it's the equivalent of atoms. While we do not have mental control on them, we already have the ability through our technology to manipulate atoms and do both great and terrific things with them. But do we call that "magic"?

 

The way I see it, Eorzea is a world in which a percentage of its inhabitants can, through training and study (or technology, if we look at Garleans), have control on atomic physics and the way they work (and thus manipulating their laws too, such as in the case of dragoon jumps or white mages floating during Holy). That's what aether is to me.

 

While it is perfectly okay to RP not having this kind of control on aether, I feel it should be reasonable to use it as a justification to things that are not possible to common people who do not exploit aetheric control. Much how in modern days we use physics and chemistry to explain what we cannot normally do on our own.

 

Everything else, that we label with all kinds of words such as miracles and supernatural phenomena should be much much rarer in the world than a rogue using Hide.

 

I am losing my own thread in all what I'm trying to say, but the main point is: to me, things explained through aether control are legit enough and not necessarily requiring magic powers.

[Gegenji]

I am losing my own thread in all what I'm trying to say, but the main point is: to me, things explained through aether control are legit enough and not necessarily requiring magic powers.

 

I agree, there are plenty of things that you can just use aether as explanation. I just like to think it doesn't have to be the only explanation. Well, minus stuff like actually casting magic - which is explicitly stated as using aether and such. It's only when people just haphazardly peg "aether" as an answer, or assume it's the only way something could work when alternatives exist... that's when it starts to bother me.

 

... I hope that makes sense. :blush: