Stealth (skill)

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

This page refers to the Stealth skill. For the stat and mechanic, see stealth.

The Stealth skill is a representation of how well your character understands the art of moving silently. Until your adventurer blunders into the Dungeon and starts killing everything, most monsters spend their time sleeping or wandering about peacefully. Stealth decreases the chance that you are detected, increases the power of stabbing unweary monsters, and increases the effectiveness of some status-inflicting darts.

For every point of stealth, you gain 15 stealth score. Note that there's many other factors in determining stealth score, such as armour, size, and dexterity. This score is used for detection, but not stabs or darts. Stealth skill (not score) is also directly used to open doors; each time you open a door, the chance of it making noise is 1 / ( (4/3 * Stealth) + 8 ).

Aptitudes

At	Ba	Co	DE	Dg	Ds	Dj	Dr	Fe	Fo	Gr	Gh	Gn	Hu	Ko	Mf	Mi	MD	Mu	Na	Op	On	Sp	Te	Tr	Vp	VS
2	0	-1	3	0	0	-1	0	4	3	2	2	8	1	4	2	-1	-2	-1	5	4	-2	5	1	-5	5	3

Strategy

In Crawl, Stealth is generally poor as your "main" offensive skill. If stabbing is the only way you can kill things, and the enemy wakes up, then you have a problem. You'll need a way to kill awake monsters. But, if you have a way to kill awake monsters, stealth becomes superfluous. If you have a way to stab awake foes (Hexes, Petrify, Uskayaw, etc.), though, then "hex stabber" stealth can be a good way to deal with monsters.

Instead, stealth is often used as a defensive skill. It can help you avoid dangerous monsters, such as Sigmund, orc priests and centaurs. If you've been shafted, stealth can help you avoid encounters on the way back up.

Armour encumbrance reduces stealth score by a flat amount. Plate armour reduces it by -214, equal to 14.4 levels of Stealth skill, so its hard for heavy melee brutes to benefit at all from stealth.

History

• Prior to 0.12, stealth skill trained at 80% the XP cost. To compensate, this version raised all non-Naga aptitudes by one.