So that is Esther. I’ve already explained how Grappling works, and she will use it a lot, but I haven’t explained how hiding in the shadows (Stealth) works, and she will do this just as often.

Every environment has a light righting from 1-20. One is complete darkness. Five is candlelight. Ten is dawn or dusk. Fifteen is indirect sunlight or a room lit by several lamps. Twenty is direct sunlight at noon. The environment’s lighting must be ten or less to hide in the shadows. You also can’t be in someone’s direct line of sight, or at least not the person you are hiding from. If they can see you plainly, you can’t hide from them.

The one exception to this is invisibility. If you cast the Invisibility spell, it acts as if you’ve just successfully hidden in the shadows. Basically, the spell increases your Stealth skill and puts you in the shadows. Most spells increase a skill for a certain length of time. If you want to have the boost for more than one round, you have to pay the mana cost twice and then pay for the time at five mana per round. There is also a burst spell. This will improve your skill for one round and then go away.

Esther’s burst invisibility spell costs 50 mana and increases her Stealth score by 10 for one round. Another way to look at it is that it decreases the light around her by ten and puts her in the shadows. This means that even if the light score is 20 outside, she can cast a burst invisibility spell, effectively reduce the light around her to 10, and then hide in the shadows. Once the round is over, she can stay in the shadows using her normal Stealth skill.

Esther’s Stealth skill at Level 9 is 33. If someone wants to see her, they take their Perception score, add it to the light rating of the environment, and roll a D20. Jace has a perception of -1. If he wanted to see Esther moving about in broad daylight (20), he would have to roll a 14 or better. When she hid from him in her room in the Gilded Swan, the light score was at seven. A roll of 20 would have been 26; her Stealth score at that moment, without the equipment Jace ended up giving her, was 29, so only the fact that a 20 was a critical would have allowed Jace to see her.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

If someone knows you are there, they can make a perception check every round to try and see you. If you are sneaking up on a guard trained to look out for intruders, the guard will get one free perception check when you enter his field of vision. If he critically fails, he will not look for you again unless you make a sound or alert him in another way. If he fails, but it is not critical, he will keep looking each round until he sees you or fails critically. If you are sneaking up on someone who is distracted or not keeping guard and the difference between your stealth and their potential check (Perception + Light) is greater than 10, they will not get a free check unless you make a sound.

I will introduce what I call True Sight devices into the story soon. They magically decrease everyone’s Stealth Skill by 20. Sometimes these items are lights in a room that raise the light level. Other times they are spheres that operate at night that magically make the shadows disappear without changing the light level. In the end, the effect is the same, and they give everyone looking for the rogue +20 to their perception. It is possible to memorize a burst invisibility spell that increases your stealth by 30 and still successfully hide in the shadows for one round, but after that round, you would be reliant on your Stealth skill and would be found quickly. Enemies in a group will share senses, so if one of them sees you, they all see you. Raising a skill by 30 costs 150 mana. If you wanted it to last for two rounds only, it would cost 310, which is a bit expensive when a 50-mana spell will work 90% of the time.