Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

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Darklocq
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Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

Post by Darklocq »

Do we know the effects of these stats on NPCs? What I know, surmise, and wonder so far:

1. Acrobatics set low will result in companions getting killed accidentally from stupid stuff like stepping off siltstrider platforms, or jumping down to fight an enemy (they seem to believe they can survive any fall that you can).
1A. Setting it to 200 (probably lower, maybe around 125) appears to prevent them from ever taking fall damage.
1B. This cannot help creature companions, since they do not have this stat. We know from observation that even Daedra can die from rather short falls, and it might be worth implementing for creatures, or handled some other way, like a new and markedly reduced fall-damage calculation for non-humanoids. Could be considered a realism fix, since real-world predator and prey animals, on average, are way better at jumping down slopes and stuff than humans are; our skeletons are very poorly designed for this, and we get severe ankle and knee damage from things a lion or antelope wouldn't even notice.
1C. Acrobatics doesn't seem to have an effect on NPC combat.
1D. The fall physics should also eventually factor in mass. E.g., a real-world house cat can frequently survive a 10-storey fall without even broken legs (though usually a cracked rib or two) because of its light weight and its flexible skeleton. If you dropped a rhino from even just 1.5 times its height, the impact would likely be fatal, from its huge but not magically tough internal organs slamming against its ribcage. For in-game stuff, a tiny Bosmer should take less damage than a bulky Nord from a fall.

2. Security: Alleged to make pickpocketing, lock-picking, and or even all sneaking in front of NPCs more difficult to get away with.
2B. I don't know if this has been tested.
2C. Aside from custom-scripted thief companions who can attempt to pick locks for you, this seems to have no other effect on NPCs (if even that effect). Some vanilla guards have a non-trivial amount of this skill, but at least one of them lacks it, one of various Bethesda consistency bugs.
2D. Regular NPCs with high Security cannot open doors with even a 1-point Lock on them (scripted or by player spell), even if they have a lock pick or an Open spell. This is a game-mechanics bug that should be fixed at some point, since it's exploitable to thwart pursuit by humanoid enemies (e.g. in bandit/smugger caves).

3. Sneak: Doesn't seem to have an effect.
3A. Does it make it harder to sneak in front of them if they have high Sneak of their own?
3B. Does a low Sneak on a companion harm the player's Sneak chances when the companion is in follow mode and also sneaking?
3C. Does a companion in follow mod, who is not scripted to sneak along with the player, harm the player's Sneak chances?

4. Enchant: Doesn't seem to have an effect.
4A. Does it affect their use of magic items, such as on-strike weapons, and on-target or on-touch gear? E.g. are they more apt to get higher damage or other results in a range (5–30 or whatever) based on how high their Enchant is?
4B. Aren't they supposed to be able to use on-use items? In tests so far, they never appear to do so in OpenMW, unless specially scripted to use a particular item in some way. You can give them badass on-use gear and they just don't realize it's magical.
4C. If that were fixed, would high Enchant have any effect on their use of such items?
4D. Even Enchanter-class NPCs sometimes have low Enchant, seemingly without effect, and this is possibly a game mechanics bug to address some day, though it's fairly cosmetic.

5. Armorer: Doesn't seem to have an effect, though many fighters (e.g. Guards of various factions) have some skill in it.
5A. Does it actually affect something, like rate of item disrepair?
5B. Are NPCs actually supposed to be able to fix their own gear?
5C. Even some Smith-class NPCs have low Armorer, seemingly without effect on their service, another cosmetic mechanics bug.

6. Marksman: Does appear to matter.
6A. It at least affects likelihood of hitting with a missile.
6B. Does high Marksman increase likelihood of higher damage from a range of missile and/or bow damage?
6C. Companion mods often temporarily increase Marksman to 200 if you put the NPC into "use your Marksman weapons" mode, to force them to equip missile weapons even if they have a great melee weapon. This would appear to be an inadvertent unbalancing cheat because of at least 6A and possibly also 6B.
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DestinedToDie
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Re: Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

Post by DestinedToDie »

In terms of seemingly useless skills on NPCs such as sneak and armor, I think it's mostly there in case they are a trainer. Not having it part of NPC class skills would make training impossible, so I guess that's why NPCs can have skills mechanically useless to themselves?

NPCs should definitely use cast on use items. I don't know if they're actually enabled to do so in OpenMW. Maybe they are, but the priority on actions just sets it so low that you never see them use them?
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akortunov
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Re: Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

Post by akortunov »

DestinedToDie wrote: 11 Mar 2018, 10:50I don't know if they're actually enabled to do so in OpenMW. Maybe they are, but the priority on actions just sets it so low that you never see them use them?
Yes, they use such items (the same combat priority formula as for spells).

About skills:
1. Acrobatics - useless at combat
2. Security - affects only lockpicking ant trap disarming, so useless for NPCs
4. Enchant - affects only cost of encanted items usage.
5. Armorer - affects only self-repairing, so useless for NPCs.
6. Marksman affects only to-hit rolls (chance to hit a target).
Not sure about Sneak for companions.
LoneWolf
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Re: Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

Post by LoneWolf »

Sneak: Doesn't seem to have an effect.
3A. Does it make it harder to sneak in front of them if they have high Sneak of their own
One of the mods i use, "the hostiles" adds npcs to interiors that already have npcs (caves, tombs etc ), often doubling the number of npcs i encounter.
The npcs that do detect me while sneaking are of classes that have sneak as a major skill like agents and nightblades.

npc battlemages, mages , sorcerers and other classes that have sneak as misc skill almost never detect me.
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akortunov
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Re: Effects on NPCs of Sneak, Security, Acrobatics, Enchant, and Armorer

Post by akortunov »

LoneWolf wrote: 20 Mar 2018, 01:31The npcs that do detect me while sneaking are of classes that have sneak as a major skill like agents and nightblades.
npc battlemages, mages , sorcerers and other classes that have sneak as misc skill almost never detect me.
Yes, Sneak skill affects ability to detect hidden player (awareness check) or pickpocketing.
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