how crucial is dark stalker to a stealth build?

[CyberThread]

Just curious, how many folks view darkstalker as essential to a stealth build?

[Silva Stormrage]

100% Critical unless in a campaign in which you rarely fight monsters (Such as an urban campaign). And then it pretty much required but not necessarily as soon as possible.

[Nerd-o-rama]

If you're focusing your whole character build around stealth and are might be sneaking past anything with Blindsense, Tremorsense, Blidsight, etc., spend the feat on it.

It's no fun to have that many things that can completely negate your main ability with no roll; if you wanted that you should probably play a fighter.

[Techwarrior]

Lemme give you an example of why it's such a big deal from one of my actual campaigns.

The party is going to a meet with one of the big bads henchman, a level 4 ranger with a wolf companion. The henchman has tied up several innocents as insurance.

The party sneak, a 3rd level Scout, attempts to sneak past the ranger and his wolf and rescue the innocents. However, the wolf has scent. With darkstalker, he must defeat their skill rolls. Otherwise, his skill points are worthless.

[tadkins]

Pretty much mandatory for any character with even the slightest inclination toward stealth I believe.

[Chronos]

There are usually other ways to get the same effect. That ranger with a pet wolf, for instance, could be defeated using a wand of Hide from Animals (which works against all senses). Tremorsense is defeated by not being in contact with the ground. Some forms of blindsight or blindsense are negated by a Silence spell (again, presumably from a wand), and so on. So if your DM won't allow Darkstalker, it's still possible to stealth.

That said, though, it's a real pain to have to do that for everything, and there are some forms that don't have those workarounds. So if your DM does allow it, you should pretty much always take it.

[OldTrees1]

Does your DM want to include creatures with special senses?
Does your group want the "Perfect Sight" to trump "Perfect Hide"?

(Yes, Yes):
Darkstalker is not required unless the DM wants to include Mindsight/Lifesight/Touchsight as superior to Tremorsense/Blindsense/Blindsight.

(Yes, No):
Darkstalker and possibly anti Mindsight/Lifesight/Touchsight is necessary.

(No, Yes) OR (No, No):
Darkstalker is not necessary.


I prefer to play Rogues in the (Yes, No) groups. Thus Darkstalker is necessary.


Most groups I suspect are (Yes, Yes) groups but want M/L/T to be superior to T/B/B. Thus Darkstalker is necessary since T/B/B are not "Perfect Eyes" meant to trump stealth. Rather T/B/B are meant to separate the novice scout from the legendary scout.

[eggynack]

I'd say that it's nearly strictly necessary. Enemies with these vision modes aren't all that uncommon, and enemies without these vision modes won't be all that hard-pressed to get them. As Chronos notes, there're methods of overcoming some of these vision modes, but they're simultaneously less consistent and more costly.

[Emperor Tippy]

Pretty much entirely necessary.

Yeah you can work around Darkstalker's absence with magic but that either forces you into a caster build or costs you tons of gold and is (even then) generally strictly worse than Darkstalker.

Even with Darkstalker you are still pretty screwed against Mindsight but at least that makes it from "over half the monsters published can detect you without a roll" to "only creatures with telepathy" can detect you without a roll.

[Piggy Knowles]

In the SRD alone, not counting epic or psionic monsters, there are...


125 monsters with blindsense,
15 monsters with blindsight,
132 monsters with scent,
27 monsters with tremorsense.


This is with NO doubling up - if a monster had multiple abilities, I only counted the one with the greater range. That's 299 monsters total that present a hard counter to stealth. That's 299 monsters who, without requiring spells, items or special abilities, can just say LOLNO to anyone who wants to pretend at being a sneak. (To compare, there are only 281 monsters who don't have such senses, so assuming an even distribution of encounters, that's more than 50% of all encounters.)

Yes, if you don't have Darkstalker, you can try to fake it in other ways, most of them involving magic. But that requires preparation and resources that you may not have, and some degree of foreknowledge of what you're facing (which is often not true for a scout - that's the whole reason you're scouting most of the time, after all!).

Darkstalker is the single most important feat for any character that relies on stealth and isn't spending most of his or her time on the ethereal plane. I take it at level one when I can.

(If anyone is interested, here (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Am8aHMxh9PPJdHRxWlpqVkpnZzZxSUxDYk1YMVc0X 2c&usp=sharing) is the spreadsheet that I made breaking down enemies with alternate senses by CR.)