I’ve made plans for an extended stealth system, but doing it well relies on a lot of fundamental changes to systems already in place. And it was primarily in another thread, so I’ll describe the details again here:
I’d prefer to assume that characters are always trying to avoid detection unless dashing (which I’d also like to add) or shouting or otherwise explicitly trying to get attention. And some sort of stealth skill would primarily govern how conscientiously and effectively the character does so in the course of everyday moving around. (And thus would only really modify your chance of benefiting fully from any environmental conditions, without giving you any sort of real direct bonus - ultimately, the player would still need to make tactical choices).
A sneak “mode” like dashing would probably make some sense as well, but I feel like the actual mechanics of this in this sort of game wouldn’t work terribly well. I’d prefer it to be a hide option, where you can attempt to conceal yourself on your current square (hiding behind that pile of corpses), but it goes away when you attempt to move and reverts to your normal stealth skill.
This actually works well with the “attention and identifying” mechanics I wanted to add as well, since hiding behind something and then darting to another concealed place and waiting for a bit would be a valid strategy, since the checks would be every turn and every turn an enemy could see you their interest would increase until you were recognized as a valid target to pursue, while waiting in a place out of sight, smell, or sound detection would cause the interest level to drop.
(Lower levels of interest might still cause it to wander over to investigate, but it might decide not to bother before getting there or other critters or stimulation could accrue interest of their own and distract it)
I think a proper stealth system is first and foremost dependent on reworking vision, and working on object size and partial obstructions, though, both for players and monsters.
