Ultima Online Stealth - the step table, the armour rule, and the four tiles that decide everything

The step table

This is the number people actually want, and uo.com prints the whole table. Each successful stealth check buys you a run of steps; when they are used up, the next check happens.

Stealth skill	Max steps	Stealth skill	Max steps
10	2	70	14
20	4	80	16
30	6	90	18
40	8	100	20
50	10	110	22
60	12	120	24

Put as a rule: one extra step per 5 skill points [!], so 80 Stealth gives 16 safe steps per successful check. That matches uo.com’s table at every sampled point.

[!] uo.com prints the table at ten-point intervals only, so step counts at values like 85 or 115 are not directly published. The per-5 rule implies them; the table above is what is actually stated.

Running costs half of it. uo.com: “Running while stealthing is possible, but only half the number of steps as you can walk and you will become visible when you run out of steps.”

[!] A harsher, unpublished reading exists. It says running halves the safe steps and always fails the stealth check afterwards. On uo.com’s reading you get a normal check when the shortened allowance runs out; on the harsher one you are guaranteed to be revealed. uo.com does not confirm the harsher one. In practice, plan a closing sprint as though the harsher reading is right.

Armour is both the penalty and the training lever

Stealth is the only skill in this group where what you wear changes whether it works. uo.com’s statements, in order:

• “The difficulty being created by the armor you are wearing, the heavier the armor, the harder it is to use Stealth.”
• “In normal clothes you can work your skill up to 65, above that you need to add one piece of studded armor at a time to keep gaining.”
• “If you wear too heavy armor you will not be able to stealth.”
• “After training most characters will choose to wear leather or other medable armor, at 75 stealth skill or higher in such armor you will never fail to stealth.”

That last line is the single most important number on the page. 75 Stealth in medable armour never fails. It is why stealth templates wear leather rather than plate, why the armour class that permits Meditation is the same one that permits reliable stealthing, and why 120 Stealth buys you steps, not reliability — reliability was already bought at 75.

The elegant part of the design is that the penalty is also the trainer. Because heavier armour creates difficulty, and difficulty is what produces gains, uo.com’s training path is written entirely as a list of what to wear rather than where to go.

[!] No numeric armour penalty is published, per armour type or per stone of weight. uo.com describes heavier as harder without a figure. No penalty table is built here.

[!] What counts as “too heavy” is not stated. Wearing nothing heavier than leather armour or mage armour is a rule of thumb, not a published cutoff.

[!] Whether the 75 never-fail rule still holds at 120 in non-medable armour is not stated. uo.com conditions it on medable armour and says nothing else.

Four tiles, and a check that counts two skills

Detection is the only contest Stealth is in, and uo.com publishes both halves of it.

“A check is made by comparing the stealthers Stealth and hiding skills versus the other persons or monsters Detect Hidden skill.” And: “The passive Detect Hidden range against a character using Stealth is a 4 tile radius.”

Two consequences follow, and they are the whole geometry of stealth play.

First, outside 4 tiles there is no passive check at all. The conclusion follows: stay at least 4 tiles away from others. Distance is not risk reduction, it is risk elimination, right up until the moment it is not.

Second, Hiding is not a dump skill on a stealther. The check sums both skills, so the defensive side of the contest is Stealth plus Hiding together. And here is the structural ceiling: Stealth has Power Scrolls and reaches 120, Hiding does not and stops at 100. A fully scrolled stealther brings 120 + 100 into that check and cannot bring one point more. That total is what every Detecting Hidden character in the game is measured against.

[!] The check formula itself is not published. uo.com states which skills are compared and that armour adds difficulty. No percentages, no reveal chance per step, no reveal chance per failed check.

What breaks it

• Failing the check. uo.com: “If the check fails you will be revealed and have to hide again before you can continue.” Stealth does not recover itself — you go back through Hiding.
• Running out of steps while running. You become visible, per uo.com; an unpublished reading says the check after a run always fails [!].
• Losing the detection contest inside the 4 tile radius.
• Anything that breaks Hiding, because Stealth requires that state. The standard unhiding actions apply, snooping included [!]. Stealing is the absolute case: it reveals whether it worked or not, and blocks re-hiding for 10 seconds.
• Mounting. You must dismount first; Stealth cannot be used while riding [!], although staying hidden while mounted is possible.
• Tracking finds you anyway. A stealthed player can still be tracked with the Tracking skill [!]. This is the one counter the 4 tile geometry does not answer, and it does not care how much Stealth you have.

The tell from your own side: the message “You begin to move silently.” appears, and your character stays grey while moving.

In PvP

• It is what makes the archetype exist. A stealth archer, a stealth thief, a ninja — each one is a character who chooses the moment and the range of the engagement, and the step table is the budget that choice is made from. At 120 you get 24 steps per check; at 50 you get ten, which is not enough to cross most of a screen.
• The 4 tile radius is the approach. Outside it, no passive check happens. Inside it, Stealth plus Hiding are weighed against the enemy’s Detecting Hidden. Everything about positioning a stealther is managing that boundary, which is why a stealther walks the long way around a group rather than through it.
• 75 in medable armour is the real breakpoint. At or above it you never fail to stealth, so a PvP stealther’s armour choice is decided by the skill page: leather or medable, not plate. Points above 75 buy distance per check, not safety.
• Running is a trade you make knowingly. Half the steps, and possibly a guaranteed failed check afterwards [!]. Closing fast costs cover, every time.
• You give up your mount. You cannot stealth mounted. In open-field PvP that is a standing speed disadvantage against everyone you are hunting, and it is the archetype’s permanent tax.
• Tracking is the hard counter. No amount of Stealth defeats it, and it works beyond the detection radius.
• Stealing spends what Stealth built. The steal reveals and locks re-hiding for 10 seconds. Stealth gets the thief in, and ten seconds later, back out.
• Ninjitsu plugs straight into it. Shadowjump “Allows you to teleport while maintaining stealth, but only if you succeed in a stealth check at your destination.” Animal Form as Rabbit or Rat “Grants a 20 point bonus to the stealth skill” — the only published numeric Stealth bonus from any other skill. And Death Strike keys partly off “the average of the target’s Hiding/Stealth”, so your own Stealth is an input to how hard a ninja hits you.

In PvM

• It is how you cross a dungeon. uo.com frames the pair as “a preliminary to stealthing from, or through danger areas”, and Stealth is the half that does the travelling.
• Monsters carry the detection skill too. The check is explicitly against “the other persons or monsters Detect Hidden skill”, so the same 4 tile geometry applies to spawn as to players. Walking past a mob is a contest, not a formality.
• It is the approach for artifact runs. Dungeon artifacts and the Exodus boxes require crossing the room to reach the target, which is exactly what Hiding alone cannot do.
• It constrains your survivability build. Anything heavier than leather or medable armour degrades or prevents stealthing, so a stealther’s defence budget is spent within that armour class or not at all.

Caps, stats and training

Primary stat Dex, secondary Int. Stealth is a Power Scroll skill — wondrous +5.0 to 105, exalted +10.0 to 110, mythical +15.0 to 115, legendary +20.0 to 120 — against the 720 total skill cap. uo.com’s step table runs to 120 for exactly that reason. There is no Stealth mastery.

uo.com’s published path is a wardrobe, not an itinerary:

Skill	Method
0–40	Buy the skill from Ryuichi The Ninjitsu Instructor in the Ninjitsu Dojo in New Haven
40–65	Normal clothes; at 40–50 take the new player quest from Ryuichi
65–95	Full studded leather suit
95–100	Full studded leather suit plus a close helm

The Tailoring skill supplies both the training gear and what you wear afterwards.

[!] Unpublished routes use different bands at both ends. One starts the NPC-purchase band at 0–30 [!] where uo.com says 0–40, then matches uo.com through studded leather and the close helm. Another runs further: 0–30 NPC purchase, 30–65 leather armour, 65–95 studded leather, 95–120 ringmail with a close helm [!], plus an alternative that steps up through progressively heavier pieces, starting with a leather gorget and leather gloves at 30–57.4 [!]. uo.com’s table stops at 100. None of them is chosen here.

[!] An unpublished 30.0 Hiding [!] floor to use Stealth at all exists, along with the rule that Stealth cannot be picked as a starting skill [!] — and uo.com does not state either, giving only the 25-Stealth auto-attempt threshold. Recorded as a gap in uo.com’s coverage rather than resolved.

Underneath any route, the Guaranteed Gain System awards a mandatory 0.1 when nothing has been gained inside your bracket’s window, and a Scroll of Alacrity raises each check to 0.2–0.5 for 15 minutes.

What is not published

• [!] The stealth check success formula. Only which skills are compared, and that armour adds difficulty.
• [!] Any numeric armour penalty, per armour type or per stone.
• [!] What counts as “too heavy” armour to stealth at all.
• [!] Whether the 75 never-fail rule holds at 120 in non-medable armour.
• [!] Step counts at skill values off uo.com’s ten-point table, such as 85 or 115.
• [!] Any reveal chance per step or per failed check.
• [!] Whether uo.com endorses the unpublished claim that a run always fails the following check.
• [!] Whether uo.com endorses the 30.0 Hiding prerequisite.

Where these come from

uo.com Stealth · uo.com Hiding · uo.com Detect Hidden · uo.com Stealing · uo.com Ninjitsu · uo.com Skills, Stats & Attributes · uo.com Scrolls of Power · uo.com Skill Masteries · uo.com Skill Gain Systems. Everything here is from uo.com or the game itself; anything uo.com does not publish is marked [!] as unpublished where it appears.