Detect Hidden

Detect Hidden (formal name in-game: Detecting Hidden) is the counter-stealth skill — the rogue and warden's primary tool against Hiding, Stealth, and the trapped containers of every dungeon and Treasure Map. It has both active (target-a-tile) and passive (proximity-radius) forms, both governed by skill level. Where Tracking tells you who is around, Detect Hidden tells you where they are standing, what container is trapped, and which floor tile hides a death-trap. Required (or near-required) for endgame Treasure Map Level 4+, Doom artifact-trapped chests, the Lycaeum Remove-Trap puzzle in Stygian Abyss, the Vice vs Virtue sigil-traps, and any serious anti-stealth PvP build.

Active vs passive

There is a 10-second cooldown between active uses.

Active-use detection mechanics

The active skill works against both Invisibility (the spell) and Stealth (the skill), but not equally: invisible characters are easier to detect than Stealthers. The further the hidden target is from the targeted tile, the lower the chance of success.

• In your own home or a friended house, Detecting Hidden is always 100% successful against any hidden character. (You cannot gain skill on a house floor.)
• A revealed Stealther can immediately re-Hide; if they do, switch to Tracking to maintain pursuit.
• Detect Hidden also assists Tracking and the Reveal spell (Magery 5th circle) in their checks.

Passive-detection ranges

Abyss ruleset shards (siege-style): passive Detect Hidden is disabled in these rulesets.

Trapped containers

Most static dungeon containers (chests, barrels, kegs, crates) are trapped. Crafted lockable containers can be trapped by Tinkering. Detection works as follows:

To detect a trap: place container on the floor, target it (or the floor next to it) with active Detect Hidden. If trapped and the skill check succeeds, the word [trapped] appears over the container.

In the Classic Client, the colored [trapped] message indicates trap type:

Tinker-craftable trap-capable containers

Spawning/static dungeon boxes almost always have all three trap types.

Hidden-container locations and trap types

Crystal Ball of Knowledge — distance-difficulty table

The Crystal Ball of Knowledge (reward from Ortlem the Mystic's quest in New Haven) reports the difficulty of an active Detect Hidden attempt as a function of distance from the hidden box:

For training, stand at "Optimal": skill gain is fastest at the maximum range where the difficulty is still classified as Optimal.

Training — Method 1: Tinker-trapped chests

The standard training path uses Tinker-trapped chests of escalating skill levels:

1. 0 → 30: Buy from NPC. (Begging-party-NPCs aside, you can also buy 30+ from a Thief Guild master in New Haven.)
2. 30 → 60: A trapped box made by a 35-skill Tinker (the same kind tinkers use for breaking paralysis).
3. 60 → 90.1: Switch to a GM Tinker-trapped box. Allow a Satyr in the Twisted Weald to Discordance your character to extend the lower-level box's usefulness.

Crystal Ball of Knowledge — skill-vs-tinker-skill matrix (December 10, 2018, Publish 103)

Gains slow significantly in the 83.x range. Building two boxes at 87.5 Tinker picks gains back up. The "perfect" training rotation is to keep three boxes — one at ~50, one at ~75, one at GM — and cycle through them as each becomes Easy.

Training — Method 2: Distance-shifting on a Small Crate

A house-floor-friendly approach that doesn't require continuous box-crafting:

1. Buy 30+ Detect Hidden from a Thief Guild Master in New Haven.
2. Lock down a trapped Small Crate in your house.
3. Stand 1 tile from the crate. Use active Detect Hidden on the crate.
4. As skill rises and the difficulty drops to Easy on the Crystal Ball, step one tile further away. Difficulty returns to Optimal.
5. By 90 skill you should be 8+ tiles from the crate — make sure your house has the room.

You cannot gain Detect Hidden by targeting a house floor (though the skill is 100% successful in your own house). Always target a trapped container.

Training — Method 3: Build your own training box

The fully-bootstrapped Detect Hidden trainer:

1. Buy 30+ Tinkering from the trainer in New Haven.
2. Buy 50 boards, 10 iron ingots, and tinker tools.
3. Buy 10 bolts from a Fletcher in New Haven.
4. Make a carpentry tool.
5. Use the carpentry tool to make a Small Crate (10.0 Carpentry required).
6. Use the tinker tool to make a Dart Trap (1 ingot + 1 bolt).
7. Use the trapped crate to train Detect Hidden.

(Caveat for Siege Perilous: skill cross-training is harder; just find a Tinker.)

Important publish history

Racial bonuses

• Humans have Jack of all Trades (an inferred minimum of 20 Detect Hidden) — they auto-detect at radius even without training.
• Elves have a racial bonus giving an increased chance to passively detect hidden objects/characters. Combined with a built Detect Hidden skill, elves are the canonical anti-stealth race.
• Gargoyles have no specific Detect Hidden bonus.

See also

• Hiding · Stealth — the skills Detect Hidden counters
• Tracking — pair with Detect Hidden for full anti-stealth coverage
• Remove_Trap — disarms what Detect Hidden finds
• Lockpicking — the next step after Detect Hidden on a trapped chest
• Tinkering — the source of trap-capable containers
• Treasure_Map — Level 4+ requires trap-aware play
• Doom — artifact chests trapped with Poison+Explosion
• Hidden_Kotl_City_Items — the Eodon hidden-container reward chain
• Vice_vs_Virtue — sigil traps require 80+ Detect Hidden