On the heels of my throwaway comment that backstab is often a basic fairness problem, Terranova has started an interesting thread pretty much on the same subject, namely are stealth classes balanceable in an MMO?

In my mind, the largest advantage that stealthers have is simple: they can pick fights that they know they will win. This gives their existence a certain level of certainty that pretty much no one else can have. Many games respond by giving discrete, distinctive classes counter-stealth abilities. In Shadowbane, for example, Scouts can detect thieves. Scouts can pwn thieves if they run across one, but thieves ultimately have the upper hand – they can pick the fight, simply avoiding attacking groups if they can tell the other person has a scout.

This gives the stealther a sense of control that no one else gets to enjoy.

In Shadowbane, though, stealthers feel somewhat balanced, largely because most of our action takes place in group-on-group battles, and its somewhat assumed that both sides will have a mix of scouts and thieves. In Shadowbane, a stealther is usually good for one free kill before he’s out of stamina – optimally, he’s sent in to take out high-value targets like healers and mages. Still, the balance of stealth vs anti-stealth in any MMO is a topic that needs to be handled like its plutonium. It’s ultimately trivial to create a godlike stealth class. It’s equally trivial to create one that’s nerfed into uselessness.