Hiding is an essential skill for a thief or ninja as a preliminary to stealthing from, or through danger areas. The act of hiding will make you invisible to other players, but not unfindable. Shoving through someone who is hidden will give a message ‘You shove something invisible aside’. The player then has the option of casting the spell ‘reveal’ or using the skill ‘detect hidden’ if they have those abilities.
You may take items from your own corpse while hiding and not be revealed, but looting other corpses, whether monsters or players, will reveal you.
You can not hide when in combat, or when creatures are actively hostile; the higher your hiding skill the less distance you will have to run from combat before you can hide again, but spell casting monsters can, and often will, cast ‘reveal’ on your last seen location. If you have stealth, don’t be there!
You may speak in global, party or alliance chat without being revealed but not ‘aloud’ on screen.
You may safely use the following skills without being revealed: Detect Hidden, Lockpicking, Item Identification, Anatomy, Arms Lore, Animal Lore, Evaluate Intelligence, Forensic Evaluation, and Poisoning. If you are sufficiently accomplished you can also use Snooping, but failure will reveal you.
Hiders may take damage from, and be revealed by, area affect spells, monster aura affects and explosive potions. Once revealed you will not be able to re-hide for a short period, determined by your hiding skill.
Like detect hidden, hiding is a ‘no fail’ skill when in your own house, whether you have the skill or not.
Initial training and an accelerated gain quest can be obtained from Chiyo the Hiding Instructor in the Ninjitsu Dojo in New Haven.