"Fading Away" for the Stalker Perk

[Stranger]

As it is, a Stalker sorcerer attains their permanent invisibility rather abruptly. I think that staggering the transition would make. After all, the perk afflicts a -2 WIS penalty at level 5 because of how maddening it is to "not have a face." Why not apply the ashen skin effect at that point, perhaps with a VFX that emulates the appearance of invisibility—induces transparency or a spectral aura—without the mechanical benefit?

A sort of halfway point between being completely there and completely disappeared.

This would soften the strangeness of dropping from level 8, as an added bonus. There wouldn't be a complete change of aesthetic.

[Ebok]

Just the opinion of a forum haunt, but this sounds like punishment. Level 5 is hardly enough time to role-play the transitory effects of this perk, and the Ashen tone is by my reckoning the most detrimental effect. It would however be interesting to be half-faded rather then ashen. Either way, I would instead propose for roleplaying reasons that the level 8 perk from this class be permanent, as the throttling of the magical effect on/off was probably the singularly most painful part of mine own experience with the class. It forced me to turn from RP to grinding just to attempt to continue the story where it was left off, and that was a sad time indeed.

[Elfception]

I definitely agree that the 8th level perk of the feat should be retained indefinitely, it does not seem like one RPly that should come and go with levels. I've personally never played one, but I have cringed many a time when RPing with someone who did have the perk built tons of RP into the 8th level perk and then suddenly and without explanation beyond "I almost died and somehow regained some of my personal identity in the process" lost the power and had to find some way to explain the loss without breaking the RP.

[Anonymous Lemur]

I'm playing a sorcerer with this perk at the moment so I'm bias, but I'd really like ALL sorcerer perks, not just this one to be permanent at level 8.

To those talking about how punishing losing level 8 can be to certain concepts I feel like if your roleplay is anchored so strongly in the level eight aspect of the perk then you might be focusing your character story a bit too much on that one aspect. Pre-level 8 you can still have really strong stealth which combined with certain spells makes being unseen trivial and thus allowing for almost identical roleplay post level 8.

[zDark Shadowz]

Perhaps dropping from level 8 could be alternatively roleplayed as after a grave injury, the sudden loss of magic has made the remaining magic aggravated and highly hostile (emotional sorcerer magic, EMS) which, since Invisibility is dispelled by hostility, is the reason why you become visible until your subconscious magic regains its composure (lvl 8 once more).