Post by kalbaern on Nov 16, 2009 15:11:49 GMT -5
With often better than average creature AIs used here, "tactics" are often crucial to your adventuring success. There's a distinction between what is a "tactic" and what is exploiting game mechanics though.
Luring Foes- Luring a few over confident foes away from a group to dispatch them is fine.
- Letting foes chase you until an obstacle causes them to get stuck and then using ranged weapons to kill them is an exploit.
Transitions
- Using a transition to flee for your life is fine. (And most should do it more often here
)
- Using a transtion to string out foes and then return to pick them off is an exploit. If you are chased from a map, you should not be returning to it. Our creature AIs purposely make checks and will often disengage pursuit. A player fleeing and leaving a scattering of foes across several maps is fine and as we intended it should be. Our area cleaners will handle the cleanup once you've reached safety. There's never a requirement here to go back and kill all of your spawns. If after a map/transition or two your pursueing foes get strung out and you go back to pick them off in more manageable numbers ... it's an exploit. Our creature AIs are designed so that fleeing PCs stand a chance of getting away - the longer you flee, the more likely pursuit will stop is all. Using this to spread out enemies and go back to mop them up is a clear exploit and violates the spirit in which this AI feature was created.
Scouting
- Scouting or sending single PC through a transition for a cave, dungeon, next map, etc ... is fine. Using the party channel to send an "It's clear" message is also fine.
- Scouting should be employeed only for a quick cursory glance into areas. Stealthy types exploring and spawning encounters while the rest of their group is on another map still are exploiting. Encounters spawn based on who is in the area afterall. Since encounters calculate their difficulty based on both the levels and numbers in a given area, trying to trigger easier spawns alone for a group to come in and handle afterwards is an exploit.
There's always going to be a few grey areas and differing opinions on this matter. The best rule of thumb is always to ask yourself ... "Do I want a DM to catch me doing this?".
Luring Foes- Luring a few over confident foes away from a group to dispatch them is fine.
- Letting foes chase you until an obstacle causes them to get stuck and then using ranged weapons to kill them is an exploit.
Transitions
- Using a transition to flee for your life is fine. (And most should do it more often here
)- Using a transtion to string out foes and then return to pick them off is an exploit. If you are chased from a map, you should not be returning to it. Our creature AIs purposely make checks and will often disengage pursuit. A player fleeing and leaving a scattering of foes across several maps is fine and as we intended it should be. Our area cleaners will handle the cleanup once you've reached safety. There's never a requirement here to go back and kill all of your spawns. If after a map/transition or two your pursueing foes get strung out and you go back to pick them off in more manageable numbers ... it's an exploit. Our creature AIs are designed so that fleeing PCs stand a chance of getting away - the longer you flee, the more likely pursuit will stop is all. Using this to spread out enemies and go back to mop them up is a clear exploit and violates the spirit in which this AI feature was created.
Scouting
- Scouting or sending single PC through a transition for a cave, dungeon, next map, etc ... is fine. Using the party channel to send an "It's clear" message is also fine.
- Scouting should be employeed only for a quick cursory glance into areas. Stealthy types exploring and spawning encounters while the rest of their group is on another map still are exploiting. Encounters spawn based on who is in the area afterall. Since encounters calculate their difficulty based on both the levels and numbers in a given area, trying to trigger easier spawns alone for a group to come in and handle afterwards is an exploit.
There's always going to be a few grey areas and differing opinions on this matter. The best rule of thumb is always to ask yourself ... "Do I want a DM to catch me doing this?".
