Two (minor) suggestions in one:

- Reduce their spotting range. At least IRL, most bats are herbivores and all of them are far from aggressive, so they shouldn't be attacking PCs unless they felt threatened. - Give them True Seeing. You can't hide from echolocation. This would make bats slightly more than a nuisance -- you could tell someone or something is sneaking nearby if those bats suddenly attack something you can't see. Kind of like the Underdark-variant of the "birds taking flight" -effect.

The first suggestion doesn't include Dire Bats or Dragazhars, of course. But I don't know about the second one... they are common enough spawns that if every Dire Bat and Dragazhar had True Seeing, it might make sneaking in the Underdark too difficult. Maybe just exclude them here too and call for suspension of disbelief (not like it's any big issue anyways).

I agree here. normal bats really are more likely to fly away from you than attack and there is no hidding from their echolocation.

Those little buggers a VERY impressive in detection. I do not know of many other creatures that can find a cricket hiding under a large bush from 50 ft away!

Changing creatures in the standard palette is non-viable.

Changing the customized bats can be done.

If you're going to give bats "true seeing" then you'd have to give all undead, oozes, constructs, dragon that too. Which is massive can of worms i'm sure nobody wants to see opened.

None of those creatures would be fooled by any illusion school trick you'd try on them. (nor hiding in shadows for that matter) These creatures have other spells etc that have a similar effect (like invisibility to undead, levitation to stop tremorsense, silence to stop sound vision)

This is why the enchantment & illusions schools are supposed to have a STRONGER effect on humanoids and the things it CAN effect because theres a whole swath of things it has no effect on at all.

I think we'll still be waiting a few more evolutions of NWN (or games like it) for the game that implements things to that detail level that PnP has. Heres hoping for the future anyway :D

I really like those two ideas. Much more realistic.

If they see by sound.. then "silence" should make you invisible to them.

The ai on the bats could be changed to make them non-hostile (like rothe) till you get too close. Then you could still sneak around the underdark and stay hidden as long as you didnt get too close to the bats.

I'm really annoyed by all this realism nonsense. When did you get out of the door the last time and noticed that reality is out there and not something I want to find in a game?

But this just as an aside.

My thoughts actually is that bats have pathetic AB and damage so as long as you have the whole swarm whacking at you in vain without fighting back, you can just continue sneaking your way through the Underdark, since the AI will never have a stone lizard wondering what the hell got into those bats (IIRC, he will even start eating them). So what the heck, I don't really think a change like this is worth it but it should not hurt too much either. The spotting range should be VERY short though, because all the bats I meet in reality were 99.99999% more likely to flee from a creature as big as a human rather than to mindlessly attack them. So much for your beloved realism -.-

Furthermore: Give bats true seeing? Ow, you mean they don't have that already? I know what spot and listen scores they have, should have nothing on my hide, but my bad luck with rolls just simulates them having True Seeing well enough :wink:

And if you look at spider spot-scores (especially the sword spider), I dare say that sneaking through the Underdark is risky and dangerous enough as it is. No to mention all the creatures that already have True Sight.

I'm really annoyed by all this realism nonsense. When did you get out of the door the last time and noticed that reality is out there and not something I want to find in a game?

I'm not sure about you, but considering this is a RP server, I think realism should be pretty high on the priority list. At least, it is for me. It creates immersion.

Also, True Sight doesnt give any bonus to spot/listen checks. My level 3 rogue wih no gear whatsoever explored almost the entire availble Underdark stealthed, passing umber hulks constantly, without being seen once.

Thats because the umberhulks you snook past didnt have true sight.

They don't? I thought Hulks always had True Sight?

My bad.

The default ones do, but efu has some "adjusted variants" that are a little more rogue friendly. Yeah nothing like getting mobbed by nwn standard hulks, I know.

The truesight everyone is talking about, for the record is the one that sees stealth, invisibility, greater sanctuary, marvin the mystical flying midgit no matter what they're doing. (Unless what they're doing is not bieng there).

If bats were neutral, they could skitter when anything comes near with an AI script, but I dislike the idea of bats mobbing someone, mechanically this makes it nay on impossible to get anywhere, you may end up AOOing them in stealth anyway and thus cancelling stealth.

MadCaddies

Also, True Sight doesnt give any bonus to spot/listen checks. My level 3 rogue wih no gear whatsoever explored almost the entire availble Underdark stealthed, passing umber hulks constantly, without being seen once.

You haven't met an enemy with True Sight, or you wouldn't say that. The ones who have it (a certain breed of very nasty Umberhulks, for example), are -extremely- scary. There's no way to hide from them - whatever you do, you will be attacked practically as soon as your tab key picks them up, even if you're an invisible, 40/40 stealth rat hiding behind fourteen stalagmites and a rothe farm.

I dislike the idea of giving creatures like those True Sight - It's an ability that pretty much stops any stealther cold, and giving it to creatures who can possibly spawn in pretty much every wilderness area out there, right next to Dire Spiders, Drow, Illithid, Deep Lizards, you name it would put a pretty effective lid on exploration without an army, a bandwagon or a score of level ten bodyguards, since as Fish said, it's very likely that you'll auto-attack those bats as soon as they attack you, and draw all sorts of nasty stuff down upon you. And not everyone farm quests enough to be able to blow an invisibility potion for every screen walked.

You haven't met an enemy with True Sight, or you wouldn't say that. The ones who have it (a certain breed of very nasty Umberhulks, for example), are -extremely- scary. There's no way to hide from them - whatever you do, you will be attacked practically as soon as your tab key picks them up, even if you're an invisible, 40/40 stealth rat hiding behind fourteen stalagmites and a rothe farm.

My low level rogue did sneak past the Hulks in the Underdark, seemingly with ease!

Then, my lastest rogue is sneaking around a certain tower, following a certain wizard, when bam, he polymorhps into one of those 'scecial breed' bad boys you were talking about! Spotted instantly, I was getting owned, so I shoved an invis dowen my throat and ran for dear life, but it followed me unerringly! Suffice to say, I was dusted down real good. I was like 'WTF?!?' :x

I concur, those weird 'special breeds' are scary. Very scary.

Actually it's the other way around. Standard NWN Umber Hulks do not have True Seeing, our custom Umber Hulks (including Umber Hulk Behemoths) do.

The Umber Hulk form of polymorph does indeed have True Seeing.

Bioware Bat "Come, my fellow flying, herbivorous rodents! Let us mob that PC-looking humanoid over there in the distance, at the very other end of the screen. Together we shall punish him for crossing our line of sight... CHARGE!"

However, Linelle's post irked me enough that I'm going to give her a more detailed response :)

Linelle I'm really annoyed by all this realism nonsense. When did you get out of the door the last time and noticed that reality is out there and not something I want to find in a game?

But this just as an aside.

Linelle So what the heck, I don't really think a change like this is worth it but it should not hurt too much either. The spotting range should be VERY short though, because all the bats I meet in reality were 99.99999% more likely to flee from a creature as big as a human rather than to mindlessly attack them. So much for your beloved realism -.-

Oh, and for the record: echolocation is not "detecting by sound" per se, it means emitting high-pitched sounds and then listening to how the sound waves behave when they meet obstacles. So as long as the sneaking character is there, the sounds that they themselves make are irrelevant.

There are actually nuetral bats and hostile bats. Nuetral bats add absolutely nothing to the game but lag, so we don't use them.

Assume there are thousands of bats. The ones that attack are the ones insane enough to do so. So about .5% of bats are hostile and attack.

Anthee Even fantasy worlds have to be logical within the framework they use. For instance, even if there are quasi-magical, carnivorous bats in the Realms, it doesn't make sense that even the innocuous ones that we are used to are similarly aggressive unless otherwise stated. Fantasy worlds always have a balance of real and fantasy elements: the reason why the "But it's fantasy, it's a game!" -argument is all too often humorously misplaced is that the author fails to understand which parts are fantasy and which are not.

With that said, I don't see the big problem. If we were to add any sense of realism to this we'd need to increase the amount of bats with well over 100 times their current number and make but a per mille neutral. Which would be lame. No, keeping those that are there now hostile seems justifiable.

As a side note, I vote for making all bats literate. :)

As for hurting ourselves by applying logic, no problem we're all a little masochistic arent we? if we wanted the easy path there's lots more options out there :D

But you're right you cant emulate every little BUG in the underdark, rot worm and a million other nasties (at least not in this engine).

Maybe what you're asking for is LESS of the vampire bat types that think your blood is worth slurping (and hence you worth attacking) . (I dont mean actual VAMPIRES in bat form, just blood drinking bats of the sort south america has)

I dont think people would mind the occasional NEUTRAL (random) spawn of pacifistic bats, but it's pretty low on the bang for your buck category.