Luring

[Universal Predator]

Man up and charge.

Is this an OOC message to players, regardless the characters they play?

[Velve]

Also, charging archers is not nearly as bad a strategy as most people think.  They cite examples of lone people charging and getting mowed down as proof that it's suicide, but I can tell you if your party charges in unison, the archers don't stand a chance.

True, though assuming there are only going to be archers there is kinda silly from an IC standpoint, and is rarely what happens anyway.

Personally, I have never been fond of charging anyway, and usually play characters with some brains who are likewise not fond.

Obviously I try to be IC, while avoiding that sort of abusive luring, but it is not always possible. Is it more important to play your character as they would play, or deliberately ignore your IC habits for the sake of  AI?

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

I agree with Gippy. Change the level design to deal with the AI. Obviously good AI programming is hard to come by, so you just change the enemies or change the obstacles. Adding a barrier (like FleetingHeart did today as he rained down fiery.... tunnel... collapse?) works just fine. The -last- thing you do is attempt to force change upon the players.
 
The Progression goes like this, using Crystal Caves as an example:
 
Do the easiest thing: Throw down a few obstacles in the toolset on the bridge. This would force the players to move in, and would prevent the archers from rushing forward. The only downside is typically you might have them all gather at one obstacle point, making them open to AoE Magic Attacks. To prevent this, you do multiple obstacles that would block their path, if needed.
 
This would either have two main results: People would continue to go to the caves, and deal with the obstacle most likely by hitting from afar and having someone run up and destroy it. Alternatively, what could happens is a lot less people would come to the caves because they find the pelting of arrows to be more work than the loot is worth.
 
(The third option is to bring several evoking wizards along, have them prepare long range damage spells, completely empty their arsenal on the dark dwarves on the other side, then as that likely wouldn't be enough, leave the mines, and either camp outside the caves and recover their spells, or go to the camp above and recover their spells, and return to completely finish them off. From a strict reading of the current rules, such a "siege" upon such a well defended location is legal, unless I missed some rule about leaving and returning to Quest Locations, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong)
 
If they continue to assault it, all is well, and things go on. If a lot less players go, then either the enemies need to be changed, the battlefield needs to be changed, the loot needs to be altered, or a combination of the aforementioned. If it can't be solved (Due to the changes needed to be too extreme, or a lack of builders), then the quest is simply removed, as it can't be successfully played without it being abused.
 
The players aren't the only ones who have to work around the limitations of the game engine, and should be the last to do such.
 
Apologies ahead of time if my post comes off as self-righteous or abrassive.

[derfo]

charging rules charge and you rule fight like a pussy and get shit on

[lovethesuit]

Send somebody down in stealth or invis to pop up next to the archers and draw fire, then, while the others advance.

Or else pick somebody with some good AC and just stay about 10 steps behind them.

Alternatively, you could hire somebody with good damage reduction buffs like ghostly visage or stoneskin to take the lead.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with just returning fire. Give it as good as you get.

But I'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea that somebody would be so obvious and blatant as to lure the duergars from the area you're talking about, across the bridge, and around the corner before fighting them. It's not even subtle. It's boring.

[TheWastesAreFrozen]

I think this has room for internal discussion amongst the DM staff.

My personal opinion is that certain quest designs encourage some sort of luring, perhaps the biggest example is the duergar quest, and I think that needs to be solved from a quest design standpoint. For example, simply placing a barrier down on the bridge will stop the crossbowmen from racing around a corner and being made into mince.

Deliberate luring, like Meldread mentions, of course is not appropriate. However some amount of luring is going to happen no matter what. In an ideal situation the AI would act and respond organically. It falls on both sides of the DM/PC line to minimize this unintentional luring.

Remember that we're all story tellers here. What sort of story are you telling when you say that the intelligent monsters ran around the corner with their bows out and got ripped to pieces because they saw you looking at them funny?

This about sums it up. Don't blame bad design on the players. Also don't expect people to run into a horde of archers for no reason outside of making up for bad design. If the archers can run to you and attack then it's not exploiting or abuse, but whatever.

[Meldread]

ScruffyMcSmirkalot-

If I'm not mistaken you shouldn't leave a quest area, rest, and then return.  That's considered bad, a DM can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm nearly 100% sure that's considered bad.  :p

Using the Duegar Quest as an example....

I agree 100% that it's AI exploitation if you run around the corner, lure the crossbow mobs at the end of the fight, and then run back around the corner.  That is definitely AI exploitation, although those bastards have some ridiculous range.

I've been in a situation where stepping around the corner managed to lure one, while I ran back around the corner to ICly warn the rest of the group about the Duegar across the water... and as I'm talking to the others, BOOM one of them showed up right behind me.  I wasn't expecting the mob to really run *THAT* far to get to me... so in this particular situation I'm going to have to say while it can totally be exploited, it's also a combination of area design that needs to be improved as well as stupid AI.

I don't think there should be a blanket rule where the group has to charge.  There are just so many IC situations that can appear where charging doesn't make sense.  There are also cases of accidental luring where you unintentionally gain agro of a room on a really squishy character and pull one or two mobs instead of the entire room.  Does it really make sense in that situation, because of stupid AI, for a wizard to charge into the room with his staff? :p

I think the focus should be on the obviously exploitative, and I think in those situations when players do it – it is very clear.  I'm going to go back to what Caddies said... it's about common sense on the part of both PC's and DM's.

I don't think players should have to compensate for dumb AI though.  It's just all about common sense.

I would also suggest to have AI receive a conditional "don't chase" command.  In most cases, especially in certain quests, the mobs are standing in such defensible positions, it makes no sense at all for them to chase anyone.  They block progression, so getting through them is necessary, and chasing anyone causes them to lose their defensible position.

I think a lot can be done to improve AI and in general make quests more awesome.  Example:  The Duegar are standing in a very defensible position blocking entrance deeper into the mines.  They KNOW anyone wanting to get deeper into the mines would require intruders to pass through them.  So they don't give chase, but instead hold their position and fire off one liners.  

"[The Duegar raises his crossbow and yells taunts at you in its dwarven tongue.]"

"[The Duegar raises his battleaxe and taunts you obscenely.]"  Etc.

Have the situation where the NPC's are trying to lure the PC's into the room, forcing them into a sort of stand-off game of chicken.  Toss in a wizard or something, and a summoning circle, where the wizard automatically summons one NPC each time their summoned creature dies... in which their summoned mob runs down the hallway to chase the PC's.  Have their crossbowmen run up to a certain trigger point, fire off their crossbows, and when they are advanced upon, retreat back behind the barricade.

I'm not sure if AI can be that complex, but it certainly would be awesome. :p

[Meldread]

Send somebody down in stealth or invis to pop up next to the archers and draw fire, then, while the others advance.

Or else pick somebody with some good AC and just stay about 10 steps behind them.

Alternatively, you could hire somebody with good damage reduction buffs like ghostly visage or stoneskin to take the lead.

And of course, there's nothing wrong with just returning fire. Give it as good as you get.

But I'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea that somebody would be so obvious and blatant as to lure the duergars from the area you're talking about, across the bridge, and around the corner before fighting them. It's not even subtle. It's boring.

That's how I always played the quest on Zhong.  Improved Expertise, full plate, and shield gave him good AC.  Get wizards and clerics to give him further buffs, and he'd just charge across the bridge, gain the agro of all the mobs, fall into improved expertise, and let the rest of the group clean them up one by one as he was surrounded.  There needed to be more wizards there casting combust to combat that tactic.

[SN]

Oh boy, I see the discussion about the Purple Mines always comes back. I sign under SD's semi-rude remark.
Why do -we- have to act stupid if most of the PC's have above 10 Int anyway, and charge a group of archers like morons?

If we're talking realism here, there will ALWAYS be something surreal with the AI or simply stupid, as it's called AI for a reason.

As for a possible solution to this trully horrid problem which raises so much debate, I see THREE of them:


1) Forementioned barricades.

2.) Giving the duergar crossbowmen the same AI script or wtfever it's called as the Spitting Oozes have - they stand in spot and never move.

3.) Give them the AI of the Guerillas as mentioned.



In fact, I see a fourth solution to this:
4.)Remove the fucking quest and the problem is solved.

Though, i thought that the intent behind this quest was to allow the PC's to resupply. Making it harder and harder and harder will surely not help that and IMHO result in the PC's getting exactly the same ammount of healing they burned to complete it. The loot was nerfed already. Not to mention that one has to TRAVEL all the way to the mine, and back from it, which without a mage and memorised invis, or chugging three-four invis pots for the way, results in quite an ammount of burned consumables, as most often, you get to run into the big cave bears ON the way. Very often INSIDE the QA as well, or the annoying UD dire spiders.

 If there's a problem with the AI of the ranged monsters in general, use either solution number 2, or solution number 3. But then, really, if we want realism, then the sight range of the monsters should be at least quadruppled to represent the friends of the monsters fight in front, yelling, sounds of fighting/magic etc. Which in the end would result in PC's being unable to complete ANY of the SQ's due to simply overwhelming power of the whole quest mob, which if represented the real intelligence, would simply turn even the most powerful parties into mush. Has anyone of you counted how many orcs are there on the orc quest? How many orc shamans? They could simply team up in invis and fireball-gank the whole team in one go, without even sending thus hundred of warriors to fight. Same applies for gnolls. Duergar. Basically almost ANY of the quest in which you fight sentient creatures.

I myself the whole idea behind quest spice was to in fact bring the REALISM and CHALLENGE and uber FUN in facing a trully intelligent opponent(s).

But being ordered to charge like a bunch of morons at a group of archers, knowing/suspecting there's MORE than the archers, is pretty ... lame. Sorry for this.

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

,,,

...

Charge and take it like a man.

[9lives]

Isn't charging a group of Archers the smarter option?

[Howlando]

It does amuse me that a crappy quest I built in less than 20 minutes because it sucked for PCs to not have a good way to replenish healing creates such controversy.

If I had toolset access I would fix the issue - barrier, changed AI, or even just sticking a melee weapon in inventory should do it.

As for the question yes you can be IC and duck behind cover if you are dying, just don't rely on luring tactics to crush unpossessed monsters.  

In this case a few changes in the toolset should address the issue.

[ScruffyMcSmirkalot]

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HOWLAND IS A WINRAR!
 
That response is totally full of WIN and LULZ >,>

[Cerberus]

Personally I feel if you can logically justify your PC's IC action's whats to worry about. If you do something that a DM questions, explain your actions and either it's ok or not. If you're meta-gaming then you know you are is how I feel about it.
 
Sometimes due to game mechanics you simply can't help but take advantage of AI and I think most DM's would understand. If they dont understand and spank you for it and it pisses ya off, you can always rage quit ;) (thats what I do, then come back.)

[Letsplayforfun]

Turning back is always an option.