Provoke Player Tool

[zDark Shadowz]

Would it be possible to have a player tool for provoking an enemy to focus on you?

As a player tool this would be able to target enemies at a distance, and help people fighting up front have a method that will help avoid the frequent unlikely scenarios of hordes of monsters running past guardian-role characters to attack the wizard way in the back.

I was thinking the calculation could be something like Taunt + 1/2 Persuade + 1/2 Intimidate +1d20  vs the opponents HD(orLevel) + Concentration + Will, with nearby enemies to the Provoke within 20m, if not in combat, joining in to assist, and if in combat and with a lower HD than the target of the Provoke, rolling the same save with a +10 to their save.

[zDark Shadowz]

... So that if a small fry is picked on as the target, the leaders or higher ranks will just ignore it, but if a leader or higher rank creature is targeted then, the small fry will support it, and in another case if the leaders make the save but the small fry fails it, its like he's delegating his underlings to deal with that provoker while he concentrates on his own target, or that his underlings wont just sit idly by if their leader is picked on.

[Vlaid]

There are already a lot of ways to deal with this, a player tool of this kind would be a little too "MMO" for my taste.

Attacking a target with an AoO makes them stop and turn to attack you after a small delay if no other targets attack them. You can also position yourself in way that enemies will naturally target you first. Those who do not want to be targeted may also drink an invis to make enemies lose interest in them.

The best way to deal with this is honestly to fight at narrow choke points so enemies can't get past the wall of frontliners and not to draw too much attention to yourself with a bow/crossbow/lots of offensive spells unless you know you're in a safe position.

[Anonymous Lemur]

I don't think this is a very good suggestion and I'll try my best to outline why below.

It makes a lot of sense that a target would want to move past you and kill the wizard if you aren't doing something to physically block them. Such as for example standing in such a way that they would incur an aoo by passing you. There are ways to make it so that you can be the central focus. Though if you use something like improved expertise it's likely the priority to kill you will become pretty low unless they absolutely can't reach anything else. The ai is pretty clever and much like a player will switch targets if it thinks it can't hit you on anything but a 20 and another target is within reach.

You can't prevent this from happening as an individual due to the nature of how they work. For example if you have three trolls surrounding you and you're attacking the middle one. If somebody were to attack the troll on your right. That troll might break off and run to them. However if they attacked the troll in the middle the troll would maintain it's attack on you most of the time. There are points when fighting npc's that they stop to re-evaluate their target. These points are when they cast a spell, use an ability, use an item or recover from a disable effect such as knockdown. This means that you need to be extra vigilant when you see a monster drinking a potion for example as if you aren't attacking it at that moment it may decide to break off.

There are times when monsters act contrary to this even when there are no DM's controlling them, but most of the time you'll find they act quite closely to how I described above. With a few variations for certain types of monsters. It's somewhat important that you pose some degree of threat to a monster as otherwise much like a player they're keen to ignore you for the much easier/more dangerous targets.

I can very much understand your desire for such a tool, but I fear it wouldn't be suitable to the format in which we roleplay. Provoke may certainly make sense in certain contexts, but there are many situations that could arise where it would work and yet be hard to justify in character. Not to mention when you try to provoke something possessed by a DM.

TL;DR There are many ways to control the flow of a battle in a sense of "holding the line" but they require you have a bit more understanding of how a specific monster and monsters in general think. I understand the desire, but feel as though it's not really appropriate to the setting.

[zDark Shadowz]

Ouch, shot down pretty quickly. Ah well, was just a suggestion, and there are some valid points up there.  I thought itd be a nice way for influential characters to control the flow of battle a bit more realistically in line with what skills they've learned, maybe even have enemies provoked into attacking a seemingly defenseless rogue only to fall into some cleverly laid traps :)

But thats what open forum suggestions are for, toying with suggestions and getting other peoples ideas pros and cons.

[Anonymous Lemur]

Ouch, shot down pretty quickly. Ah well, was just a suggestion, and there are some valid points up there. I thought itd be a nice way for influential characters to control the flow of battle a bit more realistically in line with what skills they've learned, maybe even have enemies provoked into attacking a seemingly defenseless rogue only to fall into some cleverly laid traps :)

But thats what open forum suggestions are for, toying with suggestions and getting other peoples ideas pros and cons.

As I said above. The thing I marked in red can be achieved by sneak attacking an enemy that is adjacent to your front line, but not actively being hit by anyone. The monster will USUALLY break off and run at the rogue only stopping if someone on the front successfully attack of opportunities it. It's very realistic when you consider the implications. You posed a significant enough threat through a highly damaging attack and the enemy was not being pinned down by the front and so is free to charge you. Then it falls prey to your traps. Success!


 

[zDark Shadowz]

At the moment i might have to just stock up on cure minor potions and drink them at full Hp while chasing after enemies that are actually being run circles around me, that are 100% ignoring me attacking at them and getting attacks of opportunity, while they themselves are still not quite close enough for them to attack the thing they are actually chasing because an arrow is somehow more threatening than a longsword... But saying what people can or cant do at the moment does nothing to contribute to a suggestion that could be tweaked with ideas to be something EFU could use.

The Purple Dragon Knight prestige class, for instance, has its entire ability set in Nwn by default to try and protect nearby allies, an ability to convince enemies that they are the real threat that needs to be dealt with is right up the defender concepts alley RP-wise.

Similarly, there are warrior classes that get the skills I suggested above for the ability as class skills, and using them to convince enemies that they are the threat, not the wizard biding their time in the back, or the ranger peppering with low base damage arrowfire far in the distance, is something I think makes an ability to get an enemies attention something worthwhile for those that are putting in the effort.

Im not arguing that the AI doesnt have a mind of its own (its AI) but because it has a mind we should be able to convince them to do things they wouldnt normally (and abnormally) do.