[Purulent Carcass]

This is instructional for those of you interested in using actual strategy while in combat. To begin, I will break down each of the classes into generic roles that you can use to find your place in the ranks. Keep in mind that some builds can push your class into another category, for instance a Paladin that focuses on inspiring the troops and healing, would be less of a Guardian and more of a Leader.

Character roles identify which classes can stand
in for each other. For example, if you don’t have a
cleric in your party, a bard or druid serves just as well in the
leader role.

Roles also serve as handy tools for building adventuring
parties. It’s a good idea to cover each role with
at least one character. If you have five or six players
in your group, it’s best to double up on guardians first,
then flankers. If you don’t have all the roles covered,
that’s okay too—it just means that the characters need
to compensate for the missing function.


Battlefield Control - Wizard - Sorcerer
=================
Control deals with large numbers of enemies at the
same time. They favor offense over defense, using powers
that deal damage to multiple foes at once, as well as subtler
powers that weaken, confuse, or delay their foes.

Guardian - Fighter - Paladin
==================
Guardians have the highest defenses in the game and
good close-up offense. They are the party’s front-line
combatants; wherever they’re standing, that’s where
the action is.

Leader - Cleric - Bard - Druid
=======================
Leaders inspire, heal, and aid the other characters in
an adventuring group. Leaders have good defenses,
but their strength lies in powers that protect their
companions.

Flanker - Ranger - Barbarian - Rogue - Monk
================================
Flankers specialize in dealing high amounts of damage
to a single target at a time. They have the most concentrated
offense of any character in the game. Flankers rely
on superior mobility, missles or trickery to move around
tough foes and single out the enemy they want to attack.


When travelling through a dungeon,(let's face it) it's often a clusterfuck. A mob of PCs all squirming into tight spaces, trying to engage in combat. This is inefficient. The tactical party will keep one or two guardians on the very front line, in melee. It is their job to engage the enemy and attempt to engage as many of the enemy as possible to give the others in the party the time to manuever into a striking spot.

This is a good time to note, DO NOT just click on the enemy. This is a mistake. Manuever yourself into a prime position, clear of allies and THEN when there is
nothing between yourself and the enemy, click on them. It's really a noob mistake to just point and click on an enemy unless you are using missle weapons. What happens, if you do not follow this guideline. Is the AI takes over and you end up walking all around whoever is between you and the enemy, sometimes pushing your allies out of combat. You and whoever you pushed end up taking attacks of opprotunity from the enemy.

Missle weapons, if you have them... use them first. One or two guardians can normally halt all enemy advancement, meanwhile you and your allies can pelt to your hearts content with volley after volley, as the guardians hold the line. Flankers, should be most concerned about getting the best position possible to do the maximum amount of damage possible.

Doors are the bane of my existance and I HOPE anyone reading this takes careful note of why doors and getting through them, is one of the greatest challenges most parties seem to face. Normally, everyone just runs up to the doorway and stands there attacking, keeping one or two enemies in line of sight for everyone else, and blocking any others from being able to take a strike unless they are using missle weapons or magic. THIS IS INEFFICIENT!
There are normally two scenarios when opening a door. The first, is the enemy on the other side charges into melee immediately. LET THEM! The flankers should be manuevering on either side of the door and the guardians should allow the first wave of enemy to enter. Maximum coverage = maximum damage to the enemy and it shortens the battle! The second scenario is when the enemy does not advance, this is when you need to get inside as quickly as possible. DO NOT WALK.. run through that door! Guardians should be engaging as many opponents as possible, attempting to stop spellcasters from casting, and missle users from firing, drawing them all into melee. Everyone else needs to get inside as quickly as possible and move to the best space in the room to put out maximum effect. Lastly, do not block that door! If you need to make a hasty retreat, that door needs to be clear.

Sometimes, its a small chamber you are entering. Be prepared for this.. if you know its a small chamber. Send only the guardians in and have everyone else switch to long range attacks.

This guide is EXTREMELY basic, but if we begin to follow some actual tactics, these large parties during events may not turn into such chaotic messes quite as often.

The enemy NPCs are using tactics, its time we do as well.

[Animayhem]

Good suggestions. Time should be taken to come up with basic plans. Flexibility needs to be taken as some may have to do more than one task considering the party.

In regards to doors and hallways. Sometimes it is better if we have rogue or scout that they open the door invisibily with the melee to the side and range weapons back. The bows and arrows can draw the enemy out. In this way we can have on enemy be the block preventing the others from crashing thourgh thus helping in retaliation tactics.

Also too remember that sometimes ooc lag can prevent people from getting to where they need to be.

In regards to yesterday, we had to think fast as we were pounced on as soon as we arrived.

[Purulent Carcass]

No, I disagree. Let them through the doorway, plugging the door does nothing unless there are actually 1000 enemies on the other side. As it stands, the NPCs normally open the door themselves, invis rogue or not. A party shouldn't have to stand there before each battle going over tactics, this should all be second nature.

Being flexible is true. These are not concrete rules but a guideline to go by. So lag and all of the wierd things that happen to us, from being stunned to being held in place by webs, is considered when the battlefield is in motion.

[Hellstrom]

+1 on everything Carcass said. It's incredibly frustrating and a waste of healing resources to have the doorway blocked by lower AC party members.

Also, never forget the value of a quick close of the door too sometimes. For example, if you open the door and spot a number of rust monsters... shut that door fast and come up with a plan on how to deal with them, even if it means stripping down to do it.

There are a number of creatures that can be dangerous and are unable to open doors. Sometimes its simpler to not fight them or delay and come up with a plan on how to deal with them.

[Animayhem]

A party shouldn't have to stand there before each battle going over tactics, this should all be second nature.

I respectfully disagree. Sometimes it may be the first time some players have actually rped with others let alone fight.
They do not know what to expect of others. If there happens to be a player who by some chance has fought with those present then some planning works. Also IC some players although OOC they know battle tactics ,in game and in character they may not. Also there are some players OOC who may not know all the ins and outs of battle.

[DarkRanger]

To add; heavy armor and shield=guardian(exception for cleric usually), no shield even if wearing heavy armor=flanker(possible exception for certain monks)
-not every attack should be a knockdown attempt. Use it once when melee hasn't started and you can easily target the enemy on the other side of the room, but after the fight starts leave that button alone, especially when there's more than one other PC meleeing, and/or the enemy is small/flying. If you're the only one in melee you could use more discretion but keep in mind it reduces your chance to hit.


Advanced tactics-
Casters should be first target. Good AC guardians should try to pass close by melee enemies on the way to the casters to draw their attention if possible, but be sure to take out any casters. If a caster joins a fight in progress, either by rising undead or entering a door, they become top priority.

After taking out the enemy's casters, try to prioritize your targets as follows;
hit any heavily damaged enemy first
next heavily damaged
leave stunned/turned/dazed/etc enemies alone unless they're near death

Best place for cleric is between the melee and the casters, to take attention off casters or rush into fray to heal. Smaller, higher level groups, with clerics of certain builds, can use them as the frontline or part of it, but generally they belong in the middle.

If you can't avoid a wide level range, it's better for melee to be higher than casters. A level 10 wizard can still throw missiles at a level 15 fighters spawns, but a level 10 fighter can't hold a level 15 wizard's spawns.

[Wids]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=waa2ucfgVgQ

Don't you know you never split the party?
Clerics in the back keep the Fighters hale and hearty,
The Wizard in the middle, where he can shed some light,
And you never let that damned Thief out of sight! :P



Edited by Sundraoi to remove the video and leave only the link. Please remember, for copy right purposes do not post videos on the forums. Thanks.

[TheShadowEntity]

This is actually a nice manual... I would like to add however that on this server doors self open when enemies are near. wouldnt it be better to let the enemies actually open them? I mean... using doors as a barrier IS a part of strategy. I find it sort of odd that RATS can open doors faster than my pc can close them. Or that some creatures can open them at all considering there intelligence and/or physical attributes.

[Balanor]

Nothing's ever quite good enough for you, is it Shar? Yet another complaint/suggestion making it to the fourm. Great. So I'll answer here then -

I vehemently disagree that you have ever had a plain rat open a door on you. I also take exception that you make these incorrect statements on the forums with what appears to be half-remembered observations (like the humanoid slave post). For doors, the code is below, and as everyone can see and everyone will now know; there are limits to when doors will get thrown open. The creature needs a minimum intelligence of 7, and must be within 7 meters of the door.

Code:

if (GetLocalInt(GetArea(oDoor), "MMT_ACR")) {
    object oEnemy = GetNearestEnemy(oPC);
    if (GetDistanceBetween(oEnemy, oDoor) <= 7.0 && !GetIsDead(oEnemy) && GetAbilityScore(oEnemy, ABILITY_INTELLIGENCE) >= 7) {
      AssignCommand(oDoor, ActionOpenDoor(oDoor));
      return;
    }
  }

This code was necessary because the creature OnBlocked event is very unreliable, for some reason. So in the past we'd get a PC slamming a door in the face of an angry mob and they'd just be content to sit on the other side of the door until while the PC and his party would buff up, smoke a pipe, get in a nice little formation around the door, and then decide to open the door and let them through to be slaughtered. So I ended up trading one form of unrealistic combat with what I consider a better form. Is it perfect. Nope. But I've yet to have someone suggest a better alternative (and this is not the place to do so either - PM Sundraoi if you have one).

If it's not 'realistic' enough, then really I guess I should go through all caves and sewers and most crypts and take out doors anyway. Who's going to put a bunch of doors in caves anyway, huh? While I'm at it, I suppose I should just also immediately change things so every commoner can get enslaved so that PCs can just run around the corner and grab some easy XP to deliver to the slave merchants, huh? Then I also need to change the slaves that many people love to go after and have fight for them because that isn't realistic either. I mean, seriously....who can fight and cast with shackles on their arms/legs anyway? That's not realistic either.

Or we can all just accept this is a game. Suspend your disbelief. And accept that all things in Thay will not, and not meant to, always mirror 'realistic' behavior for the real world. And if you want to see something changed, complaining about it is in the forum is absolutely the wrong way to go about it.

[Wids]

Edited by Sundraoi to remove the video and leave only the link. Please remember, for copy right purposes do not post videos on the forums. Thanks.

...which reminds me: How much money would we have to cough up in order to get this forum site the heck out of Germany and into some totally cool nation, like Canada, the USA or the UK? Ballpark figure.