Archived from groups: alt.games.neverwinter-nights (
More info?)
"Maxon" <jen.magson@NOSPAMntlworld.com> looked up from reading the
entrails of the porn spammer to utter "The Augury is good, the signs
say:
>The only way I could ever get them to retreat was to run back to a -
>whaddaya call 'em - a zone through?
Well I always referred to it as transitioning a zone boundary.
>You know, where you go through a door
>or portal into a new area. Your henchmen get dragged through with you.
>Either that or hoist 'em back to town with the stone of recall or its local
>variant.
I used this extensively in SoU especially, loading the minion up with
all the heavy loot so they could barely move at all, then relying on the
zone transition to bring them up to me.
>The 'give 'em a bow only' idea sounds like a good one only I like
>playing characters where *I* stay out of the hand-to-hand action and throw
>things (spells, arrows, you know) and *they* get frisky with the sharp and
>pointies. Oh yes, and that problem with the detect traps thing drove me
>bonkers: 'Look you moron, do you think we could deal with the frothing ogre
>in here first and with that trap in the next room afterwards?' I've finally
>resorted to taking some levels in remove traps and open locks for my own
>character rather than take a thief with me.
You can get away without them, but you have to have _instant_ access to
"hold your position" and "attack nearest" to get them to not run off
after an object they can interact with.
Once you understand that they are _NOT_ reliable or sensible and cannot
be trusted to follow orders if they detect something, it gets a lot
easier since you KNOW you're 90% certain to have to tell them to attack
again during any particular fight.
What I would REALLY like is a configurable AI, similar to Baldur's Gate,
where I could give a hierarchical set of orders for henchman to follow,
including what kind of weapon to use.
IE
Stand your ground using a bow until the critter reaches melee, then swap
to sword/mace/whatever. (Perhaps with conditionals for different kinds
of critters - maces for skeletons, swords for fleshy, etc.)
If critter runs away, swap back to bow and continue standing your
ground.
When all critters in current room are dead, defuse traps.
When all traps are defused (that can be), unlock all locked AND
untrapped containers.
Add in a few conditionals for following critters that run away;
IE while checking for traps (between you and critter) and defusing any
found, follow critter.
This sort of thing would of course require a REAL find traps skill
that's directional and didn't go through walls, not the radius effect
Bioware cheaped out on for for NWN1 that lets you detect traps in places
you don't even know exist.
Xocyll
--
I don't particularly want you to FOAD, myself. You'll be more of
a cautionary example if you'll FO And Get Chronically, Incurably,
Painfully, Progressively, Expensively, Debilitatingly Ill. So
FOAGCIPPEDI. -- Mike Andrews responding to an idiot in asr
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram