by Darkgolem on Oct 05, 2006
By Darkgolem
It has happened to all of us. You approach an encounter but your party
stops too close, and before you can make a plan, you are attacked
because your enemies spot you. Instead of an encounter that could have
been quick and won with a minimum of resources used, chaos breaks out
and too many of your party's resources are depleted. You can avoid this
situation easily if you know how far away your opponents will be
able to see and hear you and your party learns how far away to stop
before getting ready.
Combat often can end in success simply by charging into combat and
choosing the right spells, who to attack first, and being cautious
about where you stand. But doing this is a dice game; you can’t be sure
that something won’t go wrong. A lot of times someone in your party has
been in an adventure before and might know what is coming up--but not
always, and often they can forget key information.
You need to avoid detection to have the time to prepare. Preparing
ahead of time, saying who targets whom, or putting down a spell
before your opponents see you can mean the difference between
success and failure in a hard encounter. Tactics make a huge
difference,
and you will find that medium difficulty quests become a breeze and
hard quests become easier. In some adventures, where shrines are barely
(or not) available, planning is crucial. It pays to makes sure everyone
knows to stop before getting too close so you don’t alert your
enemies and you have time to make a plan.
It’s very simple to understand the basics of how enemies (and you)
detect other creatures. First and foremost to understand how perceiving
opponents works are your Listen and Spot Skills.
Listen will tell you when opponents are near, but won’t tell you where
unless you roll well (the game rolls for you without your knowledge,
constantly). You can tell when you hear something close by because you
will see red flashes coming from their feet. If you can’t see them, you
will see the flashes moving around without any creature near them.
Spot works similarly. If an opponent is hidden or invisible, a high
enough roll with enable you to see an outline (similar in appearance to
a
gray ooze, but shaped like your opponent) without details.
How high does your roll have to be to hear or spot an opponent? This is
based upon an opposed check. All your opponents have Hide and Move
Silently Skills. If your opponent is using these Skills (which is
automatic for some creatures, such as wolves, rogues, and similar
enemies), the
computer rolls for these, and the number derived is the target number
your Listen (for Move Silently) or Spot (for Hide) skill must beat.
This can be bad news for those classes who don’t
have Spot and Listen as primary Skills since they won’t detect enemies
until they are attacking. Invisibility works just like the Hide Skill
but stacks as a +20 bonus and is ineffective
against the See Invisibility spell.
There are others ways you can be detected. Some creatures, such as
trolls, have scent skills. These are similar to Listen but have a very
short range (usually 30 feet) and are based upon the Wisdom bonus of
the creature instead of Dexterity. However, even generally unwise
creatures such as trolls have a good scent ability because they can
put skill points into this just like a rogue can in Listen.
Another way to be detected is by tremor sense. Tremor sense
automatically detects creatures within range if they are touching
the ground (so always in the case of DDO since
it has no flight or levitation).
Spiders and Oozes generally
have blind sight.
As a general rule, undead, trolls, oozes, spiders and ogres are
particularly good at finding the living through these abilities, and
stealthy types should not depend upon avoiding detection by Hide,
Sneak, or Invisibility.
The best way to determine when to stop once enemies are spotted is by
figuring out your safe distance and stopping a little farther away
than that. Usually, it is a very good idea for the party members to
travel their
individual safe distances behind the party scout and stop when he or
she stops.
The scout (usually a rogue, but anyone who has good stealth and
detection abilities is fine) should always stop once opponents are
visible, give a verbal warning, and then back up to the party,
explaining what opponents are ahead.
Safe distance is almost always the same from party to party. This is
because someone is usually wearing plate mail. Plate mail, even when
enchanted to be less noisy, is always somewhat loud, and usually a
person wearing it is suffering from a –5 to –10 armor check penalties
to Hide and Move Silently. Below is the safe distance for a
cleric with –6 penalties for both Move Silently and Hide. Because
creatures
become more perceptive with
the higher difficulty of a quest (normal, hard and elite), three images
are shown, one for each difficulty.
Note that the “hard cleric” image is actually closer than normal. This
is because the cleric in question was detected a little later than
otherwise would have happened because the kobold guard was patrolling
and facing away at first.
This distance, for those who wish to measure in person, is about the
diameter of two and a half hypnotic patterns with their borders
touching (or any of the spherical spells whose diameter is the same).
A stealthy (or at least not noisy) adventurer can approach closer than
the average plate mail wearing type depending upon the enemy being
faced and the rank in Hide and Move Silently an adventurer
has. Below are three images of adventurers approaching a guard
post (hobgoblin sentries in Stranglethorn Vale). In each case, the
hobgoblins were standing on the platform and the screen shot was taken
when the hobgoblin started approaching, so these pictures are of just
inside detection
distance. The first image (the trusty cleric) is, again, possessing a
pathetic –6 Move Silently and Hide. The second (a wizard who has
invested some skill points) has a +6 Hide
and Move Silently. The third, a rogue, has a +13 Hide and Move Silently.
As you can see, the rogue can practically get on top of the hobgoblins
before being noticed while the cleric is a good distance away when
seen.
The most important thing to remember when judging how close one can
approach is the creature involved; this is one reason
why a scout is necessary. A scout ahead of the party (by a safe
distance, as mentioned) will see opponents and evaluate how close to
approach before the party gets too close. In the case of very wary
opponents (especially spiders, who can detect you a long way away),
your opponents can see your party even when traveling well behind your
party scout, if the scout approaches too close.
For an example, the spider in the picture below detected the cleric
shown just after the image below was taken. The spider is barely
visible in the distance.
Remember to figure out the safe distance of the party (as a rule, at
least two and one-half fog spell diameters is typical), and then
remember to keep that distance behind your party scout. The scout
should always stop a safe distance from opponents and remember that
creatures like spiders, undead, trolls and ogres can detect you from
farther distances--and farther than that if on hard or elite settings.
Once you have stopped, the scout lets the party knows what is ahead,
and you can plan your approach. By doing this, you can cast the
appropriate spells (such as putting down crowd control spells just
before starting combat), have protective spells ready when necessary,
have the enemy spell casters (or whoever you decide is the first to go
down) targeted and ready to be killed. You’ll find that with just a
little practice, your party will survive a lot more, use a lot less
resources in adventuring, and be much more competent in an adventure.