Swapping CR/Monsters of areas

[PaulImposteur]

Things get dull with time, and it'd be really neat to see some changes to areas.
A long time ago Cloakwood had Lizards, that were walked out, the monsters changed.

An idea I always was interested in was entering an area, and just for the sake of RP, clicking an object, allowing players to spawn in enemies for RP reasons.

IE; Player is level 10, wants to hunt bandits as part of some player-driven RP? Walk into Mines of Cloakwood, touch a lamp and set enemies to Bandits. They keep the same stats as current mobs, but look like bandits. I think while a bit meta-gamey, it'd allow people some form of building custom stories and little events.

Take it a step further and let players adjust the CR on a scale of +/-3, allowing for weaker/stronger parties to tackle areas to a suitable challenge.

This idea is complex though, and a much easier solution would simply be to have some creature models rotated in and out of areas to freshen things up. See new things in familiar places.

[Planehopper]

Aside from the mechanical "choose your own spawns" mechanics, some refresh and review has been brought up staff side between Devs and DMs (as this is a cross realm project). Hopefully we'll get some progress made toward keeping things a little more dynamic.

The more autonomous spawn selection concept is interesting, though I am not sure what folks will think about that. Not sure what I think yet, either. I'll be reading this post!

[PaulImposteur]

Nice to know some discussions have started! I just want to hunt bandits level 1 to 30!

[Snarfy]

I like the idea of making spawns a little more dynamic. I'm not so sure about giving players/characters the ability to choose what spawns though.

A few things that rattled around in my head today:
- Groups of 3 to 5 monsters that spawn and patrol from point A to B, perhaps led by a yellow/purple named boss.
- More trigger points that spawn dynamic encounters, much like the Lions Way/N. of Beregost, but with more frequency and variety.
- Instead of 1 or 2 monster types appearing in an area, up it to 3 or 4... maybe a pack of the aforementioned lizardmen popping up in the cloakwood.
- Monster types beating up on each other, if that's even possible? I'm pretty sure it's not, but I'd get a kick out of the Thundars bugbears getting ambushed by the lions, or the former hunting the latter.
** late edit - Monsters outright fleeing when they're getting facerolled, also if that's even possible? Also also fairly certain the AI can't do that. :/

that's about all I have for now.

[Azroth]

IE; Player is level 10, wants to hunt bandits as part of some player-driven RP? Walk into Mines of Cloakwood, touch a lamp and set enemies to Bandits. They keep the same stats as current mobs, but look like bandits. I think while a bit meta-gamey, it'd allow people some form of building custom stories and little events.

I do think also if one was to un-label the interactives, it encourages other players to adventure more into places and interacts with stuff they may have not before.

Even as a player when first starting years ago, It seems I had learned more about some parts of the map in a matter of months that even much older players had no idea about. Be it some shop item or even routes to take in the wilds that were faster than taking the main roads by a long shot, etc.

[gedweyignasia]

An idea I always was interested in was entering an area, and just for the sake of RP, clicking an object, allowing players to spawn in enemies for RP reasons.

IE; Player is level 10, wants to hunt bandits as part of some player-driven RP? Walk into Mines of Cloakwood, touch a lamp and set enemies to Bandits. They keep the same stats as current mobs, but look like bandits. I think while a bit meta-gamey, it'd allow people some form of building custom stories and little events.

If we were to implement a system like this, I think it might be more interesting to make it RP-driven, rather than giving players a switch like DMs have. Perhaps a once-per-reset quest or similar mechanic might cause things to change. Players use Diplomacy or Bluff to convince a bandit leader in a tavern that there's gold to be made in Cloakwood. I'll have to think on it.

It might work well to implement this along side fully-dynamic spawning, where we have separate blueprints for several different level tiers of a creature, begin by spawning the weak ones, and progressively spawn harder ones as they're killed. (Back off slowly as time goes without having any killed.)

[ValerieJean]

** late edit - Monsters outright fleeing when they're getting facerolled, also if that's even possible? Also also fairly certain the AI can't do that. :/

This already happens actually!

[Snarfy]

** late edit - Monsters outright fleeing when they're getting facerolled, also if that's even possible? Also also fairly certain the AI can't do that. :/

This already happens actually!

True... well, it sort of happens, but only in the form of the monsters despawning after the zone has been pummeled for X amount of time. I was thinking more of monsters turning and running the hell away, rather than the default obsessive suicidal attacking of any character that <insert monster type here> sees. The AI metagames our toons already, so it would be interesting to make those CR 5 kobolds run for the hills when they see a character more than twice their level(which is the part I don't think is possible).

[Kitunenotsume]

True... well, it sort of happens, but only in the form of the monsters despawning after the zone has been pummeled for X amount of time. I was thinking more of monsters turning and running the hell away, rather than the default obsessive suicidal attacking of any character that <insert monster type here> sees. The AI metagames our toons already, so it would be interesting to make those CR 5 kobolds run for the hills when they see a character more than twice their level(which is the part I don't think is possible).

The effect of Fear can do this already (although somewhat unreliably). It would just be a matter of applying the effect to AI spawns within some radius if a appropriate player-character, effectively giving PCs a passive Aura of Fear to NPCs that have some basic semblance of self-preservation.