"Aggro"

[the Jester]

First, I would suggest that the whole "role" thingie is probably going away for 5e.

Second, we need morale rules far more than we need aggro rules. WotC has already stated that morale won't be core, but will be in a module.

Third, any "active" aggro rules require more tracking, so I don't think we'll see them unless it's in a module, and I'm very glad for that. I don't mind them as an option, but my experience with 4e has taught me that lots of tracking = teh suck.

Personally, I dislike most aggro rules that people have suggested here. Marking in 4e is fine and dandy; it's symptomatic of 4e's weaknesses but not a critical element of them.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The nature of the monster or NPC should be used when considering this. Intelligence is a factor but not the only factor at work. A big lizard might try and down what it perceives as an easy target then drag away the victim back to its lair when he/she goes down if it is huntiing for food.

An NPC that the party has encountered before might have a grudge against a certain character and attack priority might be determined by that hatred.

Target choice isn't something that can be handled very well by a rule. There are too many situational factors at play.

 

[Kzach]

The fact that your suggested passive mechanic sucks makes us question whether it is practical at all.

Lucky it wasn't a suggestion then and just used to illustrate a concept which you still don't seem to be able to comprehend despite it being spelled out for you multiple times.

 

[Kzach]

Yes.

With nothing to warrant taking the 'tank' seriously over the more threatening healer and striker, smart enemies will take out the healers first and then the strikers and leave the tanks alone until the end, at which point they won't be able to stay up long enough or do enough damage to win the encounter.

Or do you propose that the DM gift the players every encounter and fudge dice rolls and give out gold stars for participation and good effort?

 

[ExploderWizard]

With nothing to warrant taking the 'tank' seriously over the more threatening healer and striker, smart enemies will take out the healers first and then the strikers and leave the tanks alone until the end, at which point they won't be able to stay up long enough or do enough damage to win the encounter.

Or do you propose that the DM gift the players every encounter and fudge dice rolls and give out gold stars for participation and good effort?

So it seems that its ok for the players to do the most tactically advantageous thing at all times but if the monsters get to do so then the game breaks?

If thats the case scrap the game and redesign from scratch because it sucks.

If smart enemies have to act dumb then the system has failed. Let dumb monsters act dumb, clever ones be more savvy, ect. How intelligent and tactically gifted a monster is plays a large part of its danger level or it should.

 

[Oni]

Mechanics that dictate behavioral decisions to the DM? Absolutely not.

Mechanics that make attacking certain targets a better or worse idea? Okay with that, though implementation is important, there needs to be some player choice involved, not just by virtue of their characters mere presence.

I'd also like to see some way that characters can intervene in attacks. Jump in front of an arrow, or throw someone out of the way of a fireball.

 

[GreyICE]

Lucky it wasn't a suggestion then and just used to illustrate a concept which you still don't seem to be able to comprehend despite it being spelled out for you multiple times.

You know, rather than going all emo on us ('noooo one undeerrrrstannnddsss meeeee') you might consider that if multiple people have no clue what you mean, maybe what you wrote made no sense to anyone who wasn't you?

You're being rude. Stop it, please, and see my note below. - Piratecat

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I don't think I've ever said this before on any forum, but this is an absolutely HORRIBLE idea.

Aggro is a simplistic mechanic used in video games because the AIs aren't smart enough for any kind of sophisticated decision making. Aggro usually leads to really dumb decisions by the NPC anyway. In WoW, for instance, if a boss stopped beating on the tank for a few seconds and killed off the healers he would wipe the raid in short order.

The DM simply making reasonable decisions for NPCs based on their priorities and knowledge is in every way superior to an aggro mechanic. This is, in fact, one of the biggest advantages an RPG has over a video game.

The role trinity idea is bad in WoW: it leads to overspecialization, cookie-cutter builds, and a host of other problems. Imposing roles in 4E led to design decisions that made me pass on the game entirely. I want to see this design direction entirely reversed in 5E.

Marks suck as well. They're too gamist for my tastes by far.

What I would like is for characters to be able deny enemies movement through an opposed skill check of some sort, simulating physically blocking the enemy.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

Regarding my experience with my wilder:

Lol...I can see how I might have given the impression of some immaturity in the character concept.

I'll clarify a bit. This is a role-playing heavy game set in Ravenloft. All of our characters are intended to have a strong backstory, and we all have a little bit of extra "perks" to go with it. In the case of my character, I was basically able to do crazy things with my wild surge, but I was required to use wild surges with all of my manifestations. Also, instead of the a standard enervation effect, there was a table with variable possible effects. In other words, I didn't min-max this character; I didn't even optimize him. I came up with an interesting role-playing concept, and then the DM worked with me to come up with house-rules to support his concept.

I also am the one player at the table who actually gets excited when bad stuff happens to my character in a way that is interesting or perfect for the character concept. Meaning, I'm not complaining just because I got smacked around a bit.

What I should have mentioned, is that he wasn't targeting my character specifically - he often did the same thing with having monsters choose which melee character in the party to target. It seemed like it was almost always about who hit the hardest in the previous round, even if it was between 2 melee PCs both hacking on a foe, with who did the most damage varying.

Now, I'm seeing this from the eyes of someone who can't really get into MMOs, so I'm not used to his perspective on it. But to me, it feels like something that only makes sense for a computer to do, and not something that ought to be translated into D&D.

 

[GreyICE]

Marks suck as well. They're too gamist for my tastes by far.

And fun!

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