Temple of Elemental Evil Journal #7
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 745
For months of testing, our combat included ranged, melee and spell attacks, but the AI was pretty much limited to selecting either the nearest target or the target that had caused the most damage, and then attacking that target with the selected attack type. Then Sean added a simple combat strategy to the creatures that were using ranged weapons; they would take a five-foot step back before attacking, if they could, thus avoiding an attack of opportunity from the player characters. This simple strategy made the bandit archers at the moat house much more difficult in combat. But Sean was just getting started.
He added a flanking strategy, which made monsters prefer to surround their opponents, so they would receive a +2 flanking bonus to hit. He then gave some monsters the preference of attacking spellcasters before any other type of opponent. Other monsters would try tripping their opponents, and then they would take an attack of opportunity when the opponent would stand up. He even added some goblins that would swarm around unconscious opponents, attempting to perform coup de grace attacks (we nicknamed them the coup de goblins).
