Creature Morale System

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

That's very odd. What surprises me the most is if it occurs the exact moment another weapon is drawn, since that must mean that it triggers some sort of previously unknown event on the creature AI. The morale system only reacts on first perception, being damaged or dying. I can't see which of these it should be.

[Metal_ash]

I consider the moral system works good for now in most ways, even if it does have some flaws in it still i getting to like it more and more, though...after the KD bug was solved it be the "target changer" that be rather bothersome for now in my opinion.

[DM Tarokka]

When in melee I have my characters saying: "Found "name of monster". It has happened already 5 times so far so it was not a vision of me...



In this case Caterina found a wight...

[failed.bard]

Lili said "Found Thug" when one went to run from her.  Possibly related.

[Springer]

I ve found couple of dire rats that way in the sewers.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Hah, good find!

Seems I left some debugging in the scripts, I'd better get that part fixed asap.

[Shadowthrone]

Creatures have a tendency to reset to maximum hit points after running away to another room, unless you specifically run them down and kill them before they can. Would it be possible to prevent this?

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Creatures that stay outside of combat will rest themselves up eventually - this not related specifically to the morale system. This is partially for realism, and partially to prevent people from gaining too large a benefit of an attack-retreat-rest-attack routine. It's my impression that the rate of it is fairly balanced, but let me know if it seems not.

[Shadowthrone]

It takes between thirty to sixty seconds in my experience, which is by no means enough time to dispatch the group that didn't run away before moving on to the ones that did when dealing with a challenging encounter. I recognise that it isn't the morale system that handles the creature rest, but it's irritating all the same, and it's quite immersion breaking for something to run away and then heal from near death to uninjured in less than a minute. Perhaps it would be possible for them not to regain hit points until they return to their spawn point?

Either way, it's not exactly game breaking, just one of the little nuisances of the morale system.

[Knas]

It takes between thirty to sixty seconds in my experience, which is by no means enough time to dispatch the group that didn't run away before moving on to the ones that did when dealing with a challenging encounter. I recognise that it isn't the morale system that handles the creature rest, but it's irritating all the same, and it's quite immersion breaking for something to run away and then heal from near death to uninjured in less than a minute. Perhaps it would be possible for them not to regain hit points until they return to their spawn point?

Either way, it's not exactly game breaking, just one of the little nuisances of the morale system.

Could you tell us which area htis is? Perhaps it's because said monster have regeneration.

[Lockleed]

I've had the Demon General Malthor dispatch half a party, chase the other half, stop (I assume he lost sight of them) and abruptly be completely healed, and rearmed with his beginning arsenal of epic and 9th level spells.  I can understand avoiding the rest and assault routine, but I think they are popping back to full firepower too fast.  I fell once, fighting him, had him near dead and actually to the point of fighting in melee (out of spells.)  He chased after another party member, who fled (sane person!) while I miraculously made my recovery roll.  By the time I got back up, he had completely healed and rearmed, and subsequently nuked me into death again, with the spells he'd just used up killing me to begin with.

I wholly enjoyed it!

[Shadowthrone]

As Lockleed suggested, it happens when they lose sight of their target, i.e. when they run away into other rooms

It happens wherever this is possible.

[Soren / Zarathustra217]

Hmm, can take a second look at those values. Sounds wrong.

[marlewebber]

In the Reavers cave below Blaustein, it's the same.  You have to literally keep the enemies on your screen, or they will all recover HP.

The Smugglers lair in Dementlieu however, seemed to keep it right.  A party was half-wiped and my PC had to retreat and rest; directly after return, some enemies were still wounded.  Was actually suprised given the trend of regeneration normally experienced.

[Shadowthrone]

In the Reavers cave below Blaustein, it's the same.  You have to literally keep the enemies on your screen, or they will all recover HP.

The Smugglers lair in Dementlieu however, seemed to keep it right.  A party was half-wiped and my PC had to retreat and rest; directly after return, some enemies were still wounded.  Was actually suprised given the trend of regeneration normally experienced.

Did you leave the area? I don't think anything happens when nobody is in the area, but I could be wrong.

[Badbelly]

My experience has shown that the regeneration of the monsters that flee battle is not the same everytime. Sometimes they regenerate almost immediately from leaving your line of sight and other times you can leave the area, rest and come back minutes later, and they have the same amount of Hit Points. 

[Thoraion]

without having read all answers - i noticed two (major) impacts on the game. Both without judgement.

First, rats as a source for money have lost some relevance.
Second, fighting regenerating opponents has become much, MUCH harder.

The latter should be obvious - in one to one fights, the regenerating opponent runs and sometimes fully regenerated until it has run into a dead end or decided that fighting might be worth it. In larger fights, it in fact simulates a tactic of circling opponents. Damn nasty! Not necessarily bad, but it should be considered in the XP reward for defeating them. You should consider as well that running opponents give no XPs - you sometimes have to search a whole dungeon for those running opponents, sometimes across several maps. Intended?

[Mcskinns]

Not necessarily bad, but it should be considered in the XP reward for defeating them. You should consider as well that running opponents give no XPs - you sometimes have to search a whole dungeon for those running opponents, sometimes across several maps. Intended?

creatures that "fly away" when fleeing are also a pain, I have many times been surrounded by 5-10 Mobats, Doombats, and Carrion Bats... stunned by their screeches and whittled down to injured by the group before the paralysis/stun wore off, only to have 95% turn to flee and fly away when I kill the first one.

Another note...

when you perform a successful knockdown attack on a creature and its morale fails, it overrides the knockdown and immediately flees, preventing you from gaining the extra few moments to finish it off.  Pretty annoying, wouldn't mind so much if we didn't have to wait out the full round of knockdown before we were able to flee

[ThAnswr]

Resurrection here:

I had my first real experience with the morale system last night.  Last night,  I was walking through Vallaki with Sergei  and the place was crawling with rats.  Pre-morale system, it would've been fight and for a low level char, a possible death. 

Anyway, I hit one rat and they all ran away. So we kept on walking.  From what I've read here, that seems to be the case with most creatures.  Where's the challenge?  If this is indeed what is happening, hit one, they all run, and you continue on the journey.  Not like the old days where you had to fight your way through everything. 

I can see both sides of this issue, but for me, it makes it all too easy.  It takes away some of the mystique and challenge of Ravenloft especially at night.   

[Ravenous]

aye.. Seems to me some creatures has to low morale.

On another note in what was described above. Creatures getting their spells back, "realistically", should only happen when an area resets. Them regenerating or even going back to full health after being out of combat for a few turns is all good though, the beasties can after all have Regeneration or potions or even leech negative energy out of the surroundings(in case of undead).

//On a sidenote, a post on the first page stated that ghouls have some animalistic intelligence - in fact the average ghoul is smarter(higher int) than the average human, elf, stuntie, half-orc, halfer, gnome etc.

[HellsPanda]

actually Calor and Sergei's levels is why they flee that easily

and rats are cowards, flee easily

[Aahz]

Unless sometimes, when you switch to a bow, then they turn and attack.

[Minstrel]

actually Calor and Sergei's levels is why they flee that easily

Even the NPC's are metagaming now!

[ThAnswr]

actually Calor and Sergei's levels is why they flee that easily

Even the NPC's are metagaming now!

LOL. 

Interesting observation.