Melee hit-and-run?

SirBatince

Greetings fellow adventurers

Long-time BGer here, though I'm afraid I'm not too experienced with D&D itself.

I understand BG tries to import the per-turn gameplay from the pen game and fuses it with real time "action", which mixes the whole thing into a fun videogame easy to pick up.

However I've always had this question with melee combat; since the APR is set in stone and relies on rounds (especially with the cosmetic attacks and all), if you have a melee character fighting a melee enemy, could anyone explain to me why you shouldn't just land your blow, retreat and wait the round out, then land your next blow and kite the enemy over and over again? In other words, you just move away during the cosmetic attacks and only attack again when your hit is "refreshed".

I've been "abusing" this for a while and I'm starting to feel bad about it. It almost seems like cheese. Of course you can't really do this against ranged opponents, but it's a decent way to fight ghasts when you solo.

Cheers!

sarevok57

this may work great when you have 1 attack/ 1.5 attacks per round, but when you start getting 3+ attacks per round, there are no longer cosmetic attacks, because every attack action will now have an attack roll attached to it, if im not mistaken you character normally "makes" 3 attacks per round ( of coarse if you have less than 3 then some will be cosmetic) but when you hit 3 or higher, than all the attacks will be real, and in essence its not too much cheese you are using with your tactics, because in theory you can just give your main tank full plate mail, girdle of bluntness and all the super gear to make his AC drop to -8 or lower, and pretty much 95% of the baddies in the game wont be able to hit you anyway, and sometimes baddies will have good attack speeds, so if you try and kite higher level enemies with melee sometimes they will land a hit on you, that is of coarse unless you are hasted and have boots of speed, but by then you might be hitting 3 attacks per round anyway ( with haste) and then you would just be losing the APR benefit kiting

SirBatince

thanks for the input

you're right, I did mean early games when most classes have very low APR

Just feels odd when a level 1 mage can staff the girdle ogre to death just with careful hit and run

sarevok57

ah, and that probably is what helps, because staves have that longer range, while that ogre is using a morning star, I was wondering if you were doing that, sometimes I would do that on purpose where I would have one of my melee guys in front attacking with a short range weapon ( like a long sword for example) and have another fighter use a two handed sword directly behind him both hitting the same enemy, it is true that the two handed range can be a hair of cheese, but I think its alright, and speaking about kiting the girdle ogre, I remember a million years ago my sister made a character and she was a Halfling thief and she only had imoen and I was able to kite that ogre with a Halfling thief and imoen with arrows, because soon as he came close to one thief, that theif would move away while the other ones were shooting arrows, good times

Yamcha

If you're that enduring, clubbing an Ogre with a thac0 of 19 and 1d6 to death, you totally earned the 175 EP and the girdle of transgender.

I'll kite him while Imoen shoots his ass, not much better - or are ogres really that dumb ?

Gallowglass

Yamcha said:

... are ogres really that dumb ?

"Most ogres are as dumb as a sack of hammers", as I seem to recall someone in-game pointing out.

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SirBatince

yes of course it's not very "fun" per se, but it's a free advantage with no drawback. If you aren't RPing and you just wanna win, there's no reason to not do it.

Just seems like a flaw with the engine. Engaging a melee enemy for long and going through the cosmetic attacks punishes you while it should be the opposite.

OlvynChuru

I didn't know it was that easy to kite someone with a melee weapon. I've tried to do this and my characters often end up getting hit by enemies that have good speed factor. I think it's pretty fair to do this when you're using a melee weapon, but not when you're using a ranged weapon.

Gotural

Be careful, it depends on the Speed Factor of your weapon, and initiative is rolled with a d10. Which means that if you are unlucky as soon as you approach the Ogre he will smash you to goo.

JuliusBorisov

"Melee hit-and-run" - this is what a monk in BGEE basically does, because of the Speed Factor of his fists and his added speed.

Yelocessej

This is a valid tactic, especially with boots of speed, but we are lucky that the developers didn't implement "attacks of opportunity" that technically the enemies should get as you retreat. The old Gold Box games DID implement this and it made combat melees very intense (those games made BG look like Hello Kitty Island Adventure!)

Nuin

As already pointed out, it's a good tactic and very acceptable since the whole things takes no small amount of effort on the player's part. I also see no reason why someone with a two-handed weapon can't poke someone to death with it. Isn't that the point? (har har)

And yeah, it's not exactly a foolproof tactic. Try it on something with a longer reach and a random bad roll is all it takes to chunk-ify your wizard. Later on as your warriors gain extra attacks per round this tactic also becomes unfeasible. You need to stand still to make the most out of those extra attacks - movement is a significant damage drop.
Note that with most late game fights you won't win a battle of attrition. You're on a deadline - whether you win or lose could all depend on whether the enemy manages to get his next priest/mage spell or unique creature ability off. That's why mid-late game fights are mostly about killing the enemy (or key enemy targets) before they kill you, especially if you play with mods. Re-positioning (to split up enemy targets or buy you time to cast spells/ use items) is still useful, but actual hit-and-run kiting (especially considering how every modded fight seems to involve extra movement speed/Haste) is a pointless exercise.

Yelocessej

Nuin said:

As already pointed out, it's a good tactic and very acceptable since the whole things takes no small amount of effort on the player's part. I also see no reason why someone with a two-handed weapon can't poke someone to death with it. Isn't that the point? (har har)

And yeah, it's not exactly a foolproof tactic. Try it on something with a longer reach and a random bad roll is all it takes to chunk-ify your wizard. Later on as your warriors gain extra attacks per round this tactic also becomes unfeasible. You need to stand still to make the most out of those extra attacks - movement is a significant damage drop.
Note that with most late game fights you won't win a battle of attrition. You're on a deadline - whether you win or lose could all depend on whether the enemy manages to get his next priest/mage spell or unique creature ability off. That's why mid-late game fights are mostly about killing the enemy (or key enemy targets) before they kill you, especially if you play with mods. Re-positioning (to split up enemy targets or buy you time to cast spells/ use items) is still useful, but actual hit-and-run kiting (especially considering how every modded fight seems to involve extra movement speed/Haste) is a pointless exercise.

Baldur's Gate is a craps table, Tales of the Sword Coast graduates to poker, Shadows of Amn becomes a chess game, and then Throne of Bhaal is just top trumps.

DullSkullTheSecond

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/33757/turn-off-non-attack-roll-attacks

I made this thread a long time ago and it got dev attention. There is a file in it(will attach as well in case it ever disappears into the nether) that removes pretty much all cosmetic attacks from the game. Some monsters keep their cosmetic attacks though like spiders.

The instructions are to simply dump it in the override folder that is located in the main game folder(the .exe folder). If there is no such folder there, create one.

And please @dee add it as an option in sod A thread like this seem to pop up every other month so there must be enough interest to just add it as an option in the in-game menu?