A few questions about nebulous game mechanics.

[Quiiliitiila]

Hey all!

I had a few questions that have been stumping my friends and I who started playing together a few months back. Most of us know way more than we should about PnP D&D, but we're having difficulties figuring out some of the game's systems and potential idiosyncrasies.

First we were wondering about how different bonuses stack. In PnP, spell bonuses to things like saves generally do not stack and that is accurately reflected in the game, however enchantment bonuses from separate items generally do stack. For example a cloak of resistance (+2 all saves) and a ring of protection (+1 AC and +1 all saves) do stack with each other in PnP, but seemingly different items in DDO granting similar enchantment bonuses don't stack. So essentially my question is, what stacks and what doesn't? What are the different types of enhancement bonuses we can layer to actually raise stats/saves/crits/ect.?

Secondly we were curious about synergy with spell power and certain weapon enchants. For example, if I'm and Arcane Archer and have my flame arrows toggle enabled, is that damage affected by universal or fire spell power? Similarly do the Eldritch Knight weapon imbues scale with spell power?

The third and final question for now revolves around how aggro works in DDO? My brother plays a Warforged Eldritch Knight who's actually pretty tanky. He tries to aggro enemies first and hold their attention but more often than not hoards of enemies run straight by him and come at either myself (the pure Wizard/Archmage) or the Arcane Archer of our group, regardless of whether we've even started casting/shooting respectively. Then the fourth guy with us is a Monk/Pale Master who we joke never dies because he never aggros anything. Like NOTHING. We've all been dead with him the last guy up and half the aggroed enemies will just walk away rather than fight him. He doesn't know why and neither do we, so it'd be great to shed some light on how aggro works. My brother would like to be able to aggro a bit more and hold their attention, he's tried intimidate but it rarely works for him (low charisma, has invested a few skill points but not every level).

Thanks in advance for any information you all can give!
-Quiiliitiila

[Baktiotha]

First we were wondering about how different bonuses stack

If you look at the bonus description you will see that there are different sources for the bonus. Examples might be "insight" or "profane" or "enchantment." The general rule in DDO is that bonuses of the same type DO NOT stack but bonuses of different types DO stack. So, if you have a +1 enchantment bonus and a +2 enchantment bonus you only get the highest value -- +2. But, if you have a +1 enchantment bonus and a +2 insight bonus the two stack together -- +3 in total. A full list of bonus types can be found on this page (http://ddowiki.com/page/Category:Bonus_types).


Secondly we were curious about synergy with spell power and certain weapon enchants.

To the best of my knowledge weapon enchants are unaffected by spell power unless they specifically state otherwise.


The third and final question for now revolves around how aggro works in DDO?

There is some arcane and ill understood algorithm that assigns each character in a group some level of importance. This is added to by various factors that can vary from dungeon to dungeon. It is also added to by various characteristics that are unique to each character.

The result becomes the amount of aggression that each character radiates.

This then is impacted by various additional factors. The most important of these are damage done to a monster and social skills (like intimidate or diplomacy).

But, this does not always hold true. Some encounters are coded in a way that makes aggression jump from character to character in a "random" manner.

What you should normally experience is something along this line: The first character to enter an area and get mobs to notice them OR the first character to shoot into/attack/cast a spell at a monster OR the character that is doing the greatest amount of damage (especially if it is significantly more than the others) -- whichever character fits one or more of those descriptions, that is who typically becomes the aggression target.

Now, if mobs are not acting that way it is because they are seeing the other characters as more of a threat and that can be a result of hard coding. Just like we as players typically go for casters/divines/ranged enemies first those same behaviors are often hard coded into that arcane formula I mentioned. You and the arcane archer very likely have starting values of ZOMG whereas your other party members have starting values of LOL -- so it takes a lot more work to pull the default aggression away from you.

The easiest solution is to increase the amount of separation between you and the other party members and make sure that they fully initiate the combats before you and the arcane archer join the fight.

There is a theory that the arcane formula includes grouping order. You might want to change up who forms the group and the order in which the invites go out. For example, the pale master might be lower/higher in the group order than you are so could be getting less of a bump to the default aggression value. I don't know how valid that theory is but it might be worth checking out to see if it makes any difference.

[Baktiotha]

One more thing, take a look at this page on Hate (http://ddowiki.com/page/Hate). It might help explain aggro a bit more and help figure out how to get your tanky warforged to generate more hate (and thus pull more aggro).

[btolson]

The third and final question for now revolves around how aggro works in DDO? My brother plays a Warforged Eldritch Knight who's actually pretty tanky. He tries to aggro enemies first and hold their attention but more often than not hoards of enemies run straight by him and come at either myself (the pure Wizard/Archmage) or the Arcane Archer of our group, regardless of whether we've even started casting/shooting respectively.
-Quiiliitiila

This is due to the recursion in the targeting AI. Essentially, mobs look for targets starting at the maximum distance allowed first, and then start looking for nearer targets. Thus, the farthest away target (that's within their targeting radius) will always be targeted first.

You can see this in Kobold Miner behavior too. The ones with multiple barrels always go for the crystals that are farthest away from themselves, instead of harvesting the ones that are right next to the one they just harvested (they might even be basically standing on a second crystal, but will still cross the entire room for their second pick).

[Quiiliitiila]

Thanks everyone, I'll take the time to read up on the pages posted and assimilate the information. If I have any more questions I'll be sure to ask!

-Quiiliitiila

[crazycaren]

You might want to invest and use diplomacy to deflect aggro. I've had some success with that on squishier toons.

[ValariusK]

My estimate is that initial aggro (which is the only aggro that often matters when you're talking about trash mobs), is assigned to the character with the least hit points most of the time. That's probably why pets and summoned mobs seem to be such incredible aggro magnets.

[Kylstrem]

Aggro really seems to be "broken". It used to be pretty dependable and you could actually pull aggro off of your friends if you hit hard enough and fast enough, but that that doesn't seem to work as well in recent years. The best way to see how broken it is to have the person with all the aggro die, and then have him/her run their ghost away from the battle... the mobs will chase the ghost for several seconds before realizing it is dead.


And your biggest self-help resource for this game is www.ddowiki.com if you come up with other questions.

[Selvera]

Stacking -> generally only one bonus of each type stacks. (total bonus = highest enhancement bonus + highest insight bonus + highest quality bonus etc). The exception is that nearly all bonuses from enhancement points or feats stack with everything. (with just a couple of exceptions).

Weapon enchantments -> These do not scale with melee or spellpower with a few exceptions. If you pick up a sword that says "deals 4d6 extra fire damage"; then that does not scale in any way, it's always 4 to 24 damage. However, in your example you mentioned arcane archer weapon imbues, which DO scale with spellpower, if you do 5d8 fire damage imbue and have 100 fire spellpower, it will do an effective 10d8 fire damage per shot. (I think they scale with 100% spellpower, might be wrong here, might be 150%).

Agro -> I don't even know. In theory it's who they see first initially, then whomever does the most damage modified by how much hate the attacks generate. In practice, it seems a bit more random then that.

[Kylstrem]

Agro -> I don't even know. In theory it's who they see first initially, then whomever does the most damage modified by how much hate the attacks generate. In practice, it seems a bit more random then that.

It's definitely not who they see first... I have parked my cleric hireling outside a room down a hallway... I'll run into the room and watch as all the mobs run past me through the door and down the hallway to kill my cleric.