Arelith

Wiki say the -ward is only against teleports, but I thought I recalled it also blocking -scry in that area? Dunno if that's me just wishful thinking, it changed at some point to only be teleports, or if the wiki is simply incorrect.

Any insights?

"-ward" blocks scrying in the area

"-ward teleport" blocks teleportation into or out of an area

Aha! Thanks.

If someone scrys on you, iirc, you can do -wardteleport and trap them.

BegoneThoth wrote:If someone scrys on you, iirc, you can do -wardteleport and trap them.

This seems like an unintended behaviour. Technically the PC is there due to engine limitations, but RP wise it makes no sense for teleport warding to keep the scrier in the area.

I always RP'd it as pulling them there via abjuration.

BegoneThoth wrote:I always RP'd it as pulling them there via abjuration.

That makes 0 sense though. Abjuration has nothing to do with summoning, teleportation or portals, neither does scrying. This honestly sounds like an exploit.

On the wiki;

Regarding when the scrier shows as visible, OR they suddenly are teleported there, they are considered present and detectable IG:

DM_Cobra says:

I cannot answer whether it's a bug or not, but it's 100% IC either way. Scrying has risks, this is (apparently!) one of them.

So I was going with that.

There's a world of difference between the scrier appearing or being teleported via an unintentional bug and intentionally using a broken feature to teleport them to you.

Yeah but sometimes when you get scried on you see a flash or something near by, like you would if someone ran past invis. It's not your fault if you slam that -wardteleport macro to try and catch whoever was sneaking by. If you're being spied on, move to stop it. If you catch someone, you caught them.

Sounds like an abuse of a bug to me. Sort of like mashing TS when a stealther enters an area and is temporarily visible.

Griefmaker wrote:Sounds like an abuse of an exploit to me.

Think of the situation, you're there with evil friends, you're doing evil things, and one of you glimpses the visage of your enemy out of the corner of your eye. Are they there stealthed? Are they there under invis? Either way, you don't want them escaping. So you -wardteleport.

As a 'defender' its impossible to tell if you saw someone because they were scrying or not. That's why, I believe, they said scrying has risks.

So buff and be ready for a fight before scrying, that way if you end up near them and they wish to try and keep you there you can open up some whup butt on them.

No, this is flat out an exploit.

Arelith's scry system does the best it can to mimic remote observation, but the engine limits us to putting the scrying character in the area he's in. Ideally, scry would never physically do this, but there's no way to get the NWN engine to handle a proper scrying, so this is the workaround that was settled on.

Taking advantage of that to prevent the end-of-scry teleport is availing yourself of a game engine defect for mechanical advantage, which is textbook exploiting.

So buff and be ready for a fight before scrying, that way if you end up near them and they wish to try and keep you there you can open up some whup butt on them.

Except that scrying strips off all your buffs.

But how are you supposed to know you're being scried on vs someone creeping on you? If they get too close while invis it pretty much appears the same, a flash of a person.

Pop a see invis/true sight first. If you can -ward_teleport, you can do either of those things without quantum Snuggle a Bugbear a scrier. If you're massively concerned about winning, you can have -ward_teleport macroed, or typed into the chat bar when you go to cast.

Stealthers will also have a greyed out name, which scriers won't. Invis characters will leave a stationary ghost the last place you concretely "saw" them, scriers won't.

Were I feeling less charitable, I'd also call into question how on-the-level the guy who reaches for -ward_tp as his first tool when something's up is. But I'm not, so I won't.

Wiki ought to be updated then. I've seen ppl get captured after scrying many times, assumed that was the 'risk' the DM in the wiki refereed to, and was 100% ic.

The "risk" refers to an array of bugs which the scrier assumes as a personal risk, because there's really nothing else they can do about them. This list of bugs includes:

-Scrying into an area where there's active combat or hostile monsters, and then dying while in the stationary scrymode.

-Scrying and having the cutscene invis fail to kick in (and thus making it majorly obvious that you're scrying).

-Scrying and having the return function just bug out and leave you there.

Worth noting that these are all engine bugs. Not on the list is:

-Scrying and having the guys you're scrying on do something that intentionally and reliably traps you.

The disclaimer isn't there to provide other players free license to do basically whatever they like, no matter how cheesy. If you're having trouble distinguishing between these two categorically different kinds of risk, then we need to take a step back and have a different kind of chat.

There's also these couple of tidbits:

If someone scrys on you, iirc, you can do -wardteleport and trap them.

I always RP'd it as pulling them there via abjuration.

Which look a lot different from

Oh gee, guys. I really thought that man was a stealther

I mean, if you're right you're right. I willing to admit I was wrong, I just thought that's how it worked and was fair gameplay.

I'm afraid Scurvy Cur is right on all sides here.

1) 'Seeing' someone like that is generally a bug, and whilst we understand mistakes happen (I've done it myself once or twice) you should try not to abuse having 'seen' them.

2) Using -Ward_Teleport after 'seeing' a character (or of course spotting their name on the party list - that's out and out an exploit) is also bad form. Please decist from doing it.

It is worth noting that there is at least one perfectly legitimate IC way of finding out when you are being scried. Furthermore, in such cases the character knows precisely that they are being scried and not just that "something is up".

The question that arises is whether an esf diviner+abjurer is supposed to be allowed use -ward_teleport to trap others, or whether -ward_teleport was simply not intended to be used in such way, period.

-Ward teleport is not supposed to be used that way period.

Thanks for the clarification ^^

Edit: Nevermind, apparently you guys are quick!

Sab1 wrote:So buff and be ready for a fight before scrying, that way if you end up near them and they wish to try and keep you there you can open up some whup butt on them.

you lose all magical effects on your character when you scry somebody, and will even take damage afterwards if you had more HP than your character actually has normally.. so constitution buffs, overheal buffs.. etc.. it all gets fed back to you as positive damage..

which as the person being scried you will actually see before the scrier returns to their original cast location as a random attack number come out of nowhere next to you.

I have often taken up to like 240 damage after coming out of scry because i went into it fully buffed..