Shattered Kingdoms

It is a blatant exploit to be able to do this. Qahz made it fairly clear, though not explicitly, that he knew icly that the law functions like this.

I will test later to see if turning off auto assist will prevent this abuse. However, attacking a pet or charm should count as aggression against the owner if the pet and the owner are in the same formation.

How could I abuse this?

Attack someone's pet outside a law office where several npc NPCs could quickly report the player, then, by the time the enemy player's pet is dead and I've bashed them somehow they also have law NPCs after them. Bam, 2 for 1. Even if you don't die to me you gotta escape the city's law too.

Plus it means that anyone that uses a pet to protect themselves from bashing will have to constantly be afraid that their pet will be attacked and removed, and thus, they themselves would be exposed, with no penalty to the attacker until they actually bash the unprotected person.

So using a pet to protect yourself from being bashed comes at the cost of opening yourself up to being outlawed.

So if I see a person who is not a member of that city's tribunal and I attack their pet, they go to jail for a day for attempted murder.

And if the Imms don't deem it an exploit, I will do this to people and get you outlawed in your cities when no one is around to pardon you, just like Qahz does.

I'm talking about how a (bounty) NPC will aggro against a character in F1, and the leader in F2 will walk into an adjacent room during the "opening" round. When the leader brings the group back into the fight the formation is wrecked. This is dumb, and should not be possible. All characters that are auto-assisting and can reach the aggressor should engage in combat during the opening round, causing the "walk" message to echo "You can't do that while fighting!"

I guess on this we have to agree to disagree -- attacking your pet is not mugging or murder, and should not carry the same consequences.

The biggest problem I see with the complaint is that you seem to be making an issue out of a generalization that should not be happening. I can see three(ish) specific situations where I might attack a pet in order to try and kill you, and in every case the answer is the same:

1) You are a priest, and your pet is the only thing standing between me and your sweet, soft, squishy hide.
Solution: Turn off auto-assist. Really, you shouldn't have it on in the first place, as the only thing it provides is an auto-target, and prevents you from dropping sanctuary when you go aggressive. I understand that you think that is a big deal, but the reality is that having auto-assist on as a priest is oftentimes more of a tactical error than not (the most potent example I see is that if your leader flees and you are caught in combat, you stay and die instead of maintaining your position and leaving with them).

1.5) You are a sorcerer, and see 1).
Solution: See 1). Again, a sorcerer should not have to defend his "pets..." and if he does, he's going to do so through aggressive spells that would cause him to be wanted anyway.

2) You are a warrior hiding behind your pet because you are unprepared for a fight.
Solution: You had auto-assist off, right? Type "recall." You weren't ready for the fight anyway.

3) You are a warrior with your pet behind you for protection, and a quick "o all rescue" if things get nasty.
Solution: See 1). Since you are in front of your pet, you'll automatically respond when the other guy's pet attacks you, and he'll be properly charged for the crime. In fact, this actually reverses the exploit if the other guy is auto-assisting, because you can run in with an "o all dirt pet" and get him to attack you, causing him to be charged.


Moral of the story: maybe you should consider turning off auto-assist?


I think I'm turning into Finney.

I can turn off auto assist easily. And I will and see if that works. Still, pretty big exploit against anyone that is the Noob.

I still think this is a rotten exploit and that you should not technically be engaged in combat, auto assist or not, until you are actually engaged in combat, and not reported for an attempt to assist but for assisting.

What are you charged for, pre-meditation? That's ridiculous.

Yes, yes it is. Just like the whip and trip.

Be a pro and fly -- don't be a noob and die!

Actually, it is a bug abuse, and here is why.

You are not attacking the pet because attacking pets are fun. You are attacking the pet so that you cannot be charged with a crime if the owner retaliates. Your main purpose of the battle is to attack the owner without committing a crime, therefore it is bug abuse.

So you could like, attack a hammer chars pet and get the hammer char outlawed in Exile before you engage in the real pvp?

If I were a hammer in Exile I'd kill you just in case you were thinking about doing that.

I'm pretty sure that totally cool Justiciar would pardon that Hammer member.

I don't see a bug here. The code was changed some years ago to reflect the responsibility of the owner of the pet/charm. Pets may not be persons under the lawl code, but they are still afforded some protections under the lawl. The only place I could see where it would probably be permissible to horribly mistreat your pet would be the northern wastes. The traditional SK player only treats their pet as a meat shield to keep them from being bashed by a would be aggressor, but is still responsible for their aggressive actions.

Pets still fight when they are second row as well, it's not a bug, they just can't reach you, unless they are one of the select few pets that have reach. You're responsible for the actions of your pet.

The only people that really have to worry about this are people that are in current conflict with a state/country, and therefore probably *should* be outlawed. Everybody else would probably be able to easily secure a pardon from the tribunal leader.

this must be changed or I will get PETA or the WPA to place a formal protest. Animals rights must be protected at all costs!