Do you consider this to be cheap/cheesy?

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Well, recently i've finished IWD1. Great Fun. However, during the game i found out one tactic that worked out very well in each and every encouter with an enemy. It's pretty simple: have all the monsters attack one party member, and run him around your other party members. This way they can hack at the monsters, and you cant get hit even once.
So, do you consider this to be cheap, or have you also been using this tactic throughout yout games?

 

I only use it when they target a spellcaster somehow. Very rare since I always lead with my tanks, but some places enemies just pop in.

 

I don't consider this to be cheesy. Compared to other tactics it's even quite realistic.

 

Nah, ofcourse it gets cheesy if you do it all the time.

However, against a very tough (but dump) enemy (or boss), or when you are playing HoF from scratch, it is pretty much the best thing to do!

 

I think your tactic has already decided wars and is still used nowadays in similar forms.

I prefer keeping the enemies busy with summons instead while shooting at them.

 

It's just a shame that the AI respons like that. If it didn't then IWD would pose a much harder challenge for players (well, not if you use summons, but i hardly ever used any summoning spells during my play time).

 

I don't think it's bad AI.
What behaviour do you exspect from the monsters ?
Switch target if someone keeps running ? Then you just have another one for running away.
If the monsters divide themselves and attack each of your party members you just have to run about 7 seconds, shoot, run again until the monsters are gone. Requires more micromanaging and pausing but is easily doable.


The problem is in the game engine. Your characters can run faster than the enemies and enemies have to stay several seconds at close range without moving for a melee attack.
If a monster turns around to face another party member you'll have more than enough time to run away.
Even the best AI doesn't help if the player uses micromanaging and pausing.

 

But you know what? I do think it's bad AI. I've been using the same tactic with my party over and over again, especially against the Verbeegs who deal a whole lot of damage. What I do is I lure the monsters with one of my character, then lead it through a small enough passageway where two or three of my other characters are blocking. My decoy shoves my 'blockers' aside while leaving the monsters on the other side. If I let my decoy stay within sight of the monsters, they'll keep going at him like mouse to a cheese while my 'blockers' hack the monsters to chunks. Same thing I did against the fire giants in lower Dorns, got outta there unscathed *now that's cheesy*... but doesn't seem to work on bosses (so that's why they're called bosses).

 

Heh, my tactic against the last boss (forgotten name) first time i finished the game:

Dwarf fighter and Elf ranger + one pair of boots of speed.

i hid the rest of the party (spellcasters) in one corner so they didnt get in the way. and used my two combatants and ran at the boss, the moment i saw which one of them (say dwarf) the boss attacked i moved away from the boss, paused, entered inventory and threw the boots of speed over to the ranger. so the dwarf ran away, the boss after, and the ranger run behind and with the boots of speed moved fast enough to catch and attack the boss. When he had enough and turned around to kill the ranger, ranger starts running, dward starts attacking, pause, throw boots of speed to dwarf. rince and repeat.

So yes, AI is dumb.