Your opinions on making PC stop multiple turn actions when spotting a hostile?

[Stingray1]

Is that what ppl refer to as a strawman?

[Silfir]

Arguing against a strawman is when people construct a crappy position and rebut that instead of rebutting arguments that have actually been made. Fortunately for GordonOverkill, you provided the crappy argument for him:

I wonder why monsters are displayed on the screen while performing such actions, if I understand previous posters' argument monsters should be 'invisible' then.

That's just pedantic and devoid of substance. The display "displays" such creatures for milliseconds at most. ADOM is a video game, not a simulation. It reflects reality only insofar as doing so makes for a better game. There's no sleep in ADOM either, for dozens of excellent reasons. Whether a given mechanic would be "realistic" or otherwise is of very limited importance.

If by "previous poster" you've been referring to me, you've thoroughly misunderstood anyway. No one's been suggesting monsters become "invisible" by any stretch while the PC is occupied. (One might even wonder whether you've intentionally misunderstood, thereby creating ... a strawman.) With the tasks mentioned, there really is no way of going about them that's going to keep you fully alert and ready to instantly react to dangers. Reading a spellbook is no joke - remember the consequences of failing to read one -, Smithing takes a great deal of effort and creates a lot of noise that would mask the approach of any creature anyway, fletching requires you to drop your weapons and use your hands to perform fiddly precision work, and so on. Implementing this "realistically" would end up assigning individual activities a "noise value" and other factors that determine how it would be handled, but why go through all this work when the current solution is satisfactory? To represent the disadvantage of being distracted and not alert, creatures are given the chance to sneak up on you - perfectly fair, perfectly thematically appropriate, perfectly balanced.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I also think the current behavior is pretty natural. When this happens to me, I think "damn, an orc sneaked up on me while I was reading the book!" and I have never seen it as unfair, only as something to be careful about.

[Blasphemous]

I think Silfir got it right, things that require concentration and occupy attention should not allow the PC to notice monsters until they are very close.
The way this works right now feels just right to me.

[Stingray1]

Fair enough. For the record I was referring to Silfir and anon123's posts.

I'll just keep equipping protective items and lock doors when performing such tasks, I must say I kind of like that mini-game. But I would still love to have my RFE to have pre-selected outfits 'saved' to make these efforts less cumbersome.

[_Ln_]

Personally I think it would be nice if the game sets DV to 1 (lowest value) for the duration of continuous action requiring concentration. Right now when I eat some food while being attacked from all 8 directions, I always picture my PC as Jackie Chan. Especially if the PC is using a shield.

[Stingray1]

Personally I think it would be nice if the game sets DV to 1 (lowest value) for the duration of continuous action requiring concentration. Right now when I eat some food while being attacked from all 8 directions, I always picture my PC as Jackie Chan. Especially if the PC is using a shield.

Yeah, well currently it is best to equip 2 shields while performing these actions, except for smithing of course. That is exactly what I currently do, 2 shields and item of invisibility. Webs down the corridors and room filled with webs and all doors to the room locked.

[GordonOverkill]

My strategy: Close the doors (well, not always, to be honest x-) ) and cross the fingers!

[Stingray1]

I've had some bad experiences with mid leveled characters, so I'm extra cautious when it comes to this.

[anon123]

Yeah, well currently it is best to equip 2 shields while performing these actions, except for smithing of course. That is exactly what I currently do, 2 shields and item of invisibility. Webs down the corridors and room filled with webs and all doors to the room locked.

Wow! I only lock doors, and maybe throw invisibility in if it feels necessary. But don't let anyone tell you your method is overkill, there's no such thing as being too careful in this game.

Spellbooks I try to read in the plains whenever possible. For some reason, I like the picture of my character taking some time off crawling dark dungeons and reading in a calm, open-air place