Barren Realms MUD

I don't really see it fitting for all of those to get it oog, even. If ig for kender, I'd have it renamed (like iron monk/biofeedback), definitely ig for ills. I could see giving elves it oog, and possibly the renamed version oog for humans (especially if it's more like a skill than a spell). Otherwise, I don't see it fitting in with how we have the races defined. And I still rather like the idea as far as it goes - a mage should certainly be able to think up some way of distracting other mobs in the room.

ah, i think i misunderstood the original suggestion, thinking it to be a spell cast on the assisting-potential-mob, instead of an anti-assist-shield to be worn by hte player. i think for that sort of a spell to work would be somewhat rediculous. i mean, i don't care how dark and shadowy you are, the other mobs are still going to see and hear their comrade struggling against something, or at the VERY least notice that he's no longer standing guard where he's sposed to be, and try to help out. a similar spell that might be a good one though would be some sort of disguise spell, to make memory mobs not recognize you as the one they want to kill. seems like a very kenderish skill/spell ot me, would help when it came time to sell someone the pretty little thing you "found" the other night.
for the group ability, being able to do this could be HORRIBLY abused, unless some big changes were introduced. juts consider the following group:
level 9 kender
level 13 elf
level 17 avian
they can group around the elf, but the elf is getting plastered, so they change the group leader to be the avian. then the elf decides to leave, so you're left with
level 9 kender
level 17 avian
and you think that's pretty bad, but then a level 21 human comes along, and since it's the avian leading, he can group. pretty soon, you have
level 9 kender
level 21 human
see where i'm going with this?
to fix this, the mud would have to periodicly check that the total level gap in the group didn't excede 10, which isn't currently the case. as long as you can start out grouped, the higher character can level all he wants while you stay low, juts as long as you don't break up the group since you won't be able to regroup later. personally, i prefer the current system. i would much rather deal with having one person in the group restricted from drinking (which is almost always the case anyways, unless you have enough avians to carry the drunkards) than have to break up a group and level seperately just because the higher level character levelled a few kills before you would have or the lower character died and lost enough exp to slow him down a little too much

You confuse "LEADER" with "GROUP-HOLDER".

You suggested this group:
level 9 kender
level 13 elf
level 17 avian

The level 13 elf is the GROUP HOLDER, but the avian is the LEADER. In order to change GROUP HOLDER, you must disband the group and recreate it. If the elf "leaves" the group no longer exists. When a GROUP-HOLDER quits, you must recreate the group. As long as the GROUP-HOLDER continues to play, anyone would be able to follow anyone else once joining.

A level 9 could never be left in a group with a level 17 or a 21 (unless those people somehow outlevelled the level 9, which is already the case).

ah, i think i get it this time (after only two times misunderstanding the idea-maybe i should stop posting at 5am *grin*). i thought the idea was to be able to reasign the groupholder without disbanding the group. if the idea is actually to (forgive me here for a horrible abuse of notation) give a "groupleader" flag to an individual within the group, regardless of which individual was the groupholder, then yeah, that would be an ok idea. i still think it would have very limited usefulness, and most likely not worth the effort it would take to code, but an ok idea just the same. as a temporary, and not nearly so time consuming, alternative, i'd like to see a rewritten help group explaining group mechanics more thouroughly, in particular how characters can group as long as their withing 5 levels of the groupholder (that's unclear in the help file), and how the groupholder can follow anyone he chooses without disbanding hte group, but others in the group must follow him *volunteers to write the help file, if the powers that be would like a newer version*