Good Aard Hunting (and Hunt Trick): a Primer

The Hunt Skill

( ingame review:  help hunt )

As the help file in game says:

“Using a combination of tracking, intuition, acute hearing, and reading the signs of nature, a skilled character can hunt a target within an area. This skill will tell the direction the target has gone, as well as general certainty of the results.”

The hunt skill is an incredibly useful tool for finding mobs, players, or pet/summon which in the same in-game area you are in but, for whatever reason, their location is unknown to you. Even if your character does not have the hunt skill, its existence enables the “hunt trick” which is available to all characters at all levels and will be covered below after the skill review.

For instance:

hunt raccoon

You are certain that a raccoon is east from here.

Would indicate that I need to move east from my current location to approach (and possibly reach) a mob named “raccoon”.

In an area with multiple mobs of the same exact name, you can use an increment prior to the name (e.g  hunt 2.raccoon, hunt 3.raccoon, etc) to target each other mob of the same name (just like accessing multiple items of the same name would be done) like:

hunt 2.raccoon

You are certain that a raccoon is south from here.

Class access

Every class has access to the hunt skill at some point, although four of the seven primary classes will have to tier up quite a bit to have access to it earlier in the game.

Levels for Hunt (Sn: 301) —————————————————-

Mage Level : 201

Cleric Level : 201

Thief Level : 42

Warrior Level : 68

Ranger Level : 20

Paladin Level : 201

Psionicist Level : 201

Racial access

All Wolfen characters have access to the hunt skill at lvl1 as well, regardless of class.

Subclass Perk

The Navigator subclass of the Psionicist pclass have the ability to use the hunt skill (once acquired through class/racial means) to hunt through portals.

Campaign Mob Immunity

All campaign mobs are immune to the hunt skill revealing their direction, resulting in an “unable to hunt that target” message as shown below:

hunt pixie

You seem unable to hunt that target for some reason.

Nohunt Flag

Also, you should know that some mobs in game have a “nohunt” flag, meaning they are invisible to the hunt skill resulting in this message when hunted:

As an example of a nohunt mob:

look at cleric
This evil-looking cleric scouts around for all types of things. You can see on his waist a belt with ingredients for a spell that looks extremely deadly. The dark elf cleric is in perfect health.

However, when hunted:

hunt cleric

No one in this area by the name ‘cleric’.

This message indicates that the mob (which you can interact with normally via it’s name) has a nohunt flag set.

Hunting speed and the Fasthunt wish

By default, the hunt skill has a recovery lag after each attempt using the skill which can introduce a significant delay in gameplay while hunting many mobs in an area. There is an available wish, called “fasthunt” which reduces this lag.

“Fasthunt: When you are hunting victims out in the wild, you will take less time to recover before being able to hunt again.”

Cost for the fast hunt wish is (see ingame: “help wish” for more information about wishes): 5000 quest points + adjustment based on previously purchased wishes

This concludes the review of the basic function and use of the hunt skill, but where the skill really shines in Aardwolf is the in game feature called the “hunt trick”.

The Hunt Trick (a trick for all classes and ages)

( ingame review :  help hunt trick )

Regardless of race, class, level and/or tier every character can attempt to use the hunt skill, even though the results are very unreliable.  This particular oddity, coupled with cp mob hunt immunity,  is what allows all classes of any level to leverage the “feature” called “hunt trick”.

From the hunt trick help file:

“During campaigns you will get a specific message when you try to hunt your target, preventing you from doing so. Other targets with the same or similar names may still be hunted, however. This is very useful when, for example, your target is ‘a guard’ in an area with 30 different guards and only one will give credit.”

So in an area with multiple mobs of the same name as your sought after cp mob, often only one of those mobs will give credit for your current campaign.  The hunt trick will often allow you to locate your particular cp mob’s exact location (using the where command):

For instance looking for a cp mob names “troll warrior” but I see many troll warriors in my current area, it would take me a very long time to kill them all to find my partiuclar cp mob.  Using the hunt trick I am able to:

hunt troll warrior

You are certain that a troll warrior is south from here.

hunt 2.troll warrior

You are certain that a troll warrior is south from here.

hunt 3.troll warrior

You seem unable to hunt that target for some reason.

Ah ha!  The cp mob is “3.troll warrior” and the where command reports that particular mob is:

where 3.troll warrior

a troll warrior South-East corner of the battlefield

So my cp mob is located in the room: “South-East corner of the battlefield”

And all I need to do is navigate to that room (manually move, mapper find+goto, or use a plugin like SnD which will leverage your mapper data) and kill the mob.  If more than one of that name mob “troll warrior” happens to be in that same room, you still might have to kill all of them there to get your cp mob, but this is vastly better than having to kill all of them in the zone (there can be 20+ of some mobs in the same zone).

The more you use the hunt trick, the more easily grasped this concept is and the more quickly you will be able to complete those precious campaigns for sweet, sweet quest point rewards!

Commonly hunted mobs

Now that you are familiar with the hunt skill and the hunt trick,  here are some commonly hunted mobs, listed by area with a brief description of why they are commonly hunted.

Area	Mob	Common Hunt Reason
Gauntlet	Deep Dragon, Lightning Golem, Death Tyrant	hunting these mobs will help you locate the Battle Room through the maze
Verume	lizardman citizen / lizardman priest / lizardman warrior	hunt trick useful to narrow down cp mob from many similar mobs
Lower/Upper Planes	pet/summon	to locate entrance (which is also the exit) room after moving from it (remember to order pet/summon to sleep in entrance room, then hunt it to return)
Citadel	Blandine/Beleth Valefor/Janus Gabriel/Belial Michael/Baal Jean/Vapula Lauence/Saminga	hunting one of each of these pairs will lead you to the other; useful for hunting cp mob e.g. if your mob is “Michael” then you would hunt “Baal”
Maelstrom	overgrown oyster / coral / seagrass	hunt trick useful to narrow cp mob down from many similar mobs
Fairy Tale 1	youngest prince second prince third prince fourth prince fifth prince sixth prince eldest prince	after killing one of these in the Great Palace you can hunt the one of the others (might have to increment the #.<mob>) to find the exit
Firebird	Princess Elena	a “nowhere” mob
Prosper	nymph	to find exit to the imaginarium (type exits in room with nymph)
Nenukon	exile eagle champ/paladin of the lynx tribe ice demon/yota timo fox master/lynx master mounted	hunt exile for “entering Nenukon” hunt eagle champion/paladin of the lynx for “Pit of Monhui” hunt ice demon/yoto timo for “Small Cave/Yota Timo’s Lair” hunt fox master/lynx master for “Far Side / Great Wall” hunt #.skele (increasing) for “Yota Timo’s Army”
Promises	zombie / 6.Captain	hunted to navigate to “On the Flying Dutchman” across the “On the Ocean” maze
Scarred	pete	to exit the winding tunnels into main area
Xylmos	rubber	to exit the Rose Ether to rubber room
Horath	spider/queen minion/Aiwiss dragon/horde	spider/queen to lead through mines maze and to find the other in pair minion/Aiwiss to lead into mist maze and to find other in pair dragon/horde to find gates on other side of mist maze and to find other in pair
Sahuagin	Azhirlur/accountant/treasure room Kutrok/unholy missionary Tumek/nanny/near-blind hatchling Vekma/punisher/enforcer	hunt these names to find their respective rooms through the maze; if you have a cp mob of one of the Prince names, you can increment the mob count (2.<mob>, 3.<mob>, etc) until you are able to hunt it to lead you to the room in question
Lagoon	gatekeeper	to find cexit “enter crack”
Cougarian	field guard	to locate the entrance to main Cougar area (then “roar)
Helegar Sea	eternal cold	hunted to find the iceberg for cexit “climb iceberg” which leads to yeti area; the iceberg will be within 1 move (N,E,S,W) from eternal cold

Good luck and have fun!  

-Flynnt