Game Mechanics: Sneak pulling revisited

[Pyrocat]

Great find! If you'll allow me to sum up some of the research so far, I feel like we have a very strong case for sneak pulling being classic.

Earliest post on that thread that mentions sneak pulling is Sept 28th, 2000.

Can you sneak pull?

I saw mention on a rogue board that if you attack with
a thrown weapon, and press sneak before it hits, then
you can split a spawn. Supposedly only the mob you
hit goes aggro on you.

Can anyone confirm that this actually works?

So we know it's in-era that throwing a weapon (or shooting a bow) and then hitting sneak before it lands works. It sounds like it changed at some point from throwing weapons breaking sneak -> throwing weapons eventually didn't break sneak, which would be an even bigger boon.

Originally Posted by Monkly Business OP, last edited 6/23/2002

4) Using Thrown Weapons and Sneak to split.

With the changes to Sneak (no longer dropping when you use a thrown weapon ) another use has come up! In order for this to work, you must be using a ranged weapon with a ranger greater then the static aggro of the mob ( ie method # 3 listed above): engage sneak, throw, insta split. Personally I'm using summoned suriken for this, and I haven't had to use FD on a split since I got back into EQ. This includes splitting spawns where the mobs are literally on top of each other, although some times I have hit the mob i didn't have targeted, I have never aggro'ed the other.

So we know that at least by June 23rd, 2002 throwing weapons didn't break sneak. But that's not in era. However, here's a post quoted earlier from the TTLG forums dated December 11th, 2000:

Originally Posted by TTLG forums, 12/11/2000

Now I've given you all the information necessary for the single pull. Let me describe the rogue implementation of this, the sneak pull.

This works best with a SoW, but I've had it work without. First, sneak up to bow range to the monster. Hide is not necessary. Because sneak reduces aggro range, even from the front, you should still not have aggroed anything. Shoot an arrow at the one you want, and immediately back off. The one you shot will come running, and if you can get far enough away before it comes and hits you and removes sneak, its friends will not. The bow works better than throwing because it lets you stay further back, but I've heard you can get this to work with throwing as well.

I have successfully used the sneak pull in Cazic-Thule at the lower Tae room and at the Burynai Mines in Frontier Mountains. I'm sure it would work in other places as well; I just never had the need.

That seems like solid evidence that sneak would not break from shooting a bow, and likely throwing weapons, in-era. Here's another piece of evidence:

Originally Posted by Safehouse Guide to Sneak Pulling, 6/11/2001 (repost, likely earlier)

Written by Kuurus IceBear

Basically, Sneak does two things - depending where you are in relation to the mob. One, automatically sets you to indifferent if in the rear arc of the mob - and two, reduces aggro range if in the forward arc of the mob.

If you come up behind two mobs and fire a bow, or throw at one - only the target will come as long as you keep sneak engaged. It negates him from chain aggroing the second mob. As if the first mob normally says "Come on, there's a guy over here" and the second says "I don't see anything", shrugs and stays where he is.

Here's another smaller piece of evidence:

Originally Posted by Safehouse Guide to pulling, 3/22/2000 (repost, likely earlier) edited 5/4/2000

.) Pull
Once your group is informed, pull the mobs using one of these methods:
- use a bow, or even throwing weapons
- run past them, thus aggo’ing them
- run up to them, and attack them

Using a ranged attack is preferred, as you have a much greater chance of not pulling unwanted mobs.

So when exactly did the change occur? We don't know. There is a patch note from May 8th, 2002 that

Sneak only breaks when a character is hit, not when he hits someone.

which would indicate that previous to 5/8/2002 sneak broke when hitting someone... but there might've been an exception for ranged weapons.

Regardless of if ranged-weapons-breaking-sneak is in-era or not, there is plenty of evidence that firing a ranged weapon and then hitting sneak (if sneak was successful) reduced the aggro radius of your tag in classic EQ.