Regarding the group combat question, since it is an extension of PK CAREFUL, I suspect it will have little to no more impact than PK CAREFUL already has.

This is a very nice system and it's great that people are trying to think of loopholes before it can be implemented. However, I do hope that it won't be so overly complicated like it has been done in Achaea, where you have to muck through four 10 pages long helpfiles to see if you have PK rights on someone.

I was also thinking, would it be possible to make this command directly linked to enemying? So if you enemy someone, then that person is automically declared, or if you allied someone, then that person is automically defended?

You do realize that anyone you enemied could then attack you whenever they wanted? Assuming that enemying declares wouldn't wear off until you unenemied. Not sure if that'd be a good thing or not.

The biggest problem I see with this is room-wide attacks. To use them, you'd have to find out who all is in the room, declare them, then attack. Wouldn't be too hard with some triggers, but someone on Java would have a lot more trouble.

Secondly, would people be able to pick and choose who those attacks hit? Currently, that's a major drawback on some rather powerful skills. If you could avoid hitting your allies, they really improve.

Otherwise, it sounds good. I think that without this, there are always going to be bugs and loopholes in the Avenger system. This way it becomes much easier to debug, since you know who started combat.

so, if i wanted to use skills like ectoplasm or contagion, would it only hit those i declared first? or would i not be able to use it at all unless i have -everyone- in the room declared, including my allies? and what if someone else whom i don't have declared enters the room after i used one of these skills?

Maybe you could make it an automatic DECLARE on anybody affected by this kind of room skills.
Also, I would make DECLARE not valid against an ally (thus, no suspect) even if it's strange that testing skills kills your friend.
There would be need of an exhaustive listing on what skill is an attack and what isn't (for example, the targetted says aren't an attack I think).
Also, if you consider that to have a combat situation you need two people then you don't have to worry on DECLARING against yourself.

Is anyone else reminded of Diablo?

Make Contagion and Ectoplasm only works against one target.

Sylphas-

Yeah, that is a good point, scratch the idea for enemy then. But I think it would be useful for defending people. If you are defending a village for example, and you allied (auto defend) everyone in the room, then if anyone attacks one of your allies, you could easily jump in to fight, instead of being in the scenario Olan described- (defend bob, defend bill, defend joe, swing narsrim).

The ideal Mud would be that one where people acted sensibly and didn't attack people for no other reason that getting experience or a rise on adrenaline.
If the players controlled more the bunch of idiots who upset non fighters by attacking them for those reasons (and this is easy enough with outguilding, outcitizening, power blocking) then we would need no pk rules, no avenger, no declare, etc... And the divines could be coding fine new cities for us to play.
But the moment a significant part of the population is angry because they cannot move from the monoliths without being summoned, or cannot walk around the highways without being killed, then rules are needed. And coding a system that allows "rightful*" Pk must be really difficult, because we're a hundred minds thinking new tricks against a bunch of coders trying to solve those tricks before they are abused.

* By rightful I mean Pk caused by RP reasons that aren't nonsense (I kill you because I am Mag and you're Seren is nonsense) and allow those people who actually like to fight to have fun fighting against those who are a challenge instead of a level 21 novice.

From what I understand declare doesn't prevent them from attacking you anyways, its just a program flag that tells who the aggressor was.

Enemying working like declare would solve statue and any other passive attack problems.

You dont get suspect for killing someone in a village if that person is an enemy.

Defend as if it was uninfluenced.

Being able to flag who initiates a fight is a great thing. I see how this will fix the a major problem with curses. You would no longer be able to start a fight with the intent of dying to get suspect and curse.

If someone turns off PK Careful, would they still need to declare. If not, how does the defender avoid suspect status.

I'm very very happy with this system, particularly because it totally fixes some demesne problems regarding things such as Poison and Boulderblast, etc. I also think there's alot more strategy involved in regards to raiding, such as "Ok, who do we expect to be there? Who can we declare beforehand?" I love it.

I thought you dont get suspect either if a village is in play.

With PK off, it declares when you attack. The point is DECLARE lets you tell Avechna that you really do want to kick his butt.

Syntax would be PK DECLARE , though one coder suggested PK DIEBITCHDIE as a possible alternative.

...no more coffee for Fain. (Unless he's not a coder.

...in which case no more coffee for Auseklis. You can just tell it was one of Them.)

Karma: good.

Karma with declare: better.

Karma with declare chasing off any player who gets his jollies by disrupting the fun of others without risk of his own fun being disrupted: priceless.

I can only say: BRILLIANT!

That said, I'm wondering about people who use their demesne to defend an area, while they're doing something else. Would they have to declare everybody every time they entered their demesne for this to work? It seems really tedious, and plus you'd need to know who was an enemy/target for it to work even with super coding. Also, would it count as still being in combat if the demesne was still attacking but the players had stopped?

Otherwise, I love it!

If the demesne is in a city or commune's controlled area, then it will hit any of that city or commune's enemies (because the mage/druid wouldn't get suspect status attacking an enemy of the org in that org's controlled area).

If the demesne is outside of his or her organization's control on the prime plane, then yes he or she would have to declare. Yes, it makes it harder for the druid/mage to attack multiple people in non-enemy territory on the prime. But is that so bad?