Thief's Ring: It subdues your presence, making it difficult to be detected by enemies.
When a character or group faces a threat, they sometimes have ways of making that threat either unable or less likely to notice them.
Two of the most common ways are:
- We Need a Distraction, so the threat simply turns its attention away.
- Using magic or Applied Phlebotinum to make the threat not notice.
An Invisibility Cloak is a very common method of reducing aggro (unless one is aggro-ing the enemy, just they don't know where to retaliate).
In games with character classes, the thief may have abilities (innate or gained) that reduce the chance of being spotted, or use Mobile Shrubbery to hide from enemies. Also Damagers and Healers may have this in games that implement the Damager, Healer, Tank trifecta.
Even though Draw Aggro is the opposite of this trope, they will often overlap when another character is drawing aggro in order to reduce the aggro to other characters.
The trope name comes from the fan term for these gameplay tactics in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games.
A Sister Trope to Encounter Repellant (making enemy encounters less likely or non-existent). Contrast Encounter Bait.
Examples:
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Video Games
MMORPG
- Elsword: Code Electra (Eve's third evolution path)'s skill Photon Flare acts as this to the enemies affected. As they got Blinded by the Light, they'll get a status that will not make them aggro if you attack them until the status wears off.
- In Final Fantasy XIV, all Tanks share the Shirk ability, which allows them to send a good chunk of the enemy's enmity to another party member. When used properly (as in, not when griefing other players) it's mostly used to swap out the main tank taking the brunt of the boss's attacks.
- The "Not in the Face!" skill on some weapons in Pirates of the Caribbean Online will give the user a chance to break combat with an enemy in case they need to make a quick escape.
- In Ragnarok Online, there are a number of skills that can reduce the chance of monsters attacking.
- The quest skill "Play Dead" which is only available to Novice and High Novice class characters is exactly what it sounds like. The character reverts to their "dead" sprite and can't move until they turn off the skill. ALL Monsters, even MVPs, will ignore them as if they are dead and they are also immune to almost all player attacks, but can be cancelled by Sorcerer's Dispell and Swordsman's Provoke.
- There are a number of Invisibility Cloak type skills which let players avoid some monsters (the vast majority of them in the thief class branches) but MVPs, Demon and Insect monsters can see through them and one can't attack while invisible. This includes the Thief's "Hide" skill, which makes the character invisible but they can't move; the Assassin's "Cloaking" skill, which makes the player invisible and able to move at 100% speed at it's maximum level; Rogue's "Stalk" passive skill, which allows some movement while using "Hide"; Assassin Cross's unimplemented "Hallucination Walk" skill, which grants invisibility and summons 'Clones'; Stalker's "Stealth" which grants invisibility and can't be cancelled by detecting skills, although footprints show up so players will still know you're there; Guillotine Cross's "Cloaking Exceed", which is an enhanced cloak and grants invisibility that can't be detected by insect or demon monsters and gives a movement speed bonus; Shadow Chaser's "Invisibility" which grants invisibility that extends to attacking, but all attacks become Ghost element. The only Invisibility Cloak attack not in the Thief tree is the Ranger's (an archer class) "Camouflage" which grants invisibility to most monsters but not players, as well as grants some stat bonuses. Many of these skills can be obtained by other classes with the use of items and cards.
- Some classes also have skills that let them avoid drawing monsters without being invisible. The High Priest has "Basilica" which is an area of effect skill that makes a 5 x 5 square safe from monsters (except bosses), protecting anyone inside from being attacked but also from attacking. The Rogue Class also has a skill called "Slyness" which allows two or more rogues sitting together to be immune from monster aggro (except for bosses).
- Every school of magic in Wizard101 (with the sole exception of Balance) gets a spell from Mortis the Death tree that discourages enemies from attacking you. Death gets Pacify, Life gets Calm, Myth gets Subdue, Ice gets Distract (which, ironically, used to be a single-target version of Taunt), Fire gets Tranquilise, and Storm gets Soothe.
- Plants vs. Zombies: Garlic is used for this; you plant it on a lane and the zombies on that lane who eats it will switch to another lane, making that lane safe from most attacks and potentially redirecting zombies to the lane that you fill with more danger to be unleashed at the zombies.
- Warcraft III:
- Losing aggro is often as simple as telling an injured unit to run away. As long as there are allied units still fighting, the enemy will usually focus on them.
- Night Elf females, heroes with a Cloak of Shadows and human bandits can use Shadowmeld, which turns the caster invisible at night, and can be used to force the caster to leave enemies alone (as attacking breaks invisibility).
- The Faerie Dragon's Phase Shift nullifies all attacks against it while active, and it remains untargetable for the spell's duration.
- The Blood Mage's Banish makes the target ethereal, preventing any physical attacks from damaging it (and preventing it from attacking). However, spells do extra damage, and the unit ot only remains visible, it's also slowed, making it an offensive and defensive spell. The Tauren Spirit Walker can switch between physical and ethereal forms as needed.
- Unintentionally done with the Sleep spell, which makes the target invulnerable for a few seconds before applying the effect, forcing the caster's units to attack elsewhere.
- Mastermind: World Conqueror: Notoriety continuously increases as you perform evil acts necessary to expand your criminal empire, resulting in an attack on your base when the gauge hits maximum. Some missions allow you to decrease it by targeting journalists, buying you more time to prepare for the inevitable attack.
RPG
- Eating a Vanish Seed in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon gives you a status condition of 'invisibility', allowing you to walk past wild pokemon without them taking any notice of you. It makes you invisible to your allies too, though, and they'll wander off on their own without you to guide them.
- In the Dark Souls games you can use spells and items, like Alluring Skull, to make enemies temporarily go after the target spot instead of the player.
- In Dark Souls you can equip the Ring of Fog to reduce the range of enemies going after the player.
- In Demon's Souls the Thief Ring reduces the range of enemies going after the player.
- In the Dragon Age series abilities like this are a staple of the Rogue and Mage classes.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, the Stealth skill allows rogues to disappear from view even in the middle of combat, resetting all aggro against them from enemies who cannot see them anymore (which depends on their relative levels) after a short while. The Mages, meanwhile, have a spell called Mind Blast, which pushes nearby enemies away while simultaneously reducing their aggro against the caster.
- In Dragon Age II, the Rogues can still use Stealth in combat, but have several new talents to reduce enemies' aggro in combat, such as Armistice (nullify all aggro against themselves or another companion), Goad (redirect all aggro from themselves to a companion), Evade (leap away, simultaneously reducing aggro against themselves), and Subtlety (passively slow down the aggro build-up against them). The Mind Blast spell returns for the mages.
- In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mind Blast and Stealth are still the main means of aggro reduction for their respective user classes, but mages now have a passive ability called Peaceful Aura, which passively reduces aggro build-up against them, while the Rogues' aggro-manipulating abilities are reduced in number, leaving them with just Easy to Miss (same effect as Subtlety in DA2).
- Epic Battle Fantasy 5 has the Lovable status effect, which makes the afflicted unable to be targeted by single-target attacks. Multi-target attacks are unaffected, however, and attacks which target randomly will typically ignore it.
- Golden Sun: The Jupiter Djinni Haze turns a party member invisible for a turn, making enemies attack elsewhere.
- The Of Pen and Paper series: The Threat stat. Having the highest in the party designates a character as the most likely to be attacked, and it can be lowered, to reduce the chance of that, with a minimum of 1.
- Knights of Pen and Paper: Naturally set with certain characters having higher than others.
- Knights of Pen and Paper 2: Can be controlled by equipment that raise and lower it, with weaponry raising it by at least 1.
- Prayer of the Faithless: Mia's Timid Passive Ability reduces the chance of her being attacked automatically:
Mia is too shy and reserved to hold a threatening presence. As such, she is 20% less likely to be targetted by enemies.
- Xenoblade Chronicles 1:
- Two of Shulk's skills are designed to reduced aggro: "Forced Mercy" and "Stealth Warrior". The former lowers his aggro whenever he takes damage, thereby forcing the enemy to target another party member. The second skill simply makes him less likely to draw aggro by 30% when he uses an Art.
- Alternatively, the player can also craft Arts Stealth gems which have the same effect as Shulk's "Stealth Warrior" skill. A level VI gem lowers the user's aggro by 25% when using an Art, but the effect caps at 50%.
- The infiltrator class in Mass Effect series gives you access to a tactical cloak which makes you temporarily invisible to enemies, making them focus on your squadmates, or simply stand still if your squadmates are KO'd or absent.
Tabletop Games
- In Monster of the Week, the Flake has a special move called "Often Overlooked", where they can "act all crazy" to appear unthreatening and unimportant to others (including monsters and their minions).
- Dungeons & Dragons
- The 1st Edition Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide has rules for dealing with angry monsters pursuing the Player Character party. Throwing food can distract stupid monsters (who stop and eat the food) and throwing money or other valuable items can allow escape from intelligent monsters (who stop and gather them).
- D&D has a large number of spells, magic items and psionic abilities that grant invisibility. In most cases, becoming invisible prevents monsters from continuing to attack or attacking in the first place. The only problem is monsters that have enhanced sentences other than sight, such as keen senses of hearing or smell.
Third Person Shooter Games
- The "dummy decoy" item in MDK can be thrown to nearly instantly draw enemies' attention away from the player character, even as he ruthlessly shoots them in the back.
Turn Based Strategy
- The Shade skill in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn reduces the chance that its wielder is targeted by enemies.
- Terraria has this as a benefit of the stealth effect of Shroomite and Vortex Armor, as well as the invisibility potion.
Other Media
- Robin: When Tim leads the Teen Titans to break into one of Lex Luthor's secret labs he uses parts from the first group of security drones they encounter to fashion devices that cause the rest of the drones to ignore them so long as they don't attack first.
- In Luminosity, Allirea's power is to make herself seem irrelevant, even as she's attacking. This allows her to take down combat-trained full vampires even as a comparatively weaker half-vampire, although she's still vulnerable to enemies who have powers that allow them to notice her regardless, or area affects that would block her even if she went unnoticed.
- In Sunset Shimmer Hunts the Undead and its contemporary partner series A Band of Misfit Losers Hunt the Undead, Wallflower Blush's overuse of the Memory Stone has resulted in her being a Forgettable Character, which while a hindrance for normal socialization becomes a case of Cursed with Awesome for fighting supernatural threats as it allows her to saunter past enemies who don't pay her mind so that she can, say, sabotage their doomsday machine under their noses. As this ability doesn't extend to her being a direct threat (e.g., the effect is nullified if she's aiming a firearm at an enemy), she also uses it to be a Combat Medic when her friends are doing the fighting since the enemy can't Shoot the Medic First if they don't register she's there in the first place.
