>On a sidenote, you talk about thieves and warriors
>catching people offguard as if it is a simplistic "Duh"
>answer.

Actually, what I said was:

Unless engineering a situation where an invoker won't (or can't) have a protective shield spell up counts as a trick.

Jumping an unprepared invoker would be a subset of that, but it isn't the whole thing. Rolling the dice and hoping luck has provided you with an opportunity isn't a bad thing, but better is (so to speak) to use loaded dice. Create a situation in which that character has to be less than prepared, or be where you want, etc.

>Thieves I can understand *slightly*, but as a
>warrior, how do you intend to ambush a voker?

There are a couple ways. The simplest (yet, probably most difficult) is just to move very, very fast.

> Sure, there
>are places and times when it *could* be done, in theory and
>all, but let us be realistic, those are about as remote as
> assuming I get into Dullameh's range), Dullameh stumbling
>into one of my briartangles unprotected under the light of a
>full moon. Sure, you can try to make it work, you can hope
>for it, and you can get lucky, but is it something you're
>really going to dictate as a "strategy"? Not really.

Two points:

First, it's something to add to the bag of tricks. I'm not claiming it's the be-all end-all strategy. It's almost like hanging out near a high level mob when you know a conjurer is going to try to kill you to help deal with his elemental. It's not applicable to every conjurer situation -- it's just one more weapon in your arsenal. As you come up with more and more ideas of things to do in different situations, the number of situations not covered by any of your tactics will decrease.

Second, there's laying that briartangle out in the middle of nowhere, and there's having the foresight to have a pretty good idea of a place your enemy will go in the foreseeable future. It's basically the same thing you said as the gaunting locations, except broaden that principle. Ask yourself, are there places this character needs/wants to go in certain situations? Are there ways I can force or encourage that? Trivial example: If you're carrying food/water in your inventory and I, as a thief, steal it . . . I have a pretty good idea that you're going to be somewhere to buy food soon.