Can you have a npc hiring guard you then run off screen and come back and attack it without it fighting back? If not what is the best way to work wrestling/melee skills Thanks
Best way is to just hit another character of yours. To my knowledge you don't gain better here from fighting any specific thing. I GM'd wrestle without much hassle at all just hitting my other character.
This is on my research list, currently NPC's do not provide any combat skill gain, however player characters do. (The opposite of the T2A era). If we find some supporting patch notes from the Renaissance era to indicate this was/was not changed we can adjust the gains accordingly.
I am 100% certain you could gain off of NPC's in UO:R. You would gain off both players and NPC's. I hit a fighter in Jheolm Pits to get my LJing up when the bonuses came out on my dexxer. I have no proof but I am 100% certain you could gain off of them.
You can always look through the patch notes and see if you can find anything supporting that. The easiest way is to use the following thread and do a search in each of the patch notes: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=52
I hired a paladin today to train tactics up, but i could not get him to %100 not damage me, after some trial and error i just killed him and began beating on a punching bag that i made for the occasion, I got better gains and did not have to worry about my dexxer dieing. I believe hitting other chars is better than hiring a paladin. :twisted:
I just created a random heal char and found a place close to town but not near npcs or player traffic and macroed away.
I remember gaining from macroing with a paladin back in the day. I only ever had one account so it was the only way a could pull it off unless i had a friend let me borrow their character here and there. Im pretty sure i gained both ways.