Encounter methods.

I've decided to use a more Chrono Trigger/Lufia style rather than a Final Fantasy style encounter method. By that I mean when you are walking around in the map, instead of encounters happening randomly, you can see your opponents and by approaching them you initiate combat. I like the feel of this encounter system better because it gives a finite quantity of enemies to face in the sense that you don't get aggrivated when exploring or trying to solve a puzzle by random encounters. Instead you can clean out the dungeon or choose to aviod some encounters.
Implementing this kind of a system has proven problematic though. I can set up some monsters to run around on set paths and will initiate combat if they collide with you. This is fine except that it doesn't make sense with slower monsters (like a Living Rock or Ogre as opposed to a Bat or Wolf) because they are too easy to dodge and it can become quite tedious and complicated to design the paths. It also gives the monsters a more fabricated and less natural feel, making them seem less threatening. The other method I've used is to have the monsters wait in one place and set up events that will trigger the monster to charge. This is fine too, but is even more difficult to set up.
What I would like is to find some way to have the monster move on a random path, and then attack if the hero gets within three tiles or so. There doesn't seem to be a "player in proximity" condition, so maybe this could be done with a script? What are all your thoughts on this encounter method? Any ideas how to spice it up and keep it interesting?

Thats a very good idea, and I've been searching for methods to incorperate this method into my game's dungeons as well. I don't think you need a script to do it, just a conditional switch used with variables, although I havn't really sat down and coded it all out.

I'm going to make the 'charge radius' so to speak, different for each of the enemies, and some of them that remain hidden until you walk past them. Ambushes and such.  I think this will feature will fit perfectly with the random enemies script found at rmxp.net, which lets the enemies stats and level vary slightly with each encounter.

I'll keep you updated on if I figure it out or not.