Screeching trollocs of the great forest

[jrizz]

OK I have to say that these things are way over the top tough. I know a mage can wipe out a group of them with one spell. But a buffed high level fighter cant even take one of them. Somewhere that makes very little sense.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

*coughs* "This is a low-magic world"  */coughs*

[jrizz]

No it is not, it is a low magic ITEM world. There is a big big difference. If it was a low magic world then the bad guys would not all be hasted with DR to everything and be able to spam spells at light speed. Furthermore if it was a low magic world then mages would not be the most powerful thing on the server.

[Lynn1020]

They are tough. But there are also plenty of things that magic will not even touch.

[jrizz]

Yes there are there are a few things that mass death spells wont touch. But those same things are not touchable by fighters without massive amounts of buffs. So how it turns out is that mass death spells allow solo casters or small casters groups to clean up in some very tough areas. Take a small group of similar level and well equipped fighters and they would not be able to do 1/20th of what those casters can do. Thus we are a low magic ITEM world not a low magic world.

[lonnarin]

Rather than beefing ALL of a spawn up to be immune to this trick or that like the forrest giants have recently been with their newfound will power, I would like to see more mixed spawns and such.  A group of only bruisers or only mages or only giants for that matter, give them a nice rounded out with flankers, tanks, spellcasters, clerics, etc.  That way the insta death wouldn't hit them all, meanwhile the beefy fighter would need more mage support against caster spells, the flanking rogues can come up and sap your strength and hp with poison weapons and crippling strike, and so on.  So rather than taking these creatures which are way difficult to fighters and raising their will saves so they can't be death spelled, mix it up!

Oh, and we are only a low magic item world for players.  You should see how many monsters chop right through +3/15 Stoneskin DR like butter, with their emerald acid dripping axes.  Too bad those awesome items keep vanishing when we kill them, but I suppose the monsters feel that same frustration when we ride the bindstone intact.

[akata]

The screeching are among the more powerful spawns on the server build to challenge a group of level 30+players, and they replaced the old trollorc spawn because that was severely unbalanced. You had archers who would rip players apart from half across the area + they all had low saves thereby making it too easy for mages to solo. In my opinion the screeching are balanced compared to what level group they're aimed to give a challenge.

I'm not going to launch into a debate about the balance between casters and none caster, except saying they are unbalanced by default in nwn, and the team is doing its best to equal that out (without adding +10 items to the game)
 
So in short:
Not saying that the Screeching aren't tough, but to tough compared to what?
Should all spawns be killable when you reach level xx?
Should there still be places where even the most powerful groups will have to fight for their lives?
Should all powerful spawns be hidden at least 1 hour travel away?

[jrizz]

The debate about casters and non casters has gone on many times before with varying outcomes. But recently I went to look at how mass death spells were dealt with on other servers. I did this due to the added fire power that Layo gave to casters in the form of power word kill. I wanted to see if that spell was beefed up anywhere else. I found that most mass death spells were nerfed enough so that they still thinned out the crowd but left a fight behind to deal with.

BTW - I saw on one server where items where in the game that were meant for certain races and classes and even though UMD or race allowances (like elf and long sword) could overcome those,  some of them just had OOC statements in them they said this is for XX class or race or alignment and only for them. We could do that and solve some of the issues (like elf mages with dragon slayer swords) of adding some cool (and yes powerful) class, race, alignment based items to Layo.

As for the screeching being among the more powerful spawns, well there is no doubt about that, but two 30th level mages will take them out (At least when they had the archers mages needed fighters/front liners to take the brunt of the arrows). There is no way that two 30th fighters could do that same thing (unless of course they were fighter mages builds).

No there should never be a all spawns should be killable at xx level but when you have a 25th level mage wiping out whole spawns due to the use of a few mass death spells and a 30th level fighter that would be pulped by any one bad guy from one of those spawns you have a massive balance issue.

On your question "Should there still be places where even the most powerful groups will have to fight for their lives? ". I have pondered this often. My conclusion is that no there should not be. All spawns should be built for the kind of builds we want to support and encourage on layo, the mid builds with quirks and non-perfect numbers, the builds with a interesting mix of feats and skills, sure they are not as powerful as they could be if they picked all the right feats and skills at the right time and have the perfect class, level, race mix but they have color and character. If that means that the power builds get bored because there is nothing to challenge them, then great! go make a PC that has some faults. There should NEVER NEVER be spawns built to deal with fully optimized perfect numbers builds. That is contrary to the spirit of the server. I know many people that have PCs and call them their RP PC!!! You have to know that you went wrong somewhere when the player base builds PCs for RP with the knowledge that they will never go to the far reaches of the server (unless on a quest and at great risk).

There should be powerful spawns everywhere but powerful to the mid range of builds not the fully optimized range.

@lonnarin hit it right on the head. We need better mixes in high level spawns, so that when the mass death and stun spells are done there is still a group of angry tough bad guys that need hacking, not two or three dazed/blinded/half dead non-threats left, but fully ready buffed tough angry bad guys that will need joint efforts to take down. And woe to the fools who try to take them without a full array of support.

But if you are going to make spawns where one or two mages can go in and wipe them out then maybe just maybe it would be good if a half buffed fighter could take one of them one on one.

Just for information - My main PC Wren is a imperfect build for sure. He is a elf barbarian with some fighter and rouge levels (takes a XP hit due to it BTW). I built him to be effective in a group. Solo he can only go places that he gets no XP and are for the mid-level range. But you put him with a mage and he is good, put him with a mage and a cleric and he is very good, put him with a mage, cleric, and bard and he is unstoppable. I am sure that last part is true of many PCs but you have to look at the range he has. Alone he is mince meat in high level areas with the right group make up he is crazy good. That is in my opinion the recipe for the perfect layo build.

[Lynn1020]

I'm not sure what mage that can clear out the trollocs with one spell.. I have tried it with Amanda. She is lucky if she can clear one area using up every one of her spells. Put Ami (32) and Amanda (33) they can clear maybe two area's before they are out of spells.  It is very risky. Maybe I'm doing something wrong or it is Amanda's build but they shoot her up very quickly once they get through her wards.

Edited to add: The only thing I saw that the area of affect spells would totally clear out was the Great forest giants.  Which has since been fixed.

[davidhoff]

Tralek (23 lvl wiz) happened upon two Screechers mistakenly thinking that something else was gona be there.  Their spell resistance beat all his spells.  Those things are brutal.

I actually was very impressed by this.  It created a challenge for me.  I like challenges in the game.  It's what makes me start thinking more creatively about my tactics and strategy; probably one of the most exciting parts of the game for me.  

I also like what Jrizz and Lonnarin said about having areas with a balanced group of enemy; groups of enemies that take a well balanced party to eliminate.  It promotes then need to party up and prevents soloing.

[Dorganath]

While I'm not going anywhere near the topic of caster vs. melee balance (because it just won't go anywhere good, as history has shown), I will touch on a couple of other points raised above for the purpose of clarity.

The "new found willpower" in the giants was to correct them being rather fragile in that regard.  There were other issues as well with the giants in the Great Forest, and yes, they will be getting one more tweak next time, but the whole point of the recent changes was to take PWK out of the "I Win!" category and put it firmly into the "Well I've got a fighting chance" category.  At the same time, their AC was reduced some, giving melee combatants a better chance.

I already have a note to take a look at the Trollocs as well for similar issues to the giants, but in some ways they are already better.  There are other issues with the spawns in a mechanical sense which could use some attention...and will receive some attention next time.  Don't worry. I'm not doing anything drastic, but there will be a difference.

Oh and as a point of interest, the old Trollocs were put in place in response to the over-farming of giants by casters back when we had someone else primarily building areas. *grins*  

That is all.  Feel free to butt heads on the caster vs. melee debate. I am stepping away now.

[jrizz]

@davidhoff thanks for the input. It actually goes to one of my points. Tralek is not a optimized build I suspect. If he were he would have been able to take on two screechers, with difficulty of course, but a 23rd level optimized wizard build could do it (if ready for it). But he has been built in unison with a fighter (verbal) together they make a formidable pair. That is truly in the spirt of layo.

[Lynn1020]

There is only one or two mages I know that can take the trollocs alone. One of them would just go in "weird" or what ever and loot those that died and leave the rest. That is not soloing.

[jrizz]

The trollocs are not the only area that this unbalance rears its ugly head over, nor is it constrained to only high level areas. Yes the casters should be more powerful in a low mage world but the gap has gotten so wide that this statement is now very true:

"Casters dont need melee classes with them but melee classes do need casters with them"

[Makashi]

In my opnion this is not a low magic world by any means.

In a world where a mage has a choice of if they want to go off on their own, or with a big group, either way, they will be able to find something they can kill, so if a caster really wants to (not necessarily a mage, most casters though) they can achieve level 30, with little problems going out on their own soloing.

A fighter, could not get to 30 in the same amount of time, no way, it's impossible, theres no instant death magic for fighters, and fighters cannot travel without a party, due to having to get involved up close and taking damage, they need magic for the weapons to do much, and a healer usually, among other spells etc.
After epic levels, and where fighters could once go, with or without a group, has completely been changed, so that casters must be taken along too.

A level 30 fighter....who has seen a level 30 fighter go solo for exp recently? Well I can find one spot to get 64 exp a kill. But spending 20mins going through an area for about 1200 exp, does not really motivate me at all.
Not to mention theres still a risk of dying for that measly amount.

I guess what I'm basically saying is, a caster can get to level 30 on their own, no way a fighter could do that anymore. And once at those levels, good luck taking your fighter off to solo, anywhere.

As Jrizz stated, low magic item world, but far off from being a low magic world - give us something to dig our swords + axes into. please.

[Dorganath]

As Jrizz stated, low magic item world, but far off from being a low magic world - give us something to dig our swords + axes into. please.

Like the Thunder Peaks?

Or is it that you want to have a more melee-oriented place that is solo-able by the non-caster set?

[Lynn1020]

Oh I agree that mages are more powerful than any other class.. I have Emie and Amanda.  But the post started off with the trollocs so that is what my focus was on.    

What about the Thunderpeaks and the Rift?

[jrizz]

@lynn I think I was over stating when I said a mage can wipe out a group of them with one spell, it take a few more then that. But the discussion really has gone to the expanding gap between caster and melee classes.

[miltonyorkcastle]

What makes the mage able to solo/overpower enemies is their ability to immobilize and/or kill mass amounts of enemies, usually through one of the instadeath spells. Hence, I will focus my discussion on instadeath spells. The trollocs may be soloable by a 30+ level mage, but the following will not only address that, it should also address all situations involving monster group soloing.

The easiest way, IMO, to deal with the mass-instadeath spells in a manner that both keeps them as viable for the caster but still promote party play is to cap the number of kills at three or possibly five. We already have kill caps on insta death spells (PWK is one of those, actually), but the cap increases with level (which makes sense) and ultimately allows for double digit kills (which makes them really nice and powerful).

Without going into a major discussion of party roles, you have two general types of party mages: buff mages (often clerics/druids) and attack mages (often wizards/sorcerers). Most do a little of both, but those that specialize in one or the other tend to be better in combat. Since we want to promote grouping, teamwork, and RP, the attack mage's role should be to soften up the enemies for the fighters to finish off. By "soften up" I don't mean completely immobilize or kill most of the enemies. I mean that the mage makes the enemies easier to kill, either by doing mass damage (say from fireballs and lightening bolts), or by singling out particularly tough foes and taking them out of the battle (say from a Bigby's or hold monster). If PWK, Wierd, Wail, etc, capped at three (or even five) kills, they'd fulfill the role of softening the group of enemies without impeding on the role of the fighters and rogues to finish off the baddies. Also, mages would still be able to solo in the sense that their magic would still be powerful, but they wouldn't be able to go so far on one rest. You couldn't kill a whole group of giants with two-three spells. You'd need six or seven or maybe more. But with a good group, a mage could just expend the three spells, and let the warriors/rogues finish off the rest of the monsters. Also, this would make builds that focus on damage spells (instead of instadeath spells) more viable, especially with the recent update that allows for damage spells to continue their progression into epic levels.

If you wanted to keep with the graduated theme for the instadeath spells (they get better as you level), then maybe start with a cap of three, then increase the cap by maybe one per five levels after 20th, so that the total reaches seven by 40th.

This concept is not new, and has come up before. I think it's been shot down for reasons like fear of the spells being "nerfed," it's never good to "take things away," etc.

[jrizz]

Like the Thunder Peaks?

Or is it that you want to have a more melee-oriented place that is solo-able by the non-caster set?

The peaks is only one place and even though it has changed it is still for the first few areas very unbalanced in the melee class direction. The misted is pretty much a no go zone for casters and thus does nothing to promote balanced mixed groups. As far as no magic areas and balance the Rift is the best done area. At the right level range it needs a full array of classes to deal with it. Going in and out of no magic areas makes for an interesting challenge all around. Something that would give the rift even more of a boost would be more hard traps and locks in the no magic areas.

So I think it is clear that my direction is about driving the need for more balanced groups and reducing soloing.