A Friendly Reminder to NPC Mages about Abusing the Magic System.

[Script Wrecked]

And all those NPCs with prestige classes, where are their NPCDTs showing years of angst and inner turmoil as they strive to overcome personal inadequencies and/or childhood trauma and put in hours and hours of research/investigation/training/practise? Hmm? Hmm?

Let's not even mention the total lack of NPCDQs.

[Weeblie]

Actually... some of the NPCs have far greater and more CDQs than PCs.

Blood is one that quickly springs to one's mind!

However... that leads to them breaking another rule: Max 8 hours on a single CDQ... and 2 month between each.

[lonnarin]

Lord Rael has been caught muling his epic quality artifacts to the guards of Prantz.  Everybody has a mithral shining hammer and if you notice examining them with a right click, they dished out regeneration rings like they were bloody candy!  Immunity to death attacks, stun, sneak attack, the common cold?  Clearly an "I-Win" card in effect there.

The nymph and topless succubi flagrantly violate the family server dress code as well.  Before we had players parents upset over the "bubble boobs" crafthall customization choices... and the marilith walk proudly around with not even a shirt or bikini top on!  Further, the Mariner's Hold dockside NPCs toe the line of decency by choosing the name "prostitute" in all their name fields.  Couldn't they have left something to the imagination, like "lady of the night"?

The vampires of the Serpent River too are abusing the server mechanics by sun-tanning atop the hill instead of hiding in the cave.  We must search all their submission bios for mention of "day-walker" heritage, which could fall under the restrictions for nobility and unique lineage.

Worst of all are the city merchants, who mysteriously always have things in stock and never run out of any item, no matter how many times its purchased.  I believe they are exploiting some kind of item duping bug and cloning these all on their ox pack or something!  Does this bode well for the economy, infinite items for infinite profit?  I haven't seen a single one of them digging sand for the bottle they sell.

[Skywatcher]

I would like to offer a brief comment on how the NPCs are breaking the partying and level spread limits too.  I was in the Emerald Skull's lair the other day and noticed that the Emerald Skull is enabling much lower level skeletons and "apprentices" to encounter adventurers that they would otherwise not stand a chance against.  This is just an example that is repeated in many places where high level NPCs are dragging around much lower levels into encounters much above thier capability.

@ Lonnarin  Don't forget those permanent haste items that many NPCs possess.  I thought this was a low to mid magic world?

[lonnarin]

Oh I know!  Speaking of level limits, I have encounter many NPCs who feel that they are above the server rules for level restrictions across the server.  I ran into the dwarf ale salesman in Prantz... was in interesting conversation...

Oi lad ye want soom ale?

Egads man, what are ye doing here?  If a GM catches you, you can be banned from the server!

Oi, well I gots me soom RP reasons.  I'm a dwarf in a city trying to sell soom ale.

Well yeah, but clearly you are still level one, you should go to one of the cities on Mistone where they dont slay you on sight then.

wha?  But I was BORN HERE!  Yer telling me I kinnah just sit here and sell me ale in peace?

Surely not sir, that is no valid reason for you to be here.  All of us PCs were born places all across the world... some in voltrex, some in dregar, hells... I was born in Arabel!  They made me travel to Hlint first thing!

But lad... the trip there could kill me!  You seen those mushrooms on the path to Lor? one stray funginoid and ahm toast!  Then navigatin the woods from Kartharian ter Mariner's Hold...

Well you should have thought of that before being born in a place like Prantz.  I'm sorry, but you must relocate yourself for the next 7 levels under penalty of ban/death.  RP reasoning like clear clarion logic and practicality have no room here!

*grumbles* Thas it... ahm gonna powerlevel on soom ogres and whoop ye butt, bard!  Ye will rue tha day!

[Skywatcher]

Speaking of power leveling, why does a PC have to take a year to get to level 20 when NPCs can show up and within days they are way into the epics.  I remember, as an example, when there were no trollocs anywhere to be found and then one day there are bands of well rounded parties of epic trollocs roaming Belinara.  Did anyone even see these guys on Mistone or Dregar?  They must have run circles grinding XP in high level areas for days straight to get that powerful that fast.  *shakes head*  I am really disappointed that no GMs called them on that.

[lonnarin]

They were all leaching off their high level spawn friends.  Sitting back at lvl one just watching the Trolloc chieftain wail on Rift Drow and getting equal cuts of the diamonds.  To be fair though, I saw a lvl 2 Balor Lord having a tough time with a deer he was trying to hunt in Silkwood.  It seems he didnt quite understand that his attack roll would be so weak without ambidexterity and two weapon fighting selection, and he spent most of his class skills in things we dont use like craft armor and craft alchemy.  He was requesting a rebuild earlier I think.

[lonnarin]

It has come to our attention that far too often, the NPCs are escaping our impenetrable, Azkaban times ten-thousand prisons.  Every time a player character gets arrested, the locks cannot be picked, the walls cannot be smashed, the dirt is too thick to tunnel through or the guard is a massive juggernaught who never sleeps, bleeds or cries.  Far different is the experience of the NPC prisoner... they break out by pickpocketing a key off a drunken incompetent guard, picking a lock with a nosehair, direct teleportation through the teleportation-proof walls, being bribed with coins made of belly-button lint and the like.  Wholley 1/3 of all NPC villains taken to the prison systems manage to mastermind their excapes to thwart the player characters yet again.  We suspect that the dastardly GMs are manipulating the laws of probability in order to achieve their plot twists... which is having a detrimental effect on fairness and immersion.  We believe this to be a consequence of the "Plot-Progression Principle", a nefarious inconsistancy in the probability of events compared between players and NPCs.  With this, seemingly impossible acts are performed by the most poorly trained of NPCs at the drop of a hat, while simple mundane tasks are an impossibility to players should they interfere with the "I-Win" scenario of the NPC.  Take for example the 4 foot tall gate around Firesteep's entrance... a whole team of dwarven miners who had just climbed thousands upon thousands of feet up sheer cliffs are suddenly confounded by a four foot wall.  Their pickaxes cannot penetrate the unyielding wooden door... yet chain Milara to a rock by the neck, blindfolld and bind him, cut off his arms to stop him from casting somatic spells, gag him from all verbal components and drop him into the deepest ravine of the ocean and it is 97.99 percent certain that he will be spotted without a scratch the next week.  We believe this syndrome to also be affecting our soap operas, where fully 70% of the population has died more than once, and the remaining 30% have an evil identical twin posing as them later.  Batman has similarly noticed the same probability gaps in Arkham, where not a single criminal caught by him stays confined for more than 3 issues.