New Dungeon/Monster Balance Thread

[Cortex]

Starting with Flood Plains Silver Mines


Why are LARGE TRACKERS in there? They're immune to physical damage, epic mobs, and absolutely overkill for a dungeon with silver as the big prize.

They also are a massively powerful monster in comparison to the others.

[Durvayas]

There are many much easier places to get silver than the silver mines. Risk v. reward its never worth it.

[Flameborn]

RDI and Cloakers were both overbuffed far too much. Only the most powerbuilt of powerbuilt groups can go there, and even then its easier for them to go other places instead.

[Cortex]

I think RDI is fine, not for XP but for the artifacts/level 30 parties.

Cloakers have become completely obsolete however.

edit: The dragon guarding mithril is way overboard however, it is said ot be stronger than Abazuur and it only guards mithril which is HARDER to get than adamantine right now, which is way backwards.

edit 2:

Troll shamans are really strong for their areas too, casting Ethereal Visage(damask/greesnteel or gtfo), fear, slow and interposing hand.

[Naiphe]

Bugbear shamans outside the brambles. My lord. Trying to fight these things without an OP class is an absolute nightmare. They have high AC, discipline and their summons deal about 20 damage/hit and inflict heavy con penalty poison. Not to mention the 'daze' type spell they cast which lasts forever and they seem to be able to do several times. They are literally harder to kill than the 'bugbear hero' boss mob that spawns with them

[DM_Tophat]

I've removed the Great Wyrm in RDI and swapped it with a less OTT dragon.

[Flameborn]

Right now my primary issue with leveling area's is that level 23+ leaves very, very few places you can go and get any decent xp.

It was RDI at one point, but the actions of a few punished the many. I wouldnt go there with any of my builds, becuase its just too dangerous and time consuming for the reward.

It was more recently cloakers, but now they have massive ab, ac, sneaks attacks, permanent 50% concealment, they fly, some of them have acid sheath, and some of them spam greater spell breach (A spell that has 0 counters, it works 100% of the time on 100% of people) They are perfectly geared to screw over every build in seconds.

So that leaves us with only one place that gives good xp up to the 25+ level range, Pandemonium. One area for 5-7 full levels is horrid, and while i'd love to see some new high epic area's, I think it would just be easier to tone down the crazed difficulty of cloakers and RDI.

[Tarkus the dog]

How about make Fungus-something Beetles not one shot newbies with their insane crit damage in bramble woods?

A mere mob shouldn't be stronger than a boss, and give out poor experience after wrestling with it for quite a while.

[RamblerTeo]

The Underdark Egg-spider.



















ptsd

[Stath]

Buff the derro outside andunor or remove the area. It's literally pointless when you go straight from sewers to the peninsula.

[Whitewood]

Well, i wouldnt say the Derro outside andunor are pointless. Its, Sewers/ basement of the Web > Bonefields or Derro > Raider Camp or Peninsula > ? > ? > ? > ?
I lost track of the advanced areas beyond the Peninsula after taking a hiatus due to rl activities taking a toll on my ability to play. But, the Derro still have a pretty challenging zone for those early low lvls.
Id say its the Drider Clerics who still somehow spam HoGs that really frustrate me.

[Convention of Blades]

There's a certain type of drider cleric that insta-strikes your character with death magic. Slithering trackers, just no... I understand UD is a dangerous place but if you fail to interrupt the death spell during the casting, chances are slim that you make it alive out of the Peninsula. Slithering trackers are just overkill.

[Iceborn]

Well, i wouldnt say the Derro outside andunor are pointless. Its, Sewers/ basement of the Web > Bonefields or Derro > Raider Camp or Peninsula > ? > ? > ? > ?
I lost track of the advanced areas beyond the Peninsula after taking a hiatus due to rl activities taking a toll on my ability to play. But, the Derro still have a pretty challenging zone for those early low lvls.
Id say its the Drider Clerics who still somehow spam HoGs that really frustrate me.

Bonefield OR derro?
No, most certainly not.
In the Bonefield, par the grave worms, the best the AB gets is +4, with the champion that only spawns after level 6 having more than one attack.
The Derro spawns at groups of 3 to 6, have slightly more AB, have units with two attacks and relatively large sneak attack damage. How much is it? 4d6? More? A proper fighter they can't hit without rolling a 20, but they make up in the kobold style with sheer numbers.
And a few other things that I can't recall now. Stunning fist?

And you get exactly the same experience as the Bonefield.

[Nitro]

But the derro have the added bonus of being worth more when captured with a lassoo while being right next to the slave pits at the same time. Easiest way to quickly earn money on a low-level underdarker by far.

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

...I'm not saying that some semblance of balance isn't a good thing, but this thread strikes me as a little ridiculous.

"MIthril is too hard to get, make it easier!"
'
...It's Mithril. Who cares if it's +1 less than the adamantine that's arguably easier to get. It's Mithril. If it's got an amazing dragon guarding it instead of a troll, chop off the amazing dragon's head, or do without.

There is no reason every monster you kill in a dungeon has to be progressively harder and worth a little more xp. Sometimes a smart, weak monster/person convinces some big, nasty thugs that aren't as smart to do some fighting for it.

Again- I'm not saying balance is unimportant- what I'm saying is that we're playing adventurers, epic heroes and villains, and if something is epic hard, the correct response IMO is to gather up a group of adventurers ready to execute a plan and take down the challenge.

The challenge ceasing to exist because someone posts some stats up in this thread is the opposite of the whole point, to me.

I can't be the only one who feels that way, can I?

[Cortex]

Adamantine is easier to get. That is/was a problem from a game and gear advancement point of view.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

...I'm not saying that some semblance of balance isn't a good thing, but this thread strikes me as a little ridiculous.

"MIthril is too hard to get, make it easier!"
'
...It's Mithril. Who cares if it's +1 less than the adamantine that's arguably easier to get. It's Mithril. If it's got an amazing dragon guarding it instead of a troll, chop off the amazing dragon's head, or do without.

There is no reason every monster you kill in a dungeon has to be progressively harder and worth a little more xp. Sometimes a smart, weak monster/person convinces some big, nasty thugs that aren't as smart to do some fighting for it.

Again- I'm not saying balance is unimportant- what I'm saying is that we're playing adventurers, epic heroes and villains, and if something is epic hard, the correct response IMO is to gather up a group of adventurers ready to execute a plan and take down the challenge.

The challenge ceasing to exist because someone posts some stats up in this thread is the opposite of the whole point, to me.

I can't be the only one who feels that way, can I?

You're not, but this needs to be balanced with "it's a game" philosophy. NWN is a game. Arelith uses NWN to create a world where roleplaying is paramount, and gameplay is second. Gameplay, however, is still a priority.

Gear chains, dungeon development, and ensuring that gameplay is an adequate backdrop to roleplaying is still really important. And it can be very frustrating when you encounter steep, unexplainable power spikes that prohibits exploration and fighting new interesting (but not overpowered) foes.

[Xantor_Stromgate]

There is no reason every monster you kill in a dungeon has to be progressively harder and worth a little more xp. Sometimes a smart, weak monster/person convinces some big, nasty thugs that aren't as smart to do some fighting for it.

Again- I'm not saying balance is unimportant- what I'm saying is that we're playing adventurers, epic heroes and villains, and if something is epic hard, the correct response IMO is to gather up a group of adventurers ready to execute a plan and take down the challenge.

The challenge ceasing to exist because someone posts some stats up in this thread is the opposite of the whole point, to me.

I can't be the only one who feels that way, can I?

You are not alone!!!

[Rattus_norvegicus99]

I too would like to see more epic level dungeons - especially some additional development of the various planes. I'll even volunteer to help build them if someone can school me on the NWN tool box.

[Thera]

...I'm not saying that some semblance of balance isn't a good thing, but this thread strikes me as a little ridiculous....

I can't be the only one who feels that way, can I?

Seconded, you aren't the only one who feels this way.

Arelith isn't designed for the experience of one player - it's for the experience of all players. Balance should be a consideration of 'equality of opportunity' for all players - not for the characters they create. If your character struggles somewhere, it's the nature of a persistent world. As a player, if you really want to go there, you've got every right to roll up a new character that will eventually be able to get there.

Long story short - unless it's something mechanical that will turn off fresh-off-the-boat brand new players, then leave it alone. Once you've got a bit of experience with Arelith, well, we all know that bad things happen to good adventurers, some areas are harder than others, and if your character is likely to get killed going somewhere with a particular party/strategy they bloody well shouldn't go there or they should change their party/strategy.

Your character exists in the world of Arelith. The world of Arelith doesn't exist for your character.

[Cortex]

That point would all be well and good if mithril wasn't only found behind balor lords and ancient red dragons while you can walk into other areas and pick up adamantine far easier than mithril, not for one character, but for all of them.

I suggest the people who say role play before mechanics to try getting mithril and then adamantine to see the difference, because I can't honestly believe many of you did it.

[Aodh Lazuli]

Long story short - unless it's something mechanical that will turn off fresh-off-the-boat brand new players, then leave it alone.

This seems to be a recipe for stagnation.

Surely reviewing content, seeing whether or not it often visited, considered fun, appropriately difficult for the level it was deisgned for, and so on - Then making the required alterations based on this... That must be the way to improve the game, right?

[Flameborn]

Long story short - unless it's something mechanical that will turn off fresh-off-the-boat brand new players, then leave it alone.

This seems to be a recipe for stagnation.

Surely reviewing content, seeing whether or not it often visited, considered fun, appropriately difficult for the level it was deisgned for, and so on - Then making the required alterations based on this... That must be the way to improve the game, right?

You are dead wrong Thera. There are much larger games with hundreds of thousands of players that have died for that exact reason.

You must always keep adapting, and changing things if need be to keep things fresh.

[Thera]

Long story short - unless it's something mechanical that will turn off fresh-off-the-boat brand new players, then leave it alone.

This seems to be a recipe for stagnation.

Surely reviewing content, seeing whether or not it often visited, considered fun, appropriately difficult for the level it was deisgned for, and so on - Then making the required alterations based on this... That must be the way to improve the game, right?

Um. That is fairly obvious - but I'm more than willing to trust the Devs to review content. Especially the recent team - they've proven through both word and action that they've got a good handle on the situation.

Slithering Trackers, Ancient Red Dragons - these are all things that have been added in by the Dev Team in the perspective of the entire world.

I suggest the people who say role play before mechanics to try getting mithril and then adamantine to see the difference, because I can't honestly believe many of you did it.

Over the nine years I've been playing now, I've never noticed a lack of Mithril ores, armor or helms for sale. They are accessible. Just because your character/group doesn't want to/can't rise to the challenge to get the raw materials doesn't mean the challenge shouldn't exist - given the relative availability of such items suggests there are obviously characters and groups that are up to the task.

[gilescorey]

I suggest the people who say role play before mechanics to try getting mithril and then adamantine to see the difference, because I can't honestly believe many of you did it.

Over the nine years I've been playing now, I've never noticed a lack of Mithril ores, armor or helms for sale. They are accessible. Just because your character/group doesn't want to/can't rise to the challenge to get the raw materials doesn't mean the challenge shouldn't exist - given the relative availability of such items suggests there are obviously characters and groups that are up to the task.

I don't think you see the point he's making. He's saying adamantine - the more valuable ore, that makes better armour - is harder to get than mithril. Not that mithril is impossible, or too rare, simply more difficult to get than the better adamantine.