Chance of Bridge Trolls appearing

[Rooshi49]

So I was just struck with a thought. Trolls should pop up from under bridges and demand tolls from people to pass as a percentage chance event everytime someone passes a major bridge. It could be some sort of epic level troll that demands that people pay some small fee to pass unless defeated. This would make for some interesting RP as then the person would probably go and gather a group of people to go and slay the troll. It could also act like a small piggy bank where the money dropped by the troll is the amount that the troll gathered before defeated.

I honestly thing this would be an awesome tidbit to add to the game, but I wanted to ask others to see their opinions first before going to suggestions.

[Baron Saturday]

This technically CAN happen as part of the random encounters system, however I'm wondering if said system is broken. I've not bumped into any of the random encounters in a long time.

[TheShadowdove]

If it could be scripted that it's gold somehow increases depending on how long it had been since spawn that would be amazing too.

And or have it so that the troll picks gold off of anything that dies near it...

That would be some serious cause for angry, gols hungry adventurers.

[Intrepid42]

I've seen a couple of bridge trolls, most recently about a week ago. It was awesome. They didn't ask for a toll, though.

[ltlukoziuz]

I have seen two Bridge Trolls over the period of last month when crossing to Morghunn's Lair, and Minmir Bridge Guardian (beefed up hill giant) once in like month and more ago. Yeah, I agree that they're rate should be ramped up significantly, even if they don't shout anything at you (wish they would).

[Irongron]

I've been adding these 'rare' encounters for a long time, and over time the system has been gradually improved.

'Bridge Trolls' were among the first, and at that time I wasn't able to give them one-liners, or specify certain behaviour, however it is now possible to do so. If I can recall where they all are I could maybe add something.

The biggest hurdle was that we couldn't have them turn hostile following a conversation (something we saw with the duellist, but as I recall that too works now.

So we'll see!

[TheShadowdove]

I've been adding these 'rare' encounters for a long time, and over time the system has been gradually improved.

'Bridge Trolls' were among the first, and at that time I wasn't able to give them one-liners, or specify certain behaviour, however it is now possible to do so. If I can recall where they all are I could maybe add something.

The biggest hurdle was that we couldn't have them turn hostile following a conversation (something we saw with the duellist, but as I recall that too works now.

So we'll see!

You're some sort of super wizard. That would be awesome!

The random encounters are one of the most fun parts of group adventuring and it'd be exciting to see more like this.

Even the ones without dialogue were usually great experiences.

Umber hulks, chimera, etc. Have actually been not just terrifying but resulted in great follow up role-play. The war beast in Skal lead to a sweet after party when we finally defeated it at low levels.

+1 for being a rockstar.

[Rooshi49]

I have seen two Bridge Trolls over the period of last month when crossing to Morghunn's Lair, and Minmir Bridge Guardian (beefed up hill giant) once in like month and more ago. Yeah, I agree that they're rate should be ramped up significantly, even if they don't shout anything at you (wish they would).

I have seen them as well, but what I was really trying to get at with this post was . . I wish they were harder. Those trolls are pushovers completely from my memory. If it was a REALLY hard to kill troll that was huge and menacing or something then it would be awesome. And as Irongron said, if it was possible to make it so they turned hostile after a conversation, it would be even better. Then people could have the RP option of either paying some small fee and letting the troll stay there for the next adventurer to deal with, running to get more people to fight it, or simply testing their prowess and fighting the thing right then and there.

I feel having something that difficult randomly appearing throughout the world would be a cool encounter when it DID come up, rather than being a minor annoyance (if even that).

[Irongron]

I'm happy to give some insight into the underlying system, as I still feel it is one of the most exciting additions to Arelith, along the way I'll also explain why some of you might think the system isn't working (because you haven't encountered anything)

So...

From launch Arelith used (and still uses) and very impressive spawn system. Which spawns groups of creatures across the map and can be edited/adjusted from the client (without resetting the server). We can adjust the groups, the level range, the rate of spawn. We can also specify which of the 'spawn set' should be more or less common.

Being able to view and adjust spawns really is a big deal, and allows rapid adjustments. This is especially useful for DM events, where they want to remove or change spawn sets entirely.

But as a veteran player I also found it frustrating, or at least boring. Racing through dungeons fighting 'clumps' of enemies who never really seemed to be doing anything or employing any tactics can begin to feel old.

Now the 'rare' spawn system is entirely different. With this I adjust spawns in the toolset (which takes a lot longer), I can give them unique names, set patrol routes, animations, turn off detect and stealth, and much else. I can also have them spawn under certain circumstances, most obviously player level, but also time of day, player race and quite a few others.

Generally these have been used for rare spawns like the outlaw/merchant fights, duelling dragons, bridge trolls, planar travellers, rangers etc, but I've also gradually revisited existing dungeons to add at least some patrolling NPCS. The kobold mines near Cordor for instance have a kobold patrolling with a worg, and a dragonkin than will sometimes warn PCS to turn back.

In the Lowerdark I used this system almost entirely, on pretty much every map there are many such spawns. Large groups that patrol the area, or creatures like the Sentinel Orbs in the Flayer dungeon. It really allows for more tactical thinking on behalf of players - in the new Sibayad tombs there are a number of 'special' creatures.

As a player I just find this so much more fun, and as a poster above said it can foster a lot more RP.

There are 2 major limitations though. The first, as I said, is that these cannot be viewed or adjusted in game by Devs/DMs, in fact I'm the only person who even knows where most of them are, and they take a lot of time to set up.

The second limitation is imagination. While we now have over 100 such encounters my dream is to have thousands, and for that I basically need to have more ideas.

This last point is the reason why some of you may think the system isn't working. You see, I set a % chance of the creature appearing every x hours. I could have set these between 5-10 every 4 hours or so, it would still make them very rare, but instead almost all are set at 1-2%. The reason being is that my ultimate aim is to have SO MANY of these encounters that almost every adventure, even for the most seasoned players, can be unique. For me this is a huge deal, as what it means for gameplay is nothing short of revolutionary, but it does mean that for some characters; no matter how often you play you may never trigger some of these, especially when they're tied to a different race.

There was a thread where I invited players to make their own suggestions for such encounters, and I'd welcome seeing a similar thread again.

[msterswrdsmn]

In terms of making bridge trolls harder; please don't. Almost any bridge can spawn these. Which means low level death is very real. I think the worst (but most hilarious) bridge troll spawn I saw was on Skal. Of course, no one has any idea how to kill it, so what do they do? Drag it into town, of course! Literally 8 people were hitting it in the middle of town, completely ignoring Shard yelling "FIRE! FIRE YOU IDIOTS!"

[Baron Saturday]

Turns out I've bumped into the random encounters and just not realized it! I knew that dragonkin kobold wasn't there last time... wondered if I was just getting senile.

[TimeAdept]

Lowerdark has my favorite one I've seen on the server.

"WE ARE ASCENDED!"

[Rooshi49]

In terms of making bridge trolls harder; please don't. Almost any bridge can spawn these. Which means low level death is very real. I think the worst (but most hilarious) bridge troll spawn I saw was on Skal. Of course, no one has any idea how to kill it, so what do they do? Drag it into town, of course! Literally 8 people were hitting it in the middle of town, completely ignoring Shard yelling "FIRE! FIRE YOU IDIOTS!"

My idea for a bridge troll update would be to make it stand still and not move past a certain area, as if it was literally defending the bridge it's guarding. That way if a lower level person ran into it they wouldn't have to fight it like the current bridge troll encounter is. They could run away, gather a party, and THEN run into it and try and deal with it. That would be much more entertaining than: Certain troll appears and kills xyz player at xyz time.

Also Irongron, I'd LOVE to come up with ideas for random encounters for you to implement if you'd want me to just spitball them out. I can also make another thread entirely to have it about people spitballing ideas. Making them race restricted, area restricted, class restricted, etc can make for really interesting variations.

[Nitro]

My idea for a bridge troll update would be to make it stand still and not move past a certain area, as if it was literally defending the bridge it's guarding. That way if a lower level person ran into it they wouldn't have to fight it like the current bridge troll encounter is. They could run away, gather a party, and THEN run into it and try and deal with it. That would be much more entertaining than: Certain troll appears and kills xyz player at xyz time.

I don't think that's possible in NWN sadly, if it's hostile it's going to aggro on you, if it's not you can just walk past it.

[Nevrus]

There is now another thread to consolidate ideas! People interested, go there.