The balance on the "goblin ghost" quest seems a bit off. The first "part" of the quest has a small amount of medium-power monsters, but is also relatively short and easy to handle with a medium-sized or half-skilled group.
The second "part" of the quest has a fair amount of quite deadly monsters, with crippling Area-of-Effect spells and - perhaps most importantly - level drain.
While it is possible to do the quest without trying your hand at the "second part", if you do, the rewards don't really match up to the dangers to which you are exposed, and the difficulty level (in my opinion) scales a bit too high compared to the rest of the quest. Perhaps spreading the difficulty a bit more evenly around the quest - with more dangerous monsters (perhaps more diverse spawns) earlier and less later might be a good idea?
Removing level-drain from the more dangerous monsters might be a good idea, considering it basically cripples you until a server reset (or you pay enough gold to get rid off it, essentially nullifying any reward you might recieve from the quest, as per of this posting).
Just my two gp. Like the quest overall, but think it could use a few tweaks. Take it for what it is!
I like the idea of the level drain, making ghosts a pretty terrifying enemy to fight in general. But I also agree that the jump in danger from the first section to the optional section is pretty extreme and deadly to people running it for the first time. After the first time you know what to expect and can better deal with it.
Maybe tweak it a bit so you face a lone ghost in the first corridor, just so you get an idea of what you'll be facing if you want to proceed onwards through the optional section?
Maybe also tweak the ghosts so they drain 1 level per hit instead of 2?
Also there are ways to remove the level drain in town, just keep looking around.
Did you not see the bloody hand prints and arcane ruins on the doors!!!???
sweet tell me more about this quest guys
if only nine can fix it up as well as he did vrazdns
Recently re-did this quest, seemed a lot more balanced. Thanks!