This should make the very last item of the DM "To Do" list, because it's not really all that important, but frankly this quest is too easy.
There are moments when it is almost hard, and it is well designed and laid out, but it just doesn't quite rise to the level of difficulty it truly deserves. Here are a few suggestions that were made in IRC:
- Give one of the monsters the Flesh to Stone ability, along with a guaranteed single use Stone to Flesh item in the loot that vanishes on reset. The point here is to force the party to complete the quest without a party member in a way that fits the theme.
- Increase the damage of the mobs, especially the ranged attackers. A mere 1 or 2 point improvement could make a huge difference in difficulty.
- Give the boss as wider variety of attack methods. He can be rage-inducing hard for certain party types because of his AI, but other parties (like the ones I'm usually in) can dispatch him with ease. What this boss needs in particular are more ranged attacks, or else better defenses against ranged attackers.
- Add another status effect to the mobs. The one they already have is good, but it just needs a little extra, something to combine with, in order to make it EfU hard. Poison might be a good option here.
This is a very well-designed quest that just needs a small boost in difficulty to round it out. The loot is good, but could use a bit more variety, especially if any of these suggestions are implemented.
I don't think the difficulty is that off. Though maybe the one gauntlet area, the ranged monsters could be given more DR to force people to run through the gauntlet (I imagine that is the intent?) rather than picking them off with ranged weapons.
I am firmly against making EVERY quest after 6th a fight for your life quest. Mud-men offers near nothing as a reward, and is a VERY pleasant break from the normal necessity of power builds and perfectly balanced parties.
In other words, do not remove the only high level laid back quest in the module. I enjoy that this quest can be taken by near any combination of people without the ooc mandate of have these 10 things or die.
...Really, the loot of Horrible too. So if the balance is altered and loot isn't, no one will ever do it.
Perfectly balanced quest that doesn't require looking at for the moment tbh.
Although I agree that the mudmen monster guys could maybe do with being a little bit scarier (not much!) I don't think giving some spawns flesh to stone would really be a lot of fun, and people would probably just metagame it anyway.
A few scarier mud variant monsters might be nice! But I don't want to ask for lots of work.
9lives will take care of it doncha worry
The quest is easy if you metagame. Just like how "volts" is easy if you, for "some" reason, pack about 4 elemental resistance spells. Everytime I've taken the quest, it's been with an average/mediocre group, who didn't pack dispells/what have you for the ending, and it was still somewhat difficult.
Generally, most quests tend to get easier as you develop an understanding of what's in them, and make your group as stream lined as possible. While it may be easy for you or others, it may be increasingly hard for other PCs.
Whilst it would be lovely to tweak every static quest to our desires, we should perhaps be very careful of inducing burnout in our DM's..
They have been doing lots of static quest tweaking and its pretty dull.
One thing to keep in mind - quests that pull people far outside town should, in my opinion, have a little added benefit (slightly easier, or better reward, etc.) for the sake of those characters who are not centered in Sanctuary.
Part of the risk involves traveling several areas over to get to the quest, where player bandits, gangsters, angry druids, etc. can all object to your presence.
Think Tower of Mercy in EFU:A - a very rewarding quest that wasn't usually all that hard, but it was in the middle of the ruins war zone, and provided a good opportunity for opposing factions to happen to run into each other.
Would be funny if the mud copied your group or a person in it but the one time I have done this quest, I did enjoy it greatly.
As you stated already, for some the quest is "rage-inducing hard" while for other groups it's relatively easy.
Group make up can be a deciding factor in the difficulty of many of the missions that we can take our characters through and it's not fair to the rest of the player base to judge mission difficulty based on YOUR characters experiences alone.
Case in point... Mikael Galeno. Did you know that at lv 6 he cannot face a lone cave beetle without help and expends a significant portion of his healing supplies on a few worms? Four worms simultaneous will spell his doom!
Should I be complaining about the difficulty of Starag's Rest and calling for an easification of the area?
Every quest and event I've been on has been a nail-biting experience due to the combined effect of Mikael's relative non-combatant fragility and the team success dependent healing skills he possesses.
So in short, you've the answer in your first few sentences.... it's about the party make-up/behavior/skill. I think the Mudmen event is challenging enough in many ways... personaly, I cower when the big boss starts summoning.
Awesome! :D
Hell yeah, SC. I am not saying this quest should be made impossible, but I do think I should sweat a little more.
The loot on this quest is frankly amazing for the parties who can take it. Low-level PCs can come away from this quite well-improved. Sometimes the loot stinks, but if you do the quest more than once you're bound to get something good out of it.
I don't think all quests should be Mad Max deathscapes, quite the opposite. Perhaps my complaints with this quest would be better aimed at the quests that don't yet exist. It's just that this is the quest my parties end up doing. Over and over. And over. And over again.
I want to say that I felt the difficulty was hard or acceptably so originally and disagree with the others. What about low player time zones and the other issues mentioned above. I went in to this quest with a full party and it was difficult in my opinion. This may be somewhat off topic but I notice this pw has many strong melee npc monsters but fewer magic oriented ones making the fighter or similarly armored concepts stronger. Any opinions on this? That's based on a bit of archipelago and mist Locke experience as well. Thanks for the update regardless. The npc world is very good and very well written. The monster issue could be one of taste about the setting. Maybe a more diverse enemy npc spell set is what I desire...
I think it was a challenge when I did it today (first time ever) Though im sure with an optimal party, who knows the quests lay out, and with a healthy dose of metagaming, it could be rather easy. I would however be aginst making it any harder.