I think boulder traps need to either be re-worked or removed and here's why:
- They deal excessive amounts of damage that can instantly kill the lower end of the level ranges in which they appear.
- Their colossal area of effect means that even when standing a fair distance from where they triggered can still be fatal.
- They frequently kill new players who don't expect them in the clusters they tend to spawn, while simultaneously punishing older ones for including said newer players, as they will likely take some damage due to the area of effect being so huge.
Any ONE of these proposed solutions from LEAST to MOST viable would be a HUGE improvement:
- Disable them entirely. (Not the best idea, they are near in what they do, but I feel like an adjustment is needed.)
- Change their damage calculation to be similar to "Evards Black Tentacles" with the effect dealing 1d6 per boulder falling, meaning blur will render you almost immune. (Might give folks with more ready access to spells/effects with 5/+1 dr too much of an advantage on certain quests)
- Lower their damage to be about 1/3rd of what it is currently.
- Lower the area of effect from colossal to small.
I'll suffix this by saying I haven't died to these boulder traps in as long as I can remember, most veterans haven't aside from one particular quest. I just think their design is flawed in that they are excessively punishing to the group in its entirety when one of it's members is a little careless or inexperienced. This could certainly be remedied by simply not bringing careless or inexperienced people. That would be the ic way to handle it sure. Though I feel like trying to include as many people as possible in your quest groups, regardless of their experience should never be discouraged by such mechanics as boulder traps.
For constructive feedback: this is an incredibly well written suggestion.
I like the idea of reducing the overall damage to 1/3, as well as reducing the area of effect, because I think that the less fatal these traps are, the more often they can be used.
For that same reason, I dislike their removal entirely, and I think that reducing them to something that Blur can solve would take away the danger.
Boulder traps / cave-ins change up the geography of an area, and they are highly effective at instigating RP and party conflict. That efficacy can be undone when dying to a boulder. But the increased sense of danger from taking damage as a party, or from antagonizing other players by triggering the trap, can lead to interesting reactions since everyone is still able to type.
My biggest frustrations with boulder traps are:
a) When they are placed around mobs and you have to navigate the traps while fighting, which is next to impossible to do successfully with NWN's wonky pathing and the strafing of characters in combat.
b) When they are stacked so close together to create a maze that immediately becomes insufferable the moment someone trips one of many traps because you then have to destroy 8 boulders.
The former is a design problem of a handful of quests that I would love see fixed. The latter I think can be resolved by limiting the amount of boulder objects that appear after a trap goes off.
My main issue is that they one-shot mid to high level sorcs/wizards and in certain quest areas (Elistraeen Temple for example) they can (and will) randomly appear absolutely anywhere, I assume due to a bug, resulting in 10k exp being lost to the arbitrary whims fate
"Rocks fall and you die" is not a typically fun encounter.