Topics

The captain leaves you stranded without a way to return.

Makes sense.

After over a year off from efu, I decided to create a character to dip my toes back in. Fate had different plans however, as my paladin of Ilmater quickly got swept up into The Fount and reconciliation with the death of her god. She became a devote believer in a prophecy she read about the Numinous Order and set out to instill a devotion in people to prepare for the coming of one god. Really good stuff.


Along the way she made a good deal of friends and enemies. I think my favorite part of playing Carmen was her repentance arc with Charisse. Really some very terrific role play involved. I also very much enjoyed letting people in on the secret, especially with some grandiose statement like she knew how to save the world and not being able to tell a lie, cause paladins. Karl, Sister Mary the adjudicator and reflector, our times together were too short but always enjoyable.

Paladins are tough, especially in EFU. I really enjoyed the challenge and have all the pcs out there to thank for the good times. Carmen is still out there somewhere, praying for your souls, so mind your p's and q's.

So Amelia is dead. She never broke a law, always kept her word, was pleasant and kind to everyone she ever met. Her demons were decidedly inner, she wrestled with them in private. I never instigated pvp and did not FD anyone, even when there was clear reason to.

Amelia went well out of her way to help everyone, even her enemies who she saved on more then one occasion. They always repaid her in insults and attacks. She joined the civil service with the intention of trying to make the council. She didn't. Then she joined the warders, who ignored her. Then she joined Etorix, who gave her nothing. She had one piece of dm loot which was OK, but otherwise was ignored in every plot and every way, besides the occasional beating from a random player.

So, what a triumph for good when a bunch of strangers cornered her and wordlessly fd the fuck out of her. Hurrah. They put her out of her misery at last. Oh and I almost made lvl 10. Because that is important to no one. Fucking pointless bullshit.

So consider this a question/suggestion. Why are their NPC's in the grotto Arena? Do they serve the purpose of witnesses? Can they be removed so that when spell casters do battle they don't consistently end up getting shot or accidentally murdering a worker? I'm pretty sure each time an AoE hostiles one of these NPCs it leads to having to get a DM for a res etc. which is probably annoying for DM and PC alike. If they are there for a reason, can they somehow be put on subdue or in some other way be prevented from murder? Thanks!

Extremely tough character to play, had every stroke of bad luck possible. Still had a great time on the RP side. A real pity she had to die the moment she started stoking conflict, trying not to be bitter. I'll get over it. Thanks to all the PCs that took the time to hang out with her. Taking a loooooong break after this one.

Well, that was a crazy ride!

I rolled up Aveni the night I broke up with my girlfriend as a distraction, and she admirably filled that role. In ten years of playing with you all, Aveni was my first character to hit level 9. I suppose if you want to reach high levels you need to roll up an 18 charisma Barb/Sorc whose build was described by a certain DM as "plain awful". She was basically a counter to Paul Weston, extremely vain, selfish, greedy with an ego the size of the Underdark. She was a bully, but if you fed her with compliments or gold, she would do anything you asked. She was also damn funny and likable if you got on her good side. She had some really impressive accomplishments, including surviving through an entire BoM event (that must be a record). She invaded Traensyr, she killed a demigod, she fought a mutated dragon (and lost), she grew wings, she FD'd players (extremely rare for me, almost always let players live unless watcher execution style), she trounced Mutulakt and she died fighting.

I think most of the server had a love her or hate her attitude, which was what I was hoping to accomplish. A thousand apologies if she ruined your day. A thousand apologies if her death has ruined your day. It kinda ruined mine, but that's EFU haha. I want to give special thanks to Grumpy and his crew who took a bitchy brat like Aveni and put her to work beating people up instead of tossing her aside. Also thanks to Calc and BoM, D_I, Ironside and Tala for making her life as challenging as possible.

Unfortunately no screens, can't seem to get them to work right on my new rig, but she is probably in some of yours. Post them up if you like!  I can honestly say there have been few characters who were as much plain fun to run around with as Aveni of Dragonsblood, chosen of the blue lady...(and a million other titles she gave herself).

 

(sadly no screens)

Since I've been playing EFU, Weston ranks way up there with the most challenging and fun characters I've had. Paul was honest to the core and despite changing his mind on occasion, like the decision to fight with the Society which ultimately got him killed, every interaction he had was played genuine without hidden agendas. Sometimes that can be a pretty boring experience, but with Paul, who so many expected of double dealings and corruption, it was truly a blast.

Paul began as a homework project of a sort. I was myself really getting into archery. As I was learning the sport, I decided to make a character who was himself a master archer and attempt to complete a dry and technical manual on archery IG. The name Paul Weston is actually derived from Paul Shaffer, who was considered the best recurve bow trophy hunter to have ever lived (read a bit about him here if you like: http://www.brothersofthebow.com/html...iesofpaul.html) and Easton arrows, my preferred brand.

Quite obviously things really evolved for him quickly once he joined the Watchers. Paul got heavily involved into the Rosethorn plot leading to what was a defining moment of his time in Sanctuary, when he unknowingly helped convict an innocent Robert Oak, only later to discover the true traitors identity in his confidant, "Abraham Farford". During that incident as well, Paul would argue the true nature of the Spellguard was revealed. From that point forward, he made it a point to challenge Spellguard authority, especially to his friends within the ranks. With Oak's position open as Adjutant, Paul was essentially the only person left to take the role. I would say the role fit him like a glove.

The most fun I had with Paul was doing the little things, like training and testing new recruits. Paul was a coach, trying to guide fellow Watchers to do good for Sanctuary. I especially enjoyed the camaraderie with Hagkir, Everglow, and all the Wayscouts. While the inter-faction conflicts were also amazing with guys like Blackstone, Southgate, Farford, Favereau and others. He was extremely close with the Society from the beginning, despite often getting caught between their inter-faction conflicts as well. I also throughly enjoyed having enemies within the Spellguard, and and in Lower, putting Paul in a unique position of having to constantly battle the enemy of my enemy scenarios. He later ran for Director as an independent and got hammered by both guilds. Paul made a lot of enemies trying to do the right thing.

The other thing I really enjoyed was just his ability to survive in the underdark. Certainly he needed more then a few corpse clears along the way, but generally Paul could solo explore just about every corner out there. I even made a few solo attempts at reaching Old Port, which failed obviously, but it was pretty cool to earn some faith in the possibility- it might work this time. I made a pretty cool "road map" at one point, only to lose it when I needed to clean restore my computer, which is also why I don't have screenshots, very sadly I might add!

More then any other characteristic, I think that Paul was defined by charity. He gave over 20,000 gold to Starag's rest. He never carried more then a couple potions at a time and relied on what I considered the bare minimum it takes to survive efu. It helped that along the way, he earned some decent gear. Amazingly, I had some victories in PVP with him, but most of the time managed draws. The only loss I can think of came during an extremely awesome fight, in which many lives depended on him. Can't win them all! A highlight was being the one to finally kill Mad Marge...course that might just be a rumor...

I'll leave you with a few things about his background: Paul believed that he was related, distantly to the Bresley's. A traditionalist, he knew every name in his family tree, one of which was a great Aunt Bresley (who married into the Weston line). Whether or not she was actually related to the Charles and Fredrick, is completely unknown. Paul never mentioned it, or did so so obscurely that no one ever picked up on it. While Paul was an honest guy, there were a lot of things he didn't mention. Like the fact he was closeted transgender. Paul felt he was born to be a woman. Since this was taboo, he spent most of his adult life in the woods, shunning family life and returning to nature. Pretty much Brokeback Mountain. He did, however, develop a true love for nature in this way and for cuddling up with his underdark panther.

Thanks to the entire player base for being such an awesome place to develop character ideas and spur narratives which stir my creative juices. I particularly want to thank the DMs for being patient and active in Paul's evolution, especially SC, Caster and of course Howland. See you guys with my next!

I'm not sure if this has been said elsewhere, but kudos to the team for the updates to the server. I think you guys really nailed the aesthetic. I am throughly looking forward to spending many hours alone in the darkest corners of the underdark remapping my knowledge of the caves. From what I can tell there are very cool things going on for normal people as well. Thanks so much for the hours upon hours of work providing the setting, the events, the corpse clears, everything.

Live in NYC? Have a case of the Mondays?
Come see my band play! August 31st 10pm Ottos Shrunken Head!
For all your 90's cover needs! (we're a 90's cover band)



That is yours truly, PanamaLane rocking the tie-dye like its 1995

Forgive me if there is already a bug report for this (I did check but didn't find anything)

When taking the second risk/reward part of the quest yesterday, we were unable to reach the commanders ship and thus "failed" the quest. I believe that is all in order, however, upon returning to the emissary we were unable to close the quest for either xp or gold, the emissary merely thanks us for the job, but dialogue never opens to close the quest. I still had the invite tool in my inventory as well. This seems broken to me.

I haven't tried it yet, but I assume if you don't take the high risk optional portion you can still close the quest normally? So, why can't you even if you fail the harder portion, even if its for the smaller reward?

Thanks!

A few fishing suggestions:

1. Make rock worm meat (fish eat worms) and fish/reptilian scales (lures) targetable as bait. Weight vs bait bundles offsets the gold saved.

2. Suggested Flavor Item: "Can of Worms" For sale at fishing vendors. When target PC adds10 squirming worms to PC inventory (useable as bait). When target thrown unleashes 3 hostile rock worms. (should be slightly more expensive, slightly less weight then bundle of bait)

3. Add fishings spots: The Underwater Lair (Scamander), Along the Scamander, The Dark Canal (am I just missing where these spots are?)

Any other fishing suggestions out there from ya'll?

So this is much more a general suggestion, but server population has been rather low lately. I'm sure it will pick up, but I think it becomes a little frustrating for players to log in when they can't find much to do. I think if there were more ways to earn gold/xp for players above level 6 on their own, you'd see more people logging in and then it would avalanche into higher server population in general.

Ways this could be accomplished:

-Make explorables which are generally min 2 players, 1 player
-Make some of the max lvl 6/7 quests min 1 or 2 instead of 3.
-Add in some more courier quests that solos can take to distant parts of the server (i.e. bring this to Shagga or Lop for lewts)
-Increase the number of bounties, frequency of bounties, add in a lower bounty type system

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head.

Intro:

On large scale events, I've noticed some players become very frustrated with others who endanger overall safety through their actions or inactions. At the root level, it is important to always just be able to brush frustrations off OOC or (better option) handle it IC.

That being said, it seems like a lot of the nwn combat knowledge and how its used in efu is kind of taken for granted as being known by other players. But how would they know? There are no guides, the game is old and many of its systems are plain broken or outdated at this point. So I wanted to touch on some of the more common mistakes made by players which tend to cause problems in an OOC guide. Every single one of us has made these mistakes, so even vets can use a refresher now and then. This will be mostly about larger events, but the tactics translate to just about every part of the game.

Unit Collision:

To me, this is the number one most frustrating thing about nwn. In addition to not being able to simply run past someone (even giants on your 24 dex halfing), unit collision will sometimes just push you into a place you do not want to be. While a lot of this is unavoidable, what leads to the most frustration for players is when your positioning blocks their PC's ability to survive.

Most often, this will happen in a small corridor or near a doorway. You have 20 people on a DM event, and two people stand side by side, sounds harmless? Well the 16 people behind those two are stuck. 2 more are ahead, desperately screaming for healing. No one can reach them and worse, if they need to fall back, now those standers are not only blocking them, but it becomes a pinball machine with everyone crashing into each other unable to find a place to maneuver.

This could be avoided how? Stepping to the sides and lining the walls of said corridor is one way. Maybe you can't fire your ranged weapon from there, but you must measure, is my 1d8 per round adding more value to the fight than giving the shields room to move? I would say that almost always being able to move is more important and you will frustrate other players less for good positioning than with low or no dmg output.

Another important thing to consider is if running forward makes more sense then running backwards. It can be panic mode when the shield wall breaks and they flee back down the hall toward you. However, if you can move a step or two forward instead of back, you are opening up a ton of space as others flee behind you. You may be able to reach the wall with heals, or allow for someone else to reach them just by taking that step forward instead of back. If the whole party pushes up as a unit, you may be able to breach into a hall where you'll have some space to run around.

Invisibility:

This one also ties into unit collision. Recognize the fact that while you are invisible, other PCs can not see you. I know it seems obvious, but then you get into an event, it turns dicey and lots of invisible PCs will simply stand still as the chaos erupts around them. People will run into you and be unable to get around you. Maybe you do the "shall we dance" where you step to the side as the other person steps to the same side. Meanwhile the monsters have caught your buddy in the back and now he's not only unable to flee, but taking AoO trying to.

Nine times out of ten if you are invisible and things are turning sour, you need to put your healer hat on. I'll talk a bit about roles later. But being relatively safe as you are unseen, you can spam heals on that guy trying to get around you. If you are invisible its likewise important to pick a good place to stand. Somewhere out of the way-ish but not too far, giving yourself plenty of space to move if you need to.

Summons:

Summons are great, but they can also get a lot of people killed because they are very hard to control. In tight spaces, they are generally a no-no. The exception is when they are out in front of your shield wall. Use them wisely. AND dismiss them wisely. Recognize when your summons are causing more problems then solving. That's really all that needs to be said about summons.

Aggro:

This is mostly in terms of ranged characters. When you attack something in nwn and hit it, that monster will notice and get pissed off. If that monster is an goblin archer behind the enemy line, great, you've just distracted him from attacking someone else and you can probably take an arrow or two before it becomes a problem. If that monster is a giant and he's between you and your shields, that's less great, because now he will run at you and put your back lines in serious danger. So basically, choose who you target carefully. Account for the fact it will turn at you.

Placeables:

Everyone steps on a trap now and again. But some traps are particularly deadly, not just to you, but to your whole party. Number one reason people will be upset if you set one of these off is...why weren't you looking? I don't mean you didn't make your search check, I mean, there was a giant burned spot on the ground. There is a sign which says "goblin mine field" there is a pile of bodies around an elaborate looking chest. I like to think the DM's put these placeables around as a kind of "awareness test". Are you looking at what is going on, or are you going through the motions? The warnings are there, heed them.

Roles:

D&D and EFU in particular is great because you don't have the hard set roles some other RPGs have. You can serve any role at any time. Say you are a fighter, but you lost a bunch of lvls recently and on a really tough DM event. You can switch from melee focused to ranged quickly. Yes, you won't be as effective, but if you are low lvl, you are probably counting on higher lvl melee to do the tough work anyway. Likewise, you can drink an invisibility an heal people with trinket. You don't have to be a priest or mage to save lives with heals.

The basic roles events need are: Melee (tank or dps), Ranged DPS (weapon or magic), and Healer. You can probably add a "support" type role too, if you are a bard, or buff bot who is really there only to make your other PCs better at what they do. But here is the crux of it all. Those roles are fluid. Figure out and adapt to the situation. If your party is lacking healers, you can pick up the slack for a few rounds. If you need more dmg, you can drop some AOE spells from a trinket in your bag. If you require more shields while your tanks back up to heal, use those items you have which summon something to free your tanks up for a short while.

Adaptability is not only good for the party, it will make you a hero in the eyes of the PCs whose butts you just saved by being smart. If on the other hand you are standing around doing nothing...I'm a wizard and my spells are spent, what can I possibly do? Probably a whole lot! Be adaptable. If you truly can't do anything, then you need to ask yourself why are you there?

Event RP:

I just want to add this in as a kind of bonus thing to think about. DMs will constantly try to remind players this, but for some reason or another it always happens. You've reached an NPC on an event with 20 people and you are communicating with him. Who is doing the communication? The answer is sadly almost always, everyone. That is hugely hard to control. The chat is filling up faster then DMs or players can follow. It is much better for all involved if one or two players take the lead and the rest listen quietly.

That doesn't mean it goes to the guy in the faction or whatever, but typically even large events have a leader or group which is leading the efforts. DMs will also "choose" in a sense who they are speaking to, if its not you, relax. Let that other person screw it up on their own haha. It is much more immersive story telling to sit and listen to how one characters decisions impact the whole group, then to chaotically shout back and forth and pick fights in the background and etc. I know you are a CE gnome and would ICly take off your clothes and run around hanging gnome dong, but its more likely all you are doing is making 19 other people go...ugh, I can't follow what is happening. Actually, I take that back, hanging gnome dong is about the only acceptable interruption I can think of haha.

If you absolutely feel the need to contribute and can't help yourself to just sit quietly, try to at least not ask too many questions. Because this especially leads to confusion, was he answering me or the guy next to me etc? Can't tell in nwn. Maybe instead emote how you are feeling. Pick your spot, maybe once or twice to interject if you really can't help yourself. A good one time zinger will leave a great impression on people. A long string of interruptions can come off as attention whoreish (even if its IC). It simply won't endear you to the people who are trying to be part of this particular immersive story.

Ahoy there! Subject is rather self explanatory. I've tried to contact individual DMs and the like, and wasn't sure whether to put this in bug reports / suggestions or an OOC watcher post or whatever...but basically the other branches have a recruitment papers placeable, and the Frontier does not. I'm not 100% sure wether the NPC can recruit people, but it would make more sense to have it align with the other branches. Thanks!

Very minor issue.

So I've come into possession of a few rings along the way in the day to day of being a watcher. I've noticed that the system seems to work fine when you use the Hooded Agent. He collects all the rings on my person and returns them all when I come back. EXCEPT! When there is a crash or reset, the Agent will only return my own ring to me. Any other rings I may have given him are lost to the ether.

One: Can this be fixed? (is it even worthwhile to?)
Two: If said owner of ring were to visit the Agent, would it be returned? (this would make one even less necessary)

I only bring this up because I know what a pain in the butt it can be to get a ring back from a DM sometimes, even if it legitimately wasn't "lost"

Thanks!

I believe the examine mark perk isn't working as intended for this. At the very least it isn't working as for the rogue perk. Basically it allows me to see whether you are in detect mode/stealth mode or not and that's it. If you aren't in one of these modes it just says "you detect the following about so and so"...then nothing.

Is broken possibly? Set my pins at the dark lake, clicked the equipment and then a blank map. The equipment was destroyed and I was given another blank map in return. Got an error message that the area could not be found. Same message when I tried the blank map. Not very important, but worth mentioning.

Let me tell you about [Kasi Radma] [Mary Stone][Stalker][Widow][Queen of Shadow]. She was a [Auxiliary] [Hound] [Wayfinder] [Rogue] worshiper of [Waukeen] [Hoar] [Shar] who desired to bring [Society] [Anarchy] [Darkness] to the world. She had loads of [Friends] [Enemies] [Secrets]. She was a [Lawful Neutral] [Chaotic Evil] character of mine who lived a long time.

Here are some screen shots!


Unfortuntely I lost a lot of the early ones from the Aux, but this one survived.



Its quiet in the machine, lonely and dark.





But sometimes you need to shower with company



What the?



Pot jokes!



Snow White and 7 Kinny!





Only my client got off without charges! Lawyered.



Its fun to follow people...







Being too far away for Sneak Attacks to beat DR...



Being just the right distance...



What's in those bottles?



The Hundred Hounds...

The dreaded ghost returns...again!



Boat rides.





Shady shit!





Wayfinders..for a hot minute.





Lower4Life (or till I change my mind)



Hoar...not for reals though



For reals








RP with the enemy! (who later kills you)







The End

I'm pretty sure these are broken. Initiative rolls are made, but no fort saving throws for deafness.