Menu

Show posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Show posts Menu

Messages - Egon the Monkey

#31
Bug Reports / Jumping Boots, Greater.
October 30, 2020, 11:09:13 AM
I'll post the screen later, but while I remember it:
You can make allegedly reusable jumping boots in Tinkering, using a rare reagent. They have a 1/day power that crosses a ravine or fires you up a cliff.
Despite the description, they are removed from your inventory when you trigger them.
It seems they are mistakenly using the same script as for the disposable ones.
This is a real shame, as I've seen them be sold for a fair bit of money because that power is super useful.
#32
Suggestions / Crafting bench tweaks
October 29, 2020, 10:16:30 AM
As I understand it, the idea of moving crafting tables was both to force crafters to explore more risky areas and to prevent the case of "oh look there's a Balor outside town again".

It's almost, but not quite worked. I've got 3 crafting skills maxed, and it's incredibly rare for me to find a useful lab unless a DM has announced a hatch-spawning spree. What usually happens is everyone does their research on the persistent +0 or +8 tables, then hoards up their rare resources for that once-in-a-blue-moon chance of a +20 bench.

This is a shame, because I love the crafting system. The random recipe generation means that different crafters can specialise in different products. And there's cool emergent outcomes like people trading Herbalism reagents made in Alchemy to a Herbalist who can use them. It's a system where factual knowledge and individual PC expertise can make two characters with the same levels and skills totally unique from each other. And where people genuinely have no idea OC if I can make something or not. But that sense of mystery doesn't extend to finding the labs.

Issues:
  • Many of the labs in explorables don't have any bonuses. Why use them when there's persistent labs in more convenient locations? Since they're an explorable, it's more likely you'll run into a PC in them anyway.  This wouldn't be a problem if hatches spawned more often, but it means there's good odds on the only lab you'll see this week being useless.
  • I have never seen a generic crafting bench hatch any deeper than 97. There appears to be little reason to push deeper on your regular scouting for random craft tables. I've got through a lot of deeper rings in the past week, and have high Search. I've still only found some persistent +0s.
  • The easiest place to find herb table spawns is literally the next zone over from a persistent herb table.
  • Previously, a cheaply accessible minor faction had a secure +15 alchemy table. This was better than everything, and led to a glut of Peerage alchemy masters.
  • On the other side of things, the rentable property in Ticker with a herb table was +0. And a huge investment for that +0.

Herbalism specific:
  • Both of these are a frustration on the reagent supply side. Herbalism items tend to be weaker or single-use and so are balanced around a steady supply of reagents.
    Greedy PCs looting plants. It's terrible because there's no meaningful conflict generated by someone using up your entire patch. You can't hunt them down and enact some payback, as it's impossible to find who did it.
  • The Herb Seed Lucky Dip. A herbalist is going to want a specific plant for their work. The only reason to be buying seeds is because some PC has looted out your  herbs and you ran out of backup seeds. Given that, it's annoying to have to buy random seeds you don't want.

Suggestions:
  • Tweak the explorable labs to all be at least a +5 bonus. This means they're automatically worth finding and using.  Bearing in mind there's persistent +8 tables for Tinkering and Alchemy that aren't too hard to find.
  • Massively increase the spawn rate of labs, but decrease the spawn rate of +15 and +20 labs to compensate.
  • Spawn hatches in some of those more empty deeper rings that people just sprint through rather than explore. Encourage players to slow down more. And maybe then notice some more of the hidden stuff ;).
  • Alternatively, put "a random +5 lab" in the guaranteed spawn table for somewhere like 96-97. Ensure there's always a reason to go looking each reset. E.g. there used to be a +0 herb in 95, where it wouldn't have a druid passing through every 5 minutes.
  • Put in a couple more persistent +0 labs. There's now two +0 Tinker benches in the starting Rings, which is great as you can't be sure where someone might be doing tinkering. But with only one Herb table and that in a well-trafficked area, I've met a lot of PCs down there :P.
  • Provide a Seed merchant selling named seeds at 30gp each. So you can pay 10gp for A Seed, or 30gp for that one you actually want. Much like the Burgage song merchant, it'll remove a lot of frustration.
#33
Suggestions / Re: Critical Hit Multipliers
October 27, 2020, 02:14:51 PM
If there was a push to get some realism up in here, it would have resulted in vastly more powerful ranged weapons ages ago :P
The point of a game is to be an interesting entertainment and storytelling machine.
NWN is based on D&D, where hitpoints claim to be an abstraction, but don't behave like one.  Any "realism" in combat runs up against the existence of magic armour anyway.  What's more important to the game is in providing a variety of good weapon picks and tactics that are interesting to fight against.

Greatswords are powerful two-handed weapons in NWN because they are 2d6 not 1d12. This gives them an average of (3.5+3.5=7) damage per swing as opposed to the greataxe's 6.5. They are less likely to dish out anticlimactic fight-ending crits, and deliver consistently better damage against uncrittable monsters.

If I were to suggest any change to crits it would be to  balance all great weapons for 2x crit, and remove the "buff your STR and pray for a 20" tactic of melee combat. As it's very boring to go up against, coming down to if the lucky shot lands. Having more x3 crits in the game will just lead to more uncounterable Warlord rage deaths and silly duels where you're up against that big-crit chance of instawin.
#34
The most difficult obstacle in Ringrunning isn't the game difficulty, but trying to coordinate play times. If you can't all make the perfect time, someone gets left out. Which is fine for key rings, as you can give them a key later. But for keystone rings, it means you have to run the thing two or three times, especially if someone dies and you need to recruit a replacement.  This means that some rings stop being interesting and start being tiresome.Especially as you have to avoid spoilering your reinforcement PC.

I've seen DM loot items which have been tagged with "Only useable by a member of ???? Ringrunning crew. Applying that rule to keystones would be a huge quality of life upgrade. As it would mean you weren't constantly held back by the OC concern of "when can we all make it?".

I'm not suggesting that all keystones should be transferable, but only the ones where you have a massive boss fight or other big risk that you need to take on as a team.  If it's a puzzle ring you can do with 1-2 PCs, there's no issue of OC cat-herding. This would let you preserve momentum and avoid being stuck forever or your crew splitting for OC reasons. Because provided most of you could get on to do a big ring challenge, you'd have a couple of spare keystones for your other faction members.
#35
Suggestions / Re: Perk Suggestion Thread
October 21, 2020, 02:51:37 PM
Rogue Minor Perk: Alleybow Sniper.
Bonus Feat: Rapid Reload. Gain special bolts each rest.

Crossbows are just terrible, as most of a Rogue's damage is from Sneak Attack, so the tradeoff of slightly more base damage vs "can't do rapid shot or 2 APR" isn't worth it. Bows are lighter and rapid shoot. Slings are super light and you can use a shield while you deliver your sneaks.
However crossbows are cool.
#36
You can't use the climb tool to jump across ravines unless your form is scripted to have that ability (i.e. it has wings). I can't think of any polymorph or non-app druid shapes that both have wings and are as nasty in combat as wereform.
#37
After escaping from a 4v1 PvP by the use of a Levitation Potion, I have to say that an unlimited use jump ability would be really strong on what is already one of the strongest subraces. Grapnel guns have the big disadvantage of being bulky and slow to use, and potions have limited supply. Being able to bound over shortcuts would make escape and ambush even easier.

I think the idea makes sense but it would need to have something like a several-round wind-up and several-round KD after use. Which makes it as inconvenient and vulnerability inducing as a grapple gun. Not least as you can wereshift to your base race and use a grapple. So IMO it should be equivalent to that.
#38
Suggestions / Make Doorkeepers into Grey NPCs
October 15, 2020, 03:38:55 PM
We've been hearing a lot of PCs making antagonistic or "hello yes I am a monster PC" sendings these days . If the Doorkeepers were grey, it would avoid the need to get a DM in order to try chasing these characters in otherwise uninhabited sections of the server.
#39
Suggestions / Re: Spells Suggestions Thread
October 15, 2020, 08:23:26 AM
Mesmerizing sorcerers is why. :p I can see 2 rounds with GSF, but turn/level is "I have captured a cave bear to tank this Ring, it cost me a L1 spell". Cheap AE-equivalent would be strong.
#40
Screen Shots & Obituaries / Re: Unfriendly Alley Dog
October 14, 2020, 09:10:44 AM
That whole thing in Towertop :).
"Why is a random stranded Ringrunner picking a fight with a fucking dog? I need a beer. No, I need more beers than that. Why is it that EVERY time I meet Leopold there's more absurd bullshit?"
#41
*cracks knuckles*

Why RPG Religions Can Be Awesome And Your PC Should Have One
I love religion in roleplaying games, because it gives your PC:

  • A set of principles
  • Some reasons to not compromise on them. 
  • Rites and traditions you can hang your roleplay off.
  • Excuses to toot your horn on behalf of other PCs who are Doing Good Things (According to your religion).
  • Excuses to help other PCs who come to you and say Can Your God Help with This. With intangible things like "making a hard decision" or "courage" rather than "A tragic lack of Clarity Potions".
  • A sense of community with other PCs who will also subscribe to the same things.
In the absence of principles, all you have is identity. And that leads to the view I've seen described on #main as "pick a faction, it doesn't matter, it's like choosing a coloured straw at a restaurant". It means that the dogma of a given Small God is whatever the Cleric of the week claims it is. You can't declare a fellow cleric to be unorthodox, or have a schism over a point of principle. Because most of the Small Gods don't have any principles. At most, people tend to think they need to ask for Insert Generic Praise, Receive Buffz. Massive props to LiAlH4 for pulling off a schism. The Renunciation is one of the few faiths with enough canonical depth to it to have a proper heresy.

Possible reasons for low buy-in on religion
RwG, I think PCs are very loath to convert because in the absence of morals from a god or a definition of what that deity field MEANS, all you have is the label. So to Not Compromise and Stick To Your Guns, that deity field name can look important for its own sake. Whereas really, unless you're a cleric, it feels a lot more like saying what pantheonic deity or Saint your PC feels is relevant to them right now. I think that if we got a brief that people are traditionally fairly flexible on religion, we'd see more religion RP.  If it was explicitly okay to follow a new god if you don't have a priest to guide your current path, that would encourage saying YES to joining an interesting PC-led sect.

I saw CoR previously as a "Meh-theistic" setting. There were a bunch of little shrines, not really integrated into any social structure or government as there wasn't one. On average, we seemed to have more Small Gods than we had active clerics. As a lay follower, you probably didn't have any guidance as there wasn't a PC cleric to represent your god.

So, okay, it made sense that the average person would offer prayer to different gods in different circumstances. But they never felt important. Honestly, the King took the place of an interventionist god better than most Small Gods. He provides a set of rules, and you risk swift wrath from an unseen force if you break those rules. Whereas nobody's scared of offending Pitter Peter and finding themselves suffering a plague of rats.

Faiths To Make you Do Stuff
A lot of the small gods feel less like a source of meaning and rules to live your life by and more  like an explanation of Why I Have These Domains. The sun gods are a good example.

  • The Promise is one of my top gods. It has a rite every day and a clear description of what they do (mourn and remember the sun) and why they do it (Because then the Sun comes back). It says they're good at smashing up undead. Although it doesn't say "And you should totally smash some undead, they are bad and the Sun hates them".
  • Yeman is okay. It says BE PROUD AND FORTHRIGHT, DON'T BE MEEK. it's got a virtue and a sin. But then, meekness is kind of a weak sin as it encourages picking on quiet PCs not punching up at something tough.
  • El has a giant blank. The description says "what priests can do" but not but not "why El wants them to do it" or "what El thinks is laudable/sinful behaviour". You can 'summon warm winds' but have no idea why El would like you to do this thing

Faiths To Make You Do the Right Thing Not The Easy Thing
Honestly, I think the paladin oaths are better religious dogma than the actual dogma. They contain several things you should do or promote, and several things you must not do. They mean that two paladins of the same Oath will have the same principles but can argue over their interpretation. Like any set of interpretable rules, they promote both cooperation and conflict.

Bear in mind that the "Right thing" doesn't mean the Good thing or the socially responsible thing. Just "Not doing a cop-out and take the self-serving route". I think that Evil and Neutral aligned gods need to in general be more principled than Good aligned ones. Because it means you don't get the most friendly cooperation between 'Team Outcast', and it means you have reasons to not just do what's best for you. It means you gain reasons to trust you because of your principles. But also that these principles can also be exploited to make you do stuff.

For example, imagine if Yevathax had "Utterly opposed to fiends and all their works" in its brief. Sure , it's a weird pumpkin zombie cult but it's got a redeeming feature. If you see a priest of that, you can find a common enemy. You have a temptation beyond "I get spells and loot".  And Yevathax is TBH one of the best gods as it has a very clear dogma of "Fighting undead is good and should be rewarded, also making undead is cool too". And that creation/destruction duality gives a cleric a lot to work with.

The best religion I saw was the Ancestors as it's very proactive. GAIN RENOWN, BE FAMOUS, REMEMBER THE ANCESTORS. And it's very personal. You can choose an Ancestor to emulate.  'What would This Dead Dwarf Do?' is a valid moral code that will encourage your PC to say yes to hard stuff and no to easy stuff.

The Future
I find the new tripartite Lord Departed/Lady in Waiting/Promise faith strange to have happened so fast as it's kind of like House Nephezar have committed heresy on themselves. It's certainly a schism-worthy thing to have jumped back a generation and pulled out a dogma you didn't subscribe to last week. What it does offer is the opportunity for internal religious conflict, which I find much more interesting than "My dad's bigger than your dad" style religious conflict between two servants of powers who each provably give exactly the same stuff to a cleric.

I do think it's likely to demoralise those players who didn't want to play outlaw PCs and now find they are suddenly lacking legitimacy. It wasn't like we were drowning in openly preaching and proactive clerics in the first place, and the concept space right now is crunched down into a much smaller area.
#42
Suggestions / Re: Quest : Water Under the Bridge
October 12, 2020, 11:42:09 AM
Yeah. I have enjoyed this quest, but that's because I have Sneak Attack, Light Armour and really good reflex.  One thing I like is how it is an utter playground for Rogues to rampage about in, as they have precisely the skill combination you want to mess the mobs up and loot the place. And that's rare.

Dispel/Hold Monster is brutal as it can strip your PfX/Clarity and lasts long enough it can drown you. And it's impossible for most casters to buff you up short-term for the boss fight because of underwater spellfail.  If the boss had 2 dispels instead, it would be still mean (because dispel is a massive dick move underwater) but not have spells so vicious that people metagame them.

I also agree on the search piles. Would it be possible to rebalance them so that most of them have low DC, but there are some with high DC/high reward?
#43
This one stands out as it's framed as having a downside, but smart usage means you will rarely have to deal with that downside.  Compare it to the 1dCHA rage. On the cookie cutter 14 CHA barb you're getting 1-2 from that. This is twice as good, with a downside you can, as Electrohydra says, generally avoid. The debuff only lasts a minute, so it is only a problem in an ongoing fight. I was chatting with a player who used to wreck with this and Bloodcrazed Rage, and went "Yeah that sounds like a lot of short term wallop to put someone on the floor or clear out the big problems"

People can't run away from you in duels, and if they're running away to escape, a minute of debuffs won't ruin you. Not least as you can probably rage again and deal with all of it except the will loss. If the penalty applies while you use it, it's a tradeoff. If it applies for long enough to impact your next fight, it's a tradeoff. Obviously -STR and CON would be a silly penalty for a power that gives +STR and CON, but having Berzerker rage impact on your Barbarian DI would fit. And making the penalty linked to how well you roll on the bonus means it's never a straight-up loss.
#44
Since Barbs were being discussed on #main, I realised something about Berzerker Rage. This doesn't really have a downside, despite claiming one.

Quote from: Berserker Rage
Provides an additional +1d4 strength and constitution for the duration of the rage, rolled separately, but also induces a fatigue period for one turn after the rage which causes -2 strength, constitution, armor class, and will save.

If your enemy is still alive after 10-12 rounds of Big Strength Walloping, you've either lost anyway, or you're down to cleaning up the last couple of monsters. Rather than -2 STR after the fact, I suggest moving the penalties to occur during the rage. AC isn't a barbarian's real defence anyway, that's the big HP and DI. Which Berzerking does nothing to penalise.

Quote from: Berserker Rage, changed
Provides an additional +1d4 strength and constitution for the duration of the rage, rolled separately. Applies 5% vulnerability to all damage per bonus point of Strength, and a flat -2 AC and saves
Applying the penalties while you have it active means it's more akin to a combat mode. You're trading your barbarian DI for more HP, AB and damage in an unpredictable manner, and the save penalty cances out the +Fort and +Will benefits of raging. You're going to dish out more damage but also take more, as you're more vulnerable to damage spells too.  The +CON will help you soak that extra damage but you might have a bad day when it runs out.
#45
Suggestions / Re: Perk Suggestion Thread
October 06, 2020, 01:28:03 PM
Rogue L8 Perk: Cat Burglar
"In the alley of the City of Rings, stealthy predators move with feline grace. Also, there are stray cats. And you have one. Sometimes it's helpful!"
+1 H/MS . +1 AC. +1 AB vs Animal. 5% Slashing DI. Access to the Tracking Skill.
Gain a Gutter Cat companion. If it dies, it recovers on reset. Or you wave a fish about and a new raggedy moggy shows up.

The Cat has good AC and AB, low base damage and 1d6 Sneak Attack. It's there as a way to let you solo occasional mostlers without a pile of summons, and to provide ranger-like pet support.