Too.

Many.

Mages.

After using multiple potions of elemental protection after the first cone of cold, an impressive double-barrel blast of acid and cold from two different ogre mages blessed me with my second fugue of the quest.

Being able to go invis, ranged sneak attack with multiple elemental spells and never seeming to get disrupted although surrounded by warriors hacking at their groin (( Conc. of 30? )) Just seems way overpowered, considering there are dozens of the nasty buggers.

Pretty sure there was no DM there, so I'd suggest this one needs tweaked, especially as the payout seemed quite inadequate to compensate for the risk.

Its certainly fine as it is. Massive parties will mean massive spawns, that's all.

This wasn't a massive party or an underprepared party. I agree with Gwydion completely. The quest has become unbalanced due to the new AI scripting which gives those Ogre Magi some vicious powers.

I've both rolled through this quest AND been rolled over. Depends on the group, really. I know that's an oversimplified response, but it's true! :P

I agree with Gwydion as well. never seen that many mages in there before.

The party had about seven or eight people in it, and hence the spawns were large. Ogre mages have always had the same abilities, so I don't know what you're on about there.

The quest is quite doable, and the reward well worth it.

I'd be willing to agree this quest is not balanced if I didn't see so many parties doing it. That said, it must not be that bad... I'll watch it a bit, but for now I'm pretty convinced it's fine as is. At least, the few times I did it as a PC it was fine.

Its one of those quests you -don't- do if you have a bad feeling, if things turn ugly, leave. Noirin's done if before on Etters.

MadCaddies The party had about seven or eight people in it, and hence the spawns were large. Ogre mages have always had the same abilities, so I don't know what you're on about there.

Three mages in a spawn is over kill. In any spawn when they're all lobbing spells that do serious area affect damage.

Its far simpler to just ensure that less mages spawn in general, except for a few spawns that are meant to be over kill. It'll be balanced far better at that rate and lead to less people going "Sorry, we don't want more than the minimal number of people for this quest, any more and we'll be blasted to death by the wizards."

I've seen it happen. Often from people who exclaim, 'big parties means big spawns, that's why I always use the minimal party". I generally take big parties because I want as many people included in a quest as I can get. Yet, if I do that--there is often high death tolls because three wizards spawn, spam an area affect spell or a dispel and wipe out several of the people in two or three rounds.

What Oro said.

And even if it was because we had a big party, I think the payout was pretty bad. The coin was decent, but the items dropped were not valuable at all. Most characters looked at the haul and simply left, because it was mostly junk.

Just a suggestion. I love the story/premise/layout of the quest. Just think there should be fewer mages unless the number of elemental protections dropped are increased OR the payout should be better.

Sherry, i think people play it because it's a blast of a quest. But I think I've died more times on that quest, with several types of characters, than maybe all the other ones put together.

The new AI turns this quest into hell -especially- for high level parties.

If you have anyone that doesn't pull his weight, you are dead.

Having like 3 mage doing their business, spamming a lot of damage while running away when you approach them pulling all those berserkers in makes this quest one of the roughest journey I have seen in a long time.

Last time I did this quest, our death toll with 0 dm spice was:

-Me (3 deaths) -WinstonMartin(1 death) -Errtu Ebonhand (2 deaths) -Dwarf fighter level 6 (1 death)

We were dragging with us a few useless party member that we shouldnt have, but people knew how to react generally- but the last bit was just hell broken loose...

Cone of cold, fire balls, hold persons, Isaacs' .

It is hardcore. I wouldn't mind doing it again but it was a hell of a ride.

The reward was pretty low too. no potions.. nothing, just like 200 gold, dyes and the reward from the dudette.

I have to agree with Gwydion, Mort, and Oro here.

It's one of the absolute worst risk-reward quests on the server, from what I have seen. I used to run through this a lot before the AI tweaks and certain spawns were implimented/layouts were changed, and I considered it difficult/low reward back then. With the recent changes, I hate to say that I avoid this quest now, but I really do.

Even a well diversed and experienced group using the best of their resources can get easily destroyed on this quest. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the quest reward just isn't up to par with the difficulty. That said, I would suggest either the difficulty being lowered, or the reward being raised.

I did this with a group of four L7 PCs. We spawned alot of mages. We ended up using minimal healing, nobody died and we got a phatty payout.

I am really adamant that the quest is fine as it is. It just requires some care.

Evasion is your friend, and there are plenty of items they give you saving throws against the cold.

Maybe if you had mages/sorcerors/priests casting major elemental protection after the first mage encounter, instead of the usual strength & protection for evil & magic weapon, it might help.

Each quest needs different tactics, and i rarely see groups actually doing that. It's not metagaming about what creatures you know are in the quest, it's actually using your scouts/priests/wizards in helpfull ways to anticipate what trouble there is and react accordingly. The ogre quest is one of these quests where you are actually told what creatures to expect. You can prepare accordingly and remain entirely IC. That's something you're not supposed to do in Clowns, for example.

This quest is tough because the team is up against both hard hitting foes and magic using foes. Don't expect to run through it like in non magic using creatures. (Trolls for exemple, whose magic is pretty useless). You certainly will need magic to fight magic.

I've done this quest countless times, with big groups and small groups. The only times peopled died to non DM possessed mages were when they didn't to stop to check if the elemental protection where still active. And when the scout reported a group of mages, we send in summons to take the blasts. Ogre mages are like any mages: they die quickly in close combat, their spells can be disrupted, they rely on invisibility, and try to run out of a fight. Those are huge weaknesses.

Moreover, when i read someone saying that his group is "dragging along useless members", i can't help but doubt that. No PC is useless, unless others don't give them the opportunity to take on their role in a group. It's nice to take along lower level characters to give them opportunity to play and progress, but don't think of them as just tagging along: that's a waste of ressources. Low level "whimps" can give some elemental protection, detect invisibility, cast protective darkness, or do the enchantments so that higher level casters can prepare better spells. Whatsmore, Ogre quest min level is 4, and all classes are usefull at that level.

Last, you can't just hope that the items you need in a quest will drop off the first creatures you slay. Spellcasters are here to supply these things through spells.

Communication is the key, both in the quests, and before the quests, especially for casters who can prepare a whole range of spells if they discuss it beforehand. Only sorcerors and bards can't change spells, so talk to them first, and ask wizards and priest to ajust if it's ok with their personnality.

A quest that is actually killing people? Maybe it's time to make the others as hard as this one...

It seems like people are mostly complaining about the difficulty vs the reward, not that it is simply difficult. I have to agree, I stopped doing this quest at some point, because as fun as having your screen shaking nonstop from fireballs is, it just seemed like a deathtrap the last few times I did it with a high level party.

Last time I did it was 3 level 6/7 characters. Even without spice we were getting hammered. In the end, we all almost died countless times, and despite our best heal spamming, one person died. We fought countless 'spawns' that consisted of nothing but mages and wizards. It gets to the point where the only thing you can do is drink potions and healing until they run out of spells. Or do the oh-so-over-done tactic of spamming darkness.

Spam healing yourselves until the NPC's run out of fireballs really shouldn't be the only non-cheap way of defeating this quest(once you get a few mages going, you simply can't keep up on elemental protection).

I'm sure, so-and-so and his uber tacticery owned this quest with four people naked and a tooth pick, but it does seem like an awful lot of people think this quest isn't worth doing. Maybe the people who are doing this quest a lot, are the lower level ones that won't get ripped apart by swarms of fireballs(because they aren't getting groups consisting of nothing but fireball flingers).

Sometimes this quest is awesome, sometimes it simply makes you bang your head against your desk and pray for the quest to be over without dieing.

Well, there seems to be a strong consensus amongst players that the reward does reflect the difficulty. To be expected or not, we'll look more closely at it and discuss possible scaling up of the reward.

To address the OP's initial concern...

I've yet to ever see 3 mages in a single encounter, but if that does/can occur it should be amended. IMO mages are in most cases supposed to be sprinkled in moderation. When you're talking about AOE damage, 3 cones of cold in a single round can easilly be certain death for half a party of any size. If they are all now able to make use of their invisibility as well, that's simply terrifying.

If appropriate, consider changing the encounters to use a HD scaled version of a single mage instead of increasing the number of them.

Did I miss something?

"Well, there seems to be a strong consensus amongst players that the reward does reflect the difficulty."

Actually Caddies, it seems that of the people who commented on the reward felt it was inadequate, except you. Unless you meant "doesn't reflect the difficulty"?

To snow jewel - In the spirit of doing scripted quests, I don't think we're supposed to use the OOC knowledge that there are a crapload of mages that cast elemental protection magics. Getting your casters to coordinate their spells without some clear IC indication of the nature of the threat feels very powergamer to me.

You can say, "well, it's logical that if you were facing an ogre tribe that there would be mages." However, specifically loading up on elemental protections seems like player, not character knowledge and should normally be avoided.

And you missed where I said I used two separate elemental protection magics and that wasn't nearly enough. I guess every character could have five potions of everything in their sack, but the cost to replace those supplies isn't close to what we took in. Especially when you factor in healing supplies. And the items sucked. Maybe it was just bad luck on the drops, or someone kept the cherry stuff.

Anyhoo, Caddies said they would look at it, so yippee - hooray! That's all I wanted anyway.

Reward < Cost.

By far.

Ya know what?

It would be cool to get a bit of IC information from quest givers that would help your characters to properly prepare for the quest.

Otherwise, you play it honest knowing that you'll need 5 potions of resist elements, but only have two and know you're likely gonna get nailed.

if Gaguatha the half-orc quest giver says, "It is reported that ogres wielding great fire magics are in the area." then the dilemna is solved.

Just a thought.

Many quest givers do that already, and it's also mentioned in many of the Adventurer's Guide books in the Rare Book Shop the sort of things needed when going on any quest.

A lot of the quests can go either way depending on tactics, and the same party make-up won't always see the same successes on all of them.

Yes, I meant to say "doesn't".

Hm…alright, my two cents worth. I kind of like the quest the way it is. Whenever IG you are considering storming a tribe of Ogres that are dug in within a cave, you should almost expect a viscous battle and the potential of losing warriors during it should be considered plausible. With this being said, I have always felt that this quest is among the most challenging quest's on the server. Additionally, I have always felt that many characters have mostly held back in it. It would be good to see rogues placing traps, mages coughing up items that summon creatures and throw spells, warriors spreading out as an IG tactic of mitigation the threat of all individuals in the party being sprayed with a cone of cold, etc. If your characters are on for the fight of their lives, I would like to think that all characters would dig deep into their pockets and use significant items to increase their chances of survival. I cant even begin to tell you how many characters I have seen killed within it, only to find wands of fireballs, potions of invis, items of summoning, etc on their character.

I would however like to see a drastic increase of worthwhile items to be added to the quest. The reason being is that if there are an abundance of ogre mages in the quest, then the likelihood should be that the better items would drop. This is because IG mages would be considered more intelligent and would know the importance of being in possession of items to assist in their survival. Perhaps the typical ogre would value sharply coin as part of their pillaging.

Just my thought.

Gwydion

Getting your casters to coordinate their spells without some clear IC indication of the nature of the threat feels very powergamer to me.

Just a comment on that, for any quests. If you don't know what you're up against, the most rational thing for casters (in my opinion at least) is to prepare a great variety of spells to be prepared for anything. If you've got wards, buffs, offense and miscellaneous, you're good to go.

If all the casters specialize in the same thing either you're metagaming, or you're taking a risk to have only useless spells.

While I agree that I think the reward could be upped a bit for the quest, I do think that the key to any difficult quest is use of resources.

The groups I have seen roll through the quest tend to have people who have taken the time to prepare for a lot of different contingencies in advance. For example, a mage or cleric that has a few scrolls/spells of remove fear, remove paralysis, freedom of movement, see invis or true sight, etc. These spells are rarely used or memorized for favor of buffs, but there is nothing that says you can't have them in scroll format for when you really need them. Fighters who are not afraid of popping that ghostly visage and other pots -before- the fighting starts as well, do wonders. Traps are easily available for the rogues and are a very viable option. And yes, finally you do have the elemental protection that is pretty handy.

Granted, cone of cold spam is a party killer if your party is in the line of fire. There are plenty of ways to get around it. When I watch a party do this quest, or any other, and I see one particular player that is pulling that party along through his preparation, I will drop something nice for that individual player to compensate his resource use. Too often people demand the equal share, when equal work or preparation has not been done.

Snowjewel - you've clarified my point perfectly. If you don't know what the threat is, you prepare a wide range of spells/such but then don't have enough to go around or to withstand the 8th blast in the 5th encounter with the ogre mages because they have worn off.

Beggar - Thank you very much for providing the type of info you did here. This is exactly what I was looking for.

While I agree that I think the reward could be upped a bit for the quest, I do think that the key to any difficult quest is use of resources.

The groups I have seen roll through the quest tend to have people who have taken the time to prepare for a lot of different contingencies in advance. For example, a mage or cleric that has a few scrolls/spells of remove fear, remove paralysis, freedom of movement, see invis or true sight, etc. These spells are rarely used or memorized for favor of buffs, but there is nothing that says you can't have them in scroll format for when you really need them. Fighters who are not afraid of popping that ghostly visage and other pots -before- the fighting starts as well, do wonders. Traps are easily available for the rogues and are a very viable option. And yes, finally you do have the elemental protection that is pretty handy.

Granted, cone of cold spam is a party killer if your party is in the line of fire. There are plenty of ways to get around it. When I watch a party do this quest, or any other, and I see one particular player that is pulling that party along through his preparation, I will drop something nice for that individual player to compensate his resource use. Too often people demand the equal share, when equal work or preparation has not been done.

That being said, it still seems like the way to go is to invest your coin in potions and scrolls if you have it, in order to be prepared for all situations. And if you don't, ICly your character should be scared shitless of going on a apparently tough mission to kill ogres if they don't have the coin to prepare properly.

This may seem obvioius to many of you, especially vets XD, but this is good info for people who seem to have to learn the hard way - like me.

Thanks to all who responded!

I'm still convinced that unless absolutely no one in a party can use wands, players should come out way ahead resource wise on this quest. It still seems fine to me after watching players run through it.

domare Whenever IG you are considering storming a tribe of Ogres that are dug in within a cave, you should almost expect a viscous battle and the potential of losing warriors during it should be considered plausible.

Ogres are sticky.

*glances around then coughs a chuckle into his fist, then softly sounds out the word "Vicious"*

I have a solution for you all:

Go find a friendly Dire Frog like NEEE-DEEEEP to help you out. Makes fighting ogres a lot easier.

The Underdark is dangerous! Take precautions, or lest you be on your back with a blade in your neck...

It's rough out there, my friend. Be careful! =)

Awesome advice, Ace.

I agree, this quest is a bitch. I only join if I have a damn good IC reason or want a nice challenge, it's pretty much harder than the Seer quest, especially for high level characters.

That said, if people would be smart and stock up on wands of elemental protection, blur and serious healing, it might be a bit more doable. But I'd still say that the costs are higher than the reward, just in my experience.

Just did this quest with a team of 8, we got 130 coin each and the best peice of loot was the useful ring that you have to persuade and bluff the orc lady to give you.

I think it needs an upgrade.

And this was the best loot I've gotten so far on this quest - and I've done it five times now. Usually it's less than 90 gp/character and even less useful items.

Sweet diggity dab, who says you have to fight all the Ogres to win? Go explore some possibilities, or do I need to hand every solution on your plate? Sheesh. It's been done before, several times, with great succes and hardly, if at all, cost.

Coldburn who says you have to fight all the Ogres to win?

I concur. People rarely look at quest objective, and take the hard way to the final boss. But then, more kills mean more XPs... if you survive!

It is, usually though, with the final two or three encounters that the death-toll starts to rack up. Up to that point it seems pretty much a cakewalk.

It's not ~that~ hard. The other quests are all just far too easy :)

Well, I guess that's also a way to look at it... :lol:

On the quest that started this thread, I was only using Barkskin, Mage armor, Wisdom , Blur, and Insulation potions when the Boss hit me over the wall with spells while I was in stealth mode. I lost count of the healing used. I love the challenge of this quest but I just can't afford to do it often withouth a good mix of fighters, clerics and mages in the group.