It seems that as the party size increases, the difficulty of the quest FAR outpaces the increased combat ability which comes with more party members. Anyone else have input on this?

Yes I found this, mostly due to the spawns wandering so you never actually Leave combat. Due to the area design, you can get arched for a long time before bieng able to combat the archers and find it very difficult to get into cover (since there is none).

Lowering the perception distances on the archers may help.

It is a very hard quest and one of those that 9 times out of 10 you expend far more on resources than what you get in return, especially in wands, potions and magic devices.

If you build a larger party you need to be combat and healing heavy.

One thing I have noted is the Firebreathers cannot have there fire breathing disrupted as spell casters can - these guys tend to tbe the bane as their fire breath extends quite a distance and hurts everyone in the path and you can be surrounded by them and be flamed to death.

I would agree, except that Clowns is one of the most frequently done quests in EfU. So risk/reward must be pretty appropriate, I think.

-Cross

I find the fire breathers annoying, but the killers for me are the sneaks, that come out of nowhere and start sneak-attacking your backside when you're in the middle of fighting off 2 or 3 other clowns. These are DEADLY.

This is really dangerous, especially when you get one or two characters that just have to go charging off into the distance, bringing all and sundry down on your heads.

Clowns is a relatively quick but tough quest, and I've seen the entire party wiped out or running for the exit en masse on more than one occasion. Having said that, a decent party, using non-kamikaze tactics will usually prevail. Just don't touch those *spoiler*!!

Without trying to sound arrogant, I think the quest is easy.

I like spoilers.

Its just a question of being prepared and not letting the clowns break your lines. Routs on this quest are nasty.

Any quest is easy, with the right party and tactics.

This isn't always possible to achieve, or even something you always want when questing. You don't always get to choose the optimal party for a quest, and sometimes you will have characters along that want to do their own thing (I recall questing with a certain somewhat reckless priest on this quest madcaddies, not pointing fingers at all :wink:) that makes these tactics a moot point.

Even so, it only takes a little bit of DM involvement to throw all these arguments out the window, as I can attest the last time I did this quest :lol:

Tactics!? Pheh!

Seriously though, I agree with what you're saying about not always having an optimal party. Its uncommon to have one and usually not as fun!

But, unless its been changed (I haven't done this quest in ages) I don't personally think the quest is overly difficult, and the scaling for larger groups, I've found, is fine. Half the damage any PC receives on this quest can be negated by a single potion or spell, you know! Sneakers are nasty, yes, but without them, this quests would be absurdly easy.

Honestly, I encountered that quest 2 days ago for the first time - and were send to death 3 times because of:

a) leader's tactic (although he said to be an expert in this quest): "rush the clowns!" b) no possible retreat (the entrance door was gone) c) mirror/door room teleporting the party members elsewhere and therefore letting everyone struggle for his own (I appeared - of course - in the midst of that clown camp... and after a horrible death and some DM intervention I tried the next door and ended far in the underdark I had never been before and got killed by an eyeball... this is not what I expect to be a funny immersive gameplay. that is pure sadism)

Over the course of these actions I not only lost 2 levels and a lot of XP - I also lost an expensive suite of armor, shield and potions. And to top it off the evening ended with 150 gold coins burnt in a camp fire because I accidently misclicked due to a frame drop of my computer (wanted to put it on the floor). And I even didn't know until that moment that burning stuff with camp fires was possible. Why is there no check for reasonable items one drops into fire? Why is there no dialog popping up to verify the user's wish? That day I truly hated EfU for being such a non-reasonably frustrating server. And there are more design flaws of EfU that make me often wonder if this server was made for masochists (why does resurrecting someone via scroll cost experience points - after all the group spend lot's of money, just to name one flaw) or gamers.

Don't get me wrong. EfU has a great community and I like it's concept (no hak, just start and have fun). The quest system is somewhat group centered and there could be some more (doable) solo quests, too. But all in all the gaming is fun.

Who are you guest? I'm curious about your post!

I have no idea why the exit disappeared -- are you sure about that? Unless it was some strange DM spice, I highly doubt that it did.

The mirror just make clones of your PC to fight, they aren't scripted to do any teleporting whatsoever. Maybe you had some lag?

One of the issues with respawning to your body, is that it encourages people to keep going with the quest, except now they're that much weaker, and in many cases the monsters have already spawned and balanced to your higher-level self. So it's good to be careful with continuing to quest after death.

Campfires aren't scripted to destroy gold, it's a bioware issue that if you place gold into any placeable (any placeable) it will disappear, and there's nothing we can do about that.

I feel very strongly that EfU is not unduly difficult, and it certainly isn't designed by masochists or for them. I'm sorry you had a bad run, feel free to make your server suggestions in a separate post (the value of experience being taken away after raises is something we are quite confident about, though). We will certainly review them, although we do orient the difficulty-level at the higher level towards players who are comfortable and familiar with the NWN engine and prepared to co-operate and efficiently use supplies to defeat challenging enemies we are also always trying to remove elements of frustration for our players.

As a masochist, I am highly arroused by EfU. Especially a few select DMs.

People teleporting random-ass places upon entering a transition (when somebody else is occupying the space that they would normally "enter" into) is a regular, if sort of rare bug in the NWN engine. I've never heard of the entire party teleporting, but I've seen folks have it happen to them plenty of times in a few years of playing.

-Cross

c) mirror/door room teleporting the party members elsewhere and therefore letting everyone struggle for his own (I appeared - of course - in the midst of that clown camp... and after a horrible death and some DM intervention I tried the next door and ended far in the underdark I had never been before and got killed by an eyeball... this is not what I expect to be a funny immersive gameplay. that is pure sadism)

This was part of a DM quest cawila and I ran, where people had a choice of six portals leading to various locales (after Vesa dispelled the exit).