Adelia Tyrell in the Archaeological Society Camp now offers the Crystal Mine quest for parties of 3-8, level range 4-9. I'm looking for any criticisms and suggestions to help improve it, since I feel this quest still needs to be balanced in difficulty and reward.
Specific things I'm interested in are comments on the difficulty and reward. All thoughts are welcome. Thanks.
The diamond elemental is an incredible brute. To a decent tank, he was able to kick out nearly 300HP in dmg. I think having a brute like that, along with his buddy, and the Sunbeam thingy hit and blind the party all at once is a bit much. Maybe ditch the sunbeam?
The amount of elemental prot required by this quest is incredibly high. I burned through 16 charges personally, and I know other were burning them fast too.
For the amount of consumables I used to keep us up and going, this quest was simply not worth it. I made 500XP before quest end reward, which wasn't given, so I can't total it. The XP/Loot is way out of proportion to the amount burned to survive it.
The difficultly seemed to be lower than other quests of the same level range. We did well on a first run with mostly low levels, which suggests to me it should be upped a few notches. I think an optimal high level party with a wizard buffer would probably blow through this too easily. It is also much, much shorter than other such quests.
I found two gems that can cast Shield, which considering those potions are supposed to be very rare, might be a sign they'll spawn too oftne as is.
Also diamonds and rubies are extremely valuable and Pcs will wonder why they can't sell them or raise dead with them. Perhaps for balance and realism they should be changed to gems that look alike, but aren't worth as much.
I would suggest a few mixed groups with melee enemies and archer enemies for a tougher quest and to up the damage done by the ray crystal. Also you want to cluster the enemies more so they attack together.
my 2 Cents
I felt we had a reasonably easy time with a ramshackle team of poorly equipped random characters, so I can agree with Nihm somewhat.
Here's my key points:
* The Diamond Elemental and whatever casted HolyWord (or was it Sunbeam) must be toned down. Mini-boss is fine, but not one that does so much damage so quickly, with little hope of countering the blindness without meta-gaming. I suggest lowering AB and damage slightly on the diamond. Not sure if I'd remove the Sunbeam entirely; maybe only make it cast it once?
* The boss was beautifully scripted. Shame it was super-easy, did less damage than that Diamond Elemental, hit less often, and just generally felt like "Oh wow, this is a giant relief."
* The burning skeletons felt... useless. This might have been because we had good Turning, but they still didn't do a lot of damage from what I saw. Maybe cluster them more, as Nihm said.
* Give those normal skeletons two-handed weapons so they are more than a joke.
* The electro elementals have a cute exploding animation. Make them do damage as they explode. 1d6 electrical. Their lightning felt harmless, but that might have been intended.
* The reward didn't feel worth it because of all the healing and endure elements used; but this should be taken with a grain of salt taking in account how random loot drops are. I wouldn't freak out just because of the Shield gems either, those are cool. I'd prefer quest to be a little harder and pay more.
* I likely only made the last point because I am greedy, so to make it a little better: it seemed, just in general, and diamond elemental aside, too easy for a quest with max level 9, but maybe higher levels would have spawned different things so I wouldn't know. I'd have expected a difficulty close to the Gnoll quest (*shudder*) in that level range.
* Last thing: despite this comment, keep in mind quests should be balanced to the middle, not, as Nihm says, to optimal high level parties.
* Oh and yeah, it wouldn't hurt to make it a bit longer; maybe add a second mine level? Max level 9 quests should already feel reasonably epic, in my opinion. Or maybe lower the max level to 7 or 8.
Hope that helps.
* The final boss was a joke. Sure it had some nice HP, though it's damage commonly dished out 4's, and 1's, 0's [Though I might be wrong], and the only real problem were the parts where it attacked the entire party, which wasn't a problem at all!
* The skeletons / lightning elementals / fire elementals / burning dead were complete pushovers. They could easily be taken down by a level four, and I felt like I was doing a level 2-5 quest, pardoning the ruby elemental and diamond elemental [One of which cast Sunburst, blinding us for each person effected, posing a fun challenge. (Since I was not being targeted by the Ruby Elemental who did huge amounts of damage / had high AB)]
* Overall, the entire quest could use a big tuneup. The reward, which about 2500 gold was found, was perfectly fine, though I think you included the extra thousand and a bit. I think the gold reward should be enough for most people, on top of the shield items, and magic missile (9). Something to give people endure elements could really be used, as the firegem at the one part really burns through elemental protection spell(effects) [Which might also include me epically failing by walking into it alone and thinking I could get out of it alive.]
I think the quest does have potential though.
It would be nice if there was a small chamber between the in-quest transition and the diamond+ruby golems, or else there will probably be a lot more: whole-party-gets-blinded + corpse packs get hidden.
Perhaps the first part of the quest could spawn some elemental protection items for use in the second part, or maybe the crystals could cast it once per quest on whoever hits them.
I think the boss was fine - it didn't go down in a handful of rounds like other quest bosses. The spawns in the boss room, though, could maybe be more numerous (relative to the party on the quest).
I had to bail before I could see the rewards, but I used a page and a half of herbs, so I'm hoping the healing and/or gold was worth it for everyone else.
Edit: I felt like I was doing a L4-9 quest. We had three deaths, after all!
This is interesting feedback.
Several of you noted this quest was far too easy overall. I found this odd, since earlier I witnessed a total party kill on the burning skeletons. It's possible they were not a well-equipped party. I'll see how other parties do and decide whether it should be beefed up or if it's okay as is.
I've upped the boss difficulty and reward from Adelia Tyrell to make up for consumables used. There are some powerful loot items that will drop rarely on this quest, which makes this quest far more worthwhile to the lucky.
Diamond golem difficulty has been put down. He's still a tough guy, but he won't mercilessly slaughter you guys anymore.
Added some elemental protection loot.
I'm uninterested in making this quest any longer. It's my personal preference, since as a player I rarely have time to endure a long quest. The reason this quest is 4-9 in level range is on difficulty. You guys did mention a lot of consumables were used, which fits the bill of a difficult quest. From here I believe I need to find balance between difficulty and reward.
Thanks for the feedback thus far. Please keep the thoughts coming. It's my hope to have this quest final by January 10th.
Mostly what I feel the quest is lacking are tie-ins to the historical aspect. Perhaps a tablet or droppable tome could give some hints as to why the burning skeletons are there.
I for one liked the weak skeleton miners, but they should be neutral and perhaps say cryptic stuff, they certainly serve no purpose challenge wise but would make great atmosphere.
I feel a cave quest is not complete without mushrooms. There was a lovely underdark area that had mushrooms that sprayed the party with all sorts of cloudspell effects. Clusters of these would work very well with the burning archers (they make it harder to close on them immediately and don't affect undead) and perhaps add something neutral in there that will cast Confusion too, to go with the wicked Mind Haze some of the mushrooms used to use. Mushrooms would also help some of the areas that felt a bit empty.
3 Cents
I dunno what to say, amazing scripting and opportunities to kill rivals with legitimate ease,
It's awesome.
The reason our party found the skeletons so easy was I made sure to keep everyone with elemental endurance up Stern. I burned 15 charges of it to keep us covered. Not practicle for every run through.
The end conversation with Tyrell is still bugged, overall though I found the end boss quite difficult but challenging. I'd suggest keeping it as it is.
I'm behind my January 10 goal, due to a recent RL event which sent me up to Illinois. My new goal is Jan 17.
Anyway, several changes have been made. Most prominently, you may now finish the quest. The script which finished the quest had a typo in it, so now you can receive your gold and XP reward from Tyrell.
I did lower the AB of the boss some. Hopefully it's enough and not too much. We'll see.
I do like Nihm's suggestion, so I'll throw in some mushrooms. While I would prefer people to figure out the history behind this SQA using deductive reasoning, I might throw in a few more historical clues.
Beside that, I think it's starting to look good. Any final comments before Jan 18 will be fantastic. I'll also accept ideas for loot this quest can drop.
Radiant Emerald: An emerald that appears to be able to be stuck to any surface.
Continual Flame Single Use.
Shining Topaz- Shiny Topaz- When thrown, it explodes in a cascade of brilliant colors and lights, blinding all in the area - Mass Blindness.
Deadly Alexandrite- This alexandrite appears to be bathed in negative energies. Neg energy burst 5 charges.
Electrical Quartz- This quart appears to spark a lot. - Electric Jolt 10 charges, Lightning bolt 5 charges, Scintillating sphere 5 charges.
Freezing Diamond- This diamond is Chilly, Brrr!
Cone of cold, 5 chargs. Ice Storm, 7 charges.
Flameing arrows-from the archers..random number, to simulate unused portion of quiver?
and if your going to have mushrooms, you must add Badgers!! And a snake!!!
Unless there are final thoughts by you guys, this quest is done. It will be offered by Ebeneezra at the Colonial Library next reset.
I suggest actually putting in friendly uber-badgers with the mushrooms, battling snakes in the empty rooms. And then leading to a HUGE BADGER fighting a big snake! Although I have never taken this quest, humor is always something that we need more of.
Could have some loot drops that give a % or /- immunity to an element but a vulnerability to a few other elements, or physical damage.
Examples:
Necklace
5/- electric
10% vulnerability acid
10% vulnerability piercing
Boots
25% immunity fire
10% vulnerability slashing
10% vulnerability cold
Varying in strength and penalties as needed.
I suggest that since the quest giver is gone, an exploration placeable at the Mines entrance takes its place. This quest doesn't really need an end payment.
The new quest giver is Ebeneezra, the library owner.
Why was the max for this quest lowered from nine to eight? It is easily harder than the orc or goblin quest that are max nine. There are things here with 20 AB and I've personally never been able to beat the boss without using a lot of hasting and healing potions.
Same question as Nihm here. It's tough and there's some very nasty enemies. Certainly harder than Goblin Fort, which goes up to 9.
I would agree with Nihm here. This is a very hard quest.
I'd agree with Nihm too, this is a very tough quest requiring a lot of healing and consumables.
I would also agree with Nihm.