Messages

[1. Philosophy:]

I have played a few monks, the following helped me to develop them.

1. Philosophy: Create a philosophy for your monk based upon your deity / order, the more interesting you make this the more fun you have. Spend a day or two on it, trust me it helps. Make sure this philosophy gives something to work towards and is outward focused to some extent (something to work for on the server). For example, lets use a monk of Ilmater.

- Philosophy 1 (Inward): The body is damaged by the world around us, what damages our bodies damages our souls. The duty of the faithful is to suffer as little damage as possible to free our souls.

- Philosophy 2 (Outward): The soul is the center, but the body is the vessel of the soul. We live in a hostile world that seeks to damage the body and by extension the soul. This damage chains the soul, preventing it from reaching it's full power. The duty of the faithful is to heal themselves and those around them, lessen the damage done to the body and by extension aid to free the soul within.

Slight difference between the two on the surface, but RP wise the second gives a -ton- more things to do.

2. Profession: Determine what the profession of your monk is, in other words what is his path. This will determine how he pursues that philosophy. To continue our example, two possible ways to go.

- Profession 1 (Warrior): A warrior monk of Ilmater who will seek out those that harm other's needlessly. He will use his training to end their ability to harm while causing as little pain as possible to himself or the others around him.

- Profession 2 (Researcher): A studious monk of Ilmater who will seek out new ways to heal the wounded or sick. He is not very skilled at actually applying those methods, but will hire herbal doctors and the like to do so.

Behind the philosophy, I find the profession the second biggest area of focus. You dont want to get silly, but the more effort you put into finding an interesting way to pursue your philosophy the better. In our two examples, plenty of people have seen warrior monks before but the researcher is a bit more of a twist.

3. Background: How did your monk get his training and his start? Why did he choose to take up this path? Frankly, in this I find the more "normal" you make your background the better. Remember your monk is -only- level 2, he didnt slay any dragons before he arrived on the isle. In fact a level 2 monk is weaker than almost any other level 2 character out there with the possible exception of a mage. I am not even convinced of that. Second, the more exotic the background the harder you have to work to make him shine now. "You destroyed the Temple of Doom on the mainland but you got knocked out by a -kobold- here?" I find stories along the lines of "acolyte of a small chapter of brotherhood x" work well.

4. Goals: Ok you have your philosophy, the profession you use to apply that philosophy, and your background. Now, how are you going to use that to rock the server? My advice, aim as high as possible. First, it ensures you never lack anything to do no matter how many levels you get or how long your character is around. Second, it means the same thing for any allies you pick up along the way. Finally, make these goals something you can pursue at any level (kill all the mist ogres is probably not a good one). To stick with our example from above. (Outward Philosophy / Researcher / Trained in a Small Chapter House in the capital of Damara)

- Main Goal 1: To catalogue and find a cure for every known disease / poison / curse on the isle of Yhpm. Once these cures are found, stockpile a supply of the cures and train people in their application.

Main Goal 2: Establish a hospice that trains people to apply the cures for everything form minor sword cuts to the most deadly curse. Have the hospice divided into wings, one focused on applying the cures and the second on researching them.

Main Goal 3: Change the legal structure of the Dominion and the Docks to outlaw the needless harming of anyone on the isle.

As you can see, with just a few minutes of thought you can easily come up with major goals that will take a long / long / long time to complete. But will be -major- fun along the way for not just yourself but others as well.

4. Mechanics: Study up OOC on what potions / items / feats do what and learn them. Monks can be a bit hard to play, at least know OOC what does what. My recommendation is to download one of the character builder modules online and test out your builds. Dont let a great rp concept go up in flames because it is to hard mechanics wise.

5. Class: Playing a base class well is extremely hard and rewarding in my view. You dont need a exotic background or killer backstory to shine. Work on doing something simple / relatively normal very very well!

That was my point, I am sure there is much more to the cult than pvp. However, I believe general perception is that it is pvp focused. That is why I believe it has become an "us versus them atmosphere" as of late. As for the attacks themselves, I wasnt arguing they were not avoidable or in poor taste OOC. My point was when they do come about, they are done in a way that can make characters who see them turn against the cult.

I believe the reason this faction has become an "us versus them" concept is because of the very nature of EfU. It is a conflict oriented server designed to pit major factions against each other. As a result the major faction characters have most likely entered into some type of pvp at one point or another. Now you have a faction that has dedicated itself to pvping the major faction characters. It is hardly surprising it developed into an us versus them atmosphere. Especially given the tactics used IG by the cult. As for the coins part of it, those are not nominal sums of money for the most part. They may seem that way to the very rich characters, but I would wager 3k for most characters on the server is a very large sum.

I am sure the cult has some goals associated with it that are not common knowledge. However, from what I have seen the perception is that it is a pvp cult focused on knocking off the more established characters. If your wondering how this developed, that is my two cents.

I will throw my two cents into this, I played in Lower quite a bit in EfU and I think that some of the attitudes there have carried over to EfU:A. In EfU after the Tigereyes died there was no NPC force to stop groups of Upper PCs from raiding lower and then retreating to the protection of the Watch. The only way the Lower PCs could survive was band together. A bit of that has carried over into the Docks in my opinion. When there are no large gangs, everyone tends to band together. When large gangs form, they usually battle it out as was pointed out a above.

I think we are getting a bit off topic. The original point was to bring something up and see if anyone else agreed. It is quite apparent that while some people do, some people dont. Easiest way to fix it, is to just accept that quest scaling is difficult and if you take a big party on something you are taking a risk (on anything pretty much).

Ghost, maybe there is some portion of the game that I am missing. But for the life of me I cant think of a single thing that would be part of the standard kit to deal with 10+ crossbowmen with an AB of 11 focused on one or two characters at once. The only thing could come close would be a Displcament potion (which my character used, sadly to little effect :cool:). I agree there are spells that would have helped and items. None of those though would be part of the standard kit for any adventurer. As I said, maybe there is something I am missing though. I sort of look at it like this. It comes down to math, when you have large number of ranged attacks the likely hood of them of any one of them rolling a critical is greatly increased, which will always hit. Displacement becomes less useful because if your facing ten attacks, 5 of then statistically will cut through the Displacement on any given attack. Given the critical nature of ranged weapons, when they score crits it really hurts. If you have large number of crossbowmen attacking one target, the likelyhood one of them scores a crit goes way. It only takes a couple of unlucky roles for the adventurer in one round to die regardless of precautions. Anyway, it is what it is. If the DMs want that quest that to work like that with a large party then fair enough. However, I dont think we can claim its something you can use with standard gear any adventurer would have. A well prepared mage or cleric, sure! Unless of course I am missing something. :cool:

Ah I must have just gotten a bad role on the damage then. Thanks for the info Mort.

I would agree. This spell has zero defense and is pretty much instant death for most characters (at the levels we are playing at anyway).

Ha ... MrGrendel just put what I was trying to bring out much better than I was able to. 10 melee NPCs are much less deadly than 10 ranged NPCs assuming it is a bit difficult to chase down the ranged NPCs. In regards of how to handle it, you are quite right Ghost. There are things that would make it much easier, in this case my character doesnt have them or wouldnt know about them. I guess my real frustration was based on my character being unable to change the situation without going OOC (once the battle had started, could have allways left beforehand). That particular set up with that number of spawns creates a situation where certain spells / items are needed badly and we didnt have them. As I said before, if the quest isnt going to be changed then fair enough. Its just a game after all! :)

I think my point was missed, it was more of a mechanical nature than anything. NwN is round based, so if you have say three PCs being targeted by multiple NPCs at the same time the engine works something like this.
- PC: Action
- NPC: Action
- NPC: Action
- NPC: Action
- ect..

Thats what makes large numbers of crossbowmen or archers so deadly. They can all attack at the same time. In other words the combat log can look something like this.

PC: Attack, damage whatever.
NPC: Attack, damage whatever
NPC: Attack, damage whatever
... and so on.

So if the PC gets hit and tries to react (drink potion, ect), he might be dead by the time his next action round comes again. All those archer NPC attacks happen between the PC clicking the potion / movement / whatever and the PC's next round coming up.

In any case. This might be turning into a bit of a debate. If the quest isnt going to be changed, then fair enough. I just thought I would put in my two cents. :)

I would agree with the AoE mage part, but that means not taking the quest unless you have one. There is not always one around, part of the fun is trying things with less than ideal parties. I understand that some times leads to a slaughter. However in this case I thought we had a pretty good party and a pretty good plan.

I understand your point NC, but I think the lay out of the end causes the issue. You have a chasm with a narrow bridge spanning it. At the end of the bridge is a barricade that you have to break (not a huge issue, but it does take a bit of time). On the "safe" side of the chasm you have a stun trap you cant get around that goes off multiple times with a will save vs stun. On the "enemy side" you have somewhere around 10 to 15 crossbowmen with an attack of 11 or so doing around 10 - 12 points of damage a hit. People get stunned when they set off the trap and that breaks up any charge. The barricade slows you down and all those crossbowmen tend to target the same person. They can all attack because they have ranged weapons. With that many simultaneous attacks, the stun trap, and the barricade it can turn into a slaughter very quickly. Perhaps mix up some more battleragers with the crossbowmen? That way the numbers stay the same, but you dont have quite so many bolts all hitting the same person. Just a thought.

That was the point I didnt want to raise. I dont like turning people away OOCly because I know the spawns will be insane. Especially on a quest like that where it has things that are useful to a wide range of players. I dont mind having a harder quest if you bring more people, that is part of the game. But I think this one scales up to much at the end with -that- many crossbowmen. Just my two cents.

My two cents.

- I dont usually play DM faction PCs so I cant comment on them. I will say that with the current system, once a character reaches a high rank in a faction I respect that character a great deal OOC. They have clearly been rocking out the plot / faction goals / ect.

- In regards to plots, I think one of the neatest factors of EfU is the way plots are resolved. There is nothing neat or tidy about it. Actions have consequences and you see that clearly in EfU. An example: Sabuth was defeated, but her remaining forces took over the Dock. It adds to the immersion factor for myself and gives the server a since of a timeline.

[Faction Overview:]

[SIZE="2"]Faction Overview:[/SIZE]

The Collegium was started by Gethin of Waterdeep. It is advertised as a gathering of individuals who wish to gain knowledge. The knowledge in question is philosophy and skills appropriate to the individual. Gethin has stated multiple times that all are welcome, including the very young. Basic education is also offered to those who wish it.


[SIZE="2"]Faction Goals:[/SIZE]

- Instill a basic understanding of philosophy and hopefully wisdom in the people of the settlement.

- Assist Collegium members in personal quests/projects for unknown knowledge or forgotten lore.

- Exlpore the ruins of the isle for hidden knowledge, lore, artifacts, trinkets, ect.

- Topic of Major Study: The Collegium will have a topic or two of major study that all members are invited to help on. The current topic is the nature of the Mist and the secrets it holds. This topic is subject to change as people come up with new ones.

- Various unmentioned topics that will be found out IG as your character grows in the Collegium.

- Share the knowledge of the Collegium with other people on the isle.

[SIZE="2"]What You Can Expect:[/SIZE]

- A knowledge based faction focused on learning through character interaction and studying the isle. (Learn from each other, search for artifacts, search for undiscovered knowledge, ect)

- Moderate to Low PvP, this is not the point of the faction but it is EfU:A after all.

- Unmentioned topics and twists if your character decides to become deeply involved in the Collegium.

- A long term plot line with multiple goals that will take a lot of effort to accomplish (if they ever are). There should never be a shortage of something to work towards.

[SIZE="2"]Who Would Fit:[/SIZE]

- Basically anyone who expressed an interest in learning something or discovering something. There will be attempts to "work with" or "teach" your character the longer you stay with the Collegium, but pretty much everyone is welcome!