Crystal Mines: Scaling

[Disco]

Personaly I would like to see a total change of the Crystal mine map.

[Porkolt]

Personaly I would like to play a different quest.

Fixed.

[Ideal]

If there's a point that someone who's buffed to the gills and generally prepared runs into an encounter, and gets cut down before they can even have a shot to scramble back out of it, I think it's a good sign to tweak things. I don't think it's unreasonable for someone with 29 AC and Displacement to consider themselves at least somewhat prepared, and I'm not sure if metagaming the placement of enemies before you have any reasonable way to tell they're even there can be justified.

Come to think, that quest spot seems to cause a lot of metagaming, even in smaller groups. I see a lot of runs that have people going through most of the mine at a run, then suddenly stop behind cover until someone can manage to spot the trap, just because a trigger and a few unlucky rolls can mean anything from a few deaths to a wipe in a bigger group, even if you did decide that this was suddenly the best time to chug a half dozen potions.

I imagine it can lead to a lot of frustration, as once you get locked into a hail of arrows, there's not a lot more you can do but stare at the screen and wait to die. It's a gamble that can easily become a no-win situation and cost you a third of your EXP, plus the consumables you'd used. I think it might be better to ensure this spot gives players the chance to run away if things go too south, too fast, rather than leaving it as-is. In exchange, the melee capabilities of the encounter could do to be beefed up, as I've noticed that when the trap is passed over, and the archer spawns aren't too bad, the fight quickly becomes a cakewalk.

[Ghost]

You can see all the crossbowmen from quite a distance, stopping and planning is a very reasonable thing to do. >.>

[Ideal]

Odd... I can only see them once I'm in front of the trap, and that's about the same point that they start plugging people full of arrows, in my experience... Of course, by 'people' it's usually just me. Everyone else stays in cover.

[EfUA_undercover]

Come to think, that quest spot seems to cause a lot of metagaming, even in smaller groups.

That's exactly the point and it is what I see in 99% of the runs I have been part of. And it is exactly what people suggested to do!

Bring an evoker! -> metagaming
Bring a wizard or sorc able to cast spell X -> metagaming
Stand behind corner, wait for wizard or sorc to cast spell X -> metagaming

You can't always have those around. And of course I do know how to do that quest easily (read my initial post!), though does my character know? Likely not, atleast not before heading in. Of course I could have told all the people: No, you stay here! But my character had no reason to, even when I already had a bad feeling oocly when we left the gates.

Its not like I or Never-Again would have done our first quest in that lvl range. And it clearly wasn't the case that we didn't use supplies, just read the initial posts before giving advice that only backfires... oh, maybe we should have used more in that one round that killed both of us... And later several others who tried to safe us.

Well, anyway, when the general oppinion is that quests are better metagamed instead of putting useful suggestions out how to solve the problem, then I guess I shall take that advice! Not going to comment any further on this.

[Ghost]

You don't have to metagame the quest to be successful. Near all of our characters are adventurers. People who are competent and used to frequently walking into kill or be killed situations should and would have a bit of an arsenal to use to cover certain contingencies. This particular quest doesn't have dangers that your average adventurer wouldn't anticipate.

Attacking a fortified position where the only entry is covered by crossbowmen is sort of an obvious defense, having the means to counter that should be essentially standard kit. If it's not then, well, maybe those particular adventurers aren't the most competent sorts.

[Ideal]

First off, the whole claim to 'Well, if you were an experienced adventurer, you'd know you needed the means to counter that and shove it in your pack before going on random trips' confuses me. I mean, everyone comes to the Ziggurat at level two. Sometimes they're random farmers, sometimes they're 400 year old elf paladins. None of them are likely to stand up to your average NPC 'veteran'. I usually just assumed everyone had been thrust into the adventurer's life recently due to that. That, and I've had way too many 'oh, well, my veteran guy totally saw that coming' moments in tabletop to say it without wincing.

Second, and I suppose more relevantly, let's say you and your level 5 adventure buddies decided to test out your preparedness by having your group archer start lobbing arrows at you. If you're packing 29 AC, 50% concealment, and your friend is a 20 DEX Elf Fighter, the very top of the arrow-shooting game, he's going to have to roll about a 17 to hit you, and even then he'd miss half those shots with the concealment, giving him a one in ten shot at actually making contact, let alone doing enough damage to seriously hurt you, or keep up with your constant stream of healing. I would say, from an IC, 'seasoned adventurer' standpoint, that this is pretty well prepared, or at least enough that you aren't going to get killed in the time it takes your hand to reach that handy Invisibility potion on your belt.

[Nuclear Catastrophe]

Come talk to me on IRC if you've got a real problem with this, and I'll discuss it with you.

[Ghost]

There's more to questing than buffing and charging. Being able to separate and disperse mobs is a big key. I always carry these kinds of items with me, they're very easy to find.

I also have done that particular quest dozens of times and haven't died on it since my very first PC on EfUA, well over a year ago. The gist of this thread is that this quest is so difficult as to be near-certain death, and needs to be adjusted, yet that hasn't been my experience at all. Sure it's dangerous, and sometimes people do die, but I really don't see where it needs changing, and as a matter of fact I think it would then become a ridiculous cakewalk.

Maybe people disagree with me and that's fine, but there's a certain amount of uncertainty when you walk into this QA about exactly how bad it might be. I rather enjoy that and think it would be a shame to turn the quest into a bland run for healing supplies. It's dangerous, yes, it can be very dangerous indeed, but it's more than doable with gear that's very easy to find all over the place.

[Never-Again]

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:

[Ghost]

Darkness. That's only one, there's others but I won't list everything I can think of down here for spoiler-ish reasons.

[Bearic]

I thought quests were supposed to have death traps like that; they're often easy to avoid with precation or meta-gaming, but low rolls can still kill you quickly in certain parts.
 
At least after the level four and lower quests, any how.
 
 
Don't worry too much, though, dying in game isn't so bad - you just get to level up again. =]

[Ideal]

I'm not really sure how separation and dispersal are supposed to assist against ranged combatants, except possibly dispersing their attention among multiple people, which takes a good bit of time and/or luck in NWN's system where archers are concerned. The items to do it with do exist, though I'm not sure of their range, as I have yet to procure any myself. But for the topic of this post, their effectiveness is moot. The issue that started this thread was that people were getting killed in the first round of engagement, which usually means the PC is busy moving and the arrows are en route by the time they stop to act. Whatever item or spell you'd want to use would be interrupted by pointy death that, in two case studies, was not averted by defensive buffing. It was no longer a question of reasonable tactics, preparation, or experience. It was a question of 'Can I manage a single action that will save me from dying on contact with the enemy?', and the answer turned out to be 'No'.

Neither is it a question of uniformly 'making the quest easier'. It's been repeatedly noted that once the initial salvos are over, it's fairly easy to mop up a mob of archers, between AoOs and target fragmenting. Changing some of the archers to hardened melee combatants able to hold the narrow pass PCs need to come down would seem to me a balancing factor, reducing the chance of instant death by ranged weapon, and making the later rounds a bit more than just running down defenseless, low-hp archers. There is free healing in the mine, after all, and it doesn't seem too much to ask that people have to use it, so long as they are allowed the chance.

[Never-Again]

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).