Change spells on Sewer Goblins

[Egon the Monkey]

I just did this quest, and we almost wiped twice, purely due to Acid Breath, which I'd call overpowered in this quest.

Unlike for quests with fireballers, the spell doesn't hit you before the meleers do, giving you time to heal, you can't rn from it and you can't spread out in the confined spaces, especially in the last room. The clouds are annoying, but buffed up frontliners can usually save on them, although they screw low fort save PCs. Fine. Balanced. Can be countered.

I did have insulation up, as did my party.If it could be switched so they have another spell that's less utterly lethal it would be good. Negative enegy burst? Slow? Dispel?

[Thomas_Not_very_wise]

It is fine as is- Just angle yourself so the acid breaths smash there allies as well.

[Egon the Monkey]

I assume you never got hit by two at once then. Smashing their allies is no good when havlf your party just got fried too. And those tunnles leave no room to maneuver for that anyway.

[Gullible Righteousness]

Actually, if they cast the spell from the max range, you can just back up a bit, and be able to dodge it.
 
This quest is perfectly balanced as it is, and should not be changed.

[JackOfSwords]

I've been on the quest about a dozen times, and never seen the problem with Acid Breath as reported here.  I'm guessing it was poor luck?

[Vlaid]

Acid Breathe is a rough spell, but there are a lot of corners and twists you can use to your advantage. The quest is like Chosen-lite. Greater Chosen used to spam the crap out of Acid cones, and it hurt a LOT if you didn't have evasion/tons of elemental protection.
 
I've done the spell a few times, and  it doesn't feel anymore painful than the other quests around the island in the same level range. The payout may be a little low for it's difficulty though..

[Dr Dragon]

Know what they are goblins using strategy. How so? Tight narrow space easy for a cone to do maximum hitting! These goblins clearly are using proper strategy and I think You best deal with these Acid spraying goblins IG!

[Egon the Monkey]

I will, DrD, just as soon as a DM lets my PCs tunnel through the walls using a pickaxe ;).
I decided to bring this up because someone else on the quest sent a "what the hell?" tell to me when we were Fugued, and it made me realise every recent near-wipe on that quest was either from the same spell, usually off a crossfire, or due to an inability to avoid cloud spells in the close quarters.

Ironically, when my PC got killed, he was actually trying to sneak behind those casters to eliminate them before they got a shot off. The thing is, in a good number of the areas, due to the choke points it's not possible to avoid the casters, or, if you try to, you lose the door and your backline gets swamped by a green horde.

Perhaps its the lack of payoff for the risk yeah,as Trogs is significantly easier to do as a 3-6 quest, has common, valuable loot and room to maneuver. Even Harpies has less chance of the entire party biting it from a caster tag team.

Personally, I find that Sewers is more dangerous than Jergal, Hole in the wall and so on, but maybe that is because I've had generally terrible luck with spell saves in there. Or maybe because it's been a while since I did it frequently last, and then on a dwarf cleric with +2 vs poison and spells, and 16 CON XD.

[Letsplayforfun]

I never did the quest (!) but it sounds as if creatures are using cool spells, and not the usual sleep that puts their allies out of combat.

Leave it that way. U

Use insulations, send your summons, whatever. We had the same debate on Ogre quest in EfU.

[bob7el]

We had the same debate on Ogre quest in EfU.

And it's no surprise that a lot of people stopped running Ogres.  I also don't see how this quest can be fairly compared to Ogres and Sewer Town, both of which were high-end quests, when this quest has a level range of 3-6.  PCs are obviously going to have lower HP, saves, and consumables.

But even still, it's nice to see difficult quests for the lower level ranges; it's not just free XP.  I've already written about this, but my issue is more with the risk-to-reward ratio than the mob and spell composition.  It doesn't seem right that Trogs, Harpies, and Jergal are all significantly easier and yield a higher payout.

[TooCuteForComfort]

I sometimes wish they'd give a rating per quest like, Beginner, Advanced, and Pro; because I'd still manage to get udderly destroyed on every single quest in existance. It just requires a bit of bad luck and air-headedness which I both got in abundance. There IS no free XP.. :rolleyes:
(Oh well except maybe with the right party but I yet have to find one of those, heh. Not saying they don't exist of course, they're just not for everybody.)
 
But yeah, simply not doing those quests is still a viable option.

[Mort]

I'm interested in knowing more about the balance. Most people agree that the sewer-one (whatever it may be!) is very hard in comparison to what it gives?

[Egon the Monkey]

If you want the specifics, it's how the

Hide

cause very sudden spikes of trouble. The rest of the mobs are dangerous in the sheer weight of firepower and ability to surround you, but they can be countered with consuables, tactics etc.

It's the way that the{spoiler}  that leads to a "save or die" type of situation, as you encounter them in enclosed areas. Miss either of the last two spells' saves and you are hosed.

Also, either the goblins have massively high spot/listen checks or are bugged to see through invis it seems.

It's certainly doable with a well prepared team, but yeah, the reward isn't that hot. I'd prefer to do any other 3-6 or 3-7 quest than that one unless I've desperate for XP. There are occasionally some good weapons there, but it's not like say Trogs where you can expect healing and likely armor, or Jergal, where the pay is better, the reward is more varied and it has a reasonable difficulty curve. There's not much there that's worth risking a goblin barrage over.

[close]

[iBard]

I'd like to add, due to the massive amounts of AoE spells and the amount of gobbos there, this quest is pretty much a no go if your computer is a little shabby.

Toning down the AoE spells to one at once would be preferable.

-iBard

[Mort]

In PMs as to not spoil or hinder anyone's gaming experience.