Beef up Wild Orcs reward?

[Egon the Monkey]

I've noticed that since the introduction of the "battered" gear, Wild Orcs 1 seems to inevitably end up costing all my melee PCs far more than the reward and loot are worth. Previously it was a tough quest where you stood a reasonable risk of getting fugued, but the loot was useful enough or valuable enough to make the risk worthwhile, even if the pay wasn't that great.

Now though, the majority of equippable items you acquire will be useless junk. All the last runs I've done, I've come out with a loss, whereas the 3-7 quests usually profit my PC. I put this down mostly to Wild Orcs having a large amount of gear that can get tagged "battered or "ruined"

I don't think it's just bad runs, others in my party felt the quest was turning into a drain when I asked.

Could consumables be made a lot more common a drop on the end chests, or the gold reward increased significantly or something? Right now it feels like a very high-risk way of trading consumables for some XP.

[Caddies]

A great deal of healing drops on this quest, which is always good. It will cost you a great deal in potions such as blur to finish it though, and more again in strength and the like if you haven't any spellcasters along.

Having said that, this quest can get crunched with ease by a strong group.

I think its probably fine as it is, from my experience.

[Egon the Monkey]

Yeah, you get about 10-20 Cure Serious Potions and lots of herbs off the bodies usually, but the bone charms and stuff are by no means guaranteed, and you usually use more than turns up, I find.

I've done this quest with 3 man teams that walked all over it, and wiped on well equipped full parties. Quests don't need balancing for the strongest team but the average one. Any quest can be smashed by the right group, but you can't always get a couple of expertise fighters or whatever to hold the front on this.

I've not found any other quests where I'm considering turning down the chance to go on them because it seems like a big risk for little gain.

[Gwydion]

Whoop, there it is....

Quests don't need balancing for the strongest team but the average one.

[Semli]

A good point.  

I've done this one three times, twice having been fugued and once having fled invisibly.  The reward was worth the level loss in terms of permanent equipment I got on the last run, but in the previous runs that didn't prove to be the case.  As far as consumables are concerned, the payout isn't there to justify the high risk of level loss in my mind.  My current character doesn't have a reason to do this quest again OOCly.

[Niessen]

I think this is one of those quests where you either get a little or a lot.   I like it how it is. Very neat quest, I enjoyed it alot when I did it.

[Gwydion]

I'll add this:

If there is a way to limit how many of the damnable shamans are hurling fireballs around at one time, it would be more survivable.   This quest seriously stretches the resources of frontliners which is fine, but when you are at or about half your hp then get "whumped" by three nearly simultaneous fireballs - you're literally toast and walking the fugue plane.  

In the past DMs have said "what's wrong with that?"  Nothing, if all the scripted quests are like this.  Then you don't have a choice.  Otherwise, people will avoid it after their character gets fugued a couple times on this one.  

Unless you have a very good party made of mostly vets - you can easily get overrun and suffer a total party kill unless the casters/stealthers run like hell.  Personally, I'd like quests to be geared at the middle so that I can RP with some newer players because it is so fun.

I really enjoy this quest due to the nearly constant action and the need for good tactics.  Whoever designed this one did a great job.  Just like to see the number of shamans cut down a bit.

[Daemonic Daz]

Personally I enjoy the quest as it is, its tough, challenging and ensures that you don't go charging into with a 3 man party. The risk and reward balance is pretty fair as well, you might of just had the orc raiders that are pretty piss poor with supply use.

[Letsplayforfun]

I love this quest, but sadly i hardly find any one who wants to do it if there's not two lvl 8-9 warriors, so i havn't had the opportunity to test it with an average group.

It does drop a hoard of serious heals, and the orcs come on slow, so there's plenty of healing/rebuff time.

As in all quests, there's two or three hot spots to manage, but they seem fine so far.

[Gwydion]

There is no point in asking the chinese kid in your engineering/physics class whether he thought the test was hard.  

Quests don't need balancing for the strongest team but the average one.

[Caddies]

The average team seems to do just fine, I've been in plenty of them.

Quests don't need balancing for the hopeless team but the average one.

[Oskar Maxon]

A team with Ortred is not average.

[ScottyB]

Remember, you don't have to split the pay equally. You don't have to share loot by taking turns.

If you do things that way, someone will end up coming out better than they entered, while others very well may leave the quest at a loss. People don't USE resources equally, so why is there such insistance on sharing equally?

This probably won't solve all problems - sometimes you get nothing but Goblin Dung and Red Sharp Cheese. Most of the time I see at least three bone charms drop, though. That should be enough for the brave souls that were tanking!

(You did remember to have the tanks tank, and the flankers flank, right?)

[Gippy]

I have routinely heard of this quest being crushed with nary a supply used. If it's too hard for team 'wants to be average but is not quite' then you can go do an easier quest. Not all quests should be easy. Not all quests should give amazing payout every time. Not all quests should be balanced for the average party.

[Gwydion]

Really Gippy?

I'm calling BS on this.  I'll put my 3rd level stealther in a party and provide missle support so I can witness this first hand.  Any takers?

"Crushed with nary a supply used".  I sincerely doubt that.