Magid disruptor throwing items

[VanillaPudding]

These have been annoyingly common on quests, with most any ranged mob simply spamming it (randomly) and even others.

Scripted quests are meant to be a static, fun, semi-challenging thing and I feel that these have gone too far towards simply draining PCs of things (things that have become more rare as of late)

I would like to suggest that these are not made so common on your average spawn, and especially not wielded by nearly every ranged creature on a scripted quest.

I will add that there is an obvious problem with dispel checks and NPCs (something I reported twice over ages ago) with their level and the spell cast. Quite simply, NPCs have some manner of unseen advantage when it comes to dispels, and I suspect that it may be some hardcoded stuff with their ECL rather than caster level. Gippy ran some tests years ago since he noticed it as well, iirc, but results were flawed and resulted in little.

The point remains, dispel spam is probably the least effective way of making something "balanced" or fun, and is simply a drain on people. Considering the rarity of these things to players, beyond pure rogues (which is still rare), I find it a bit odd!

[The Beggar]

I second this motion.

[Deception]

I think it's modestly balanced as it is.

[johanmaxon]

I have never encountered this. On what quests are they?

[MISTaken]

Most anoying throwable items, and seems to be used very frequently in high mob quests. (Also seems to remove most buffs which is very anoying)

[putrid_plum]

I believe he speaks of Castle Vrazdn, which I saw this happen alot.  Yet, since 95% of the NPCs are archers, which is not the same at all for other quests on the server.

[Paha]

Them monsters have their tricks since they don't got so many pots.

[Pandip]

I have an issue with dispel as a difficulty-increasing mechanic in general, perhaps even moreso than the occasional unfortunate double-crit Chosen death scenario. Having a low-level dispel shot at us every so often is fine, but the startling frequency with which certain ranged NPC's throw them out sometimes can be distressing. I think it's safe to say that most quests assume that a party is going to be buffed to some extent, which is fine and understandable. But there's a level of unfair frustration when you buff pre-quest, get dispelled, drink an entire round of buffing pots to make sure you're enspelled and won't die, and then get dispelled another two times and lose your things all over again. I'd rather create challenge and suspense through having more mobs or more powerful "boss" mobs than see a dozen dispels thrown at us in a single encounter.

I don't know. I guess if you really think about it, in the case of dispels, you're using your buffing potions in replacement of your healing potions. It might just be a matter of perspective; we expect to walk into a quest fully buffed by spellcasters without using many buffing potions and having to rely on trinkets/potions to heal rather than spells, so it feels more unfair when we're dispelled than when we blow through a stack of cure moderates on a harder mob. Maybe it's just the rapidness with which a dispel happens -- a bolt comes towards you and suddenly an SFX pops over your head and you're down half of your buffs. Whatever the case, I still get a bad taste in my mouth when I get dispelled, whereas getting surrounded by three gnoll fanatics and having to drink a stack of potions while fending off all of them at the same time generally leaves me with a "wow, that was close!" feeling.

Just my two cents.

[Paha]

They might have some, they might have none. Hasn't been much of a problem thus far for anyone to get huge supplies or levels. I don't personally feel any need to make any effort to lessen it.

[Damien]

I think VP meant removing them in favour of strengthening the spawns in different/more interesting ways.

[Vlaid]

Really doesn't seem like a huge deal. It would be much more difficult to balance quests against the parties with uber buffing from moderately high level casters.

They are annoying...(I would rather the dispels came from a caster casting dispel you can see to try and react to intelligently by disrupting the spell/line of sighting though)....but I believe without a better idea presented to drain PC's supplies significantly that it's already EXTREMELY easy to amass as much supplies as you want with a group of friends in a faction working together/not skimming from each other.

Maybe it's not as easy to get the high end stuff from the high end quests....but I believe it's better that way.

So I guess the only real suggestion I might throw in is to maybe reduce the frequency of these throwable dispel items from NPC's and instead have more enemies who will actually try to cast dispels so you can have your ranged PC's holding their shots until they start casting to disrupt them, more back and forth.

[Jasede]

I don't like them.
Canzah can tell you all about how much fun it is to be stripped of Bull's Strength about eight times each quest. It can be ridiculous at times.

I can live with it, but it's not that fun, really. Just frustrating. At least with enemies casting dispel there's a skill-component: yeah, they cast dispel- but you could have counterspelled or killed them faster.

With this it's really just the luck of the draw. I like skill-based challenges better than roll-based ones.

[scrappayeti]

I hate the dispels as much as the next guy when they happen, but I feel strongly that some or all should remain in the game. Dealing with dispels is a different type of skill to picking the right buffs for the right enemies, and therefore adds to the server difficulty level in an interesting way. When dispelled, you have to work out what was dispelled by reading your combat log really quickly, then decide what action needs to be taken. For a tank, that may mean the next action has to be an invisibility, followed by requisite buff pots. For a monk, it may mean rerolling a new character (I jest). Either way, it involves thinking quickly on your feet, and that particular challenge is worth keeping in the game imo.

[Howlando]

No one likes being dispelled, but Scrappayeti is correct that in general it adds another level of complexity to NWN combat which is a good thing (how many years have we been playing this simple game?). That said, I'm not personally a big fan of the throwable type myself.... but they are a crude solution to what is actually a deeper problem, which is that unfortunately we really have supply levels messed up in this chapter. Supply bloat is not good!

[Random_White_Guy]

Which would be fine, Scrappa, but quests don't exactly drop comparable supplies for an entire party of PCs getting dispelled multiple times over. It adds a level of difficulty not during quests but on the scope of the character as a whole.

Speaking from personal experience I've actually obtained these items when I could find them and they have worked -better- than dispel, a single disruptor able to wipe out 7+ spells in one go.