Scalehill Quest

[_trendymonster_]

This quest is remarkably difficult with no reward. Please increase the reward. We used all of our supplies in a 5 man group (2 people had died/logged already), and got URCHIN RAGS as our reward.

[Garem]

I don't recall this being that difficult, but I ran it for the first run and Howl may have changed it. Easy? Not in the slightest. But it's wasn't too bad.

Perhaps a Stargazer can hire the PCs for this quest, handing out something neat and tribalish at the end for the triumphant heroes?

[BrittanyPanthas]

An incredibly fun quest for our group, though extraordinarily difficult.  Our reward wasn't all that bad though, maybe you just had some bad luck?

[Howlando]

I'm surprised to hear this is difficult, but I'm going to adjust the treasure.

[BrittanyPanthas]

The difficulty seems to lay mostly in the constant use of poison by the Tiered archers during the outer portion of the quest, which you cannot always avoid by hanging near the walls of the cliffside.  Unless you have a wizard who prepares a lot of Ironguts, and a cleric who prepares all lesser restorations, its quite difficult during the current state of the server.  Near the end of the quest we had multiple people with 5 constitution and sub 20 hit points as front line fighters.  It was further complicated by the current collision detect in NWN causing people to bump into others when trying to avoid the poison gas traps!

I'd suggest that potions of antidote, potions of lesser restoration or anti-toxins being an infrequent to rare drop on the Kobold Marksmans during the quest until the server economy changes to accomodate people having a small number of these items.

It was a fun, albeit challenging quest though, given the current nature of the server, and I wouldn't see anything major changed. :)  

Maybe something could be added as a consequence/reward to destroying the eggs in the final chamber though.

[_trendymonster_]

The difficulty lay in the 10 or so kobold archers per ledge which attacked our group with poison from varying heights. Sticking to the ledges didn't always work, and if it did work, most of them would run around and attack us anyway. I think that Krunto, Naga, Scalebane or MrGrendel can give a more accurate account of what happened! I suppose that we should've gone in with more than a few potions of cure serious wounds and 1 or 2 lesser resoration potions, but it seemed like it was a lot of damage, quickly, and more scaled for old EfU than the lower resource level of EfU:A.

[Garem]

Sounds like you got really strange spawns. We had like, 11 people when I ran through this. I'm not sure of Howl put in extra spawns like normal or not. Regardless, we saw only 5-6 kobold marksmen/regulars per ledge.

[wcsherry]

I found the difficulty to be perfect, more or less. A bit more healing could be provided on the whole in the way of lightly charged items maybe-but it makes for a wonderful endurance challenge for low level PC's.

[Goblin Butcher]

If you don't have blur, your going to die horribly on this quest, it's scaled for old school efu. The crossbowmen deal 1d8 damage + poison, they are fairly accurate. They also have exceedingly high hp and are completely unreachable for a time.

Most of the difficulty is with the Kobold Marksman. I won't be touching this quest with a ten foot barge pole until it's worthwhile to do so. There is a difference between a challenge and high probability of death! This one leans too far towards the latter for my liking!

Though with that said, I can see how it's doable, but some blur items as a reward would certainly be far more appropriate!

[Meldread]

I have to say out of all the quests I've done so far this one is most definitely the most difficult.  I've done this quest three times.  The first time I did it was the night the server went live, and we couldn't go into the warren (transition didn't work).  However, we had already used all our healing supplies anyway.  We would have had to turn back regardless.

The second time I did it Howland oversaw the quest.  We completed it that time, but it was -very- difficult and resulted in a lot of deaths and respawns.

The third time I did it we had used up most of our supplies before making it into the warren.  When we actually made it down, one person died, and it became obvious that we couldn't go any further just after the first two fights.

We had to turn around.

However, my complaint about this quest is not about the difficulty - it's what makes this quest fun.  It's the lack of reward, particularly, early reward.  Getting to the top of the hill is a feat for a low level character in and of itself.  There needs to be some reward for making it up there, especially in terms of healing and curing poison.  This will help with the second leg of the quest.

Otherwise, I can only see myself doing the Hill part of the quest for the XP (which is rather good) and then turning around.  The Hill is a breeze compared to what you face within the warren.


EDIT:  I just wanted to give kudos to who ever did the AI for this quest.  The Kobolds really work together rather well.  I disagree with another poster who said they had too many HP, in most cases they die within a single hit.  What makes this quest so damn difficult is how well the little buggers work together as a team.

[Goblin Butcher]

EDIT:  I just wanted to give kudos to who ever did the AI for this quest.  The Kobolds really work together rather well.  I disagree with another poster who said they had too many HP, in most cases they die within a single hit.  What makes this quest so damn difficult is how well the little buggers work together as a team.

Kobold Marksman due to positioning, have too many hp, if the ledges were lined with the regular 4 hp kobolds it would be a non issue, even though they do high damage they can easily be killed. Not to mention the amount of damage they are capable of without blur.

I also don't really see this "team work ai" other than "kobold runs to the edge along with 20 other kobolds and unloads a few stacks of bolts into a person." Thats just a lot of monsters in one place rather than actual ai.

[Meldread]

Have you been down into the warren?  That's where I am thinking about.  There are two or three types of kobolds down there that work -really- well together.

[sylvyrdragon]

Our group of 5 did this last night.  Now, while it was a challenge and we took some MAJOR damage (a few deaths and some close calls) it really tested our ability to work as a group.

We quickly realized that the normal 'run up and hit them' tactic was not going to work. Everyone in the party had a job to do and needed to do it well. Those that could fired at the buggers with bows, while those that couldn't SLOWLY made their way to them.

As for potions...I know I started with 3 cure minor, 2 cure Moderate, and a lesser restor.  That's it, no blurr, no luck, none of the others that everyone says you must have to make it through.  (still trying to figure out how everyone on the server but me seems to have these thing falling out of the sky at them.....)

But any way I got off my point.  I don't know if the Loot drop was fixed or not, but we managed to find enough healing to make it through.  Like I said it was anything but a cake walk and those Marksmen are a pain, but with patience and a little thought you can make it through.

[Goblin Butcher]

If somebody dies, or everybody in the group uses everything they had and don't get it back/rewarded moderately for using, I consider the quest a waste of time, unless the XP is huge >.>

[adharmas]

Scalehill is the new Clowns.