Paladin's Cove beta release, and feedback

I finished the Kaleela thing with her mum (she had leveled and loved her adventuring life), and she was killed in the next encounter by a Slay Living spell. Totally reasonable thing for a 3rd level party of PCs (& two 4th level NPCs) to experience. So I just deleted her then.

Ahhh, the ammo bug - of course, of course, that's not just for me to exploit for alchemical items. This was actually partially fixed in Patch 1 or 2, you know - previously +1 ammo would make any weapon you carried +1, they fixed that but not the special abilities. May be fixed in Temple+.

Anyway, fair enough Marc, although if you find a bug for no silver items, you generally go 'no lycanthropes' as well.

Antonio's mace is silver, for memory, and there is a silver light mace in KotB for some reason - I could have sworn I put it in ToEE and made it available for sale in the Church, because you needed silver gear for the Moathouse respawn. I seem to remember adding both - more silver gear for lycanthropes, and more lycanthropes to warrant silver gear. Heh, can't find it in description.mes.

My thinking on this, for anyone who cares:

Spoiler

When I started the game, I was told by a slide or something to go to the general store. I did, found all the usual PnP stuff like 10' poles and iron spikes, and thought, "that's a nice touch". When my first quest led me to a hole that needed rope, I thought, "ahhh, that wasn't just a nice touch, it was stuff we'll need." So I went back and only bought the rope, because we were poor 1st level n00bs, but I made a note to buy the other stuff. When I climbed down the rope and encountered a rust monster, I thought, "I should have bought the iron chain or iron spikes too!" Then when I went round the corner and encountered a wererat, I thought, "there must have been a silver dagger!" because that is a standard starting thing to buy so someone can fight off lycanthropes if that moment ever comes.

But there wasn't. Disappointing.

The number of ambushes I remember may be inflated by confirmation bias, but I suspect the number of non-ambushes you remember, Marc, is probably affected the same way. The slimes at the bridge is fun (and expected) but still an ambush. The ghasts come to mind too, your goblin 'brawlers', the other large fight on that map past the wall etc. I would have just like to have seen more use of concealment, rather than spawning: the latter can be overcome by careful parties, track, Detect spells etc. The latter feels a little cheap. Suffice it to say, I am over having characters with rogue levels appear behind my party and sneak attack my PCs to death before they even get their first move.

You may think of comparable fights in ToEE, but remember how many of them were in confined areas where the players could at least physically control movement, prevent flanking, get tanks out front and block corridors etc. Now think how many fights in this mod are in the open and you can't do that, the flanking sneak-attackers tumble their way into the midst of your party so you can't prevent sneak-attach deaths and you can't bring AoE spells to bear or use tanks effectively because there is no front line. Also, re the 'tough' monsters of the ToEE early game: Lubash could be ignored through the secret stairs, role-played if you wear the cloaks, and you got warned he was there by the gnomes. Likewise the giant+bear in Emridy Meadows gives you plenty of warning of their existence by the screen literally shaking as you get near.

Anyway, I am complaining again. Still playing though. I still haven't finished the wererat denoument, which I still tihnk is a good encounter and one that can legitimately be a tough ambush (as a boss fight), I put off until I hit a higher level, now it has a troll. Joy. Still loving the mod. I had a good look at the herb seller, I saw saffron and thought, 'wow, that must be worth a fortune', and it was

 

Ok I'm dying here, I cleared out the stronghold but now I can't find Farli again to tell him!?!? Where is he???

 

Omg he was standing next to the cheesemaker all along!!!

Thanks Zalmoxes. Blessed are the cheesemakers...

 

Ahhh, maybe I haven't cleared out the stronghold then, I started on level 2 but tried going back to discuss the young lady's offer with Farli and that seemed to progress things.

I am getting through some of these fights with a lot of scrolls. And a lot of divine intervention...

 

Yeah, scribing scrolls is like other forms of crafting, it can quickly make you OP, I don't normally do it myself (plus there is the XP cost of course). But desperate times...

 

Hey how do you complete the At a Crossroads quest? (I think someone asked this but can't find it, yes I looked). I killed a bunch of stuff, got the armies to call off the war and go home, and even did Maybon's post-battle troll quest, but it's still blue? And Lucern has nothing to say which is disappointing since this whole operation was his idea. I even said that to him.

He didn't listen.