Co8 5.6.0 BETA Balance

I think the game is just as hard up to the end of the Moathouse. After that it gets easier over time. Not hugely easier, and at least you have to agonise over crafting now. Still, higher AB, AC, HP and maybe an ability or two would compensate for players being lvl 12 rather than 10.

After all in those two levels players will have got a Feat (or maybe 2), an ability increase, 2AB for any class that hits, access to extra spells (and extra crafting), and more HPs. It stands to reason that the beasties need a boost as well.

 

I dunno, from what I remember of playing the vanilla, the game was pretty much equally challenging at all points, even with a full party and some NPCs. Of course, I was a CRPG noob back then. I'd also skip temple lvls 1 and 2 and go straight to 3 through the secret entrance (and the levels 1-2 were pretty much dull except the priests).

Some things to think about though. In vanilla, crafting arms&armour would crash the game most of the time for me, so I was stuck with the in-game magic wpns. Shops had fewer powerful items, and magic items couldn't be easily bought or looted off monsters. Now monsters carry around magic wpns that can either be used, or at least generate a ridiculous amount of gold when sold - which can be used for shopping, crafting etc. Also, think of the new items and shops Co8 added. I mean, it's cool to have all of that, but of course having a Giant Strength belt or Constitution necklace +5 on every character is bound to make the game much easier. My suggestion for balance would be not necessarily to nerf the items or make them scarce (since it's cool to have that stuff), but at least make them harder/more costly to get.

Some of the final battles should also be a bit harder. Hedrack should be stronger, as well as the node demons (Balor is pretty much the only difficult one, even in the vanilla). As for the rest of the temple, I wish the "Reactive Temple Mod" could be brought back to life somehow, otherwise the first two levels turn into a boring "clean the level of weak monsters" routine. Another cool idea would be to mess around with what monsters are in which room, to spice it up ^___^

 

I agree, spicing up the temple, so that more fights are as interesting as for instance the fight vs the salamanders in the firetemple, sounds really good.

 

Yeah, I think it's better to make the game a bit harder than significantly reduce XP rewards. The game's hard enough on early levels already.

Shiningted, that's good news on RT mod, I guess I'll have to do a search for some news on it... It'd be a cool addition to the Co8 pack (hopefully it's compatible). Cause last time I tried it wasn't really, and was still deep in development stages.

 

That's cool. I didn't really have the time to go through the 5.6.0, so I was giving suggestions based on previous experiences. But in general, I think keeping the amount of $ the player has in check is a good way to keep balance, precisely to make the ridiculous +3 holy axiomatic flaming frosted weapons of instant death near impossible, or at least very costly to obtain.

Also, did the upper limit on the amount of enhancements per weapon per caster level get fixed? IIRC, a lever 10 cleric or mage shouldn't be able to craft that many on a single wpn in PnP.

 

I am against an XP reduction that makes you end at level 10 for one simple reason... it makes the level uncapped superfluous. if I wanted to end up at level 10 i wouldn't use the level uncapper. If I use the level uncapper I explicitly WANT to reach higher levels. Thus gimping XP to prevent it serves only to hurt, well, everyone.
Frankly I am concerned that XP is already gimped by troika compared to PnP amounts and wish for it to be restored to full values (yes, I'd love to end up at level 20).

Oh, it would be nice if in addition to the "max HP per level" hack there was a "average HP per level" hack. I hate rolling for HP, but max HP is too much. It should be 2.5 per level on a d4, 5.5 per level on a d10, 6.5 per level on a d12... etc.

btw... the greater temple bugbears power attack for 9 points on a two handed weapon for +18 damage -9 to attack... this means that they almost never hit... but when they do, they insta gib a character (if it is a low HP one at least... like a wizard). This is really annoying, they are much much easier to kill because they never hit, yet the risk is higher due to the insta gibbing. It is metagamish, they would want to survive, not annoy human players with their death. This means most of them will actually try hitting things and not full power attack every time.

web + enlarge person on tank + tank having very high AC solves the "problem"... but tank is then NEVER hit unless they roll a nat 20 (which they always fail to confirm) and they usually trigger AoOs before even being close enough to attack the tank. The fighter and cleric are wearing ring of freedom (looted) and +6 belt of STR. the rest of the party use the crafted vest of escape.

 

Completely off topic, but I always thought D&D HP should be #d2 ie: Barbarian gets 6d2, Fighter gets 5d2 all the way to Mage with 2d2. The beauty is that there still is a random element for diversity but you'll never get less than half your possible hit points.

 

Take Fruella for instance. Third level fighter with 17HP and a constitution of 16. 9 of the 17 is from cons and 8 from experience levelup. An average of less than 3 per levelup. Pitiful. Maxhp is somewhat excessive maybe, but the twister isn't very geneous when it comes to levelup.

 

Well, the point is to balance the game as close as possible "vanilla", to account for the later expansions. So some sort of control IS necessary. The question is whether it'd be realistic to expect a 10-level gain in the expansion, and to cap the original module at 10. Perhaps 12-13 is about right, especially since in the "vanilla" one would hit the cap quite some time before the final encounter. I remember being level 8 while facing Hedrack, and gaining 10 around the time I finished up one or two nodes. So IMO, the question is more to adjust the game difficulty to compensate for the level cap, rather than putting the cap back on, or worse yet reduce XP gain. Reduced XP gain will make early locations like Emridy or Imeryds near impossible (them being hard enough as is).

 

I agree, the begining is tough enough. Just boost up few boss monsters in the late game should do the trick. Though I haven't finished the game yet. Is the end game really that easy to average party?

I'd really hate to have less XP or the level cap back and it seems like a quick hack fix anyways. But if you really are going into this way, then put it to ToEE Front-End as an option instead of hard-coded thing.

And still, I'd pay that much attention to vanilla balance since the game was so broken anyways.

 

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