Project Delicate Rebalancement: Tales of the Wild Coast

I think maybe some people should look at the game for it's entertainment value. It's reputation as a bugged-out piece of crap is pretty much gone. All the new content has created a new set of circumstances that some see as un-balancing the game. Maybe so. But, there are options and depending on the individual players desires, may make the game "too easy"? Actually, if you look at options available now, the individual player can make, pretty much what kind of game they want. With the co8 mods and frontend there is a lot of options. That's what's great about the mods, they created options and fixed bugs. You want a superpower game, do it. You want to play close to rulebook, do it. The options are there.

 

Okay. An adult Black is CR 11. Plenty appropriate for the Nodes. An adult blue is 14, which rivals some of the guardian demons. We may want to make them younger, especially if there is a pair. An Old red is CR 20, the same as a Balor. Again, I don't think we should outshine the node guardians with the other creatures within, so might want to go younger there as well.

It might be worth it to pump up the Guardian Demons as well, using the monster advancement rules in 3.5. I believe I did that a little bit already with a couple of them in my update for 5.0, but it certainly could be taken further if people feel they should be tougher.

Hmm. The Assassin prestige class has the death attack ability (though it requires 3 rounds of study with the target unaware of their presence) in 3.5, but obviously that's not implemented in ToEE anyway. However, the better abilities with weapons and armor, and the two levels lower in regards to thief skills could easily be handled by trading two of his rogue levels in for Fighter levels. The extra HP, BAB and 2 feats could toughen him up significantly, though it would cost him a d6 of Sneak Attack.

In 3.5 the dagger was changed to allow a dose of poison to be injected on a succesful hit once per day, by choice of the user. In ToEE, you need to choose to activate the poison attack from the radial menu before you attack with it. AFAIK we can't make NPCs "choose" to use the poison.

Well, the thing is, whether the Traders want to fight or not, the player is just going to attack them for the XP and neat loot. This is just an idea for making the fight less of a slam dunk. They take it out back, thier "friends" jump into the fray to even the odds, and when the fight goes south, they still run away, as normal. But in the meantime the party gets some pain for their trouble.

 

Better to call their friends inside to fight the party, then run ASAP while the party is distracted. Fair fights don't fit the characters.

Note that this doesn't mean that R&G shouldn't be buffer; just that they shouldn't be goaded into a "fair" fight with a large group of heavily armed adventurers unless PCs have high enough social skills to manage it.

Sitra Achara: Not trying to step on your toes, just looking at one leg of the problem of making the Traders more interesting.

 

And I understand that. The problem is the shop is way too small for them to bring in reinforcements, and part of the ease in defeating them comes from being able to setup flanking positions before the fight even starts, when in reality if people started moving into hostile positions, they would react.

 

Thinking about the scene as it is now, as soon as they call on Raimol for help, could that also trigger (as per Ted's suggestion) the entry of two more characters next to the doors or in the small room to the NE? That would put the safely tucked away spell casters in immediate peril. The traders themselves could then immediately use their Dust of Disappearance, leaving the PCs out of position and their spell casters exposed.

Just throwing out the idea.

 

That's definitely a possibility. Though by immediately using their Dust of Disappearance, do you mean use it and fight for a bit before running, or immediately run, because I do think the PCs should still have a chance to defeat them before they flee. I'd just like the odds to be weighed more heavily in the Trader's favor.

 

I like that approach. You go into the shop after reporting their sabotage to Burne only to find it empty. Go into the stables and you'll then find them "preparing to flee". Tower Fight style you immediately get a dialog in which you can try for information, gloat, threaten, etc. Then into a tougher combat with Rannos and Gremag both getting CON and DEX boosts and fleeing when injured, leaving you to deal with Raimol and 1-3 other thugs. Their flight still triggers the Target of Revenge.

 

Actually, a 5th level wizard can only make +1 items. Which I believe is working correctly now.

That said, the real problem is that crafting doesn't take any time/time is pretty much meaningless in ToEE. There's even quest rewards that encourage the player to waste time so as to recieve them. In a PNP game, the party really doesn't want to sit around for 3 weeks while their wizard makes an Uber Sword of Godslaying +80 and depending on the plot, they probably can't afford to. In ToEE there's no reason not to spend months sitting around crafting.

QFT. My opinion has always been is if the game is too easy because you exploit it, then don't exploit it.

This sounds like a good idea. However, players may still attack them before they send the assassin, in which case we still need to do something to make that fight more difficult.

 

Regarding the traders again: The problem with them that was mentioned in the other thread was that they give too much XP and powerful items. Toughening them and Raimol up or adding the courier into the fight isn't going to solve this - if you could kill them before they ran away (using trip, hold person, hideous laughter, etc.) then you could do it again, and get even more XP from the upgraded Raimol and courier. So either you toughen them up so much that a high level is a must, so as to lessen the impact of the XP/magic equipment boost, or weaken them, so they give off less XP/magic items.

Another possibility is to have them call the badgers if you attack them in their shop - you then get a warning not to attack them again or the badgers themselves go KOS on you, and next time you enter the shop they have buff guards (say, two or three fighters/barbarians, levels 5-6) hired to protect them from you.

 

You don't really want to weaken them because the module has them as fairly experienced characters with a good amount of magic items.

The calling for help from the Badgers is a good idea if the party hasn't reported them as spies to Burne and Rufus. Once that's been done, the Badgers aren't going to come to their aid. Most parties are going to wait until after they've milked them for all they're worth *coughs* I mean, discovered them to be a threat to Homlett and all good peoples everwhere. So the Badger thing probably won't come up very often.

 

In a real game situation, once they are discovered and have bee exposed and the militia is after them, it's off to Nulb or the Temple. They wouldn't hang around to fight it out with a party of adventurers. Set up a new base in Nulb, with help from the Temple. Smigmail Redhand sends the Assassin anyway. Just killing them off and gathering lots of loot isn't much of a boost for the game.

 

I guessed as much. It's probably a bad idea regardless.

Actually, that's where my Council meeting scenario kicks in. Basically, after you report them, Burne takes it up to the council, and then the traders run off anyway (and the target of revenge rep is activated because it was your involvement that exposed them and ruined their plans). It seems plausible to me that before Burne actually brings it up in the council, the badgers will still protect them (innocent until proven otherwise and all that).

Currently in my mod you still get a chance to kill them during the council event, since after the trap event plays out (assuming you chose the branch that leads to that), they're hiding in invisible mode for a few minutes on the outskirts of town, waiting for the badgers working for them to kill off the mason before leaving town completely. If you manage a listen check, or have a canine animal companion that can smell them, or make a spot check for their tracks and have the tracking feat, you get a chance to engage them - and thus kill them. It is a little harder, though, because they start off invisible, don't incur the AoO usually triggered when drinking the potion (since they don't have to), and you only have one or two rounds instead of two or three to stop them, so they have a higher chance of getting away.

I suppose I might remove that part and have them disappear without a trace, or like I said, add really buff guards to protect them. Either way I need to make sure no piddling level 2 party could possibly hope to kill them and take their loot.

 

Not to belabour this point, but don't forget that the XP is being reduced to 50%; the magic won't change, though.

It'd be ok for them to hire guards, as long as they aren't Badgers. Those guys are fanatically devoted to Burne & Rufus. The new hires should be "mercenaries form Dyvers", or something like that. As for where they turn up later, Assassins are also masters of disguise (a point I failed to mention previously). Nulb is a perfect place for them to flee & hide out, keeping tabs on the party; or does someone care to mod an adventure in Dyvers ala the Verbomod? That could be yet another fall-back position for them, and add another chapter to the Tales...

Sorry for muddying things further. :blush:

 

Half of a bucketload is still too much

Ah, for the guards I just meant generic guards, not badgers. Mercenaries from Dyvers sound good, except I don't know what Dyvers is... care to elaborate?

By the way, regarding the badgers' loyalty - going by what's described in ToEE the game, they are basically a bunch of reformed bandits. I assumed it would be plausible that Rannos and Gremag could bribe/subvert a few stray ones for the stonemason assassination part, in light of that. Am I way off the mark here?

That sounds great, but it may have to wait, since it's a lot of work (among other things, we'd need a whole new isometric map). Currently I think the ambush in the Nulb house is good enough.