Question on Target of Revenge (possible spoilers)

Well now, I just played the target of revenge encounter through last night with my evil party of four level 6 chars. (bard, monk, fighter, cleric) Was frustrating because the first time it happened the game CTD'ed after the assassin had gutted my bard and before I even got to do anything. When I reloaded my last save, back in the temple, and proceeded to Nulb again - nothing. So I slaughtered the Orcs and came back not expecting anything again and there they were... so I was a bit low on everything spell wise. Fortunately I saved before going in 'just in case'.

Nice work Liv - it's a good encounter, and was plenty hard enough for me. I must have reloaded 20 odd times to find a strategy (and the luck) to survive. Every single time the assassin critical sneak attacked my bard (with 30hp) so half the time she was dead before I got to do anything! :twisted: Once I managed to use the assassin's AoO up on my fighter I then got my bard to charm the assassin... I wouldn't have stood a chance in hell without that. I definitely found the reach weapons were a problem - it would have been much easier if they'd been using sword 'n shield because keeping them away from the bard would have been a lot easier.

Great fun and I finally succeeded, but when the battle ends my game slowed down massively until I enter combat again and kill the assassin. Wierd.

 

I had that super troll bug happen a long time ago (before directX 9.0c as a matter of fact).
I remember the non-lethal damage he took was in the 200-300 range. I dont remember what brought him down. I definately thought it was a bug though. I bring this up because I didn't have any mods installed and I believe it is something in the original program.

 

It's all in how the initiative rolls come out, particularly in the encounter with the assasin. Each time the assasin acts first he sticks my wizard for a lethal sneak attack. There's simply no way to stop that if the assasin wins highest initiative. Two of my five characters took combat reflexes for the sole purpose of protecting the wizard from fast rushes but since the assasin can tumble there's no chance to stop him.

If you win initiative you can use the tactics and such that you've developed, but without the chance to act first you've no chance at all. This seems particularly bogus in light of the fact that enemy spell casters get about three rounds or so to prepare their defenses before you can even try to attack them, whereas my poor wizard was getting bashed on the head without even a chance to breathe if any monster gets a high initiative roll.

Yeah, and it really does seem just too weird for me that a begger who was an apprentice beer maker is going to be standing around practicing asian martial arts.

Some other changes to NPCs have been over the top as well. Tolub being the newest example, as I had a 50/50 chance of beating him with a decent fifth level fighter before, but now the same fighter at sixth level and with the added benefit of improved unarmed fighting can't out-brawl him in six run-throughs. I just gave up on the brawling quest entirely since it's non-essential.

I've pretty much decided that now you shouldn't do anything tougher than Mickey in Nulb until you've gained a couple of levels in the temple first. This is backwards from how I see the module's intent, which was to finish the moathouse and then go to Nulb, where you'd get some added experience to complete a level up before going after the temple proper.

The Nulb combat quests have become excesive in their difficulty with the newest release. What's the point of fighting Tolub if you have no chance to win at all? Just skip it. Should a party be waiting until they level up twice in the temple before helping Grud take out the Giant Gar? That's something you probably ought to have done shortly after arriving in Nulb to further additianal plot lines, but now the temple dungeons are less dangerous than Imeryds Run.

 

Maybe he should be doing the "goblin flip" instead. I wonder what feat causes that action when standing around...

 

This is a problem with the core D&D rules in that once a character gets a score of 14 in tumble, they're immune to movement-based AOOs. Which is why many PNP DMs house-rule. However, the assassin has not been powered up (other than to give him more appropriate gear for his level) since Livonya's original mod.

As for the ambushers getting several rounds of spellcasting, it's because the game engine doesn't allow NPCs to be pre-buffed. And logically, a group of baddies planning to ambush a bunch of adventures would pre-buff with spells that had long durations, much like PCs do. (My sorcerer constantly walks around with Mage Armor, False Life and Stoneskin (once acquired) activated, for example.)

I'd have to check my notes, but I'm pretty sure I didn't touch Tolub beyond making sure he had the correct amount of skills and feats for his level.

ETA: Oops, I did increase his level to 8, which is his level in the original PNP module. Didn't even think about the effect that would have on the brawl. That said, I was never able to beat him upon first arriving in Nulb, even in vanilla ToEE and it's not like losing to him actually applies a penalty. I always had to get a few levels and come back before I was able to out-slug him, so nothing has really changed. Especially since, with the correct CRs and additional encounters/quests, the party tends to be higher level when they arrive in Nulb anyway.

The fight at Imeryd's Run has always been really tough for low-level parties. I don't think I made any changes that would have significantly increased the difficulty, all I did was make it rules compliant.

I'm sorry you're feeling frustrated, JerryB, but most of the difficulty boosts came from Livonya's mod, which was released well before Co8 4.0, let alone 5.0.

 

I've never had trouble with the assassin, imp initive helps I guess

you might just be having bad luck with the RNG in the tolub fight, you can beat him with a lvl 6 elf barbarian (63 hp) if you get nice rolls

 

One tactic I've discovered to help make this encounter more survivable: make sure you sell some of Lareth's stuff to the traders, then let the assassin "ambush" you on the road before you trigger the Target of Revenge. I find the assassin is much easier to kill on a random encounter map, by himself, than he is when he is backed up by the rest of the revenge gang in your tiny little house. :grin:

 

Kalshane, I do appreciate your work, you've done much to improve the game. My issues with the deathtrap at Imeryd's Run since 5.o is that the pre-fishing batle has gone from a series of three battles that a party which has progressed to Nulb can handle, though not easily, to a single fight where every monster in the marshes comes running from off screen to pile on the PC party at once.

We might as well set it up so that as soon as the PCs have engaged the moathouse bandits the gnolls, the bugbears bugbears, Lareth's brigands, and even the Giant Crayfish come piling into the courtyard to attck the PCs, while of course having no interest at all in eating the equaly human bandits.

I'm being facitious, but really where a party can defeat the one frog, fight harder to overcome the larger frog, heal up, and then either beat the hag and her follwers or retreat if the Behometh King Frog hit them too hard, now you're all in on round one. The result is that to have any change of survival you need to be higher level for this fight than I believe it was intended for.

As I mentioned, I think Nulb should be a place to stop and gain some more experience enroute to the temple after clearing the moathouse, and provide a base of operations during that campaign. The Nulb quests should keep that in mind when PC levels and difficulty is considered. I don't see that turning a surprisingly tough but doable fishing expedition into a tougher battle than most of the temple encounters serves that purpose.

 

As stated in elsewhere, nothing was changed to make the Imeryd's Run monsters all attack at the same time. Even in vanilla ToEE a party larger than 5 would usually draw the Lizard men and the Sea Hag into battle as soon as you hit the map. It's a product of how the game places the party on the map when you go there. With the advent of the PC Count Patcher, more and more people are playing with parties of 6, 7 and even 8 characters.

The bottom line is that we didn't cause this, so please let it drop.

 

I'm a little surprised at your post being in response to mine Jerry.. you do realise that I wasn't moaning about it being too hard - I was praising it for being hard (and interesting). Yes it was annoying to have my bard pop out in front of the assassin every single time no matter how I put the formation, but then it was supposed to be a surprise kicking! I loved the encounter, and I could always have avoided it for a few levels to avoid the difficulty since the pirates warn you that there's a nasty group looking for you... but that would have sucked all the fun out of it. :evil_laug

I never won initiative Jerry - not once. My bard had to take a hit from the assassin no matter what. It was a bit annoying that out of 20 tries he got 5-8 crits (instant death) which meant I stood no chance after that. Every single other attempt was characterised by the bard having <5 hp for the duration. Healing simply got her killed due to AoO and the others were far too busy... so all she could do after charming the assassin was 5' steps really... :grin: until there was enough room for her to fascinate that pesky wizard without getting hammered. I guess I suffered from a lack of defensive buffs like Stoneskin but that would have been too easy. hehe

I certainly don't find it a problem. I was about level 4-5 when arriving in Nulb in both my run throughs and had my fighter do Tolub no problems in one when he had high strength and fail when he had not so high strength in the other. I did wait until level 6 to the the run though since I had a party of 4.

I'd be against making anything easier combat-wise. If you find the target of revenge too hard, well since it's a consequence of killing one of Rannos or Gremag and letting the other escape, then don't let that happen. Maybe trying the non combat routes through the game would suit you better Jerry? Worth a try at least. Main thing is for you to have fun playing.

 

OK, I'll drop it. I haven't taken my PC count over five though, because I like to add NPCs to the party on a temporary basis for role-playing and dialogue.

 

I'm with you, JB. 4 is the most I like to have, except for the occasional add-on NPC for quest fulfillment issues (rescues, etc.).

 

i myself havnt seen any problems with the changes. i still do the game in the same order. when i get to nulb i do all the quests there including tolub and grub with no problem before moving onto the temple. they are harder than they use to be which is good cause they were way to easy before. also as was mentioned before i take on the assassin before startign the target of revenge