its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOILERS)

i recently found this site and the ToEE Co8 mods and for the most part have thoroughly enjoyed the fixes and additions added to the original game, unfortunately for me atleast it gets weird and crazy hard once you reach Verbobonc, it almost seems to be punishing good parties for doing the right thing, i mean getting labeled a Rat for stopping an assassination not to mention the Gremlich? How come Pelor lets Hextor single you out like that after you save his high priest from Hextor assassins....then theres the slave traders who appear to be some kind of demi planar powers who can tell my party of god slayers to just die at whim.....sorry but whoever wrote those quests obviously plays evil parties alot and has it in for good guys... i could not for the life of me find the children or the kidnapper guy either, in the HUGE empty time wasting sewers my thief has 23 spot and yes i have searched EXTENSIVELY and read the help thread it says you need 19 spot......also the Rabbit Hole secret door would not appear for me i have 16 search without bonus's on my rogue.....it says i need atleast 15 in the help, also the ghost quest, punishing me again for defending myself against evil doers lol, was i supposed to just lay down and let Turoko and his lackeys kill my team? . Well after finishing the nodes i retired with the Slave Traders, The Kidnapping and Rabbit Hole unfinished and an overall feeling of defeat and yes it seems bad guys do always win. Some magic items for sale in the weapon and armour stores wouldn't go a miss either, all that XP on making them is a drain. :thumbsdow

IMHO chill on the difficulty, good guy bashing and time consuming sewer debacle, pre Verbobonc changes though are awesome as are the new clothes thoroughly enjoyed it until Verbobonc thank you.

p.s. Perhaps Pelor should lend some aid with the Gremlich is all i meant btw, he can't stop Hextor obviously but he can help the party.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

For the Slavers fight you can get the jump on them through the dialog. I think the sequence was 1-1-2-2-3. That's takes you straight into the fight before she drops one of your party. I then focus my archers and spell casters on her and can usually drop her before she can cast any spell.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

Just be sure to kill her outright before their cleric acts. I once put her down to -9 only to watch him cast Heal and bring her right back again.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

Thanks Krag i'll try that sometime.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

I go for the cleric first and try to get a fighter with a reach weapon near her for an AoO when she try's to cast.

Either way it's a great fight.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

I agree on this one. This is a great fight. Finally a fight where you're fighting & other skills are tested.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

I found Fear of Ghosts and the Gremlich to be fantastic- real hairs on the back of the neck stuff. FoG is okay to work out (I was expecting a multi-location scavenger hunt, so if anything it ended too soon) with little real jeopardy beyond the minor inconvenience of buying castle you can't stay in. Mona gives a pretty good hint on the Gremlich, I think.
Tne Slavers are tough, because they are high-level characters optimised pretty well (within ToEE constraints) as PC killers. The save or die spell that the Sorceress casts can probably be warded or save-buffed against, but there's no incentive to develop this style of play in previous encounters; similarly other than perhaps Robin Hood there's not much precedent for bowfire that can cause you significant problems.
For me part of the difficulty is that WotGS accelerates you pretty rapidly from c12th to c17th level with little chance to grow into new powers, so that though you may have the HP & BAB, you don't know how to use those 7th and 8th level spells.
In all, I recommend another look at these quests. It's part of the nature of cRPGs that the abilty to save and reload encourages metagaming, so that a proper challenge at high level can be difficult to pitch just right.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

Sirchet-
Fought the slavers in 7.4 last week. Got lucky with

Spoiler

initiative and managed to make my rogue invisible, after which he activated his boots of speed and got off 4 arrows worth of holy flaming 9d6 sneaking anti-magic goodness to drop what'sername. Zaxis dominated the Rogue bowman who porcupined the Barbarian for me. Had been hoping to use Horrid Wilting as I have fond memories of it from IWD 2 but the area of effect was so big I'm not sure when I'll ever be able to use it. Perhaps the Water node...

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

I agree difficulty is a good thing, god knows after NWN2 and its "just make a warrior or paladin and you may as well not play the game you already won, especially after 10th level.
My point is that i felt i was being punished for defending myself at the moathouse against Turuko, for freeing the 2 girls from the Temple, her father Wilfrick didn't even seem like he cared whether she lived or died and i got her extorting cash from me, or trying to, the Gremlich, i'm sorry Pelor would of helped, you saved his high priest but no one seemed to give a crap....The Pelor priests even told me off the one time i killed the Hextorites next door lol and ofc the Scarlet Brotherhood seem to be able to magically poison my party of hardnuts AND summon all kinds of uncooperative evil monsters to their side at whim...the whole feel of it is very bias toward evil groups....I've played with similar DM's in pen and paper they are usually power players who always play evil priests and think their job is to kill of the PC's not give them a fun challenging epic adventure, Me Vs Them kind of attitiude.
The Slave Traders yes a tough group but why can she mind control my party and her own? I hope there is a damn good reason, i never found out what it was though, my saving throws and resistances are pretty damn high, the oh so annoying buffing while in dialogue seems only the AI is allowed the luxury also...why can't the players respond?
Anyways rant over, i loved the pre Verbobonc stuff as i said....i just think the NPCs should be more grateful for what you have done, not punish you for what you didn't do...especially the very dubious moral requests and the Slave Traders, just let me buff while we talk woman and insta kill one of your party, see how long you last in a fight after that ;p

P.S. Everyone of the ghosts outside my castle deserved its fate, don't try to guilt trip me my conscience is clear *Turuko*...( Valen, HalfElven, Fighter/Bard, Chaotic Good, Neutral Good Vignette and friends).

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

I personally have nothing but praise for the work of the many modders that have graced the halls of Co8, but I too would love to have an option to tell Turoko and company to take a hike, go suffer somewhere else.

Hey, they chose to attack my party when they thought we would be weak and they payed the price.

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

hehe, very true...:thumbsup:
and yes overall i have nothing but praise for all the effort and hardwork, you managed to salvage a very broken game thank you all...kudos

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

That quest always stood out for me as the weakest quest added in the mod. This mainly because its an RP quest being put under the limitations of a CRPG. Also yeah, Chaotic Good characters don't act like that, maybe if she was Chaotic Neutral or even... Evil.

Unless the version of her in Verbobonc is Chaotic Neutral, eh.

The purpose of that was to give a strong incentive to really want those slavers dead. Which works well. Better than the majority of temple goons who don't really have much in the way of character.

Regardless of cheap deaths (I think the latest version adds a saving throw for that though) the slavers remains my favorite battle out of all the ones added in the mod. Its certainly a good wake up call for my party who have been steamrolling everything until that point

 

Re: its seems i'm not the only one who has noticed the sharp difficulty curve. (SPOIL

Those are some of the best parts in Co8 man. The world is not black and white you know, there is a lot of grey area - and difficulty is most welcome! The area surrounding the temple is full of evil, thats just part of the world you are in. You want it to be like every other RPG where the lawful paladin saves everyone and the whole world rejoices?

The briliance of ToEE is being presented with a seemingly impossible situation so you are free to use all the tactical tools the game provides you. Overcoming these combats is what gaming is all about!

cheers