Games too easy

I think a lot of encounters in 3rd and 4th level are too easy. 4 trolls in 4th level is no challenge at all.
A big problem is that nearby enemies are not activated. There is a fight with bugbears and ogres in the 4th level. The orgres are in open access, adjecent small rooms but do not trigger by the fight in the central room. Therefore you can pick of small groups one after the other. Can this me fixed by modding ?

 

Good idea, reactive 4th level would make sense.
The minute you start attacking on level 4 they should understand that your actions on level 1 and 2 wasn't to join the greater temple but to destroy it

 

The fact that that is such a small area could allow the enemy to flank the heroes (especially if you're playing a small party) and then hit them with missile attacks as well as those cartwheeling miniature giants known as temple bugbears...

 

I will be happy if at least the enemies in the area are all activated and not ideling a few steps away. I would love to get flanked btw. More interesting than the default routine of scouting invisble and raining fireballs on the poor bugbears from out of sight.

One factor of making it so easy is the blue target circle. It allows to detect invisble (red circle) and to place area of effect by the millimeter, maximizing targeted enemies and avoiding frindly fire. Much better would be a blue circle without red/green subcircles.

 

I think the game is exactly as hard as the player wants.

Choose your own stat threshhold, choose how much you min/max, how much multiclass abusing you do, how much you pick your race-classes for power and not rp. Don't craft, don't use casters.. If you do that the game will be plenty hard I think..

 

For a true challenge, use no magic at all. Not just no spellcasters, but no magic items, not even a healing potion. Every 5-foot step and power attack/combat expertise setting on every attack will make a difference. You'll appreciate the game at a whole new level.

 

I'm talking about shortcomings which might be modded like the non triggering of creatures nearby. Of course I can go naked with a single hobbit but this is not my idea of fun.

 

:thumbsup:

I hear you; by the time you mass murder levels 1-2 and arrive at lvl 3 - 4, you're probably powerful enough (assuming you did the standard content outside the temple before arriving there) that things like trolls in bite sized groups are trivial to handle. The original game temple content was rather poorly balanced and some tweaks could help; the reactive temple tweaks in lvl 1-2 make things more interesting than vanilla for sure.

 

Ive always had a problem with after clearing level 2 the game frizzles out in the excitement department. Especially level 3 and all the Nodes.

Fighting 1st thru 3rd level monsters in the Nodes is just stupid. They should of made some of the monsters that were listed in the original paper mod.

However it seems like they could mod is some...
Fire Giants- Enlarge Dwarf and blacken it.
Frost Giants- Enlarge Human Barbarian with blueish skin.
Giant Trolls- Enlarge Trolls with brown skin and clubs.
Various elemental types.
More powerful trapped bandits and/or NPCs.
Dragon Turtle- Enlarged Tick, but a land version.

Level 3- it just needs a overhaul. Even just adding more of whats there or adding more HP to some of them would help. Fighting one troll is just boring.

 

Always glad to see more people interested in working on this stuff! Figuring out how to do change the skins on the models is probably a good place to start.

 

Agree that level 3 in particular is disappointing- the bugbear barracks is a decent meatgrinder but by that level there are enough battlefield control options available that you're basically choosing how many resources to expend to shorten the fight. If it weren't for metagame reasons for prolonging fights (let Shenshock escape so you can buy from him later, allow Hedrack to summon Iuz) level 4 would be similarly lacking in challenge. Having some of the level 4 mobs come up behind you when you chose which way to go at the crossroads would be interesting I think, or an ambush when you return to the hallway having done one 'limb'? What about some sort of response when you wake Thrommel- teleport lockdown and all remaining level3 denizens lie in wait somewhere as you try to leave?

 

A few years ago, I'm not sure what I did, but Barkinar jumped me in the passageway after I'd taken down one set of trolls. It hasn't happened since, so it's a real mystery to me.

 

The original game very often tends to just increases the number of enemys while you advance. I would very much like to see those bugbear groups supported by a druid or some othe spellcaster so that you had to deal with those nice and nasty effects like spike growth, web or some charme spell. I think this would be an economic way of making fights in those area definetly more interesting.

 

Scripting enemy spellcasters can take a lot of time to do effectively, especially with area spells. Even if the area is clear when the spell is cast, the default action of many of the bugbears would make them run into the spike growth and die, for example, unless the bugbears had their AI tweaked to.

It's not impossible at all, just a lot of work, and it's been done quite a bit: Lareth's room, the tower bandits, Senshock, Hedrack, etc. But unless the entire encounter with all of the enemies involved is carefully planned out, and all the possible PC actions anticipated, you can often times make the encounter easier by creating vulnerabilities in the AI.

 

Ok, I see the point. What I try to suggest is creating more poweful opponents with minimum effort. So maybe those opposing spellcasters could stick with that kind of spells that would not interfere wirh any existing strategy like: Bulls strength, cats grace, bulls endurance and on higher levels mass bulls strength, etc.