Random encounter shadows

I gave Lareth a ac4 shield and ring+1 and the fight went much longer. At least he puts up a much better fight.

 

Instead of casting another spell in first round of combat, have him start swinging!

 

The end result will probably be the same if you're intent on killing him, but he should be able to put up a tough fight and go down swinging. He has to go to continue the storyline, so I guess he's doomed.

 

The problem is that really he should come charging out of his room when he hears the battle outside.

 

Take the healing spells (at least the effectively worthless CLWs) out of his memorized list. He's evil, so he can't spontaniously cast them, right?

 

Because he'd probably be stuck in the player's Web spell anyway

Joking aside, we've discussed bringing Lareth into the fight before, and one of the objections raised was that his surrender plotline would look pretty wonky if he's surrounded by his men. So unless you plan to handle that, it's best left alone.

Having him run off in case the players slaughters his men and returns days later is doable. But if you just made him disappear with no follow up, players would just feel cheated. There has to be a follow up, which means more work. And who's going to do that? I'm sure anyone could come up with a ton of cool ideas on what to do in that situation, that will never really get implemented... the reality is that we've got our hands full as it is, unless new modders crop up.

Thankfully, at least Livonya made him initiate conversation if you tried grabbing his Journal. His scripting can be further improved to detect players enterting his room, though, with some not-overly-complex heart-beat scripting. (cycle through game.party, check is_safe_to_talk or something similar, and verify that the X,Y coordinate is within his room's bounding box a la Wonnilon Hideout scripting, and fire off dialogue). Any objections? (besides "now I can't get my tanks in flanking positions"...)

 

There needs to be a consistent way to talk to him without fighting the crowd in his anteroom, so he can call them down on you. Or maybe have him summon a brace of driders, or something.

 

Here's a thought: Could you send a scout to get Lareth on say round 4 of combat with his men and the party? Then on say round 5, could he "teleport" to a location within sight of the party and began speaking to them or just initate combat with party?

 

Does he HAVE to stay in his little room? Why not put him in the room with his henchmen?

 

That's a good idea. Could Lareth start in the room with his guards and when a pc comes within 40' or LOS dialogue be initiated? If combat in the room goes badly could he be scripted to fade out and fade in back in his room?

 

You know, I like that idea... it would make the moathouse fight much more challenging with Lareth able to effectively use his spells. If the fights' going badly or he's wounded, he can be scripted to run into his room.