Co8 5.0.0 Beta - The Big 3; A poll

So, so far, 5.0 has been about TPK, reload. TPK. Reload. TPK. Reload. I didn't fare any better against the new monsters on the 1st level of the Moathouse, despite being 2nd level this time around. Creatures with DR/Magic and SR at 1st and 2nd level are just a bit too much. I'm definitely in favor of removing the Fiendish aspect.

Decided to ignore the new monsters and continue exploring the Moathouse. Get down to the 2nd level. Kill Lubash and the zombies without much trouble (the former because my Bard beat him on initiative and nailed him with a Hideous Laughter). Go down to the 3rd level. Waste the ghouls. Decide I should head back to town to rest. Run into the new encounter on my way out the secret exit (which I always use because I hate having to run all the way back and forth through the Moathouse.) Get slaughtered horribly. Reload. Same result. I'm just far too outnumbered and out leveled.

Interestingly enough, I had the same issue someone else did, where my characters claimed to have killed Lareth and cleared the Moathouse. But my characters haven't even heard of Lareth yet.

Is this new encounter supposed to spawn after you kill Lareth or just when you try to leave via the secret exit? Personally, I think the former would be a better choice, as it would at least guarantee the characters are of a level to deal with it. Plus, forcing players to back track repeatedly through the moathouse while trying to clear it if they don't want to get slaughtered over and over again is kind of annoying.

That said, the encounter was cool. I wasn't aware there was that much unused dialogue in the game. Some of the lines seemed a little forced for the situation, but if I hadn't played the game before, I'd have no idea it had been modded in.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

The big fight at the Moathouse exit is with the pnp module except for all those "extra" guards. The pnp module states that the monk, bigfighter, and Zert will follow the party and attack a small party. I've got 4, including Fruella.
I lost the my cleric, everyone was seriously hurt, but Fruella and the barbarian with the holy sword got them. Terjon charged 1000gp to raise dead and the cleric is down to 2000xp. Was raisedead changed with 5.0? I'm going to get some help, because I'm not even half way thru the Moathouse yet. Is this a sign of things to come?

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

I second this opinion; but keep the following in mind:

It also says a weakened party. So, the party shouldn't be of such a level as would intimidate the attackers; or should seem like something the baddies can prey upon in a weakened condition. I usually do it when the party is overloaded with goods after a big win & before they get another level, but then it's easier to gauge in a PnP game. The bad guys know of the party's success, because they almost always go for a cart/wagon to haul out all the goods they can. Probably wouldn't work, here, though. If the party's gotten to level 3, then the attack either doesn't occur, or is broken off sooner when the ass kicking starts.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

Well, if it was just Turuko, Kobort and Zert, it would probably be too easy. So I understand the need for them to have a couple of sell-swords with them. It's the fact that it's a veritable horde of them that's the problem. My sorcerer tries to cast a spell and goes down in a hail of crossbow fire. Which means she's completely useless in the fight. I can either try to cast a spell and pray they all miss (hasn't happened yet) or have her try to just use her longbow and watch her miss all day long. (Okay, once or twice before Turuko or Kobort get up in her face and squash her.) Plus, all the footmen have rogue levels, which means due to their sheer numbers they always end up flanking and sneak attacking someone. The other three aren't even necessary. The guards alone can wipe out a second or third level party.

If the encounter is going to be left to spawn when it does, I think 2 things should happen:

1) Drastically reduce the number of guards with them. Where did the lot of them find that many mercs in Homlett anyway?
2) Fix the dialogue so the PCs don't claim to have killed Lareth unless they actually have.

On a side note, the Celestial Owl needs to be given the Untrippable trait, considering it's supposed to be flying. I cast Grease on the bandits in the Moathouse and decided to summon the Owl to fight them since it could fly over the Grease. Nope. It instantly fell on its face and died in a hail of AOOs when it tried to get back up.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

I think I just got lucky in the moathouse fight. My wizard was by the exit with Fruella and the others in front. She had 12 magicmissile scrolls and took out some of the guards. Next time i'll have more help,maybe Elmo and Furnok.
Kind of a tough fight at that level and time of the game.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

Well that was another problem. Even though my sorcerer is at the back of the party formation, she appears on the new map at the front of the party, which is really annoying.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

All the more reason to ditch the guards. The group ambushing the party ought to consist of the NPC's from Hommlet that might be disposed to this behavior...Kobort, Toruko, Zert, and maybe Furnok, especially if he's lost his livelihood of "skinning passing merchants". A man's got to make a living, right?

It ought to take place before any of the PC's hit level 3, but after some are level 2. And if Elmo's with them, then they can get a guard...Raimol, perhaps? If you really want to throw in a wrench, put Rannos & Gremag in there in disguise. They'd haul ass if things got out of hand for the evil group, and not risk betraying themselves. They're on a bigger mission.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

This makes sense to me. And I don't think Furnok would make too much difference in the encounter even if he was there.

The difference here is you have a choice not to attack Ranos and Gremag. Granted, you have a choice not to use the secret Moathouse exit, but ignoring it makes clearing the Moathouse a PITA as you run back and forth to the main entrance. But there's no way to win the encounter without the levels granted by clearing the Moathouse (and the fact that the dialogue assumes you have cleared it seems to go along with this) which means you have to ignore the secret exit until you clear the Moathouse. Which, as I mentioned, is a PITA.

I'd have no problem with the encounter, as written, if it only spawned after you'd cleared the Moathouse. But if it spawns the first time you use the exit as it does now, it needs to be toned-down, and the PC dialogue saying the Moathouse has been cleared has to be changed.

ETA: The Fix for the Dire Bats doesn't seem to be working. They're now identified as Dire Bats instead of Fiendish, but they still have SR and DR as if they were fiendish.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

@kalshane: If you have a wizard [including Pishella - like I do] you can learn and cast charm person on guards. It really helps a lot.
* Maybe, a good idea would be for there to be a wand of charm person with 2 charges remaining on it [2 in case of casting failure] as L00t from freeing nybble, his gnome friend and his groupie female companion.

Myself, I see nothing wrong with the ambush. Is is easy? No. It is hard? Dadgummed tootin' skippy! Maybe replace one guard footman and one crossbowman with one brigand each, but not anything more than that and if that.

As far as the dialogue goes, they are E-V-I-L and want any reason whatsoever to kill the party. They should try to kill the party no matter what. Their loyalty is to Lareth and it very much fits in with Lareth attempting to establish a foothold for Lolth in the area of Hommlet and close to the temple. And, especially, with a party leaving the Moathouse by using their secret exit, they should fear the worst for Lareth's plan and the knowledge of their alliance with Lareth becoming common knowledge, the demise of Lareth's plan and maybe their very own lives. Yes, they will absolutely kill any party exiting the Moathouse using their secret exit.

[EDIT] Here's a situation.
The evil party lets the party leaving the Moathouse via the secret Moathouse exit leave unhindered and undamaged. The evil party goes in the Moathouse and either (1) find Lareth and the guards dead of which means they die very soon by Burne's troops or a good party or (2) they go in to the guard area and Lareth finds out that the Moathouse raiders have been let go, whereupon, Lareth and his guards kill the newly recruited NPCs from the Welcome Wench Inn due to their incompetence.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

That would work if my mage wasn't taking the form of a pin-cushion the instant she tried to cast a spell due to the readied crossbowmen. Believe me, I'm all about charming baddies whenever possible. But the caster has to live long enough to get the spell off. Which simply was not happening.

That said, I finally won after numerous tries at 3rd level. Finally got a lucky break on initiative and managed to get both my sorcerer and my cleric to go before the crossbowmen. Managed to charm one of the footmen, and stunned the crossbowmen with a Sound Burst. Which gave my Bard the oppurtunity to hit the lot of them with Grease. Slowed down the swarm quite a bit. It was still tough, but I finally managed to pull off a win.

My problem with the dialogue, as I said, was the player's side of it. The PCs tell the baddies that they killed Lareth. As I said before, at that point, my characters didn't even know who Lareth was, let alone killed him. This is a problem.

This makes sense to me. As I said, my problem wasn't with the encounter itself, it was simply the fact that it was too high-powered for characters that hadn't cleared the Moathouse and the dialogue was saying that the PCs had cleared the Moathouse. It didn't make any logical sense to be happening as it was.

I'll take a look, Ted.

ETA: Just checked the protos.tab. The regular old dire bats are statted as they should be. Would I have to start a new game in order for the changes to take effect, maybe?

Unrelated to all this other stuff. I found a bug. None of the gnolls in the Moathouse are wearing the armor they should. The bugbears are working beautifully, but for some reason the armor isn't showing up on the gnolls or in their inventory after the fight.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

The big deal is making it relevant to the story, not just creating something else for the party to do. Where do the enemy forces come from? Furnok may not be in this thing for murder; He's neutral, and may just be in it to see the party get "what they deserve" for upsetting him from his little niche. As for the "revenge" encounter in Nulb, it's easier to imagine an escaped agent of evil going to Dyvers to get some help; that's what he should do. But where are the likes of Kobort, Toruko & Zert going to find that same help? Recruiting some bandits encountered on the road is much easier to accept than them suddenly having access to highly skilled & well equipped soldiery. I'm glad it's going to be toned down. It should be. People always speak of quality over quantity; let's see them practice what they preach. Now, if my criticism sounds too harsh, I apologize; but, making this a better game is supposed to be what this is about. The whole thing shouldn't be consumed by the story line & elements of the plot & backstory; but these things do give the story it's epic quality.

Do we just want to make more things to fight, or make this a better game?

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

Ouch. Sorry to have noticed it.

A party lower than 3rd level isn't going to ever win this battle unless they've got Elmo and a huge party. They're going up against 3 2nd level characters, 4 3rd level Fighter/Rogues and then 3 whatever level the crossbowmen are. They're outnumbered and outleveled. So if the goal is to kill the party, then the encounter succeeds. Makes for a pretty short game, though.

Exactly. This isn't some rabble that Zert and Co. managed to recruit. 2nd and 3rd level characters with PC classes are an elite fighting force.

@Ted: Yup. I have ToFEE set to clear the map cache on startup.

 

Re: Co8 5.0.0 beta 1 thread

Well, like I said, I won last night with my 3rd level party after a couple tries. The pin-cushion wasn't from positioning. It was from the 3 crossbowmen readying vs. spells and then filling her full of crossbow bolts when she tried to cast. It didn't matter that she had several people in front of her before I had her cast. The positioning was a problem the first couple times through when the footman would beat her on initiative and sneak attack her right away.

Everything I've tried to do with party formation doesn't seem to help on map changes. Changing the order on the bottom of the screen is the only thing that seems to work, which is silly. But in any case, I swapped my sorcerer for my barbarian in the party order and that seemed to help. Annoying as hell that actually using the party formation menu only makes a difference for walking through dungeons.