Co8 New Content: Arena of Heroes

It's not that it's not uber, it's that +1 item isn't of any interest and even in ToEE dirt common. Even just giving it say, the ability to use a low level spell a few times a day (Swift Bless 3 a day per an inteligent item is my off the top of my head suggestion)

 

At the same time, the reward you get from the arena does make sense. It's a fighting pit where men die daily, a place of martial and violent behavior. A shield, specifically a tower shield of awesomeness, makes perfect sense.

 

Dirt common? It's the only magical tower shield in the game, and mithral to boot...

 

Who needs Tumble when you have a tower shield of AWESOMENESS!

Sorry, just finished watching Adventure Time ... heh heh

 

More importantly, who needs tumble if you can take Spring Attack?

 

SPOILERS*****


Wow! The final battle was the only encounter I had to play through three times to avoid my entire party getting slaughtered!

Sickening cloud really messed my party up - It meant that when the 'reinforcements' arrived half my party were incapable of acting! The only way my party survived was to use the Fungus Figurine and spiritual weapon to summon some meatshields!

The first two encounters were, however, a tad dissapointing. Three owl bears (It actually worked out as 6vs 1 and then 6 vs 2) were a cakewalk for my level 5's. The hill giants were even less troublesme.

With an arena this large, more 'epic' battles would be perfect... If the AoH is moved to post-Zug then I would relish the chance to fight more battles like the finale!


Edit:

Regarding the reward - I was perfecetly satisfied with the awesome shield.

However, I have an idea for the future.

Is there anyway for the arena master to speak to or 'read' characters apart from the dialogue instigator/face? If so, maybe we could have the MotA speak to each character in turn and, based on their class, offer them a reward.

E.g.

MotA: 'For you <name of fighter>, the mighty warrior I present the shield of Aemon Stormborn - 'Storms End' (Tower Shield + 1 + resist elements electricity/cold)'

PC 1: Thank you.

MotA: 'For you <name of cleric> I present the gauntlets of faith

PC2: Thank you

Mota: etc. etc.

This would ensure that players get rewards useful for all characters. If the AoH was a level 10+ affair this should not be a problem in terms of too much 'bling'

 

Ah right - I see where you are coming from.

Well it certainly worked! I was a tool and saved over my pre-AoH save so I had to fight the damn thing without any option to leave and prepare some anti-undead whoopass!

Out of curiousity, what happens after the final battle? Can the player return? I haven't tried yet.

When I used to play vanilla ToEE, I used to 'train' my party inside the moathouse courtyard - lots of resting to provoke encounters. I don't do this so much with the extra XP avaliable in Co8, but perhaps after the player has emerged victorious from the AoH they could go back and have various options of monsters to fight... Is there a way to reduce the XP to a minimum? Personally I love the ToEE combat engine and would love to be able to pick and choose between some cool monster fights.

 

No, once you finish the last battle, you can not get back to the Arena, Kinda of a shame, as you are right it is a nice large area that would be great to reap XP from random encounters. The last battle is a killer, but one way to delay the reinforcements is NOT to kill the first two undead mages until you knock off everything else. It is a bitch and your spell casters should have as much Summon Monsters/Spiritual Weapons as possible.

 

Did they actually attack the Spiritual Weapons instead of your party?
From the scripting, it seems only the Zombies would, and maybe the mages too.

 

I had read that Spiritual Weapon shouldn't have that effect to on this forum. I actually only used it to try and get at the undead mage who pops up with those reinforcements. The giants spent 2 round pulverising the spiritual mace into the ground, during which time I dealt with the zombies and chucked a few fireballs their way.

I saved at the beginning of the fight so I can always go back and recreate the same circumstances to see if they still take the bait

 

Ah, yes, they lack the standard combat script.

Gaear, please add script #2 to their san_start_combat. Aside from the spiritual weapon thing, it also contains the breakfree scripting. It should be standard for all new protos, really.

It seems the zombies lack the script as well - or rather, they have a special script that is bereft of the mod. Attached a fix for them.

 

Dare I ask what the function of script #2 is, aside from the above? I am curious as I am making my foray into ToEE modding and would like to know as much as possible from the start.

Back to the AoH - I'm not sure whether this is the right place to discuss this, but during the final battle I was saving alot. Each time I saved, there seemed to be a 50% chance of the game CTDing. The issue persisted throughout the fight but it was fine afterwards. I have a sneaky suspicion that some of the magic (Stinking cloud perhaps?) was to blame.

 

I certainly got caught with my pants down on the third fight at Level 6/7.

*Spoilers Below*

Spoiler

The "Stinking Cloud" mostly missed - as I'd won initiative and moved my characters.

The undead couldn't land any hits on my fighters with AC25~ and the skeletons and zombies weren't much of a threat to my sun domain cleric.

I still got whacked with some nasty spells ie "Fireball" (ouch!) and scrambled to stay in it.

I (mistakenly) thought the fight would be all but won after concentrating on taking down one of the wizards.

Got quite the surprise when two skeletal hill giants and a third wizard popped up right in my rear lines. (next to my Wizard and Ranger :scratchhe)

Needless to say the fight went smoother on the reload - due to my Ranger landing some interrupts and the ever reliable Web.


Incidentally "Stinking Cloud" made the Nulb house ambush rather easy - it's the ideal size for that room.

My Dwarven fighter certainly appreciates the prize.