Co8 New Content: Arena of Heroes

After each battle he does teleport you away.

 

Indeed, to get some rest and heal up, at least that's whats implied from the dialogue and the previous battles, and not to forget about the whole thing for couple of levels, which is unnatural thing to do at that situation, yet completely essential. The first two battles are just way too easy, the monsters don't even enter combat all at once – I had to manually aggro the remaining owlbears/giant to not feel like complete cheater and even then they could barely hit my tank. I reloaded just for kicks, gave everyone ranged weapon, webbed them and shot them to death, they didn't even try to break free. Now tell me how does this compare to the final battle and if it doesn't warrant a special warning?

 

I'm not sure of who you have for NPC's but a cleric with Greater Turning (or Command Undead if you're playing evil parties) and a wizard or sorcerer with Fireball will make this contest much, much easier, as will Enlarge Person (and Cat's Grace to make up the dexterity loss on the enlarged character)- and if you're 5th level your mage should have that. Having Improved Initiative as feats will also help in making sure you get to attack first- and attack the wizard in black first, as he loves to throw out Stinking Cloud...

 

The third fight is just as easy. Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, Fireball, and a cleric of Pelor with Greater Turning. Easy Peasy

 

Spugnoir actually only leveled up to 5 after this fight so no fireball, my PC is cleric with improved turning albeit of Heironeous which did give me some breathing room but only first instance destroys whole bunch of them. Still managed to beat it, after surviving the first wave with everyone standing its only matter of luring the giants one by one... feels kind of cheesy but why should I make up for lack of scripts...

EDIT: And after the final battle the thing dumped me again in Hommlet and now the game crashes on every random encounter on my way back to Nulb, why am I not surprised

 

Maybe we should post warnings all throughout the game.

A sign post at the bottom of the stairs for each level of the temple telling us what level would be best to achieve maximum victory?

Ooooooh and maybe even a gnome could meet us at the welcome wench that would hold my hand and walk me through all those nasty little surprises that seem to pop up in an adventure.

Or, we could just play the game and if a battle is too tough for us we could leave it alone until we are tough enough for it.

 

Now you know that's how games are played these days- why back in my youth when we played those Gold Box D&D games or Might and Magic 1 or The Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord, why, we even had to buy our own graph paper so we could map out the dungeons- imagine that! (shakes fists at youngsters)

 

We even used to team up and take turns controlling the party while the other person did the mapping.

 

Don't forget the lead table top figures to show party line up and relative positions

 

Hah! Lead figures .... We had the finest plastic figures $3.00 could buy.

 

I have to say I'm intrigued by the notion that it is possible for a party of 5 to get to the final Arena fight before acheiving 5th level, even if the whole arena quest is played straight through. Last time I played I took no Rogue and recruited Furnok to open the chest for me. Even with magical aid I had to level him up and make sure his Open Lock skill was maxed before I could get the chest open. I can't remember what other quests one has to acheive for Smyth to obtain the chest but again I'm slightly surprised that it's possible to meet the requirements before 5th level.
I do agree somewhat that the first two fights are easy in comparison with the third, in that both are pretty easy if you are prepared and have good tactics while the third requires preparation, tactics and some luck too if you are doing it very early on. That said, if you aren't prepared with some means of battlefield control, three owlbears or two hill giants can mess your party up if allowed to close to melee with you.
One final thing: single PC plus NPCs means you are significantly increasing the amount of luck you need throughout the game but particularly vs the third arena fight- one failed save here and you are toast.

 

I knew what I was going into before I started the playthrough It's funny to think that just 1 more PC would make all the difference but I'm too thickheaded for that... all or nothing. Luckily my PC is fighter/cleric with 18 con/wis so that helps to block most of the game-ending spells. Might also give him cloak of resistance when Spug gets the level for it. The NPC's are doing fine, all of them... although they don't talk to each other as in BG it's still better than walking around with bunch of anonymous numbers.

 

Loved the AoH. I tried them succesively at 4-5th level. The first two were easy, though the second was only really doable because of web. At that point I new I should level up before the third go, I mean when the mysterious stranger sends you on three quests, you know the third one is gonna be rough!

However, I thought what the hell! My big mistake was presuming, like the other two, I would get some buff time before closing. Fortunately I had scribed a couple of weak fireballs because my wizard was still only 4th level (game seems to let you despite caster's low level, unlike PnP where you must prepare the spell). Fought like demons, puked my guts out, and turned undead galore. Closed in on the wizards, but had no idea reinforcements were coming, with lightning bolts...

In the end, just my Bard using a sling and a bunch of remnant webs, vs the remaining giant skeleton, running circles with expeditious retreat, and I ran out of ammo! So clooooose.... at least it felt like a heroic death.

Did it again, pre-buffed at 7, knowing what to expect, no major problems, but the cleric failed to phantasmal killer. However, I had used Minor Globe, and triggered that permanancy bug, resulting in later corrupt files. So I had to redo to avoid crash. Really is a pitty about that spell, In the original 1st edition PnP, my wizard rocked the lead temple spellcasters with the globe and a prismatic wand.

Prize was a little underwhelming, cause I'd just enchanted tower shields for my pali and cleric. The masterwork metal tower seems to have an ACP of only -8, whereas the Hero is -10 even though lighter? Not that heavies are ever going to tumble anyway... couldn't it have SR 13 also, even though that is usually armour only?

Great fun, didn't mind doing it three times (and I got to repeat the house party in Nulb, which is also enjoyable)

 

I think pi4t's raises an interesting point, but the way I'm looking at it is more about what role the Arena is meant to serve, and whether it's currently doing that the best way possible.

If the point of the Arena is to serve an equivalent role as Welkwood Bog, then it may need some tweaking. Welkwood Bog was meant as an alternative (or complement) to the Hommlet fedex quests. It gave players something action/discovery oriented to do, rather than chit-chat with locals, and would be manageable at level 1 in a way that the Moathouse is simply not. In this light, the escalation of difficulty in the battles may be frustrating that goal, since you have to actually BE higher level to finish the Arena, and that rather defeats the purpose of using it to BECOME higher level.

If it's just meant as a side quest you can mess around with at your leisure, then it's working as designed. My sense is that it's the latter, in which case, the reward is less of an issue, and the fights can be taken on whenever folks feel like it, but ideally fight 1 happens at 4-5, fight 2 at 5-6, and fight 3 at 6+. The reward isn't meant to be whatever you get at the end, but rather having an interesting, atmospheric series of gladiatorial battles culminating in an epic undead onslaught.

Personally, I've been trying to use the Arena to help my guys level up from lvl 5 before tackling Imredys Run (which I hear is tough at that level). I did the Nulb chit-chat quests, and was looking for more to do. I'm gathering that my party (consisting of a half-orc barbarian, halfling rogue, half-elf ranger, human cleric of Pelor, and human generalist wizard) is either using the wrong spells, has the wrong gear, or just plain isn't tough enough to survive the 2nd battle (I beat the owlbears, mostly by "pulling" them one-by-one). I'm pretty sure, based on what I've read here, that the 3rd fight is simply beyond my party for the time being. That's fine, unless the point of the Arena is for a generally "Nulb"-level party to level up some more before moving on. But like I said, that doesn't seem to be the point of it.