Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Okay, remember awhile back when I was complaining that the creatures in the moathouse were pretty darn buff? After a bit of traversing in Verbobonc and Hickory Branch, I've paid a visit to the temple. I've found lots of enemies, heck, really lots of enemies. Reached level 10 recently too.

They're pushovers. Nothing but enemies to smash heads in, seeing as how my party i good aligned and I don't want to do the quests for the evil npcs. I'm really starting to regret doing all the extra content quests, if that's to blame, but somehow I'm not sure. I'm getting bored very rapidly. I'm tempted to flick on the max NPC hit points switch (my pcs have average hp). Be it minotaurs that pop out from statues, werewolves in mirrors, groups of large ogres, heck, they all die really quickly. (NOTHING has survived my ranger's full round attack so far in the temple)

I LIKED the moathouse battles. I LOVED the relatively high challenge compared to my party's level. I was under the impression the whole game was going to have this level of difficulty and I would have lots of opportunity to use a lot of tactical decisions, but it would appear I'm mistaken. I'm really disappointed. Isn't the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign supposed to be notoriously hard in the PnP form?

 

Re: Game difficulty (some spoilers)

I have yet to experience the new stuff myself as I am trying to finish my old party (pre 5.0) first. However, if you are level 10 then I am not surprised you are finding it easy. Without the extra experience from the new mods, you would probably be 3rd/4th level on entering the temple, not 10th! My current party are around 8th level and they are down on the level with the banshee. As always, follow Ted's advice and you won't go far wrong..

 

Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

First of all, I would like to thank all modders for making a game that surely would of been forgotten had not new life been breathed into it. I can tell you it would of been long gone off my harddrive if not for the work of a few dedicated souls. To them, we all owe an indebted thanks.

A moral question though: is it too much? With the added mods of Verbobonc, Hickory Branch and the Orc Cave, we now have 3 encounters that were never intended originally. The game was designed so that a party of 5 (with perhaps a couple of NPC's) would eventually find the lower temple and battle the Demoness. But I have noticed a trend that is somewhat concerning and I thought I would bring it up.

With the added side quests, one can have a party of 6 (all good characters too, with good stats and abilities) be all at least level 8 or 9 BEFORE getting to the Temple itself. Thus, originally, the encounters are WAY to easy. More of a nuisiance, actually, save for the guard rooms, the temple faction areas etc..... I am sure most would agree. The added experience, magic and money afforded by these sidequests are all good, and to be looked forward to (my next party will be evil, no thanks to finding some goodies in HB) but I think they are unbalancing the game far too much. I have yet to get to Verbobonc yet with my current party, and I have 6 characters at level 7. Impressive, but the encounters are beginning to get much too easy for my taste. It is for this reason, in my old P+P games, that most characters were retired at level 15, it was too easy.

Is any work being done to make the encounters that hereto were hard, but are now easy, harder? If not, is the HP levels of the baddies being upped up to compensate for the added, unforseen power the game is giving the characters? I am not going to even mention the crafted magic, as I am sure we all agree that the temple levels 1 and 2 were never meant to see characters with 9 levels of experience and full +3 armourments.

I am not lamenting what has been done. Only that I feel the balance must be looked at too. The fun part is the finding of things new that totally catch you off guard, and make you prepare in the future (like the second Rannos and Gremag encounter). I think that if everything a little later on in the game were made harder, it would help balance out the power the new mods give. Deep down, I think, most would agree that when encounters are a simple walkthrough it makes the game less fun. I prefer the challenge, not the rewards.

 

Re: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Hi all:

The quests you mentioned as making your party to advanced for the temple are in fact Optional Side Quests....added by some very dedicated and talented modders. If you feel they make your characters to powerfull then wait and do them at a later point in the game or not at all. Balance in a crpg depends alot on the discipline of the gamer.

On another note, some of the encounters in the temple have been made considerably more difficult.

 

I have to admit the first time i played through i powergamed it. I rolled till i had high stats for all 6 pcs. I never used the console for money and items other than the quest i couldn't complete for Desperate Housewives because i had a a paladin. But i did use the max hps per level, the craft armor bug to make all my armor items +3. Doing this made the game way to easy. My pcs barely ever got hit because they all had high AC and when they did they had alot of hps. Also, because i had high dex for all my pcs and improved initiative i pretty much got to attack first with all 6 pcs. All of these things contributed to making the game a cake walk. So, it really is my own fault.

I think the game could still be difficult, even with the added mods. I am playing through a second time right now and am not using any of the things mentioned above. I rolled stats for each pc up to 5 times instead of powergaming them. This way i still had a chance for some decent scores. I don't like using point buy because it kinda forces you to make cookie cutter pcs. You can't have a fighter with decent wisdom for example unless you gimp your other stats to way low negatives.

I still feel the biggest problem in terms of making the game more difficult is caster enemies and bosses. I know they were imrpoved a bit and actually cast fireball, ect. And that they are semi buffed up before each fight. But it's still way to easy. When i fought Senshock, despite the fact he was buffed, the first thing he did when i attacked him was cast prayer...Suffice to say the next round my rogue killed him in one round. Another thing is if you have a cleric or a class that can summon, caster and monsters in general will always go after them first. Once again making them useless. In the Target of Revenge fight in the house i casted spiritual weapon and the enemy cleric and mage just attacking it over and over. With slings and shit lol! There has to be a way to fix this. I still have all my old Gold Box games siting in my closet. And one thing i remembered fondly from the Dragonlance trilogy was always having to take out enemy casters first. Or i would find myself reloading over and over. Wizards would cast charm person and other usefull spells even at the early level fights. Clerics would cast hold person and totaly screw you up. And as the games got harder they started caster insta death spells, ect. You had to get to them first. Or use ranged attacks to make them lose a spell being cast. TOEE just doesn't seem to have caster fights that make you really scramble.

Anyway, i think the games difficulty level is based on if you powergame or not. My second time through has been harder so far. Hopefully it continues.

 

Well, the first time I beat the game
with Co8mods my characters were a
little overpowered. I wasn't cheating
or exploiting any bugs however what
made my characters too powerful were
the weapons. I could craft everything I
wished and it made them too good. I think
there should be an enchant limit for weapons
let's say limiting them to maximum +3 and 1
special ability. However with this being impossible
I limited the "fire power" myself to make the
game more challenging.

 

I see I am not the only one who thinks the game could use some toughening up. Thanks for the merging of the posts.

I admit I am familiar with the game, and know what to do. I guess the point is that the new material is not optional. It makes the game more interesting and fun, but when meshed with the basic storyline, the original content is no challenge. I just went to the tower and at level 7 (after HB and the Orc Cave and the Target of Revenge) the tower was a joke. I guess I could of gone earlier, but the point I think is that with all the extra content is there not a way to ensure that everything else is buffed up to compensate? Like every guard in the tower being 2 levels higher, using more magic items, stronger spells, or even adding in extra tough characters. If one is playing without the mods, they won't see this, but for those that do, watch out.

I am not saying every encounter has to be harder, but the major ones at least. It makes no sense to simply bypass the extra mods and head in to the Temple just because you know the Temple needs to be done at a low level to be tough.

Perhaps this could be the focus for modders for the time being. There is enough added material for the game, now let's make the game more challenging to keep pace.

I would like to add that I am assuming that most are D+D'ers that know what is going on. I admit for someone totally new to this game and D+D they are more than likely to get their butt kicked, but if one has toughed out the game this far, I am assuming not. Seasoned players can handle the toughness I assume and I think deep down, like I, most would welcome it. I would love to find out that Romag is (or has) become real powerful and instead of a simple fight, it is a fight for my life.

 

What it really needs for balance is something we'll never be able to give it...A live Dungeon Master.

 

FYI. I may do a Protos Edit of the MOB's, to make my 2nd run harder. My Mod of the PC Giant, almost slept through this game. (My only challenge was a White Drtagon. And that is only because Fog makes Weapon/Height Reach worthless. Not counting the Gods, like Iuz.) So, I will Mod my MOB's up some. Just a thought for you all. You can always Edit a monsters Protos. Just my 2 cents worth.

 

I was half way through the 5.0, before I deleted the game and installed the 5.0.2.

What I noticed on this subject was that the temple became the "central" adventure, and the rest becoming side quests. ie: clear lvl 1 then deal with nulb, clear lvl 2 then deal with the ambush. etc...

This is the way I DM'd this module years ago, side quests to build the PCs but always returning to the temple for the main adventure.

I think that the trick here is to figure out at what point going to Verb & Hickory fit best within the story arc..

I've not said this recently, You guys and gals are solid. Fand**ntastic! :joy:

 

To keep things challenging, I opted for the following:
> original equipment and no Jade Empress caravan.
> no craft items or scribe scrolls of any sort. I only play with what can be found or bought. (eh i'm of the old scholl and PC didn't craft or scribe in 1st ed.)
> 'bad' item are destroyed by abandon in random encouter (i.e. fungi figurine, unholy or chaos weapons with my LN-LG party).

 

I think the problem is the mods add too much XP and magic to the game without the game itself being beefed up to handle the extra encounters. Some here have suggested that the mods are optional, but this is absurd. The mods are what is making others continue to play the game. I would NEVER not go to HB or Verb again. Why play the same game over and over when there is new material to experience?

I am noticing that there are random encounters I HAVE to do. Ettins and bears. This does make it harder, but being random, it means I have to save every game upon travel.

I am just going to the temple factions, and I suspect it will not be hard. With 3 characters with Magiked Dwarven Plate, I do not see many successful hits.

My greatest concern is what about a year , or two, from now? Will the game be just mods with the central story as a backdrop, or will the game adapt and the central story strengthen the backbone and continue to suprise us? The fact is: when the game gets boring, people will stop playing, and stop caring. See where this is going..........