My ToEE playthrough notes

There's a D&D 3.5 optimization community out there?

What do they optimize?

 

I think the word optimization is highly subjective and I wouldn't take the opinion of people, whose objective is to imbue their characters with world changing abilities at the earliest possible level in breach of the spirit of the game, seriously as to whether D&D 3.5 is balanced or not......

 

They optimize their unreasonable interpretations of ambiguous rules text for the most outrageous internet forum posts about scenarios that wouldn't occur in an actual game.

 

Btw, why are human enemies in temple are so weak in HP? Especially High Temple Guards with 12hps seems like a joke any bugbear around in the same area.

 

Let's make new threads. The original topic stopped happening long enough ago.

 

Room for improvement - Efreeti encounter in Fire Node.



AI is a joke. This is unfortunate, as could be much much better.

First of all Efreeti can fly and immune to fire. So I, as game designer, would place them over lava to the left and right. Stepping over lava for a PC should deal 10d6 of fire damage (DMG p303). So it's practically impossible to walk over it. Therefore Efreeti are somewhat safe against melee attacks.

Next Efreeti should spam 3 wall of fire (CL 12 = 20ft*12 long) to cover all possible standing grounds. It is 2d6+12 fire damage. Afterwards they should spam two scorching ray at-will spell-like abilities: one from quicken spell and second one as standard action.

I would also check how much damage the spell deals to determine who does not have fire resistance and focus on that PC. Or focus them both on one PC, preferably on Wiz/Src.

Also Efreeti should have loot, MM 115:
Treasure: Standard coins; double goods; standard items

 

Air Node Vrock just has been tripped by a wolf. It is a bug obviously as it can fly.

 

ToEE doesn't have flying.

Also, just because you can fly, doesn't mean you are flying at any given moment. There are also rules for tripping flying opponents. Vrocks don't fly well enough to avoid these.

 

Speaking of efreeti, what if the balor asked for a wish from his two efreet companions? Could be fun for everyone

 

One of the new areas in BG2EE has a fight with

Spoiler: some guy

Szass Tam

where he's scripted to use a ring of three wishes the first time you nearly beat him. It's pretty cool, since usually only the player (ab)uses that spell.

Edit: if AI is being improved, though, you'd have to be really careful with that encounter. It's basically impossible for a level 10 party to beat a balor unless the latter acts very foolishly. I'm not sure there's a serious chance unless the party is almost level 20, which they won't be in normal ToEE. And if there are wishes on top, that's even less of a chance.

 

Agree. But we also could Dominate a whole Temple bugbears, priests, etc to bring with us to a Balor, for example. But it's all does not make any sense coz Balor role in the game are being beatable boss to a level 9-10 party that's it. Hard, but beatable.

 

Yeah, much like the god avatars it's only possible because he acts like any other melee mook. Giving him his Blasphemy ability alone would basically destroy any level 10 party.
On the other hand, it could be cool if it were a real challenge that made you pull no punches. For example, practically forcing you to defeat the other guardians first and to summon them, getting scorpp/oohlgrist on board, etc. Could be a fun mod.

 

Balor should not be beatable on level 10. Even on level 19-20 it should be tough.

I do not understand why they even added Balor here. Original module does not have Balor, but it has two Red Dragons. I would put either adult (CR 15) or young adult (CR 13) for the purpose.

 

They probably did not want to do the textures/meshes/animations for dragons. Given the fiend progression, a Marrilith would have made more sense.

 

Probably for marketing. That balor is all over the promotional art