Paladin's Cove beta release, and feedback

Happy New Year.

 

I figured out why the Werehouse leader did not spawn on the shoreline for my evil party. My cleric had commanded the undead and, even though they were killed subsequently, the script conditions were not met. I had to delete any mention of them from def_minions_dead in her .py file.

Just a question: would it be better storytelling / DMing if at least her humanoid followers appeared together with her right hand man? Having the ROUS's splash in the water after the dialog would still be cool, imho. Consider if there should be a difference if the party approaches from the NW or from the tunnel.
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I experienced a problem at the snow sisters' monastary. Similar to how the bandit gnoll druid's attack dog got affected by his master's Calm Animal spell, this winter gnoll shaman's summons were triggering Aopps from both sides of the battle. Another thing, round about this time in the battle, the screen "shifted" a bit resulting in all mobs stuck in place. They could full attack, cast spells but no movement.

Four minor things on protos:

1. Octavius has 99 Dex. Should it be 19?
2. Kaleela's level is 3 (which is supported by her dialog), but she has skills and feats as if 2nd level
3. If I recall correctly weapon proficiencies: halfling_nunchaku, etc... do not work (as of Co8) for flurry of blows. Has anyone tested with a small monk? The solution is to change protos to remove the "halfling" part of the entry in the weapon class column.
4. What to do about the Kukri (they should be martial)? Tonfa (I'm pretty sure they shouldn't be exotic either, so I made mine use quarterstaff weapon class)?

Now for some personal peaves:

1. I do realize the creator is looking to increase challenges with a harder than normal balance but, seriously, orc mooks with +7 strength??? They only get +4 for strength so +6 should be max from 18. Any more than that should be a spell buff or gauntlets of ogre power.
2. Since the ambush at the Riverside Inn happened outside a building that has windows, perhaps a spot / listen check when opening the door would be a nice feature. The PCs could then come out ready. All ambushes should allow for perception checks, right?
3. Syylvie's illusory trolls had +8 strength. Is there any way to get the critter to follow the rules for Shadow Magic spell? Was there a saving throw? No. Dispel Magic also didn't work. Could they do non-lethal damage or half & half? These would be cool spells for PC illusionists to use.
4. I lost a bunch of thrown weapons in the corpse of the Evil Spirit when it disappeared. Yay console!
5. I tried to disrupt the gnoll shaman's spell casting with Magic Missile. Concentration checks were made for each missile rather than for the total damage (which is what I remembered in ToEE and according to the SRD). Is my memory faulty, or is this a bug?
6. Sometimes, enemies are not targetable. I just had a gnome assassin who moved past Pierce's combat reflexes, didn't need to Tumble. On her turn, she tried to target him. His circle was green - couldn't attack. Then the gnome moved away to another PC and no tumble checks. What's going on? Even if he were hiding, he shouldn't be moving at speed before making an attack. I'm trying to remember how this worked with the assassins in ToEE.
7. What's up with Zolroth? He's a veritable necromantic killer when provoked with AC22 and no equipment?? Dex, Magic Vestment and Shield of Faith??? He has no feats and way too many skills. Thus, no loot??? Amulets, rings, weapon, etc...?
8. I paid an arm and a leg to purchase a wand of cure light wounds in town, but it only had 20 charges. All of your wands have only 20 charges. And the elven vendor didn't have more cure wands in stock.
9. Not a peave, but a suggestion / question - Could the poor boxes be used by PCs to store stuff? Perhaps locker space could be rented out?

If you are making the adventure harder for players who cheat, that's on them. Personally, I try to keep my PCs rule compliant as well as "cheese-free", and I hope the DM is also keeping within the rules. My characters are only 4th level and only scribing scrolls; however, I'm pretty sure they need at least Wonderous Items to stay "competitive" with this extremely challenging module. I have already read here that adding NPCs might be a short-term fix, but it will amplify the aforementioned problems at higher levels. Ah, that reminds me of

#10. I am pleased that Max HP for the party and monsters works. However, disabling Humble NPCs is something that punishes honest players. Encumbrance and full inventories are an annoyance. On the other hand, I would like the NPCs to take their share of gold, which - apparently - is not currently happening. Perhaps, full share (and then no obligation to share magic items) or half-share (with the tacit understanding that equipment will be shared).

Again, excellent story telling. I look forward to your return so we can discuss the DMing. Perhaps the one thing we all need to remember is in most encounters, we can't use the Retreat function (which is a real option in most pnp encounters).

 

I think Marc was going to fix the "flee combat" not working in some battles by moving monsters out of the doorway, e.g. the dire bats in the belfry blocking retreat.

If I were to review this thread and summarize the issues identified by playtesters, the suspected culprits, and Marc's plans to fix, would someone be willing to work on PalCo in Marc's indeterminate absence?

 

Are the sibling fighters supposed to be ungrateful after adventuring? They attack after I go through their dialog. Here's how I tested

• through dialog - they attack no matter if in town or at their bar
• I used the manual remove npc, and they attacked.
• I leveled them up, then dismissed them and they attacked
• I went back to the point in time where I added them, then dismissed them. Interestingly, I dismissed Pierce first, then I did Thok who thought that Pierce was dead. They both ran off together.

I'm assuming this is a bug, but who knows! Maybe there is a bit of Turuko in them

EDIT: Interesting! I could disband them normally on the previous save, that is, before the 3rd goblin at the guild house encounter. After the encounter (which gave them enough XP to levelup), I added the cleric and barbarian and tried to get rid of the siblings. Strange! Is it some kind of reputation / faction thing?

Just curious - Are there dialogs about each other's HP, unconsciousness, death, triggerable in combat - or do we have to manually TALK to them? Thok didn't say anything about his sister dying at the monastery nor after her death. I reloaded the previous save to get an outcome where they both lived. Now I think I'll go back to where she died!

EDIT MORE: I figured the last save I had was corrupted, so I restarted from before the infiltrator fight. I tried to break up with them after the fight, but they got violent. So we put them to sleep. I saved the game before the coup de grace to see the outcomes.

1. Execution - went outside and everyone in the market was outraged about two visiting humans humans (but not the goblin or the gnomes).
2. Reload - All bodies present for a split second, then the goblin, all the gnomes, AND the two sleepers were gone! I have never seen that happen before. I did a thorough search for secret doors with / without magic - NONE?? The party then went back to the sleazy bar to get paid, and the siblings were invisible and sleeping. I came back later and they were gone. Very strange!