Reduced XP awards testing thread

I'm testing Cerulean the Blue's reduced XP modification now. I'm going to log my progress and level ups, and how difficult I found the game. I know at least one other person is doing this, hopefully this thread would encourage more testers - so if you're testing, please post your impressions as well here.

I'm testing this mod with a party of 7 PCs. They are all point-bought, so no characters with multiple 18s. (although they all have 16-18 in their respective primary stats).

The party composition is:
1) Bard - party face and hypnotizer.
2) Cleric - LG of Hieronious with Law and Good domains. Yes, I do intend to craft Holy Axiomatics later on, if the XP permits me. In fact I want to see if it's feasible with the reduced XP in the first place.
3) Wizard - well, nothing special here. Once again I intend to use him for crafting later.
4) Barbarian Half Orc - 'nuff said.
5) Paladin
6) Fighter
7) Druid with decent STR and CON. He doubles as a meatshield. So far he's kicking ass with the Shillelagh (2d6 +1!), later on I want him to be fighting wild shaped. Produce flame is also great (I'm not sure if it's an exploit or not that it always hits).

I'm going to try to avoid spell exploits like web, entangle and suggestion, as well as pole arms (since they aren't meant to be able to attack at 5 feet - and it's even worse if you cast enlarge person, which I do all the time).

Crafting is fair game as far as I'm concerned, due to the reduced XP.

Admittedly, I will be using my knowledge of the game for spell selection and pre-buffs. I can't just pretend not to know anything and make dumb decisions in that area.

So, here's what I've done so far:

-Left Hommlet with about 450 XP after doing about 3/4 of the quests. I didn't marry Meleny, because a +1 holy longsword seems a bit over the top for a fresh party. Might want to remedy this by making her courtship status dependent on the story state, like with the Laszlo quest.
[shameless plug] I gotta say, my Hommlet Shortcuts mod has made this part of the game much less painful![/shameless plug].

-Level 2 was reached after defeating the giant frogs, the brigands in the courtyard, and 2-3 random encounters.

-Went on clearing the Moathouse. Having 3-4 buffed meatshields (occasionally more due to charm person) made it fairly easy. I levelled up to 3 after killing everything in the Moathouse but the gnolls (whom I had paid off, to get the caravan encounter later) and Lareth. There were a couple of times where one of my chars were close to dying, but otherwise it was fairly easy.

-Killed Lareth in about 1-2 rounds, same for his spiders. That was a breeze - maybe we should have an 'on alert' mode for the Moathouse as well, where for instance if you kill his Sergeant at the entrance (the one close to the exit), and go back to Hommlet to sell the loot, Lareth moves back with his men outside his little room. Might mess up his scripting though.

-The 'big three' encounter was also very easy. Barely a scratch there. Got 407 XP from that one.

My impression so far is that playing with more than 5 PCs is more unbalancing than extra XP, especially since I've barely received any of that from the added mods so far!

Second session

-Ok, I after selling all the Moathouse loot (except the magic items I kept for myself) I headed off to the Orc Cave. Now that was pretty tough. Damned raging orcs going for my spellcasters I had to replay it about 4 times to get through with no deaths (still had my bard and cleric knocked out, the druid disabled, and the fighter with 1 HP left). There was a strange bug with the Orc Leader, though. He kept running away from me into the wall. Oh well.
The encounter netted 675 XP, and some powerful armor - the Trollbone armor. It's equivalent to a full plate - maybe it should be changed to something slightly weaker.

-So, at this point, my tanks are decked with Lareth's +1 breastplate, Troll Bone armor, and a Full plate I bought at Nulb from Ah Fong.

-Did some Nulb quests. Off to Hickory I go! (still at level 3)

-First few fights at Hickory Branch weren't too difficult. The key is to charm an orc or two (preferabley the sergeants, if there are any), and of course prebuff your guys: enlarge persons, bless, shield of faith, bull's strength (one disadvantage of having a large party is that buffs come at the expense of healing/offensive spells). The raging orcs can dish out relatively a lot of damage per blow, but using the above methods they are either killed before they can do anything or are busy with the critter you charmed.

-After about two fights at Hickory (~650 XP) and a random encounter with a troll (~130XP), I reached level 4. IIRC you were usually at that level at the start of Nulb or soon thereafter.

-Went back to Hommlet and bought some new spells for my wizard with the loot I got.

-Had a couple more fights at Hickory for about 500XP. Then to break the monotony, and finally get some masterwork weapons, I went for the Giant at Emridy Meadows. I lost my jackal animal companion in the fight (jackals kick ass by the way, they have the most HP except Polar/Brown bears), but otherwise only got hit 3 times before the giant and his bear fell. Got 314 XP from that encounter. The green elven chain was obsolete by then (most of my guys had low dex due to point buy, so they were better off with full plates). I remember that in vanilla ToEE the elven chain was usually a quantum leap in terms of armor, this is no longer the case. Perhaps Ah Fong should also have a quest attached to him, as with the Smyth.

-Skeleton priest was a pushover. 128XP.

-Got new jackal with 43HP! Heh.

-Returned to Hommlet and got a masterwork Greatsword for my Paladin, and crafted a supply of magic missle/burning hands scrolls for my wizard (since his slots are taken by buffs mostly).

-Went back to Hickory. Did some more fighting. The Ogre Shaman went down fairly easily (I didn't even bother raging my barbarian). That particular encounter netted over 700XP and 1k GP.

-Half-Orc captain fight: about 550XP, and barely a dent. Once again, the secret is to charm one of them (I charmed the captain, heh), buff your guys, and use your bard's fascinate ability right before the strongest enemies turn. Got a +1 warhammer and a Mithral Plate (!) from that encounter as well.

-Did another fight, which also went easily. Started getting cocky, and then I stumbled upon the Orc Commander. I was not expecting that fireball! Heh. Lost two PCs and reloaded. Will save that one for later.

-So, three-four Hickory engagements later, I'm level 5. Finally got fireball.

-After resting and levelling my characters in Hommlet, and selling some loot, I'm off to the Imeryds run. On the way there I meet Zaxis and he joins the party. Figured I could use another hypnotizer to keep the sea hag at bay.

-Well, unfortunately I was wrong. Zaxis has crap for perform skill. So I just used him for the Heroism spells and minor healing. The fight went well, since I managed to hold off the sea hag and most lizardmen with grease and stinking cloud while dealing with the Behemoth Kingfrog. I didn't have a chance to prebuff for the fight, but things went well nontheless. The bard (PC, not Zaxis) proved invaluable in fascinating the Behemoth. Fortunately for me, the beast wasted time grappling my druid instead of directly attacking me (a big mistake, since it becomes helpless when it does that and can't attack).

-The gar fell quickly, of course. All in all, another ~600XP, +1 magic ring, +2 magic sword, purple chain (which is, much like the green one, obsolete by now), and magic longbow.

-Dismissed Zaxis. He helped, but not as much as a human generated bard could with a good perform skill. I owe much to much bard's fascinate ability.

To summarize so far: I'm about 3/4 of the way done with Hickory branch, did most of what a lawful party can do in Nulb, and am only at the beginning of level 5. Despite this, I found the game fairly easy, so far, except for a couple of fights (Orc Cave and Orc Commander). And now that I have fireball, it will probably be even easier.
One problem I've noticed at Hickory branch, is that sometimes enemy groups are spread wide enough that you only engage about half of them at any one time.

Third Session

-Had a random encounter with an Ettin and some hobgoblis... where the ettin attacked the hobgoblins. I think we should create new protos with appropriate factions for this kind of thing. Anyway, it went down easily and granted +200XP.

-Back to Hickory. Killed the Orc Commander in two-three rounds; this time I prebuffed with protection from energy, and even managed to prevent the fireballing with a Stinking Cloud on the Orc spell casters. Then finished them off with lightning strikes and a fireball of my own. In short - not very hard after all, once you have decent spells. Spoils of war: +1700XP, about 400GP, Unholy +1 Double axe (worth over 17K GP), another Troll Bone armor, quarrel of bolts +1

-Dire bear didn't give me too much trouble either. 210XP.

-Fiendish Minotaur - would have been very tough if I hadn't lucked out with the Stinking Cloud. As it is, he got sickened on the very first round, and went down after some effort. +160 XP without a scratch. He has some crazy loot though - Robe of Midnight, worth over 60k GP, and that silver chaos sword (+1 chaotic freedom of movement granting bastard sword IIRC) also worth over 60k GP. Won't have any problem crafting after this, money wise.

So, I'm through with Hickory branch, about 2/3rds of the way to 6th level. Off to Verbobonc I go:

-I went to the Temple. Just as a test, I took on the Tower brigands fight. It was pretty tough, but I found a strategy that worked, with some luck in the initiative rolls:
Prebuff as usual, plus Protection From Arrows on the wizard and Prot from energy - fire (since the witches cast fireball)
Stinking cloud cast on the left portion of the tower - sickens the wizard, a witch, the leader, and most everyone else.
Take care of non-sickened brigands and witch (fairly easily done)
Tasha's laughter on brigand leader (so once the Stinking Cloud fades away he's still disabled)
'ball the bastards :evilgrin:, add a few lightning strikes, and wipe what's left after the stinking cloud vanishes.
Reloaded after that of course, cause I wanted to see the impact of Verbobonc on the Temple.

-At the Temple, went straight for Elysia without killing a single critter. Escorted her to Verbobonc, and went to work on the Drow.

-First three spider fights went well, except I didn't know yellow mold poison did freakin' 2d6 secondary constitution damage! After I left the dungeon, it killed my barbarian. Reload. Beat them again, again very easily, +840XP

-First Drow fight - well, they caught me off guard again with a fireball, but were summarily executed. Not very hard either. +640 XP, and...

Level 6! (except for the wizard who did a little scribing before)
Level 6 is a quantum leap for warriors IMO, since they get a second attack when doing a full attack. I think I can safely say the first temple level will be a breeze now if it wasn't already.

-Gargantuan spider didn't put up much of a fight. +514XP, +642 for my wizard who hadn't levelled up yet (he did now - another fireball slot!).

-Second Drow fight - there seems to be a bug, all but one fighter just stood there and did nothing. I think they were trying to get at my wizard, who was at the back, and were blocked by my warriors standing in the corridor. Needless to say, they barely scratched me. +835 XP for nothing pretty much - not to mention 2 full plates, 2 cloaks of arachnida (worth 5k+ GP), 2 daggers of venom (worth ~8k GP each; IIRC the AI can't use the poisoning effect anyway, so might want to replace with normal +1 daggers)

-Did some crafting finally. My Paladin now has a +2 Greatsword, and my Barbarian has a +2 Greataxe. My cleric and wizard are now 320XP behind the rest of the party as a result, and the money was negligible compared with all the loot I already had.

-So, after selling some loot at Hommlet, I'm back at Verbobonc. Man, prebuffing is getting to be one long ritual - 2 barkskins, 2 heroisms, 2 enlarge persons, 5 protection from energy/resist elements, bless, protection from evil, magic circle against evil, protection from arrows, mage armor, shillelagh... did I forget anything?

-Third Drow fight. Their fireballing attempts bounced off my protection from energy spells also, this is the second time a drow caster miscasts due to armor. Perhaps they should wear something lighter and prebuff with Mage Armor instead? (as with Livonya's mods). Anyway, they went down fairly easily. Got 1414XP, staff of frost, staff of fire, shield +2, rod of the viper (worth in total about 50k GP)

-Spiders in cave fight: Lost my puppy, earned ~1000XP. Wasn't very hard, despite the fact they were resistant to most spells. Again, whack, fascinate, rinse, repeat.

-White Dragon younglings: DAMMIT TO HELL!!! Killed all my spellcasters but the druid. In fact they pretty much ignored my fighters, who just couldn't kill them all in time. I had no protection from energies left at that point, since they were spent on fire protection, so I couldn't shield against the cold. Now that I think about it, I should have just used the flee from combat option when things got too hot (or should I say, cold). Anyway, reloaded from before the cave spiders fight (I got cocky again so I didn't save after that one - serves me right). The spiders went down even more easily this time (spell casters twiddling their thumbs), and the Wyrmlings fell victim to my stinking cloud before they could do much harm. +214XP for a difficult-in-the-right-circumstances fight.

-Adult white dragon... err, was too easy. The concealment was annoying, but due to my bard's fascinate trick the wyrm didn't get much of a chance to attack anyway (it only got one cone of cold off, which tickled my barbarian). Also, its attempt to scare my party was warded off by my Paladin's aura of courage (otherwise I might have been in trouble). About six-seven rounds after the fight started, the dragon flapped its wings no more. Rather disappointing. Rewards from the fight: 514XP, and a bunch of gem stones tucked in its scales... including 21 Jacinths!!! (worth over 92k GP) I think someone mixed up Jacinths and Rhodochorosites here....

-After reporting the drow and dragon to Wilfrick, thus completing the quests, I get about 550XP more. I am now about 700XP shy of level 7.

-Killing the Scarlet Brotherhood assassins nets another 1600XP and yet more expensive gear.

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In conclusion, after doing Verbobonc and Hickory branch, even with the reduced XP mod, you're still way too high level for the Temple with 7 PCs at level 7 packing +2 items, full plates, staffs of fire and frost, and enough GP to craft/buy whatever you want. It's better than the 8 character parties levelled 9-10 that people have been reporting, but clearly just reducing XP won't do the trick. It also screws over people who had a tough time in the Moathouse in the first place (IIRC, you were supposed to fight Lareth's guys at level 3, and that level up to 4) but I guess they can just take Elmo and Meleny's holy longsword.

 

Thanks for the report so far. Interesting stuff. Sounds like you're about 1 level behind where you'd be with full XP, if that much.

 

Updated impressions.

@Gaear: I usually have a tougher time at the game, actually, since I usually play with 5 PCs. Like I said, using 7 PCs just makes the game easier. It seems that 7 level 2 characters are just better than 5 level 3s, for the simple fact that they have more actions per round in total. Well, you can take Elmo of course, but that's almost a cheat as far as I'm concerned.

 

It depends. More low-level PCs are good when you're facing a lot of lower-powered enemies. When you're facing one high-powered enemy, you're better off with fewer, higher-level PCs. (Since it's easier for the high-powered enemy to kill low-level PCs). A level 5 Barbarian with Great Cleave is going to have a lot easier time with a group of 7 level 2s than he will with 5 level 3s. He's likely to kill a level 2 with one hit, and then cleave into their friends, likely killing them as well. Where as the level 3 PC has better chance of surviving that hit (though not neccessarily by much) giving him and his friends time to kill the barbarian. Also, the level 3s could have access to Web or Tasha's Hideous Laughter or Hold Person, whereas the level 2's definitely won't.

The problem is game balance in D&D is more of an art than a science. The numbers are there to help guide, but different combinations of characters and their abilities are going to determine whether an encounter is easy or hard just as much as the numbers do.

 

Absolutely!

Technically 7 PCs instead of 5 would increase their Encounter Level (think difficulty of encounter for non PNP'ers!) by 1. (Doubling numbers gives a 2 EL increase, so multiplying by 1.5 roughly gives a 1 EL increase). So theoretically 7 PCs of level 2 should be just worse than 5 PCs of level 3. However, as Kalshane rightly says, its more art than science. At lower levels there is even a wide variation (relatively) in hp to make a particular monster/character weaker or tougher.

Generally its true to say that increasing numbers is more challenging than beefing up individuals. Unlucky saves have less effect on total party/monsters force strength, concentration of force becomes more difficult or impossible, flanking is harder, "specials" such as trip can only be used on part of the force strength. Also, fights don't tend to be as "swingy" ie a swingy fight is one where a single hit (or not) by a powerful individual will determine the battle-might as well toss a coin for as much fun! This is why DMs are (within reason) advised by the DMG etc to add a couple of bodyguards to their Big Baddie rather than improve his own levels etc if they want to provide a bit more challenge.

On the other hand, the difference between spell power at key experience levels, as mentioned by Kalshane, can also be decisive, I admit.

My own limited experience of the game seems to support the higher party numbers being well worth the lower XP in terms of party effectiveness. (However, I haven't tried the 50% XP mod).

 

Fascinate is great. Basically, it makes the strong enemy lose a turn. By arranging the initiative order, you can arrange for your fighters not to break the fascination. For instance: suppose the intiative order is

Bard, Tank #1, not-as-powerful enemies, Wizard/sorcerer, Tank #2, strong enemy critter, the rest

So if you fascinate right away, if your tanks attack the strong enemy critter they will break the fascination. What you should do in this scenario is move the bard's position in the queue right before the strong enemy critter (by dragging their portrait):

Tank #1, not-as-powerful enemies, Wizard/sorcerer, Tank #2, Bard, strong enemy critter, the rest

Your warriors and other spellcasters can then take a whack at the strong enemy critter, and only after that do you fascinate it so it loses its turn.

Another great tactic of course is to put the strong critter on hold entirely (assuming there are others) while whacking its underlings/escort/cohorts. After you're done with them, again arrange the queue in the baddie whack/fascinate pattern before it takes action and whack away

The great thing about fascinate is that it depends on opposed skill checks. Essentially, for a 1st level Bard with 16 charisma, the DC for the fascinate save is 8 to 27 (4 from raw skill, +3 from Cha, plus 1d20), on average 17.5. None of the other level 1 spells can match that. Even higher if you take skill focus. When you level up it ups by one every time (and if you get a magic bardic instrument - another +2 or +3). Skill check affecting spells also help. What this amounts to is effectively a high DC enchantment spell (even intelligent foes with relatively high will saves will succumb to it) that bypasses spell resistance entirely.

However, there seems to be a bug where if your bard fascinates someone, and the fascination breaks due to external factors (e.g. your fighter whacked it), the Bard keeps playing the instrument (indefinitely), so before you can use the ability again you have to cast a spell or attack someone with the Bard to break up the playing (otherwise the game says 'invalid action'). I seem to remember it wasn't like this in patch2 ToEE.

 

Yup, Fascinate rocks. Between that, the other bard songs, and great enchantment spells often a full level before the party Wizard can have them, a Bard can really pull his weight.

 

Ok, I'm done testing. (see updated first post)

Any other volunteers?

 

I just finished Temple lvl 4 with 4 pc and 2 npc and everyone is lvl 10. Meleny is lvl 1 druid/9 wizard. 320kGP, but not enough xp to craft +3. With the sidequests and respawns i'd be at level 11/12. I'm not sure about the xp thing, but the treasure/gp is pretty excessive.

 

Thing is, Fascinate shouldn't work in combat at all, whether you whack the Fascinated critter or not.

.

I'd say this is a bug that needs to be fixed, as it contributes to the game being too easy. (Of course, Charm Person/Monster are the same way. Hitting someone with a Charm spell should not make them turn against their friends.)

 

Interesting report. Thanks.

 

I have just started a game with 6 PCs in my
party with no intention of inviting NPCs.
Party members are:
[1]Two-weapon Fighting Dwarf (I rolled some
uber stats so I lowered them a little),
[2]An Elven fighter (wearing drow mask )
pretending to be a dark elf and hoping that the
matron mother doesn't kill him),
[3]Human cleric of Pelor (cute blonde from Icewind
Dale )
[4]Gnomish bard who'll do all the talking.
[5]Halfling rogue (wanted to make someone
like Belkar of OoTS, but I had no room for a
ranger )
[6]Human Wizard

 

Belkar works best as a Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue anyway.