Reduced XP awards testing thread

Hehehe +1 to skill check :icon_chuc

 

Yes, lots of classes lost skills and perks in ToEE. Why take it out on Bards? What did a Bard ever do to you?

Troika left Fascinate in to make Bards more attractive as a class choice. Your Bard will never be as good as your Rogue. Cleric. Druid or Fighter in combat, he'll never be as good as the Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric or Druid in magic, he'll never quite have the Rogue's skills. The non-combat abilities that keep him attractive in Pen and Paper games aren't worth much in ToEE. He's not even as good a Fighter/Wizard combination as a Druid or Cleric. He gets a little bit of everything, but without his songs he doesn't have anything special to recommend him in a CRPG.

As to Fascinate itself, in ToEE it gives you a reasonable chance to hold one enemy out of combat at the cost of your Bard's other possible actions, and only lasts until someone attacks that enemy. It's more useful in combat than it would be in a tabletop game, but it's not a game breaker.

 

I actually love taking Bards in ToEE and I never use the Fascinate ability. They make great face(wo)men (unlike the Rogue, they need a good Charisma anyway), good backup healers (you can never have too much healing) and Inspire Courage is great to have. An automatic +1 to hit and damage (or more) for your entire party. It's better than Bless and means my Cleric doesn't have waste a spell slot on it (since they don't stack). Plus, they get Tasha's Hideous Laughter as a 1st level spell, which is damn useful. On top of that, if they have extra skill points to spare, you can also pump up Use Magic Device, hand them a wand of fireballs (or whatever) and let them play secondary artillery as well.

I usually take a Half-Elven (for the social skill bonuses) or Human bard, give them a bow and appropriate feats and multi-class them into Fighter for one or two levels for extra feats, ranks in Intimidate, and the ability to use a long bow.

They make a completely valuable member of my team and the Bard being faceman frees up the Rogue to concentrate on having thiefy skills and not having to spend a good score on Charisma. .

So I don't see removing Fascinate as crippling them in the slightest.

 

Fair enough. I would not and did not say that taking away fascinate cripples the Bard; it does however take away one of the very few things the Bard alone can do, leaving players with less incentive to take one along. I wouldn't want to see it go.

 

Now that we have at least one run through with the XP multiplier set at 50%, lets see what reducing it even more will do. How about 40%.

 

Sorry about todays' lack of any update, I couldn't
play too much. Have to finish my linguistics assignment.
Oh, and while you're here, could you move the fascinate issues
somewhere else? It has nothing to do with xp reduction topic.

 

I realize this is just for testing purposes, but I'd really hate to see the XP awards drop below 50% as a final solution. You don't want players to have to slog too long between levels. Otherwise people will feel frustrated and like they're not accomplishing much. And keep in mind, while crafting can get out of hand and make things too easy, the nodes and Zuggy are practically undoable without holy and/or cold weapons to penetrate DR.

 

Once again, I would point out we won't know how long is too long, or how much reduction is too much, until we test it. Many people, including you Kalshane, said negative things about reducing it to 50% before it was tested. Now it seems that 50% is not very noticeable. Let's see some data before we go forming opinions.

 

Hey, I noticed things weren't right when the XP was set to 70% before I even knew Troika had done that. So whether or not it's noticeable is relative.

When I get some free time, I'll do that complete reinstall and try the 50% adjust and see what I think of it. Probably won't be until after the holidays, though.

 

Hmm... How to say this... I had other unexpected
problems at the moathouse with Lareth's guards
ending with one reload and the party being exhausted
after the fight (every character below 50%HP) + over
700xp points. Lareth on the other hand was easy, I think
it's illogical that he doesn't know you're there if there is
a battle going on at his door. With this I could easily heal
and regain all my spells to kill him. I think he should come
out of his chamber when the fight is done so that it would
make the player fight against him or just kill him, or at least
make respawns of his minions (just like you plan to do in the
temple) so that it won't be this easy. Oh, I killed him twice,
that is I reloaded before the fight because he didn't even had a
chance call to for reinforcements ("Lolth protect me!"dialogue),
since my team slaughtered him before he could even move.
After the reload he did call them, but it was also easy (it's sensible
if the party is weakened after encountering his guards, but with
freshly a rested one... it was easier than ghouls in the moathouse).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Done with Turuko and friends with no bigger problems... Went to
Orc Cave... Hmm as far as I know the battle is scaled according
to the character's level? Well at level 3 it's too easy. None of the
orcs even hit me. I remember coming there with a higher level
party, now, this was a challenge. I've noticed that Orc Shaman does
not cast any spells, he tried to fight instead. Update Coming soon.
PS. Still no level up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Done Amii quest... I suggest spawning other creatures where the
medicine is instead of shadows. The player might not have magic
weapons to fight against. I had the holy longsword (but sold Lareth's
Staff).

 

Yes, he can animate dead, he's level 5.
Oh and one more thing. Great idea with
the slider Kalshane! eace: This will keep
everybody satisfied and will provide sort of
an adjustable difficulty level which the original
game lacked.

 

Sure! Everyone knows that the best minions are Undead minions!

 

Agreed! :joy: :joy: Braaaaaiiiiinnnnn....
Next update coming soon... I think.... on Thursday.