Tales of the Wild Coast Discussion Thread

It's brilliant! you guys rock:dribble:

 

Regarding:

Can you elaborate on this? Specifically the "If all you want to do is fight the Verbobonc regional guard all day, go ahead and slaughter peasants and such. You won't have time for anything else." part.

 

Repercussions are one thing, but I wouldn't want an effective endgame for, say, butchering Hommlet and Nulb, for several reasons:

1. They are fairly insignificant locations (correct me if I'm wrong).
2. It was a supported playstyle in the original game (you could get to the Moathouse by killing Burne and taking his map, and then get to the Temple by killing Alira and likewise taking her map to the Temple).
3. Tim Cain even stated this would be supported (link).
4. It's just generally a Troikaish/Cain-Boyarski-Anderson design principle to restrict players as little as possible, particularly in this regard. See Fallout and Arcanum.

An occasional pack of bounty hunters / vigilantes / Paladins / Verbobonc Guards (etc.) encountered on the world map (or in an ambush, or waiting in a Tavern, etc) sounds more reasonable and fun to me.

In Verbobonc's case, I guess it would make more sense, and it's new, optional content after all. I wouldn't even mind automatically ending the game with a slideshow, say, if you butchered almost everyone in the available sectors and lingered too long / dared to return there.

 

Is this intended for evil aligned parties only? I can remember getting the butcher rep and got attacked everywhere and no merchants to deal with. The only "safe" place was the moathouse and temple. I could still clear the temples and get the loot, but couldn't come up with enough money to craft stuff. I never got thru level 4 and had to quit. It was a hassle. I'm not sure if you could complete the game under those conditions. If so, it would be tough. There's a lot of magic armor and weapons in the temple and it may be enough to get by on without any crafting. There's a lot of money in Hedrack's chests but that's not until the end of level 4. Being stuck in the temple is not a good thing, but you can still adventure a good bit. Just how far you can go is the question.

 

I would think, that in order to be realistic, the party should be pursued by escalatingly more difficult groups. Maybe the first group is some guards, then the second is the Kron Hills Militia, then the third Gnarley Forest Rangers, and so on. Eventually, the party is going to be faced with a group they simply can't beat, because they are such a huge threat themselves that the most powerful NPCs are coming after them. While I would agree that being evil should not be a block to being able to play the game, mass homicide or wanton slaughter should have negative repercussions in a civilized society (which Hommelt is, considering it is a major stopping point on the trade routes between Verbobonc, Greyhawk, and Celene).

 

At first, I was all for the large unbeatable army (or whatever). However, I was talking to someone about this issue and he brought up the point that it isn't logical to have a large unbeatable (good) group as described in the game. If one existed, there would be no need for the party to take on Zuggy...the large unbeatable group would take care of it. Unless some way could be found that is logical to the game.

I like the idea of increasing the strength of the groups that attack whomever is wantonly killing the populace, but...again...you come up to a point that isn't logical.

My friend said perhaps St. Cuthbert could send something in to defeat the the slaughterer(s). But why wouldn't he then send that force to defeat Zuggy, et all?

One solution might be to have some undefeatable evil force take on the killers, eventually. Out of jealousy, perhaps? Or to prevent eventual rivalry? That solution would introduce another end goal to the game, though. For Evil. Might be interesting, if it could even be done.

 

Makes sense.
Poaching on the perserves of the Scarlet Brotherhood or local mob would surely evoke
a violent response.

 

Why not?

If you implement the "consequences" ala BG, with never-ending waves of mid-strength groups, you'll accomplish your goals in a more realistic type setting.

Gaear, you hit it on the head with your BG experience. I've had the same thing happen and it's not fun. Even with an uber party, you're gonna run out of resources and have zero time to rest, heal and re-learn spells. After a few battles, your spell casters are going to be little more than damage absorbing sponges.


EDIT: It seems that "evil" parties real only option (that the games programmed for) is to join up with or totally take over the Temple. Slaughtering everyone and then trying to finish the game doesn't appear to work.

Think about it, from this point of view... an evil party looking to either join or take over the Temple wouldn't necessarily kill everyone in a huge radius. It would attract way too much attention and seriously compromise their plans. They would work quietly, gaining strength and influence, (much in the same way evil does today) until it was time to strike a decisive enough blow so that the forces of good could not, or would be hard pressed, to mount any sort of counter attack.

 

This is when you cast teleport in between waves. :yes:

 

In the Witcher there's a bounty hunter and he is one bad dude. If the witcher strays and kills innocents then the bounty hunter shows up. He has 2 options, pay a very large fee and get forgiveness, or die. I like the bounty hunter idea. Wanted dead or alive. A random encounter with a really bad bounty hunter might cause the evil ones to think about changing their tactics.
After the bounty hunters have killed most of the evil perpetrators, they would be isolated to the moathouse/temple. Not game-ending, but would make things tough. You can heal in the circular stairway but can't scribe or craft. The moathouse tower is safe but a random encounter with the bounty hunter might upset that trip. Teleport is a 5th level spell for a 9th level wizard. If the bad guys are that high in level, then that would complicate things. Lots of interesting possibilities here.

 

Because it's something the original developers explicitly intended for you to be able to do. The CE party alignment practically begs you to do that. And it's fun! I don't want it to be taken away, certainly not as crudely as with BG's endless teleporting mercenaries.

What makes you say that? You can very well kill everyone and finish the game. Certainly you can slaughter Nulb and Hommlet and finish it (which is what the discussion practically is about).