Things to do, places to go, people to see....

No, the wolf/worg was already dead (or at least below 0 HP). I do get the mid-battle stoppage of play and dialogue, and the offer to leave peaceably, and I agree to leave peaceably, but then everybody starts fighting again for no reason.

Those are the ones, although I'm not really complaining about the RNG this time (though it remains a constant antagonist throughout my games ). I'm just talking about their uber stats/abilities. Think about it: if the Temple had simply dispatched that gang to the Moathouse when trouble first arose there, or god forbid had them stationed there to begin with, the problem (my level 3 group) would have been eliminated in the blink of an eye without those bugbears even breaking a sweat. Now, many levels later, this group of elites just happens to be hanging around the 3rd level of the temple, doing nothing in particular. I know CRPGs are set up for linearity to match levelups, but there's got to be some degree of realism mixed in too.

The only thing I can think of is that they're the absolute cream of the crop in bugbear society, the very best of the best culled from across the entirety of Greyhawk. They're no mere soldiers. But if this is the case they ought to at least be personal bodyguards for Hedrack himself, or you should encounter them somewhere en route to a mission-critical temple raid (like assassinating Terjon or something like that). I'm trying to remember now if there are more of them down there ... I guess I'll find out soon enough. :nervous:

Sorry to harp on this, but it's another example of what could (and should) have been used to give this game some story, some flavor, but it wasn't. Instead they're just another inexplicably high-leveled but anonymous group of monsters waiting for you behind another closed door.

 

That's not bad HK, but we could even do something so simple as to have them - maybe with Smigmal Redhand after your first fight with her - waiting for you at the bottom of the stairs to level 3. That way it could at least seem like Smigmal made some effort to get reinforcements instead of taking you on alone a second time, in the same room where you fought her the first time, with half her hit points. The existing SR dialogue would do for this as far as exposition goes.

Problem is, I have no idea how to do any of that.

[edit]

Thinking of this a bit more ...

When you first encounter Falrinth in his office, there is one possible outcome where he runs off (if you intimidate him). When you first encounter Smigmal, she bluffs you and runs off if you don't kill her first, only to reappear later. We could make it so that together (since they're cohorts or whatever) they appear at the foot of the stairs to temple level 3 when you get there, with the uber-bugbears. This would make sense because they could have both gone directly there to get help after running off. It could explain why Smigmal's still at half HP, because that fight would have just happened (unless you left and came back). And it would offer some reason for the bugbears being there too - e.g., they're shock-trooper types capable of scrambling quickly that are waiting around near the entryway for just such an emergency.

Now that would be one hell of a battle, both memorable and meaningful, because there's some plot behind it. You could say without regret that your noble mage was killed battling the evil Smigmal and Falrinth and their brutish band of tripping bugbear muscle, as opposed to shaking your head over him being killed by another batch of anonymous and randomly placed monsters.

Smigmal would have to do all the talking, because her part 2 dialogue would be the only suitable stuff available, but I think that's okay. If you already killed Falrinth, he could be left out of that battle. Likewise if Smigmal was dead, the whole thing could be called off, or you could be left with the bugbears alone just seeming to guard the entrance.

I'll see if maybe I can steal some of Blue's .py scripts from the Moathouse Ambush mod and see what happens. Don't have much hope though, because lately my game has refused to acknowledge any modified .py files whatsoever.

 

Hate those guys. They used to make me tear my hair out, til I decided that if this was a Temple, those were the Shaolin bugbears

 

@HK - I was actually thinking of that lobby outside Scorpp's room and the bugbear rooms for the battle locale, which I think would be big enough. Although thinking of it now, that might not be the greatest because you could just as easily come in another way.

Including the assassin would make sense and be intriguing, although I think we'd need to use caution not to make the battle too difficult. With the assassin around, at least one spellcaster is virtually assured of being killed at his hands alone. (And that's not even considering having all those uber bugbears around, tripping and criticalling away while Falrinth casts support spells.) Also, I suspect that the assassin may actually be more badass than Smigmal, which would be made curiously obvious by having them fighting together. He's supposed to be subserviant to her after all.

Unfortunately it looks like this discussion will be moot anyway, because all that code I was thinking of stealing is basically utter gibberish to be - well beyond my modding capabilities. I do appreciate the back and forth though.