Alternative to NoXp/NoLoot script wall.

[NegInfinity]

Based on discussion here:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=64163

It would seem the no travel rule and script wall exists pretty much because of drow spell resistance, pretty much, which gives them advantage in PvP. In addition to that people seem to have issues with drow specifically and not UD denizens in general.

Also, this post is mostly concerned with UD-->Surface direction, and not the Surface-->UD travel.

So. Instead of OOC "noxp, no loot" script wall, that doesn't make sense, I propose following alternatives.

Alternative #1. Certain races are marked as "Monsters" and travel restriction applies only to those. Because they aren't supposed to be up there. The races would be Duergar, Drow and Tanarukk.

Alternative #2. When travelling to surface, Drow lose their spell resistance partially or completely.

Optionallly: When defeated in PvP, UD denizen is sent back home and cannot return to return to surface for some time.

So?

[aaron22]

i dont love any of the options as i think it still discriminates poorly. should pali's get a debuff when they travel down?

[NegInfinity]

i dont love any of the options as i think it still discriminates poorly. should pali's get a debuff when they travel down?

I think I mentioned that this only applies to UD-->Surface direction and not the other way around.

Given that UD has lower population, less zones and will most likely be unable to withstand fullscale surfacer invasion, it could make sense to keep some measure for surfacers in UD in place. HOwever, this is not a part of this proposal and should be discussed in a separate topic.

----

Simply put, current rules - which I do not really like - apparenlty were created solely because of the drow race. So it would make sense to reduce the impact from ALL denizens of UD to just drow only.

I think affecting only drow would be reasonable. Drow are supposed to be stuff of nightmares, and are pretty much "monster" races. So picking a drow entails extra responsbilities.

----
As for your paladin, he should probably be captured and fed to illithids, unless he or she is very careful about it.

[aaron22]

i read your OP and i am baffled at the proposal of such a one sided concept. and i do not feel like we should assume the population of sshamath is exactly proportionate to the number of players there.

just punish the offenders.. if the offenders get punished severely enough it will stop. until you gotta do it again.. then a reminder.

the rule feels like putting everyone in jail because some random guy in Portugal committed murder.

[Flasmix]

i dont love any of the options as i think it still discriminates poorly. should pali's get a debuff when they travel down?

Why would Paladin's get a debuff for going into the Underdark? That is a class choice which even Tieflings, Drow or Orcs can make and still start in the UD. You're going to have to go with it being based on starting location instead of making an odd strawman argument. And if you made it 'why don't surfacers have a debuff?' I would say randomly falling down is quite the debuff.

You also have to understand that the surface was designed for surface characters. It does not take SR into account, which the UD does thus giving them a higher advantage to going through surface content. There is also a lore background for this to be a possibility and it's found in the Complete Book of Elves, a 2nd edition book.

If the drow spends more than two weeks away from the subterranean caverns of the
Underdark, the special advantages fade at the rate of one power a day. This starts from the
most innate spellcasting and works down to the least powerful. Thus, a drow priest would first
lose dispel magic, followed by suggestion, clairvoyance, and detect lie. Drow magic
resistance is lost at a rate of 10% per day. This process can be halted and the powers regained if the drow returns to the Underdark and spends one day there for each week spent
above ground.

Of course, if such a change goes in it wouldn't be slowly losing SR based on spending 24 hours on the surface. It would be an immediate affect that cancels out upon returning to the UD. This is to maintain the balance in which the surface content was created for if such a restriction is lifted.

[NegInfinity]

i read your OP and i am baffled at the proposal of such a one sided concept. and i do not feel like we should assume the population of sshamath is exactly proportionate to the number of players there.

just punish the offenders.. if the offenders get punished severely enough it will stop. until you gotta do it again.. then a reminder.

the rule feels like putting everyone in jail because some random guy in Portugal committed murder.

Like you, I dislike invisible wall scripts instead of IC consequences.

However, I've wasted ton of time pretty much arguing to a wall in that thread. This is the last attempt at finding a somewhat more sane compromise.

You're free too come up with another one compromise if you can think of one..

Flasmix lore explanation seemed reasonable enough, as it is backed by lore. If the reason was spell resistance, why not.

[Nemni]

Optionallly: When defeated in PvP, UD denizen is sent back home and cannot return to return to surface for some time.

This is what I would like and have suggested before. I imagine it would work something like this:

If a char gets killed on the other side, then they are prevented from going back for let's say 1 week. In addition they get a further cooldown period of 2 months. If they return to the surface after their one week of "hard lockout" and get killed again their lockout period is doubled to 2 weeks (and then doubled again etc). If they aren't killed for their cooldown period then both variables reset (so that another death after 2 months would give only 1 week lockout once again).

The purpose of this is to discourage people from engaging in reckless pvp. This is no permastrike, but at least it costs your char some freedom. And it gives "defenders" a semi-permanent way to handle invaders IC, regardless of if you see the drow doing evil or if you just don't want them to be there without consequences. Any UD race should think twice about just casually strolling around the FAI if such a rule was in place.

The rules should apply the same for any surfacers going into the UD.

[NegInfinity]

Optionallly: When defeated in PvP, UD denizen is sent back home and cannot return to return to surface for some time.

This is what I would like and have suggested before. I imagine it would work something like this:

If a char gets killed on the other side, then they are prevented from going back for let's say 1 week. In addition they get a further cooldown period of 2 months. If they return to the surface after their one week of "hard lockout" and get killed again their lockout period is doubled to 2 weeks (and then doubled again etc). If they aren't killed for their cooldown period then both variables reset (so that another death after 2 months would give only 1 week lockout once again).

The purpose of this is to discourage people from engaging in reckless pvp. This is no permastrike, but at least it costs your char some freedom. And it gives "defenders" a semi-permanent way to handle invaders IC, regardless of if you see the drow doing evil or if you just don't want them to be there without consequences. Any UD race should think twice about just casually strolling around the FAI if such a rule was in place.

The rules should apply the same for any surfacers going into the UD.

One week on the first attempt sounds like an overkill to me, but I guess the exact duration can be decided by whoever implement it, because it is largely a minor detail.

One server I played had a feature which locked you up in fugue if you got pvp-killed. You could end up sitting there for 20 minutes or more. That felt long.

So, I'd start with an RL hour. But, once again, this can be adjusted.

[Nemni]

You aren't locked out from playing, just from playing on the other side. It should make sense for a char that died (or near died) to spend some time licking their wounds before trying something like that again. And the whole point is to give everyone else a meaningful reprieve.

[chad878262]

If we were to look at going away from the no xp/no loot script I would say there needs to be some limitations and some major negatives the longer you hang about. For example...

- Limit XP from kills to 1,000 per hour. Can still gain XP in case of incidental contact while exploring, but circle grinding would be cut down a great deal, since you can get more than 1K per hour doing the grinding where you belong.

- Limit chests that will drop loot to 10 per 6 hours on the other side. Again, you can loot incidental chests while RP'ing, but going on a 'loot run' on the other side will be limited.

- All racial abilities are turned off for Drow, Svirfneblin, Duergar, Deep Imaskari and Tannaruk. These are Underdark races and their abilities are attuned to the Underdark. So no Spell Resistance or any other racial abilities apply outside of the UD.

- Apply 10% Spell Failure for every 30 minutes you stay on the other side (applies to surfacers and underdark). Either the insane light or darkness makes it more difficult to concentrate on spell casting. Applies to all casters (such as deafness, but slowly increasing every 30 minutes).

- After the first hour, reduce all stats by 1, then by 2 more each subsequent hour (so -3 after two hours, -5 after 3 hours, -7 after 4 hours. Ensure abilities cannot drop below 1). This will keep trips short unless for purposes of RP and will also perhaps remind players on either side they are someplace they don't belong and their PC does not like.

The last three will help to address PvP issues as well on both sides of the server while encouraging any trips to be kept to an hour or less (unless for non-combat RP). Should a player engage in the appropriate RP and be approved by DMs to 'live' on the other side these should be able to be adjusted or negated accordingly, but only via DM granting a token or something.

These may be a bit harsh, but if penalties have limited actual impact then they will be ineffective. By making them harsh and having additional time based penalties it will avoid undesirable scenarios. Or at a minimum such scenarios will be very difficult for ne'er-do-wells to stage.

Edit: the stat loss is a bad idea. Reducing STR has the unfortunate side effect of making it so the PC eventually won't be able to move. So perhaps make it Skills/AB/Damage/AC/Saves penalties that start relatively minor after 1 hour, but compound quickly in each subsequent hour. Would be nice if could also lower spell DCs somehow, but spell failure should address that issue so long as it's made in such a way that it can't be avoided by Auto-still or any other feat/ability. Point being to negatively impact the effectiveness over time.

[NegInfinity]

If we were to look at going away from the no xp/no loot script I would say there needs to be some limitations and some major negatives the longer you hang about. For example...

- Limit XP from kills to 1,000 per hour. Can still gain XP in case of incidental contact while exploring, but circle grinding would be cut down a great deal, since you can get more than 1K per hour doing the grinding where you belong.

- Limit chests that will drop loot to 10 per 6 hours on the other side. Again, you can loot incidental chests while RP'ing, but going on a 'loot run' on the other side will be limited.

- All racial abilities are turned off for Drow, Svirfneblin, Duergar, Deep Imaskari and Tannaruk. These are Underdark races and their abilities are attuned to the Underdark. So no Spell Resistance or any other racial abilities apply outside of the UD.

- Apply 10% Spell Failure for every 30 minutes you stay on the other side (applies to surfacers and underdark). Either the insane light or darkness makes it more difficult to concentrate on spell casting. Applies to all casters (such as deafness, but slowly increasing every 30 minutes).

- After the first hour, reduce all stats by 1, then by 2 more each subsequent hour (so -3 after two hours, -5 after 3 hours, -7 after 4 hours. Ensure abilities cannot drop below 1). This will keep trips short unless for purposes of RP and will also perhaps remind players on either side they are someplace they don't belong and their PC does not like.

The last three will help to address PvP issues as well on both sides of the server while encouraging any trips to be kept to an hour or less (unless for non-combat RP). Should a player engage in the appropriate RP and be approved by DMs to 'live' on the other side these should be able to be adjusted or negated accordingly, but only via DM granting a token or something.

These may be a bit harsh, but if penalties have limited actual impact then they will be ineffective. By making them harsh and having additional time based penalties it will avoid undesirable scenarios. Or at a minimum such scenarios will be very difficult for ne'er-do-wells to stage.

Edit: the stat loss is a bad idea. Reducing STR has the unfortunate side effect of making it so the PC eventually won't be able to move. So perhaps make it Skills/AB/Damage/AC/Saves penalties that start relatively minor after 1 hour, but compound quickly in each subsequent hour. Would be nice if could also lower spell DCs somehow, but spell failure should address that issue so long as it's made in such a way that it can't be avoided by Auto-still or any other feat/ability. Point being to negatively impact the effectiveness over time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

The characters aren't travelling to negative energy plane, just to surface. Keep that in mind.

[chad878262]

I'm familiar with the principle...The current mechanical implementation follows it.

There needs to be something in place to address the PvP issue as you called out. implementing penalties makes players at a disadvantage in pvp while also discouraging being in the wrong place for grinding purposes.

[NegInfinity]

I'm familiar with the principle...The current mechanical implementation follows it.

There needs to be something in place to address the PvP issue as you called out. implementing penalties makes players at a disadvantage in pvp while also discouraging being in the wrong place for grinding purposes.

Flasmix suggestion was reasonable. Locking out of surface is reasonable.

Surface suddenly acquiring properties of negative energy plane should be made into a separate proposition in a different thread.

[Sun Wukong]

What should I vote to make the wall ten feet higher?

[cosmic ray]

Option #3: play on a real RP server.

That may very well end up being my choice. Only a dwindling number of fellow guildies keeps me here, and those people are just as disillusioned by the anti-rp pestilence on this light roleplay/action/meme factory server.

All the options in this poll seembad to me. Might as well keep things as they are, since they are more consistent.