Upcoming time of troubles

[Steve]

If I all of a sudden had to play in a World in which all troubles were hard coded solvable because our Characters had been given the consideration of god-level powers (up to 60 CL as it seems Hoihe is suggesting), I would immediately quit that game.

I personally play D&D based games because they have always run on chance, the Dice Roll, and whenever there is a motion made to further eliminate that aspect in favor of role-play, or whatever, I cannot more fervently say: No, please.

If BGTSCC actually had less levels, less power (creep), less mechanics driving gameplay, do you know what we’d have left? Our Role-play.

Can you still RP with a Fighter 1 / Rogue 1 / Wizard 1 build? I know you can! And imagine the spectacular gain in gameplay experience when your Threesie PC actually takes down that two-headed Troll with help from your adventuring party, of equal simple profession.

It’s all relative, people. Scale it up or down, it matters not. What does actually matter is the disparity. BGTSCC supports—or tries to...—a 30 level disparity. D&D was never meant to be experienced that way, and THAT is why so many feel the frustration and the strain on their role-play.

[Hoihe]

Because I have explained this multiple times....

It is not lore appropriate to be fighting massive armies of demons, devils, and other similar things ALL the time. "Doubling NPC levels" assumes that then there is the work to be done on the NPC mobs to make THEM the cannon fodder rather than what we normally end up fighting.

Likely the same amount of work said would be needed to lower the cap.

Not to mention this does NOT solve mechanical lore issues, such as the MASSIVE proliferation of epic level magical nonsense that takes place literally everywhere.

Yes, FR has fairly high magic levels, but if you read the novels, magic is actually NOT readily available to the vast majority of the population. Only the very rich and some adventurers or some specialists, like our lovely mage who lives out side Beregost. Instead, we have huge amounts of epic level magic literally everywhere. There is literally 100% nothing in any of the lore that I've ever been able to find to support that level of magical proliferation.

It's even commented on by a VERY powerful cleric in one of the Drizzt books in commenting to the ONE epic level favored soul encountered that the drow doesn't know how that human does all the crazy stuff, because it shouldn't work that way, so he must have powers far beyond his own.

This stuff is RARE. And it's not. it's mechanically day to day to day. As a matter of fact, if you CAN'T use all this crazy stuff, you are considered "lesser" a lot of times, I've seen that in RP. "What? you can't cast 4 epics spells? psssh, you're not a magic user!" And it was both OOC and IC. And no, the OOC wasn't a helpful "hey, let me assist you with your build" it was "Man, you are a f-ing loser". And I know this happened, I was there, and it was someone I regularly gamed with. It happened several times.

The mechanical lore of this server is broken. Broken very, very badly. Just saying "everyone is double what is on the character sheet" does not fix these mechanics. It does not fix that the game is not designed for this level of shenanigans. It doesn't even fix the RP of "oh, yeah, I've killed like 35 greater white ancient dragons!"

Not without a complete revamping of literally all the creatures everywhere so that when we go to these "epic" level areas, there aren't actually lore-wise "epic" creatures, but normal mobs with epic stats to fight, and thus "lore is maintained"

But I have been told several times that changing mobs downward would be all this work and take forever and be a huge burdon, ok, I get it. But doing it the other way "to fix the lore" would be the same amount of work, and so nothing is fixed. Mechanical lore remains broken to high heaven and back.

I have some other issues with some of the statements in the posts, but they would be interpreted as personal attack, even though they aren't, so I will refrain.

But this is why I suggested the ToT be used as a springboard for a rebalancing, because it IS still so far away so things can be looked at and mulled over, and tweaked if though appropriate. If the Admin don't want to do it, that is their business and we shall see what happens.

Doubling NPC levels, but not PC levels solves the mob issues.



PCs farming balors? P&P, their cr is 20. Make it 40.

Our PCs can only get to level 30 - boom solved.

Someone farming ancient white dragons? HD 31 for Ancient, make it 62. Boom - solved.

Fire giants are already tripled here, so no need to fix (p&p is cr 10, here they're cr 28 or sth)
Frost giants likewise.


Doubling mob power (and NPC power) makes PCs be no longer demi-gods by comparison.

Per P&P, a level 30 PC fights warbands of balors. Make the balor cr 40? You need a large squad of PCs to fight a single balor.


As for spells being more common - you're not forced to use them.

But people who want, can. Especially healing spells.

[artemitavik]

NPCs, lore wise should NOT have that level of access to magic. It is all over the lore of FR. Everywhere. There are entire novels about how most people in the world don't have access to magic. Doubling NPC levels does not solve the mechanical lore issues of over-magic proliferation, it makes it far, far, far worse.

Not to mention, if it's a major pain to balance the mobs DOWN, it's going to be the same major pain, outside of a few already done, to balance the mobs UP to that.

[Hoihe]

NPCs, lore wise should NOT have that level of access to magic. It is all over the lore of FR. Everywhere. There are entire novels about how most people in the world don't have access to magic. Doubling NPC levels does not solve the mechanical lore issues of over-magic proliferation, it makes it far, far, far worse.

Not to mention, if it's a major pain to balance the mobs DOWN, it's going to be the same major pain, outside of a few already done, to balance the mobs UP to that.

I recommend looking at PHB.

It explicitly says what level of magic is accessible in wat community.

In BG, you can obtain level 8 spells as services, either for gold or other tribute, by virtue of being a metropolis.

And why shouldn't NPCs have access to magic?

There are also entire novels about societies built around magic, to the point that an elven house would use Lesser Restoration rather whimsically to avoid drunkenness/hangover when they got called to do their jobs.

Candlekeep uses a large amount of magic, including illusions for female members who want to avoid harrasment by visitors, flowing hot water. Cooking is done with magic too, as open flames are forbidden.

[Snarfy]

It is not lore appropriate to be fighting massive armies of demons, devils, and other similar things ALL the time.

Totally agree. But walking back the level cap isn't going to solve this particular issue, nor is it going to change the fact that there was a "Devil War". This is something we would probably need to petition with the DM's.

There is literally 100% nothing in any of the lore that I've ever been able to find to support that level of magical proliferation.

This stuff is RARE. And it's not. it's mechanically day to day to day. As a matter of fact, if you CAN'T use all this crazy stuff, you are considered "lesser" a lot of times, I've seen that in RP. "What? you can't cast 4 epics spells? psssh, you're not a magic user!" And it was both OOC and IC. And no, the OOC wasn't a helpful "hey, let me assist you with your build" it was "Man, you are a f-ing loser". And I know this happened, I was there, and it was someone I regularly gamed with. It happened several times.

The mechanical lore of this server is broken.

Instances like that don't occur because of OP mechanics, they happen because or piss poor player mentality. They happen because some, not all, players' brains are hard-wired to want to min-max-powerbuild-rofl-stomp powerful content into the dust. Blasting off epic spells and nuking white dragons isn't for everyone, and I agree that it should not be the norm. (for the record, my 30 archmage hardly uses his epic spells, and I've never killed the great white on any character in a decade. Agree to go balor hunting? Mmm, twice in the last half decade)

It doesn't even fix the RP of "oh, yeah, I've killed like 35 greater white ancient dragons!"

Nothing is fixing that "RP"... except perhaps the removal of the dragon, or the exodus of players who have this mentality.

Not without a complete revamping of literally all the creatures everywhere so that when we go to these "epic" level areas, there aren't actually lore-wise "epic" creatures, but normal mobs with epic stats to fight, and thus "lore is maintained"

Let's say that somehow, someday, a level 20 cap goes through, and a redesign is done, and that ancient dragon gets turned into one of the more lore-appropriate enemies... I don't know, an adamantine golem. Let's also say that the difficulty of the golem for level 20 characters is on par with what the white dragon is for 30's, as in still one of the most powerful in-game.

Honest question here: do you think that changing the monster to something more lore-friendly is going to curb the type of "IC" behavior previously mentioned?

It’s all relative, people. Scale it up or down, it matters not. What does actually matter is the disparity. BGTSCC supports—or tries to...—a 30 level disparity. D&D was never meant to be experienced that way, and THAT is why so many feel the frustration and the strain on their role-play.

I vaguely recall, a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, when the great white and the balor were the only two "epic" creatures in game. The characters that even managed to kill them didn't run around bragging about it, nor were there repeated 6 man crews(or less. Soloing it? I don't remember a single player even daring to try) doing daily or weekly "runs" of these monsters. A few times a month, maybe? (I only went on one try to the white, all 10 of us died horribly)

If "i kill the white dragon every day!" - RP and the level 30 cap wasn't a problem back then, why is it such a pain in the ass now? If I had to guess, the reason would be threefold: player mentalities, player knowledge of building being vastly superior now, and the introduction of more powerful PRC's and equipment.

[artemitavik]

Well, the Devil war, was in some part, actually canon in the FR storyline. I forget how much and how hard, and how big, but it was there. Probably not to the extent we did it but that's ok.

Would it curb the "I killed lots of Adamantine golems!" type of RP? Probably not the slightest. But it would at least wreck immersion just a tad less.

And yes, min-maxing, horrible RP attitudes will always exist. But again, making the power levels more lore appropriate would limit the immersion breaking that such things regarding that power level does.

That's why I keep referring to it as mechanical balance being out of whack. It flies in the face of all the lore of the universe we're gaming in.

I mean, heck, if the Admin wanna go 'nope, level 30 is great, we're going to upscale monsters and change out bosses that need to be done because that's less work" hey, fantastic. I'll keep my god-like stats and ridiculous abilities. *shrug* To add that, can I get then level30 appropriate gear then too? Because right now, I'm level 30 with level 20-23-ish gear as the top available on the server. However, as far as I'm aware, that has been out of the question when it was suggested for one reason or another (totally different topic there, will not meander onto it)

The functional, mechanical reality of BG is broken in comparison to the established lore of the universe. The ToT offers a fantastic opprotunity to approach some level of fix, up or down, en-masse with a fanstic springboard of RP as to "Why things are different."

How that is accomplished, if at all, is up to Admin.

((oh, and I have heard of people bragging about soloing the White, but I give no craps, and pretty sure they were full of sh--))

[Blame The Rogue]

i havent had a character fight the white dragon in years

as for dm spawns, i'm all for changing the type of mobs used in some events. though level 30, i still enjoy fighting goblins. a goblin swarm of level 30 goblins would be deadly fun

[GholaMan]

so are we still talking about the time of troubles or are we talking about level balance in lore?

[Arn]

We speak of the Time of Troubles! Cast down the gods, force them to walk the earth and know the toil and misery of mortal man, so that they shall never forget the suffering of those whose worship they feed upon!

I really want the ToT to happen.

[GholaMan]

Well i will say the ToT is a very important part of Faerunian history, there are a ton of things that happen because of it, not just the 'cant use magic' bit. That is only one part of it and the repercussions of the ToT the era of upheval and beyond are linked together. Even if the server diverges from cannon lore, which i imagine it will because it always does i think maintaining the status quo of the state of the world is a bad idea. Just allowing players the chance to RP spell failure via an item that a person can get rid of would be a simple solution. Also personally most of my characters would be intimately affected by the ToT and would make it vastly more interesting to RP through such challenging times.