Grind Suggestion Dump

[c2k]

Levels 11-20 are not bad. In fact, I believe you get more variety in dungeons you can run through than 1-10. 1-10 you are usually limited by your build.

Of course this is speaking of the surface. The UD in general is terrible at all levels and just needs a re-evaluation. It gets boring really fast in the UD.

[zhazz]

Balance as in having a group of lvl 30s wiped by some cr20 ish dungeon even tho the party had a high save, high ac tank, 2 wizards to buff and dps, 2 rogues for dps and 1 cleric for healing due to the boss ignoring immunities and having ridiculous DCs on a spammable ability that ignores AC and knocks down the victim. Such killed my interest in pve and still discourages me.

Where is this CR20 dungeon that can wipe 5 level 30 characters? I want to go there!!! To my knowledge only the Troll Cave in Trollclaws and Yuan-Ti Hills are CR20 and I fail to see how either would be a threat... Especially with two CL30 wizards (or maybe 1 plus a partial/low CL wizard) and a Cleric that can buff with stuff the Yuan-Ti can't dispel. Even there, that place can be solo'd with a Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, well before 30 (though certainly not at 20, as it should be) so not seeing how a whole party gets wiped.

That would be the Gem Mine in the Troll Claws. A place formerly known as the Old Silver Mines. Not sure why it changed name. Anyway, it's full of mindflayers, who will spam a knockdown AoE psionic ability. An ability which, supposedly, bypasses both Protection from Evil, and Mind Blank.

Similarly the Prismatic Dragons in the Dragon Cave at the Serpent Hills have an ability, which ignores at least Protection from Evil (granted, they might not be evil), and also has a high save DC. Not too bad really, since it only stuns your character for like 3 rounds. Except they also have another ability, with an equally high save DC, which makes your character just stand still. Not stunned, just standing still. This is also for a few rounds. Fortunately the AI is bad enough that the Prismatic Dragons don't rotate these two abilities ad-nauseam.

Repetitiveness in revisiting the dungeon multiple times to get a single level, or even worse, needing to circle around the dubgeon multiple times.

There is an nwn1 server with fun PvE. The server has NPCs handing out quests to clear certain dungeons (by passing thu certain area triggers and killing like 4-10 mobs + the boss). This quests reward nice lump sums of xp and even more if this is the first time you do them. With the first clear bonus, provided they have a party to take on harder quests, they can avoid revisiting the same dungeon twice.

Granted, that server has been given a split and is pretty damn massive. So this idea could only really work for us once we do the server split.

Atm Durlag's is the only dungeon iirc that gives good xp for solving its puzzles and clearing its challenges (I think like 7k xp for challenge + boss?)

I would very much enjoy something like this. Monster hunter guild. Slayer's Take from Critical Role, anyone?

[yyj]

Levels are too fast already, I know this isn't pnp where you take months to level up, but it makes no sense for a character to master shapechanging or 9th circle spells in a month.

[zhazz]

That really depends though.

Our characters are supposed to start at level 1 on the server.

However, some character concepts only really makes sense once they reach a certain level, which is where they can be considered to "start".

An example of this would be an old knight, travelling from a foreign place to the Sword Coast. In his previous life he was also an adventurer, and part of some King or Queen's army. Naturally such a character wouldn't be level 1. They might even be above level 10. The character doesn't have to be a retired adventurer, but could easily be one, in which case there is an argument to be made for a level 30 character.

In such a case it makes perfect sense, at least to me, to just fully power through the levels to get to where the character should be at, and then start the actual RP from there.



Point being: We shouldn't restrict how other players enjoy the game, as long as they stay within the rules and lore.

[yyj]

That is why retiring old characters to roll a new one is a thing.

RCR = retired character rebuild, that is the original purpose of this.

The server has given us the tools to do this already, veterans can probably get to level 30 in a week (or at least I seen some claim to) so I see no point in making leveling faster.

[Blackbird]

veterans can probably get to level 30 in a week (or at least I seen some claim to) so I see no point in making leveling faster.

I can't even begin to imagine the 24/7 grindfest that getting to 30 from 1 in a week would entail. If it's even possible, veteran or not, I don't think we should be basing solutions around an extreme that disrespects the time and enjoyment of an average player. The purpose of the thread is to offer alternatives to soul-crushing grinding, Xvart-pulping, Gnoll-mashing, etc.

If the community wants better RP, it should be rightly rewarded for it when it happens and receive encouragement to attempt participation in it. And not just around the campfire. I've been thinking more about the once-a-day deity shrine/temple bump and now I'm wondering if additionally, players who worship the deity could receive an RP experience bump (like a flat +10) for RP in these locations. I had a character attacked by vampires a few days ago and some very cool Ilmatari clergy picked up his body and brought him to the temple. The players should be rewarded for that kind of thing beyond just the base RP experience and there is not ever going to be a DM around all the time to help with that. I think we should be looking at places like this where mechanics can step in to help.

[zhazz]

If the community wants better RP, it should be rightly rewarded for it when it happens and receive encouragement to attempt participation in it. And not just around the campfire.

... snip ...

I had a character attacked by vampires a few days ago and some very cool Ilmatari clergy picked up his body and brought him to the temple. The players should be rewarded for that kind of thing beyond just the base RP experience and there is not ever going to be a DM around all the time to help with that. I think we should be looking at places like this where mechanics can step in to help.

The way to get rewards to such players is to send a message to the DMs with a screenshot of the RP happening, explaining what the context is, and letting them know you appreciated their RP efforts.

In the past such ways have been used to award good RP. Not by a DM being on all the time, but by players reporting cases of good RP to the DMs.

[yyj]

veterans can probably get to level 30 in a week (or at least I seen some claim to) so I see no point in making leveling faster.

I can't even begin to imagine the 24/7 grindfest that getting to 30 from 1 in a week would entail. If it's even possible, veteran or not, I don't think we should be basing solutions around an extreme that disrespects the time and enjoyment of an average player. The purpose of the thread is to offer alternatives to soul-crushing grinding, Xvart-pulping, Gnoll-mashing, etc.

If the community wants better RP, it should be rightly rewarded for it when it happens and receive encouragement to attempt participation in it. And not just around the campfire. I've been thinking more about the once-a-day deity shrine/temple bump and now I'm wondering if additionally, players who worship the deity could receive an RP experience bump (like a flat +10) for RP in these locations. I had a character attacked by vampires a few days ago and some very cool Ilmatari clergy picked up his body and brought him to the temple. The players should be rewarded for that kind of thing beyond just the base RP experience and there is not ever going to be a DM around all the time to help with that. I think we should be looking at places like this where mechanics can step in to help.

There's no need to increase leveling speed, I agree rp exp should be increased, beyond what currently gives, but leveling is already fast and doing it won't increase rp quality. People who do it, do it for fun, not for mechanical rewards.

[Steve]

The way to get rewards to such players is to send a message to the DMs with a screenshot of the RP happening, explaining what the context is, and letting them know you appreciated their RP efforts.

In the past such ways have been used to award good RP. Not by a DM being on all the time, but by players reporting cases of good RP to the DMs.

It's been a long time since DMs were giving good awards for RP.

[Blackbird]

The way to get rewards to such players is to send a message to the DMs with a screenshot of the RP happening, explaining what the context is, and letting them know you appreciated their RP efforts.

In the past such ways have been used to award good RP. Not by a DM being on all the time, but by players reporting cases of good RP to the DMs.

This relies on players joining the forum, actively communicating with staff and then on DMs being available to process the request. DM burnout and overworked DMs are already a big problem here. There's no need to dump more on them when we can use a mechanical solution to reduce some of the workload. The reliance on individual player reporting after the fact (and with screenshots) also makes that methodology inherently unreliable. Couple this with a very likely delay in when that experience is even delivered (DM has to look at the message, approve it and then be on at the same time as the involved players) and it ends up being a really unsatisfying solution on all sides for baseline RP.

[MadSeer]

Updated my first post. Added chad's reply on the first page.

If they succeed at their dark magic ritual of splitting the server, I think it would turn out to be beneficial to slow down leveling from 1 to 20, but add more engaging content for the different XP brackets.