Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Ewe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 3:36 pm I was moreso saying "single round" as in the fight is already decided in the first round and there's really nothing more to do. It just seems like an anti-climatic battle.

I'm pretty sure 99% of the boss fights that happen outside of DM events are decided before the fights even begin

Hydros wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 1:37 am

Ewe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 3:36 pm I was moreso saying "single round" as in the fight is already decided in the first round and there's really nothing more to do. It just seems like an anti-climatic battle.

I'm pretty sure 99% of the boss fights that happen outside of DM events are decided before the fights even begin

Arguably even those in DM events. When was the last time a boss won in a DM event without invoking plot armor?

Rhifox wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:09 pm

Ewe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 12:51 pm On the flip side if you can either outright kill or disable a boss so badly that it may as well be killed within the first round of the encounter what makes a boss different from any other monster?

That's the whole point of debuffs. Debuffing and weakening strong opponents so they are as weak as weaker ones is a legitimate play style. Heck, as a weaker character, debuffing stuff is how I bring things down 'to my level', instead of building up 'to theirs'. So anything I can't debuff due to immunities, is essentially an encounter I cannot fight at all. Which is fine for some things, but should not everything. Diversity is good.

Chewing through a boss's HP should not be the only way to defeat bosses. Otherwise there's no point in even having saving throws. It can take several rounds (and in the case of a caster, limited resources) to bring it down enough to use a big spell to finish it off. The total time spent is equivalent to going through its hit points.

Also, just, like, remove breach effects. Just remove it. Every spell you remove from a mob, or that gets removed from you, should go by d20 rules same as everything else. Then that mords you fire at a buffed up boss isn't guaranteed to actually strip it of what you need stripped.

100% agree with this.

I know I’m a broken record here but once again our whole problem is encounter design where we have a single Uber tough boss that can only be defeated by a good old fashioned beat down.

FGK for example should have a few beefy guards of various abilities with him, along with his pet young white dragon. Boss encounters as they are now are entirely uninteresting and encourage a certain type of build.

Ewe wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 3:36 pmI was moreso saying "single round" as in the fight is already decided in the first round and there's really nothing more to do. It just seems like an anti-climatic battle.

Yeah, we play a video game, and once you have fought something with a character, you kind of know whether or not you can defeat something with said character. There is only one time a player will enter a battle and not know the outcome, and that is the very first encounter. Thus if you want to prolong this sense of unknowing, you need to create a thousand unique Frost Giant Jarls with a 0.1% chance of appearing each, which means that a player can never know what he will face. There would be players who would really want that, and at the same time; players that would conclude that they need to be level 30 to even challenge the boss, and those who just think the rewards are not worth the hassle of getting potentially fugued by a boss monster for no gains.

The boss monsters used to exist to provide challenge to players who wanted to be challenged, and now you have some players who insist that bosses are the only way to get loot in the game, in the epics or at level 30. Whether that is true or not, I do not know, and I cannot really check it out at the moment because my old character vault was wiped few years ago because a player or two took offense on a character name. The highest character I got at the moment is at level 24, +2 ECL, so I cannot really go around giving things a try what it is like at level 30.

Oh, and as for removing braches... It was discussed a long time ago, and the server largely decided not to because the change would have meant that only Wizards and Sorcerers could dispelled other players. A not so great situation for the non-magical classes, and even players of Clerics and Druids were quite opposed to the idea. Wizards and Sorcerers would have their immunities, whine nobody else would. The cause of the problem was the level cap of 30, which meant that caster levels (HD back then) would eventually far surpass what could be dispelled with Greater Dispel Magic spell.

In the base game, where the level cap was 20, it was not such a problem.

After all, a roll of 1d20 + 15 (Caster Level Cap on Greater Dispel Magic) could result in numbers as high as 35, while the defending DC would usually be something like 11 + 20 (Caster levels) = 31. Thus even at level 20, there was a 25% to dispel one spell if cast as an AoE, or 25% chance to dispel every spell effect on a character.

BGTSCC has increased the level caps on Lesser Dispel Magic, Dispel Magic, and Greater Dispel Magic spells, but at the moment a character with 30 caster levels is immune to Greater Dispel. Therefore, I would suggest that the caster level caps would be increased by additional five points, so that even at level 30, a Greater Dispel would retain that 25% chance to stripping spells.

Additionally I would suggest that a spell such as "Magical Backlash" were implemented without a Spell Resistance check, and made available in both Scroll and Wand Form. Therefore, the lack of 'Breach Effects' could be replaced with actual direct damage on target.

YYA wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 3:39 am Oh, and as for removing braches... It was discussed a long time ago, and the server largely decided not to because the change would have meant that only Wizards and Sorcerers could dispelled other players. A not so great situation for the non-magical classes, and even players of Clerics and Druids were quite opposed to the idea. Wizards and Sorcerers would have their immunities, whine nobody else would. The cause of the problem was the level cap of 30, which meant that caster levels (HD back then) would eventually far surpass what could be dispelled with Greater Dispel Magic spell.

In the base game, where the level cap was 20, it was not such a problem.

After all, a roll of 1d20 + 15 (Caster Level Cap on Greater Dispel Magic) could result in numbers as high as 35, while the defending DC would usually be something like 11 + 20 (Caster levels) = 31. Thus even at level 20, there was a 25% to dispel one spell if cast as an AoE, or 25% chance to dispel every spell effect on a character.

BGTSCC has increased the level caps on Lesser Dispel Magic, Dispel Magic, and Greater Dispel Magic spells, but at the moment a character with 30 caster levels is immune to Greater Dispel. Therefore, I would suggest that the caster level caps would be increased by additional five points, so that even at level 30, a Greater Dispel would retain that 25% chance to stripping spells.

Additionally I would suggest that a spell such as "Magical Backlash" were implemented without a Spell Resistance check, and made available in both Scroll and Wand Form. Therefore, the lack of 'Breach Effects' could be replaced with actual direct damage on target.

A few comments:

Wizards and sorcerers comprise the bulk of the breach list, and are also the only classes with non-UMD access to breach spells. Incidentally, PvP breaching is the most popular form of offensive UMD use, precisely because it guarantees that an arcanist will lose almost all of their useful wards. (Defensive consumables - except elixirs - can be broken by dispelling, but you'd have to be desperate or stupid to try that if a breach would accomplish the same thing... which, due to the popularity of UMDing arcane buffs like IMA, tends to be the case.)

Many clerical/druidic buffs (except those pertaining to defense against magic, interestingly enough) are unbreachable, and everyone's offensive buffs are unbreachable. Thus, it is in a UMDing cleric/druid's best interests to preserve breach spells, since priests have nonmagical methods of trashing an arcanist, and save-increasing effects are consistently unbreachable, so neither side is likely to land spells with saving throws without first landing a solid dispel (if even - save inflation is not tied exclusively to buffs). Once breached, the arcanist has less HP (unless gish, maybe), less AC (unless autostilling gish with epic equipment), and less damage per round than the priest, and will consistently lose any battle where they have been breached.

For similar reasons, it is in UMDing non-casters' best interests to preserve breaches, since they will again be able to leverage their wands and scrolls into a near-guaranteed win against opposing arcanists. (For proof of this, one need only look to the popularity of Disjunction scrolls and breach wands compared to just about any other offensive spell item.)

As for your dispel calculations, you partly misunderstand or misrepresent the mechanics. Single-target dispels roll once per spell, and the most probable outcome is that some spells will be removed while others won't. There is also anecdotal information suggesting that AoE dispels erroneously remove more than one spell at a time, but I cannot verify this at the moment.

Increasing the dispel caps further and removing breaches may be beneficial for PvP (and PvE, to a limited extent), but the popularity of dispels on spellcasting mobs means that it may have unintended side effects in PvE, considering the frequency with which spellcasters can spawn in those areas which feature them. I therefore have mixed feelings on the matter.

Magical Backlash sounds fun. It's a very low-level spell, so the Fortitude DC is kinda weak even with a dedicated abjurer... but conceptually, I like the spell very much. Making it immune to SR could make it an excellent way of punishing overbuffing, and possibly even drive players to buff on-demand instead of slapping all their buffs on early "just in case". It would also preemptively halt cries of "but drow/svirfs/monks!", since they would no longer receive a free pass against the spell. (Neither would priests and arcanists, but those need to use breachable spells to receive SR or SR-like effects, so it's only an issue there if breaching is removed.) I like it.

Removing breaches would have a rather painful effect on certain melee archetypes too. Possibly crippling.

Some mobs cast Elemental Shield or Death armour or similar spells. These are counterable with a Breach right now.

Otherwise, you counter it with high regen, high damage and few attacks. Or, using a bow if you can do so successfully.

Hoihe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:59 am Removing breaches would have a rather painful effect on certain melee archetypes too. Possibly crippling.

Some mobs cast Elemental Shield or Death armour or similar spells. These are counterable with a Breach right now.

Otherwise, you counter it with high regen, high damage and few attacks. Or, using a bow if you can do so successfully.

Stronger dispels might help with that, as would assorted immunities/resistances. Aside from that, I've had limited success waiting out the spells. Mercifully, most archetypes that can't directly counter damage reflection tend to have decent stealth capabilities... in theory...

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:27 am

Hoihe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:59 am Removing breaches would have a rather painful effect on certain melee archetypes too. Possibly crippling.

Some mobs cast Elemental Shield or Death armour or similar spells. These are counterable with a Breach right now.

Otherwise, you counter it with high regen, high damage and few attacks. Or, using a bow if you can do so successfully.

Stronger dispels might help with that, as would assorted immunities/resistances. Aside from that, I've had limited success waiting out the spells. Mercifully, most archetypes that can't directly counter damage reflection tend to have decent stealth capabilities... in theory...

In theory. In practice, the CR 18 fire devil of Nashkel Iron Mines spotted me with 45 H/MS when I tried to sneak past him.

Hoihe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:01 am

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 6:27 am

Hoihe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:59 am Removing breaches would have a rather painful effect on certain melee archetypes too. Possibly crippling.

Some mobs cast Elemental Shield or Death armour or similar spells. These are counterable with a Breach right now.

Otherwise, you counter it with high regen, high damage and few attacks. Or, using a bow if you can do so successfully.

Stronger dispels might help with that, as would assorted immunities/resistances. Aside from that, I've had limited success waiting out the spells. Mercifully, most archetypes that can't directly counter damage reflection tend to have decent stealth capabilities... in theory...

In theory. In practice, the CR 18 fire devil of Nashkel Iron Mines spotted me with 45 H/MS when I tried to sneak past him.

As a boss mob, I feel it is somewhat unfair to label it CR18. (Doubly so when all evidence suggests Nashkel is not CR18 by any stretch of the imagination, despite the wiki's claims to the contrary.)

That being said, the removal of breaches can hardly happen in a vacuum. There would need to be NPC adjustments anyway, and what better time is there to reevaluate the overuse of Spot/Listen in our area design?

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:28 am As a boss mob, I feel it is somewhat unfair to label it CR18. (Doubly so when all evidence suggests Nashkel is not CR18 by any stretch of the imagination, despite the wiki's claims to the contrary.)

That being said, the removal of breaches can hardly happen in a vacuum. There would need to be NPC adjustments anyway, and what better time is there to reevaluate the overuse of Spot/Listen in our area design?

From what I've been told, the CR's on the wiki are CRs for a "Party of 3 or more"

Hydros wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 9:03 am

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 7:28 am As a boss mob, I feel it is somewhat unfair to label it CR18. (Doubly so when all evidence suggests Nashkel is not CR18 by any stretch of the imagination, despite the wiki's claims to the contrary.)

That being said, the removal of breaches can hardly happen in a vacuum. There would need to be NPC adjustments anyway, and what better time is there to reevaluate the overuse of Spot/Listen in our area design?

From what I've been told, the CR's on the wiki are CRs for a "Party of 3 or more"

Specifically, a party of 3 or more at that level. I've had pairs of low-to-mid-epic PCs try to fight their way through the exterior and get torn apart (mostly by raging berserkers) despite being well past level 18. Competently-built PCs, at that.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amWizards and sorcerers comprise the bulk of the breach list, and are also the only classes with non-UMD access to breach spells. Incidentally, PvP breaching is the most popular form of offensive UMD use, precisely because it guarantees that an arcanist will lose almost all of their useful wards. (Defensive consumables - except elixirs - can be broken by dispelling, but you'd have to be desperate or stupid to try that if a breach would accomplish the same thing... which, due to the popularity of UMDing arcane buffs like IMA, tends to be the case.)

IMA is utterly meaningless, it is just +2 AC compared to a +4 Armor Enchantment. What really matters when it comes to Arcane defenses are such spells as Mirror Images, and Displacement. The 25% in PvP or 50% in PvE concealment is something absolutely massive, when coupled with the ability of Mirror Images to outright deny hits from even landing. Should your AC be sufficiently high, which does not require that Improve Mage Armor, all of it just means that you will not be hit.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amMany clerical/druidic buffs (except those pertaining to defense against magic, interestingly enough) are unbreachable, and everyone's offensive buffs are unbreachable. Thus, it is in a UMDing cleric/druid's best interests to preserve breach spells, since priests have nonmagical methods of trashing an arcanist, and save-increasing effects are consistently unbreachable, so neither side is likely to land spells with saving throws without first landing a solid dispel (if even - save inflation is not tied exclusively to buffs). Once breached, the arcanist has less HP (unless gish, maybe), less AC (unless autostilling gish with epic equipment), and less damage per round than the priest, and will consistently lose any battle where they have been breached.

Mords will strip that divine caster butt naked from his magical defenses, and even if our divine caster spams a wand of Spell Mantle after the fact, a proper Arcanist has already flung out either a Scar or a Spell Like Ability before the first mantle even gets up. The arcane spell book is full spells that will just immobilize you, after which you are just dead, even with the nerfs some of those spells have suffered.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amFor similar reasons, it is in UMDing non-casters' best interests to preserve breaches, since they will again be able to leverage their wands and scrolls into a near-guaranteed win against opposing arcanists. (For proof of this, one need only look to the popularity of Disjunction scrolls and breach wands compared to just about any other offensive spell item.)

These breach effects are only common because these are pretty much the only actions a non-caster can take against a caster. It is the only way to overcome the myriad immunities provided by the spell books, aside from a build that strikes from stealth with enough raw damage out put in the first attack Flurry to disrupt spell casting. You know, something like a Northlander Hewing, Enhanced Favored Power Attack Ranger that could potentially land almost 90~ damage per average hit. And even then, you still need to overcome Premonition and hope that player behind the Arcanist has not stocked up on Concentration items.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amAs for your dispel calculations, you partly misunderstand or misrepresent the mechanics. Single-target dispels roll once per spell, and the most probable outcome is that some spells will be removed while others won't. There is also anecdotal information suggesting that AoE dispels erroneously remove more than one spell at a time, but I cannot verify this at the moment.

As I said, single-target dispels roll once per spell, and AoE once per target.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amIncreasing the dispel caps further and removing breaches may be beneficial for PvP (and PvE, to a limited extent), but the popularity of dispels on spellcasting mobs means that it may have unintended side effects in PvE, considering the frequency with which spellcasters can spawn in those areas which feature them. I therefore have mixed feelings on the matter.

The very reason why the mobs on this server have flat out immunities is simply because of the existence of Breaches. It doesn't matter if you give mobs dispellable effects, or additional defensive spells to cast, because that wand of Breach will just chew them out. Thus the only way to offer challenge to players that demand it, is to just bloat up the HP pools, bloat up the saves, and turn the whole boss fight into nothing more than a game of melee attrition.

As for PvE content in general, in order to make the server run better, you do not give NPCs full spell books, you just give them uses of certain spells at so and so caster level. Therefore, even thought the caster level cap on Dispels has been increased, it does not mean that regular mobs will be suddenly able to overcome that caster level of 30. And if they are, then their caster level with those spells can adjusted down.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 5:16 amMagical Backlash sounds fun. It's a very low-level spell, so the Fortitude DC is kinda weak even with a dedicated abjurer... but conceptually, I like the spell very much. Making it immune to SR could make it an excellent way of punishing overbuffing, and possibly even drive players to buff on-demand instead of slapping all their buffs on early "just in case". It would also preemptively halt cries of "but drow/svirfs/monks!", since they would no longer receive a free pass against the spell. (Neither would priests and arcanists, but those need to use breachable spells to receive SR or SR-like effects, so it's only an issue there if breaching is removed.) I like it.

And another thing to remove would be spell mantles, or at least make them more in line with actual PnP Spellmantle. And the game has Assay Resistance, Lower Spell Resistance, Spell Penetration feats, and a multiple PRCs of various alignments that do increase the caster levels. The reduction of Spell Resistance through breaches, is not the only method of achieving it. And hey, if the SR reduction is ever so important, you can keep the SR reduction in maybe even make these spell cast automatically quickened or something. You know, for the minor drop in SR.

1. What's the difference between a boss and any other monster supposed to be?

2. Can monsters have unusual immunities granted via items that are canon, even if players cannot obtain these items due to OOC rules?

3. In a dungeon such as the Frost Giants, wouldn't RP-wise the Frost Giant King realize his keep is under assault and thus prepare himself in some manner?

Ewe wrote: ↑Thu Sep 23, 2021 2:24 pm 1. What's the difference between a boss and any other monster supposed to be?

2. Can monsters have unusual immunities granted via items that are canon, even if players cannot obtain these items due to OOC rules?

3. In a dungeon such as the Frost Giants, wouldn't RP-wise the Frost Giant King realize his keep is under assault and thus prepare himself in some manner?

1) On BGTSCC, it is the big bad boss that could drop something epic, and provide challenge to whoever power builds.

2) Yes, but the problem is that players do not know that these monsters have immunities from these sources. So if the boss description would list the names of these artifacts, perhaps fewer players would complain about immunities not making any sense.

3) And if we are entirely honest, the only reason why the current Frost Giant King a cleric is because adventurers kept slaying his warrior brothers, and there was no else to assume the position in the family line.