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

Give Frost Giant King Infinite Uses of Lesser Restoration. No more lame ability score reduction, as the king could just recover lost ability score damage!

YYA wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 4:10 am Give Frost Giant King Infinite Uses of Lesser Restoration. No more lame ability score reduction, as the king could just recover lost ability score damage!

Well, it basically makes it invulnerable to Swashbucklers and spells that affect ability scores. So why?

Gotta agree with cheese here. This is just giving a pretty significant immunity to a boss that really doesn't need it. In general, I think we need less blanket immunities, not more, and especially not ones that just completely disable certain builds from even having a chance of affecting something.

It is not a passive immunity, it is a proactive immunity.

And if anything, it would make him easier foe to combat for Swashbucklers, etc. The AI is a silly goose sometimes. It suffers ability score damage, so it wastes a turn to cast Lesser Restoration. A friendly suffers ability score damage, the Frost Giant Jarl goes to cast Lesser Restoration on its friend. Instead of a big bad bully King, it would be a friendly and kind King.

The whole point of debuff abilities is to be able to make powerful foes easier. Which is why widespread non-canon immunities on multiple bosses is stupid.

Now, Frost Giant King is a sapient creature and does seem to be built as a cleric. So I wouldn't mind giving him a few casts of Lesser Restoration, if he also lost access to non-cleric spells like Mords. And if other bosses that have non-canon immunities have those immunities removed. Access to lesser restoration spells/potions would be a much more logical method for bosses to combat player debuffs than just stupid flat immunities.

Rhifox wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:52 amNow, Frost Giant King is a sapient creature and does seem to be built as a cleric. So I wouldn't mind giving him a few casts of Lesser Restoration, if he also lost access to non-cleric spells like Mords.

No, those Mords are there for actual setting reasons.

Giants have their own pantheon, of which Annam All-Father, is the greater god of magic, fertility, learning, and philosophy for giants, in addition to being the chief deity of the giant pantheon, also hailed as the creator of the giant races. Thus, as a cleric of Annam All-Father, it does actually make sense for him to have access to the Magic Domain, which in accordance of PnP Rules, grants Mordenkainen's Disjunction to Clerics. (Mage’s Disjunction)

I believe you have made a custom spell called 'Disjoin Magic' which would be a good replacement for the Frost Giant King, and if given a Caster level of 35-45 range which the Mord originally had... I think the caster level of his Mords was lowered because of the breach part of it, as it would just strip arcanists naked.

Now, I do not remember -- because it has been decades -- if it is possible to spawn in mobs with pre-cast defenses. If it is possible, you could arm bosses with high caster level stuff like Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Protection versus Alignment, Good, Evil, etc. Throw away all the breach spells, or give breach immunity, and thus casters could actually try to dispel mobs before their save or die spells can work. Etc.

Rhifox wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:52 am The whole point of debuff abilities is to be able to make powerful foes easier. Which is why widespread non-canon immunities on multiple bosses is stupid.

Now, Frost Giant King is a sapient creature and does seem to be built as a cleric. So I wouldn't mind giving him a few casts of Lesser Restoration, if he also lost access to non-cleric spells like Mords. And if other bosses that have non-canon immunities have those immunities removed. Access to lesser restoration spells/potions would be a much more logical method for bosses to combat player debuffs than just stupid flat immunities.

He actually uses a Gr. Restoration once per fight.

Believe Fire Giant General and Ziggurat dragon do the same. Can't test for FGG right now as it's... a bit suicidal right now with the spawn changes. FGK I am certain

YYA wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:35 am

Rhifox wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 7:52 amNow, Frost Giant King is a sapient creature and does seem to be built as a cleric. So I wouldn't mind giving him a few casts of Lesser Restoration, if he also lost access to non-cleric spells like Mords.

No, those Mords are there for actual setting reasons.

Giants have their own pantheon, of which Annam All-Father, is the greater god of magic, fertility, learning, and philosophy for giants, in addition to being the chief deity of the giant pantheon, also hailed as the creator of the giant races. Thus, as a cleric of Annam All-Father, it does actually make sense for him to have access to the Magic Domain, which in accordance of PnP Rules, grants Mordenkainen's Disjunction to Clerics. (Mage’s Disjunction)

I believe you have made a custom spell called 'Disjoin Magic' which would be a good replacement for the Frost Giant King, and if given a Caster level of 35-45 range which the Mord originally had... I think the caster level of his Mords was lowered because of the breach part of it, as it would just strip arcanists naked.

Well I'll be damned, Annam does have Magic domain. Well, then yeah, swapping it out for Disjoin Magic might be the better option.

Now, I do not remember -- because it has been decades -- if it is possible to spawn in mobs with pre-cast defenses. If it is possible, you could arm bosses with high caster level stuff like Freedom of Movement, Death Ward, Protection versus Alignment, Good, Evil, etc. Throw away all the breach spells, or give breach immunity, and thus casters could actually try to dispel mobs before their save or die spells can work. Etc.

And yeah, that'd be a lot better.

Honestly, given that a huge amount of stuff out there throws dispells, have immunities that make no sense to abilities and debuffs and such, adding MORE immunities/ability to counter yet more skills seems like just more power-creep over-powering nonsense to me.

That said, I would be in favor of bosses that may come pre-buffed but throw fewer debuffs like candy.

artemitavik wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 am Honestly, given that a huge amount of stuff out there throws dispells, have immunities that make no sense to abilities and debuffs and such, adding MORE immunities/ability to counter yet more skills seems like just more power-creep over-powering nonsense to me.

That said, I would be in favor of bosses that may come pre-buffed but throw fewer debuffs like candy.

I would even be in favor of mobs that come prebuffed, at the cost of having lower base stats.

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:38 pm

artemitavik wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 am Honestly, given that a huge amount of stuff out there throws dispells, have immunities that make no sense to abilities and debuffs and such, adding MORE immunities/ability to counter yet more skills seems like just more power-creep over-powering nonsense to me.

That said, I would be in favor of bosses that may come pre-buffed but throw fewer debuffs like candy.

I would even be in favor of mobs that come prebuffed, at the cost of having lower base stats.

pre-buffed means breachable and dispellable. Meaning, counterable.

I'm all for it.

Hoihe wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 3:52 pm

DaloLorn wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:38 pm

artemitavik wrote: ↑Tue Sep 21, 2021 11:52 am Honestly, given that a huge amount of stuff out there throws dispells, have immunities that make no sense to abilities and debuffs and such, adding MORE immunities/ability to counter yet more skills seems like just more power-creep over-powering nonsense to me.

That said, I would be in favor of bosses that may come pre-buffed but throw fewer debuffs like candy.

I would even be in favor of mobs that come prebuffed, at the cost of having lower base stats.

pre-buffed means breachable and dispellable. Meaning, counterable.

I'm all for it.

Like I said, though: The flip side should be that their base stats are lower, to offset the fact that they can no longer be prevented from buffing up by counterspells/Concentration checks/stuns. Caster mobs are already consistently considered to be among the stronger mobs on the server, and stopping the AI from burning their first few rounds on (hopefully unsuccessful) buffing attempts is going to make them that much more painful to fight against.

I would probably be okay with granting non-caster mobs a few long-term buffs like IMA or Magic Vestment, too, in exchange for a similar stat reduction. I don't really dispel a lot myself, but I might be willing to consider more abjurations in my spell list if that happened... plus it might make Magical Backlash more useful in PvE, if anyone decides to implement that spell.

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?

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.

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.