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

Hello again everyone!

I want to talk about encounter difficulty and server balance, the server is quite well balanced, in general but it sure feels like its more balanced for solo players than groups, when you group up it tends to end up with one or two people smacking around the mobs and the rest get to watch, My solution to this is not to make the mobs stronger, but add more mobs overall in zones frequently visited. (Especially epic maps)

So why increase mobdensity instead of powering up the mobs in general?
The answer to that is that increasing mob stats will force everyone who wants to experience the dungeon and loot content to powerbuild their characters and I can a 100% guarantee that, that isnt everyone's cup of tea, fun and interesting ways to build ones character takes a backseat for optimising and metabuilds.

Increasing mob density ensures that everyone gets to be part of the run, because one player can only do so many actions each turn, Solo power players will most likely still find ways to run the content anyways because that's what they do.

One thing i'd like to suggest is that if enough players enter a map say starting at four players the mob density increases to respond to that, which could keep scaling up to say 10 players?

Let me know what folk think about this idea!

I would like to see more of the end game content harder personally.
Most of the dungeons are soloable, and it oversaturates the market with powerful loot, mostly from power-builders who can clear quick and easy on their own.
Would be nice if the end game loot spots were requiring group tactics to overcome.
But not sure how much of this can be done in NWN2.

I would agree. No PC should be able to solo an epic dungeon no matter the build. I’m off the opinion a dungeon, especially an epic dungeon, should require a variety of different skillsets to successfully complete nor should they be entirely predictable. To enhance the challenge perhaps randomize bosses and mobs (or random boss combo) each with different vulnerabilities and strengths to force a reasonable party to continually improvise their strategy. The designer can even include random ambushes. There’s also making the layout less predictable where passages lead to random chambers (kind of like the Ulcaster puzzle section). I could endlessly pontificate on ways to make dungeons more challenging but my point is that it would be great if dungeons were somehow designed to ensure each party member (of a reasonable sized party) feels like they’re making a meaningful contribution. It's preferable than feeling useless because the tank effectively mops up everything with little effort - leaving other party members asking themselves: Why am I even here?

This is why D&D was designed to be an experience with a DM and a group of players—a campaign tailored by the DM to an experience in relation to the Level of the Player Characters.

If you want infinite random challenging experiences always available, you need to employ a "brain" or (semi)consciousness that will run this. NWN2 doesn't have that ability. Okay...prove me wrong!!!

There's been a large reformat of the pve system underway for months now. They've started rolling out some of the changes but the largest ones have yet to drop.

Real time games are like that. Many games are set up for a standard gameplay experience, but there are always those that play the game differently. Thats why, in many games there are "How to ... " videos, showcasing how to do something much faster and/or efficiently. Especially for a dnd game - which at its core is turn based but made real time for nwn2 - with so many different mechanics that allow players to "invent" new strategies to beat the dungeons.

The only way to make every class relevant in combat, is by making this game turn based. Adding more and more restrictions can result in a game that is not fun to play in general.

Heres something to also consider since it didnt seem to be considered.

Sometimes some people have no choice but to solo because either,

1, Theres not enough people on the same time zone
2, Theres not enough 'Interested" People in the PVE Content.
3, The ones available dont make sense to go dungeon running with ie ..."Pirate and Elves of DA" , "Triel Paladins and Zhents Blackguards" as examples etc.


During my regular play hours, its one of the crappiest times to even play, its already a thing not being able to find the type of rp my character is in line with, (Thank God for DM Carmen for even popping up those shitty hours recently and bothering to run plots or one offs)
I've put up scry messages "LF Group" for certain dungeon runs and get no takers. Which leaves me to solo the runs either difficult or not. But to take that ability away completely, surely leaves out any last bit of interest to even bother logging in. So yeah taking away the ability to solo I'm not for. Theres some players out there that dont even RP for what ever reason they have, was few nights ago I was camping in Corm Orp waiting to see if anyone was gonna gather for a Skull Gorge run, one player walks by and says "Sorry I dont know how to RP, want to team up?" And I of all people, end up setting with that because the fact is ..it was either Solo or log.

Not saying all content should be group based
Just some of the highest loot giving end content.
There should be options for soloing still.

I had considered the bellow, given I've been playing odd times too.

selhan wrote: ↑Thu Aug 06, 2026 3:24 pm Heres something to also consider since it didnt seem to be considered.

Sometimes some people have no choice but to solo because either,

1, Theres not enough people on the same time zone
2, Theres not enough 'Interested" People in the PVE Content.
3, The ones available dont make sense to go dungeon running with ie ..."Pirate and Elves of DA" , "Triel Paladins and Zhents Blackguards" as examples etc.

Add more of those Yellow bosse yes?

*throws in some coins of thought*

I am not sure if that isn't already present at the time, but I remember from other server-worlds a spawn script that "created/spawned" enemies / opponents by lvl and number of Player-Chars entering the Encounter-Radiuses.

My unsureness comes from: In my head, even the Gnoll Dungeon from the Way of the Lion would /could spawn Enemies for a Group / Solo Char above the currently present CR. I might think that is already somehow the case, but in full bloom.
Ass already mentioned -> Could be more Yellow-Bosses, not automatically more numbers. Could be "orange" and "red" bosses, to add a new flavour and danger to dungeons. But currently it wouldn't be that case?

Meaning: Tramahsthas would spawn the exact kinds of Enemies within the Lion's Way Gnoll Dungeon as any other char I have. Perhaps some differences aside the "regular".
Could be wrong, feels like it is that way. I haven't notice any major difference from walking the Gnoll Dungeon or the Minotaur Maces aside from the current CR bound to the CR of the Area / Raidzone.
I percieve the Areas like in the Area by CR Texts.

At the same time, I could imagine that adding spawns / new spawn bosses by (Yellow, Orange, Red (or whatever colour scale you like) lvl and number reacting to the group / solo - could be an interesting flavour. So that even lower CR Areas could be a new Adventure for old Adventurers.

Perhaps me being a total tech-noop is missing what already happens with Mobbs and Spawns, but sheer numbers might definitely not be help full. Yet spawns that match the power lvl, even if not automatically the end boss but a very "Strong Regular" it might be. I would enjoy more "Strong Regular" (Non-Character-Adventurers // creatures / foes that would be the counterpart to adventurers from the mobs perspective), without needing more numbers or more even more epic epic foes?

Quality instead of quantity?

So far... so good.

*strolls off into the tech-noop-corner*

Irrelevant post retracted. Delete if you will moderator.

I've been out of play due to a shorted out laptop so my accessibility has been largely through my cell phone to the player client only, in limited option, and not yet through the toolset or my former tooling, but there's a backlog of decided on changes small groups were involved in that I've yet to sweepingly implement, and from this front you'll likely come to find the PvE experience becoming easier with preexisting content.

Now, I do preface this with saying that due to that there may be changes on the horizon not yet implemented. This may involve reduced XP per kill for example, and an increase in the volume of the combat spawn portion (apologies to the single target envoker focused casters), but fielding too many can cause a significant imbalance just on the inbound APR as those 20s start rolling in more frequently.

It's been hinted on Discord before that this becomes a bit of a downtune in CR for the preexisting content, 30s becoming 25-27 as HP bloat, saves, immunities, and the like start getting wiped away, and that's perfectly fine as it would mean that there's still soloable epic level content that is now making room for the void in the 27+ that does start demanding party interaction as difficulty, feature, environmental interaction, begins to involve more skills, feats, and player tactic. Two of these I plan on personally deploying is one that puts players on the high seas, the other is a complete revamp of the Cloakwood constructs, and we'll see where things need tweaked and or templatized going forward.

Too much of the PW is soloable content made easy by two features, gold and UMD, let alone the rest. It's high time we introduce not just something of difficulty, but enjoyable party content actually worth the time.

you cant make one hit and one kill anymore on epic but that mean you need to have very high AC to solo or have very high Skills in Hips / MS so that mean more ac not to get hit and more BAB to Disarm weapons and high skills in heal so come on what is the chance to go solo on a Skull or Island let us not for got the epic trap on gound /floor and skills point in UMD now i been told it is much harder to get Wands and potion so let us not say it is not any easy anymore

There is an inherent issue with just "making things harder" or "upping mob difficulty" on a server like this.

It is an arms race.

We already had stuff for YEARS that was just buffed to be harder. Like the Frost Giants for ages had resistances that Frost Giants just ... don't have. Many enemies were like that. Then people went and got gear and builds to get around it, then it wasn't hard, then the enemies got a boost, etc. It was a cycle. It made non-mechanically-fantastically-optimized builds almost impossible to play, even in groups as their abilities did nothing and they got squished almost immediately. It's why utterly insane Lore-wise AC is "only passing" in terms of functionality in a lot of places. Just making things "harder" or a HP sponge is not helpful and immediately alienates a lot of people. It's actually the reason I've known several people to leave. They couldn't play what they wanted because it was not 'optimal' enough.

Sure, if you want to look into more changes, that's great... but when rebalancing it shouldn't just be "make the enemies tougher" it needs to be a full rebalance, which means that the characters might also "get weaker", which has never been popular because suddenly their numbers drop.

Its probably best to have solo areas, duo areas, and party areas, obviously with party areas providing greater rewards, but in quantity rather than quality.

Trying to balance only for party play just creates a gigantic arms race as players become obligated to cheese the game to make it playable whenever a suitable team can't be found for whatever reason, which given the nature of NWN going to be quite common. Designing every dungeon around the assumption that everyone is going to have a group at all times kind of undermines one of NWN's greatest advantages over tabletop; being able to play it when you can't get a group together. And realistically most people will party when they have opportunity to do so. There really is no reason to try stop people from soloing especially with a small community that spans a lot of different time zones.

But solo oriented dungeons produce the effect of all the mobs getting killed before you can even get to them and people asking "why I am I even here when the tank with the meta build can just mop up?", which makes them utterly unsuitable for party play, which will always be preferred when the opportunity presents itself. Which is why I advocate for making solo and party designated areas. It accommodates both needs well and makes it easier to balance when only one party size is needed to be balanced around per location. As for duo areas, it makes sense to have some especially in high epics since duos are probably the most common team type for obvious reasons.

That said, swarms do make soloing hard because of the sheer numbers of 20s rolled, especially for melee builds which are the best PVE builds right now anyway.

As for rewards like loot and XP its probably better to make the quantity the difference between party and solo areas so as to keep solo locations worth doing when there are no teams to join and to not disadvantage players who can't play at the best hours.