Cormyr and the Dalelands

Challenge Ratings in the examine window serve pretty much one purpose on CD: allowing players to metagame about how powerful and what level another player is.  We know this happens.  We have seen it happen. Some of us subconsciously do it, if we intend to or not. And we have seen some PCs act overly confident towards other PCs because with the click of a button, they know they vastly out-level them.

Let's end that silliness, once and for all.  Removing challenge ratings is a single line edited on the server ini file.

"But Kirin, I need examine to see if a monster is too strong for me!"

Three things:  This isn't nearly as common a use as most people make it out to be, because half the time spawns appear in aggro radius of you and you're not trying to examine them mid combat.  Secondly, not only do most of us know how hard different hunting spots are by heart, but we can act as guides to new players, or at least give them advice on hunting grounds, leading to more RP and new friendships.   And thirdly, even then, this is not nearly important enough of a function to allow rampant subtle metagaming to continue based on people being able to determine one another's level in-game!

Down with challenge ratings and their metagaming nonsense!

Those who use it, use it.  Those who don't like it, don't need to look.

And removing the challenge rating on examine seems silly when /listpcs shows actual level.

 /listPCs should not show level either, then.  Your level should not be readily apparent to other players; it always, always leads to metagaming, conscious or not.

"You don't need to look" is not any kind of solution, you can't not look while still reading player descriptions in game.

I will have to disagree with the premise. While, yes, some people could use the challenge rating as a metagaming tool, others actually do use it for monsters. (I personally do it in combat for future references and such). I don't memorize dungeons generally and I don't always have people to go with. But, if we use this excuse then wouldn't the Roleplay and journal sections of the forum need to be removed as well? They could be used as a metagaming tool. Rather than changing something minor because a couple people don't know how to behave, lets assume the majority of our playerbase is mature enough to not and just let the admin staff handle specific issues if they arise?

Players have the option of how much information they choose to make public on the forums.  They do not have the option of hiding their challenge rating.

If the ability to determine monster level is critical, then I will be happy to script a targetable widget that can display this information.  I posit that it is not and in fact may weaken immersion on the server, but I am not so adamant on that point.

But we all have a choice in using said information. Again, I've never been a fan of implementing such things because of a few. A few bad apples don't spoil the whole barrel if you remove the apples.

I was against this the three or four times it came up on the old forums and I'm against it now.

In addition to all the stuff already mentioned, it serves as an assist for players looking for people around their level to party with. As someone with a handful of characters stuck in the level 12-15 limbo zone where it seems to be somewhat difficult to find a party that's not either too low level for me to travel with or too high, it's a definite helpful resource to be able to know which characters are around my level and thus likely to be traveling to areas I can reasonably tag along with.

I agree with Thayan very very strongly on the player behavior bit - if a person is abusing the CR system to know who they can bully and who they can't, that's a specific issue that needs to be handled by the staff on a person-by-person basis.

And yet, why not remove or minimize the risk entirely?  What benefit are you gaining from being able to determine another player's level without simply asking them in a Tell and allowing them to choose to tell you or not?

Not bugging people in tells with questions and disrupting RP with OOC conversation, for one.

An excellent point.  One that could be avoided by making the /listPCs list an opt in or opt-out list.

Still, it appears popular opinion is against me on this point, so I won't belabor it any longer.  My piece is said and it serves no purpose for me to continue the conversation if I am the only one who takes my position on the matter.

I still don't see the risk. CD isn't really a place of OOC smitings just because. If you are having trouble with a player doing it, poke a DM or send a PM. Metagaming can happen. And it still can without the CR. Removing it will not stop the people who really want to metagame.

Yup, what he said. =)

Personally, I've never seen the use of the CR system, and wouldn't miss it if it went away, as my PCs don't care whether you're higher/lower level than they are and also will retreat from a fight that's way over CR, but to each their own, and if other people like.use it, cool.

One thing about CR that I think does need to be taken into consideration is that fact that the pref-buff scripts and equipment given to many enemy NPCs boosts their CR well above what the base NWN CR would be for a level-equivalent NPC.  Of course with a CR boost, that would mean that monsters which previously were rated as easy or effortless (which therefore don't give huntable xp)  would give xp when slain (assuming the PC hasn't hit the huntable cap for that level).

That's really all I can think of about CR at the moment.

For the record, I still love you guys.    Don't mistake my opinionated ranting for rage or spite.

(Even if you smell.)

I don't like the examine difficulty myself. I made a similiar thread way back. Any new reasons for players to reach out beyond their comfort zones to socialize with other players about travelling, danger, and combat is a plus for me. We have a dungeon guide for OOC purposes to give a rough estimate of dungeon difficulty. Removing the challenge rating won't dismiss the list of immunities or vulnerabilities for monsters either. I feel more strongly toward this in for monsters than I do for players, but I would like it for players as well.


And I don't agree it helps players find parties at all. I've never once needed to use other people's levels to want to go somewhere. I've been to Frost Giants on level 11 characters and not died. I've been to goblins on a level 18 and RPd selling buffs to other characters who wanted to test their skills against them. It can all be roleplayed accordingly.

"I would like to try the Frost Giants one day."

"What? You're crazy. You'd get hacked in half."

"Perhaps you haven't seen all I'm capable of."

"Well, whatever. It's your death. If you need help, I've heard wind that so, and so, and another so have made the journey and came back alive before. Maybe you can seek them out."

"Thanks. I don't know them that well, but I'll speak to them about it."

I guess if you enjoy that, good for you? I personally find it either extremely boring (because I have to stand in the back and barely do anything) or extremely frustrating (because despite my fellow travelers' best attempts I still die every other fight) to go to a dungeon that's well above my character's level, especially if I'm also several levels behind my party-mates. Having recently done just that - Shezzarin (level 12) went with Bass, Rhea, and a handful of other people all in that near-epic to epic bracket to go fight the red dragon, and while the RP was good as usual, the actual questing was boring - I'd like to avoid it when I can, and have the ability to find people more around my own level bracket to travel with.

Yes, you can RP it, but you can RP anything. For some people that might be entertaining. I'm not one of them. And yes, RP can be fun, but sometimes you want to RP while going out and adventuring - and if the adventuring itself isn't fun, sometimes the RP doesn't make up for that, or worse the not-funness of the adventure ruins what fun their could have been in the RP.


Yes we do, and that's great. That's kind of useless though if you don't have an idea of where you or your party are. I don't know about you, but my usual method is to look at myself and my party's strengths then go find a dungeon that fits what we're about (presuming someone doesn't already have a destination in mind), rather than seeing a dungeon I want to do and then finding a group of PCs that may or may not be in the right range to tackle it.

Well, how you handle yourself in a dungeon above you comes down to how well you know what you can contribute, and that's another discussion. My level 11, probably did the most overall damage and kept the front line the most safe at the frost giants.

Cherrypicking parties for a dungeon seems more frustrating and boring than not dungeoning at all. How often to you amass these parties? Do you want to goto a dungeon, type /listpcs, see there's no one in your range, then get bored and log off? There should be greater reasons for meeting up and roleplaying with people other than they are in your level range. Sometimes you don't get to know a character well until you've fought beside them.  

I usually don't bother with listpcs (mostly because I tend to forget the command exists), but I will hang out in Central, or the Inn, or other common gathering places and see if I run into anyone that's around my level range (not necessarily straight-up at my level, but within a 2-4 level span either above or below me) who's interested in going places. If I find them and RP interaction starts to lean toward "we're bored/this thing needs doing/etc." hints of "let's go adventuring somewhere", and the people saying it are within a reasonable gap from my character at the time, I'll offer to join in; if I'm too low or too high, I'll tend to bow out because I know I probably won't enjoy the trip.

I just don't agree with promoting that sort of RP division between adventuring with PCs. But I'm more concerned with removing it from monsters.

So how is this different from other forms of what I've come to call "harmless metagaming"? Things like noting where your fellow party members are so you can "arrange" to meet up with them somewhere, or using Theavos to reach them (which, in an actual game setting, would require at the very least for Theavos himself to scry on the person in question, them to fail the save, Theavos to note where they are, then him to mass teleport the party to the location then teleport himself back to Arabel)? Other things that we do for the sake of convenience because trying to do it "realistically" quickly gets boring and frustrating and lonely?


I'm against that as well, if only because it's one of the few ways I can gauge where I am as far as getting in over my head. See below.


That's the other thing. Believe it or not, I am not very good at this game. The "building characters" mechanics side of it, anyway. I don't tend to know how to build really powerful characters in NWN's engine. I have a few builds that were decent that I managed to stumble into - mostly RDD characters, of which I only have one here, and she's not using either of those "super effective build combinations" since she's straight bard otherwise. Caprice's build is effective really only because I copied it from Peldszar, and had him around for most of her early levels providing her with spell and tactics recommendations. I can at least avoid most of the pitfalls that make a character utterly useless, but compared to the bell curve of characters of my level on the server, I imagine most of the time mine are slightly below average.

So instead I tend to focus on knowing who I can travel with safely (both on IC "this person is dependable, skilled, and/or good at this job" and OOC "this person is around my level, this class(es), and knows how to play well" levels) and having a decent understanding of what my characters can tangle with and get out in one piece when dealing with monster challenges.

Then it seems we're at a stalemate! Is this the part we kiss and make up?

Heh. Not so big on the kissing but handshake and polite nods of recognition I can do.

I don't really use it to look at other players, But I do use it on monsters. Being a new player and staying low lvl for awhile its helpful. There are not always people around to go off in a hunting party with so for me there is a lot of SOLOing. I really hate lvling but it has to be done because there are A LOT of higher lvl toons and they go out hunting in places I would like to see at some point to.  So I think the rating needs to stay so us lower lvl people can see monsters.

Even if it were disabled, you can still check player level (and class build) in the Player list when you connect to the server.    So no point in removing it really.

There's a way to hide that as well.

Ok guys.. Who freaking cares? If it happens it happens. If it becomes a problem report it. But to tell you the truth.. There are only a few nice IC pcs around. There is no shortage of mean and nasty lurking about. Just ignore them and go on your way that is all you can do. Yes it sucks but it is what it is.

...Wot

-edit- Sorry if it seems there was animosity in this thread. This isn't a new subject, and we're all kind of vommiting the same opinions. No one's angry with one another, it's just an a feature some other servers have, and some players would like to see it here too. But no one is going to throw in a towel if something like this is shot down.

IE: Bass.  What a dick.

Na hes just weird.. I was just getting at people arent always nice and there isnt anything you can do about it besides be on your own.

There is no penalty for 'death' but losing some cash, so I don't see a downside to removing challenge ratings from the monsters. I don't have an opinion about removing it from players' characters.

Multiple deaths do cost XP, if you die within a certain time limit.

Moreover, lost cash isn't a minor inconvenience for everyone. Some of us do not have massive stores of easily-expendable gold on our characters, nor the ability to easily and/or quickly recuperate our losses. And the loss of gold results in a loss of ability to get resources such as scrolls, potions, or healing kits that are increasingly necessary to survive adventuring, meaning that less gold = even less of a chance to survive an adventure. It's a nasty little cycle for those of us who don't have the on-hand resources to survive in the first place.

 I don't know, Death has always felt like something of a joke to me on CD, I'm not saying that to ruffle anyone's feathers but it's more or less a free trip to town for a cost.  I've died on purpose to save the long trek back laden with spoils on some characters.

You do know that's considered a system exploit, right?

Again, if it's that expendable for you, congratulations. It's not always so for everyone though.

What this sounds like to me is people wanting the game to be made harder, and for those of us where the game is plenty hard enough as is, it doesn't need the help.

I'm always broke relative to others who have millions. I come from a tradition of servers where you'd lose something like 10-12% of your XP on 'death'. I've tolerated other places where you left a body and other people could come and pilfer all your neat stuff, so in CD we get off easy.

As an aside, I am presently considering removing the 'free' death for characters over ...say... level 8 or 10.  Having to click "Respawn" should not be a painless matter imo.

 Yes, I'm aware it's an exploit. But I'm also of the opinion if I'm alone on a sever at 4am or some other ungodly hour and there's literally no one harmed by my cheesing my death except my characters imaginary gold, it doesn't behoove me to care much nor will anyone be apt to bring down the hammer in my experience.

 I 100% agree. Death should be more than an inconvenience. Currently, it's not.

You realize you are basically admitting to exploiting the system and taunting me to "bring down the hammer" for it?  >.<

Anyone stuck in a dungeon when they want to log off and go to bed could conceivably go to the AFK Area and just return to where they left off, right?

Do we still lose cash for respawning?  I haven't really noticed in, like, the last year or so.

I don't think so. As far as server difficulty, this is the easiest, most forgiving server I've ever played on. Action servers have harsher penalties for dying and harsher economical hills to climb.

It wasn't really my intention for that statement to come across as a taunt Vince, I'm sorry if it did. In reality the few instances where I've done this have been at such obscure times that no one but myself would even notice due to low server population during the early morning hours of operation. My point was more to illustrate the fact that The death system is so lenient it never struck me as a penalty to let an enemy kill me and respawn, that in and of itself is sort of an issue in my opinion. While I could see me walking away from the computer to go get a drink while enemies pound away at my character until it dies being viewed as an exploit, I think we can agree it's not really the sort of thing that could so easily be policed, anyone could claim to have fallen asleep under such circumstances for instance. At any rate my statements were not meant to be in any way incendiary or as some manner of barb to the server staff and if I've done so, I apologize.

Perhaps this is a good time to explain that one aspect of our philosophy with CD is that we have don't have the time to try and make the server 100% watertight and foolproof from exploitation, whether that's in the written rules, or in the scripts/game mechanics etc.  Even if we had the time, we feel that we would rather spend that time building fun stuff for people, fixing bugs that prevent people from playing, etc.  Now, while we do try and deal with egregious stuff, partly because we don't want people to wind up unintentionally doing something we don't want them doing, it's not our primary role.

So what does that mean?

It means that we expect everyone here to be adults, to play fair, and observe the spirit of the rules as well as the letter.  This helps us because we can trust you not to have to constantly look over your shoulder.  We're a small enough community that such a scheme can work, because this is a cooperative endeavor, not a competition.  In fact, the thing that gets people banned from CD (rare enough of a thing that it is, of course) tends to be showing blatant and continued disrespect for that sort of thing - the rules, the players, the staff, the community as a whole.  I don't say that to threaten or anything, I just want to try and relate our mindset when it comes to such.

As for the death penalty or lack thereof, yes, it used to be higher.  We decided to try and be nice to newer players, to encourage exploring and risk taking, and such.  If anything, I've pondered the idea of a return-home ability with a long reuse timer, though I don't know if we've ever really done anything in terms of looking at that.

Throwing my fifty cents out on Death Penaltys in two minds so while making it harsher for higher levels is fine in my view, keep it the way it is for up to the mid teens maybe. It encourages exploration I think not having to be scared of death as much. While once you get higher level stumbling on an area you won't survive long enough to run away at least is going to be far harder.

Perfectly content with the death system as it is ,as well as keeping the examine in there. Anyhow what the server does need IMO is to make people who aren't gish builds feel like they are strong too. The epic dungeons seem to spam dispels from what I've seen and what I've heard... and for people relying on scrolls for their buffs well they get sodomized.

Let's be honest... you need buffs to do the high level content, you simply can't get enough AC without the buffs... So people like Paladins/clerics/spellswords and any other buff and fight builds that use their own caster level dominate the field while other people have to either abuse hips and pretty much exploit the game via hips spamming or just get raped by dispels.

The dispells destroy spellswords still. You need to be level 25 I believe before it stops dispelling you except what mords auto strips. Two buffs I believe.

2 in an area or 6 from an individual.  

And paladins' self-buffing is wayyyy limited to around 6 spells at their own caster level, so...  Actually, the sheer volume of dispels means that unless you are over the caster level that can be dispelled, you're going to lose your high caster level wards, then be reduced to scrolling and losing wards anyway on the next dispel.

Second time you've said this in the last week or so, now I have to respond.

This is not accurate.  It is entirely possible to get a standing non-dispellable AC that is not reliant on buffs that is plenty high enough to withstand the epic dungeons.  

Let's assume an Epic PC who has decked themselves out in what I've seen readily available.

Heavy Armor Profile:
10 AC Base
+1 Dex

Enchanted Adamantium Plate: +12 Base, +3 Armor Enchant  (There is a +5 out there too)
Boots: +5 Dodge
Amulet: +5 Natural
Cloak: +5 Deflection

Tower Shield: 3 Base, +4 Shield Enchant  (Yet to see a 5 drop)

So now we're at, 48 AC. Not including the 2-4 you could get from Tumble dumps.  Or another easy 2 from Armor Skin.

A possible 54 AC, reached fairly easily. 51 assuming no Eldritch gear.  

A Dex build could hit numbers very close to this, especially with Invisible Blade's Int to AC, though a scroll or two will make a big difference for them. (Shield)

Now I've taken this somewhat off topic, but 50+ AC is MORE than enough to survive in the current epic areas.  


But on the subject of dispels, they're not just there to take down AC.   No, I'm actually more concerned with things like Death Ward and Magic Circle.  The two buffs that neutralize just about every status effect in the game.  Statuses that can make fights -interesting-.  (Confusion, oh so fun.)   Dungeons should provide a challenge.  There should be a chance you will not succeed, that yes, you might die and loose resources attempting it, even if you've done it right twenty times. That does not need to be a bad thing.  That said, there are few if any areas that will honestly just outright destroy a group if they are at the right level, have a balanced make-up and most importantly, play smartly.  Little known fact, many casters will see through invis, but you can still sneak up on them and drop them if you're lucky.  

In regards to the original topic it doesn't really matter either way the CR ratings are horribly inaccurate to really be a good guide to anything.

In terms of the increasing cost of death?

It depends what behaviour you are trying to instil within your player base. Having played on a server with more extreme death penalties at the higher levels it simply resulted in players logging off and not playing that particular character until reset to avoid the penalty. It will also potentially further narrow down the dungeons that individuals run and make the focus even more around 'the easy ones' with a few hard ones done occasionally for the loot upgrades.

I just can't see any positive behaviour coming from an increased death tax but I can see a lot of the behaviour people don't like already increasing. I.e. square sitting, easy dungeons being farmed continuously etc.  

Unlike many other servers, death persists across a reset on CD.  If you don't respawn or are not revived, you will remain dead when you log back in post-reset.

A 54 AC is a death sentence at Frost Giants they have a 42 AB I don't even feel safe with the 58 AC I can get. One crit and you're about half dead

But yes apologies for taking it off topic.

There are multiple ways to lower AB. And they don't roll 42 every attack per round. Nor is the place filled with more than 6-8 of them spread about.

Ah that is neat. Fair enough! I genuinely think the other points still stand it encourages more cautious behaviour which can negatively hurt roleplay in the long run. The real issue with the diminishing impact of death in a PW is simply because it is a PW. Death happens and will happen proportionately more than in a D&D campaign where you run on a model of four encounters a day, while in NWN you run four encounters in 5 minutes. Death can happen a lot and the people that are impacted the least by it are the optimizers and those more aware of the mechanical aspects of the game, those that are more impacted by it are the more casual gamers. 

The one thing I have always really liked about CD is how it is a very much middle of the road server. You simply put don't need to optimize to be able to complete the dungeons here as the price of failure is not punishing on those that simply want to try out different characters, while the dungeons do not necessitate a high optimization within your character build.  

I always viewed the CR on the monsters as something you NEED to have if you are a new player exploring or an old player that has never been to a higher level area.  When you can waltz through massive quantities of orcs on the server and then get smoked by the kings wood orcs, you kinda wonder what the hell is going on.  They're orcs, they shouldn't be that hard, and yet the order of magnitude is vast at the lower levels when you would be killing them.  Not to mention the ogres with scythes that eventually pop up and kill you in one hit if you aren't a fighter or have a lot of con.  Crit hits that is.

We have a lot of new/er players on the server that might want to explore when there are no vets around to tell them they are foolish for trying to tackle certain areas.  Without the CR, they run from one area to the next and then poof in less than one second because those drow are gods and the one's in the prior area are peons.

As to death on CD, it is a joke and it's very sad when I see vets treat it like a booboo in a quest.

I think this thread has served its purpose. New forums, old opinions on all these subjects.

I believe that Challenge Ratings should be removed entirely. There's no real way to avoid seeing them upon examination, and if you use them with monsters, guess what? That's still metagaming... after your character gets their arse handed to them, I bet they'll know after that.

58 AC? WOW! You guys are awesome!

Anyhow, as for the examine feature, it's why I never wear any equipment while in Arabel. Although in all the years playing, it hasn't helped in being part of the adventure that takes place. Guess it's all in who you know.