Cormyr and the Dalelands

Okay, I am not usually one to complain about challenges and all of that, I do appreciate a good challenge, but I feel that in some instances we are beginning to blur the lines between challenging and impossible. It seems like an ongoing thing, really. A dungeon gets completed by players a good number of times, it gets harder and harder. Rinse and repeat. A prime example of this is the Wyvernspur crypt at it's final boss which was given a very generous AC boost... So alright, she's able to fire off all her array of spells, there's something engaging there at least, I guess. But then when she runs out of spells and starts attacking with her staff, and you proceed to play whack the boss for 35 minutes? I could go cook a chicken dinner in the time it takes to beat her down, risk free. You just watch the screen and hope that everyone rolls high on attack bonus rolls in many rows. Now.. don't get me wrong, I understand that we're trying to encourage groups instead of soloing, and I understand that we want to have a balanced ratio of challenge vs. reward, but it just feels to me like we are catering more and more towards power builds, and the rest are being left in the dust. Now, I've really only seen the above mentioned Crypt in some of the updates, but based on what I've read in the change log, I can't imagine any of the other dungeons being much better since. Of course, I could just be going a little crazy here, but I would really hate to see this server become a place where only power builds (especially ones with ECLs) can really do anything at all.

The main reason Lady Wyvernspur keeps getting her challenge cranked up is because the staff keeps seeing people going through that dungeon at far lower levels than it is designed for. Wyvernspur's Crypt is intended for a group in the mid- to late-teens levels (click for level list - the crypt is listed as 15-20), yet very regularly we've seen groups with characters around level 12-15 in there, sometimes even as low as level 9. What this tells us is that she's being run by groups far lower level than intended, meaning the challenge is less than the builder (Vincent) anticipated. Therefore she's adjusted upward in an attempt to bring the challenge back to the level it was supposed to be.

It's not to make it so only powerbuilds can take her on. It's to make it so only characters of the appropriate level can take her on. Yes, the occasional powerbuild outlier may be able to challenge her a level or two early, but that should be the exception rather than the rule.

Granted the entire dungeon probably needs a power boost so that it challenge players of the appropriate level just to get to her, rather than lower-level characters breezing through the dungeon easily (which unfortunately is currently the case - the skeletons, spiders, ghosts, and ghouls in there are not super-impressive to a group in the mid-teens, meaning you have to get all the way to the skeletal dragon or even the boss herself before really meeting a challenge fit for a group in the later teens). But one thing at a time.

It always really comes down to builds. I noticed CD dungeons don't leave much room for 'RP-Builds' and that a good powerbuild gets you through most of it instead. Balancing a dungeon is therefore impossible because there will be players with less strong builds and others with uberpowerful builds that will wreck everything. Best thing to do in my oppinion is to find a middleground. If it is impossible for people of the right level it is probably best to tone things down.

Well, as stated, the problem is the opposite - it's too easy for people below the intended level. Thus the increase in challenge.

I think I was that level 9 that was there that one time and I could not do anything. I was simply there with a group. In all honesty a few levels later we even had trouble to clear it as a higher level cleric and weapon master. I think lb7 is right the dungeon is too hard for classes that have a harder time combatting undead, etc.

And by "a few levels later" what do you mean? If you mean in the 12-15 range, then this is working exactly as intended - those levels are too low to be doing that dungeon and should be having trouble.

If you mean in the 16-18 range, that's the lower half of the intended challenge range for the dungeon and it should be difficult but doable with good tactics, good builds, and good luck.

If you mean 18-20, then we actually have an issue.

How many people is the place balanced around? Or aimed to be balanced around? Naaliah, Kaya, and Angelina frequently test themselves there, and weren't able to kill Wyvenspur until Kaya was 14ish (and had Bladesinger), Naaliah was ECL 19ish, and Angelina was 17. And that happened because Angelina's Turn Undead ability allowed her to spam the room with Heightened Turning to get the casters running before they could do any dispels beyond Wyvenspur's barrage. We had tried the place many times before that (as Kaya says), and were never successful.

Is that her being too easy? This is for the old Wyvenspur.

CD dungeons typically expect, and are balanced around, a group of 4 to 6 characters.

So with 3 characters, one of which was below the intended level for the dungeon, it should have been rather difficult but doable, especially with one on the highest end of the level range and one specialized against fighting the primary enemy type in the dungeon.

Maybe the standards should be lowered as getting a big, balanced group like that is very rare.

The only thing I want to warn about here is the 'goblin king' scenario, since the goblin bolthole most often exemplifies it - If you want to make a dungeon challenging, boost the whole dungeon, not just the boss.  Nothing results in more anger than hacking your way through a relatively easy dungeon only to get curbstomped by the final boss because he's several orders of magnitude harder than everything else.  

Yes, you're going to see people below the intended level running dungeons on any server.  There's a few ways they can do it, too - Powerbuilding is always popular, but simply having a bigger than average party can do it.  ECL races will also skew this, since a level 13 half-dragon is the level-equivalent of a level 16 of any other race (and gets all the purple swag to go with it) but still shows up as level 13 and their race might not be readily obvious to an observing DM.  In the case of Wyvernspur Crypt, you also get specialization playing a huge role - Since the dungeon is entirely undead (except for the skeletal dragon, which is a golem) any character designed specifically to fight undead is going to be wildly more effective at a much earlier level than the designer intended.  A level 12 cleric with Sun/Healing domains is going to be much more effective in that dungeon than most level 20 rogues because of this.

Edit:  This discussion is moving quickly.  I agree with Wittle Dreamer here - Expecting a party of 4-6 is an outdated standard from when the server boasted a higher average population.  The average party size I see these days is typically 3-4.  Maybe if we balanced around this the more roleplay-oriented builds would be more viable and people wouldn't feel like they 'have to' make strong builds just to be useful in the dungeons.

I'm only weighing in here to point something out because of the discussion on powerbuilds vs. rp builds...

On CD players are encouraged to try a variety of builds to suit a variety of playstyles and desires. For this reason we have relaxed multiclassing rules for most restricted classes like paladin, monk, druid, and cleric (we used to enforce Order limitations on monks and paladins but this was done away with to allow for more build diversity - both for the sake of interesting builds for rp and powerful builds for combat).

Nowhere on these forums will you find anything that tells you your characters must be built 'x' way or have 'y' template. You - as the player - are free to build, design, and rp your character pretty much however you want (and this lack of restriction on player imagination and creativity has often enough in the past created major problems for staff -and- players). The reason for this is we want players to be creative and experiment.

Now, the downside to this approach is as follows - and is what I personally have seen from Wyvernspur and the actions of a small number of players. These actions do not reflect the actions or intentions of the playerbase at large of the server, but they do very greatly and heavily affect it: some players are going to do everything they can to gain every mechanical advantage with little or no regard to rp. Such players have and will likely continue to resort to powerbuilding as much as they can, exploiting mechanics, and doing anything they can to get an edge mechanically against the challenges of the server. RP will be a secondary concern and will follow from the boost in mechanical power that these tactics grant them. There is nothing that can be done to stop this behavior other than limiting the creativity and freedom of the entire player base, and is this really fair when it's just one or two doing it? I don't think so, but that call is and always has been up to the administration.

So, Vince - the primary builder - has no choice but to take these behaviors, builds, and players into account while designing dungeons. When balancing in a game you do not balance around the weak builds, abilities, or tactics. The focus is always on the top tier. You look at what works, what works well, and what works too well; and you create an environment where these things are forced more in-line with what does not work as well. This is a universal approach to balance in gaming that you will see in almost any and every online game that allows diversity in character creation and progression. The one thing that we do not do here that goes along with this is approach is targeted 'nerfs' to powerful or abused mechanics. Instead, the staff and builders here prefer to create -more- work for themselves by changing the environment around these mechanics rather than simply 'fixing' the mechanics themselves. Imagine if this was not the case and clerics and paladins could no longer stack obscene amounts of divine damage on their weapons. It would take a lot of fun out of these classes, but it would also allow dungeons like Wyvernspur to be more 'balanced' for classes not designed to fight undead as well as them.

There will always be a trade off. I believe if you choose to have a 'roleplay build' you're also making a choice to willingly give up mechanical power in your build...if by 'roleplay build' you mean that you're intentionally instilling flaws and weaknesses in the mechanical build of the character to enhance roleplay. However, if by 'roleplay build' what you really mean is 'I want to play a character and not put any or much thought into my leveling progression, class combination, or template and still be awarded with the same combat viability as someone who has spent time and research planning their build' well...that's kinda the same as going to your job and asking for a paycheck without actually doing anything. Your character becoming a noble in Cormyr from humble beginnings as an adventurer is a great feat of roleplay and comes as a reward for the time, effort, research, and energy you've put into your character's rp. Your character receiving attention from their god (outside of game mechanics) is another roleplay reward that does not care about build. Your character becoming a prominent, exalted figure in Cormyr and in our setting...one of the highest things you can aspire to and one of the only ways to leave a permanent mark on the server...comes purely from your roleplay and does not care about your build.

There are rewards for both mindsets - rp heavy and mechanics heavy - and there always have been on CD. It's one of the reasons CD has been around for a -decade-. Almost no other server still up can make that claim. We do not limit or try to control what players do with their characters but merely deal consistently with every player in a fair manner and allow them to do their own thing without us tying them up with a billion rules, restrictions, and elitist cock-nobbery.

Lastly, for my personal part I've never considered there to be a difference in a 'roleplay build' and what most consider a 'power build'. If it suits my character's roleplay to be mechanically strong, they will be. If it doesn't, they won't. I will either put in the effort to come up with a build that suits the image I have in my mind for the character while still being mechanically capable of tackling CD's dungeons at the appropriate level...or I will have a roleplay reason for why the character -isn't- mechanically strong and spend more time partying up because I have to - which, in my opinion is even better.

Many times I see people standing in the square in these little...pods. Then I see these pods go off hunting together. See them roleplay together almost exclusively with one another...and know what I see when the pod isn't on at the same time? Instead of a character from these little pods going out and roleplaying with someone else - or joining up with someone new - beyond level maybe 12 or so groups tend to form and characters seem more and more unwilling to join up with new people. This is baffling considering that this behavior limits rp and exposure for everyone - and from a mechanical standpoint slows and halts progression because it limits when your character is able to go dungeoning. I think this problem is very linked with the above one I mentioned between rp builds and powerbuilds, and it's just silly.

To me it seems like sometimes we want to have our cake and eat it, too. We want our character to hunt with people of similar relative power as them (so they don't feel outshone) or we're afraid to interact with new characters (especially higher level ones) because there's a fear of judgment when we have either chosen to build the character weaker or simply are not as good at the mechanical aspects of this years' old game and have created a character that doesn't do as well in combat. This seems to be less of an issue - again - when characters are lower level, and really doesn't seem to kick in until about level 12 and onward. Not sure why, but it's what I've noticed as a recurring theme on CD in my time here.

Hmm, I see it in another perspective really. I do not really see pods. More often then not I see people joining different people for a raid, like Varyxia or other things too. I remember being part of a huge group for a quest with people I have not seen before, or went with you (SO) for instance to the Gnolls. Same with Rashan, James, etc. Also I witnessed quite a few people that normally do not RP with one another going off together when someone puts off the notion of adventure in the middle of the square.

Eitherway I believe this to be drifting from the topic. Putting balance into a game such as NWN is an impossibility. Some classes ultimately outdominate others mechanically and some even stand little chance to do anything in most of CD's dungeons, such as rogues. With the server having around 50% undead dungeons their sneak attackes are duefully useless, sadly enough. Clerics will have the upper hand instead with their turning but even that seemed to have gotten a serious nerf. But I am not here to list all class pros and cons.

What I am getting at: instead of providing a challenge to classes that can steamroll content, especially the one or two cases of powerbuilds that you mentioned SO, why not make it challenging for the decent to not so decent builds? People who want to steamroll content will manage to do it one way or another but it won't ruin the experience for less powerful builds. Also if the worry is that no one will group together for dungeon content, I highly doubt that will happen. There are too many awesome people in this community that stick together and will find any excuse to do a dungeon or not, no matter if it is challenging or not.

What it really comes down to (And I can't strain this more then I am: This is all my oppinion) is that people enjoy the content and the mass of beautiful areas CD has instead of giving them frustrations that they will never be able to clear an area because of their build / character idea being too shitty mechanically.

And if there is worry that rebalancing may be a lot of work, which it deffinately is, I am willing to help out with it (should it be decided that there will be one).

You're relatively new to the server, so perhaps you've been fortunate in your interactions, but a few things I should point out:

Rogues: are essential. In many dungeons you will need them to disarm traps or open locks that no other class can get. As far as the undead dungeons...CD is actually split pretty evenly between undead and non-undead  (50/50 as you mentioned) dungeons overall. It's quite possible you simply haven't managed to explore all there is to see yet. Also, if everyone is good at everything, why bother partying up? The rogue having trouble with undead gives them a reason to join up with the tanky fighter to get to the loot the nasty undead are guarding. The tanky fighter, in turn, needs the nimble fingers of the rogue to get that annoying lock or his entire trip wasn't worth it.

Clerics: Are good at killing undead. Get rekt pretty hard in places like gnolls, frost giants, and Sakkors at high levels and destroyed pretty well at low levels in places like the King's Forest Orcs (granted their missile storm spam kills pretty much anything). The cleric, though - with the exception of those focusing exclusively on killing undead - is doubtlessly going to want to face enemies of their god who are still breathing. They'll want a tanky warrior and a nimble rogue themselves if for no other reason than these builds shore up their weaknesses and give the enemies more targets to dispell who aren't them.


Now, as to why we balance around the stronger bulids...well, to put it simply that has a lot to do with item dissemination on the server. See, if we ignore those 'powerbuilders steamrolling content' and they're able to rapidly and repeatedly farm content without any kind of rp or a group...they will quickly amass a wealth of the available items in the game. They then give those items (give, not sell, because as I've seen most often this is the case) to lower level characters and pretty much eliminate those characters' reason for even dungeoning. There are characters on the server who have - in being able to wear purple gear for just a few days - completely decked out in the best gear that tier has to offer. At that point they can then just start farming up gear for their friends, and pretty soon everyone is sitting at level 16 - having freshly entered the purple tier - and have absolutely no reason to bother going out to hunt. It honestly cuts off a great deal of rp as well if you're like me and rp through dungeons.

Simply put, the systems are interconnected, and if challenge isn't maintained at the highest tier very quickly there will be no challenge at any tier. I've personally seen that ruin a server to the point where the dungeons stopped being updated and there wasn't even any content at all past level 20 (server went to level 40). Basically, before it was shut down the only way to get new and interesting items was from DM events. I don't think that's what anyone wants to see here, but I may be mistaken.


Now, all that said, CD has -always- been open to player-generated content. If you'd like to contribute your own special touch to the server you can find tutorials on our systems and a seed module (I hope, if Vince has updated it) HERE. In the past CD has accepted player-created taverns, businesses, homes, dungeons, items, and even an entire city. Basically, if you make it and send it in, Vince will look over it and make sure it's not something that's going to break the server then it goes in. Right now, Vince is the only builder we have contributing to the server on a regular basis and that's a lot for one man. The work he does is truly incredible, but I'm certain he wouldn't mind if he didn't have to do everything himself.

While dungeons and dungeon balance are not my primary area of responsibility, I'll toss in a few notes on our overall design philosophies.

First, CD does not use dynamic challenge systems. A dungeon will not adapt itself to your party to make things easier or harder, nor will it adjust its rewards. Thus, a dungeon that is marked as intended for 16-18th level will provide rewards on that tier, regardless of what level (or number) of players is running it.

Second, we don't intend that the point of CD be anything to do with items or money. They're meant as a side/fun thing, not as a requirement. The level-tier shops are there to prevent anyone from feeling like they're going to fall too far behind the power curve.

Third, speaking of power curves, one of the worst offenders of power creep isn't smart builds or ECLs (even though we sometimes look at those too), but people loading up on the best gear possible as early as possible. You have no idea how much this annoys me, because you are sabotaging your own fun. There are only so many tiers of items, and once those run out, you're increasingly 'done' with the dungeon minigame. Cheesing through dungeons that are meant to be there for you at a higher level just means you're denying yourself the chance to run them, and find something potentially rewarding, once you're actually at that level.

Now, I might feel a bit more sympathetic if we were short on dungeons to run at any given level... but we're not, at any point save perhaps the epic range. The problem is that people are going to tend to go for whatever seems like the best reward for the easiest run, and thus we're often finding ourselves having to fix the "favorite dungeon to go farm." It becomes very noticeable, too, when people only ever run the one dungeon, or run that vastly disproportionate numbers of times compared to other dungeons of similar level.

As the one who does the dungeon balancing/tweaking, I'll address some of this.

Dungeon balance is a tricky beast.  As mentioned previously, there is a -lot- of build variety on CD.  This leads to a fair level of diversity when it comes to the power of each PC.  Level, class make-up and potential ECL template all impact how effective or ineffective a PC is in NWN combat.  The amount and type of supplies carried, as well as the general proficiency of the player controlling the character also have an impact.  Most of these factors are out of my control.  While, yes, I could in theory limit the number and level of PCs that enter a dungeon, I'd rather not.  For one, I don't want to create a situation where a group has to decide who to leave behind, because they have 'too many' PCs for a particular area.  Simply, that isn't fun for anyone.

So how do I go about balancing a dungeon? At this point, a lot of it is that I just have a very good idea of where average AC and AB values, as well as HP and damage output sits for the 'average' group of players of a given level range.  That just comes from having done this for years.  But I still keep a number of 'test' PCs around for tuning fights.  Though, lots of times I simply eyeball it.  These days, I tend to assume groups of around 4+.  Used to be we tuned for more, and there are certainly some old areas that may run smoother with a larger group, assuming proper level range.  However, many of these older areas were also tuned for a time when the +4 and above loot table did not exist and the +3 one was much smaller and simpler.  It's only in recent years that the time was taken to fully fill in those tables, a process I'm still working on.  But if you want an idea of what 'old' dungeon design is, look no further than the Solitary Spire out in the Semberholme. (Or many other Sember dungeons for that matter.)  That place has been mostly un-updated since it went in.  I bet few of you know that it actually has a basement level.  There's no reason to go there aside from killing encounters, as I'm fairly sure there's no treasure.  An at-level group with time appropriate gear would struggle through that tower to do the Gem of Life quest, and come out having collectively lost money.  Not a scenario you see too much these days.  As you may imagine, the Spire is on my revamp list, as are a number of other places.  There's a lot of dungeons on CD, some more well balanced than others, a trend that is easy to pick out by which ones are visited most frequently.

Now I wanted to take a moment to cover one particular accusation that keeps coming up whenever we have this discussion, and I assure you this is not the first time this topic has come up.  And that is, that I balance around ECLs.  This may sound odd, coming from someone who's player vault contains more ECL characters than most of you have characters in total, but I don't.  Any time I pull AB and AC values for testing, I do so off a normal, non min-max'd Human fighter or rogue type.  That isn't to say I don't also note down the min-max potential values. I do.  And to some extent, I could also tell you what changes any particular ECL would make, or how insane you could pump values by powerbuilding a fighter type with half-orc and 10 RDD levels. But why would I balance around those templates or that orcish strength powerhouse?  All that would accomplish is ensure that the aforementioned average human fighter or rogue got curbstomped by whatever I was making. (That isn't to say that doesn't happen now and then, some creatures are made to hit like the giants they are.)

Some of the frustration that I've seen in regards to dungeon balance, is really the symptom of a few problems.  One, a small, or under-leveled group trying to take on something tuned for either more or higher level players.  This is fairly straight forward.  For example, a group of 3-4 low teens going into Varyxia's lair are likely not coming back out except via a Respawn.  It isn't that there's a problem with that encounter, but that the aforementioned group wasn't prepared to handle it.

The second issue is actual imbalance.  This could be something as simple as the loot in a particular dungeon being either too much or not enough when compared to the challenge of the dungeon as a whole.  Many of the Semberholme dungeons fall into that latter category.  For a long time, places like Khazar, and Ogre Lord's Redoubt fell into the former and thus we saw them ran very regularly.  Trylo mentioned the Goblin Bolthole, one of the early level dungeons that has some boss encounters that are a bit beyond the difficulty of the rest of the dungeon.  This is the third issue, though in the case of the Bolthole King's room, I feel that the level of loot available after his defeat makes up for his difficulty, though it could probably stand to be tweaked a bit, as his guards do a lot of damage.  (Though perhaps some of you recall the old versions of them with halberds, who would 1-shot most at-level PCs on a crit.  Not fun.)

This brings me to Wyvernspur.  Made up of 2 floors, this is one of the longer mid/high-teen dungeons on the server.  But after a test run of it this afternoon, and having watched some recent behavior, I can say that it suffers from some very problematic balance issues.  I'll go ahead and address them here, for those interested.

To begin, I entered the dungeon on one of my mid-teen alts. Specifically, a 10 Bard / 2 Duelist, single wielding a (buffed) +4 1d6 fire mace, with flame weapon added on.  With standard buffs, not counting haste, I ended up with around 47 AC and 26ab, with 140hp, and 50% concealment from displacement, though that likes to wear off mid-fight.

There are 5 main creature types in Wyvernspur, not counting the boss type creatures.  Fallen Heroes, skeletal warriors that at level 12 conned blue.  Zombie Devourers, spiders that conned blue as well.  Then Restless Ancestors, ghost types that conned purple, and Slaughter Wights, ghouls that also conned purple.   With the aforementioned character, only the latter 2 types were able to land hits with any regularity, and generally they still missed.  Greater Skeleton Mages make up the last type, and while their dispels made a difference, dropping my AC down to 39, it was still survivable with some tactical play. (Rebuffing, healing as needed.)  The Dragonbone Golem would probably have done me in if alone, and Lady Wyvernspur herself certainly would have.  Lady Wyvernspur herself is an epic level Lich, with all the goodies that come with that.  But, she tends to run out of magic long before she dies, in part to having a bit too much AC, on top of innate concealment. (Which I'd forgotten she had, ah well, these things happen.)  This results in her moving into melee, which, as a pure wizard with little to no physical ability scores... is laughable at best, and results in a very dull whittling down of her  HP while she prods you with a stick.   That's.... not what I think of when I think "fight a Lich".  As with many other dungeons, the good loot is in the final room, a handful of tier 3's, and 2 tier 4s that happened to roll up, with the previous area's finding resulting in a solid amount of gold and tier 3 gear.  So, can you see the problem here?

Simply, the overall challenge of the dungeon is quite a bit under its listed level range, sans the final fights with the Golem and Lady Wyvernspur, which are closer to the intended target, though Lady W runs out of magic far too quickly in relation to her hp/ac values, and once survived, the overall challenge of the fight evaporates, resulting in, in my opinion, fairly easy loot gain if you are prepared enough and lucky enough to survive the magical assault. (Gotta love those 1's though.)  Loot in the rest of the dungeon is overall solid for low-teens, but the encounters themselves are far too easy, given that a lone level 12 survived them with minimal damage.

So, solutions?  I have two.  Option 1, de-power Wyvernspur and her loot, slightly increase the other spawns and re-classify the place as low-teens.  Option 2, tweak the Lich,  jack up the rest of the encounters to be appropriate to a group of mid-high teen PCs, and increase the overall loot quantity appropriately.  Personally, I don't particularly like option 1, as I feel that a Lich should be a near-epic encounter.  So I favor option 2, though it is considerably more work.  What is likely to happen, is I will tweak Lady W a bit, and adjust her loot drops accordingly until I can get the entire place revamped into something more appropriate.

As a final aside, visually the crypt is kind of meh... needs more flavor, which I have some good ideas for.

Well, I realize that I've written a small essay here, but perhaps now you have a better idea of my process with dungeon balance and design.  As always, input is welcome.  In-fact, I have an entire forum for dungeon feedback, it's a sub-form in the bug forum.  Obviously, I don't have time to run every dungeon or watch them all be run with every group make-up, so such feedback is very helpful to me.

^ +1 to the above. FW pretty much said what I was trying to with lots less words.

Vince, I appreciate the insight into how you balance dungeons.  And I'm inclined to agree with your approach, too - If a dungeon has fallen out of its range, buff the whole dungeon so it's back up to the challenge level you want it at.  It is more time-consuming, but results in a more cohesive, more fun experience overall.  And liches should be near-epic encounters.

I'd like to comment on Sinister's assessment of Rogue and Cleric, as well, since it seems we have different opinions on the usefulness and validity of these classes.

Rogues...  aren't really required anymore if you stick to the 'core' dungeons.  They're required for some of the more esoteric or exotic ones, but most of the time you're fine not having one.  Traps never move so you can either 'dwarf' them or Dimension Door over them using one of the many available items that do that.  Doors can be bashed by a sufficiently high-Str character, and most chests can be bashed open too.  This was a very, very welcome change when it went in too because of another problem - There are very few rogues.  Most 'rogues' are characters with a one-point dip into Open Locks so they can use buffs and high-level tools to open doors because that's all they need, else they're multiclassed into something with a bit more direct combat potential when they can't score sneaks.  With the core dungeons at teen levels being almost entirely undead and golems, true rogues are all but guaranteed to not have any fun unless they have regular, reliable companionship.

Clerics, on the other hand, are one of the game's most powerful classes.  There's a reason that most people into D&D 3.0/3.5 considers Cleric to be unmatched by any class except Wizard.  Only vulnerable to dispels, which are infrequent until you get to high teens and epic levels and 'only' leave them with the same AC as an equal-level fighter, a well-built, well-equipped cleric is a force of nature.  Before the latest changes I knew not one but two clerics who could solo gnolls easily, neither of them especially well-built.  When they hit epic level they get more epic spells available to them than mages do on top of being able to use the best defensive equipment in the game while having spells that compensate for every other weakness they have except getting dispelled (and those dispels become less of a problem as they get higher into epic levels).  

And since I mentioned it, perhaps there is a bit of a problem that there are a group of 'core' dungeons from which most parties will never stray.  These tend to be the ones that are both easy to get to and provide good loot for the time and effort involved.  In short, the most profitable dungeons.  These dungeons tend to be the ones that see most of the time and effort from Vince because they're the ones everyone knows, the ones everyone runs, and thus the ones most likely to cause issues.  Perhaps these dungeons should be used as a standard for a balanced party, then offer more specialist fare that's easier with some parties but harder with others?

I'm going to disagree with you on rogues, as there are a fair few chests and doors with DC 50+ locks that cannot be bashed open still.  Nor do I plan to change that.

As to traps, good point.  Perhaps I'll start moving trap triggers and up the search DC a bit.  Doesn't particularly solve the 'it's easier to dwarf it' problem, which is more of an epic issue than anything else, as trap damage becomes less of a concern when HP breaks 400+, especially if someone has evasion.   But then, I plan to put in higher powered traps that hurt more, so that you need to disarm them.  We'll see.  something to consider at least.  There are also some instances of non -single shot- traps with DCs over 35, which require a rogue to get rid of.  And if it's on a plot door, well you aren't getting through that without one either.  Not that there's many of those, not in the more commonly visited areas at least.

Why is it always 'buff the stuff' instead of finding an alternate means to make it good? Why always look for reasons to make a PC have a super hard time to clear a dungeon instead of making the dungeon itself fun to go through without being screwed over? I don't like how anything I read in this thread basically spells out "Let's fuck over the PCs because they seem to be having a too easy time."

It just confuses me especially as lots of people here seem to be asking for things to be made easier, but now where they asked for it things are being made the reverse.

I honestly don't get how you're getting "screw the players" out of this.

I don't know how I can spell this out more simply. The dungeon is intended for higher-level characters than it is currently being run by. This is not what was intended by the designer. That requires adjustment.

It's not about screwing people over, it's about making the challenge appropriate for the intended level. I get that a lot of people want things to be easier, but that's not the intended design in this case - it's already too easy for the intended design. Which has been the point the staff has been trying to make for this entire conversation. Hells, Vincent wrote a mini-essay about how his own low-teens character can solo the place up to a certain point, and how that's not supposed to be possible.

If you've got people in the low- to mid-teens running successfully through a dungeon intended for high-teens to twenty, something is wrong, and either the dungeon needs to be scaled down to the low/mid-teens level as a whole, basic enemies and bosses and loot and everything (which Vincent said he does not want to do, there are other dungeons for that level range) or everything needs to be scaled up because it no longer meets the appropriate challenge for the level intended. It's a work in progress - as is just about everything on this server - and thus far only the boss has been actually adjusted, the enemies and the dungeon itself still need tweaking.

I honestly cannot fathom how to explain this more clearly. What you want is not what the designer intended. It's like going to McDonald's then complaining that you can't get a hot dog.

Or let's try it from another example from in-game. Say we had a player running the Goblin Bolthole in Hullack Forest repeatedly. They come to the staff complaining the area is too easy and has no challenge, and that the builders should make it more difficult, adding higher-level spawns, nastier traps, and so forth. The problem is that the Bolthole is a low-level area intended for characters between 7th and 10th level (give or take); the character requesting this is likely too high level for the dungeon, and should have moved on to other dungeons to meet the appropriate challenge for their level. The problem we're having with Wyvernspur's Crypt is this exact same thing, but in reverse - people going in there are, in many cases, too low level, and want the challenge scaled down rather than going elsewhere intended for their current level (say, Witchlord's Keep or the Ogre's Redoubt in the Stonelands or the Orc Lairs in the King's Wood or Thunder Gap).

It was simply the impression I was getting as a few people found the dungeons hard, even for their level range but then I read things were ment to become harder, such as traps. However there are many different views here, from all sides.

I have two questions for those finding it too hard, then.  What level is your character, and what level is the rest of the party they are with?

If you are in a party whose average level is 17+ with at least 4 people, then yes.  We may have made the dungeon too difficult for its intended level range.  However, if you are a group of primarily 10-15s in the dungeon, then no.  The area is at the difficulty intended.

The major problem here is that we have witnessed certain players escorting lower-level characters through high-end dungeons.  So the perception has become "well, this is meant for my lower character to be able to run."  That's a misconception.  See the Dungeon List (found HERE) for a more accurate list of what levels dungeons are intended for.  (As a note, these areas are constantly in a place of rebalancing.)

As Edge said:  if we make the place "easier," the loot is going to be adjusted accordingly down to only T2/T3 gear.

It's worth pointing something out here, and at least one of you had already admitted to such, but if we're trying to make a dungeon reflect it's desired challenge level, it would convey a better message to some of the playerbase in general to focus on the whole picture of the dungeon, as opposed to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I can't really speak for a lot of the dungeons that are around, but speaking on the Wyvernspur crypt, it's final boss has been modified three times in the past three months (And actually, the dungeon itself has been modified even more times then that, in it's past here).

One of those modifications was a fix.

Two of those modifications was an increase in AC and HP.

Nothing has been done to really change the rest of the dungeon to reflect the desired challenges of this particular dungeon, and all of these updates and modifications are at least one month apart from each other. To me I feel that this doesn't really convey the message to people that I see posted here as it is simply more... "Oh, so and so are finishing this dungeon? Ridiculous. Let's make the end of it harder."

A dungeon with level 18 reward chests is either going to have an appropriate challenge for level 18ish characters, or we're going to change the reward chests to match where it's at.

We're not going to make it easier to farm higher level gear, for reasons I've previously stated.

Lb7, Vincent is already working on that. If you read his post he says that it needs to be worked on and it will be worked on.

I understand that. I was merely putting in a perspective of some people of where they (some of the players) get this feeling of being screwed over comes from, in that there's a huge gap in the challenges of a boss, as opposed to the challenge level on the rest of the dungeon, especially when you go over the change logs and see the patterns. Granted, I can't really speak for a number of the other dungeons because I have not seen them first hand; only complaints that I cannot verify the validity of, so I won't get into them.

I'll say this.  This is not at all my train of thought or intent.  Insinuating that it is, is frankly rather annoying.

I do look at who completed dungeons, especially if I notice they are running a place constantly.

As I mentioned previously, the main issue with Wyvernspur, is that the current challenge of the dungeon does not match the intended level range.  Additionally, Wyvernspur herself had waaaay too low of AC and HP given her respective level, which made the encounter way too easy for one that resulted in tier 4 loot.  

As it stands, I'm just going to revamp the entire place so that it fits the intended level range of 16-19ish.  The area will also receive some visual updates.

Wyvernspur is not the first dungeon to go through this cycle, surprisingly enough.

The dungeon before it that received similar focus and attention was the Gnolls out in the Sunset Mountains because - at the time - they were being run most regularly (sometimes in a single day that dungeon saw more traffic than all the other dungeons on the server combined). As mentioned, when the staff sees this kind of activity around a single dungeon we take a close look at it.

In the case of the gnolls, some -glaring- issues were found with the AI that drastically reduced the challenge of the dungeon. When that was fixed, Vince was better able to get an idea of the -real- challenge of the dungeon and found it to be lacking (it's supposed to be for level 19-22, if I recall, and a group of level 16ish characters (3 or 4) were regularly clearing the place in about 15 minutes without taking damage). Granted, myself and a few staff members comprised this group so there was less risk of exploiting or farming, but even so Vince rolled out changes quickly and in small doses because that's the easiest way to tell which fixes/changes work and which ones don't. Overhauling an entire dungeon in one fell swoop - making changes to spawns, stats on monsters, items dropped, boss mechanics, and even additional bosses almost guarantees you're going to have to roll something back or that you're going to create new issues. Adding all of that at once makes it much harder to narrow down where things go off the rails.

Naturally, the boss is the best place to start. It's a single creature. This is why Lady Wyvernspur has received more attention than the surrounding dungeon. She's simply the easiest 'problem' to fix.

Please always bear in mind we have -one- builder. Time is a thing and one man can only do so much work so quickly. Vince is amazing at what he does, but he still has a life outside the game that puts heavy demands on him. Things will get fixed in their entirety in time. Please be patient, and remember - if a dungeon isn't to your liking there are -lots- of others to take a look at.

For my part, if your character ever wants to go out and just see or find new dungeons Voss is always willing to show people around. I know most hate his guts for various reasons, but I'd relish such opportunities to show that there's a great deal more to the character than meets the eye.

I'm certain other characters are willing to do this as well. It just takes some asking around.

New Wyvenspur is out. Going to be damn near impossible to do that with buffs without having a trap springer. I went a short trip in to the first staircase, and got hit by about 8 dispels, and then one of the mages was -inside- a dispel trap so you can't get to a dispelling mob without being dispelled by a dispel trap.

In other words, we need more trap springers!

The new Wyvernspur was not in at the time of that post.


It is in now.

If you weren't getting hit by dispels before, that means a trapspringer already went through and removed them.  

Excited to try the new Wyvernspur tonight!

It wasn't? The traps were completely redone last night. There was a dispel trap by the foot of the Lathander temple that hit me against the wall, and the one in that first long tunnel was broken into 5-6 separate dispels, and the skeletal mage just past it was hugged up inside of the dispel trap by the foot of the stairs to the next floor. That was all pretty new for me.

Before, there were only 2 dispels: 1 in the long corridor, and then 1 at the staircase with the skeletal mage -outside- of the trap so it could be attacked without going inside the trap and getting dispelled.

I'll check it out again after the event this afternoon.

Edit: Yup! This place is super different looking. I love the new entry! It is beautifully done. Has a really good flow to it!

Yeah, the change should be super noticeable, I redid the place entirely. Spent a solid 9 hours working on it yesterday.

So I'll be honest when I say, I did NOT read every word of this thread.   Neither am I trying to drag up an argument.    But that said, I read a number of people complaining about build abilities in combat and powerbuild vs rp build.    As far as the cookie cutters go, we have no power builds.    We have some people who have managed to build their concepts better and drive the PC's in their control better, but still no out 'n out powerbuilds.    Yes, some builds are made more around combat then others, but frankly.... this is DND.   Questing involves combat nearly always.    And lastly, when it comes to building, or running a PC to it's peak performance.   It's a matter of learning a few tricks, anyone out there who is unhappy with how their PC performs in given situations that you assumed it should be better in, I'm happy to sit down and help you out with it.   I've helped a few people in the past who had a very solid concept, but as far as putting the concept into a nwn build they had trouble.    So if you have a concept and want it to work in nwn hit me up and I promise we can get it working.    


Also!   If you ever have a group wanting to go out, and are halted due to a lack of lockpick or trapper hit up Elf, I will sit in the back and just do the roguey stuff happily

Just something to keep in mind...  There are certain spots in the revamped gnoll dungeon that are made difficult by the sheer number of mobs.  It's not because there are a lot of mobs per se, since there always were, but more of them are spellcasters and that many spellcasters casting in a group that size causes a lot of lag, especially when combined with certain spell effects like a PC casting Crusade.  This can make the fight artificially difficult because you're not just fighting the mobs, you're also fighting the game to be able to react in time.  The bigger the party the worse this gets, and the party I was in today wound up taking a couple deaths because we were having to react to events a second after they already happened.

Yeah! And it doesn't matter how good your PC is there, the game just can't handle that much well.

On my runs there with Voss and groups of 2-5 people I haven't experienced any latency issues or screen tearing from lag or even client instability like what you mention above. Are you certain there weren't other factors affecting it? Like shiny water or grass or something being turned on. The only time I've really experienced something like what you mention is when Rhea is along with us and uses her doll that does the lightning storm effect in the final room where Hogger is. That spell does appear to put some serious strain on the client. However, with our normal duo of Mouse/Voss we have no latency issues whatsoever, and with our less common group of 4-5 with Kel casting Crusades and Words of Faith I didn't notice any problems myself.

It -may- be that (at least with the crusade visual) the party attempting the dungeon was a bit big, and that combined with the spells from the gnoll casters could be causing your issue. I'd recommend attempting it again with a smaller group to verify. Voss runs there often if you want to do an ooc run of it sometime with maybe 4 or 5 people to see if that makes a difference on the stability of your client.

Hey now!  Rhea doesn't use that doll NEARLY as often as she did.  Mainly because it's harder for me to see the balors to kill them.  

There is certainly an upper limit on things though where the NWN client gets pissy and slows down noticeably, or worse - it's just a question of where that point hits, and how/why.

As far as I remember, dungeons were designed for party of six people within the level range. And group like that may contain four, even five characters that are casting. It would be good to test the limits and spells that are causing it.

One person isn't likely to make that big of a difference, but my point with my post is that it simply can't be a problem with the dungeon itself as the conditions that you experienced did not occur for myself or others with a smaller group size...which even based on what you're saying makes the most sense. If you take a 4-man party that is 4 casters into a dungeon that is also filled with casters there will inevitably be a lot of spell visual effects firing at the same time. This is what creates visual lag, chopping graphics, and screen tearing (and can crash your client as well).

Now, if a small group went into gnolls and had these same graphical lag issues then a call to change/fix things on the server side (by cutting down the number of casters in each spawn or altering their spell lists to be less flashy, etc) would be legitimate. However, if the issue does happen to come down to the fact that a group took 4-6 casters all firing off spell effects at the same time in combat as well as the spawns there? Sad to say, but getting rid of the 2 or so casters per spawn isn't going to fix the graphical lag if all the party members are still casting at the same time. It's just the nature of the beast, unfortunately.

As for dungeons being designed for 6 people...I've never heard that, so it's news to me. Not saying you're wrong, but even if this was a group of 6, I don't think you'd likely have problems like you're mentioning unless every member of the party was a caster throwing spells in combat.

Also, @belladonna:

That silly little doll blinds the hell out of me every time. It causes some pretty severe lag on Clockwork's rig, but mine handles it well enough. The brightness will get you, though.

It's probably more accurate to say that dungeons are balanced around the stereotypical four-man party of Warrior, Sneak, Priest, Mage, for the appropriate level range. Though Sneaks do kind of get the short end of the stick regardless due to all the undead, constructs, etc. around.

The dungeons are balanced around 4-5.  There is a point where the larger groups will start spawning larger groups of enemies, but I believe you have to have 8 or more characters there for that to happen.

In any case, we had a 6 man group if I remember (which as I've heard from Vince multiple times is only slightly more than what we should have) and we were experiencing significant stalls and slowdowns.  I know it doesn't happen with smaller groups, but that's because smaller groups equals less things going on, especially if that group doesn't have a lot of casters (Like Mouse and Voss).  But once the group size skews large and/or more casters are present (Or a cleric drops Crusade) it does begin to hiccup.

I simply mentioned it because I have heard Vince express that dungeons are designed for larger parties, but gnolls is now running into a problem where larger parties, if they're a bit caster-heavy, may experience slowdowns and lag.  It's a balancing act, I know, but I wanted to make the design folks aware.

I'm quite aware.  Gnolls was designed with large numbers of NPCs in mind.

But not a group of 8+ players.  The engine has its limits, though I've personally never run into many lag issues there.  And I have cut the NPC numbers down once already.

Though, it occurs to me that Crusade could do with less impact vfx.

I have always subscribed to the philosophy of increasing HP significantly over AC which will make people of appropriate level unable to hit her.

Raw health increase is rarely a good balance mechanic.

I've been building bosses and boss encounters for my resident nwn2 server for years now. If a fight was being deemed unbalanced, it needed severe study before I made alterations. There was a case in which the "increase HP" came up, lets look at it:

The fight was one of three "major" boss monsters on the server, namely the middle child: Ashardalon.

Ashardalon is a gargantuan red dragon. Well, franken-dragon, made from Ashardalon's remains and various substitute parts. It currently has 76 AC and in the region of 140,000 HP. This may seem a lot, but our server goes to level 40, and damage really ramps up at that stage.

Ashardalon is primarily a caster, relying on the dragonkin attendants for melee interference in phases 1 & 2. Having Sorc levels, the spells are limited in variety, but have a fair number of uses. The fight was going too easy, especially in phase 3, where a section collapses, forcing all players to engage Ashardalon in melee range in a small  arena. He was simply dying too quickly. Now, my point:

I upped his HP. A LOT. I think I bumped his Con by 10 and gave him Epic Toughness III. Which on a boss equated to an additional 100,000 HP. This made the fight last much longer, but failed to address the difficulty. By Phase 3, Ashardalon has burned all his spells, as the AI uses them stupidly. So he was a poor melee fighter punchbag. 

After a time of testing, I established a new phase three, Ashardalon flies away, and comes back down in the arena (This is actually a -new- monster with the same model/ name with a hugely powerful melee build, he's a dragon/blackguard) that they fight in melee range. Same health, same AC, but much more melee oriented skillset, that buffs before the players can rush him.

I rambled a bit here, but felt like throwing my thoughts in. 

I can see those points, but I have been on the receiving end of the attacks of a monster that was buffed (first to deal with one or two powerbuilds) to levels that were basically unhittable by a level 20 WM build with a +4 sword. This was on a server where though level 40 was allowed they pretty much set it at 20 because you could not level up past it without a DM giving you the blessing to do so. I do not mind losing a fight IG.. I do mind watching someone who should be at least competent at that level for the fight wiffing away all day while the enemy nails him to the wall.



How relevant that is to this particular issue I do not know.

I endeavor to avoid that scenario.  Encounters should be challenging for an at-level group of a reasonable size. There should be some risk of failure, and a decent reward for the given challenge.

Sneaks do have fewer options against these enemies.  However, CD has a ton of options to help them if they look around.    I'm a sneak and I punk both for about 60 a pop.   

Bane of Enemies =/= sneak attacks. As a ranger you're not really a 'sneak' in the traditional sense because your damage is not reliant on sneak attacks (which are disabled vs. constructs and undead). Unfortunately on CD there isn't any way to get around that massive loss of damage for any heavy rogue variant. Elf does as well as he does because Bane of Enemies is a damage bonus that never goes away, and this isn't really an option to be found on CD so much as a byproduct of effective character building.

CD has a ton of options to help keep rogue-based builds from being completely useless against undead and constructs but none that allow them to be as effective as they are against fleshy targets. Yes there are maces and holy buffs for your weapons, but at the end of the day an additional 2d6 from holy oil and a 50% bludgeon damage increase on your base do not account for the loss of your sneak attacks unless your build has already taken the weaknesses to undead into consideration so that you don't lose 8d6 or more of damage. Further, with a build like Elf's your Bane stacks with any other weapon buff so that against undead your damage is still far superior to anything a pure rogue or heavy sneak class could count on.

That said...60 a hit on undead is about what Mouse manages so maybe the damage is more equalized than I thought. Her damage on sneakable targets, though is...well, a ridiculous amount higher than 60.

Anyway, damage aside, I would like some of the lower dungeons to be more sneak-friendly like gnolls is. Having an effective scout in that dungeon is the difference between needing just two people to clear the place and needing five or six. I'd also like to see more dungeons with containers that really require you to have a rogue along...or traps. There's a reason we see fewer pure rogues or heavy rogue builds than fighter builds that just dip into 2 or 3 rogue. I think if there were more places at lower levels for these more scouting/lockpicking/trapdisarming builds to shine the server would see more of them in general, which would be cool.

The other big reason you don't see a lot of rogues is because the grind for them is pure hell.  At early levels they're often forced to solo (as most players are) and that's tough for a rogue with their stats - They've only got average AB and HP, their Dex and Tumble can't hope to make up for the lost armor of full plate and a tower shield for another dozen levels, and their bad Will saves are hit hard by the Fear auras low-level bosses commonly use.  UMD, or a friend helping you, is all but required.  As they finally claw their way out of the low levels, they run straight into the mid-level undead wall - Nearly all the popular mid-level dungeons prominently feature undead and the only one that really needs their services is Witchlords.  Even then, most rogues I've talked to don't especially enjoy being a glorified pixie familiar that sneaks around, disarms traps, opens locks, and tickles enemies while other people do all the 'real work.'  There are certainly rogue-friendly (well, rogue-friendlier) dungeons out there in this range, but they either suffer from being hard to get to, having a low payoff, or have some other reason people don't go to them (like the orc cave with good XP, traps, locks, lots of mobs to fight...  and the shamans who spam Iron Horn and KD half the party every round).  It takes a very dedicated sneak to reach the payoff point of King's Forest orcs and ogre lord's redoubt where they can finally get some breathing space (though they will still gnash their teeth at the constructs in the latter).  By then they've generally given up.

More than one high-level rogue player has told me that the best way to make a rogue on CD is to level up as another class then rebuild into it at about level 14-15, since that's the point where you'll generally stop feeling useless.  I agree that we need more options to encourage people to make, and more importantly keep playing, rogues, and having a good dungeon or two for them in the mid levels would go a long way towards this.

Hopefully my revamping of a number of the Semberholme dungeons will provide more rogue-friendly avenues for exploration at mid levels.  

In particular:
Green Valley
Bugbear tomb
Drow Treehouse
Sember Trolls

I also have a mid-level lizardfolk ruin in the works.

Just sharing my personal experience here, having a rogue main.

Traorin is a Fighter 1/Rogue 11. IMO he's rather strong, having soloed the King's Forest Orc Cave twice yesterday (which given, was NOT easy, and I went through the second time just to get my rapier that got dropped in one of the huts due to a full inventory (>_<)).

He's got an amulet (forget the name) that summons a skeleton chieftain, which is of help (though I've found that it's not the necessity I thought it was). Also useful is the heavy focus on UMD (plus skill focus: UMD) so spells like displacement and icy scales prevent him from taking damage most of the time. I think the only thing that makes him different from a pure build rogue is that he uses a tower shield for extra AC (though lately I've been going without it and just dual wielding rapiers since his AC is so good). Spell casters can wreak havoc on him, so Spell Mantle and Globe of Invulnerability help (and finding items that cast these for you aren't rare), or just sneak up to the mages and kill them before they cast anything (when there's three of them, though, that can get tricky). Weapon choice may make a difference as well. I've found a number of great rapiers; not sure on what it's like for those using a kukri or other small weapon.

I wouldn't say that playing him has been hard. I think it's just a matter of having the right tactics and finding what the best way is to deal with a situation. Having a strong summon with you (the Hunting Horn helps a lot in the low levels, and it's so common that you can have an endless supply) means you can rely less on tactics and do more fighting. A dex-based rogue can get their AC up there along with their AB, and then from there, it's a matter of killing mages before their spells kill you, or keeping up on your health for when you get crit'd by a large creature.

Just my 2 cents.

As the player of a small-size rogue (/arcane trickster), there's an amazing array of daggers in the loot, a less impressive selection of shortswords but a few good ones out there, a couple good kukris and handaxes, and some decent maces and whips. Exotic proficiency for kukris, kamas, and whips is kind of a must, just given the limited options for weapon types that can be dual-wielded if you're small size (only daggers, kukris, and kamas can be used as off-hand weapons for small creatures without extra penalty).

THIS.

I played Mouse as a rogue/SD for a year before her rebuild, and she kicked a decent amount of ass. The only reason she got the rebuild was due to a quest that made the newer build make a lot more sense for her, and she still is, despite the investment in bard, decently heavy in rogue/assassin.

If you pay attention to what you're doing, yes, you can solo as a rogue. But if you don't want to invest that time and effort into exploring tactics, then you're going to have a bad time no matter what you build.