Dungeons- Dispels/AC/etc

[kingofaquilonia]

So yea figured I'd make this thread to continue the discussion...

a 54 AC will get you slaughtered at Frost giants their highest AB is a 42 which means they will hit you on a 12 or better then a 17 or better , so first two attacks of the round have a pretty good chance of hitting with how often monsters roll high on the dice bag. Now yes you can lower monster ab if you are gonna carry around a massive stack of bigby interposing hands I suppose, or have a cleric throwing out crusades and prayers but then that goes into the need for a caster again.

I don't really have a solution for what I'm asking for, I'll be honest, but I'd like to see a dungeon where non-caster classes can shine, mostly speaking about fighters/barbarians.

[The Red Mage]

Non casters have a great chance at the Frost Giants since the clerics use Word of Faith to dismantle any summon. Are you suggesting it should be soloable? Well, it can be. By a melee character who doesn't have that high of AC no less.

If you desire nothing on the server to hit you beyond at 5% chance, then that is almost laughable. These Frost Giants have higher or equal AB to many bosses. Their purpose is to threaten the melee line. Their AC is weak, their saves are pathetic. Their weapon has no damage additions beyond the +5 enchantment. They are suppose to hurt, and they are suppose to hit, and they are suppose to be a threat. Relying on your teammate to provide ways to deal with their 40-15% chance of hitting 54 AC is not a weakness. It's good roleplay.

[tenorgeneral]

Personally what I'd like to see less of is the inclusion of multiple dispels per encounter, as even in a party, if you do Ogre Lords at the suggested level using only primary caster buffs, you'll still get at least a few wards stripped per encounter with the mages, which then puts you at a disadvantage as the dungeons do not at all seem designed for unwarded people to be going through.

Before someone suggests using consumables to replace dispelled wards, there are several issues with that, namely that every last one of your consumables will go away in the next dispel.  I would have no problem with dispels being so prevalent if caster NPCs were not also slinging flesh to stones, and massive amounts of damage spells while decently high AB enemies are chopping at you.  From what I've seen of Ogre Lords, you can either run right through it with zero effort (assuming a full "balanced" party) or you crash and burn really fast.  There's no enjoyment in a dungeon that you either skate through or get crushed by personally.

Of course, this is just like...  my opinion man.

[dom101]

When I adventure I do so with Bass.

I've been able to solo ogre lord's since level 14 or so. Even with dispels. In the frost giants?  Even in a well rounded party I'm just extra baggage. Disjunction is my bane.

[The Red Mage]

The bane of all clerics.

[Vincent07]

I'm not sure what exactly you think the mechanics should be KoA, but at no point should you be able to out-AC a dungeon tuned for your level.  The monsters should have a good chance to hit you, perhaps even a better chance than you have to hit them.

Why?  Simple.  You have access to a bag full of healing items.  They do not. In many cases you also have concealment, where aside from the mages, they do not.

I assure you that 54 AC is more than enough to clear any dungeon on the server at present. It's even enough for the high end dragon encounters.  I'll mention this as well, as I've seen a number of epic PCs that are not using the high tier heal potions.  Those potions are there for two reasons.  1) To mitigate the damage I expect you will probably take in the high level dungeons, and 2) as a gold sink.   (Let's be honest, many epics are sitting on well over 5 mil. GP )  If you are trying to survive these places on cure crit or lesser healing potions, well that may be why you get killed.


Now, on to dispels.

Some areas have too many per encounter. I am aware of this and will be adjusting accordingly. (Some spawns in Lightning Peak come to mind.)  Most do not.  If you're running with 1-3 member parties, you may feel overwhelmed by dispels, because I tend to assume groups larger than that.  I have made some concessions though.

The first being, almost every non-boss NPC with a dispel has nothing better than Greater Dispel.  (This means you can out-level it, and there's no Breach effect.)

Disjunctions, I try to restrict to the boss creatures, as they are usually Many vs. 1 fights and they should be tough.  This may change in the lvl 25+ dungeons.

Part of the reason for the mass of dispels though, is the mass of immunities that a well rounded party has.  They render just about any non-damage effect useless.  This is possibly indicative of a larger balance issue, but I'm not sure that is something that is feasible to change.

[Edge]

Part of the reason for the mass of dispels though, is the mass of immunities that a well rounded party has. They render just about any non-damage effect useless. This is possibly indicative of a larger balance issue, but I'm not sure that is something that is feasible to change.

It's kind of baked into D&D's structure, as is the assumption that you'll have buffs available at that level that can withstand an incoming dispel. (Either by being sufficiently high level, or being baked into your equipment.)

[tenorgeneral]

Re: Concealment, you only have that if you're a mage or UMDing...  which is really kind of a huge limitation for classes like Paladins who can't multiclass into Rogue unless they're a Tormtar.  Also, if concealment is included in the calculations for dungeon difficulty, that may be why Veir runs into such huge issues even at places that he's over level to be visiting (though I mean I guess he does okay if spamming heal kits, but that seems... immersion breaking I guess).

The other thing I've noticed as a DM in PNP is that when the party hits a certain level, it gets really hard to solve the problem of making interesting encounters by stripping wards (which the sheer volume over multiple encounters guarantees unless you're over the CL limit of dispelling, which kind of limits the buffers whose buffs stay useful to post epic casters, or level 20 casters in Ogre Lords specifically).  

The biggest thing is not that Ogre Lords and other places get difficult when you're dispelled, it's that for your average human or elf or dwarf PC, it goes from doable at the suggested level range to absolutely lethal (in my experiences at least) with little chance for a successful run, which makes it not fun to run.  It was fun before the dispels, as it was still difficult at points, but the regular mook spawns found everywhere in the dungeon weren't suddenly TPKing you because the tank's wards got dispelled and he got put down, and then everyone else got dispelled and put down, until the whole party is running off of scrolls (which then makes every encounter a dispel, fight for your life, reward, repeat scenario).

[The Red Mage]

I haven't ever seen a wipe at Ogre Lord's passed a DM controlling the chessboard. That's probably the most frequented mid-range dungeon on the server, and it's not because it's too difficult.

[tenorgeneral]

Maybe it's just that I'm doing it wrong or something then.

[Deleted]

*raises hand sheepishly* I've been involved in a wipe (at the chessboards) in Ogre Lords... playerside.  Bad bad tactics and dispels.  It was a while ago, but... yeah.  It can happen.

[Dismus]

I have seen plenty of wipes at the ogre lords at the chess board. I was with Bella at least once. It usually happens when you go at a two early of a level.

[tenorgeneral]

I've been involved in a few almost wipes and...  three or so wipes, and yeah they were when lower level PCs were brought along and the party really fell to two people to carry.  

I'm not saying it's too difficult; what I'm trying to say is that unless you stick to one of the scroll-caddy builds, which can reliably rebuff themselves multiple times over the course of the dungeon, it becomes extremely lethal really fast.  So my issue isn't that it's too hard, but that it really feels like it pigeonholes PCs into the kind of standard build here (UMD points, or massive numbers of scrolls readable by a caster).

[The Red Mage]

Well, I won't argue server balances around every buff available doesn't diminish build diversity. Managing proper dispels will fix that.

[tenorgeneral]

Not if the content is then over the top for the resulting un-buffed party.  Ogre Lords seemed pretty balanced before the addition of dispels and the AI (which I believe was later replaced), and I haven't seen any downward tweaking of the scariness of the non-casters now that dispels are a pretty real threat there to many parties.  (or maybe it's just that I can't wrap my head around what is enjoyable about hitting the same combo of scrolls and potions between encounters to rebuff.  I mean, there can't be anyone that enjoys the buffing part of adventuring more than the adventuring itself can there?)

Because with the scroll caddy mentality, that's what happens, and then you have dungeons that are really easy or utterly destroy you (which Ogre Lords seems to be, really easy provided you're over the majority of the dispel caps there, or utterly destructive if you're not).