Alangara

So, first of all, I understand that at least some of these issues are due to the server being intended for groups at my level and I'm attempting to solo stuff. Thus I'm lacking things like Improved Invisibility to cause monsters to miss me half the time, Bard Song for more AC, potentially more melee to help "split" the damage, potentially a cleric/druid for Heal/Mass Heal, and simply more people to kill stuff faster (perhaps emphasis on a mage to AoE stuff?). Going to go over my situation in a few ways, some of which may be redundant:

Relevant Stats
Level 23 (8 Fighter/3 Rogue/12 WM)
52 AC (will be 54 next level with 13 WM and Armor Skin, can also use Expertise + Haste for another 9 AC)
50 AB ("bugged" at the moment, should have a few less)
About 80 damage per hit (mix of Slashing/Fire/Sonic/Acid/Magical)
13 Regeneration with Museum Nectar
No damage resistance
50% Fire immunity, 25% Cold immunity
10/+6 and 5/+10 damage reduction, though neither seems to be triggering versus most enemies
20 Spell Resist
Evasion and 16 Reflex

So far I've spent 2 + 8 + 14 + 20 = 44 tokens (or about 1.1 million gold) upgrading my weapon, last upgrade will be to add cold damage and then I can add the 2d10 electrical damage boost...but from the pattern so far that will probably cost about 26 tokens (or another 650k gold) and I *just* spent the 20 tokens to get 2d8 Acid.

Mischa Soulseer



1, 2, and 3 are done.

4, whatever, not going to spend a while just spam clicking a thing to randomly generate fish.

5 refers to non-hostile orcs, guessing this is the Ruins of Orcgate near the Southern Plains that isn't in-game at the moment.

6 refers to two dragons in an ancient grove. I have no idea what this is. It's also level 25 max and I'm getting close to that so I'm a tad worried.

7 refers to a silver dragon in a cave in a snowy forest who needs a book. Again, no idea what this is and also level 25 max. I do have the Book of Winter from the yeti shaman (two now!) but don't know who wants it.

8 refers to moonberries. Needs 200 apples (fine) and a flower from the Fogmoor that I've never seen (not fine) across three characters that have done it (that I recall).

9 and 10 refer to the Gatherer NPCs in the Frontier who want you to go into the Lizard Swamp. As I've mentioned in another thread, the casters have a no save knockdown bolt, no way that's soloable at the moment.

11 refers to fire genies and Ifir Andu. This might involve the Fire Spirits in the fiery zone after the adult Fogshredders, not sure.

12 probably refers to the Cave of Darkness (they mentioned a harp in there). I collected the 100 Essences but then got stuck due to the 35 DC lock (not the 40 DC one in the cave, the 35 DC one in the Sanctum). Came back at level 23 when I picked up more ranks in Open Lock and died to the 41 AB sneak attacking mobs inside -- even with 61 AC due to Expertise and lots of Haste potions (meaning they hit only on 20s) they hit too hard for me to survive without using the special healing pots that I can only get one of per hour.

13 I presume refers to the portal in Blizzard Forest which is guarded by Old Grumpy with 54 AB -- can't go that way yet.

14 I'm guessing is referring to the Torn Lands that are past the Talkash beetles.

Quests Completed

Castle Balder
- dire rat and flute
- skeleton rings and Tortured Soul quests
- two Ratman quests (Boris and Ralpha)
- two Myconoid quests
- Sarah's potions quest
- Wizard goblin's head quests
- Thieves' Guild gold amulet
- Stat boost quest from crypt (50 essences)
- Book challenge quest
- all four bounties from Jack
- all five Cherry quests (and thus also Brubaker's quest)
- 100 essences from Cave of Darkness (but not harp)

Iceport
- Icefang's pelt
- three of the four bounties, I can't find Mibutz Ravagers

Aisha's Plateau
- Garou mines (for Revenge quest)
- all four Talkash bounties
- all four swamp bounties
- first two earth elemental bounties (third level with 48 AB elementals is too tough)

Frontier
- all bounties except Cyclops
- first two (all?) monk quests

I think that's it in terms of relevance.

Stuff Explored/Done
Keep in mind the following is "as far as I know" as maybe I missed secrets.

Castle Balder
- All main areas of city (Plaza, City Distract, Park, Harbor, Guilds, Provisions, Castle)
- All areas and subareas of Little Park/Little Forest
- first three levels of sewers (door that needs a specific key to go deeper)
- both sections of "old sewers" with Myconoids
- all of Low Forest/High Forest/last Forest/Greengrove with the exception of the Ranger's home with a 50 DC lock
- Fogmoor/Fogmoor Crypt/Valley of Darkness/Cave of Darkness/Fogshredder Deep
- all five farm areas and Hillshire
- Graveyard Path/Graveyard/Crypt/first half of Forgotten Depths (cannot get past halfway point as mentioned in bug report)
- Isle of Xymoria

Frontier
- initial area plus the Ravager/Death Hulk caves
- Lost Isle sequence up to and including the first (only?) underwater area
- Forest Giant area

Aisha's Plateau
- initial area/Gnollwood hills (not even sure why those gnolls are there, really), died to Anoy troll secret area
- both main sections of Talkash forest, including the fire imp section and water spirit section
- Talkash beetle area
- Southern Plains (including all of the goblin tribe caves through Lord Smirkag)
- first area of orcs (Ruins of Orcgate closed)
- Warrior lich area (at level 23, woo hoo)
- Feltman's Trail/Garou Mines
- Both swamp areas
- outside area/castle entrance/first underground level of earth elementals

Iceport
- initial area with inn and temple
- Blizzard Wolfen area and Icefang's area
- all of the outside area of Yeti Hills (did not kill Old Grumpy, have not cleared out cave in north middle of the map)

Stuff Still To Do
Castle Balder
- Fire Spirit area: they have like 40 AB with sneak attacks. This may be doable with Haste + Expertise active (which gives 61 AC) but they'll still probably hit fairly often due to rolling 20s and when they hit they hit for a lot of damage (like 50+ when I have about 350 HP). They're also immune to critical hits which halves my damage. They're also immune to Fire which also hurts my damage. I'm not sure I could get through here as is without blowing a lot of the special healing potions (which, as mentioned, I can only get one of per hour). If I get the 2d8 Cold damage and 2d10 Electrical damage that will probably help, though. I haven't gone back for a serious try after running like hell when I first found them -- kind of tired of dying and losing 2300 XP (which means like 15 minutes of grinding Forest Giants to recover the lost XP).

- Cave of Darkness: the Sanctum has Champions of Night with 41 AB -- these are worse than the Fire Spirits in that they're smaller and thus more can surround you at once. They're also immune to crits but not to Fire damage. I died even trying to use the 300 HP potions simply due to a few rolling 20s and dealing over half my health within like 3 seconds (which is fairly likely when 10 or so are surrounding you). There's also a 40 DC locked and trapped door in the main Cave of Darkness itself, not sure what it leads to -- I can unlock it at this point but can't deal with the trap.

- Locked bridge that requires a specific key. I haven't found the specific key. Maybe it leads to Darkmoor?

- Deeper Fogmoor Swamp. First pack has both anti-magic cones and no-save paralyze bolts. Yeah. Would need, at a minimum, immunity to paralysis on gear to even take a crack at it.

- Last half of Forgotten Depths. Not a difficulty problem, just literally couldn't get past about the halfway point. No path forward that I could find.

Frontier
- Cyclops area. A pack of them swinging at 46 flanking AB is too much for me

- Lizard Swamp. The casters have a no save Knockdown bolt, I have no idea what to even possibly do about that. I also found a locked bridge with 40 DC lock here (prior to being able to open it), but given that the swamp creatures in the current area can massacre me I'm guessing trying to go through that bridge wouldn't even well. Have two current quests in this area too (Dark Essences and Lizard Shaman).

Iceport
- I have no idea where Mibutz Ravagers are

- Yeti Cave (Hamlet of Dezban, mentioned in book). The Yeti simply have so much HP and also some immunity to Physical (or at least slashing) and Fire. Looked like they also were immune to Acid/Cold but had no damage of that type at the time. Vulnerable to Electric but can't get that until the fifth weapon enchant. They can only hit me on 20s (39 AB base, 41 when flanking) when I have Haste/Expertise up, but each hit is still for about 50 damage and since they take so long to kill my health just keeps slowly dropping past what I can regen. Survivable with enough Heal scrolls (which I don't have yet, not playing my cleric with my friend) or special potions, but given I can only make one potion per hour...

- Old Grumpy and his portal, 54 AB and hitting for 50+ damage per hit. Ouch. Might be able to win with Haste/Expertise but would probably be very painful and require several healing potions.

Aisha's Plateau
- giants area in Deep Talkash. They have 41 AB base, 43 while flanking. I can only get 61 AC (counting Haste/Expertise/25 ranks in Tumble). Didn't try to push past the first pack of two as it seemed I'd have no chance against larger packs without blowing through special potions.

- epic spiders (recommended as first adventure for epic characters -- ha!) have 47 AB. Ouch.

- Lands through the portal after the Talkash Beetles. Talos Stormbeetles have 37 AB (39 while flanking) and Slow on hit (meaning I lose 4 AC from Haste), so effective AC is 57. I literally took 251 damage in less than 2 seconds and died from 75% HP (one crit and two hit) due to 60+ damage hits and 120+ damage crits.

- Earth Elementals last two areas (Thundering Elementals and beyond -- they have 48 AB)

Random
I also have a few random items in my bags that don't seem to have a use. The two I'm thinking of right now (and I may be forgetting or may have discarded others) are Shei'zan's Heart (4 of them!) and the Undead Heart of Tiramosh. I thought maybe one of the people at Aisha's plateau might want the water elemental heart but nope. I thought maybe someone in Xymoria might want the Undead Heart to destroy it but nope. There a point to either item?

Conclusion
Crossing my fingers that I didn't forget anything, but that's what I've done in general until now and what seem to be my current options at this point. My current problems seem to stem from one of three reasons:

1, not enough AC, even with Expertise/Haste. Kind of what it says on the tin -- I just get hit way too often to live, especially given the damage amounts.

2, not enough (aka, not any) damage resistance/damage immunity. If I was getting hit for 25 damage versus 50 or 60 some of the stuff would be more manageable. As is, trying to drink a Cure Critical Wounds potion will leave me LOWER on health if any enemy rolls a 20 on their attack of opportunity since they hit for so much.

3, not enough healing. I can make one 300 HP potion per hour. Short of that I have 13 regen per round (counting Museum Nectar) and Cure Critical Wounds for 25 HP each. When I get my cleric to level 15 (which I'm only playing with Nyan) I may pick up Scribe Scroll and make a bunch of Heal scrolls, but that's not available yet.

Hopefully this may shed some light on my activities and how well the world is working out -- in terms of questions like...

1, have I found the areas you expected me to?

2, have I done the quests you expected me to?

3, have I obtained the items you expected me to?

4, are the zones and their desired levels working out how you wish?

Etc.

So, an update as I decided to take another stab at a few things (in particular trying to find the Silver Dragon in the icy forest since that seems it HAS to be in the Iceport vicinity, decided to check every square inch of the Yeti area)...

1, I found the Dwarven Halls. I think this is a bit unfair, actually -- the entire rest of the zone "trees on path" means "this way is blocked" yet THOSE trees you can run through.

2, I found the Mibutzz Ravagers, the Fort (which seems to exist only to have a lot of Ravagers, I couldn't find anything else of note there), and the village of Tolmar. Getting that chestpiece with 15 resistance to physical damage would help a ton with some of these areas, not to mention the extra regen. The helm/shield would be useful too, just not as much. Still, couple that with the "final" version of the weapon and I think I'll be able to actually make progress in some of the areas I mentioned. So I actually have a goal to shoot for again!

3, I still hadn't found the dragon so I figured I'd check the Blizzard Forest again. This time I noticed I apparently could walk on water in the south -- I thought the land ended and that was it. I had previously noticed the tracks but I attributed them to the Blizzard Wolfen. Behold there was a dragon who wanted one of my several copies of "The Book of Winter."

Which raises another two points, incidentally: someone might plan their character a certain way taking the stat increases into account (in order to qualify for a feat at level 15 or 18, for example -- or by getting the book/essences for an alt at low level). Not sure if you have any potential concerns about that. More importantly, however, is the question of skill points. In effect, my current character is down like...8 skill points due to not seeing the dragon (in terms of recommended level). I'm not massively concerned about it at the moment...but, on the flip side, getting deleveled down to 1 and back up after getting the permanent stat boost would give an extra 23 skill points for my level 24 characters. Again, not hugely concerned for this particular character, but you may want to consider whether you have any potential qualms with that.

Howdy Balkoth - ultra short reply to both these post before i goto bed after yet another day of 11 hours Work....

First of all the points you conclude in the first post basically sums Down to the state of NWN now being more or less singleplayer except a few servers. Thus we are currently in the midst of redesigning the intire setup to accomodate singleplay...

This also Means that basically all points Again to some degree are depending on the Whole forge-rework-isue....

---

As for the relelvel thingi weve never had much of a problem with that. On the other side however we will not ever never ever inform people before hand how to get certain statbonusses to ultra perfect their builds beforehand. This is and will remain a RP server meaning that people are not to neither expect nor in reality recieve some golden handbook of how to best use the servers bonusses. In that sense in reality if that is thee most important thing for a given player I', personally sure there must be better suited servers out there.

So to sum it up... ( my fast answer of the day that is )

Is a relevel possible ? More or less always even if a person decides to redisign from "hammer & shield", to archer..or whatever

Will we inform people beforehand on how and when to get statbonusses etc - no chance in hell !

( and even if we end up doing it, it will be for some continuety in an overall redesign of the intire questlines with some sort of storyline purpose and not to let everything be known beforehand )

/tara

tarashon wrote:Will we inform people beforehand on how and when to get statbonusses etc - no chance in hell !

That's not what I was saying. What I was saying is that if I get two +1 permanent Intelligence bonuses by level 16...getting leveled down to 1 and back up to 16 will give me 15 "free" skill points. Because NOW I have an extra Intelligence modifier for each of those 15 levels. See what I'm saying?

Which means, theoretically, that everyone will want to "rebuild" at some point even if it's to just get those extra skill points, even if they change nothing else. I'm just trying to give you a "heads-up" on that issue so you could consider whether you think it's a problem.

Ah Balkoth even thought I also did explain about that in the post

Well like I mentioned we have pretty much always allowed people to level Down/up if and when they came up with some reason. This also goes hand in hand with the philosophy of being a "newbie-friendly-server" and elimination or atleast lessen the need for a strict perfect from start powerbuilds. I've always seen the absurdity in the systems in the regards that you have a level 30 character getting pwened by a level 15 that knows how to build so basically we are, and always were, very "user friendly" in this aspect.

/tara

tarashon wrote:Ah Balkoth even thought I also did explain about that in the post

Ah, sorry, I thought the two points you were making were:

1, people are free to get releveled to fix something they messed up with their character

2, you're not going to tell people about secret bonuses ahead of time (presumably in at least small part due to point #1)

I didn't think "people getting deleveled and releveled solely to get extra skill points after getting permanent stat boosts" fell into either category, but since you think it falls into category #1 then that answers my question in and of itself!