Overpowered Stuff in NWN/NWN2

[King Crispy]

I literally cannot think of a single encounter in ToEE that would qualify as something to contribute to ruining the game's combat quality overall.

The Balor is an extremely difficult fight, especially if you're not a power gamer (I am a very strict vanilla, pretend-I-have-a-DM-sitting-right-next-to-me-when-playing-a-D&D-CRPG type of player) and can and will and certainly did frustrate quite a few players, but it's one that can be considered optional IIRC, since to reach it the player must voluntarily enter the elemental nodes and specifically choose to take him on. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

Other than that, what? The stirges? The hobgoblins? The Moathouse fights? All perfect, IMO. The juggernaut? Completely optional. Zuggtmoy? She's a goddess.

There's nothing wrong with ToEE's encounter design. It was almost completely based on the PnP module, ffs! If mods ruined it for some then fuck them, they deserved it!

 

[Volourn]

"Volourn is a better poster than anybody else but his posts are worse than Prosper's."

"ME2 is a better game than BGII but a far worse RPG."

"The total is better than the sum of its own parts"

L0LZ


"I can only guess that he meant the system is great in theory, but the encounter design, difficulty, etc. is shitty, which makes the game's combat suck"

Yup. Combat system wise, I'd put TOEE in top 3 easy and arguably #1 RPG/D&D wise.

But, actual combat? No thanks.

P.S. And, mods don't count in assessing the actual camapign just like I don't use NWN mods to rate the NWN OC.

Afterall, one can 9and has) used mods to get rid of certain things many hated about NWN OC but that doesn't mean the actual OC as shipped didn't have those weaknesses.

Same with TOEE, its actual combat (mostly) sucked ass. Some fo the encounetrs were genuinely enjoable/challenging; but the majority were sucky.

*cough* bug bears *cough*

 

[Grunker]

(I am a very strict vanilla, pretend-I-have-a-DM-sitting-right-next-to-me-when-playing-a-D&D-CRPG type of player

A LARPer, you mean

I actually agree with you - ToEE has A LOT of great, great encounters! :D

It also has a lot of bugbears though...

 

[King Crispy]

If you are complaining about the number of bugbears encountered, specifically, then I can concede part of the argument. However, I will counter by reminding you that you're going up against an entire clan of them who have chosen that particular section of dungeon as their home, so naturally you're going to have to put up with males, females, and young.

I think it's a well-designed encounter, just an inconvenient one.

Any other examples?

 

[Grunker]

If you are complaining about the number of bugbears encountered, specifically, then I can concede part of the argument. However, I will counter by reminding you that you're going up against an entire clan of them who have chosen that particular section of dungeon as their home, so naturally you're going to have to put up with males, females, and young.

I think it's a well-designed encounter, just an inconvenient one.

Any other examples?

My point was that two particular areas of the Temple lack a lot in encunter-design, because of copy paste. This is the case in two levels (the bugbear-hill-giant-one and the Fire Temple with the bugbears).

 

[King Crispy]

Point taken. I am simply asserting that a couple of somewhat questionable encounters trash ToEE's combat overall do not.

But then again, it's Volourn's opinion we're talking about here, for some reason, again. I really should know better.

 

[Grunker]

Point taken. I am simply asserting that a couple of somewhat questionable encounters trash ToEE's combat overall do not.

I agree.

But then again, it's Volourn's opinion we're talking about here, for some reason, again. I really should know better.

Some other more prestigious members share his views. Roxor hates ToEE with as much passion as I hate Risen, I seem to recall.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

The problem with ToEE was that it was too D&D and not enough common sense. In other words ranged weapons were shit. There was too much movement per turn.

 

[Volourn]

"Any other examples?"

Pretty much every fukkin' encounter. That's why the handful of memorable ones are memoable. Not to mention the worst AI in a game not called AP.

Bug bear sees mage.

Bugbears chases mage down hall.

Bugbears dies from warriors' AOOs before even getting half way to mage.

Fuckin' lame.

Bugbears are just the easy encounter to point and laugh at. The temple itself is littered with shitty, boring, repetive (of course, TOEE is far from the only game with that problem) encounters. It's just so boring. What a waste of a greta combat system.

Silly Troika. If I were on their payroll ( i wouldn't get paid like everybody else ha), they'd still be in business.

R00fles!

 

[King Crispy]

I must reluctantly concede the bad A.I. point to Volourn.

I still don't think that's enough to damn the game's combat overall, however. It's one aspect of it that if improved would have made ToEE an even better game than it is, but one could say that about any game ever.

I also am fairly certain that bugbears are meant to be stupid, but smart enough to go after an apparent magic user. And there weren't too many other encounters that I can recall that suffered so blatantly from this flaw, were there? Maybe it was good A.I. afterall!

 

[Grunker]

I also am fairly certain that bugbears are meant to be stupid, but smart enough to go after an apparent magic user.

There goes your LARPer instinct again, Crispy. Kill it when we discuss dungeon-crawls

The bad AI has been mitigated with Co8. Which is of course one of the most awesome things in our universe.

 

[Hegel]

I must reluctantly concede the bad A.I. point to Volourn.

I still don't think that's enough to damn the game's combat overall, however. It's one aspect of it that if improved would have made ToEE an even better game than it is, but one could say that about any game ever.

I also am fairly certain that bugbears are meant to be stupid, but smart enough to go after an apparent magic user. And there weren't too many other encounters that I can recall that suffered so blatantly from this flaw, were there? Maybe it was good A.I. afterall!

co8 guys must be geniuses then, the A.I. is pretty decent, first two turns are spent spamming grease and web otherwise I'd get raped, and yeah, archers tend to go for mages, flee when damaged, start chasing only when they are going for the kill.

 

[Redeye]

level drains couldn't be healed (well, short of a wish, anyway)

Restoration was in 1E. (Don't think lesser restoration was.)

IIRC in the DMG there was some provision for getting drained levels restored in a monastery(?) setting, which would take the character out of the game for months.

 

[King Crispy]

@ Grunker & Hegel:

Yeah, but we agreed mods don't count when judging a game ITT, so Volourn does win that point.

 

[Hegel]

@ Grunker & Hegel:

Yeah, but we agreed mods don't count when judging a game ITT, so Volourn does win that point.

We can always argue that ever since Obsidian decided to add some modded content within its game (SoZ), we should allow some modded content to be considered as vanilla ToEE

Anyway ToEE modding tools are out, just saying.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Bug bear sees mage.

Bugbears chases mage down hall.

Bugbears dies from warriors' AOOs before even getting half way to mage.

So true.

 

[20 Eyes]

Clerics and druids are insane in NWN2, and mages to a slightly lesser extent. Clerics seem exempt from the multi-class min-max faggotry, because why the hell would you willingly turn down more cleric spells?

But once you get weapons that add +25 D10 Fire damage per hit, everyone is pretty broken. The quality and quantity of magic items is just insane, even for D&D.

I still enjoyed it. Even the OC.

 

[Shannow]

VoD mentioned AC of 80 being possible, that'd stop at least my melee builds. How long would the high AC last and what would one throw against the meleer while one was nigh invulnerable?

Assuming 40 CHa (for a modifier of 15) one can maintain it for 15x15=225 rounds. Then the AC will drop into the 60ies if you no longer have divine shields ready. But you'll still have 50% concealment and Mirror Images to absorb attacks. Or ethereal jaunt to remove yourself from the fight if need be.

Enough items that give true seeing, so forget about mirror images, blurr, invisibility, etc. I can't find divine shield im GB's spell list
But I'd still be interested in how you achieve AC of 60 with your sorceror.

Without immunity to death effects your life expectancy is quite short, Avasculate, Avasculate, PW Kill, goodbye.

A meleer'd still be above 100 hp after two Avasculates and you'd need actually hit him with them but I get your point.

Otherwise there's still Bigbys ForceFul Hand. Or Shadow Simulacrum creates a copy of your character (at 2/3 HP) so you'd have to fight yourself, Bigbys Interposing Hand can shift the tide in favor of the Simulacrum. Or good old IGMS spam.

Yep, that'd pretty much take an meleer out of the picture (if you really manage not be hit for a few rounds). Though I wouldn't put so much faith in IGMS. They only average at 30 dmg per round (more with empowered, maximized, yes, yes). You'd really need to spam a lot to get the meleer down.

No fighter will ever pull the same BAB as a cleric. Fact. Divine Power = having BAB and attacks as fighter of same level, then on top of it: Divine Favor, Aid, Prayer, Battletide, Righteous Might, Recitation etc

Considering the different stat maxing and feats, I still don't see the huge difference...

As for stripping buffs 1) does it even work? I thought as soon as you hit lvl 25 you become immune to dispelling

Link? I'm aware of no such thing.

3) who is going to strip the cleric of her buffs? Your fighter?

Come on, I pointed out that this wasn't about who is the strongest. I'm aware of a few builds that rape mine, but depend on abilities or spells that are restricted per day. I just don't (didn't ) see casters as OP in the NWNs as others always seemed to claim (Shadow Simulacrum was quite convincing though). And I very clearly stated that I prefer playing a character that's self-sufficient and doesn't depend on buffs --> is not threatened by stripping. Not that I could, or would want to strip. As an aside, you are aware, that my build "could" use all those cleric buffs via scolls, aren't you?

I never recognized fighters as a serious threat, clerics otoh especially Favored Souls are very dangerous.

And I never recognized any enemy, be it caster or other to be a serious threat in NWN2... In another thread it was casters that wondered how to take out epic gnolls and kung-fu vampires. Your point? And with AC in the 60s or 80s you wouldn't have reason to feel threatened by any melee build. Though I still doubt those numbers

K, I'll read the rest of the thread now. Perhaps somebody explains the AC thingy.

 

[Shannow]

In any case your build is certainly a very interesting one, and if there's a Sorc-killer then this is it. I hadn't really thought of Able Learner to complement it so nicely, I had forgotten that feats is so insanely OP.

Ah well, as VoD pointed out, there's simply stuff that you can't counter (with this build). Thankfully, Obsidian didn't actually put any casters into the game that used the stuff.
My first playthrough was with a bard/fighter/red dragon disciple/dwarven defender and 3 things bugged me about him:
While he levels RDD he sucks (till he becomes a half-dragon) and I really felt the lack of BAB even at later levels...
Fear
Confusion

I had to reload perhaps 6 times in MotB. 4 times it was because I wasn't in the mood to wait till fear or confusion wore off after a fight. For gameplay reasons it should have been capped at 10 rounds or automatically wear off after combat. Thus I made a build for my second playthrough that wouldn't suffer from that kind of shit. Which then was so easy that I stopped playing out boredom (and because of camera/bugs/crashes/not so hot story) *shrug*

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

10 base
+1 natural (yuanti pureblood)
+10 dread wraps (which also give DR of 15/- , suck it Stoneskin!!, and don't limit DEX)
+ 9 DEX (assuming you started with DEX 18, wear a +8 item and had some companion loyalty feat upgrades)
+10 mithral shield +8
+ 5 monk boots (dodge bonus)
+ 8 deflection AC (enchant nymphs cloak with deflection AC thru Gann's tortoise shell, could also use the spell itself)

So we have now 53 unbuffed.

+ 5 natural (barkskin, spiderskin,Shadowshield)
+ 2 blackguard aura (technically it is -2 on attack for the enemies, which boilds down to the same)

= 60
+ 15 divine shield, which is a feat not a spell
for a total of 75.

Maybe I forgot something, I'm certain there's still room for improvement.

 

[Grunker]

Is that NWN or just 3.5 in general?

'cause 3.5 in general you can pump it a lot higher

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

it's NWN2. And as you can see, everyone can do that not just a sorcerer (and better, example: pick up Tower Shield proficiency) only the substantial bonus from divine shield requires a maxed cha class + cleric/paladin/blackguard levels to be able to pick up the feat.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

BG's aura gives -2 to saving throws, not to enemy's ab.

Tortoise shell gives natural AC. +9 afair.

Dread wraps? Wtf is dread wraps? Some faggy warlock invocation?

- I thought it gives -2 ab as well, despite the descritption, maybe I'm wrong
- but is it still natural ac as soon as you enchanted a cloak with it like I said? It's deflection then? Fine.
- a robe with +10 ac and 15/- dr and some "disadvantages" like -2 con and -2 saves vs disease or something, can be found in the sunken city

 

[Ebonsword]

level drains couldn't be healed (well, short of a wish, anyway)

Restoration was in 1E. (Don't think lesser restoration was.)

True, but that's a 7th level Cleric spell, making it about as hard to get as wish.

IIRC in the DMG there was some provision for getting drained levels restored in a monastery(?) setting, which would take the character out of the game for months.

Hmm, where's that? It doesn't sound familar, but it's been a while since I read through the DMG.

 

[Ebonsword]

Is that NWN or just 3.5 in general?

'cause 3.5 in general you can pump it a lot higher

Which is part of why 3.5 caters to munchkinism.