4 replies to this topic

[ottomadenedamotto]

Okay, so here's a 2 part question.

The situation:  I'm looking to set up 4 encounters which spawn if a certain NPC is in the party AND the party is just barely able to handle them.  These are meant to be very difficult battles.

Part 1: I'm assuming that there's an easy way to script a tally of the party's total xp (since I don't want to assume party size and set an impossible challenge in front of a smaller party.)  Assuming that you're talking to somebody who knows almost nothing about scripting, how do I do that?

Part 2: In order to make these encounters very difficult, I need to know how powerful to make the cre's.  What do you think are reasonable levels for the assailants of the following encounters?

Encounter 1 - LevelPartyGT(9) - consists of 1 Kensai and 1 Archer

Encounter 2 - LevelPartyGT(11) - consists of 1 Abjurer, 1 Conjurer, 1 Priest of Talos, 1 Assassin, and 1 Wizard Slayer

Encounter 3 - LevelPartyGT(13) - consists of 1 Mage (vanilla), 1 Necromancer, 1 Jester, and 1 Inquisitor

Encounter 4 - LevelPartyGT(15) - consists of just 1 Monk

Thanks in advance!

Edited by ottomadenedamotto, 13 September 2010 - 03:52 PM.

[Miloch]

The party's gold is pooled but not their XP, so there's no trigger that could identify the combined XP total. Possibly some crude hack using both XPGT() and NumInPartyAliveGT(), but it might be easier to use LevelPartyGT() instead of XP, that way you can decide what level (or hitdice) of enemies to use. There are mods that scale such spawns accordingly - possibly BGSpawn and Tutu's own spawn system - take a look at those scripts. You'd need a bunch of fairly similar script blocks to do the checks and spawning, but that is (IIRC) what those scripts do also.

[ottomadenedamotto]

The party's gold is pooled but not their XP, so there's no trigger that could identify the combined XP total. Possibly some crude hack using both XPGT() and NumInPartyAliveGT(), but it might be easier to use LevelPartyGT() instead of XP, that way you can decide what level (or hitdice) of enemies to use. There are mods that scale such spawns accordingly - possibly BGSpawn and Tutu's own spawn system - take a look at those scripts. You'd need a bunch of fairly similar script blocks to do the checks and spawning, but that is (IIRC) what those scripts do also.

Thanks for that.  For now, though, let's assume that they attack as specified above.  I still need to know how high their levels should be to pose a significant threat to a party of 6.

[Daulmakan]

Doesn't the Poison encounter from Tactics trigger when a certain amount of XP is reached (among other things)?

[Miloch]

Thanks for that. For now, though, let's assume that they attack as specified above. I still need to know how high their levels should be to pose a significant threat to a party of 6.

I think you should just assume that the rest of the party will be roughly around LevelParty. Which I think is the highest level in the party, but close enough. If a L12 party decides to tote around a L5 character, that person deserves to get pantsed (and maybe the rest of the party while we're at it ).

So then it's just a matter of determining how many are in the party and scaling the enemies accordingly, inflating by a couple more levels or by a couple more enemies (or perhaps both). The reasoning being that the party's tactics and resources will almost *always* be better than the AI, so just to make it a fair fight, the enemy will have to have an edge either in hitdice or numbers. You could give them an edge in posh gear, but that imbalances the game very quickly because inevitably the party ends up with it. (That also assumes, rightly I hope, you don't want your enemies to "cheat" by having more spells/abilities than they should have for their levels/classes.)

[Edit: to be a bit clearer, if you're planning on having only 1 monk against a full 6-person party of L15 characters, then that monk really has to be like L40 or 50 to pose any real threat to the party. Which is kind of a ridiculous level, so it might be better to pad that encounter with more monks, adherents or something. A bit easier when you've got mages in the party, since they can have summonees etc., but remember the party can too. If there's only 1 person in the party at L15, then perhaps a L18 monk would suffice. But then that person could be a 15/15/14 F/M/T so I dunno... maybe XP checks would be better .]

Edited by Miloch, 13 September 2010 - 06:20 PM.