36 replies to this topic

[CamDawg]

This actually was brought up in another thread, but I wanted to expand on some ideas for removing some cheese and bringing Tashia more in-line with other NPCs. My biggest gripe is the amount and type of stuff you get for quests during the Tashia romance.

Tashia comes with more equipment than any other NPC, including a Ring of Acuity and a Metaspell Influence Amulet, of which there are only one other of each in the game. We should cut her magical equipment down to her robe and Peanelian. The magic boots, staff-mace, amulet, bracers, and ring have got to go. Give her a regular staff and a sling and turn her loose.

Every opponent added by Tashia comes stacked with items. Even the Aril cronies that hunt Tashia down are laden with items--they both have two magic axes apiece and full plate. The final battle with Arilistan is even more ridiculous. There are multiple Amulets of Power, Staves of Rynn, Cloaks of Protection +2, full plate mails, Rings of Acuity, Battle Axes +2, Silver Horns of Valhalla, Bracers AC3 and Arla's Dragonbane slings. Toss in Arilistan's Belt of Inertial Barrier and two Malakars +2 for good measure.

A couple of proposals that will cut down on the haul, while trying to preserve the difficulty. Dual wielding henchmen should get a single magic weapon and a nonmagic weapon in the offhand. Replace full plates with regular plate (full plates are worth about 10 times the value of regular plate). Get rid of the Cloaks +2, Staves of Rynn, and Arla's Dragonbane slings altogether, since these are held by the mages primarily and therefore not used. Rings of Acuity are gone, as are the Amulets of Power. (Alternatively these could be made non-droppable, so the mages would still get their casting speed boost from AoP.) Replace the AC3 bracers with AC6 or AC5 bracers. Replace Aril's Inertial Belt and dual Malakar's with inherent resistances and generic +2 katanas. If this unbalances too much to the easy side, we can always add some potions to help the bad guys.

[Userunfriendly]

now speaking as the most vocal opponent of cheese in the community, i have to agree...

urm...nope, that's the good UU...

sorry...

actually, just to add weight to the argument...the metaspell influence amulet, and the second ring of acuity allows one to make a second sorcerian ring with the item upgrade mod...which basically is a slightly weaker version of edwin's amulet...if you have jaheira in the party, and you are a mage or sorcerer, you can get two rings of wizardry...two sorcerian rings, and you have duplicated edwin's amulet...give to a sorceror, tashia or the pc, and the cheese factor is really high...

i mean the ring gives you one extra spell up to 7th level, i think...with two rings, and yes you can wear 2...you have a second, sorcerous edwin...evil, no???

oh wait...I'm not suppose to reveal that cheese....what the heck am i doing!!! stop it!! aaaaaaaaaagggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been possessed by the good UU...help me!!!

ok, if not the bonanza, how about another unique item...

like another scrimshaw figurine??

from roleplay and plot perspective it makes sense...

if ari has been tracking her, isn't it likely he tracked her to the nice scrimshaw carvers at the same town where tashia was???

and its logical that he killed them all after getting the information about tashia's next destination...and he looted the place...

so something nice, not nearly as powerful as mr kitty, (i forgot name) with its immunity to timestop, but something the pc can use...

like a bear, or wolf or dog figurine...perminent negative plane protection would be nice..and not too powerful, since it can be deathspelled...

and tashia could have a ansty moment about leading ari to the nice place where they were so nice to her...and the practical pc could point out they avenged them, and the figurine could be used to do good things, thus their legacy would be preserved...

[Bri]

My two cents (what with inflation it is practically worthless)

I agree that much of Tashia is a Monty Haul type of reward...and I wouldn't mind seeing 90% of the items pared down.

However, whatever we decide, I think she should keep her scrimshaw kitty for a fact...works rather well with her story.

Thing to bear in mind is that story wise, she was already an adventurer, so one could make the judgment call she would have a few items...

For example, rather than a Ring of Acuity and Ring of Metaspell Influence, I would give her a simple Ring of +1 AC.

Do away with the amulet (or just give her a decorative amulet, nothing magical), same with the boots. I could, maybe, see allowing her to have Bracers of AC 7 (the most general of bracers). (If we give her bracers, though, do away with the Ring of +1 AC)

The weapon? I figure a regular sling would work fine, and staff is alright...or if one wishes her to have a weapon with magic, then a simple weapon of the +1 variety.

As for the Scrimshaw figure, UU, I was always under the impression Tashia recieved it shortly before leaving her homeland, so it is unlikely that Ari went back there to get one himself...but I could be wrong, I will have to recheck.

As for Ari's henchmen. For the most part, I agree with Camdawg on getting rid of the large share of the items. I still feel some of them wouldn't be out of place to keep, but I would have to think long and hard on which ones.

The multiple items like the amulets of power and such would have to go (I could see maybe...one...being there...I know, Negative Plane Protection...but I said...I could see only one ;-) )

[CamDawg]

No, I think even Tashia's minor magic items need to go. I say robe and Peanelian. Keldorn is actively tracking down a beholder cult with his magic plate mail and a +2 sword... no magic rings, amulet, helmet, etc. Edwin and Nalia both come without bracers, and Jan is the only NPC I can remember that comes equipped with more than two magic items (armor, gloves, crossbow).

Thanks for reminding me UU... Peanelian's immunity to time stop also needs to go. As much as I love the big kitty, there's no way we can justify this.

I don't mind Aril having a custom item, even something similar to an AoP. It's really the NPP of the item that I'm worried about. Perhaps we could change Aril to a single Katana, give him a single weapon style proficiency, and make it a +2 with some nifty side bonuses.

[Userunfriendly]

urm...peanut is vulnerable to death spell, just like any other summon...and i frankly think immunity to timestop is the only saving grace in what is otherwise a summon no one would ever use...compared to skeleton warriors, peanut is a very mediocre summon...

id like to make a vote that peanut keeps its timestop immunity...after all, anything that can cast timestop, liches, tob mages is not going to be seriously bothered by a big kitty...

now a planetar immune to timestop, that would be fun...hmmmm...

oh well, cam, if you decide to take it out, i won't be too upset...

(hee hee....i gave my pc immunity to timestop via shadowkeeper...)

[Bri]

I think JCompton has the best idea for the Arilistan and his cronies' item. Flag them as undroppable, and they keep their toughness, but you avoid the Monty Haul syndrome.

Mind you, I know that I said the fight could be a bitch with an under prepared party, but it certainly isn't impossible.

And whatever else I might feel, I would be willing to see Tashia's items downgraded as well, Camdawg, if more people respond that they feel it should be to that extent.

I will almost have to agree on the timestop immunity (there is actually a couple other, low level abilities that would make sense). I mean, just how did the scrimshaw figure get the timestop ability in the first place in the story?

I mean, its not like someone wakes up, crafts a magical animal figurine, and then says, "And I want to make them immune to the vagaries of time magic..."

[Userunfriendly]

yeah...i have to agree, timestop immunity is just too much...i mean the only way to get it legitimately in the game is at the very end, with ascention...focus...

so, bri, what other abilities were you thinking of...

upgraded weapons for peanut?

don't the spirit animals have perminent blur?

how about ability to hide in shadows...no backstab, but like a big cat, he can hide in the shadows, and stalk prey, and make the first attack with surprise..

oh i know...draw on holy might...a summons with draw on holy might would be interesting enough to keep to the end of the game...

[CamDawg]

Undroppable is the simplest solution, it just looks funny when you kill six dual-wielders in plate and you end up with 2 helmets and an Andar gem. Most of the difficulty could be restored with lesser items and better AI scripting, it just means more work. Nothing on par with Tactics, just a few spell buffs, triggers, potions etc.

I'm not sure if Peanelian's blur is a visual effect or an actual blur spell; I can check when I get home tonight. I like the HiS idea.

[Userunfriendly]

maybe backstab would be appropriate...i mean a big cat, sneaks up on you, and pounces...perhapse a 2x backstab...with good move silently bonus...no i don't want him as a thief, but cats do pounce, and a pounce from ambush would scare the heck out of someone, and a little bonus damage due to the complete surprise is not unreasonable...

[Bri]

A backstab attack mimicking a cat's pounce ability is fine, as is Hide in Shadows.

But other abilities I was thinking of was something like Detect Invisibility, and maybe even a Haste spell (to reflect a quicker reflexes)...but this is still just conjecture at this point.

[CamDawg]

Wow, Peanelian is even more overpowered than I thought. She has 100% resistance to magic, acid, and electricity and 90% resistance to all physical weapon types--slashing, crushing, missile, and piercing. Add on Blur, 20 Str, -3 AC, 19 Dex, 0 THAC0, very low saves and three attacks. She only has 20 HP, but the only things that can hurt her are fire and cold (non-magical mind you) and 10% of physical damage.

[Userunfriendly]

yeah, but with 20 hp, and it can be deathspelled, and can only appear once a day...no bag of holding cheese, its not unreasonable...

it is much like a mordenkainen sword...except not as powerful melee wise...

take out timestop and while it is an excellent summon, its not as powerful as improved kittrax...the web ability makes kittrax incredibly useful...

the magic immunity is a little high, but you can pick up the cloak of sewers early in the game....

the damage immunity is unreasonable...the blur alone should be enough...

[Bri]

Wow....even at my twinkish best...with Shadowkeeper, even I don't put that kind of resistances on my people unless I want to finish the game quickly...

However, if we do start changing with the parameters of the big kitty, I don't think an increase in hit points would be uncalled for if we drop most of the parameters down for example...

[CamDawg]

Yep, I'm playing around with some re-balancing as we speak. Peanelian's resistances are gone, but HPs got bumped to 75 I believe. UU, I wouldn't use Improved Kilthix as a baseline... I love Weimer's item upgrade mod but most of the items are very powerful. I'm trying to get Peanelian close to Joolon, Moon Dog, or (unimproved) Kilthix, albeit slightly better.

Many creatures also had some troubles in their files. Potions for cloaks, weapons in the wrong slots, etc. The more powerful items (Cloaks +2, AoPs, etc.) have been flagged as undroppable & non-stealable and others have been relaxed. We'll see if I can write an AI script next.

Has anyone looked at Tashia's hell dialogue loop? We could repackage this as an interim release before the additional dialogues are added.

[Bri]

No, Camdawg, I didn't. Why, I don't even remember if she has one...I know she does before you go to face Irenicus in Suldanesslar...

[Uriel]

I'm here to put in my two hammer-strokes worth.

About all of the Arilistan battle loot, that stuff is almost a king's ransom of valuable treasure there! I was under the impression that most of the stuff there was unique and singular, for example there's only one "amulet of power" in the whole game. As you all know, there's enough AoPs there to give most of a six character party NPR (Neg plane Resist). The first time through with Tash, I was shocked. TOO overpowering. I reiterate, it's too overpowering. It has to go, IMO.

Also, why does Tashia have an inherent +15% bonus to magic resistance? Even the ToB PC doesn't get this large a bonus naturally (it's only 10%, for good). Unless she has drow blood in her veins (which would be interesting, to say the least), it shouldn't be there.

On a side note, I've noticed that when Tash dies she sometimes drops two staff spears +2. I'm curious, why is that?

Uriel

[CamDawg]

Hmm, it appears she also has inherent cold resistance as well. I'll look into the double staff spears.

Creatures and items have been rebalanced; detectable spells scripting and a better sorceror AI script has been added. Next I'll look at the dialogue loops and try to script better AI for the enemies. I'm beta testing UB, so I probably won't make any progress on this for a bit.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

It's probably too late but here is my 2 cents.

I'm all for making much of the battle loot undropable. Good change there. It might be fun for Ari to have a new unique katana but I don't feel too strongly about that.

What I do feel strongly about is Peanelian. I hate the idea of giving Peanlelian more HP. I really like him as is. He is useful in some battles but is not overpowering when compared to many other summons. Early in the game he might be a bit much but later he is just a penalty to Tashia since he takes up a slot that could be better used for other things. Get rid of the Timestop immunity if you must (I never noticed it in game) but don't change the rest!

At the very least give us an option at install time to install the orginal Peanelian. Default to your new one but give us a choice.

[Bri]

Actually, I was considering doing that as well Rethwellin. Allowing people to have the original Kitty if they wanted True, I'm not doing any programming at the moment, but it should be possible to have a revamped and the original...and the person decides which one to use.

I'm all for allowing personal choice in this instance.