SCSII's 'Make the starting dungeon slightly harder' comp. "small cheat"

[Igneous]

Personally, I have no problem with the existing respawn system currently in place. It's a simple, elegant solution, and it sends an intuitive message to the player to deter them from resting.

 

I don't even see the potential for farming loot and experience as a terribly bad thing, really. If the player is consciously willing to invest their time, effort, and patience to farm XP, that's their prerogative. You can do the same thing with the mephit portals.

 

I do think it's reasonable, however, to lower the amount of gold given to respawning duergar. Or all of them, for the sake of consistency. (Although I still don't think it's a terribly large issue.)

 

I'm sure it could be coded such that once you've killed x number of duergar, the start dropping off and spiders or other carrion start appearing. Shouldn't be tough to have spawned duergar start dropping snares or whatever after same variable is reached.

This is an interesting idea. Indeed, it could be a lot more engaging seeing varying waves of enemies thrown against the party... To paraphrase, I can well imagine a few regular patrols of duergar axe- and crossbow-men spawning first, stumbling upon the party in their attempts to rest; followed afterwards, perhaps, by more astute trap-setters and 'guerilla tacticians' informed to the party's presence. Perhaps the duergar could get really desperate, round up another Otyugh or a pair of Carrion Crawlers, and leash them against the party while firing missile weapons from afar. You could also have an encounter with mephits to mix things up a bit. Eventually, these encounters would exhaust and the party could get some sleep, with a chance of random interruption by lone stragglers.

 

However, if there were to be more work devoted to this component of SCSII (i.e., 'Make the starting dungeon slightly harder'), I'd rather see that work devoted to adding or improving encounters within the dungeon, itself. As DavidW mentioned, an expanded wandering monsters system isn't content many players are likely to see. You could get around this, though, by introducing a chance of interruption on first rest, and by drawing attention to the content by documenting it conspicuously within the readme.

[the bigg]

You're underestimating the amount of work needed to implement evolving rest interrupters.

 

Besides, WW1 is the prime example of the chain of command persisting in an approach long after an external observer would've noticed that said approach was futile *and* a complete waste of resources.

[Demivrgvs]

If I can put my 2 cents in I'd say the second time you try to rest in that damn dungeon you should simply be ambushed by twenty or more fully prepared duergars and just die!

 

Actually, even the first time makes little sense, but between Imoen's dialog and spells memorization I'd say allowing one rest is a must.

[Igneous]

You're underestimating the amount of work needed to implement evolving rest interrupters.

Well, that's because I am but an unwashed player, not a modder. However, I was only expanding on Miloch's previous posts, and it is an interesting idea, nonetheless.

 

Besides, WW1 is the prime example of the chain of command persisting in an approach long after an external observer would've noticed that said approach was futile *and* a complete waste of resources.

So you mean to say that Irenicus' duergar cronies aren't stupid enough to engage in the same approach? Because in the vanilla encounters, they do so quite readily. They charge in blindly, regardless of how many of their fellows have been slaughtered prior, and seem to have a vested interest in apprehending the PC's party.

 

For example, one of the duergar on the second level says: "Wh-what?! By the Exile, the prisoners have escaped! Between invading thieves and the loss of <CHARNAME>, the master will not be pleased. Come, gray ones, we must be stopping them!"

 

So, I don't think it's that great a stretch for the duergar to continually attempt to kill or capture the party if they repeatedly try to rest.

 

That said, if it's gratuitously difficult to implement, then forget it. As I said, I would prefer any further improvement to this component be made to existing encounters, or by adding new ones.

 

If I can put my 2 cents in I'd say the second time you try to rest in that damn dungeon you should simply be ambushed by twenty or more fully prepared duergars and just die!

Heh. Or, as someone else said, cause Irenicus to appear and go on an absolute rampage. Legally, of course, with full pre-buffing, Alacrity, Dragon's Breaths, the works. That would be a good deterrent.

[Ardanis]

You're underestimating the amount of work needed to implement evolving rest interrupters.

That depends on how elaborate we want it to be. There aren't that many places with hostile interrupts. Eight strongholds, CI, Graveyard, Spellhold, UD, Suldanessellar, and nobody cares for ToB with it's Pocketplane. Then you add several simple spawning blocks to each area in one place. And it's mostly done.

[DavidW]

You're underestimating the amount of work needed to implement evolving rest interrupters.

That depends on how elaborate we want it to be. There aren't that many places with hostile interrupts. Eight strongholds, CI, Graveyard, Spellhold, UD, Suldanessellar, and nobody cares for ToB with it's Pocketplane. Then you add several simple spawning blocks to each area in one place. And it's mostly done.

 

I look forward to playing it.

[Miloch]

Besides, WW1 is the prime example of the chain of command persisting in an approach long after an external observer would've noticed that said approach was futile *and* a complete waste of resources.

Ah, but they *did* run out of resources eventually, didn't they? (Until the next war anyway, which some say was just the same war continued after an armistice.)

[Sorrow]

Besides, WW1 is the prime example of the chain of command persisting in an approach long after an external observer would've noticed that said approach was futile *and* a complete waste of resources.

Actually, there was a lot of innovation going on during WW1.

 

Anyway, the whole rest thing in the Irenicus dungeon doesn't make sense. The battle is raging and Irenicus goes outside to fight the thieves. If the party rests, it means that the battle last hours or even days despite that Irenicus is just massacring everyone.

[Ardanis]

This is what often strikes me as odd too. On the other hand, we do not know what exactly has been occuring on the outside - perhaps JI has first scared off those guys that golem had reported, then went to tell Aran to deal with this outrage, and on his way back was ambushed once again.

[Dermit]

Anyway, the whole rest thing in the Irenicus dungeon doesn't make sense. The battle is raging and Irenicus goes outside to fight the thieves. If the party rests, it means that the battle last hours or even days despite that Irenicus is just massacring everyone.

 

A lot of Shadow Thieves died that day.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Ah, but they *did* run out of resources eventually, didn't they? (Until the next war anyway, which some say was just the same war continued after an armistice.)

Actually, there was a lot of innovation going on during WW1.

Yeah, and a lot of that innovation was lost when the 4 Empires of the day fell...

Although you could say it was innovative to send two Russian soldiers as a pair, one armed with a weapon, while the other carried the five bullets. Why, either one was likely get shot.

 

I'm sure it could be coded such that once you've killed x number of duergar, the start dropping off...

Who actually said the Duergar were the supposed guards of the dungeon, why's there so freaking many Goblins in the rooms... I would say that the lot of the part of the dungeon were probably kept in total isolation, Irenicus can teleport and thus doesn't even need the rooms to be cleaned or guarded, which is why the Otyugh was there in the first place. The Duergar can have entrances the rest cannot see and keep the place as a fortresses for their subgroups in town, which I don't think would be exploring the dungeon.

 

If I can put my 2 cents in I'd say the second time you try to rest in that damn dungeon you should simply be ambushed by twenty or more fully prepared duergars and just die!

Just a stupid question perhaps, but where would you draw these "twenty or more fully prepared duergars" from the original games creatures ?

[AzureDrag0n1]

I would go for a more DM route. Allow a few rests with interruptions but after a certain point warn the player that resting again would be really dangerous.

 

Next time they try to rest spawn 10 vampires on top of the player along with a vampire mage.

[DavidW]

I would go for a more DM route. Allow a few rests with interruptions but after a certain point warn the player that resting again would be really dangerous.

 

Next time they try to rest spawn 10 vampires on top of the player along with a vampire mage.

 

As already discussed, I'm not sure what this would really add relative to the status quo.

[phordicus]

just have the rest button automatically trigger the Death movie. solved!

[DavidW]

just have the rest button automatically trigger the Death movie. solved!

 

Has the advantage of being easy to code!