Mobs spamming special attacks

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Dante2377
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:49 pm

Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Dante2377 » Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:49 pm

Quite frequently now, my high level guy is constantly slaughtered because his <insert immunity here> potion ran out and before he could even drink another, he was pounced on and killed. This happens with Knockdown and various Daze/Mind effects. For example, the tougher water elementals near the cyclops, the SECOND your KD potion goes down, you're getting 4-6 mobs using Knockdown at ~4 attacks a round each, which statistically means someone is most likely rolling a 20 and knocking you down (even with max discipline). Once you're down, it's game over man (queue the Bill Paxton quote from Aliens). Same thing with all the mobs that have permanent daze-type effects (Mizbut come to mind) - once the mind potion wears off, you're getting hit for 10-20 attacks a round and since this PW has autofail on 1 for saves turned on, boom, Dazed. Once that happens, like knockdown, you're pretty much dead, though you can occasionally get out of that. Coupled with having to respawn a long trek away, it feels like you got screwed from a game mechanic, rather than a tougher opponent.

I get that we want things to be a challenge and have enemies use special attacks, but given the way the mobs are structured, you have almost ZERO leeway once a buff runs out.

On a 2nd note, can we turn autofail on 1 for saves off? There's no reason IMO for that stupid mechanic. If someone can get their save more than 20 higher than the DC of an effect, they should be immune to it. Again, just my opinion. (and this rule has flip-flopped all over during the various dnd releases)

BenevolentDevil
Posts: 360
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:37 am

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by BenevolentDevil » Sat Aug 20, 2016 1:23 am

Other ways to help avoid KD is rod of the ghost friendly, imp invis, camoflauge, or etherial visage ... all giving a % chance of concealment that helps with some KD ( not all of it ) ...

The thing that buggs me the most about KD , is your character's strength isn't a factor, just the disclipine skill and size ...
Jess should have a hard time, being KD'd by anything with a lower strength than she has ( and she's already at her +12 bonus cap on that ).

Mind effects ... well, that goes back to build strength and weakness ... some are more resistant to such effects than others. Weapon Masters for example, that is their weakness, and is famous for it.
Mental Potions ( the square purple ones) are usually enough for Jess to use for a long while. They last a lot longer than the clarity pots.
They will run out , so every so often if I need that immunity, I drink another even if the original hasn't ran out.

But Jess's main "save weakness" is reflex saves , which is her weakness area... the only offset to that is the immunity to fire she has from RDD , but say an epic spike trap, will nail her for full damage 3 out of 4 times.

A spell caster , or cleric is probably going to shrug off most mental attacks , or have a spell in place to ward them off ...
Tank or high DPS characters have the mental weakness of illithid rag dolls. They have to have some basic weakness, otherwise there'd be no use to have any other classes.
I do not remember mitzbutts having any mental effect on hitting characters ... I might have always had mental pots going there , I dunno ... or maybe Tarashia's songs warded it off ... or Rane's spells , or Flo's druid magic ... lol, but as it stands Jess can wade into a pack of them, and unless they crit, they can't even hit her anymore really. Back in her twenties levels, they nailed her all the time, she could barely hit them , and they hurt quite a bit more back then too.
Anoksuna picks them off from a safe distance, so I really don't know what the effective "fighter" strategy is there, save for mental pots ...

The rolling one thing, I am on the fence about, because in DnD , it's pretty much always been, roll a 1 , and it's an auto fail, roll a 20 it' s an auto success.
It only really doesn't make sense when past level 20 , being epic, you would think you've gained some mindset and power to counter-act auto-fails ... but at the same time, bad guys can auto fail too.

That's the "videogame" parts of NWN I always had issues with.
And I think the roll system is hard coded into the engine , so probably can't do much about it.

BenevolentDevil
Posts: 360
Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2015 3:37 am

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by BenevolentDevil » Sat Aug 20, 2016 2:24 am

Sometimes I feel your pain though, ... it kind of stinks having to solo when it' s stacked against solo play ...

But if ya need help , I can help ... with most these areas , probably just about anything just shy of Ilse of Annoy , as company just seems to increase survivability over-all ... , but even Tara and I have been KIA a few times in some places. ( I've been tempted to take Jess into Annoy just to see how well she can do , but I already know it's designed to challenge a full epic party )

The part of the quest , before you get to the actual elven lands ... we died not knowing exactly what to be prepped for , or where ... later visits we used better tactics and wasn't so hard. ( However, unless Tara fixed the transitions, lol you can't finish that with-out DM help )

There's been many a times,I have had to wait on some extra hands to get something done myself.

Dante2377
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Dante2377 » Sat Aug 20, 2016 7:08 am

You can turn autofail on 1 on or off in one of the .ini files. Just change the value to 0 or 1.

DnD has been all over the place - for to hit rolls, 20 always hits and 1 always fails, that's pretty standard across the versions. But saves have been all over the place. Some a 1 is a fail, others it's not.

But in a table-top game with a DM, adjustments can be made in-game. In a half-single player game, you really can't much. Also, the "fail on a 1" was initiated long before there were "on-hit" properties on weapons given to 6+ bad guys and needing to make 6+ saves a round.

Balkoth
Posts: 188
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:55 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Balkoth » Wed Aug 24, 2016 5:43 pm

Dante2377 wrote:Also, the "fail on a 1" was initiated long before there were "on-hit" properties on weapons given to 6+ bad guys and needing to make 6+ saves a round.
Yep. It's what makes basilisks suicidal to attack in many modules. It's one thing to have a single basilisk which might get to use it's gaze 2-3 times. It's another to have a pack of 10 basilisks spamming their gaze -- statistically you're going to roll a 1 nearly 2/3 of the time after they each use their gaze twice. Autofail on one wasn't designed around the spamming of NWN.

Dante2377
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Dante2377 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:18 pm

AAARRRGGGH

I just spent an hour getting to the harp guardian and not 1 second after my KD potion ran out, BOOM KD, KD death. not ONE LITERAL SECOND. There's no possible way a real enemy would know the split second your potion ran out....

I've about had it with this....with no one else being on with me now most times, doing anything high level is just begging to have your time wasted with this type of stuff. This is not fun.

Please either fix all the high level enemies from spamming KD or fix the rogue and balance potions so that you can extend the duration even when the previous one wasn't finished (they don't seem to right now).

Balkoth
Posts: 188
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 1:55 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Balkoth » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:28 pm

Dante2377 wrote:I've about had it with this....with no one else being on with me now most times, doing anything high level is just begging to have your time wasted with this type of stuff. This is not fun.
This is why I stopped playing initially. Too much insta-gibbing (that also seemed patently unfair) and it took hours of grinding to earn back the XP lost. Was like banging my head against a brick wall.

I saw a bunch of stuff posted about how a bunch of changes/improvements had been made and I decided to give it another shot...but many of the original issues seem to persist. And it sounds like higher levels are the same as they were when I quit. It's just not fun.

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tarashon
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Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by tarashon » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:44 pm

I was not aware that you could not use a potion to renew duration. Are you sure about this Dante ?

/tara

Dante2377
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Dante2377 » Wed Aug 24, 2016 11:40 pm

90% sure. I'll test it out. question - how long is the duration on the balance/rogue anti-knockdown potions? The potions don't say....

but regardless of potions extending duration, a potion running out should not consistently result in almost immediate death, whether knockdown or silly autofail on 1 for stun/daze effect from mibutz ravagers, etc. The game wasn't designed for mobs to spam special attacks like that in that quantity. I've lost track of how many times this has happened now and for me, and I can't speak for others, but it's ruining my adventuring here. Combined with the grind (e.g. large quantities of spawns at higher levels for single digit xp) it's disheartening.

Dante2377
Posts: 41
Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2016 4:49 pm

Re: Mobs spamming special attacks

Post by Dante2377 » Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:04 pm

The rogue anti-KD potion does renew duration, but again, should it run out at all on the high-level quests, you're pretty much almost instantly dead in my experience....

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