Improved Encounters Options

[Berzerkerzz]

I figured I change the thread title. The Sibel mod was alright in the end, could use exit points from the village though.

Riskbreaker: This kit was overpowered before and now ever more so. I removed all the speed bonuses but kept the speed bonus from the new boots later on. Did not upgrade the boots however as they are very overpowered. Also the potions of invulnerability makes the Riskbreaker lose all it's cons. I didn't end up using the Risk Decrement ability as it's overpowered as well. Also thanks to the new Flail of Ages buff this kit is ridiculously overpowered now. Even before v7 I was using the Improved Haste ability only once my mages got lvl 6 slots, otherwise it comes a bit early and throws the game off balance. So to recap: no heal/damage spell, no speed bonus, no use of invulnerability potions, and either tone down passive damage or even the new Flail of Ages bonus damage, and no use IH until your mages get it as well.

Wizard Slayer: I played this with Haste, not Improved. So he had one extra attack throughout the game, around 4 if I remember right. There was no way to play without it and have a character limping behind when moving around the map. I didn't upgrade the Regiment boots either as they are overpowered. I tried not to use the purge magic ability too often because it makes certain battles too easy. Purge Magic was used on a few dragons and other foes to speed up their demise. Some notable encounters where this ability was useful, a bunch of Grave Liches in WK and Demogorgon fight. Sibel was my only arcane caster in that run, dualed to a Mage at 9 wearing Vecna, and the Demogorgon fight would have been not doable without the purge magic from the Wizard Slayer. I did cast it in the middle so everybody got purged including Rozvanke which I baited towards the middle, and so it made the fight significantly easier. It really strips the enemies of their buffs this one. Anyway, Purge Magic is very powerful and I tried not to use it too often, perhaps it would be better balanced as a single target instead of area of effect. It's a strong kit now with ridiculous regeneration but needs basic Haste and the Purge Magic ability throws the game off balance if not use sparingly.

Avenger: Did not forge the Avenger Dream gear as it seemed a bit too overpowered, stayed with Rust Armor. Overall this kit is very strong and in another run I'm using it without the Clan Hunter summon, much more balanced imo without the clan hunter summon. The Clan Hunter could be better used perhaps on a different type of Druid kit.

Archer: Once you change missile damage into piercing he becomes a viable character. A ranged Kensai basically. However Called Shot needs nerfing, I set mine to 4 seconds for the effects. So with about ten shots per round, it would lower the Thac0 by about 8 max and Strength about similar. Seemed a bit too strong still, I think the effects should last 3 seconds, this way it would lower Thac0 by about 5-6 max and STR as well but only to the target that he is focusing on. The point is to soften the target. Archer comes in handy in many tight places but is a bit boring to play and the gear selection is not quite linear.
I set Fire, Acid and Ice arrows to +3 and lowered prices for +4 Arrows. He was using Gesen Bow most of the game and switched to Tuigan Bow and +4 Piercing arrows for the tough fights.


Party was: Avenger, Wizard Slayer, Riskbreaker, Sibel(Swash9/Mage), Shaman, Archer
Difficulty: Hard
No use of tomes, no max hp on level up, no milking of spawns as it throws the game off balance completely, no doing quests of random NPCs and no breach on clerics as their power is severely diminished if breached.

This post has been edited by Berzerkerzz: May 28 2025, 01:01 AM

[SparrowJacek]

I removed the save on Barrier(5 feet range and party friendly) and Globes(4 feet range) then lowered the damage by a lot. It's not very effective in later parts of the game but might be more dangerous around Chapter 3 and 4.

This allows for very easy abuse, you just stand next to a caster and interrupt all of his spells, they decrease enemy number of stoneskins and they ignore PFMW/Absolute Immunity and work on Improved Invisible characters. I agree that the spells are kinda weak as they are now, but I'd prefer some other approach.

The blades seem to hit twice per round under haste, which is ok but would have been better if it did that without haste as well in order to be more consistent.

Yes, all periodic opcodes apart from opcode 333 are affected by haste/slow (even Regeneration), which is a huge problem for me, as there is no pretty implementation that would ensure that these spells/effects are triggered exactly once per X seconds. I have a rework of GoB and BB to trigger only once per round, but it's very low on my todo list.
Oh and opcode 333 has many other problems so it's still best to avoid using it whenever you can.

Anyway I wonder if I can script enemy mages and clerics to leave the cloud area if the player casts cloud based spells, just a thought I haven't looked into it yet.

It's not easy and most probably won't work if more Cloud spells are cast at the same area, but I'm planning to reimplement what SCS did. It changed all Cloud spells to summon an invisible creature at the center of the cloud, so that enemies could use RunAwayFrom action. If there's a wall or another obstacle, they won't be able to deal with that and if they run away too far they might still be forced to come back into the cloud just to see our characters, but that's the best solution that you can achieve with the engine.

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: May 4 2025, 05:38 PM

[Berzerkerzz]

I removed the save on Barrier(5 feet range and party friendly) and Globes(4 feet range) then lowered the damage by a lot. It's not very effective in later parts of the game but might be more dangerous around Chapter 3 and 4.

This allows for very easy abuse, you just stand next to a caster and interrupt all of his spells, they decrease enemy number of stoneskins and they ignore PFMW/Absolute Immunity and work on Improved Invisible characters. I agree that the spells are kinda weak as they are now, but I'd prefer some other approach.

The blades seem to hit twice per round under haste, which is ok but would have been better if it did that without haste as well in order to be more consistent.

Yes, all periodic opcodes apart from opcode 333 are affected by haste/slow (even Regeneration), which is a huge problem for me, as there is no pretty implementation that would ensure that these spells/effects are triggered exactly once per X seconds. I have a rework of GoB and BB to trigger only once per round, but it's very low on my todo list.
Oh and opcode 333 has many other problems so it's still best to avoid using it whenever you can.

Anyway I wonder if I can script enemy mages and clerics to leave the cloud area if the player casts cloud based spells, just a thought I haven't looked into it yet.

It's not easy and most probably won't work if more Cloud spells are cast at the same area, but I'm planning to reimplement what SCS did. It changed all Cloud spells to summon an invisible creature at the center of the cloud, so that enemies could use RunAwayFrom action. If there's a wall or another obstacle, they won't be able to deal with that and if they run away too far they might still be forced to come back into the cloud just to see our characters, but that's the best solution that you can achieve with the engine.

Regarding clouds, it would really be about enemy casters leaving the cloud in order to not be interrupted. I don't personally use clouds often since they disrupt my own castings, whereas enemy mages have higher magic resistance than the player and could still dodge the spell failure, but perhaps in early and mid game that's different. The main issue is the player having access to a level 3 spell that can neutralize the cloud, instead of just repositioning his characters. This needs a simple solution I think.

As for Barrier and Globes, usually by the time my characters are getting closer to mages these spells either expire or get breached/dispelled. I didn't realize these spells are not blocked by PfMW and AI, perhaps adding protection from these two spells to PfMW and AI spells, would that help? As for stoneskins, I don't know what to say, it's in their description that they remove skins and I think that's fine, I also think these blades should strike twice per round ideally even when the character is not hasted but I understand the current limitations. The way I see their animation and how fast it moves, I think the game mechanics should reflect that but once per round would be fine too.