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

[Berzerkerzz]

Ancient Lich:
I guess this one is done and I'll move on to the next encounter. Incendiary Cloud has a larger radius here, lower damage though and only 8 round duration. I'm playing without Sweet Air Zone and this spell is now actually pretty useful. The caster also gets protection from the spell for the duration so the Lich won't have his spells interrupted. It works ok so far, it adds another layer of difficulty for the player. Casting time is a bit too long at 8 so I lowered it to 7 here. I nerfed the Arvoreen Champion recently, removed the Level Drain immunity from Shield of Light, and lowered the bonuses of his prayer by 1, and only two Lay on Hands abilities. Then I lowered his Dexterity since I started with around 18 this run and he was over 21 with the bonuses which was a bit too much. It could do without the DEX bonus (or just +1) since he gets Armor Class from his prayer ability already. This is still a very strong and useful kit even with these adjustments, and fun to play as well. The Vampire Lord has triple the HP here and is immune to certain spell levels. I also dropped his "helmet" so Critical Strikes are a must against him now. He alternates between Critical Strike and Whirlwind Attacks. As for the Lich, I'm trying to make him a bit more dangerous and I did manage that somewhat. I changed some of Banshee's visual effects and I think it looks better now, she is also stronger here compared to what Kangaxx dropped. The Lich is back on SI: Abjuration and resistant to magic now. He has six PfMWs in total including the prebuff and contingency so he should stay for about 2.5 turns, his spellbook has a bit more life in it though. Energy Drain here takes 4 experience levels away and I think this is better suited for a level 9 spell. Overall I'm happy the way it came out, the timings are pretty tight throughout the battle and the area is also somewhat confined which works to the Lich's advantage. Things can go bad here fast though since the corridor is rather narrow. In it's final form this encounter would have some measures to prevent the player from weaseling his way out of the room.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Ancient-Lich:d


Greater Elemental Golem:
Double the HP and lower thac0, he also lowers resistances around him. The spawns also have lower thac0 by about 8 and should have a better chance hitting the player at this stage of the game. All of them have a bit lower movement speed and I think this suits constructs better, they were a bit too fast before. Took about 15minutes, without these improvements the Elemental Golem would have gone down within four rounds and wouldn't have spawned more than 3 golems. They now give less experience as well. In the second part I have the lesser golems on AttackReevaluate since they idle if their target gets destroyed too quickly(summons usually), as it happened in the first part.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Greater-Elemental-Golem:8


Rune Assassins Hideout:
Where to even start. All the enemies are tougher here starting with the low level assassins all the way up to the Guildmaster; lower thac0, higher resistances, better gear, more HP, higher levels and more efficient use of HLAs. The first few rounds are crucial here, player has to create enough space in order to tackle the two mages. I toned down the mages a little bit and reduced the reinforcements as well. Did not end up using barbarian potions after all, but this one was pretty hard I gotta say. The Guildmaster does quite a lot of damage under Assassination and has high APR as well, even after I reduced his backstab from x7 to x5. Overall it was a good fight, split in three acts (initial, the two mages and the Guildmaster plus reinforcements). I could have this play out differently like having the Guildmaster guard the two mages but then I'd have to do away with some of the reinforcements.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Rune-Assassins-Hideout:3


Ancient Golem:
This construct has over triple the HP, lower thac0 and lowers resistances every few rounds. He now spawns Magic Golems, I used these in the Zallanora fight though they are a bit stronger here, which also have a chance to dispel specific protections. The Purge Magic stayed at five rounds in this latest attempt. The spawns are on AttackReevaluate and it works alright here, the Ancient Golem as well now. Took about 20 minutes, which is pretty good for a golem encounter I'd say.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Ancient-Golem:6


Ancient Mage:
Everybody is tougher here. The mage now performed as expected unfortunately he is a bit too resilient as he needs almost 20 Ruby Rays to be taken down , I had a good laugh though. He uses two scrolls here, one is an Improved Alacrity scroll and the other is a Time Stop scroll so yeah he has access to those. The dimension door effects aren't quite right yet, I'll have to figure those out too. The latest attempt was pretty intense, it came out to about 50 minutes which is more than what I was aiming for. He still needed 16 Ruby Rays to be taken down. I'm happy the way it came out, it's been real fun. I might play this one just one more time and try a different approach. This encounter sets movements rate to 8 for everybody except the mage who has 10 and the Bone Golems have 6 I believe. The idea is to make the mage more dangerous and not so easy to evade though he might need 11 movement rate for that. I'll might use this movement rate setup again in the future.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Ancient-Mage:2


Theshal:
I swapped some of the Skeletons here with a Greater Wight, a Drowned Dead and a Yochlol which have similar stats to the Warlords perhaps slightly stronger but their attacks are definitely more dangerous now. Theshal was turned into an Undead Orc Shaman and now he is a pretty formidable foe and gets very dangerous under Spirit Shift. He also mends some of the other undead creatures here. Lots of AoE spells are dropped so it's a bit hard to make out what is happening at times. The two Ghoul Lords are pretty dangerous as well now and the fighters take a temporary thac0 penalty from the various spells and abilities that are deployed here. The Lich goes under Alacrity after the first few rounds and he'll stay around for about 2 turns. Visual range was increased for both the Lich and Shaman by about 4 and it works well so far. The Bone Devils are being gated in pretty smoothly now I think too, iirc you could severely damage them before the dimension door effect was even finished, they are also closer to the Bone Golems in stats now. This is another ~30 minutes encounter, so about 2 turns. It's a bit more difficult than I wanted it to be but it's very fun to play. It took a lot of reloads to get this one right but it's done now and Theshal performed really well, he goes crazy under Spirit Shift which had four rounds of disabled castings in the latest attempt and I'm unsure if I should switch that to five. I might play this battle one more time to make sure everything goes smoothly again, it's really engaging and probably my best work yet.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Theshal:1


Illithid Hideout Sewers:
This might turn out to be a bit too difficult at least for now, I haven't started Chapter 7 yet. I changed the setup here back to the original one with two Elven Archers which brought my Fighter down to less than 10 STR from 24, and the thac0 from -18 to around 9 at one point, that's with a 4 sec duration for the Called Shot effects. During tests the two Archers with Called Shot active wouldn't lower STR more than 13 or so, yet with lots of creatures and heavy pauses it behaves a bit differently and they can lower STR to less than 8. They carry Gesen like bows and fire Cold Arrows +3. The two Fighters are well equipped as well and quaff a Storm Giant Strength potion and Hardiness as a prebuff, they also get some other prebuffs from the Cleric. The Mage goes under Alacrity in the first round, he is a dualed Fighter 13 to a high level Mage and packs quite a punch. His Darts of Stunning are +5 and need a save at -4 now. The Assassin has Poison Weapon and quaffs a Potion of Magic Shielding as prebuff plus some of the Cleric's prebuffs including Aid and Regeneration, and then opens up with Greater Evasion. He's got pretty good thac0 around -16 and 3 APR. He is somewhat of a nuisance and very sneaky, he will not backstab characters under Barbarian potions. His backstab was reduced on the other hand to only x5. I like the way he behaves now, he can be very dangerous. The Mind Flayer also has decent thac0 now for this stage of the game and needs to be prioritized. The Cleric will heal his friends if they survive long enough, he's regenerates a lot the first turn. I made some adjustments in the end and I think I found a good balance for this encounter. It came out to around a bit less than half an hour which is not bad and that will be it I guess.

https://odysee.com/@Githzerai:e/Illithid-Hideout-Sewers:7

This post has been edited by Berzerkerzz: Aug 5 2025, 11:21 PM