Better Enemies (Equipment, Classes & Stats)

Cerabelus

The last time i played NWN & NWN2 i was bored of the enemies and got curious about their abilities so found out how to unlock Campaigns in the tool set than started editing all the enemies in all the Official Campaigns and quickly discovered that most have lame abilities, an example is a mini boss who i won't name in case someone is worried about spoilers this NPC is a
Fighter/Rogue Lvl 7
STR = 13 ?
DEX = 10 ??? (a Rogue with low DEX)
CON = 18
and Health is 135
NPC has next to no equipment and biggest asset is abnormally high HP.

Also most Mages in the games either have crappy spell selections or some have an illegal amount of the same spell to spam over & over.

this is just two examples and i could name many more but i don't wanna to spoil anything.

I went through NWN & NWN2 and found that so many enemies are lacking in proper Equipment Stats and Spells so i changed those by giving them maybe 1 or 2 Level increases and upgrading there primary stats and giving them at least basic equipment and made small teams of enemies who have a variety like 2 Fighters
1 Cleric & 1 or 2 Mages and so on so minions are actually doing something besides running up and hitting people.
I'm not saying we need to increase the difficulty to drastic levels but if the enemies have proper stats and abilities they have more tactics to use against us, i know minions are a bit like cannon fodder but do they have to just stand there and get slaughtered by us or could they try harder to survive a bit longer.
Also i gave bosses special equipment to give them a little boost and made them drop on death so the loot wasn't totally random and a little reward for defeating a boss is nice.

Cerabelus

It's become obvious to me from the streams that they most likely won't be updating the old campaigns so my only hope now is the new Modules they'll make down the road will be far better than the OC's and in this hope I would really like to see all enemies in new contents to be better thought out.

Enemies with varied classes, proper stats and spellbooks relevant to their classes and equipped with gear instead of just clothes and a sword.

I'm not asking for overpowered enemies but better thought out and geared up for their classes.

DerpCity

I'd love to see a group redo the campaigns, going deeper with the stories, making the areas more interesting and improving the enemy design. I remember seeing something like this for the prologue and chapter 1 of the OC on the vault, but I'm not sure if that's still being worked on.

SoU's first chapter would be a good place to look, at least in my opinion. It has a good amount of combat, but with interesting ways of avoiding combat through conversation. Wish the Interlude and Chapter 2 kept it up, but the Interlude was too short as it was and Chapter 2 was pretty much entirely hack and slash. Mind you, Chapter 2 had interesting areas, like the library where you write a story you can enter and the section with the Shadovar (or whoever they were) were trying to capture the Wind, but they were still only really used as more hack and slash sections. Also fighting the winds made my ears bleed.

Cerabelus

From the streams it's obvious they don't want to talk about the old Content and I don't think there gonna improve them despite what I'd like so my only hope now is whatever new Content they make is so much better. They should be aware that when they make a new Module or even a Campaign it's gonna be compared to the OC and expansion packs and I really hope they learn from them, since I'm not getting improved OC's that I'd like, the new needs to be so much better than the OC that there's no comparison.

DerpCity

I'm aware Beamdog doesn't want to change the campaigns too much, and while it sucks, I understand their point of view. Its why I said "a group" instead of Beamdog. I feel that the community could throw together an excellent remake of the campaigns if there were people interested in such a project. Though I don't think I'd have the talent to do much with the idea, though.

I also agree that a new campaign should be incredible by comparison, probably on level with NWN2's campaigns in terms of story but with much better encounter design. There are massive difficulty spikes at random areas of NWN2's OC, such as the area with the Githyanki (which makes some sense, granted) and the thugs inside of the house of the informant you have to save from Moira. Hopefully that won't happen in a Beamdog campaign.

Cerabelus

I totally agree NWN 2 was better in most aspects but most enemies where lame and the ones that are better are a sudden spike.

I remember back in the day I played on 2 servers I think called "NWN Original Campaign Hardcore" but they added new area and items like in Helms Hold when banishing the Demon there was the optional quest to teleport under the Hold and fight the Demon who was very powerful and in chapter 2 there is a spider cave with a new area that has Drow and stronger spiders, the other server was "HOTU Hardcore" and same thing new enemies and harder experience.

I wonder if those people are still around because I'd love to play on those servers again.

Innova

I'd like to up-vote this thread. Really would be cool to see the OC improved, but if not hopefully any new modules developed would actually utilize the games mechanics to create their enemies. It is lame to have a monster "balanced" by just giving it a massive HP pool with no effort at all in the creatures actual stats and equipment. Even worse is having the stats completely unrealistic to gameplay, and just lacking equipment entirely.

Kranyum

I agree, the main problem with the OC is that there's very little challenge and need to switch up tactics in different situations. Also having a decent build playing to its strengths is not necesary.

Wish we could change that

OlvynChuru

Let me guess: that fighter-thief in your original example is Callik?

I've played the NWN1 OC recently and I too have been shocked by the really stupid item and spell choices. This is a campaign where you find Orc Champions wielding short swords and clerics that cast Virtue in the middle of combat (why would anyone even bother casting a spell as weak as Virtue anyway?).

The campaign could also do to cut down on the spectacle creep. It is silly to think that a party of one or two 13th-15th level adventurers could possibly stand a chance against a Balor Lord, or two dragons at once. That Balor Lord could probably be replaced with a normal balor, or a lesser balor.

Cerabelus

OlvynChuru said:

Let me guess: that fighter-thief in your original example is Callik?

It was the first Gang Boss in the Peninsula District (outside the prison), but Callik is similar.

Yeah their spell books need changing, I like a challenge but I see your point about the Balor and 2 Dragons, what about Klauth in Chapter 3? He is beatable but he's suppose to be extremely old even for a Dragon and you'd think he'd be almost impossible.

I can understand the lesser minions being poorly equipped but not most if them.

Raduziel

Yup, the way the OC raises the difficult is basically by boosting the HP of an enemy. The one mentioned is the Gang Leader outside the sewers entrance in the Peninsula District.

That doesn't make the game more challenging, just make it boring. On several crucial battles I literally let my character fighting and go do something like the dishes. As another example, the Intellect Devourer battle lasted time enough to let me cook dinner.

As the time passes I feel more and more sad for expending money in this EE. Can't log to the server I used to play (since 2006 IIRC) anymore, no graphical difference I can notice, no FPC, no better pathfinding, no improvements in the AI, no building improvement (including the creature's stats) and the list goes on.

Honestly, when people from my old server asks me what changed in the EE I don't know what to say and certainly can't recommend this purchase to anyone.

"EE has backward compatibility with other mods", well so had the old version.

When I bought NWN a long time ago I was looking for a PnP experience in the computer and couldn't have that because a lot of things just sounds like the work of a teenager lazy DM who designed the game during his/hers school break.

NWNEE gave me hope that I would finally have this experience, but so far I feel like I'm playing the old game, except that I can't go online.

I still have hope that this EE will meet at least the minimal of my expectations, but this hope diminishes as the time goes by.

jsaving

Kranyum said:

I agree, the main problem with the OC is that there's very little challenge and need to switch up tactics in different situations. Also having a decent build playing to its strengths is not necesary.

Well, that's one of many problems with the OC. Others include the plot, the depth of dialogue and scripted interactions, the number of quests that go beyond FedEx level, and the ability of the protagonist to meaningfully affect the game world based on his/her choices, all of which are minimal. I didn't mind playing the OC despite those faults and definitely agree that an SCS-like upgrade would help, but it wouldn't be nearly enough to draw people into the OC. Only a significant (and expensive) infusion of high-quality writing could do that, which is incredibly unlikely to happen.

Cerabelus

My only hope is any new content made is massively improved compared to OC but it would be nice if some experienced people worked on the OC, I remember playing on a server years ago called OC Hardcore & HOTU Hardcore and it had new enemies. New areas & some new gear, some of the new areas were very hard and needed teamwork but they were optional but if you finished those new areas you got some really good stuff.

I wonder what happen to those servers?

sarevok57

Raduziel said:

Yup, the way the OC raises the difficult is basically by boosting the HP of an enemy. The one mentioned is the Gang Leader outside the sewers entrance in the Peninsula District.

That doesn't make the game more challenging, just make it boring. On several crucial battles I literally let my character fighting and go do something like the dishes. As another example, the Intellect Devoured battle lasted time enough to let me cook dinner.

As the time passes I feel more and more sad for expending money in this EE. Can't log to the server I used to play (since 2006 IIRC) anymore, no graphical difference I can notice, no FPC, no better pathfinding, no improvements in the AI, no building improvement (including the creature's stats) and the list goes on.

Honestly, when people from my old server asks me what changed in the EE I don't know what to say and certainly can't recommend this purchase to anyone.

"EE has backward compatibility with other mods", well so had the old version.

When I bought NWN a long time ago I was looking for a PnP experience in the computer and couldn't have that because a lot of things just sounds like the work of a teenager lazy DM who designed the game during his/hers school break.

NWNEE gave me hope that I would finally have this experience, but so far I feel like I'm playing the old game, except that I can't go online.

I still have hope that this EE will meet at least the minimal of my expectations, but this hope diminishes as the time goes by.

all of this is the problem i have with NWN as you said, some enemies have so many HP and at the same time they can't hit squat and you can't hit them because their AC is so arbitrarily that you can just go cook supper and come back and win the fight in the end

stuff like THIS, is just piss poor programming and is lazy to the extreme and that is why i find NWN boring as hell

but to their defense, i suppose when this game first came out, dnd 3E was still relatively new, and perhaps the programmers didn't know the mechanics that well, and i think there was way more emphasis on this "make servers to build your own worlds and play with your friends!"

instead what they should have done: look how awesome we made this game to show the potential of what you could make for you and your friends to play

what we got instead: look at this absolute half assed attempt at a 3E game that you need to figure out for yourself to see if you want to even bother making worlds for your friends to play

now luckily some people did, find out how to use the tool set and you got servers and all that weird whacky stuff, but for people like me, who enjoy a good single player experience, we just got defecated on hard, such a damn shame

i always dreamed of making the ULTIMATE dnd playing experience, i wanted to make the most EPIC of EPIC campaigns, with interesting areas, NPCs, enemies that actually made sense, so on and so forth ( using NWN 2 for this, because NWN looks hedious as hell, and plus NWN 2 has more flexibility and i just generally like it more ) but the problem is, trying to figure out how to use the toolset to make your own campaign, OI, its like trying to learn klingon from a chimp who has downs that can't speak english, so i guess it will forever be a dream, and never become a reality, what a bummer

Cerabelus

sarevok57 said:

Raduziel said:

trying to figure out how to use the toolset to make your own campaign, OI, its like trying to learn klingon from a chimp who has downs that can't speak english, so i guess it will forever be a dream, and never become a reality, what a bummer

Yeah when I tried the NWN 2 toolset it took me much longer to learn how to move the camera properly than NWN 1, even now I'm trying to remember the toolset controls but I don't.