Overvalued and Undervalued adversaries

Mantis37

D&D's XP calculations are sometimes opaque, for quests and for creatures. So a simple question, which adversaries are particularly undervalued or overvalued for the amount of trouble they cause you? For example, I find kobold commandos with fire arrows to be lethal with only a miserly pay-off!

OlvynChuru

Lothander (Marek's partner) is overvalued - he's worth 4000 XP! That's over six times as much as Marek, who's only worth 650 XP. Maybe the devs accidentally switched the XP values of Marek and Lothander.

Permidion_Stark

When it comes to quests I think the Melicamp the Chicken one either grants way too much or way too little depending on the outcome. All you have to do is kill a wolf and a skeleton and if you are lucky you get 2000 XP and +1 Reputation; if you are unlucky you get nothing apart from some platitudes from Thalantyr.

jmerry

Undervalued... The leader of the Shadow Druids in the Cloakwood (Amarande), who wields a +2 weapon and has enough levels to open with an Insect Plague, is worth a mere 120 XP.

Balrog99

Bone Golems are way overvalued. I can't remember if they're worth 11,000 or 14,000 xp but either way it's way out of proportion to their actual threat level. I can't remember the last time I've even been hit by one. They're just too sloooooow...

DJKajuru

Permidion_Stark wrote: »

When it comes to quests I think the Melicamp the Chicken one either grants way too much or way too little depending on the outcome. All you have to do is kill a wolf and a skeleton and if you are lucky you get 2000 XP and +1 Reputation; if you are unlucky you get nothing apart from some platitudes from Thalantyr.

On the other hand, I think that skeletons are way undervalued. Their bows, darts and daggers that allow them 2-3 attacks per round and their resistance to slashing/piercing damage are incredibly annoying for a low level party.

sarevok57

Balrog99 wrote: »

Bone Golems are way overvalued. I can't remember if they're worth 11,000 or 14,000 xp but either way it's way out of proportion to their actual threat level. I can't remember the last time I've even been hit by one. They're just too sloooooow...

18000 actually

on insane difficulty they can hit for up to 60 damage, plus they require +2 weapons or better to even damage them and are completely immune to magic, although blunt weapons deal full damage to them, so..... i suppose it makes sense?

although i find greater mummies to be more difficult than bone golems and greater mummies only give 8000 XP and they hit just as hard while requiring +3 or better weapons and talk half damage from everything ( although not immune to magic, but i believe they still have magic resistance )

Zaxares

Do Bone Golems in BG2 possess their Hideous Scream (I might be misremembering the name) special ability? When they were originally introduced in Ravenloft, that special attack is what made them so deadly, since it forces players to save or die, and even if they succeed, they suffer the results of a Madness check anyway. If they lack that ability in other settings, they're considerably neutered compared to their original incarnation.

semiticgoddess

Kobolds. I lost a lot of party members to kobolds back in the day, and yet I've never gained a single level by fighting them.

They can decimate low-level parties if they land some criticals, they come in large swarms, and they strike fast from far range. Since they outnumber your party, you can't take them down before they get some attack rolls unless you have area-effect spells on hand. How much do you get for killing them?

7 XP apiece.

semiticgoddess

Also, every enemy in Icewind Dale 2, because the challenge rating system is so broken.

sarevok57

semiticgod wrote: »

Also, every enemy in Icewind Dale 2, because the challenge rating system is so broken.

you can actually use NI and alter the xp tables so you actually get XP from those fights that are supposed to give you 0, i did this back in the day when i cared to have IWD 2 installed