Immortal Bosses? [TOB EE content spoilers]
Pantalion
Member Posts: 2,137
Spoilers for TOB content.
While playing through the enhanced edition content I can't help but notice that a significant number of bosses are simply immortal for no reason.
So far Szass Tam and Alorgoth are completely immortal, and I've little doubt I'll come across more later.
Not only are they flat out immortal, they are immune to Imprisonment for no reason, and for Alorgoth, set up in such a way that even reducing him to 1 HP does nothing, unlike BP's Baeloth who at least has the decency to fall down unconscious. Instead he's an unkillable, high level monk who will continue beating you around the face and neck until you kill a dragon after already killing him.
Why does minHP1 exist in the first place?
In the original games, it existed to protect the plot, to ensure critical characters don't get erased before their time is up, and when a boss *is* protected, like Irenicus' first three fights, they are set up that as soon as the boss hits that threshold they are removed from the encounter or the encounter with that boss ends.
Irenicus drops a taunt and death spells the inmates before leaving and triggering a larger scale encounter.
Irenicus falls, but in his demise the party is pulled down to hell.
Irenicus hits 1 HP and teleports out of the ongoing battle to be replaced by his final slayer form, leaving his remaining demons to face you.
In the Enhanced Edition, this doesn't seem to be the case. Alorgoth isn't an essential character, he's not fundamental to the plot. If he lives or dies, nothing changes as far as the game is concerned. Why is he protected? To keep the plot on the rails. Algoroth can't die because Rasaad can't succeed. Except... Why not?
Likewise, what's so special about Szass Tam? Szass Tam can't die because he's... An epic level lich? Elminster doesn't get a min1HP necklace in ToB, why does he?
Because they're famous Forgotten Realms personalities?
That doesn't matter at all. Freedom spells exist, resurrection spells exist in multiple formats, running afoul of the Bhaalspawn would not change or challenge the canon of the Realms.
Because it would break the plot of the game?
How? Take Rasaad's epilogue, he fights against Alorgoth and ultimately fails... If that's set in stone, then that can still happen, because Alorgoth isn't a Bhaalspawn, he has an army of loyal followers who would find him and raise him, or scour the lands looking for him with hundreds of scrolls of Freedom.The only difference beating Alorgoth would have would be to make Rasaad finally feel good about himself for a few hours before Alorgoth gets back up, brushes himself off, and goes back to being terrible.
If Szass Tam fights against the team and dies before he can return them to whence they came... So what? The Bhaalspawn at this point has to have the Pocket Plane ability. They can always leave and get back to their other stuff, the only difference is that they weren't railroaded out of their Lord British achievement in a cheap way.
So how do you feel about immortal bosses? And how would you hope to see it handled in the upcoming SoD? Are they a necessary evil, or do they work against a satisfying gaming experience?
While playing through the enhanced edition content I can't help but notice that a significant number of bosses are simply immortal for no reason.
So far Szass Tam and Alorgoth are completely immortal, and I've little doubt I'll come across more later.
Not only are they flat out immortal, they are immune to Imprisonment for no reason, and for Alorgoth, set up in such a way that even reducing him to 1 HP does nothing, unlike BP's Baeloth who at least has the decency to fall down unconscious. Instead he's an unkillable, high level monk who will continue beating you around the face and neck until you kill a dragon after already killing him.
Why does minHP1 exist in the first place?
In the original games, it existed to protect the plot, to ensure critical characters don't get erased before their time is up, and when a boss *is* protected, like Irenicus' first three fights, they are set up that as soon as the boss hits that threshold they are removed from the encounter or the encounter with that boss ends.
Irenicus drops a taunt and death spells the inmates before leaving and triggering a larger scale encounter.
Irenicus falls, but in his demise the party is pulled down to hell.
Irenicus hits 1 HP and teleports out of the ongoing battle to be replaced by his final slayer form, leaving his remaining demons to face you.
In the Enhanced Edition, this doesn't seem to be the case. Alorgoth isn't an essential character, he's not fundamental to the plot. If he lives or dies, nothing changes as far as the game is concerned. Why is he protected? To keep the plot on the rails. Algoroth can't die because Rasaad can't succeed. Except... Why not?
Likewise, what's so special about Szass Tam? Szass Tam can't die because he's... An epic level lich? Elminster doesn't get a min1HP necklace in ToB, why does he?
Because they're famous Forgotten Realms personalities?
That doesn't matter at all. Freedom spells exist, resurrection spells exist in multiple formats, running afoul of the Bhaalspawn would not change or challenge the canon of the Realms.
Because it would break the plot of the game?
How? Take Rasaad's epilogue, he fights against Alorgoth and ultimately fails... If that's set in stone, then that can still happen, because Alorgoth isn't a Bhaalspawn, he has an army of loyal followers who would find him and raise him, or scour the lands looking for him with hundreds of scrolls of Freedom.The only difference beating Alorgoth would have would be to make Rasaad finally feel good about himself for a few hours before Alorgoth gets back up, brushes himself off, and goes back to being terrible.
If Szass Tam fights against the team and dies before he can return them to whence they came... So what? The Bhaalspawn at this point has to have the Pocket Plane ability. They can always leave and get back to their other stuff, the only difference is that they weren't railroaded out of their Lord British achievement in a cheap way.
So how do you feel about immortal bosses? And how would you hope to see it handled in the upcoming SoD? Are they a necessary evil, or do they work against a satisfying gaming experience?
Post edited by Pantalion on
8
Comments
Yes, Freedom spells exist and Resurrection and so on ... BUT Szass Tam and Alorgoth are both WotC IP, and therefore can only have been included in the game with WotC's specific permission. It might be the case that WotC gave permission on the condition that Beamdog wouldn't let these characters be killed off.
Me personally, I think that randomly killing NPCs is overrated. While I would appreciate some more freedom of choice and various decision trees in the game, I realize that it's just not in the scope of the title. I don't want artificial illusion of choice by having everyone become Generic Evil Wizard X just for the off chance I want to go and Imprison them.
For Algoroth, when he reaches 1HP have a cutscenes where the shadows say exactly what they said to him in EE and drag him off.
Neither character 'dies', but it feels much more satisfying. Especially as why would Ssaz send you back to Tethyr when he could just as easily have teleported you to the middle of the ocean?
And randomly killing? This is hardly bellyaching about not being able to murder every NPC with abandon, both NPCs mentioned actively fight against the party. If Szass Tam was a non-hostile NPC who minded his own business and resolved things in dialogue, instantly teleporting the party if they tried anything funny because he's sensibly paranoid, that would be absolutely fine.
He's not, he's a non-optional encounter who will at some point or other try to fight against a party of at least one epic level wild mage that's potentially a higher level than him (he's only level 29, same as Elminster). Not only that, but doing too well against him potentially breaks the quest.
And Alorgoth? He's a hostile enemy who your specific goal is to kill. That's about as far from random as anything, and this isn't Baldur's Gate 1 any more, if you're trying to kill a guy, chances are pretty good that the party that can take down Demogorgon and Mellissan is going to be able to kill the guy.
Could this have been handled otherwise? How about if he dies before the dragon, he dies, dropping nothing. Or he gets imprisoned? He's vanished.
Then when the dragon dies, MEGALORGOTH appears! He can't be slain here, fool! He's infused with the power of plot! We can have the epic escape scene the developers wanted without the boss simply sneering at the nastiest spell in the game, and he'd seem all the more badass and unkillable for coming back from the grave the first time around.
In BG1 SCS, Sarevok is immortal until his goons are first taken out. This is revealed through a taunt. The player knows this and it's part of the battle. It is handled well.
I've never played Rasaad's Throne of Bhaal quest, but from what it sounds like in the first post Algoroth is just needlessly immortal and allowed to continue fighting as a nasty little surprise for the player. I have allergic reactions to such things.
I guess the best solution I've seen so far was in Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (and possible other ES games but I only played MW), where upon killing a story NPC it just told you that you messed up and you're free to keep playing if you don't care that you borked the storyline irreparably, or reload if you do. Also a bit immersion-breaking but hey, at least clear words eh.
Anyway, having progressed further, Dorn's quest features the Planetar of Justice. Just like all the others, unkillable, ignoring all damage until his crusader buddies are dead. That's three for three so far, one in each questline.
This one seems particularly unnecessary, because there's no reason for the planetar to stay alive. Have it say its piece when slain, Planetars are immortal, so slaying it will return it to its home plane. Continue the fight, Dorn says his lines when the fight is over, and the quest continues.
@Lord_Tansheron / @semiticgod - While I'd be fine with either of those solutions for plot critical NPCs, this thread specifically concerns the EE "bosses", none of the three I've come across so far needed to be handled in that way.
Alorgoth in BG2 questline being immortal is fine, because you aren't supposed to beat, or even fight, against him.
Alorgoth in TOB questline being immortal is weird, because you're supposed to fight him, and because monks are easier to kill than dragons but hit hard, it makes sense to target him first.
Szass Tam being immortal as an NPC who you deal with in dialogue is fine, because fighting him is not intended, and he would just teleport you out of the encounter immediately, making his immortality irrelevant, he's just a cameo.
Szass Tam being immortal as an NPC who attacks you no matter what is weird, because again, you're supposed to fight him, and you have no need for the mandatory teleport he offers (and from personal experience he even breaks the quest if you hurt him too efficiently as a result, because he goes to different dialogue than the one he's supposed to).
So again, I've no problem with plot important NPCs being Min1HP, but the overuse of the feature in EE's encounters without any of the features that actually remove the NPC from combat. If you think about how it was used in the original editions, it was employed very differently, and to my knowledge never ended up with an aggressive, unkillable NPC continuing to fight against the party after being dropped to 1 HP.
However, he runs off to Lumia to add your protagonist's name to the Scroll of Retribution, so I guess the devs made him unkillable in order that he can do that. But I'll agree that that's rather a thin and unnecessary excuse, since death would merely send a Planetar home anyway.
And now I've reached the Hexxat quest. Not only was Phaere immortal the first time I met her, since I did so with CHARNAME ahead scouting, when she turned hostile he beat her for a good thirty seconds at Near Death before I decided to try bringing Hexxat closer so she would vanish to appear later.
So that's it, every single EE quest (unless Wilson has one in I don't know about), has at least one hostile, immortal NPC, and every single EE quest has given me at least a minor issue.
Edit: Oh, it got even better. Now there's a Lich/Phaere double team where Phaere finally dies, but the lich is simply immortal, sitting there doing nothing. It even broke the quest a little since the journal updated on the Lich's drop to 1 HP, while Phaere was perfectly healthy. Apparently the "right" way to do this part of the quest was to ignore the dangerous enemy lich, and focus on the easily ignored pure class thief that can't even hurt CHARNAME.
You may have to reload and replay the battle.
I would have thought not having the lich be immortal in the first place would be a perfectly viable "bugfix" in this case, however. Not to mention the sometimes is, sometimes isn't immortal boss character at the end, who if he is mortal drops scrolls and loot, but you're teleported out of the tomb before you can actually claim them...