Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

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Shadowy Reality
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Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by Shadowy Reality » Tue Jan 14, 2020 9:08 pm

Totally obnoxious unless you have freedom and death ward.

The paralyze from the slaver's is bad, but not the end of the world. The worse are the magus which spam Circle of Death, I died on the sixth cast.

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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by Shadowy Reality » Thu Jan 16, 2020 12:25 pm

I am most surely sure the issue lies entirely on the Magus.
They have an enormous amount of annoying spells. Dominate, Dispel, Circle of Death. They seem to be palemasters or benefit from the Palemaster upgrade because their Circle of Death affects my character, which is well over 9 HD. They also have multiple casts of each.

I repeated the experience yesterday and I got: dominated twice, dispelled multiple times, circled of death at least 3 times (at which point I died, got a Godsave and gave up once more). I do not know if they have Hold Person or if that was an effect from the Slavers (which paralyze on hit).

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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by Dr. B » Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:44 pm

Personal preference, but I like the fact that some dungeons require you to bring an ally, in this case, a cleric or druid.

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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by magistrasa » Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:00 pm

Yeah, this dungeon doesn't strike me as the sort of place you're meant to solo. Some builds can, of course, but I would never advocate for every dungeon to be normalized for solo players.

It's one of the first places I had an actual exciting and engaging experience in on this server, actually. Bringing a rogue in with the party who would scout ahead and report on what lay behind each transition, stealthing behind the magi to knock 'em down as soon as the rest of the group had charged in so we wouldn't have to deal with them. Every time I run that dungeon with a new group of people, it's always an exciting challenge - and when bringing along an experienced companion, it's always been pretty manageable. Even with party members who were all a tad underlevelled for the area, all the place really demands is that you play smart. The creatures move slowly in a place with an abundance of corners and doorways to use to your advantage, and the AI has never been particularly tactical. As someone who regularly suffers from being overwhelmed by all the things on the screen and is not the least bit mechanically savvy, it's one of maybe three dungeons in the module that I can wholeheartedly say I *always* enjoy running.

Until you get to that fun surprise at the end. That's just pure frenzied panic, and whether I love or hate the chaos depends entirely on how stupid my friends decide to be.

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Irongron
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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by Irongron » Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:06 pm

Sounds like a good justification to increase the writ reward.

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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by RedGiant » Fri Jan 17, 2020 4:15 am

Speaking of over-tuned...at least for their level range...Broke Tooth Mages.

Counted 8 dispels, which seemingly work 100% of the time vs. lvl 15-17 casters.
An large array of evocation, necromancy, and even enchantment spells. (good damage spells, finger of agony, blindness, etc.)
50% Concealment.
Bite-back fire damage in the range of 20+.
Stone-skin 100pts ot +5 DR

They also seemingly spin up with surprisingly good AI.

In short, they have the ability, particularly when more than one spawns, to shred casters and mundanes alike...well beyond the level range of their appropriate writs.
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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by Shadowy Reality » Fri Jan 17, 2020 9:42 am

magistrasa wrote:
Thu Jan 16, 2020 8:00 pm
Yeah, this dungeon doesn't strike me as the sort of place you're meant to solo. Some builds can, of course, but I would never advocate for every dungeon to be normalized for solo players.

It's one of the first places I had an actual exciting and engaging experience in on this server, actually. Bringing a rogue in with the party who would scout ahead and report on what lay behind each transition, stealthing behind the magi to knock 'em down as soon as the rest of the group had charged in so we wouldn't have to deal with them. Every time I run that dungeon with a new group of people, it's always an exciting challenge - and when bringing along an experienced companion, it's always been pretty manageable. Even with party members who were all a tad underlevelled for the area, all the place really demands is that you play smart. The creatures move slowly in a place with an abundance of corners and doorways to use to your advantage, and the AI has never been particularly tactical. As someone who regularly suffers from being overwhelmed by all the things on the screen and is not the least bit mechanically savvy, it's one of maybe three dungeons in the module that I can wholeheartedly say I *always* enjoy running.

Until you get to that fun surprise at the end. That's just pure frenzied panic, and whether I love or hate the chaos depends entirely on how stupid my friends decide to be.
I disagree with this on two points:

1) monsters move slowly, but that is irrelevant because the real issue here is that you are either dominated, paralyzed, or dead;
2) being smart and using terrain only gets you so far, the magus only needs line of sight 1 time to kill you instantly (by either dominating and letting minions do the rest or with a death spell)

I like the dungeon too, I have run it several times on multiple characters over the years but right now, the lower levels shut down anyone without both freedom and death ward, and this didn't use to be the case.

If you look at other dungeons in Arelith (even higher level ones), mage spawns are typically designed so they are nasty (damage, damage shield) but not one-spell kill. Need some examples? Talassian Evocators, Doomcrows, Giant Mages in the lowerdark, Baphomet Chosen in the lowerdark, Fire Giant Mages, everyone will agree they are strong but neither outright disable or kill you.

This one specifically spams disables and death spells which are binary in their action. They either do nothing and you shrug, or they just end the fight there. I am not against a dungeon that is hard, but Slaver's Tower lower levels are not hard, provided you have Death Ward and Freedom.

You could also argue that it is thematic for a Slaver Mage to kill (to animate late) or dominate. To which I say, yes, it is very thematic but Arelith has foregone that in many places in lieu of a more standard experience (see the old Talassian Mages, see the Duergar Warriors weapons changing from axe to scimitar).

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Re: Slaver's Tower Slightly Overtuned

Post by msterswrdsmn » Fri Jan 17, 2020 12:57 pm

I like this area. I haven't tried to kill the final boss at the top, as I was always solo and alone. It wasn't too bad, despite the fact that undead are something my build is supposed to struggle against. Two thoughts on the area, though

1. That acid fog trap is awful. The nearby boss either has an ungodly high spot/listen score, so theres a very real chance you'll get trapped between an acid fog and a harder hitting boss.
2. Common mobs were fine for their level, aside from the slavemasters with the whips. Getting dominate-stunned over and over really sucked. Maybe change domination to daze? At least you can move around while dazed.

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