UD Monster Discrepancy

[Shadowy Reality]

Having gone through some leveling in the UD recently a few places came across as way out of balance in terms of difficulty/xp.

Driders vs Stingers
Driders are generally not too hard. They spam magic missiles, some have poison arrows. The real issue here are Drider Clerics, they have both Hammer of the Gods and Hold Person, which can very quickly kill a lone adventurer, or even a smaller group. They give roughly 20-25 exp at level 7.

Stingers are fairly easy too. Warriors cast the Poison spell, so may requires some Lesser Restoration Scrolls. But that aside, they have pretty much the same AB, AC, Damage as driders, and none of the crowd control. They give roughly 32-39 exp at level 7.

The difference in exp is absolutely massive.

Spriggans vs Formorian vs Ogres
The three all give pretty much the same exp around level 21.

Spriggans are very, very easy. They are not particularly hard to hit, they do not hit particularly hard either, they die fast.

Formorians sit in between. They are much more durable than Spriggans, they hit harder, and sometimes they come with a construct that has a Str debuff breath. The shamans seem a bit off, they mostly spam Balagorns, which can either be extremely annoying or do nothing at all.

Ogres (Minmir caves) are the hardest of the three by far. They can deal the most damage out of all of these, and I also think they have the highest AB.

[chris a gogo]

Stingers have mind immunity iirc. Which could be why they give better XP also if your AC is low they smear you over the walls.

The last three are different challenges in each dungeon.
Formorian's have lots of dark mages and lots of attack spells coming at you from the mages and the "druid" types with infestation of maggots being thrown around.
Ogre's are the heavy hitters they have a summon type and one real caster type iirc.
Spriggans have a mix of sneak attacking and divine casters depending on build they can be lethal but yes I also find them easy but that is because I know how to beat them.

Also your comparison depends massively on the character type that is fighting them and if it has SR or not.

[Heroic Spirit]

Stingers have mind immunity iirc. Which could be why they give better XP also if your AC is low they smear you over the walls.

The last three are different challenges in each dungeon.
Formorian's have lots of dark mages and lots of attack spells coming at you from the mages and the "druid" types with infestation of maggots being thrown around.
Ogre's are the heavy hitters they have a summon type and one real caster type iirc.
Spriggans have a mix of sneak attacking and divine casters depending on build they can be lethal but yes I also find them easy but that is because I know how to beat them.

Also your comparison depends massively on the character type that is fighting them and if it has SR or not.

No. Stingers have tremor sense [True Sight], not mind immunity.

[chris a gogo]

Ah yes thankyou has been awhile since I've been there.

[AstralUniverse]

I havent leveled a character in the UD for a while now but I recall the whole point was that the UD is a bit harder but higher exp. It's been like that since ancient times where you wouldnt normally have as many +2 ecl character on the surface as in UD and thus, the exp in the UD was adjusted and the monsters difficulty was appropriately adjusted too. Call it Hard mode if you wish. I suppose due to the fact the UD is also thematically a dangerous and scary place, I'd say we should remain loyal to this tradition.

[Shadowy Reality]

The point is less that the monsters are hard, and more that harder monsters provide less exp per kill than easier monsters of the same level. Should be the other way around.

[JubJub]

Easy also depends on class and such, I can roll through the ogres pretty easy but those Formorians and their darkmages I have a lot more issues with.

[Dr. B]

There are very easy counters to the threats Driders and Stingers pose that are readily available at low levels.

-The Drider cleric spells you mention can be countered with clarity potions. Pop one before they have a chance to unload their spells and they pose no threat at all. Or just direct everyone in your group to kill them first. They don't warrant a higher XP value, if that is what you are arguing for.

-Drider poison arrows can be countered with potions of warding or ironguts.

-Drider mages can have their Magic Missile countered with shield potions or scrolls, the latter which take 5 lore.

-Stinger poison spells are counterable with potions of warding or ironguts. Wasting money on restoration scrolls is not necessary.

All of these items are very easy to come by at low levels through various sources.

[Shadowy Reality]

There are very easy counters to the threats Driders and Stingers pose that are readily available at low levels.

-The Drider cleric spells you mention can be countered with clarity potions. Pop one before they have a chance to unload their spells and they pose no threat at all. Or just direct everyone in your group to kill them first. They don't warrant a higher XP value, if that is what you are arguing for.

-Drider poison arrows can be countered with potions of warding or ironguts.

-Drider mages can have their Magic Missile countered with shield potions or scrolls, the latter which take 5 lore.

-Stinger poison spells are counterable with potions of warding or ironguts. Wasting money on restoration scrolls is not necessary.

All of these items are very easy to come by at low levels through various sources.

I know how to counter everything they have, that is not really the point. But this is a good example of why the EXP values of driders and stingers are off. It is easy to deal with stingers, you drink a NEP potion of just carry some lesser restoration scrolls, easy. If you fail the save? No problem, you just have some less AB (if Str) and damage for that fight.

Driders you need shield, NEP and clarity, if you want to have a solution for everything. Clarity which is a fairly short potion, for two different spells, both of which almost entirely disable you if you fail the save.

I am arguing that driders are far harder and more deadly than stingers. But not arguing they should be nerfed, I think they are fine as they are. And I am not necessarily saying driders should yield more exp, perhaps it is stingers who give too much (this latter one is actually what I believe is the case).

[AstralUniverse]

The point is less that the monsters are hard, and more that harder monsters provide less exp per kill than easier monsters of the same level. Should be the other way around.

You can see it in a lot of places though. There are more factors than difficulty vs exp. What about the amount of containers (which can drop you mithril dust or greater gems of nulification) what about loot drops. For example, the new lvl 20 dungeon the Reavers Keep is objectively harder than the orclands (excluding Taranukk mobs) but gives lower exp than the orclands. Why is that? Because of other hidden rewards we may or may not take into account. The new dungeon in the the howling pass - same story.

[Irongron]

There's definitely some useful information on this thread, and I'll be looking at some of these creatures.

Most of all though, I just wanted to mention writs.

I originally conceived the idea for these to compensate for problems in reward/risk ratio, either for XP, or Gold. It was a major problem of Arelith for many years that some dungeons were simply preferable to others, leading to some being almost entirely deserted, most often this was because of XP vs Difficult, but also, in the case of golem dungeons for instance, that some creatures offer very little by way of loot.

This is where writs come in. Rather than change dungeons to all just be the same (which is frankly VERY boring) writs allow me to compensate.

A dungeon is really hard for the level range or contains features of puzzles that make it frustrating? Up the XP Writ Reward
A dungeon offers little by way of drops/loot, or requires a lot of consumables to get through? Up the GP Writ Reward

This has had a major impact on traffic in some dungeons that were previously untravelled, but we could do even better.

Please use the following the thread if a writ is still really not worth it.

viewtopic.php?f=37&t=25911

(also I'm going be looking at these Spriggans later)

[Dr. B]

I am arguing that driders are far harder and more deadly than stingers.

I've always found Stingers more difficult than Driders. They have a higher spawn rate, do more damage, and have higher AC and hit points. IIRC they also have more attacks per round. Perhaps this is because I tend to use the tools I mentioned earlier against driders, which are very easy to come by and make use of.