Skaljard - Minotaurs

[Richrd]

Hi there,

to get straight to the point; the Warlord of the minotaurs writ available at Skaljard seems completely overtuned and out of touch with the rest of the dungeon, the level the writ becomes available and it is contrary to the spirit of Arelith.

Why do I consider the boss absolutely broken?

1. Swung at me with a BAB of 36.
2. Four attacks a round.
3. Hits for 30+ damage on non-crits.
4. The entire rest of the dungeon was easily soloed by my character with not even a moment where things got even remotely tight.
5. The writ becomes available at level 9 if I remember correctly. If not 9 then definitely 10, as that was the level I was tempted into giving this writ a shot since I had it picked up and was done bringing a delivery up to the trapper cave nearby.

Asking about the dungeon and it's boss on Arelith's Discord earned me partially troll responses, like I was asking how to kill a rat at level 1, but also some strategies.
"Bring friends!"
Yeah, I'd love to but so many people either don't talk at all or they have no interest in helping out due to being too low level, too high level or just busy doing campfire RP. The odds of finding people to actually do writs with is slim, especially with how content generally seems easily soloed.
"Use darkness!"
No, I play a Paladin and don't wish to use cowardice and shadowy spells to my advantage. It's counter to the roleplay.
"Use summons!"
I did use the highest level summon that was commercially available around Skaljard. It got it's kneecaps busted by the Warlord.
"Play a strong build!"
Sorry for not playing a Shadowdancer, I guess.
"Boss has weak will saves, spam Color Spray while your summons tank"
I play a Paladin. Sorry but no-can-do.

Anyhow, this is a feedback thread and not a suggestion. So I am leaving it at that. As I was also told on the Discord this is supposedly an already nerfed version of the boss, which bewildered me when I read it.

Cheers.

[Anomandaris]

You're not wrong, it's a STRONG boss and especially compared to the rest of the mobs. I'd argue that's ok though. This specific encounter also been brought up many times in the past on this forum.

I would invite you to consider that it's ok there are fights you should have to run away from or die, it keeps things exciting. There should be things that kill you, and force you to completely re-evaluate your approach, that's part of the fun.

It's still a very manageable encounter with an appropriately leveled party of 2-3 characters, which is very reasonable from a balance perspective. The fact you can't solo all the content at your level with your build isn't a "problem" necessarily, it could be a design feature. Remember you don't "have" to do this writ, or do it alone.

FWIW I have solo'd him on every build I've brought through Skal (BG, Wiz, Sorc, SD, paladin) but in some cases it took til lvl 16 or so to be able to pull it off, or took lots of consumables/resources to do (which can make it not "worth it" from a $$$ standpoint).

As a suggestion I would maybe consider adding something in the writ warning would be adventurers of the danger of this particular foe, so people go in eyes wide open, but personally I think it'd be sad to take more of the teeth out of the encounter.

[Richrd]

I would invite you to consider that it's ok there are fights you should have to run away from or die, it keeps things exciting. There should be things that kill you, and force you to completely re-evaluate your approach, that's part of the fun.

Yes, it's okay for fights like the ones you describe to exist in any module.

The main point here really is how there's just a massive gap between the basic mobs in the dungeon (which make up 95% of the entire runtime of that writ) and the boss at the end. If I walked in there and nearly got myself clapped by just the first few packs of enemies then I could absolutely see how I would not be able to take on the boss of such a place, at least on my own.

There are also other elements I have not mentioned yet which turn this into a real trap encounter.
The dungeon's length is one thing, seeing as you have to fight your way through two big floors of a dozen minotaur packs each, with parts where you have to backtrack and several spots where one can take a "wrong turn" and spend unnecessary extra time in the dungeon.
Then there's the amount of time you spend just getting to the dungeon. Skal is not like the rest of the module where you have taxi-portals to ferry you all over the place. Most of it you'll have to traverse on foot and the way up to the minotaur place is long. Especially if you are travelling at RP-walking pace and are not just stoically sprinting up there in silence.
Lastly something I have touched upon already. The writ is offered way too early. Yes, some builds can supposedly kill this boss at level 10. But Arelith is not designed around the strength of few edgecase builds but tries to at least take most of the realistic builds into account. And considering my character was offered the writ at level 10 and then going back to how strong the boss is ... no, this just isn't even a "learn a lesson" type of deal.
This encounter is all in all just a massive player-time-wasting trap that rewards you for having meta knowledge or just completely skipping out on this writ in particular and spending your time elsewhere.

A level 10 oriented dungeon featuring a boss hitting with four attacks a round starting at 36 BAB is not okay.

[Wrips]

One of my fondest memories on the server was doing the old aurilite temple writ as a new player with Kenji, at level 16, and then after we finished killing monsters from the writ we were like "let's just go deeper and see what it's like", and then we fought through those frost giant mages which are quite annoying and difficult at that level, reached the deepest level and found a dragon!
We got completely demolished, of course, but the sense we managed to go all the way to the deep at level 16 and finding my first Arelith dragon boss was really fun, and it was also consistent with the lore.

I think there's the fun "we got surprised", like those above and I'll include the Minotaur Warlord as a fun surprise, which led to memorable RP, and bad "we got surprised", which are usually excess of traps in front of bosses, dispel spam and assorted "Gotcha!" to make the player feel cheated despite their effort.

[Ascended Mage]

The main point here really is how there's just a massive gap between the basic mobs in the dungeon (which make up 95% of the entire runtime of that writ) and the boss at the end.

This is actually common thing in Skal if you watch very closely bosses, levels, their attacks and spells. Some bosses just not that obvious noticed. In general I think things in almost perfect state for powerbuilding community. Making it less powerful will make Skal very easy walk.

Sadly, I think, solutions are obvious of making friends, getting more levels, getting tools or other classes/build.

I was wiped by that mino two or three times as well. Fun.

[magistrasa]

Sadly, I think, solutions are obvious of making friends

Heartbreaking: Roleplay is once again the primary solution to problems faced on roleplay server

"Bring friends!"
Yeah, I'd love to but so many people either don't talk at all or they have no interest in helping out due to being too low level, too high level or just busy doing campfire RP. The odds of finding people to actually do writs with is slim, especially with how content generally seems easily soloed.

Even high level Skal players tend to not mind running minotaurs because of how well the loot sells. Whenever I log into Skal, no matter the time of day, I regularly see people around the campfire gathering new parties to go through the area. Half the time I do the writ, I find someone either on their way there or already there - and they're almost always willing to team up to make short work of the place. Show me the chat logs where you've asked people for help and been refused, because hearing that you experienced difficulty in getting even one person to go in with you is so far removed from my lived experiences that it doesn't sound like we play on the same server. On the mainland, I'd believe it - but Skal? The abundance and availability of adventuring partners is the best part of the Skal start.

Darkness is a valid and viable strategy that's trivialized challenging content ever since the game's release 20 years ago. Your choosing not to utilize it is a self-imposed handicap that, while perhaps fitting for the roleplay, is ultimately going to have consequences that will make the game more difficult. I'd imagine the challenge is what makes it appealing! It's not the fault of the game or the designers that you've deliberately chosen not to utilize the oldest and most reliable trick in the book. Even without using darkness, you can still fight next to the transition and abscond to heal up and wait for your cool downs before jumping into the fight again. Darkness makes it easier, but there's still ways to play smart without it.

I do sympathize with the struggle. As a hopeless roleplay builder who has never played a decent build in my entire Arelith career, there's been plenty of times where I would pick up a writ without expecting it to be difficult, only to find myself stuck with what was simply an insurmountable challenge because whoops I didn't know this new dungeon had a phylactery boss and guess who's playing a DEX rogue, time to dink out 300 damage off of 1's and 3's while the boss's army of summoned ghouls tenderly gnaw me to death. And while my solution in the past has always been to latch on to the friendliest powerbuilder I could locally source, I have observed a troubling trend in which it's become more and more difficult to find players willing to team up with people they don't already know. But, having just blitzed through Skal somewhat recently with what may be the least competent wizard build ever crafted by the hands of an (un)intelligent mind, I really don't think it's that bad out there. At least, not yet. Give it a few months, I'm sure the admins are working on it.

Not everything is going to be soloable. Not everything should be! The server has so many writs, you can't even do them all unless you play Arelith like it's a full time job. That being said, I do think the minotaur writ, among several others (like those stupid phylactery bosses), should perhaps have something in their text or some special categorization that encourages larger party sizes to hint at their higher difficulty - but unfortunately, reading is difficult, so I'm not sure the complaints about these kinds of challenging writs would be any less common. I certainly don't read any of the writ descriptions (sorry Kuma), so that info could very well already be in there.

Tldr - I like it when people die and I think more people should be dying on a regular basis. I'll start.

[Paint]

That boss has quite a lot of vulnerabilities that can be exploited if you choose to. Not choosing to and then complaining about it is probably Not a Great Way to make a point that a boss is difficult. Admittedly, he can be difficult for some builds that don't get decent AC by the time you fight him, but realistically, most martials can probably just pop expertise or improved expertise and body him. I say this as someone who has done this several times on several different martials by this point.

I'll echo what everyone else is saying: If you don't want to figure out how to fight the boss solo, or if your build is particularly weak to that guy, find some friends. It's probably easier than you think. I've managed to find adventuring parties on Skal at 3 AM.

[Richrd]

Alright, little update.

After getting another level and two friends (a melee-caster and an arcane archer) we attempted to do the boss fully warded, prepared and ready.

Long story short, the boss still wiped us. Especially the moment of all time when he said "You are going to the shadow realm, Jimbo" and proceeded to crit me into the fugue. Guess I am just not gonna do that writ.

That boss has quite a lot of vulnerabilities that can be exploited if you choose to. Not choosing to and then complaining about it is probably Not a Great Way to make a point that a boss is difficult.

Vulnerabilities?
I do not know if the suggestion here is to be part of a problem and use Paladin inappropriate strategies and spells (Darkness abuse for example) or if you are telling me that I should be a wizard / sorcerer instead. Besides that we attempted to go in there with three people, using what is essentially a tank and two DPS combo. Still got absolutely annihilated.

It's unclear to me when the point comes that somebody can consider themselves "good" or an "expert" at NWN. But with over six thousand hours in this game, across various servers, I can safely say that this boss is not okay.

The intention here is to give feedback on an encounter with egregious stats.

[Waldo52]

I agree that the difference in difficulty between the minions and the boss is dumbfounding. Hard dungeons are one thing but surprise curb stomps are another.

[AstralUniverse]

This boss is fine. We barely have any challenging bosses left on Skal. A paladin, refusing to use any sort of trickery, bull rushing a freaking minotaur king should get slapped. Seems totally thematic even. The rest of the dungeon is indeed incredibly easy in comparison. Buff the minions please.

[Paint]

This boss is fine. We barely have any challenging bosses left on Skal. A paladin, refusing to use any sort of trickery, bull rushing a freaking minotaur king should get slapped. Seems totally thematic even. The rest of the dungeon is indeed incredibly easy in comparison. Buff the minions please.

I think I agree with this sentiment. Compared to some of the other dungeons on Skal, the difficulty of the enemies in the minotaur caves compared to the boss is a pretty wide gulf. And considering the level range of the writ, it's a little bizarre you can get to the end of that dungeon at level 7-9 just fine with the right build -- not even one with summons, mind. Just good gamesense.

[msterswrdsmn]

I'd agree that the difficulty of the boss isn't really in line with the rest of the creatures. From my recollection, most of the enemies are minotuars. Specifically, the same minotuar spawns that have existed on Arelith for something close to 10-15 years, aren't aren't too far off statistically from the default NWN minotuars.

Aka: they're not terribly strong, and were considered weaker spawns even back in ye olden days of the Baronial Age of Cordor. I believe theres even a wierd bit of buggery with the axe throwers where they become -more- dangerous once they run out of ammo/are disarmed, as they're effectively trying to use ranged weapons with a low DEX score (aka; melee with fists has a higher AB)

They're in a good spot for a midlevel range still, but they're one of the mobs that have fallen behind in the power creep over the past several years.

The boss? Yeah, its waaaaay stronger than the minotuar spawns. While agree bosses should be harder and more challenging than the mob spawns, the jump in difficulty is pretty significant.

It -is- possible to kill solo as a martial class as a Skal-legal build, but its not something i'd try doing without some very specific requirements going in (high ac and conceal). Especially since Skal is -supposed- to be a beginner-friendly lower-level experience.

If the argument is to keep the dungeon challenging...it might be more appropriate to replace the mob-spawns or move the boss to a different dungeon altogether.

[Whosdis]

He has innate ultravision. Darkness is NOT a viable strategy against the minotaur.

I don't mind strong bosses nor ones that are immune to cheesing, but this one has enough AB to auto-hit on every attack, and it hits like a truck to begin with. I've sworn off doing that writ ever again after that. Terrible deisgn, in my opinion.

I don't like this age of grueling and difficult writs melded with lower XP. You would think the process would be rewarding, not grueling.