evil vs. good, balancing the scales

[caldura firebourne]

Andunor is the go to place for evil aligned characters and plots, this also makes it a large target, being that it's also a starter city tends to make it a frustrating place to play, because from the start you're outnumbered, outgunned, and outresourced by every other settlement on the server.

Andunor has no political allies among the settlements

the NPC guards including Claddath and Freth are largely ignored by spies and raiders as you do not have to worry about them being hostile to you.

compared to Cordor, the other main starting settlement on the server this is fairly obviously unbalanced, Cordor is a far more dangerous place than the underdark which has influenced IC behavior that the underdark is nothing more than a minor threat or nuisance to the surface, rather than a place to be feared where your childhood nightmares dwell waiting for a chance to strike at you

I would suggest a few things to make it a little easier to play an evil character, or run an evil plot without the entire surface knowing your plans an hour after discussing them with your allies

1. scrying into the faerzress. It seem to me that it should be fairly difficult to pierce that barrier between the weave and faerzress with magic, but there is no place currently in the underdark that is safe from Cordor based scriers, the biggest reason outcasts do not work as spies in Andunor is that a single scrier can catch them in the act and they suddenly lose all welcome on the surface.

2. NPC guard reactions. I understand the peacekeepers sole priority is to keep the trade in the city flowing, but it strikes me as odd that an attack on the city from the surface doesn't seem to bother them, and that claddath and freth stand guard in both districts, but do nothing to defend from spies and raiders.
Monsters that go to Cordor are expected to pretend there are multitudes of mechanically nonexistant guards that can easily overpower them and should be feared.
But the well trained and funded drow guards of an ancient and powerful house do not have this same expectation.

can we please even out the playing field?

[Dreams]

Think of Andunor as 2 settlements with a neutral centre. I don't think it's a good comparison to Cordor tbh, because these two cities serve different functions on the server. It's not just a matter of looking at them as a starter city. No matter where you start, you're going to be outgunned and so on because you're only starting...

Take the time to build up the things you need.

[-XXX-]

IMO Cordor should become more like Andunor rather than the other way around.

[BegoneThoth]

One of the big things with the Ud is that shit happens and only the strong survive. If a drow saw four surface humans show up and grab another non-noble drow, then throw them screaming into a portal, the drow witness would likely think little more then "sucks to be him." Worst case scenario is that it's one less rival.

In short the UD is the opposite of the surface. It's not a place to go to be protected or shielded. Got to do that yourself.

Also, Cordor is a bit too friendly. You can't pvp in front of guards unless a DM is nearby, which can often put you in awkward situations created because the elites are supposed to interfere. Cordor should be made more like its UD counterpart.

[DarkDreamer]

As someone that has played both sides of the coin, I have to agree, I have outright been told by DMs that the Hub guards don't give a damn about anything going on as long as it doesn't effect the merchants? Really? This seems rather biased to the surface. Honestly I would love to see a bit more attention to the fact the UD is being raided near constantly and lowbie areas being swarmed by higher lvl surfacers because there is no fear of consequences. 4-5 elves go down there at lvl 30 into the slime temples or sit on the ice roads, both prime areas, and gank lower level drow.

When this was reversed on the surface, we saw an increase in Black archers and the likes of NPCs that were instantly hostile to Drow and Monster races. I think something like this needs to be reconsidered for Anundor. The Hub Guards SHOULD care about the constantly returning CUSTOMERS remaining alive as without customers, they have no job.

So yes, I agree, block scrying or have a holding area that is completely warded against scrying and even teleporting that has cells or something in it.

[-XXX-]

Where is all that sudden h8 vs. scrying coming from? Plz keep it focused on the keen MD scimitarz.

[BegoneThoth]

I wonder how long it would take an empowered UD guard force to turn the city into an awful police state.

[DarkDreamer]

I don't hate it, but it does make it very hard to plot, or do evil things without being scryed. That said its the least of my concerns.

[Xanos950]

Any dev input if Andunor is even built around a source of faerzress?

Because if it is then, goodbye scrying. Also goodbye teleporting (cya portals and have fun walking by foot).

Faerzress

.....that has cells or something in it.

snip.

Bring them to the sharps district house jails (below). You cant teleport there.

[BegoneThoth]

What we need is an evil equivalent to the Radiant Heart. One that can go make demands of the Shadow Tower for being too "good."

[Xanos950]

Thing is.... Scrying is supposed to be a 5th lvl spell in DND. Also... There's a very popular uncommon magical ring that outright blocks any divination and scrying whatsoever that you shoiuld be able to buy en-masse in any magic shop.

So what you'd do is go to Ye-Olde-Town-Walmart and buy this magical ring for 69.99gp and you're gucci.

Not on Arelith tho.

[Freyason]

I leveled one UD character to 30 and half dozen others to mid-high teens and saw probably 4-5 surfacers (single or in group) down there in that time (2 instances of pvp). Is there really some constant raiding on lowbies going on and does this happen in australian time or something?

[Cortex]

[FrozenSolid]

The reason, I think, that Cordor is more 'dangerous' to Underdarkers then Anundor is to surfacers is like the following

1. Andunor is split into several factions, it allows all races and doesn't discriminate against actions. Most the city is only in it for itself.

2. Cordor is unified under one leader who in the same regard controls one guard force that allows or does not allow certain things to go on. Andunor isn't ruled by any singular group, so there's no unity leaving Andunor to have undefined laws, rules and allowing a general amount of chaos. There's no PC guard with authority in Anudnor.

The Peacekeepers are not in the city to enforce any particular moral code they're just there to make sure all out war doesn't break loose in the city or buildings start to topple because of a disagreement between two factions.

3. There's no way to tell who is supposed to be there and who is a spy (Unless you're an elf!) I think removing the portal access to none Outcasts/Monsters was a good move, at least it sort of makes things annoying and limits traffic. Guard wouldn't be able to tell though, so NPC guards can't do much.

As far as Surfacers raiding low level areas? I've not seen it. And I've not seen many surface raids on Andunor itself, though I've heard of a few i've never personally witnessed it. I know that if a report of surfacers makes its way through the hub I've joined a few hunting parties to push surfacers back to the surface.

4. The balance between good and evil, I don't know. That's such a deep question that has so many aspects to it. I think Evil will always be less popular and common then 'good' because you have to sort of work outside your comfort zone to be evil, that's not something that comes naturally and often times Evil is kind of not logical! So you have to kind of 'force' yourself into being evil. It's harder, in my opinion.


Overall, I think these issues have to be solved as PCs, so I won't put in a bunch of details, but I think if Andunor wants to push a sense of "No surfacers" then it would have to be a unified city. Perhaps it's time for a Anudorian Guard force? A Recongized power by all districts to enforce Andorian law? I don't know, could that even work with evil characters? Who knows!

Either way that's the only suggestion I want to say OOC. I think most these issues can be solved and addressed IC. I think the way that evil players RP will play directly into how their plots play out. If the Underdark is weak, then why is it weak? I think that issue is a PC issue, not something that can be solved by the Devs or changes to how Andunor works mechanically.

[DarkDreamer]

@FrozenSolid

Normally I agree with you, but when it seems DM favortisim to protect the surfacers and punish the underdarkers, sorry I do feel the need to speak up, I have seen it, several times, and I have seen UDers punished by DMs for surface raids and attacks, yet nothing regarding Surface attacks back. So yeah the axe sways one way, which garners responses like this.

[ForgottenBhaal]

I keep missing out on the surface raids. Always seem to be super wierd times (But that might just be me?) I know that theres been like one raid on the underdark, and that was months past. Is this a common occurance now?

[caldura firebourne]

My issue isn't with the number of raids against Andunor, it's the lack of OOC protection that is afforded to literally every other starting city, as monster players we're told to "Cordor is Mordor for you" even though I'd love to terrorize the brambles in quick strike skirmishes it's just not fun for the lowbies who are there. There is no such protection for the evil starting city, and while a majority of the playerbase understands this and respects that maybe they shouldn't bring their epics down to low level Andunor, there's always those few who will simply because they can expect little to no DM/Dev reaction, and those few, while the exception and not the rule are the ones felt by the underdark players IE black archers patrolling the slime temple, paladins camping in the bonefields

Sure, raids on Andunor are relatively few and far between, but consider for a moment, in the last year, how many times has Andunor been hit, vs. how many raids has Cordor had?

What is Mordor for Cordor if it's not the nest of every monster you ever thought might be under your bed?

[Durvayas]

This has come up many times.

The UD complains about surface PCs coming down and attacking or raiding with impunity, and the devs reacted with 'dark archer' spawns that were implemented.

Surface players complained because they were too dangerous, then they got toned back to being laughably weak and basically ignored.

Now, because there is effectively no deterrent and incidents with hostile surface PCs in and around Andunor is on the rise, The UD is complaining again.

The pendulum will continue swinging until some manner of balance is reached.


A good start, would be limiting the slum portal to only work for outcasts, slaves, and UD races. It would certainly help if getting into Andunor as a spy or raider wasn't as simple as portaling from the arcane tower to stonehold, then from stonehold to the slums of Andunor.

Its not even that easy to get into cordor. UD races have to get in through the sewers.

Another idea might be to limit the outpost portal to being exit-only for non-UD PCs. The stonehold portal is only four areas away anyways, so its not like its a major inconvenience for surface PCs that are here to trade, but reducing the ease with which a squad of surface PC raiders teleport to the outpost and then camp the area for PvP might be a good idea.

[FrozenSolid]

I edited out the first part, I think the question was fair enough but maybe something to be spoken about on another forum, The below is more on topic though!


Let's be honest about Cordor. Most of us walk through there as often as we want. I know Ellie does! That's the beauty of disguises, now can a gnoll stroll into Cordor? No. Ogres? No, Trolls, goblins, kobolds? No, no, and no. But those are 'monster races' they have no place in a human city to begin with, let alone I'd be perplex why they would have any desire to be there. That's just part of playing the race.

So TLDR, Cordor is a completely different city RP wise then Andunor. It doesn't make sense to compare them as examples, the culture and climate are entirely different.

[caldura firebourne]

I edited out the first part, I think the question was fair enough but maybe something to be spoken about on another forum, The below is more on topic though!


Let's be honest about Cordor. Most of us walk through there as often as we want. I know Ellie does! That's the beauty of disguises, now can a gnoll stroll into Cordor? No. Ogres? No, Trolls, goblins, kobolds? No, no, and no. But those are 'monster races' they have no place in a human city to begin with, let alone I'd be perplex why they would have any desire to be there. That's just part of playing the race.

So TLDR, Cordor is a completely different city RP wise then Andunor. It doesn't make sense to compare them as examples, the culture and climate are entirely different.

It does though I'm not talking about spy work or disguises, I'm bringing up the mechanical defense and expectation monsters have on them to respect Cordor as out of bounds, the one time I managed to be part of a raid on Cordor, after we successfully defeated the guards both NPC and PC with DM oversight, we brought our destruction into the outskirts, and were promptly told by DM overseeing to keep it there and go no further, so even while we were successfully pushing back the forces against us, we ended up having to turn, and leave, and call it a loss. Because Cordor is a starting city.

[Durvayas]

The point being made here Frozen is that the UD can't just drive off every non-UD race from Andunor at swordpoint. When the outcasts first became a thing, that was made abundantly clear when the UD reacted in a very IC fashion to the massive influx of surfacers suddenly immigrating to the city after centuries of warfare. They tried to kill them all in droves, and a number of players got banned for it because it was a bloodbath.

Andunor is a trade city, yes, but for all its NPCs, its also a trade city with literally no security of any kind. The peacekeepers are a joke, and do nothing when hostile surface PCs show up to Andunor fully warded. Everyone knows OOCly that Andunor has no expectation of RP enforcement of it being a dangerous place that you should not raid and is not DM enforced.

If my drow took a squad of four to six UD PCs, and we ran up to Guldhorand fully warded, entered the town, and started a fight and murdered a PC or two, I'm almost 100% sure that I would have a DM breathing down my neck about no raids on settlements without DM supervision, but that scenario happens fairly often in Andunor and does not appear to be discouraged at all. Its a double standard that doesn't make any sense.

[Orian_666]

Just gotta chime in here, not the best example to be entirely honest. I was there, part of the surface group, we had 0 intention of fighting we simply wanted to make a show of force outside the gates so said character that was imprisoned would be given back. Someone came out to us and PvP started, we were fighting like 1 person through the hub, got to the prisoner, instantly came to an agreement that he'd be freed if we left peacefully, and then on the way out were attacked by a bunch of UDers and it became a bloodbath.
Sure it still happened, just saying it not actually a good example. We were outside Andunor for aaaagggeesss trying diplomacy well before any attacks happened.
Multiple lowbies even ran by to do their questing and we didn't hinder them at all, nor did we intend to.

NOTE: Posted in response before Divine Intervention deleted a segment of the comment

[Hunter548]

Surface players complained because they were too dangerous, then they got toned back to being laughably weak and basically ignored.

I've had two epic parties wipe inside three rounds to those spawns in the last week. "Laughably weak" is a hilarious description for them.

If you see surfaces being dumb in Andunor, report it. Expecting the guards to intervene when merchants aren't being attacked, however, is a bit much; After all, if your character was strong enough to be worth serving, they wouldn't need protection from surfacers.

The underdark has a lot of advantages that surface doesn't Expecting to have all of them plus all the advantages surface has (Guard forces who'll protect you when you bite off more than you can chew) seems a bit silly.

Also, players who hang around in lowbie areas for PvP are assholes regardless of if they're surface or UD.

[Durvayas]

Just gotta chime in here, not the best example to be entirely honest. I was there, part of the surface group, we had 0 intention of fighting we simply wanted to make a show of force outside the gates so said character that was imprisoned would be given back. Someone came out to us and PvP started, we were fighting like 1 person through the hub, got to the prisoner, instantly came to an agreement that he'd be freed if we left peacefully, and then on the way out were attacked by a bunch of UDers and it became a bloodbath.
Sure it still happened, just saying it not actually a good example. We were outside Andunor for aaaagggeesss trying diplomacy well before any attacks happened.
Multiple lowbies even ran by to do their questing and we didn't hinder them at all, nor did we intend to.

NOTE: Posted in response before Divine Intervention deleted a segment of the comment

I was in the hub. The doors opened, one of your guys threw an AoE spell with no RP, three mummies were unsummoned, and pandemonium broke out. Its true the fight was 'through' the hub, as the fighting quickly moved outside, but one thing we can agree on was that it happened. How is a bit irrelevant to the fact that a group of surface PCs thought it was a good idea to march up to the gates of the headquarters of evil on the island fully warded and start trouble.

Edit: I feel compelled to point out. You wanted to make a show of force outside the gates. Six..seven or so PCs decide to make a show of force outside the gates of a city of presumably ten thousand? Thats the sort of cavalier attitude we're talking about in this thread. That would NEVER fly on the surface. There were killscripts for years expressly preventing UD PCs from coming within even ballista range of surface settlements out of expectation of being instagibbed. People who play UD characters are expected to respect the population of a settlement and its hostility in our RP in how we deal with settlements. Why you lot aren't held to the same standard is a very large part of this thread.

[FrozenSolid]

Yeah but the 'bad guys' have done that plenty to Cordor too, when I first started here with Lynn they were casually outside the gates with a draco lich, I mean it was completely silly and it happened more then once. Cordor, unlike Andunor, has one of the 'largest armies' on the island, so I would expect them to be able to provide a stronger militaristic response. And the amount of times I've seen that ignored by 'evil' Npcs is often.

I mean, in Cordor, I've been chased through the streets by evil people waving their swords at me completely ignoring the NPC guards. I've had dragons dropped on me in Cordor, etc, etc, it's like the same as Andunor.

Maybe part of the heavy response is from events like that? Where the PVP was more of a troll then it was to make an RP or push any story. From the multiple raids I've seen on Cordor, it often seems like it's more of a troll and a snub then any sort of attempt at RP

Granted, I have seen at least one IC raid that Idk, I guess in my opinion should have been allowed to cut deeper, but they'd have NPC guards beating away at them the whole time.

So I don't know. I think the 'evil' side hasn't done themselves any favors in the way they've presented themselves. And I'm playing in the UD right now so I'm not talking from a point of being someone on the surface afraid of evil characters. I am an evil pc right now! So that's my opinion, I guess