Slaver's Tower

[Jodd Dovakii]

Look I don't know why this hasn't been discussed over or changed but...WHO'S IDEA WAS IT TOO SPAWN ACID TRAPS BY THE ANNIS HAG!?! It's kind of ridiculous that as soon a I go on in there's like 3 traps that activate and not only that they are continous ones. Why was this here, and did developers really think that this was fair? This is just my take on it, but I know for certain nobody has resit elements on the go or even the spell.

Just at least have the traps activate ONCE ON COOLDOWN.

[Itikar]

It has been there from some years from what I recall. It has also an insane dc to disable.

[xf1313]

Character in UD simply need search to survive....

Btw, I never figured out how to reach the top level...it seems

[chris a gogo]

Wasn't so bad when all they did was poison you but now it's direct damage to.

[Peacelily]

So this is that spot at the moment. You go down, get triple-mobs of ghouls summoned by each party using the new Necromantic Summon Streams, locked in place by the sheer amount of spawns so you can't retreat, use spells or ranged abilities, and then killed by the acid.

If this is working as intended, the designer might be a follower of a particular LE diety of whips and pain

[Za-Lord~s Guard]

So this is that spot at the moment. You go down, get triple-mobs of ghouls summoned by each party using the new Necromantic Summon Streams, locked in place by the sheer amount of spawns so you can't retreat, use spells or ranged abilities, and then killed by the acid.

If this is working as intended, the designer might be a follower of a particular LE diety of whips and pain

This is probably part of the design philosophy that Arelith isn't a singleplayer experience. In practice, that design philosophy just translates into a lot of arbitrary and frustrating decisions that would be irritating and/or difficult even with a party of 3-4.

This trap being virtually right on top of the door, with the spawns aggroing in as soon as you transition through forcing you to battle on the trap, is a perfect example. Typically I bypass this using Imp invis to slip through, heal kit up, and fight the spawns on the other side of the trap - or if I have access to it, freedom of movement to just barrel through the trap and get to the other side and tackle the spawns before they can pin me in.

It's pretty much just there to ruin a new player's experience, like most of the "The Underdark is dangerous" types of encounters (See the Umberhulk in the Stinger dungeon for another example, pretty much a death sentence to a level appropriate group for the dungeon that wanders into it). Players who already know it's there will have work-arounds prepared, or ways to get through it with less issue. It's just an artificial difficulty thing to make playing through for someone new to the Underdark take longer.

[Kalthariam]

The Slavers Tower writ area as a whole is just kind of a hellhole.

Entrance has a bunch of unremovable traps that spams spell breaches at you. It's filled with tons of mobs that like to summon more mobs, and Magus characters that spam instant death spells at you. (Whom your defenses against if you aren't careful are breached by the dumb trap) ontop of that to get past the first area you have to clear out two sides and effectively dodge around these breach traps at least three times getting in.

Then you get to the bottom floor and have to deal with this trap. It's annoying if you don't know what to expect and has lead to many deaths because the slow on the trap is absurd and stacks up very quickly.

Then there's the literal issue of if you got one floor to high up your suddenly in an epic level dungeon.

This place still isn't as awful as the Shade Asylumn, but it's pretty high up there. Thankfully if you know what to expect and how to avoid the dangers it gets significantly less dangerous.. unlike some other dungeons that I swear mobs exist in there to be pests, not to actually fight in a reasonable manner.

[Peacelily]

I think the Necromancy changes affected it and made it worse, since every summoning creature is summong three ghouls, instead of one or two zombies. That adds the joys of Paralysis to everything else, and as you saw there, even a single spawn quickly turns into 12+ monsters. In a packed space, that's just awful to do anything in

[Skeletor]

This is a classical "Ambush" situation, where you might get caught in a bad spot.

Look, you have some choices in this scenario:

0) Spot the trap, don't step on it, and make a plan instead.
1) You didn't spot it and went past it and took some damage, but the door is still right behind you, retreat asap
2) Move past it at whatever speed you can and endure hoping to get to the other side
3) Cast elemental protection spells, hopefully, they will block most of the acid.
4) Summon your creatures on the other side of the trap, and have them fight there
5) Cast freedom of movement so the trap will not slow you down
6) Drink a potion of invisibility, so you can move past without them noticing even if the trap goes off, and have your minions move only once you're out of danger.
7) Use a gust of wind/ everfeather to disperse the cloud (not the best choice because someone might trigger it again)
8) Open the door and back up to the small area behind the transition to fight and defend there, effectively creating your own bottleneck against the enemy.
9) Try to have everyone move at the same time, with everyone triggering the trap at once, taking massive damage, all the enemies attack you while you are slowed, and you've blocked your own retreat so it's fight or die. Better have healing potions!

[Eyeliner]

Ambushes waiting as soon as you enter a new area seem a lot more common than I ever remember and a big problem in tight spaces like this. Fighting in doorways is mechanically difficult as it's tough to click and there's a little buffer area behind most where summons are often stuck and useless so it would be nice if that didn't happen as much.

[Rei_Jin]

Lol, ambushes on transition are so common that some of my friends and I refer to it as being “arelithed”

[Peacelily]

0) Spot the trap, don't step on it, and make a plan instead.
- the enemy triggered the trap

1) You didn't spot it and went past it and took some damage, but the door is still right behind you, retreat asap
- the summons of the enemy blocked the door, preventing retreat

2) Move past it at whatever speed you can and endure hoping to get to the other side
- the summons of the enemy blocked me in, preventing my moving past it

3) Cast elemental protection spells, hopefully, they will block most of the acid.
- I did, but they were overwhelmed

4) Summon your creatures on the other side of the trap, and have them fight there
- the enemy summons trapped my minions in place as well, and AoOs prevented more casting, as well as damage from the trao

5) Cast freedom of movement so the trap will not slow you down
- didn't affect movement

6) Drink a potion of invisibility, so you can move past without them noticing even if the trap goes off, and have your minions move only once you're out of danger.
- I did actually have invisibility up at first, but AoOs trigger attacks

7) Use a gust of wind/ everfeather to disperse the cloud (not the best choice because someone might trigger it again)
- They did

8) Open the door and back up to the small area behind the transition to fight and defend there, effectively creating your own bottleneck against the enemy.
- the summons of the enemy blocked the door, preventing retreat

9) Try to have everyone move at the same time, with everyone triggering the trap at once, taking massive damage, all the enemies attack you while you are slowed, and you've blocked your own retreat so it's fight or die. Better have healing potions!
- I used 10 healing draughts, however the amount of AoOs I had meant they weren't terribly effective

Ya got more?

[Aren]

When bad things happen to good adventurers.
Sometimes you just have these things happen to you. Next time, you’ll know better and can plan accordingly.

[Baron Saturday]

It probably wouldn't hurt to give this area a balance pass, to be honest - Mechanical changes do sometimes cause unintended difficulty spikes in dungeons, and there have been quite a few since this dungeon was first designed! Might be enough to just change the undead summon stream to something that only summons a single entity instead of 3, so there's less chance of ending up completely boxed in. The wight stream seems like a thematic fit.

[Peacelily]

When bad things happen to good adventurers.
Sometimes you just have these things happen to you. Next time, you’ll know better and can plan accordingly.

I mean, my plan for the future is 'not to do this writ'.

There's a difference between fun challenge (and dying can be fine) and something that's that much of a shock. You saw the part about 9 summoned mobs in a space that size, right?

[Aren]

When bad things happen to good adventurers.
Sometimes you just have these things happen to you. Next time, you’ll know better and can plan accordingly.

I mean, my plan for the future is 'not to do this writ'.

There's a difference between fun challenge (and dying can be fine) and something that's that much of a shock. You saw the part about 9 summoned mobs in a space that size, right?

I did.
I also frequently grind out characters from 3 - 30 in the underdark on my own, and I never had any issues with The Slavers Tower what so ever. This is not me saying "hurr durr skill issue", but rather that your subjective opinion on what's too much, may differ vastly from what other players think is too much.

And I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but if you think The Slavers Tower is too much - you're in for a nasty surprise, with what writs are coming later.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience in the Slavers Tower - chin up, get back on that proverbial horse.

[Eyeliner]

"When bad things happen to good adventurers" doesn't mean we shouldn't point out problems like too many mobs spawning right in the doorway in tight spaces. That's a mechanics issue that doesn't give you an honest fighting chance, not a "play smart" problem.

[Aren]

"When bad things happen to good adventurers" doesn't mean we shouldn't point out problems like too many mobs spawning right in the doorway in tight spaces. That's a mechanics issue that doesn't give you an honest fighting chance, not a "play smart" problem.

But there are scripts in place that should make it so that doesn’t happen. But sometimes it happens due to buggy behaviour or lag, and that’s when “bad things happen to good adventurers” come in. Sometimes shit happens.

[Eyeliner]

This happens with such frequency if there are scripts they don't seem to be working. Also as mentioned before the new undead that spawn in multiples is part of the problem.

There's no reason to shut people down or guilt them for bringing up concerns. "When bad things happen..." originally meant you don't get reimbursed for death by lag or loss of gold and items from crashes. I know the definition has drifted a bit but still shouldn't mean no one is allowed to give feedback about perceived problem areas or ask if things are working correctly.

[chris a gogo]

Slavers tower the only issue with the mobs now is you have to kill the summoners first (like every other dungeon where you target the mages first) and the gas traps doing acid damage. Other than that, it's really easy.

The persistent breach traps can be spotted and avoided if you have a minor search investment and they have been toned down over the years they used to strip everything.

[Martoc]

Lol, ambushes on transition are so common that some of my friends and I refer to it as being “arelithed”

Yes, players aren't supposed to abuse transitions for PvP, but apparently NPCs don't have to follow that.

It's especially awkward when they spawn behind the actual doorway and you can't click on them due to the mouse picking the doorway instead. Fun times.

[Peacelily]

On transition. Because that trap fires per person. And with 12 summons from the enemy that trigger it?