Codex Interview Temple of Elemental Evil chat log

[Kreegle]

Tags: Temple of Elemental Evil; Troika Games

Here's the log from tonights ToEE chat.
Thanks to the Troika people who participated in the chat.

 

[chrisbeddoes]

Here's the log from tonights ToEE chat.
Thanks to the <A HREF="http://www.troikagames.com">Troika</A> people who participated in the chat.

Thanks .

But why this is not on the edited chat ?

<Saint_Proverbius> > <chrisbeddoes> Arcanum had the best dialogue ever . Will TOEE dialogue be as good as Arcanum ?
<Smoove_B> I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about the real secrets behind TOEE....

* Calis switches on hidden voice recorder
<TimCain> I hope you think so, Chris. Using different dialog skills have given us very broad dialog trees
<[Troika]Steve> Tim should be answering the dialog one, he wrote most of it.... I'm going to say that its not quite as long and winded as Arcanum's. I'd say its more quicker paced, but still very branching and broad.
<TimCain> You have alot of choices in how to behave in dialogs

<Smoove_B> It's semi-analog.

<TimCain> The dialog is 100% analog
<TimCain> ga

 

[Bridgeburner]

nice work people
wish i didn't fall asleep before it started

 

[jedd the falcon]

Balors are CR 18, i take it there will be some pretty meaty artillary to complement the maximum of 8 party members to take down such a fiend!!!!!!

 

[Spazmo]

CR 18, are they? Then it's simply an overpowering encounter and is not winnable by a level 10 party. There are only three ways for that fight to be winnable:

1) Some kind of puzzle that heavily nerfs the balor,

2) A mass attack by a large (as in, twenty to thirty large) group of adventurers,

3) Game exploits.

 

[jedd the falcon]

There are a few other victory paths:-

1. Stockpile a bunch of power word stun spells (if they allow scrolls of that level), and pray that u can beat its spell resistance theres no save for this spell the demons SR is 28.
A tenth level wiz/sorc with greater spell penetration can beat up to SR30, I always have 2 arcane casters in a party, so the odds are doubled.

A fighter meleeing and a rogue sneak attacking could defeat it in 2 (very lucky maxed-out) rounds. Of course the Balor will then explode causing 50 (reflex1/2,DC20) points of damage to everything in a 100 ft radius.

2. Deus Ex machina (divine intervention or an equally powerful rival or backup reinforcments).

3. A major artifact/weapon.

Whatever its likely to rival the Balders gate 2 battle against the Arch Lich, Kangaxx

 

[Spazmo]

At level ten, your rogues/clerics/fighters can take fifty damage easily. The clerics and fighters have lots of hit points, and rogues have good reflex saves and evasion.

 

[Jed]

Ahh, so great that NWN was so well-balanced I was able to solo that balor at around level 16, if I recall correctly. Damn that was one tacked-on encounter; of course with a game so hobbled together, there had to be a little kitchen sink in there somewhere...

J

 

[Spazmo]

Hmm... a single level 16 vs. a balor is nigh-impossible. But a group of 16s can handle a balor easily. In fact, it's an evenly matched encounter. In 3E, a evenly matched encounter is an encounter that would use up 1/5th of the group's resources in healing, charges, special attacks, etc. After five of these, they would have to rest. So a level 16 group could handle five, maybe only four balors in a day.

 

[Jed]

I might have been level 17, but either way, it speaks well to the POWAH of ph4t lewt, doesn't it? Maybe in Kotor, I'll be able to take the Emporer by level 7...

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Where there's a will, there's a way. A 10th level party could beat a Balor with preparation, I think, it just might get ugly. Direct spells would be kind of pointless, but you can get some good buffs by then. I remember fighting one in TotSC with an 8th-9th level cap. Icewind Dale threw a Marilith at you at 7th level or so. CR is kind of weird anyway. A 18th level fighter would be CR 18, too, and a 10th level party of 5-8 could toast him without much difficulty. It's just a guideline for run of the mill encounters, really. Even in official adventures, "boss" type encounters often have CR's above the recommended level.

 

[Spazmo]

Snails, you can make encounters slightly above the party's level for a challenge or a boss. But if the CR is something like five or more above the party level, it's an unbalanced encounter and your little pukes are toast. And let's not forget the Balor's rather potent gate ability. I know that the summoned minions don't count in the EL, but when you're already fighting a balor, the last thing you need is a glabrezu or two.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

Bah, I could take one. *makes shadow boxing moves*

They've got cool spells and abilities, but the problem is each round they use them, they're getting a good pounding. With enough buffs, he'd be dead before he got around to dispelling them all, so that's pretty much out. What would scare me the most is he'd probably use blasphemy as soon as you closed, which would hurt your ability to hurt him a little bit. Most of his mean tricks, like teleport, aren't really as effective in CRPG's, which tend to be toe-to-toe affairs.

Not to mention, Balors have been noted as being wimpy for their CR. Their celestial counterparts, solars, wipe the floor with them so bad it's not even funny but are only CR 19.

 

[Spazmo]

Yeah, it's suprising how much more powerful equivalent celestials are compared to fiends. It's a wonder the celestials haven't just wiped out the entire Abyss and Nine Hells considering that devils and demons are constantly at war with each other.

 

[jedd the falcon]

The celestial are far too busy doing gay stuff to concern themselves with the abyss/nine hells/tarterus/gehenna.

I would truly like to see a standoff between some of the big boy dudes in the bloodwar however.

Asmodeus Vs Demogorgon and their cronies would be one titanic overture.

 

[DrattedTin]

Celestials are not a direct match for all the demonic forces because of size (numbers), not power. That's always been a theme, especially with Planescape, and especially with the Abyss.

That said, I seem to remember Asmodeus having enough power to flatten Demogorgon effortlessly.

 

[jedd the falcon]

i will check again in the book of vile darkness, i vaguely remember that demogorgon has twelve marilith attendants amongst other thing's and his CR is about 30 compared to asmodeus' CR of 32.

It would be very interesting to set up a pNp encounter, just to find out who would win. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Rosh]

Yes, that is the primary thing about the outer planes. The lower ones are more populate, but are a bit weaker.

 

[jedd the falcon]

Anyway I digress, there are a lot of terrifying creatures at lower levels that may appear in the game.

I hope they include displacer beasts, I remember reading a forgotten realms novel set in the moonshaes, where a low level rogue gets torn to pieces by one (nasty).

Th CR system can be odd though the rhemoraz for example does 10d10 of fire damage to anything that hits it in melee it is only CR7, having fought the f**kers in icewind dale 1 & 2 they can be tough to fight, even at level 10.

 

[Spazmo]

CR 30? Yeah, well, Demogorgon is a tough cookie. What's worse is his Demon Knights, although they may be confined to Greyhawk. Anyways, he's got about a dozen very powerful, very loyal demon knights, one of which sports an artifact, making Demogorgon & Co. a dangerous foe.

As for the CR system, I think it relies more on hit dice than anything else. They may toss in another CR point or two for special abilities, but mostly it's a fairly straightforward relation with HD.

 

[jedd the falcon]

The Demon knights you referred to are the 6 armed Marilith's they themselves are CR16, the Chief of which has 10 levels of fighter stacked on top of that, feature in the artifact weapon it brings her up to CR28.

As I'm working at the mo, I'll check the book of vile darkness later and re-edit this reply if I am wrong about the above info.

 

[Spazmo]

Nein! Demogorgon's demon knights are knights of a demonic sort, not mariliths. This is from an article on Demogorgon's knights from the Living Greyhawk section of Dragon. In the world of Greyhawk, there's a bunch of undead demonic knights running around with a major artifact pulling some nasty shit on people.

 

[jedd the falcon]

Ok, I have the official latest edition of the book of vile darkness released september last year, in front of me.

The servants of Demogorgon:-
Severik: male balor fighter 10 CR 28 has a +1UNHOLY greatsword
12 Marilith Blackguards CR 27

No mention of a major artifact.

The problem i have found with wizards of the coast is a fair few of their publications are lacking in consistency, I have 3 differing stats for Tiamat for example, all in recent d&d publications.

 

[Walks with the Snails]

I think it's kind of a bad idea to give hard stats for such creatures anyway. I know some people like to go around offing all the major figures in the setting because they're there, but really such events would be so earth-shatteringly rare, a PC wouldn't be involved.

Stuff like the epic levels that let you do it are just silly, too. If Demogorgon's been around for so long and been so critically important, why does your party just need to go kill enough creatures to hit 30th level to be an even match for him?

 

[jedd the falcon]

Most people i know wouldn't want to play epic level, much prefering to retire a character at level 18 to 20 or lower.

I currently have a ranger at 13th and a sorcerer at 12th.

At above those levels you are pretty much becoming an outsider (monks & druids at least).

I don't personally see a problem with starting a campaign at level 20+, but the scope for true roleplay is limited as invariably it would be combat heavy.

If I ran one it would be short and sweet, more of an experiment.