Killing Paladins And Faction Changes.

[*cryptc]

No, and ideally they would then instead cast hold person on you and toss you out the portal, and if a DM is there, they might indeed do that.

That layer of Mercuria is fiercely guarded and NO outsiders are allowed there... it's like area 51 ;)

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Defending yourself against first group would be perfectly fine... but going through entire place once... two... three... a lot of times over kinda ceases to be "Self-defense" and more of looking for fight :P

[*pelhikano]

We had this discussion before somewhere on the forum, to repeat: ANYONE who goes there is attacked, this includes the Goodliest of paladins, because Mercuria is forbidden to enter for absolutely everyone who isn't sent in from the lords of Celestia. The celestials have their own reasons why they don't even attempt to parley with those entering, which you as the player may speculate on but will not find out what exactly they are.

[*Tantarus]

Okay that clears it up a bit, thanks Pelhikano.

So to conclude, Cadence was wrong and you can take repeated rep his if you murder paladins on a regular basis?

[*pelhikano]

At least the archers were supposed to be scout-y types with high spot skill, but that apparently got lost somehow. From what I've seen at least the high level spawns in this area generally need an overhaul. This was the first area I designed for SCoD so it's kind of my pet, and I want it to work well for what it is supposed to represent, i.e. a very hard place for evil types. :lol:

[*hunvagy]

I do agree there. The only ones that can hold the torch are the Elites. Archmage goes down after a sneak attack and a normal attack, can't even start casting around. Same goes for Hierophant. Okay, truth be told if I wouldn't be HIPSing around, they'd kick my ass, but still. By the time the Elite finishes his self buff and comes after me, I murdered every support mob around him, and are safely sneaking along to kick his ass :)

[*pelhikano]

HIPS is a problem, mostly, I think, because it's very hard to design enemies that are "moderately" hard when you have to expect characters that have HIPS. It is possible to effectively neutralize the ability by giving enemies really high spot/listen, but that's not something I want to do really because then some people built chars with a useless ability.

On the other hand, when enemies have no way whatsoever to see characters then we might as well put in XP and loot dispensers because there's almost no challenge any more once characters do have the ability. SCoD isn't a world where powerbuilds are supposed to be mandatory, but enemies shouldn't be too easy either because then, what's the point of having combat and you might as well play it all as posts in forum RP.

I think we built the spawns so far in a way that's "fair", as in you can still beat them even with builds that are substantially worse than the Black Dragon Souls and whatever HIPS abuser build is the cheesiest. Personally I would prefer it if there are some places where novel strategies are encouraged, even if it means some tried-and-true strategy may suddenly become useless because everything sees through stealth completely or monsters shrug off magic.

[*hunvagy]

Yes, HIPS is abused in most of the builds I've seen. Though it is another thing that most of this uber builds make me want to vomit and get out the DM whips :)
For my char, it helped immensly in the beginning and even now. I could just walk down into Undersigil, and pretty much pilfer anything that wasn't bolted to the wall, without having to duke it out with all the denizens. Which is what a thief should do :)

But I have derailed the thread a bit, I'm afraid, so back on topic. It would be nice to see the Mercurian guard really giving a hard time to anyone who disregards the warnings, and of course the reprecussions for the chars not of evil alignment for murdering them into a neat pile.

And I can promise, if there's anything worth stealing there besides the drops, I'll do it without hurting any of them :lol:

[*Product of Void]

the problem with shifting alignments is things like Paladin/Blackguard become possible, unless staff does not care.

Or Monk/bard if we can shift lawful to unlawful.

Though I would agree killing paladins is evil, and summoning undead is evil.

Hips is something people have yabbered about since NWN1.

it now has a 5 second delay on hiding again.

giving bard levels with things like Amplify would help against hips users. Would also making buying a silence wand more sought as well.

You also have to factor in there is kinda lurkers and uber lurkers. Usually uber have heavy stat investment along with feats. They might hit often yet are item dependant or sneak attack.

I could see a realm of light were there is an on enter penalty to hide/ms say -33 or just give everything there true sight. There is already an area that if your a warlock or dependant on spells...RUN . :D

[*Mr_Otyugh]

We have automatic script which takes care of many classes abilities if they aren't classwise acceptable alignment. Which means that paladin/blackguard won't be that suberb <.< and other classes too.