Challenge and Difficulty, how much of it do you like?

[Legacy_Dragon Studios]

               Hello again people. Our upcoming module; The Lowland General 2 is fairly balanced and enemies are also fairly balanced. Later on in the module, enemies become a bit more tougher and deal great amounts of damage but by this part of the module, you could have three companions, good equipment and you should be a decent level, optionally, you may have become a vampire (at the sacrifice of a potential companion) with boosted stats but these enemies will still be a bit of a challenge. 

There's also a hardcore mode where you can't buy health potions, enemies are tougher and bosses are also tougher. In this mode, you'll need to use abilities to help you and rely on companions in battle as well, this mode is for the players seeking more challenge.

So I ask, what amount of challenge interests you? Challenge that pops up once or twice in a module? Challenge occansionally? Or challenge with nearly every fight?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Quillmaster]

               I like the occasional challenge.  I'm certainly put off by games that solely have an "There's an enemy, let's bash it" approach.  Having said that, from a building perspective it can be quite difficult to implement something imaginative into a combat situation.  A few things I've tried include:

Conversation prior to comabt where a successful intimidation causes the enemy to drop their weapon.

Summoners who summon tougher creatures, but killing the summoner 1st results in the summoned creature being destroyed.

Creatures that help one another in subtle ways.  Too long to go into detail here, but I have had some success where creature A can be dealt with more easily if lured to a location, while creature B can hamper getting to the easier location.

It's important to put some thought into combat situations if you want your module to involve more thinking than the typical "hack and slash".
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Dragon Studios]

               Not all fights in The Lowland General 2 are simple hack and slash approaches (especially if you're playing on the hardcore mode, then you're going to need to use potions that provide additional protection or boost stats because there's no healing potions), being a bit tactical helps in some fights.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               To me, the more challenging encounters are the ones I look forward to. Occasionally, it's fun to feel that the character is uber and can plow through scads of enemies with nary a worry, but those aren't really the fights I remember or want to replay.

Especially in a situation where simple reloading is an option if the party dies (obviously it's different on a PW), I generally prefer higher challenges and challenges where the scripting accounts for the difficulty setting and the number of players in the party. E.g., if I am playing on Hardcore or higher difficulty, then I expect that it will be a benefit (depending on the character) to do some scouting, buff, set traps, choose more appropriate weapons or armor, etc. Especially at the Very Difficult setting, I expect that boss fights will be tough and not making good choices may require replaying the encounter. And, in multiplayer situations, it's nice when the difficulty accounts for the fact that playing with two human players makes for a much more powerful party than one player and an AI-controlled companion.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Magical Master]

               I'm not the typical NWN player, but I definitely would like the option to have all combat be brutally difficult, as long as there aren't huge sections of wading through generic encounter after encounter.  If combat goes on more than 10-15 minutes without having a boss, unusual scenario, or dialogue, then it tends to get repetitive.

That said, I'm a raider who does Heroic modes in World of Warcraft, so I like difficult combat far more than average.  One of my favorite raids is a place called Blackwing Descent, which has 6 bosses and a total of 10 trash pulls.  Every trash pull keeps you on your toes, though, but obviously they're not as difficult as bosses (particularly the Heroic bosses, since the trash only has a normal mode).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shia Luck]

               Personally, I like the combat to be challenging.

When you are high level then there's nothing wrong with having some encounters that are easy for you, it makes sense, no? But there should always be some encounters where you are really glad you stealth/invis scouted, laid traps, made an ambush, etc etc. 

That said, story should always win over combat imho and the more solutions to everything, the better. Sometimes it is way more fun and immersive to be able to sneak around or bluff an enemy rather than having to fight everything.

No health potions is a good idea also and is something we are doing with the HnS multiplayer module we are modding atm (tho we have scripted ways to heal outside of combat and allow health packs).

Anyway, good luck with your module.

Have fun '>