Setting "automatically fail saves on a roll of one" from "=1" to "=0"

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

I disagree. Even if the enemy has a huge fortitude save, there should be some reason to explain why he is immune to death magic, petrification, or the like. I do not support that as a creature or player becomes more powerful it gains more inherent immunities.

This isn't an immunity issue. The target in question isn't immune to those things; he is just able to make easy saves reliably, which reliably nerfs relatively feeble attacks. If a higher-DC version of those spells were cast at him, he would be affected. If I am a mosquito and I am hit by a raindrop, I may well drown. If I am a dragon and I am hit by a raindrop, I will not drown. But, that doesn't mean that dragons are immune from drowning.
 

And what if a few get through? - a druid 5/shifter 5 in basilisk form petrifying a prismatic dragon, for instance. There is great risk of dying when pulling off that maneuver. But if the druid pulls it off and then hacks for ages at the high AC petrified structure (why is AC maintained when petrified?), he definitely should get full XP for the kill.

I don't have any problem with a lower-level toon taking on a tough boss encounter (consisting of one or many opponents) and getting full XP benefits from it. Good for him. But, that example isn't really what I was talking about. Even with auto-fail enabled, a 5 druid / 5 shifter who plans on taking down a prismatic dragon by petrification is basically planning a suicide run. Less than a 10% chance of success, even assuming he gets a chance to use both of his gaze attempts. He will get lucky once in a while, but it's hardly a viable strategy for a single PC.
 
BTW, I agree that a reasonable game mechanic would be that some part of AC (dodge at least, maybe deflection and shield, too) goes away when a character is petrified. Of course, the druid in this example needs a better plan than doing physical damage to the petrified dragon... I'd suggest wyrmling shape and a lot of patience. ;-)
 

But on servers, you do not need one strong boss, you can have myriads of creatures be just as challenging. Many boss fights of the official campaign involved large numbers of creatures. But the official campaigns also used very low DC death magic quite frequently, and if a character knows just a few good tactics, he can avoid most, if not all, circumstances where the death magic would target him.

To be honest, I can't be sure if the OC planned on presenting the PC with opponents using low-DC attacks as part of a strategy of knowing that, statistically, a few of those attacks would succeed because of auto-fail or if those encounters are in the OC because the OC is full of wimpy encounters and they either forgot that some of the attacks would succeed or didn't care because saved games mitigate the impact.

But, as I said, I am mostly concerned about situations in which a reloaded saved game isn't an option.
 
Regarding tactics to avoid the low-DC death (and other) effects in the OC, I agree that they can be avoided. And, honestly, in the OC these are not nearly the problem they are elsewhere because most PCs' saves aren't so high at those levels. Even the basilisk attack in SoU's interlude doesn't strike me as so bad because most of my toons (I play more mages than high CON types with primary fort saves) would be at risk of failing a save whether or not auto-fail is enabled. If my fort save were +18 and they took me down, I would be annoyed. But, generally, my fort save at that point is in the +9/+10 range and I should fail if I don't beat DC 13.
 

But having a low DC does not necessarily mean that the spell has limited potency.

I am pretty sure that it means it has limited potency against targets with decent saves. Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean by "limited potency", I think that's exactly what it means.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

This isn't an immunity issue. The target in question isn't immune to those things;

With auto-fail disabled, in effect, the target is immune to many of these abilities and gains further immunity to more abilities as his saves increase. The AI is not smart enough to tell a creature not to use an ability if the target's saving throw is at least the DC, and so many creatures will waste what would have been deadly abilities if auto-fail is disabled. The net effect is that a PC can feel free to safely grind any area in which the creatures are 10 levels lower than him. He can run through basilisk's nests without fear of petrification. Instead of monsters having variety, you instead get monsters with stupidity, who will refuse to attack, because they have a death ability which can never work.

But, as I said, I am mostly concerned about situations in which a reloaded saved game isn't an option.

The official campaigns are only cited as a baseline to show intent. If all SP is dismissed, then there probably isn't a baseline that we can agree on.
 

I am pretty sure that it means it has limited potency against targets with decent saves. Unless I am misunderstanding what you mean by "limited potency", I think that's exactly what it means.

Potency is what the ability is capable of, not how easily it can be resisted. Death effects are potent, that is the reason why the 5% minimum is being discussed here.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

With auto-fail disabled, in effect, the target is immune to many of these abilities and gains further immunity to more abilities as his saves increase.

Except that that's not what immunity means. I appreciate the "in effect" comparison, but in this case it serves to blur the distinction we are talking about. I agree that toons shouldn't automatically get more immunities just by gaining levels (unless that's a specific class feature). But, they aren't actually gaining immunities that way. You are saying that the higher level toon is gaining immunities when he is still totally able to be insta-killed or petrified or whatever, just not by feeble attackers. I don't think it clarifies anything to redefine what immunity means here.

What the toon with better saves is gaining is the increasing ability to ignore attacks that don't do anything when the save is made. Which is what better saves are supposed to do. And, without auto-fail, he can totally ignore some of these attacks if they are particularly wimpy. You can still argue that he shouldn't be able to do that, but it isn't immunity if he is still vulnerable to the effect from an arbitrary attacker with a higher DC.

The distinction is also notably important because one of the prominent spells in this discussion is Finger of Death, where being immune has a very different impact than making the save.
 

The AI is not smart enough to tell a creature not to use an ability if the target's saving throw is at least the DC, and so many creatures will waste what would have been deadly abilities if auto-fail is disabled. The net effect is that a PC can feel free to safely grind any area in which the creatures are 10 levels lower than him. He can run through basilisk's nests without fear of petrification. Instead of monsters having variety, you instead get monsters with stupidity, who will refuse to attack, because they have a death ability which can never work.

Poor AI isn't really a good argument in favor of auto-fail, IMO. Areas with creatures 10 levels lower than the PC are not a good argument in favor of auto-fail, either. An area full of boring gnats is mostly annoying. An area full of boring gnats who can occasionally annihilate the PC is hardly an improvement. If that's really what auto-fail is there to preserve, then I honestly won't miss it.

Meanwhile, I am not willing to assume that those OC encounters were intended to be effective only when the save is auto-failed 1 out of 20 times. Most of the encounters mentioned here are such that some non-zero fraction of typical PCs going through the area would be affected even without auto-fail and it seems at least as likely that the encounter was designed primarily with that in mind. Otherwise, why not just give them an ability that works once out of 20 times and forget the save? I think the intent is that toons with poor saves are affected more often. I find that particularly likely given that the OC seems to be built more for mediocre toons than for tough toons, so many toons will not have great saves. In other words, I think the supposed dependent-on-auto-fail encounters might have been intended as more typical encounters, rather than encounters designed specifically to take advantage of the auto-fail feature. Keeping in mind, of course, that Bioware didn't really design the OCs to be especially challenging to what most of us here might consider well-built toons or well-played toons.

Of course, auto-fail can encourage more interesting game play in those areas. However, I speculate that what usually happens is that the player just reloads and equips an immunity item, or buffs more, or something similar. Even hasting before entering so that he can get a few extra attacks/spells off before being petrified is still just a marginal improvement in making the encounter more interesting, even though that would often pretty much do the trick. And, since most players don't really understand or bother to consider the statistics of the encounter, the option is always there to simply change nothing and just roll through the encounter again, this time hoping not to get "unlucky".
 

Potency is what the ability is capable of, not how easily it can be resisted. Death effects are potent, that is the reason why the 5% minimum is being discussed here.

Fair enough. I'm not sure it helps us here, but I am ok with defining it that way in this context.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

The distinction is also notably important because one of the prominent spells in this discussion is Finger of Death, where being immune has a very different impact than making the save.

That is the point. The PCs get the damage, while the monster abilities lack this. Disabling autofail tips the balance in the PCs favor.
 

Poor AI isn't really a good argument in favor of auto-fail, IMO. Areas with creatures 10 levels lower than the PC are not a good argument in favor of auto-fail, either. An area full of boring gnats is mostly annoying. An area full of boring gnats who can occasionally annihilate the PC is hardly an improvement. If that's really what auto-fail is there to preserve, then I honestly won't miss it.

And then you get COT, Paladins, or Blackguards who think their high saves entitle them to encounter lousy AI from creatures their level or higher.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

The distinction is also notably important because one of the prominent spells in this discussion is Finger of Death, where being immune has a very different impact than making the save.

That is the point. The PCs get the damage, while the monster abilities lack this. Disabling autofail tips the balance in the PCs favor.

 
In the context in which that happens, I am not bothered by it. If it nerfed generally tough encounters, then it would be a problem. But, nerfing encounters where the only threat of the NPCs winning is when the PC auto-fails a save is basically nerfing encounters whose value seems pretty low to me anyway. Maybe you or others find those encounters to be fun. I really don't.

(And, keep in mind that I am only talking about situations where auto-fail will typically be relevant. To wit, situations where the typical PC's save bonus is no lower than 1 below the save DC, so that it really is a wimpy attack. If the attack is of higher DC than that, then auto-fail isn't a factor.)
 

Poor AI isn't really a good argument in favor of auto-fail, IMO. Areas with creatures 10 levels lower than the PC are not a good argument in favor of auto-fail, either. An area full of boring gnats is mostly annoying. An area full of boring gnats who can occasionally annihilate the PC is hardly an improvement. If that's really what auto-fail is there to preserve, then I honestly won't miss it.

And then you get COT, Paladins, or Blackguards who think their high saves entitle them to encounter lousy AI from creatures their level or higher.

I am not sure what you mean. There are players playing those toons who often have good saves and the game's AI isn't written to allow lower-level creatures whose attacks aren't effective against such opponents to adjust and do something different. Are you saying that, because of that, those players feel entitled to dumb AI from higher-level creatures? That doesn't make much sense, so I am probably misreading what you meant there.


I will re-state that I don't think encounters with wimpy opponents become much more interesting because auto-fail allows those opponents to take down the PC who fails a save that he otherwise would have made.

But, I understand that there is a trade-off in enabling or disabling auto-fail and reasonable people will evaluate the breakeven point differently. To me, it takes boring encounters and turns them into boring encounters where I have to mitigate a risk of death. Maybe others do more interesting things when in such a situation. What I tend to do is to go through a much longer process of buffing and calling summons and either sniping at range or using wands (assuming I am rest-restricted, which I typically am, and I want to save good spells for tougher opponents) and so on so as to minimize the risk that I will have to make a save at all. So, what I tend to do takes an encounter with worthless mobs and makes it an encounter I have to spend more time on.

Really, what I would much rather have is a better encounter that's a more appropriate challenge to my toon. Barring that, I prefer auto-fail off so that I can spend less time on the dull encounter and be on my way to more interesting stuff.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_BelgarathMTH]

               

I didn't do a very good job communicating in my original post why I had decided to disable auto-fail, but luckily, others more eloquent than I am have come along and made the case for doing it much better than I did.

 

I forgot to mention a thing or two about my play style as a single player. First, I don't reload unless there is no other way to continue playing. If I die, I pay the respawn penalty. I like having a high death penalty, and a strong incentive to stay alive.

 

When I said "new lease on the game", what I was talking about more specifically was that I'm having more fun paying attention to getting my saves up. I used to consider rings of resistance to be almost trash items, because I would think, "What's the use of save bonuses, when I'm just going to eventually roll a one anyway?" Sure, rings of resistance and cloaks of fortification and the like will reduce your chances of failing a save against save-or-die spells, but low rolls will inevitably come. I want to win my game by good planning and tactics, not luck of the dice.

 

This probably sounds kind of lame, but I just discovered that saving throw bonuses from multiple equipped items stack. So, I am prioritizing obtaining rings of resistance, cloaks of fortification, golden circlets, and the like, which I had never done before.

 

I really like Mr. Zork's example of the mosquito and the dragon. Just because you can't be hurt by a weak DC spell doesn't mean you're immune to its magic in a stronger form.

 

Anyway, I was just trying to share and to thank Magical Master for making me aware that I could turn off the auto-fail. I don't mean to try to convince anybody else that they should do it. I've found that it makes the game more fun for *me*.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

But, nerfing encounters where the only threat of the NPCs winning is when the PC auto-fails a save is basically nerfing encounters whose value seems pretty low to me anyway.

You are aware that removing auto-save on one does not just affect insta-kill. It also removes things that would only temporarily disable, such as stun, confusion, and paralysis. These may not shift the encounter in favor of the PC, but do mean that the PC is never exposed to complications in combat.
 

I am not sure what you mean. There are players playing those toons who often have good saves and the game's AI isn't written to allow lower-level creatures whose attacks aren't effective against such opponents to adjust and do something different. Are you saying that, because of that, those players feel entitled to dumb AI from higher-level creatures? That doesn't make much sense, so I am probably misreading what you meant there.

As far as I can tell, most players on servers want just the grind feeling, which is hardly different than idle play. Throw in a monster or challenge that differs from mindless repetition and they will complain about it.

But, I understand that there is a trade-off in enabling or disabling auto-fail and reasonable people will evaluate the breakeven point differently.

And servers can also adjust to the change as well. A server with auto-fail disabled may have a large number of bolt attacks (death bolt, confusion bolt, etc.) instead of using howls and gazes.

Really, what I would much rather have is a better encounter that's a more appropriate challenge to my toon. Barring that, I prefer auto-fail off so that I can spend less time on the dull encounter and be on my way to more interesting stuff.

But balancing toward your toon may be imbalancing toward other toons. Again a server balanced toward auto-fail in saves may be completely different from one balanced toward auto-fail disabled. Simply asking a server to flip the setting one way or another does not guarantee a certain expected result.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Alright, but if the enemy is much higher in level, then chances are the mage will be killed before he uses up 1/3 of his spell slots.

Define "much higher in level." I'm talking about things like (on a level 20 world) a level 20 Sorcerer fighting a boss meant for level 20s. That boss in fact might be level 15, level 40, level 25, or whatever. Or a level 40 Sorcerer might be fighting what is technically a level 60 boss -- the actual level of the boss matters little compared to the player level the boss was intended for. If I wanted a super tough Fighter boss with 4 "legitimate" attacks per round (not counting Haste or other similar effects)...it pretty much doesn't matter if that boss is level 16 or level 60. I can adjust his stats/gear/feats to get the result I want. The only difference is for spells/abilities like Terrifying Rage where the HD of the target matters...which is very, very few.

On the other hand, if the enemy is not that high in level, then he can probably achieve the same result by using other spells than "save-or-die" type.

No, because we're referring to bosses where the builders of a world/campaign try to make them "tough" by giving them massive saves, Improved Evasion, 30 resistance to all damage, etc. It's really bad design but it's also something I've seen in a lot of places. Often winds up with the result of hoping for 1s or spamming Horrid Wilting/Ice Storm for very little damage.
 

But you yourself assumed in this situation the possible kill would be due to rolling a 1. In other words, you assume that the DC of these spells would be too low to affect this enemy otherwise, but if that's the case, turning auto-fail off would render these spells useless. I don't see it as a better solution.
 
So, my point is, if the enemy has saves high enough to make auto-fail matter anyway, turning it off will render the spells useless, which is not exactly what's supposed to happen.

Well, first of all, why isn't that what's supposed to happen? I could make the same argument from gear -- if I make the boss immune to Death Magic then you'll *never* kill the boss with Finger of Death, for example. And it'd make the spell useless in the way you describe.

Second of all, *not all DCs are created equal.* Bob the Necromancer started with 18 Cha, got all 10 Great Cha feats, took Epic Spell Focus in Necromancy, and is using full Charisma boosting gear for a Finger of Death DC of 43. Dan the Half-Paladin started with 16 Cha, only got six Great Cha feats due to less Sorcerer levels and taking Auto Still Spell, didn't take any Spell Focus in Necromancy, and we'll even say he still has full Charisma gear but his DC is 34. If I give a mob 33 Fortitude the mob will never die to Dan's Finger of Death but has a 45% chance of dying to Bob's Finger of Death. Which is one reason why I'd rather not just give blanket immunity in many cases.

Third, giving immunity to some of these effects isn't as simple as a generic immunity or, in the case of petrify effects, specific spell/ability immunity.

Fourth, not every effect has the same saving throw type. Finger/Dev Crit/etc attack Fort. Vorpal attacks Reflex. Circle of Death/Bodak Gaze/etc attack Will. Giving blanket Death Immunity (or Crit immunity for Dev Crit and Vorpal) lumps those all together.

I suppose that some like the idea of a "higher stakes" death. I am fine with some level of penalty, but I typically play with 50 or 100 XP/level experience penalty and 10% gold loss and it really is plenty of incentive to avoid the "respawn" button. 
 
I am still on World of Greyhawk a couple times a week. My play time recently has hit sort of a low ebb, but I still enjoy the old-school feel of WoG. '>

Personally I think there's already a lot of incentive to avoid the respawn -- time. As you mentioned in this thread, spending 45+ minutes or something working through a dungeon, dying near the end, and having to start from the beginning is already awful. The 10% gold loss bothers me on another level as it encourages people to hoard valuable but easy to store/carry items rather than "convert" them to gold (and that hoarding also makes scripts which scan the whole inventory take longer and so on).

Anything interesting/new at WoG? I got two characters to 40, another in the 30s playing with the "pure class" group, and several more in the teens or up...but I found it difficult to think of it as a "long term" place given the whole "Make a level 1 character" -> "Level to 40" -> "Repeat" nature of the world. I had a lot of fun while playing there, mind you, but an endless cycle of leveling characters didn't interest me long term...

Grani, MM can clarify for himself, but I would note that he referred to "dependable strategies", which just means that they will tend to work most of the time when employed. I did not read what MM said to necessarily mean that he endorses such tactics as good for the game or as a sign that the auto-fail game mechanic is necessarily worth preserving.

But it's so much easier when you clarify for me like this...

MrZork is absolutely correct.
 

Personally, I would rather see auto-fail go away and have the Lilliputians come up with another way of taking down Gulliver.

Indeed. And that applies in both directions -- NPCs attacking PCs and PCs attacking NPCs.
 

BTW, I don't really have a problem with instant death spells. What complaint I have on this matter is with auto-fail.

I actually do have a problem with instant death. If an enemy has 210 HP and my Fireballs do 35 damage each, I expect to need 6 Fireballs (if he never makes a Reflex save). Say his Reflex means he'll make 50% of the saves -- I now expect to need 8 Fireballs (roughly). There is RNG, though -- those 8 Fireballs might wind up being 10 if he makes more saves than he "should" or 6 if he has bad luck and fails every single one. But even within that RNG it has a limited variance and deviating from the norm by much is very very unlikely.

But instant death? Even if the enemy has, oh, a 30% chance to instantly die...he might die on the first cast. Or might be alive after half a dozen casts (about 12% of the time that will happen). It basically bypasses the whole "ablative" system which exists for everything else.

Enemy swings at you? Well, can you avoid it with Concealment/Epic Dodge/etc? If not, can you avoid it with AC? If not, can you reduce the damage to zero with Damage Reduction/Resistance/Immunity? If not, how much of your remaining health did it take away? Do you have enough hit points remaining to be comfortable? Do you want to use a healing potion, get a healing spell cast on you, run away to recover, etc? There's that whole "chipping away" bit going on that can be reacted to and (hopefully) countered.

Ditto for spell damage casts -- can avoid with spell resistance, move out of the AoE, make a saving throw to reduce damage, reduce damage through resistance/immmunity, and then whatever gets through has to eat away at your HP.

Ditto for even CC effects like Hold Person or Bigby hands -- even once you CC the target (*if* you can CC the target -- because saving throws or immunites could interfere) you still have to then eat through their HP which is bolstered by all those other defenses. Paralyzing a dragon for 20 seconds doesn't mean you automatically win.

But instant death? If you ever fail the save (autofail or otherwise) you're just dead (unless you have immunity to the specific thing that killed you which could be generic death magic immunity, specific implosion/drown immunity, adjusted petrify scripts and petrify immunity, crit immunity for Dev Crit/Vorpal, etc).

Which also means other CC is harder to apply -- why try to stun an enemy with Bigby's Clenched Fist (fortitude save) if you could just instantly kill them with Finger of Death (also fortitude save) on a failed save? And giving them high fortitude to avoid the death also means avoiding the stun...and impacts spells like Horrid Wilting/Greater Ruin too.

Here's an article which is another perspective on the matter as well -- not saying I agree with everything he says but rather that it's worth reading/thinking about.

I disagree. Even if the enemy has a huge fortitude save, there should be some reason to explain why he is immune to death magic, petrification, or the like. I do not support that as a creature or player becomes more powerful it gains more inherent immunities.

Except the player/creature *isn't* immune.

Player: HAHA! I laugh at you feeble basilisks! My 14 Fortitude makes me immune to Petrification!
<Enters next room and sees an Ancient Basilisk with 22 DC petrify>
Player: OH SH-
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

If I am a mosquito and I am hit by a raindrop, I may well drown. If I am a dragon and I am hit by a raindrop, I will not drown. But, that doesn't mean that dragons are immune from drowning.

Well said.
 

The AI is not smart enough to tell a creature not to use an ability if the target's saving throw is at least the DC, and so many creatures will waste what would have been deadly abilities if auto-fail is disabled.

And? By that logic, should enemy spellcasters always use spells without a reflex save if the player has (Improved) Evasion? Should enemy spellcasters avoid mind spells if the player has a helmet of Mind Immunity? How far does this logic go? And do you want the AI to just "cheat" and know all of the stats of the player to determine the spells it uses or should it try to adjust on the fly based on what happens for the spells it casts?

Feels like the problem here is more "Basilisks that spam their gaze 2712821921 times and are a complete joke otherwise" and not "Basilisks that use their gaze once in a while and physically attack (and are a reasonable threat) otherwise."
 

Potency is what the ability is capable of, not how easily it can be resisted. Death effects are potent, that is the reason why the 5% minimum is being discussed here.

I would disagree with your definition here. See, potency actually has a very specific technical definition -- and when talking about venoms/toxins it basically means "How much of X does it take to kill someone?" If it takes 1 mL of toxin A to kill someone but 10 mL of toxin B to kill someone then toxin A is considered more potent. Because it's harder to resist (while having the same effect -- death). In practical terms it can get more complicated than that (one major reason being time to kill -- the toxin A might kill you in 2 hours while toxin B kills you in 15 minutes) but how easily something can be resisted is definitely a major factor in potency. Think of it from the reverse angle -- if injecting someone with a massive dose of a particular toxin would kill them 0.1% of the time (and increasing the dose didn't change that number) but 99.9% of people would shrug it off, would you say that's a potent toxin?

Death effects are *binary* -- you're either dead or alive. That's why no one is really concerned about a monster with 5 AB rolling a 20 and hitting their 50 AC -- sure, it's annoying, but even with no other defenses it'll just be a small scratch. But imagine an area with a bunch of enemies with 0 AB and "On hit: death" on their weapons (scripted). As in if they ever strike you with a melee weapon (which at that level will only be on a 20) you'll just instantly die, no save or anything. I hope you don't consider that a good idea.
 

That is the point. The PCs get the damage, while the monster abilities lack this. Disabling autofail tips the balance in the PCs favor.

Actually, quite a few PC abilities *don't* get the damage -- like Wail of the Banshee and Implosion. Either way, I don't see how that's a good argument for auto-fail. Adjust the monster abilities or make tougher monsters or something else entirely.
 

Really, what I would much rather have is a better encounter that's a more appropriate challenge to my toon. Barring that, I prefer auto-fail off so that I can spend less time on the dull encounter and be on my way to more interesting stuff.

This.
 

You are aware that removing auto-save on one does not just affect insta-kill. It also removes things that would only temporarily disable, such as stun, confusion, and paralysis. These may not shift the encounter in favor of the PC, but do mean that the PC is never exposed to complications in combat.

You are aware that this is not an argument in favor of autofail? Rolled a 1? Bad luck, let's see what will happen to you...well, it'll be one of three things: stunned for 12 seconds, paralyzed for 2 minutes, or death. The fact that all three options are a 5% chance is ridiculous.

And this also goes back to the quote above from MrZork -- the idea of randomly being paralyzed for 2 minutes on an uninteresting encounter that won't even manage to kill you in that timeframe is just a complete waste of time.
 

As far as I can tell, most players on servers want just the grind feeling, which is hardly different than idle play. Throw in a monster or challenge that differs from mindless repetition and they will complain about it.

While possibly true, at a minimum my Siege of the Heavens and A Peremptory Summons modules show that you can easily have monsters/challenges that are incredibly distinct from mindless repetition without involving instant death and/or auto fail in any way, shape, or form.
 

But balancing toward your toon may be imbalancing toward other toons. Again a server balanced toward auto-fail in saves may be completely different from one balanced toward auto-fail disabled. Simply asking a server to flip the setting one way or another does not guarantee a certain expected result.

By this argument we could have a server where all non-damage effects are removed/disabled but auto fail was kept on and people wouldn't have any issue with it...because the only things that could be failed are saves for half damage. I mean, that would work, true, but it feels like you're trying to argue "We can't be sure what will happen on a particular server so we might as well just give up discussing it." And I reject that sentiment.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

As far as I can tell, most players on servers want just the grind feeling, which is hardly different than idle play. Throw in a monster or challenge that differs from mindless repetition and they will complain about it.

Are you actually DM/WB on any Persistant World, or you actively play on one?

 

Why do I have a feeling that you ignore this part of the NWN universe entirely and trying to spread facts about it to peoples who doesn't?

 

I played on various multiplayer servers, you would be right about some of them, the design you mention and player mentality would match the Dungeon Eternal X and Heart of Winter PWs, but these are exception and their design was reason why I didn't stayed there for more than 10 minutes.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Are you actually DM/WB on any Persistant World, or you actively play on one?

I've been on a variety of different servers. I have seen players run from monsters in the middle of a dungeon run, only to have the tough monsters chase them into a newbie area and slaughter a lot of low level characters. I have seen players camp at respawn points to kill low level characters over and over. I have seen players kill other players and then report to the DM that they were unfairly targeted when nothing could be further from the truth. The thrill of most server players seems not to be from interesting combat, but rather whatever fits their selective appetite of the day. Perhaps your sample is better than mine, but I have combed through dozens of PWs.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

I've been on a variety of different servers. I have seen players run from monsters in the middle of a dungeon run, only to have the tough monsters chase them into a newbie area and slaughter a lot of low level characters. I have seen players camp at respawn points to kill low level characters over and over. I have seen players kill other players and then report to the DM that they were unfairly targeted when nothing could be further from the truth. The thrill of most server players seems not to be from interesting combat, but rather whatever fits their selective appetite of the day. Perhaps your sample is better than mine, but I have combed through dozens of PWs.

FWIW, your experience is almost definitely more extensive than mine. But, on the primary PW on which I play (and have been on for a few years now), I have never seen that, even once. That's not to imply that it may not be common on some PWs or even that it hasn't happened where I was. But, I never saw it, so my experience isn't that there are lots of players like that.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

I've been on a variety of different servers. I have seen players run from monsters in the middle of a dungeon run, only to have the tough monsters chase them into a newbie area and slaughter a lot of low level characters. I have seen players camp at respawn points to kill low level characters over and over. I have seen players kill other players and then report to the DM that they were unfairly targeted when nothing could be further from the truth. The thrill of most server players seems not to be from interesting combat, but rather whatever fits their selective appetite of the day. Perhaps your sample is better than mine, but I have combed through dozens of PWs.

Yes Ive seen these situations in past. Thats mostly gone at this time of NWN life. It can happen only on new servers, but on established ones, anyone trying griefing will be banned sooner or later.

 

But thats entirely different issue.

 

Yes there are always "idiots" who prefer the game to be unchanged, difficulty unexistant and who wants to continuely abuse/exploit AI limitations in order to finish ccertain area or dungeon. But majority players on action style modules preffered changing and fixing this and they all agreed that a dozen of basilisks spamming dc 13 gaze in area for level 40 has nothing to do with difficulty, its just annoyance and force player into abusing AI or using cheap tactics.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Yes Ive seen these situations in past. Thats mostly gone at this time of NWN life. It can happen only on new servers, but on established ones, anyone trying griefing will be banned sooner or later.

True, the established servers of today make up a higher percentage of total server players than they did in the past, but also the players of established servers are also pretty much content in combat encounters.
 

... they all agreed that a dozen of basilisks spamming dc 13 gaze in area for level 40 has nothing to do with difficulty, its just annoyance and force player into abusing AI or using cheap tactics.

This goes back to what I was pointing out before. As soon as I mention something like "basilisk nest" it is automatically assumed that the area is intentionally part of the main quests and that because it exists on the servers, it is a place for every level 40 build to grind. Servers are big enough to support side quest areas, such as a plane of fire where the PC and his party are dealt large amounts of fire each round. I see no problem with side areas essentially requiring certain immunities by virtue of the encounters faced.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

 

... they all agreed that a dozen of basilisks spamming dc 13 gaze in area for level 40 has nothing to do with difficulty, its just annoyance and force player into abusing AI or using cheap tactics.

 

This goes back to what I was pointing out before. As soon as I mention something like "basilisk nest" it is automatically assumed that the area is intentionally part of the main quests and that because it exists on the servers, it is a place for every level 40 build to grind.

 

Just to clarify where I (and I think some others) are coming from here: I am not assuming that every basilisk nest is a spot for level 40 toons to play. I think there are plenty of toons for whom those basilisks are a level-appropriate challenge. But, in the context of this discussion, we are talking about instances in which auto-fail will be relevant. Auto-fail rarely has impact when those basilisks spawn for a party of level 7-10 toons. Auto-fail comes into play only when the basilisks spawn for toons whose fort saves are +12 or better. I would say that most of those toons will be high enough level that the basilisks are no challenge except for that possible auto-fail roll and players who are in level-appropriate areas have a legitimate gripe about that sort of encounter.


And, at least in my (limited) experience, most PW players don't spend time "grinding" low-level areas with their high-level toons. It's boring, no interesting or useful loot drops, and the XP reward is negligible. At least where I play, the complaint is almost always the opposite: there are a few higher level areas that require passing through areas with (by that point) lower-level spawns, and parties moan about having to waste time killing worthless mobs so as not to violate the server's kill-your-spawns rule. Fortunately, few of those areas have mobs where an auto-fail save would be catastrophic.