Low Level Dungeons Are Farmed To Exintion

[Shadow2876]

I only realized today that the low level dungeons are even supposed to have loot worth more than 10 gold.  Most of the time there are no monsters there.  When I do find them, there is virtually never any real loot in the containers.  I find if I am lucky, a handful of items which may be worth 10 gold, if that.  Usually capes.  Lots of capes, and heavy weapons.  I found real loot for the first time today.  I realized why I kept finding nothing but cloaks and heavy weapons.  People take everything of value and leave the rest.  It is obvious to me that people are invisibly running the low level dungeons, or simply farming them.

[Emomina]

I can assure you that if some one is invisibly running the low level dungeons, then they are in fact also low level themselves.
There is nothing to be gained there by anyone else.  If you are finding the dungeons void of monsters, that means that someone did them before you go there.
Its ok to find a dungeon empty, or to find no good loot.  It will actually happen more often than not. Ravenloft as a setting doesn't have loads of expensive gear, and finding a couple of rusted swords, a few worn winter cloaks and a handful of gold is not a disaster, take it all and sell, or dont.  Risk is nearly always higher than reward.

[Dhark]

In my experience if your finding capes & weapons, then your lucky.

Dont worry too much about the loot, I dont recall ever finding any item that I've actually kept.

As for invisably running dungeons & taking said lewt, well thanks to some rather clever scripting thats a VERY hard task indeed.

One thing to remember is this is not some magicly powered land, where a old empire dissapeared spreading its trinkets across the land, a well crafted sword & armour, fashioned by a trusty local smith will serve you better than anything you will find in dungeons for a long time to come.

Try not to be disheartened & seek out the local traders (vardo)....You'll be glad you picked up all those capes & glow bottles some day 

[Kendric98]

yep the vardo are the way to go for your weapon needs. Just bring lots of gold to one of there auctions. Havent seen one of those in awile btw guys.

[dutchy]

the prices at the auctions are ridiculous, nobody can afford it unless you have a busnis ingame or loot most of the time

[herkles]

I never been to a vardo auction but it sounds interesting. And why would they not be expensive if they were an auction meant to be sold to the highest bidder?

[Vokan]

I never been to a vardo auction but it sounds interesting. And why would they not be expensive if they were an auction meant to be sold to the highest bidder?

You should go to one then; when he means expensive, he doesn't mean 2,000-3,000 gold. He means 50,000-100,000 because some of the old players (including myself  ) have WAY too much money, and destroy the chances of most people participating in the auction. I usually just refrain from bidding unless I really, really want the item.

[failed.bard]

  Vardo auctions really depend  who is there.  Most everything at the auction Maria went to last time went for far less than what they would have sold it for normally.

  As for the dungeons, I haven't seen anything over mid spawn in the vallaki area since the DMs stopped manually bumping the spawns after that "bug" we had.  Most of the dungeons in game need to be made harder, really, the mid level ones can all be done by level 6 characters at the lower spawns.

  Maria was soloing scrags at 6th on low/mid spawns, and could solo max spawns at 10th.
  Purple she could solo on max spawn at 10th.
  Max spawn werewolves at 8th, though, to be honest she couldn't kill werewolves at all until 8th.
  Shadows, again, she couldn't hurt until 8th, but could solo any spawn after that.
  Vampire crypts, due to her spells, she couldn't do until 8th, and couldn't solo a full max spawn until 14th.
  Silver mines she started soloing at 6th, though it got progressively easier at 8th and 10th.  The top two floors could be soloed at 10th easily, the bottom floor is still dangerous to try even at 18th.
  Spider Caves, she started at 8th, easy to do at 10th.
  The lich tower is still tricky for summoning based characters, Maria would have been 13th before she could solo max spawns there, and by 13th she'd stopped soloing all but a few dungeons.

  Considering clerics are more powerful at the same level as sorc's, there are undoubtedly characters doing them at lower levels than that.

[LoLJohnFerro]

my level 10 fighter can solo..... ML crypts...And maybe beatles... Yes fighters blow.

[eyeofpestilence]

Most of the dungeons in game need to be made harder, really, the mid level ones can all be done by level 6 characters at the lower spawns.....

POTM on easy challenge rating is any full spell caster. (Cleric is uber easy)
POTM on difficult challenge rating is any non-spell caster.

The prowess of casters in a low magic item environment is given in PvM, such that a comparable level fighter or rogue would not have a chance in a dungeon compaired to a pure spell caster. I'd suggest the dungeons be made so pure spell casters can't own every dungeon, but the nature of wizards and clerics is adaptability to situations to overcome what they face. Making more difficult for pure spell casters will invariably make more difficult for non-spell casters whom have a bugger of a time unless they have a ton of gear and a gracious spell casting buddy whom will provide them with a few hand out spells. Pure spell casters whom choose to solo since they invariably have the easiest tie to do so, once having owned a dungeon, it's buff and repeat. That they can does not mean they have to.

My wizard high level wizard only gets pulled out for dungeon runs with a full party and always plays the party buffer. It's incredibly boring to play him otherwise.

[failed.bard]

  Really though, the dungeons being over-farmed is a systemic problem with how casters are handled here in general.  Spell recovery should be once every 8 hours at maximum.  Most clerics should only be able to recover spells ~once~ in a day, and if they pray at the wrong times they should face DP checks, and being ostracized from their church.  If the characters inherent weaknesses had to be played, the casters would be far less powerful than melee types over the course of a full day.

[Minstrel]

Things that hit whatever killed them with a hefty Dispel when they die, like the Trilochs.

Destroys caster classes. Somewhat invoncenient for fighter classes.

In the end, yes, you choose how difficult you want the game to be when you make your character.

Cleric/Sorc/Wizard : Easy Mode

Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue : Hard Mode

All there is to it at the moment.

[Kendric98]

Things that hit whatever killed them with a hefty Dispel when they die, like the Trilochs.

Destroys caster classes. Somewhat invoncenient for fighter classes.

In the end, yes, you choose how difficult you want the game to be when you make your character.

Cleric/Sorc/Wizard : Easy Mode

Fighter/Barbarian/Rogue : Hard Mode

All there is to it at the moment.

I dont think fighter should be in the hard catagory. Things were pretty easy really for Androvia compared to my thief vladimir.

[Bluebomber4evr]

  Vardo auctions really depend  who is there.  Most everything at the auction Maria went to last time went for far less than what they would have sold it for normally.

  As for the dungeons, I haven't seen anything over mid spawn in the vallaki area since the DMs stopped manually bumping the spawns after that "bug" we had.  Most of the dungeons in game need to be made harder, really, the mid level ones can all be done by level 6 characters at the lower spawns.

  Maria was soloing scrags at 6th on low/mid spawns, and could solo max spawns at 10th.
  Purple she could solo on max spawn at 10th.
  Max spawn werewolves at 8th, though, to be honest she couldn't kill werewolves at all until 8th.
  Shadows, again, she couldn't hurt until 8th, but could solo any spawn after that.
  Vampire crypts, due to her spells, she couldn't do until 8th, and couldn't solo a full max spawn until 14th.
  Silver mines she started soloing at 6th, though it got progressively easier at 8th and 10th.  The top two floors could be soloed at 10th easily, the bottom floor is still dangerous to try even at 18th.
  Spider Caves, she started at 8th, easy to do at 10th.
  The lich tower is still tricky for summoning based characters, Maria would have been 13th before she could solo max spawns there, and by 13th she'd stopped soloing all but a few dungeons.

  Considering clerics are more powerful at the same level as sorc's, there are undoubtedly characters doing them at lower levels than that.

Hmm, that's actually about the level range we want for dungeons in Barovia now that we have the new high-level hub