2.22h Update 'Tooth and Nail' - List of changes and Feedback Thread - UPDATED

[DM Erebus]

Below is the full list of tweaks and changes I made to PotM's dungeons included in the 'Tooth and Nail' update.

Although they have been tested, it is inevitable that things don't work quite right, and it is also inevitable that as more players go through them, things that need further tweaking/changing will be found.

Please comment with any feedback you have on these changes.


Area Fixes:

Spoiler: show

Adjusted loot at Mt Baratak Spider Cave
Reduced number of loot containers in Ratuda Keep, and made the Ramparts harder to loot.
Increased the reward at Petran Orchard Signal Tower (Wasps)
Fixed the traps at Voinescu Cabin (RTZ ghouls)
Added traps to Reaver Cave and Darklings
Mt Baratak Silver Mine now has loot

Creature Fixes:

Spoiler: show

Gave Black Molly uses of See Invisibility
Needlemen no longer spam undodgable bolt attacks.
Shadow Wolves (Retezat Forest) no longer cast dispel magic.
Shadow Animals in the Retezat Forest can now be harmed by +1 weapons, but +2 is better.
Gremshikas now give more XP
The Kobolds' pets (Weasels and Boars) are now less dangerous.
Voidborne Negators in Elketh's Tower are now less dangerous.
Increased CR of Ogres by 1.
Changed treasury of Skeletal Knights from GenEvilJewelery to GenJewelery to stop Necklace of Kali spam.

Curst Cave:

Spoiler: show

Adjusted spawn setup to add more challenge and unpredictability.
Added a new ranged enemy type: Curst Archer/Marksman
Adjusted Curst Rogue/Assassin spell selection, to make them more challenging.
Made Vassaliches more survivable.

Sanctuary of the Coming Dawn Catacombs:

Spoiler: show

The Upper and Lower Catacombs now have their own population, independant of (but linked to) the Ancient Burial Ground.
Adjusted the types and amounts of enemies that spawn in the Upper and Lower Catacombs; Knights will never spawn in the Upper Catacombs, and only at high spawn in the Lower Catacombs.
Added spawns to the tunnel connecting to the Eastern Lower Catacombs.

The Upper/Lower Catacombs should be more friendly to new players, overall less dangerous, at the expense of being slightly less rewarding.

Eastern Old Svalich Road Ant Nest

Spoiler: show

Rebalanced both creatures and encounters in the ants nest to make individual ants more challenging, and overall spawn in fewer numbers.
Adjusted loot to bring it in-line with other dungeons.

Should now present reasonable risk/reward for levels 6-9.

PLUS: A new, challenging dungeon in Blaustein for levels 10-12 ish.

[DM Erebus]

Known issues:

Loot will not spawn in the new Blaustein dungeon.

[Chabxxu]

Only been to the Curst cave so far, but here's what I have to say

Really love the addition of the marksman, they can do lots of damage, but they should have a melee weapon for when they put their bows away. Right now they fight with their fists and do no damage at all in melee.

Traps don't seem to do enough damage to actually be dangerous, maybe make them stronger?

LICHES ARE STRONK! Wow! We had a good group and almost got our ass kicked. Really love how hard they are to kill now, and that they have time to cast spells. Realllly loving it! I honestly think the vasalich are now stronger than the demonologists in Perfidus, even if they dont cast timestop.

I might like a little more xp on the liches because of how hard they are now, and also some more loot. This is going to be a real challenge to clear now I think, so have decent look would be fun. It was max spawn and the loot was uber crap, which was disapointed.

[Kinga]

Reaver cave:
No traps spawned, or at least I haven't found any. It was a mid-high spawn.

[firelord111]

New blaustein dungeon :
that  might be too many tentacles not sure how to explain ship having a floor icly and it would make it too difficult for the intended level to clear it
i think jaunt should keep the caster from drowning.
Very fun overall

[Iridni Ren]

Changed treasury of Skeletal Knights from GenEvilJewelery to GenJewelery to stop Necklace of Kali spam.

This does not seem to have worked. Djordi has 169 necklaces of Kali in his inventory currently.

[HopeIsTheCarrot]

Changed treasury of Skeletal Knights from GenEvilJewelery to GenJewelery to stop Necklace of Kali spam.

This does not seem to have worked. Djordi has 169 necklaces of Kali in his inventory currently.

Well, I believe the update just targeted skeletal knights right? So Djordi’s necklaces could have all come from huecuva high priests?

[immasturgeon]

Reavers one tick before max spawn.

Trap did pop up, wasn't too hard to disarm or detect. Found it with min search. Higher type maybe?

I purposely failed a MS check, Black Molly ran to my spot as enemies are wont to do, however by the time she got there and finished casting see invis my malus had gone and was able to restealth. Just an FYI if that is intended activity for her.

[Kaninchen]

Reavers one tick before max spawn.

Trap did pop up, wasn't too hard to disarm or detect. Found it with min search. Higher type maybe?

I purposely failed a MS check, Black Molly ran to my spot as enemies are wont to do, however by the time she got there and finished casting see invis my malus had gone and was able to restealth. Just an FYI if that is intended activity for her.

I imagine the problem with adding higher traps is then people can just recover the traps, and just have more stuff to vendor.

[Iridni Ren]

Spoiler: show

Changed treasury of Skeletal Knights from GenEvilJewelery to GenJewelery to stop Necklace of Kali spam.

This does not seem to have worked. Djordi has 169 necklaces of Kali in his inventory currently.

Well, I believe the update just targeted skeletal knights right? So Djordi’s necklaces could have all come from huecuva high priests?

Did not work in the sense of "stop Necklace of Kali spam."

[SardineTheAncestor]

Maybe this change should affect the high priests, too.

[Kinga]

Reaver cave:
No traps spawned, or at least I haven't found any. It was a mid-high spawn.

Checked again, traps seem to work as intended. Good job!

[zDark Shadowz]

New Blaustein Dungeon:

It's an interesting dungeon that keeps up the pressure, but from the medium spawn that was present, it wasn't really feasible for our large party makeup of 5 level 8-13 characters and 1 lvl 16, though it wasn't undoable.

A requirement for everyone to have 40+ AC, not all classes can actually go that high for the intended level range unless they're built specifically for AC, and the creatures that had even further AB deeper in just butchered through if they weren't being consistently knocked prone.

The ranged touch attacks that struck everyone negating all AC types except for dodge (while in combat) & deflection to confirm damage only added to the pressure on our cleric, and tentacles spawning in from all directions made it difficult to form any kind of 'wall' to protect those that still didn't have enough AC even after mass party buffs.

It might be nice if Freedom of Movement granted immunity to the AB/AC penalty underwater that seemed apparent, and water breathing wasn't on the list of feats in the character sheet of the level 16 using Air Elemental Form, polymorphing after casting water breathing on everyone.

[PlatointheCave]

It was very doable for the level range with proper preparation and play in my experience.

[Kinga]

It was very doable for the level range with proper preparation and play in my experience.

Ditto

[Sir Dally]

-"A new, challenging dungeon in Blaustein for levels 10-12 ish."-
A good run, love the pressure, challenging when stepping in unknown. To those who would argue "Proper preparation" that is true for most of the server. I'm looking forward to more and hoping more of the releases have the same level of curve ball and "Pressure" mechanics. + I like the recent addition's to unused bits of the map. and a water breathing dungeon that's not catfish. (Whatcter Provence, Acid caves, port cemetery or light house, har'akir (Temple of Ra) temple dungeon next?)

-"The Upper/Lower Catacombs should be more friendly to new players, overall less dangerous, at the expense of being slightly less rewarding."-
I Liked its difficulty, a shame to see it go. (I liked the punch it had when I first came here.) Though probably a good choice with the amount of fresh spawn death?

-"Shadow Wolves (Retezat Forest) no longer cast dispel magic.-
-Shadow Animals in the Retezat Forest can now be harmed by +1 weapons, but +2 is better."-
- This is great! getting the ability to fight these lower level is painful (copper a must with dispels). Though it was a nice place for mundane low levels with copper... (I still remember the fun in trying to craft a copper short sword to kill them when I first arrived on the server.) A bit of conjuring glory from the previous area and your on your way now! With Ants changed this could be a nice solo alternative.

-"Rebalanced both creatures and encounters in the ants nest to make individual ants more challenging, and overall spawn in fewer numbers.
Adjusted loot to bring it in-line with other dungeons."-
Fav. Lv 4-5+ grinding spot. This change was needed though, I look forward to seeing how many of my experiments die here in pursuit of blind drive!

[Plunger]

The Upper/Lower Catacombs should be more friendly to new players, overall less dangerous, at the expense of being slightly less rewarding.

I'm still seeing Skeletal Knight spawns in the crypt, assuming this update is live.



This was with fresh spawns and everything. Spawned in main room. I've also seen a few on level 2 still.

[Mayvind]

Curst Cave: I find it easier solo, so it is nice but, Marksman Curst XP is not on par with other Cursts it is too little. In fact i do not get XP.

[Sir Dally]

-Shadow wolves still casting Dispell as of 5/6/2020 -

[Wine-Stain]

Can confirm, they are still casting Lesser Dispel.

[Iridni Ren]

Feedback on Curst Cave:

Just before the update, I went in a party of 3: high level cleric, high level druid, medium level bard. We cleared it with little trouble, mostly because of predictability and practice. Did it without resting.

Right after the update, same cleric, same druid, and a medium-level paladin. Much greater difficulty, mostly because of not knowing what to expect. Had to give up without attempting the bottom level from an abundance of caution. ICly we had been told that the liches were much stronger, so since we had struggled already, we didn't want to risk it.

Tonight with a stronger party, we wiped it easily. The liches were no more effective than they have been in the past, but (because of the warnings) we also concentrated on taking them out immediately before they had a chance to do anything.

I got hit with a nasty slow trap, but fortunately that wasn't in the middle of combat.

Summary: Definitely more difficult than it was, riskier, but not undoable at all.

[MatticusCaesar]

I will say this for the Curst vassaliches - they definitely have more staying power.  They take maybe 3-4x the total number of hits to drop now.  The slow traps are nasty... I -was- in combat when I hit one... oof!

[DM Erebus]

Thankyou for your continued feedback. In the last update the following things were done:

Curst Archers/Marksmen now have a backup melee weapon, so they don't try and fist-fight you anymore.

Added loot to the Curst Cave Vassaliches, but removed one of the chests to compensate. The net amount of loot has gone up, connsumate with the increased challenge.

Fixed some strange behaviour by Blaspheme/Flesh Golem spawns.

Loot now spawns at the new Blaustein shipwreck dungeon.

Tried to improve pathfinding for the ghostly patrols in the Ratuda First Floor Ramparts.

Skeletal Knights will now no longer spawn on the first floor of the Morninglord Crypt, ever.

The CR of Dry Liches was reduced.


In an update to come:

High Hecuevas will undergo the same treatment as skeletal knights and stop spamming necklaces of kali.
The ghoul cabin ghouls will offer slightly more xp, as will the wasp tower.
The one remaining type of shadow wolf that casts lesser dispel has been identified - it will be fixed.

Please continue to send me your feedback, I want to hear it.