well if you don't like it then why play it?
I play
BG1, not just Nimbul. If the entire game was full of Nimbul-like encounters, the game would suck big-time and this forum wouldn't even exist.
overcoming your greatest challenge will give you a huge boost in satisfaction
Figuring out the locations of the Cloak and Helm of Balduran = Satisfying
Killing Nimbul only because your PC was the
one party member that did not become the target of a Magic Missile = Not Satisfying
and it's beatable anyway
So is Drizzt. Does that in itself prove that the encounter is
balanced?
SixOfSpades, you know that I do agree with you most times . . .
I must say that Enhanced Creatures' primary goal, as the title implies, is make the encounters more difficult. To make them legal is a lower priority but absolutely not something that we do not consider as important. . . .
I also want a game that should not make the player A) Reload dependant B) Frustrated. Unfortunately "Metagaming" is almost unavoidable with this kind of Mod. At least at a certain level.
I have faith that you will enjoy Enhanced Creatures once it's out. Better: I have faith that this Mod will be a reference Mod for every player that has beaten Baldur's Gate before and wants to enjoy a more realistic, more challenging and even more legal experience.
And
I am mostly in agreement with
you: My sole bone of contention is that Nimbul sure as hell doesn't need to be any
more difficult than his default BioWare version. Go ahead and smarten up his AI, but I feel that that
must be accompanied by lowering his caster level (or at least make it dependent on the party's average level, or the difficulty setting of the game) to something that the party has a chance of withstanding.
I feel that the "beatablility" of an encounter, for a party of expected levels, should
never take a back seat to the Official Version, or how the creature(s) in that encounter would logically behave, or even the legality of such an encounter. The amount of challenge presented should take top priority over everything else--hell, if the enemies always acted wisely and covered all their bases, the game would end right outside of Candlekeep, as Sarevok would use his 17 INT and order Tamoko to follow the PC, while
he was busy skewering Gorion.
In Short: I am glad that Enhanced Creatures is going through the game and rectifying many instances of BioWare taking the easy way out by cheating their monsters attributes that they shouldn't have, rather than giving them a better AI. I am glad that many of the types of creatures, such as Bears, should now pose more of a realistic challenge. I am disappointed, however, that
anybody thinks Nimbul should be tougher than he already was.
I'll review the mod, but please don't expect any great alacrity on my part, or anywhere near the trouble I went to with the Tactics review. I'll be giving my website a complete overhaul, and adding a sub-chapter on my mod reviews, and everything noteworthy should get a mention.
I disagree, Davaeorn is a level 9 mage with good equipment, it's just that currently, he had poor spells selection, bad script. With a good kit, good spells, and right script, Davaeorn will become a challenge. Nimbul, even as a level 9 bard, would have no chance against him.
Actually, the BioWare versions of Nimbul and Daveorn are pretty evenly matched: They're both high-level (for BG1) Mages with the same AC, and I'm estimating roughly the same amount of hitpoints. Daveorn's only strengths were his long-lasting Protection from Normal Missiles and the fact that his Lightning Bolts are incredibly deadly in those confined spaces. All I'm saying is that
that level of challenge is to be expected on the boss of a vast underground complex deep in the woods, protected by Wyverns--it is
not to be expected on some guy who walks up to you when you're just getting back from your very first quest.
I'm sorry to have to say this, but it sounds like you don't know how to use a Tank. If you run a party member up within melee range of an enemy, that enemy will switch to its melee attack,
By the time you run into melee range, you should have recieve a volley of arrows. Because kobold are usually in groups of 5-6, they can easily kill one person before they ever get in melee range.
Who the heck do you use as your Tank, and what the hell are they wearing? I agree that Kagain is pretty much the best Tank imaginable, but only after you've got his DEX pumped up. Limited to the setup you described earlier, I would use Shar-Teel as the Tank, wearing Plate and the Girdle of Piercing. You'll take a hit now and then (everyone does), but provided you make sure that the Tank is the first person that the Kobolds see, it's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be.
About the Traps: I agree, a Level 1 Thief who put all his points into Lockpicking in order to grab that Star Sapphire at the beginning of the game will certainly not be able to find and disarm all those Traps. But a sensible Thief, who spreads his points between Detect Traps and Stealth (augmented by Zhurlong's Boots of Stealth), will have no problems whatsoever.
This does imply to have either a thief PC or a multiplayer party. I always play with NPC, and at this point, I have Imoen as a thief. She is unable to remove the traps even at level 2. Especially if you play the P&P rule : no more than 15 points in a thief talent at level up. Zhurlong's boots don't help you to disarm traps...
Ummm....even Level 1 Imoen has no problems with the Traps, and neither does Montaron. Are you playing some drastically different version of the game as the rest of us, or something?
Priests are more difficult to interrupt, sometimes a single magic missile or something like an arrow won't interrupt the spellcaster. He takes damage but will cast his spell anyway. About Imoen magic wand missile, how by the hell do you still have this wand? it get 10 charges, and I usually use it far before Naskel's mine. (unless you save it because you knew you would need it for Mulahey, and in that case, you are doing meta gaming)
Yeah, I also notice spellcasters (Wizards too, not just Priests) taking hits and continuing to cast regardless. It happens in BG2 as well. I wish I knew what
exactly governs when a spell is disrupted, and when the damage can be ignored. But regarding the wand: As Bex said, it deals only a trifling amount of damage, so it's next to useless in most fights, but it's a
guaranteed hit, so it's most useful when you want to disrupt somebody's spells. (Or hit somebody who's immune or highly resistant to other forms of damage.)