Richterm's Retreat Nordock

And while we're in the area, let's not forget Raised Skeleton Knights and their other pale pals.

I'm speaking purely in the context of solo play, I can't expect players to always be on when I sporadically play - especially while in my timezone.

Plague Lands generally remains a challenge, with only a few edge cases that make it a trivial encounter. It's very fun to complete and is pretty consistently a challenge for the majority of characters. I like how chaotic this encounter can be.

Elder Wyrm is always a challenge, even if the character is built for the encounter.

Stonehammer is a pretty epic "run", it has a healthy mix of archetype enemies and without proper preparations a player will surely meet his/her doom. Even if properly prepared, you might find yourself in an interesting predicament. This run is by far one of my favorite runs of all time.

Most of Abiz is more annoying to me than challenging - It's massive, so bland to look and tons of the maps are just a flat open space (it's a desert, whatdya expect?), few places to rest, and always takes a while to get anywhere important. The majority of the encounters there aren't overly difficult, and with preparation - Draco Lich or Skree aren't anything special to put the beat on. More annoying is the slithering creature in one of those said encounters. The decapitating creatures aren't really anything to write home about. Even when I know I can get some decent experience here, I usually just avoid going here all together. Zzzzzzzz (but I hate deserts)

and on the mention of Oooos Saaao (sp?) - it is a great "run" and could have an epic feel to it, but the weird mix of powerless enemies and then randomly mixed in - decapitation.. Well, It could be re-worked a bit in my opinion.


For me, a challenge is when high level casters are mixed with powerful melee types.

I suppose some of the places I mentioned are quite a bit more difficult without proper gear and a well-rounded character. If I can think of any other encounters, I'll mention them.

I agree with pretty much everything Foo said. I also agree with Celvias' opinion regarding the Ooooos Blah Blah place. It seems like the spawns aren't balanced very well. If some work was done to that area, it would be an amazing run. I do like Abiz - I feel like it is a very balanced area.

My favorite areas are the lowerdark, always have been... I go there in part cause no one else is there all the time, and I go there in part cause one mess up and I'm toast.... as to amount of time you can spend there..... hours and hours and still more to see. I think people think me crazy though, I begin heading there about high teens and will keep going back.

As to Devastating Critical: dev·as·tate (dv-stt)
tr.v. dev·as·tat·ed, dev·as·tat·ing, dev·as·tates
1. To lay waste; destroy. (this is the definition of Dev crit)
2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark.

Either have it or don't, but if the players can't have it neither can the mobs. As for requiring that you have Weapon Special and Epic Weapon Special...... maker those available to every melee class or remove the requirement, its a melee feet that requires a lot of feat and stat investment. Then again, you're going to leave melee feats that require heavy feat investments needing a class specific feat, do it to Weapon Master too.

Well put SD, agreed.

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One thing I dislike about some of the newer areas is the lack of what I call flow. An area that flows well has an entry point and progresses without unintended or unrealistic obstruction toward an (or multiple) endpoint. Things that get in the way of this are...

*unnecessary placeables (esp tiny ones) that stop movement through what should be a walkway; for example the Abiz undead area outside the storm temple.
*ingame separations that break the feeling of immersion in the game. Like the mino area with the sand. A tiny 2 foot wide creek separates you from a caster. A child could leap over the creek, or wade through it...but the game says my ninja monk cannot.
*spawn points and map layout that make it difficult to "clean your spawn". An area that has a layout where to clear a spawn, may require trecking over another spawn trigger or back tracking extensively. For example: a mountain in kabu, a gnoll area in kabu
*Areas that do not make sense based on their location. Areas that have more difficult and higher CR encounters to reach them. For example the long standing castle within the legendary forest.


Please note I am not asking for existing areas to be revised, but rather for consideration to be made if new areas are in the works.

Also, if new areas are on the drawing table. Can I volunteer my efforts?

You certainly can, but nothing is getting done until the cleaning up is finished to make room. As they say, out with the old, and in with the new optimizations.

Also, to comment on the Abiz debate, I hate it, from every perspective other than the roleplay value, which isn't much. Seeing it for the first time was kind of neat but felt empty and vast, vast isn't a bad thing unless it's vast unloved wasteland. There's not much detail, spawns are kinda lack luster in design, and the areas are riddled with placeables and unnecessary amounts of resources. Abiz needs a massive overhaul, some of the quests are worth keeping and Hebdezi and a few areas are worth keeping, but the 'interior wastes' and such need to be cut down and revamped. Abiz should stay, but not as it is.

EDIT: As an after thought, I don't mean to crack down and insult Catapault (who I think built them) but he had a lot of content to add for the difficult/epic expansion, and I think Abiz wasn't high on his list ;P There's been a great many things about this module that are left unfinished and a great many things that are just junk added in or snuck in by previous devs. IF and when this gets cleaned up, as many new things as you fellows want added in, we can accomodate a good deal. The only other choice, which is a no brainer to say no to, is to convert to the HAK pack method, where I offload a disgusting amount of resources into HAK packs to free up module space and leave it as a basic container for HCR, etc for core server needs and the rest of content gets put into HAKs, but that will never happen.