[SixOfSpades]

Originally posted by Hank Parsons: I just hope you're not mad at Wiemer, cuz I know he does look at your input. SixOfSpades is talked about in the last Tactics ReadMe. I would not be surprised if he looked very carefully at your suggestions before the next release of Tactics. And since there have been 5 updates to Tactics in the past few months, I would assume there will be another and that he will end up toning down Faldorn.

I'm not mad at Weimer, merely disappointed that he apparently didn't take my previous Review to heart. By that I mean that yes, of course I'm aware that he's made many changes that incorporate my suggestions (I'm playing a version of Tactics that incorporates those changes, after all), but he doesn't seem to have taken the hint that perhaps his own judgement on what is and is not "fun" and "balanced" needs to be moderated a tad.

Or perhaps he released Improved Faldorn like this just so he could watch me spout off about her. [img]smile.gif[/img] I have been sharpening my tongue on the grindstone of Jaheira's heart, after all.

I will draw up a concise list of what I think would be good for Faldorn, and send it to him. He hasn't yet responded to the rebalanced Sahuagin .CREs I sent him a couple of weeks ago, but the man's only human. (Should have been a Gnome--the INT bonus is great for this sort of thing.)

Only detail I did not agree with: Six said, "Think of all the big fights in the game, and how many of them SHOULD outrank a Level 15 Druid in terms of difficulty... ...etc." Now, I do not think that a Random City Encounter SHOULD be more powerful than Faldorn! NO way. That would be saying that the Random Encounter enemies could have waltzed up to Druid's Grove and won.

The last set of Random City Encounters has 6 enemies, all of whom are pretty darn close to 3 million EXP, which is what Faldorn has. Even taken individually (but allowing them their equipment), some of them would be a match for her: She could certainly take out the Shadow Druid without much fuss, and the Conjurer would survive only a bit longer, but the Fighter and Berserker would probably beat her in a melee, and the Wizard Slayer would come close. Even the Bounty Hunter, with his Invisibility Potions, could cause her some serious pain if the size of the arena didn't prevent his Trapsetting. The 6 of them together would surely kick her ass--the only things she has in her favor is her Fire Storm, and the chance that 2 or 3 of them would fall to her Nature's Beauties (probably the same ones that would be incapacitated by her Creeping Doom). And if they could beat Improved Faldorn, imagine what they could do to a legal Level 15 Druid.

Perhaps for some reason .... you can pretend that Earth Mother granted extraordinary partisan protections to Faldorn in an effort to keep her as the leader and block you out of the Druidic hierarchy. Goes against Druidic tradition, maybe, but the time-period of the game involves numerous unusual gods-politics.

Hmmm....the Powers are forbidden from interfering directly with the whole Bhaalspawn can of worms, but I'm not sure this qualifies. But of course, if the Earth Mother didn't object to a Shadow Druid linking herself with the Grove itself, thus weakening it, why whouldn't she tolerate a Bhaalspawn?

Thanks again for your research and replies.

I endeavor to give satisfaction, sir. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Originally posted by Assassin: Bloody hell... I think you used almost all of the darn buffing spells in the game. =/ Except for a few.

I can't think of any important ones that I forgot....I didn't use Barkskin, because I wasn't sure if it'd "orverwrite" the Ironskin. I should test that sometime--I don't usually use Ironskins, I find Insect Plague much more useful. And I should note that quite a few of those Potions (Storm Giant Strength, Heroism, and Invulnerability, at least) are unusable by Cernd.

What I personally don't like about Improved Faldorn is that it really doesn't require any tactics. It requires pre-knowledge and knowledge more than any specific tactics.

Regrettably, that is very true. Once you know that she's immune to all the Elemental Damage a Druid can dish out, she casts Nature's Beauty, she's got multiple castings of Ironskins, and she's a melee monster, then your strategy is simple: Wait until ToB, get somebody to Improved Haste you, go Earth Elemental, and then pound her, no finesse required. Tactics? What tactics?

If Faldorn was actually intelligent, meaning she depended on a smart AI to see what spells I was using and the best means to counter them, I would respect her. But the only emotion I can hold for a creature that simply relies of cheesy immunities far beyond those available to the player (in what's supposed to be a fair fight) is sheer contempt.

Now, I'm starting to divide up battles in three sections: Before Improved Haste, after Improved Haste, and after Time Stop.

That's a darn good idea, actually.

This is the problem I have with Faldorn as well - it makes me cater my game to her.

Exactly. And pardon my bluntness, but I've got better things to do than order my game around Weimer's twisted notions of what Druids should be.

[ 07-06-2004, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: SixOfSpades ]