Loot Stealing

[*Sinlinara]

And besides lets be honest most people just run over traps without a thought anyway.

In fairness, that is an accurate representation of PnP Groups. :P

[*Godolia il Magus]

And besides lets be honest most people just run over traps without a thought anyway.

In fairness, that is an accurate representation of PnP Groups. :P

DM: "There's a door, it's..."
Mindless player: "I'll bash it!!!"
DM: "You have bashed it and thus it falls apart"
Mindless player: "YEAH!"
DM: "It was open anyway, all you had to do was to push it"

[*Strawberry Jam]

I don't do merchanting because I don't think it's interesting, some people do so ask them why they like it. D&D just has certain rules, it's nothing to really argue about, saying D&D is tedious, all those tedious skills like craft, profession, and knowledge, when do we get to killing demi gods. I can enjoy both but I don't expect one game to be as easy with as much OOC conveniences as the next.

I just see three camps here
A) Solve the problem by penalizing all stealth and casting characters (truly the ones that need another nerf :lol:)
B) Solve the problem with hazards that make the area intrinsically more difficult, raising the bar too high for most lowbies
C) Lock out level ranges entirely without question

In fairness, that is an accurate representation of PnP Groups.

Technically they tend to send minions on up ahead of the group hehe, poor summoned goblins. =)

[*Godolia il Magus]

I just see three camps here
A) Solve the problem by penalizing all stealth and casting characters (truly the ones that need another nerf :lol:)
B) Solve the problem with hazards that make the area intrinsically more difficult, raising the bar too high for most lowbies
C) Lock out level ranges entirely without question

D) Negate loot dropping when npcs, not commanded by playing characters, slay mobs, and delay loot spawning on chests/etc. of a reasonable amount of time to prevent people from farming dungeons by going concealed, or (if the delay is an unacceptable thing) place very nasty traps that can't be disarmed by activating them. If it still doesn't work, I'd add your B solution.

[*Sinlinara]

I would like to echo the sentiment by Poststructuralism. There are already things in place to make it very, very dangerous for an invisible lowbie; Spotters primarily. I would prefer it if instead environmental hazards were added to the map that had to be overcome either with an Avoid Planar Effects spell, Resistances, etc. That way, higher level players may still be able to disengage from combat with a temporary invisibility and avoid dying horribly.

As it currently stands, I feel like Avoid Planar Effects is somewhat pointless as it's only really relevant in Salt and Ice. Adding effects like this would definitely make the Abyss the more inhospitable place that it should be while also increasing the effectiveness of the spell.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Making it closer to PnP will make it less fun for everyone in general. They require different designs, and since some things will regardless be unimplementable due to game limitations, it wouldn't make mages that much more powerful.

______________

There's much easier ways to keep you out of there than perma death. Mandatory minimum level check on portal. :P That'd also make a lot less people annoyed, but still is going to prompt argument in 3... 2... 1... though the actual problem here is that you identify that the rewards are greater than the penalties you'll get from either being patient or dying frequently.Which could be sorted a couple ways over too. But personally I think having the area be made less hospitable for low level characters without really making a dent to higher level characters is easiest.

And I've said and will maintain the term 'violator' with the under tone of 'minor infriction' since no interaction took place. It's a very important distinction in all matters, especially in a roleplaying server. I mean I could roleplay killing someone and just attack them without a warning or even setting them hostile via playerlist, in such case it's unfair for the other player as they were never given a narrative choice or chance in the matter. All they got was a sword in their guts. In contrast in this case, all the other player got was getting their reward robbed. And I repeat, this was an extreme example, this current case is simply put a minor infriction that's barely worth arguing about.

In other words, nothing you should sweat about. :P But in future cases, it's better to respond to the other even if they seem miffed and try to resolve the matter by explaining your case from the get go.

[*Jelkia]

Like the idea of ah mandatory check for the portal.. but ah figure ya can just slap someone on auto follow an they'll getcha past that check no problem, yeah? O.o An personally.. ah think yer very right Mr. Oty.. making it closer to PNP really doesn't seem like ah good answer. That's going the wrong direction.

And ah dunno bout the planar effects. Just makes another place where non casters get 'stepped on' cause they don't got access to that spell. Got plenty of those already with needing things like Pro Evil/Good just to be able to make it in some places.

Sounds more like the problem's with having ah place ya can just go an get loot with ah bit of duckin an doging never having to fight anything. Turn off being able ta get free loot.. and then it would be right level folks in there getting loot and if yer playing hide'n'seek at that point an stealing loot it can't be misunderstood as just 'picking up fallen loot'. Maybe make the chests require everythin in that room/area being killed before it opens? No free loot, no free loaders.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

Hmm.. that actually makes me wonder if you could theoretically make NPCs only drop loot if killed by a PC ^{(including dominated, summons, animal companions and henchmen)}. That might be a decent round about to this. Since a low level PC could only in rare cases kill anything in there.

[*Strawberry Jam]

For pnp rules it would hit current melee builds hardest. Those epic weapons take quite literally millions in gold to craft, you don't recover your hitpoints, it can take days or even weeks to recover those hundreds of hitpoints, you need to rest regardless to recover strength, true regeneration is extremely rare,, and without a spell caster buddy you will have a hard life. I think you would see a sudden flood of primarily healing clerics

But that's completely aside the point and diverging into hypotheticals.

I agree with Sinlinara, there are plenty of ways to make planes or specific terrain more inhospitable. Or traps on chests as was suggested. Not only because you target lowbies, but because you would also target epic characters. It is hard enough that there are spotters and bosses can often cast see invisibility or true sight.

Even epic humans talk about the abyss like it's just central park. Mainly the plane itself has no hazards.

[*poststructuralism]

I did respond. I sent a question mark, because I couldn't even see that the other player was in the area at the time. There must have been a lot of people online or something, big player list. I thought I was by myself until I got a series of hostile tells and accusations.

Lots of talk about how to make the abyss harder and how best to punish a "loot thief" and no one seems to care about treating each other with respect and avoiding flaming someone when you don't like what happened IC. I think that's more important than the other two subjects by tenfold or more.

Maybe I should find another game.