Now, I am struggling along at 4 fps waiting for the first major post release patch to fix all the issues (hopefully not the 'characters wander wherever' bug as it is so funny to see the Red Prince running over roof tops like he is practicing for the recent Assassins Creed sale on steam) with a game we paid 4 million dollars to fund, then brought again to play. Er....

However, I think a total new low in an encounter has been sighted. This is even more muppetish than the 'Balance the Weights' puzzle, which in all honesty is the dumbest thing out of Larian Studios, probably ever. (That's the puzzle that used mass, not weight, and DIDN'T BALANCE ANYTHING, just random masses on pressure pads. Unless .5lbs +1lb = 2lb + 10lb, which even in weird imperial units I doubt is maths).

So I find myself in a cave, where a'pon 4 giant 'frozen voidwoken' come up and freeze, web and kidnap my party to some further underground hell hole.

Now to a 14 year old DM in a DND 3rd or 5th (like, we don't talk about 4th edition, okay?) edition table top game, this MAY have seemed like a good idea.

Until, after running campaigns for some number of years, you begin to actually listen to the player characters.

Why didn't, whilst the 4 immortal, instant initiative, double stun blocking enemies web my frozen ass, JUST EAT MY HEAD whilst I was webbed and frozen?

Why even kidnap me when they could just have opened my abdominal cavity and laid eggs like some giant frozen wasp that they resemble?

Whomever made this encounter, please, don't think you can design your way out of a brown paper bag with directions towards the opening in it.

Just stop, now, before I have to laugh at you some more. T is for Troll. D is for Daft encounter idea.

Maybe they wanted to feed you to their babies? I think the idea was good, but the execution was flawed. Like why do you just teleport to your assigned position and are then able to act like the just Voidwoken let you loose after putting you in the area they wanted you... stupid.

I hope it gets reworked in the future with some kind of scene or something to explain events and free you or your companions so you can then work to reunite with each other... also disable fast travel, so immersion breaking to just fast travel out or to the center waypoint.

They put triple CC on yo a$$ just to rub the salt in the wounds.

Also, EA purchasers through Steam got the game for free on release day... so WATCHU TALKIN' BOUT WILLIS

Btw they aren't immortal, the second time I did this area I managed to summon two bone widow spiders and kill one of the Voidwoken, only 3 characters ended up getting captured.

Fane was left standing by himself and he says something like... "I think some of our party members are missing" .

You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself.

I kind of agree with the fast travel thing, in certain areas though. Like... just for an example and not to spoil anything in DOS2 but let's say you're locked in a Mind Flayer prison in the Underdark -- can you really just expect to be able to teleport back to the nearest Inn and have a drink with Drizzt before you set off to kill Jerdian Firkraag on some other venture because the Mind Flayer prison was too tough for you at your level? Better have a backup save or start over.

No seriously though fast travel is hugely, immensely a necessary thing, just needs to be disabled in certain areas. Like they did with Pyramids.

Getting captured and then solving the problem of being separated was, in my opinion, easily one of the most satisfying points of the game.

"in what universe is it okay for these enemies to be this powerful?" I thought to myself before I realized it wasn't game over. "Ah, in a universe where I now get to plot an escape, divide, conquer, and avoid certain death."

It was different from the rest of the game and really had me using resources I had never thought of. I loved it.

If you have performance problems with the game, it is probably the fault of your system. The game runs flawlessly for me on highest settings.

The cave encounter is a nice idea, something new. First I was annoyed until I did understand the intentions.

However, I was lvl 10 at this time and felt underleveled. When I came back with lvl 11 I entered the cave from the sea side, so the voidwoken capture was avoided totally. Quite often there are different ways to solve the game.

The encounter is also slightly bugged: You'll only get as many enemies as you have party members, but the next time you're in the area, the rest will spawn.

So let's say you're doing 2x Lone Wolf. They get kidnapped. You clear the mine, and then go back to the entrance. You get kidnapped again, and taken to places that are now empty.

That one felt pretty weird.

Maybe it's because you are playing Godwoken? The boss fight of that quest does have a skill that require your char remaining dead in front of him anyway for him to use it.

I actually find the encounter to be fun and challenging too if you want to try and beat it. The amount of work you have to put into spreading the damage and figuring out how to make it possible to keep all enemies permanently CC'd in only 4 turns before run out of evasive aura is amusing.

The fast travel and pyramid do ruin the quest though if you use it but having a choice is better than none. Although I choose to do it solo for the sake of enjoyment, some probably don't want to go through the trouble that can potentially get them stuck permanently.



I like how Red Prince will just insult the party member that gets captured.

"The party has been overwhelmed and captured" is a trope used in many RPGs. They are either ambushed and taken out before they can react or they realize the number of enemies is just too large to live through. So ... they end up in a prison.

Enter the "Prison Breakout" scenario.

Said scenarios encourage players to be creative as they're not breaking INTO a facility, they're breaking OUT.

Pretty much... the amount of nerd rage induced by this was very lulzy though I must say. The fact that the encounter was SO lopsided should have been an immediate indication it was intended to go that way. *shrug*

"Party captures" work, if used in moderation. And the reason they're captured makes sense. Sudden ambush and stunned into submission is the simplest method of course.

And this comes from a guy who cut his teeth on running dnd games. It's an honored tactic, just like the bar room brawl. It's not a "bad" thing to use, when used in moderation.

Killed all 4 cuz overleveld at the time heheheh.

But honestly I really liked that encounter on my second play, made sure to kill everything that was not happy to see me, alas fane included as colateral damage, had to ress the dead again XD

Wut? If anything, it's one of the better encounters because it actually breaks up your usual almost scripted gameplay you use against 90% of the things otherwise.

It does not matter why they did it, the whole splitting party in a dungeon and making them find each other is awesome challenge, although they should have turned off waypoints, because that's kinda silly that you can technically just laugh and port away.

Honestly I wish they'd do more things like that where your usual house of cards falls apart because something unpredictable happened that causes you to work around it in a new unique way.

Just reached this now. The idea of this encounter was neat. I don't have any problem with the encounter the OP is talking about. It's what's comes NEXT which seems to be poorly thought out.

1) My avatar, Beast, gets plopped into a cave with about 8 or so enemies around. For MY build, that was not a problem since I had Duck Duck Goose, and I saved 6 AP and used Favorable Wind, ran 4 AP away, used Chameleon Cloak, and on the next turn used Cloak and Dagger to teleport across the gap. There was only one enemy on the other side, which, while tough, seems doable - and that's just barely. So that worked for my build.

But how is a build without extra movement, invisibility and a self-teleport supposed to handle that? Are they just supposed to sit there on their turn waiting for the rest of the party to come get them?


2) My Knight, the Red Prince ended up in another combat area, but it was easy, two weak enemies. But he only has two ways forward: a locked gate, or another path. The other path leads to a group of weak enemies and a tough one. The tough one chewed through my magic armor - even bolstered with Frost Armor, which many Knights would not have - and happily chain-CC'ed me to death. Apparently I have to leave him there until someone comes to rescue him.


3) Lhose (Enchanter) ended up in a lab and Sebille (Wizard) in Luxury quarters, with the nearest enemies being just a couple dwarves which were easy to kill thanks to a large height advantage.. Okay, but depositing some party members in peace and safety and others in "Death City - Population: You" seems strange.


I can get it if I'm supposed to avoid combat and sneak by enemies, but dropping one guy in an inescapable death room and another in an area impossible to either fight or stealth through is questionable.

***

Not sure how Ellezard managed to continue since it seems like there isn't supposed to be another way forward without getting captured. I guess there's always coming in from the exit.

The encounter was silly and nonsensical to me. Why are these voidwoken the only ones in the game not intent on just killing me instantly? Why did they bring one guy to a treasure room and one guy to a pit full of vampires that will just claw him to death in 2 seconds anyway? They should have just used a teleporter trap or floor of water trap in the cave or something, those would have made more sense.

On my classic playthrough I had similar situation and I started by freeing up and gathering guys that are either in easy starting rooms or have teleports. Like Ranger and Knight for example each have a personal teleport or two and you can team them up and 2 of these guys can handle all the stragglers in tunnels pretty much. My Enchanter was in that dwarves room and could not really do shit, so he just sat tight there while Knight and Ranger made their way there.

Finally my Wizard was in that super shit room with a lot eggs and it was done last, it was really difficult there for me, I had to rush him to some ledge and yank him with teleport just before he got shredded.

Only on second playthrough I realized waypoints were active, which was kinda "lol", but I am glad I did not realize it before, because the whole break away the classic way was really great first time around.


But basically, I have a hard time imagining a team where you don't have at least one guy with personal teleport skill, IMO it's safe to assume you have that because it's just so necessary to have by that point and every kind of physical damage dealer has access to easy personal teleport (Cloak and Dagger/Phoenix/Retreat) and even with one guy like that you ensure you have 2 guys teamed up, which is enough.

Now that I think about it, maybe they enabled waypoints there simply because if you are totally screwed, you can still make it (albeit in a kinda silly cheese way really).

The only real problem I had with it is why are these 4 voidwoken so special? They can use super CC and take you away, but every other voidwoken that looks exactly like them you can kill fairly easily.

I mean, I was more or less okay with it, but it feels a bit forced. Making a deliberately overpowered unique enemy just to force the game to take a specific turn isn't the necessarily the best way for that to be accomplished.

I would rather have had to repair some kind of damaged portal that when you go through it scatters your team around. Something like that.