Speaking of which... they should have a different encounter for Lolthsworn Drow and the phase spider matriarch where you have the ability to befriend her rather than fight her... or something. She loves Lolth. You love Lolth. Aren’t you on the same side?
Yes, I know she was stark, raving bonkers even before she transformed into a giant spider so I wasn’t expecting to have a rational conversation or anything, but was hoping for *something* different as a (currently) loyal Lolthite.
If Larian would learn to design encounters in other ways besides high ground, pits + shove, they could use a swarm of weak creatures to flank / block / surround the party, while there's a bigger threat to deal with. Crowd control...which is why arcane casters have aoe spells.
Yes, the matriarch spider fight has some element of this but only if you don’t destroy her eggs first, and then I suppose there’s the wood woad and mud mephit fight where the ancient mephits spawn young ones (which I actually only noticed was what was happening in my last playthrough). But I agree we need more and better variations on this, and on combat design more generally.
