Gauging Interest: ALFA Fight Club

[Brokenbone]

I made a dwarf ftr2/cleric3 in plate armor. I guess I misread the suggestion above about consumables, trying to make sure to buy "about 2000 worth", as opposed to 1/3 of the overall pot of gold. There were a couple buggy items in the shop (maybe from a BG NPC only pallette), like 1gp +1 shadow assassin chainshirt which are worth avoiding to not throw off things, hah. I probably walked far enough around in the Start area that I'm no longer in the returns trigger to get rid of things and try again.

I may yet consider something a little squishier as a second option, but again, if we're almost doing something arena-like, doing up a guy with like, RP spells and all kinds of social / knowledge skills while ALFA-like, is going to mean very, very short tests. Had figured on something "durable" enough to see if the AI may consider my guy a tank, but then if displaying magic use might abruptly start behaving differently.

[Zelknolf]

Yeah, I also stole BG's palette when I stole their generic areas, and can't verify that the start merchant will have everything you need.

But I can say that the merchant has full-price buyback; no need to actually use the curiously-styled returns bin-- and if you're looking for specific gear that isn't in the merchant but would be available to a level 5, we can set that up when we start things.

RP concepts can of course be brought in if you'd like, and might still win fights (after all, the primary expression of gaining levels in D&D is being better at killing stuff, even if you actively build for everything but)-- but I give the same response that I give to Zilvai re: overdoing powergaming, though; I'm still happy to set things up with such characters, but I won't use the int-based monks or cha-based rogues to norm challenge rating (obviously skewed results, as we expect such characters to not fight so much) the same as I won't use the class-dipped warlock (obviously skewed results because new warlocks are banned and the class dip was illegal before said ban went in). Or I suppose more accurately "I won't recommend that such data be used for norming." -- the DM teams are responsible for accurate CRing of things; I intend to just publish my findings with associated templates.

[puny]

its on! and its fun!

[Zelknolf]

So, first one was full of all sorts of useful information-- and it sounds like people attending had a fine time with it.

Large Elementals vs. 2 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Large Earth Elemental (CR 5), Obsidian AI
OR
NPC Large Fire Elemental (CR 5), Obsidian AI
OR
NPC Large Water Elemental (CR 5), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

These fights were straightforward. Elementals, having a finite set of actions available to them, do not do anything particularly cleverly, nor do they have many options to do so. These three fights resulted in simple injury done to the party, and an expected depletion of spells/day to restore lost health. CR 5 is plausible

Side 1:
NPC Large Air Elemental (CR 5), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

This fight ended quickly with little effect from the elemental. It spent its actions on its pulse attack, which was ineffective. Having insufficient AC/ DR/ hit points to survive the barbarian with his two-handed weapon, it fell with little resources expended. Implied CR might be questioned, depending on the details of the pulse attack.

All of the Baby Wyverns in the World vs. 2 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC wyvern hatchling (CR 1), x20

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

The wyverns simply did not have enough attack bonus to be much of a contest against heavy armor, and were ineffective. Hard to say what this would mean for a more-sensibly-leveled party facing a wyvern hatchling.

Wyvern vs. 2 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC adult wyvern (CR 6), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

The dice gods favored the PCs in this fight, and the wyvern was unable to make use of its most effective attack (poison). PCs were victorious, but the fight was quick and thus did not have enough dice thrown to account for randomness.

Young Green Dragon vs. 2 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Young Green Dragon (CR 5), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

This fight was notably harder than the one against the wyvern, with the dragon's primary attack being successful and doing enough damage to visibly wear on the PCs. However, it is of note that the dragon did not attempt to use its mobility to its advantage, and did not make use of its breath weapon (the latter being by far its most powerful attack). CR feels a little low, but would seek more samples before saying for sure.

Troll vs. 2 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Troll (CR 5), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

The dice gods hated this troll with much intensity, and the PCs killed it before enough dice were thrown to normalize for randomness. Hard to say how valid the CR is.

Bulette vs. 2 PCs.

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Bulette (CR 7), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Barbarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4

PCs were utterly destroyed. The Obsidian AI was very insistant on keeping its original target down, and thus once one PC was on the ground, the other was forced to either solo the creature or heal (the latter only buying the healer one round, as the bulette returned to killing the healed one immediately, and was typically successful). Implication is that CR 7 is plausible.

Bulette vs. 3 PCs.

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Bulette (CR 7), Obsidian AI

Side 2:
PC H-orc Bariarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)

PCs were tapped, and required the -7 hp floor, but were victorous. The tanky fighter, when he was able to attract the bulette's ire, was able to hold it long enough to see the others healed, and its inability to do much other than chew on things meant it was eventually beaten. Implication is that CR 7 is plausible.

5 hobgoblins vs. 5 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Hobgoblin Fighter 3 (CR 3), ACR AI tank, x2
NPC Hobgoblin Ranger 3 (CR 3), ACR AI skirmish
NPC Hobgoblin Sorcerer 3 (CR 3), ACR AI nuke
NPC Hobgoblin Favored Soul 3 (CR 3), ACR AI medic

Side 2:
PC H-orc Bariarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Dwarven Ftr 2/Clr 3 (tanky)
PC Barbarian 5 (throwing weapons)

Fight was laughably short; some wounds were taken, but the NPC party was dispatched with little resistance. Implies that the hobgoblins' CR was lower than estimated.

10 hobgoblins vs. 5 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Hobgoblin Fighter 3 (CR 3), ACR AI tank, x4
NPC Hobgoblin Ranger 3 (CR 3), ACR AI skirmish, x2
NPC Hobgoblin Sorcerer 3 (CR 3), ACR AI nuke
NPC Hobgoblin Favored Soul 3 (CR 3), ACR AI medic

Side 2:
PC H-orc Bariarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Dwarven Ftr 2/Clr 3 (tanky)
PC Barbarian 5 (throwing weapons)

The AI didn't intelligently distribute the tanks, and that seems to have been part of this party's downfall; the unrestricted movement of the PC barbarian spelled a quick end to their squishier pals, and clumped on the dwarves (who were well-equipped to defend against swords). Some wounds taken and spells used, but ultimately had the feel of a buildup or filler fight.

15 hobgoblins vs. 5 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Hobgoblin Fighter 3 (CR 3), ACR AI tank, x5
NPC Hobgoblin Ranger 3 (CR 3), ACR AI skirmish, x4
NPC Hobgoblin Sorcerer 3 (CR 3), ACR AI nuke, x3
NPC Hobgoblin Favored Soul 3 (CR 3), ACR AI medic, x3

Side 2:
PC H-orc Bariarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Dwarven Ftr 2/Clr 3 (tanky)
PC Barbarian 5 (throwing weapons)

Again the tanks did not intelligently distribute, but this time clumped on the PC healer. Their greater numbers and the PCs' difficulty rescuing the healer gave the NPC spellcasters more time to put healing and protection on their front line. Fight looked to have been a moderate challenge-- implying along with the previous two fights that these hobgoblins are in fact CR 2.

40 hobgoblins vs. 5 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Hobgoblin Fighter 3 (CR 3), ACR AI tank, x10
NPC Hobgoblin Ranger 3 (CR 3), ACR AI skirmish, x10
NPC Hobgoblin Sorcerer 3 (CR 3), ACR AI nuke, x10
NPC Hobgoblin Favored Soul 3 (CR 3), ACR AI medic, x10

Side 2:
PC H-orc Bariarian 5
PC Human FS 1/Clr 4
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Dwarven Ftr 2/Clr 3 (tanky)
PC Barbarian 5 (throwing weapons)

The chaos of this fight, combined with the presence of 20 NPCs capable of attacking at range (10 of them flawlessly), spelled a quick end to the majority of the party. The spellcasters ran out of spells before the tank was finished, though, and his possession of large quantities of simple healing consumables saved his hide for a good stretch after the fight was over for the rest of he party. However, it would have overwhelmed the supplies of all live ALFA PCs I know of, and retreat would have been the most plausible route for such a group to take. These numbers continue to imply CR 2, as about 32 CR 2 creatures would typically be enough to overwhelm a level 5 party.

1 wraith vs. 4 PCs

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Wraith (CR 5), ACR AI

Side 2:
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Halfling Rgr 3/Rog 2
PC Half-orc Ranger 5 (melee)
PC Halfling Sorcerer 5

Wraith was bugged, plain and simple. It required possession to operate correctly, but its incorrect vulnerability to sneak attacks spelled its doom. Data not very useful; template needs fixing.

50 zombies vs. 4 PCs.

Spoiler:

Side 1:
NPC Zombie (CR 0.5), equipped with sword and shield, ACR AI Mindless, x 20
NPC Zombie (CR 0.5), equipped with short spear and shield, ACR AI Mindless, x20
NPC Zombie (CR 0.5), equipped with halberd, ACR AI Mindless, x10

Side 2:
PC Dwarven Ftr 5 (tanky)
PC Halfling Rgr 3/Rog 2
PC Half-orc Ranger 3 (melee)
PC Halfling Sorcerer 5

Terrain seemed to make this fight read a little more difficult. The sheer number of bodies in the arena (circular, 2 tiles wide) kept the party from maneuvering wide enough to really use their superior movement to their advantage. Of course, this is a demonstration of zombies used tactically well (in huge quantities and tight quarters), and it took the party some time to leverage the mindlessness to their advantage (having found that the creatures will cluster and line up when presented with a choke point, and won't try to change tactics to gain access to those delicious brains). The party did win the fight, though, and did not lose any people, but at the cost of most of their use/day abilities. Total CR was likely about 6, which implies that arming zombies and deploying them like an intelligent master wants to get the most out of them inflates their CR to about 1 a piece.

As a side observation, the server handled the extremely-large-numbered spawns very well. We didn't see any human-visible lag with the groups of 40 and 50, and server load peaked at 50% of one 3 GHz core. Memory usage probably isn't a good discussion, as the module used was extremely small. And of course we can expect these numbers to get a little worse as the AI grows up and gets more features-- though it does speak well for its directions on when to path and to what, as well as its handling for the OnBlocked event, as the Obsidian AI would typically hamstring the server with this many NPCs in a confined space.

Unfortunately, there were at least some problems with everything I spawned today, so I don't have any .erfs to provide to the servers. Not even the arena.
*sniff*

Maybe next time -something- will end up being an unqualified success.

[puny]

not sure it really matters, but my first testtoon was cleric 1, FS 4 and the haflingafter the cleric-Fs died was 5 sorc

[Brokenbone]

Doesn't matter at my end either but the initial dwarf was Cleric 3/Ftr 2... and the halfling was Rog2/Rgr 3 archery path.

The dwarf was "lucky" to meet goblinoids (+1 to hit).

The halfing was "unlucky" to be a rogue mix vs. undead (no sneak!) and to be an archer path guy against 5/slash opponents. Good fortune I suppose to be easily making reflex saves running straight through a million webs to run around healing people, and to be tumbling away from AoOs.

[kid]

Sorry for missing it. Failed at Tanking RL and sleep.

[Zelknolf]

We do have something for our misbehaving tanks and incorporeal undead. Hopefully. That should be enough of a baseline to plan for another one of these next Monday.

Same bat-time; same bat-channel.

[Brokenbone]

If we get "really good, really deadly" incorporeals (i.e., shadows... touch touch touch, oh 0 STR and presumably dead without a -6 system issue), I wonder if there's any outlook for a ghost-touch property for weaponry? Improving a monster to PnP like levels without the typical PnP countermeasure = ouch. Basic shadows, unimproved, are mostly an annoyance critter who cannot hit worth a damn (which would differ in a touch system), who get missed a lot (50%), and who sometimes, depending on local interpretations by teams, get high DR for weapons shy of +2, since +1 is fooled by masterwork and its +1 AB (as opposed to +1 enhanced).

I sort of assume incorporeals, once "perfected", go into Zspawn and the Campaign Folder and will be available for use to all, maybe will surprise even DMs with how the danger factor ramps up.

*shadow stealths their way up to 9 STR wizard of 10th level, easily touches 2-3 times... kills, absent a death ward or constant applications of lesser restoration*

[Zelknolf]

Well, troubles like that are part of the value of doing norming like this-- it's true that shadows become a proper MFer to fight if they have real attacks, and are total pushovers if they don't. I doubt we'll ever get a perfect translation, but what we probably can get is a sense of how challenging they actually are in our ruleset if we see how they stack up against actual parties-- and it'll be more complex, yeah; a level 8 party can afford ghost touch weapons (and depending on what they usually fight, they might even find that a good investment)-- of course, shadows are an example of something that's complex as hell, because they're undead and thus have an F-ton of vulnerabilities. That is, they're slain by healing magic, they can be turned, and they're powerless to harm any creature protected by a death ward (which is so by every interpretation of the rules; shadow touch attacks are explicitly called out as negative energy, even though they do ability damage, not drain). That last bit implies that we would do well to cap CR on some encounters-- 10 shadows and 80 shadows are effectively the same drain on resources: you have to cast death ward on the party, but need not do anything else to win (and what happens once they get smart enough to poke a dude and notice it isn't working? "*poke poke* Nope, no drain; better kill me before I reach the next guy, who may or may not be warded!"). Compare, though, 10 hobgoblins to 80 hobgoblins. Even our highest-level characters would still have to get a least a little serious to take down 80 hobgoblins (if it was yesterday's, shield, nightshield, or spell resistance would be a must-- fear the unholy terror that is a butt-ton of dudes with magic missile).

There's also the question of how big a deal it is that there's that hit point floor, compared to other stuff. They'll still put you on the ground and have you "bleeding" ... somehow... but if you get healed you have no strength. So what good are you in that fight? Other than, y'know, maybe making a shadow waste an action re-killing you (which might still be valuable: see 3 PCs vs. Bulette, above).

[Brokenbone]

Consider me as looking forward to a good shadow test-battle, hah. Our level 5 party won't have death wards. It will be a bloodbath. Or a touch-drain bath, apparently shadows don't really do HP damage. Sit there with 50hp but 0 STR and dead? I am not even sure what a vanquished shadow victim is going to look like.

[Zelknolf]

Consider me as looking forward to a good shadow test-battle, hah. Our level 5 party won't have death wards. It will be a bloodbath. Or a touch-drain bath, apparently shadows don't really do HP damage. Sit there with 50hp but 0 STR and dead? I am not even sure what a vanquished shadow victim is going to look like.

For the technically-inclined, it looks like this.
But the "else" logic is probably going to go away, given that the damage cap kicks in after EffectDeath() anyway, so we want to still apply that strength damage and have people at 0 strength if they get healed.

For the less-technically-inclined, running out of strength because a shadow told you to turn your head and cough is just like failing a save vs. a spell like Destruction or Finger of Death. If you're on your feet, all of your hit points go away and you hit the deck at -6, making your first bleeding check immediately (65.61% chance of dying in 18 seconds if you get no help; about a 3ish% chance of recovering naturally if left alone, with the remaining 30ish% being you taking 1-3 game hours [7-21 minutes] to die).

[Brokenbone]

Plenty of technical weakness on my end, but I see that stuff is trying to describe a CON drain (wraiths) and a STR drain for anyone who isn't a wraith... presumably this means shadows, that's our incorporeal pair of favourites.

The wraith attack doesn't seem to involve a DC14 Fort save. Really only seems to check if got an immunity, and unless immune, gonna get hit with the drain (or if drain exceeds ability, effect death and all that means in ALFA. Color me unconcerned about the +5hp "benefit" to the wraith for successful CON drains, not appearing, or at least not within this script, maybe it's elsewhere.

Granted, the shadow attack has no save which makes it scarier.

Again I am possibly reading all that stuff wrong. I was just thinking "wraiths=saves, shadows=nosaves", I can't suss out where if at all that's addressed in the work in progress.

EDIT: I forgot Dread Wraiths (d8 CON, fort DC25) and Greater Shadows (d8 STR, no save). Maybe those are a later add once the work in progress... well... works all as expected.

[Zelknolf]

Yeah, we have default values because we want to be sure that if an undead isn't configured correctly, they still do something (we don't want to have something spawn and have it fonding folk fruitlessly while they get hacked up for effectively-free XP), and there's currently only configuration for normal wraiths and shadows right now.

Fort save was supposed to be in line 12; must've had a brain fart there. But that's why we test these things.

// edit:
Also, gunna lern u sum stuff 'bout save DCs.

the Monster Manual entries come with a not-often-read series of rules and qualifiers from the front of the MM. That save DC is actually 10 + HD/2 + Cha Mod (round down, if necessary), assuming the listed unadvanced stat block above.

E.G. 10 + 5 / 2 + 2 (cha 15) = 14.5. Thus, DC 14 fort save.

However, if we were to take advantage of this line:
Advancement: 6-10 HD (Medium)
This means that a wraith cannot acquire a character class, and may have up to 10 hit dice of undead while still being a wraith. We would generally assume that an incorporeal undead would put its levelup points into charisma, as well, so we might have an 8 HD wraith with 16 charisma

Fort save would thus be 10 + 8 / 2 + 3 (cha 16) = 17. Thus, wraith is much scarier.


For most supernatural abilties, it's a charisma modifier powering the saves, while most extraordinary abilities (especially poisons), it's constitution modifier. Generally good to code with this in mind, just in case someone does something super mean like casts bear's endurance on their pet wyvern. That should indeed make their poison worse. (doesn't here, but should, 'cuz that's where those numbers come from).

[Brokenbone]

Yes, knew it's a CHA save, often 14 based on the math and the stat block sample (which is before any "advancements"). And therefore that if someone did Eagle Spendor on pet Wraith (perhaps a Lich master?), DC should get nastier. Or if an incorporeal were to be able to wear uh.. incorporeal stat buff items? Same'd apply.

Anyhow, glad if at least one of these two nasties gets a save integrated into their stuff. Whether it's always 14, whether it's a more complex formula to cover odd situations of extra (or less!) CHA-focussed wraiths, etc.