Archmage Ascension progress

[Solodric]

Working on my scenario - haven't gotten much done this month, just a few towns unfortunatly due to all the distractions, but I'm hot at work.....three outdoors sections finished, the Tower of Magi is nearly finished (I might add more later, but it's already ****ing huge due to it's importance in the story) And the first dungeon is complete. Working on special encounters.

 

For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm making a scenario called Archmage Ascension, about a singleton mage who is trying to prove himself and become the one true Archmage of Avernum.....and the world. Goes from level 1 to truly epic levels (It should cap off somewhere in the 150-175 range) with really high-level spells as well......if I can make it that big. Trying not to get too ambitious

[Donald Hebb]

Quote:

Originally written by Solodric:
Goes from level 1 to truly epic levels (It should cap off somewhere in the 150-175 range) with really high-level spells as well......if I can make it that big. Trying not to get too ambitious

...you WILL NOT make a scenario this large, I guarantee you. (Unless I'm misinterpreting you, and you're just going to have award_party_xp(); calls littering your scenario, altough I doubt it.)

[Dastal]

Interesting concept, but very ambitious. I'm working on something similar called Academy Arcana, but not nearly as huge as what you describe. Good luck with it, but I'd lower m expectations. Even in A3, my singleton never achieved level 150 (I think he hit level 75 or so).

[DreamGuy]

And there seems to be a problem with the internal logic: How can a level 1 character just decide to become the next archmage and hope realistically to accomplish it? If it were that easy, everyone would be doing it.

 

But then part of that objection is due to the basic underlying assumption with these games in general that the PCs advance in power extremely quickly while everyone else stands totally frozen in their competency level.

 

Either way, you should scale back your expectations by several orders of magnitude. It's a tremendous amount of work to make a scenario where a player can be expected to advance even 20 levels. 100+ levels strikes me as hopelessly unrealistic.

[*i]

You could always have a bunch of artificial level boosters.

[Solodric]

Levels aren't an in-character thing. Your character has the makings of a great mage but has untapped potential. As you go through the game, you tap that potential. Besides, who said his dream was realistic?

 

The other people in the game certainly don't seem to think so

[Kelandon]

It's not that making a scenario with that sort of story is unrealistic for in-character considerations; it's that making a scenario so huge as to do that would be next to impossible.

 

Stareye's suggestion seems like a good one: use an award_party_xp call on a regular basis to ramp up the speed of levels gained.

 

Also, after about level 100, characters become virtually invulnerable. Play around with HLPM-generated parties to see what combat mechanics become at extremely high levels. Suffice it to say that making combat interesting for a level 80 party is quite a challenge, and if half your scenario takes place at a level beyond that, you may have some serious technical struggles late in the game to keep the player involved.

 

What might be interesting would be to provide a pre-made singleton with a lot of disadvantages, so that he gains levels extremely rapidly, and have the scenario top out at about level 60 or so. With some supplementary award_party_xp calls, that's doable in a medium-length scenario, probably, and almost no one should make a first scenario that is more than medium-length.

[Fort]

But what would a person do with this party after they are done with your scenario? There are not any 160 level scenarios out there, and I am assuming that most of the battles will have extremely fudged monsters, and the combat could become very warped after a while.

 

However, you did say that the party is supposed to start at level one, so maybe there really was not anything to lose by using the party for only one scenario. Still, you have to make sure that the combat stays interesting, but not hopelessly difficult with redundant instant damage from all sides.

[Cryomaniac]

Quote:

Originally written by Garrison:

Still, you have to make sure that the combat stays interesting, but not hopelessly difficult with redundant instant damage from all sides.

That would be the only problem with something like this, unless you intend to start having ridiculously large worms and other such things that shall remain consigned to my rather warped imagination.

[Fort]

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