Spiders too tough?

[Shaitan]

Hi!

 

I think that the Giant Spiders perhaps have been enhanced too much. They are by far the most toughest spiders. Ie being waylaid by them im cloakwood results in untimedly deaths - for sure. The web attacks combined with poison are deadly.

 

Just my 2 cents

[melkor_morgoth75]

Hi!

 

I think that the Giant Spiders perhaps have been enhanced too much. They are by far the most toughest spiders. Ie being waylaid by them im cloakwood results in untimedly deaths - for sure. The web attacks combined with poison are deadly.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

It's one of the best features instead ... i didn't try this, but spiders in Bp have the same ability and that's awesome! ALL spiders should cast web in my opinion,

 

my 2 cents

 

mm75

[Shaitan]

Hi!

 

I think that the Giant Spiders perhaps have been enhanced too much. They are by far the most toughest spiders. Ie being waylaid by them im cloakwood results in untimedly deaths - for sure. The web attacks combined with poison are deadly.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

It's one of the best features instead ... i didn't try this, but spiders in Bp have the same ability and that's awesome! ALL spiders should cast web in my opinion,

 

my 2 cents

 

mm75

 

Yeah, but then I think the xp earned should reflect this.

[Lemernis]

I like the improved spiders. They now require some strategy that wasn't needed before they were enhanced, but that's the point of improving them, right? Fortunately you can scout them without their spotting you, so there's a number of approaches available to you.

[DavidW]

I like the improved spiders. They now require some strategy that wasn't needed before they were enhanced, but that's the point of improving them, right? Fortunately you can scout them without their spotting you, so there's a number of approaches available to you.

 

I could be persuaded that the spiders are too tough. I didn't have any major problems with them on playtesting (though it's admittedly fairly hairy going between areas till you get Spider's Bane) . On the other hand, the spider AI has been upgraded slightly since the last time I tested it extensively: spiders now go out of their way to poison characters in the web. This was done on realism rather than difficulty grounds (SCS is as much about making monsters believable as making them tougher). If it's making people's life hell (in a "oh god, Spiders, reload and try travelling again" way) then I'll consider changing it (spider bite causes paralysis plus much slower poison, perhaps).

 

I'm not willing to increase spider XP, though. One of the major design features of SCS is to avoid unbalancing the game (too many harder-game mods get caught in a vicious cycle where they end up making the players more powerful through better rewards and so have to get EVEN TOUGHER). Vanilla BG1 is a rather nicely balanced game (with a couple of exceptions that you're probably only going to use if you're deliberately powergaming) and I don't want to break that.

 

(In any case, be careful what you ask for... if spiders are tougher, that just means they should be worth more experience than other creatures, not just more experience period. It's equally defensible that the experience for non-SCS creatures should be lowered!)

[Shaitan]

Hmm I get the point. I just had some serious troubles by the Giant Spiders waylaying me - that i me getting killed very fast each time. So I ended up reloading when I saw wich creature were waylaying me.

I found detect evil useful, then scouting and fireballing them. This makes me think: Are spiders evil?

[berelinde]

Hmm I get the point. I just had some serious troubles by the Giant Spiders waylaying me - that i me getting killed very fast each time. So I ended up reloading when I saw wich creature were waylaying me.

I found detect evil useful, then scouting and fireballing them. This makes me think: Are spiders evil?

 

I haven't found spiders to be unreasonably tougher, but that's just me.

 

About the alignment, my instinctive response was to say "No, spiders are neutral," since in PnP, most are, but I thought I'd take a look with SK so I didn't look like an idiot if I was wrong.

 

Giant spiders = chaotic evil

Huge spiders = true neutral

Phase spiders = true neutral

Sword spiders = lawful evil

Wraith spiders = lawful evil

 

Don't ask me how spiders can have sufficient culture to have lawful or chaotic behavior. In my experience, unless it's mating or hatching time (when there will be more than one in one place at one time), spiders are solitary creatures, so D&D spiders don't really behave much like real ones anyway. As far as I'm concerned, all spiders are evil, but that's just my phobias talking.

[DavidW]

I imagine the original D&D game designers had The Hobbit in mind when they assigned Giant Spider alignments.

 

I like spiders, personally.

[NiGHTMARE]

Those all match with pnp alignments except sword spiders, which in pnp are CE. Pnp also has a NE variety of spider, the hairy spider.

 

As for how they can be anything other than TN, in D&D only phase and sword spiders are solitary - all others are found in either swarms, packs, or nests. Most spiders have higher than animal intelligence, with some sword spiders being as intelligent as the average human (10 INT)!

[DavidW]

Giant spiders now have a paralysing, but less poisonous, bite. This hopefully makes fighting them a bit less irritating - if you win, you won't have done so at the cost of four people dead from spider venom. But I haven't tested it that extensively, so I welcome feedback.