Damage Immunity Fix Follow Up

[bsb5652]

Per Brumm:

Hello everbody,

All final changes are on the beta server and the beta patch updated.

we are done with the preparations for the immunity plugin integration and all the changes that go along with it. All changes will be pushed to production within the next days. We thought it might be a good idea to say a few words about the changes to avoid confusion:

What does does the damage immunity fix plugin do?
The plugin fixes a lot of bugs in the vanilla damage calculations on the engine level and also provides some performance improvements. The probably most noticeable change from a players point of view is that immunity will work reliably regardless of the damage source unless it is explicitly scripted otherwise (like it is for Frost Mages for example). The plugin also fixes a lot of bugs in the calculation of critical hits. So unlike now all damage types that are supposed to crit will crit. Another bugfix worth mentioning is a fix for touch attacks. These are currently subject to arrow deflection which can make using RTAs - especially for warlocks - frustrating sometimes. This won't be the case anymore so you won't see those annoying "**" in the logs anymore.

What kind of changes will be rolled out with the plugin?
- As a compensation for damage immunity being reliable we reduced the immunity on monsters. This change has been pushed to production already. We lowered divine and physical damage immunity in particular to make sure non-magic users have reliable sources of damage.

- Damage immunity for PCs will be capped at 75%. The reason is that many mobs deal mostly elemental damage that currently ignores immuntiy entirely. Making the player immunity reliable would render all these monsters completely useless because nearly every PC on the server has 100% elemental damage immunity. So you won't get 100% damage immunity anymore but in trade for that you can trust the immunity that is shown on your character screen.

- Another thing we'll roll out with the plugin is changing the damage type of STR bonus damage to be physical. Formerly it was magical damage because scripted physical damage was not taken into account for critical hits due to an engine bug. The plugin fixes that so there is no need for using magical damage anymore.

- For all the other minor and major fixes and changes - especially for the summoning system - please check my commit logs.

What kind of changes can be expected after the roll-out?
- Immunity on NPCs will make a much bigger difference than it currently does. To reflect that in the rewards we'll take immunity into account within the calculation of challenge ratings.

- Based on the feedback of players we'll further adjust the immunity on NPCs. So if you run into a monster that is obviously too hard to deal with due to insane immunity values, please let us know. We'll address that then as soon as we can.

- We'll probably introduce new item properties that allow you to increase the immunity cap. Items with these properties will be very rare though.

Greetings
Brumm

PS: I should have mention this way earlier: Big thanks to our player Naamarikala for making this plugin a reality.

[bsb5652]

We have been getting reports of people complaining about NPCs here and there, but not actually reporting them so we can address as we promised to do.

- Based on the feedback of players we'll further adjust the immunity on NPCs. So if you run into a monster that is obviously too hard to deal with due to insane immunity values, please let us know. We'll address that then as soon as we can.

For us to finish this last and important phase, please report specific NPCs that need addressed and we will prioritize reviewing and modifying them.

This change is staying, its a major fix for the NWN2 engine that was made a reality and we will see it through to the end.

[Baldursflayer]

Myconid Mender on EX8 with Resilient tag in Gnarl Cave.

regular EX8 Menders were fine, this particular one was getting 0s from quakeshock and shield bash. 0s on regular auto-attack hits, Crits from a WM Barb set rapier with Legendary metals were hitting for 30.

[Itaasi]

Myconid Mender on EX8 with Resilient tag in Gnarl Cave.

regular EX8 Menders were fine, this particular one was getting 0s from quakeshock and shield bash. 0s on regular auto-attack hits, Crits from a WM Barb set rapier with Legendary metals were hitting for 30.

I also ran into this enemy.
It took no damage from Creeping Doom, but it seemed to take bot hFire and Cold damage from Greater Creeping Cold, Firewall and Inferno.
I managed to kill it

[Brownyman]

Is there any data for what the Tags add to ex mode monsters? Also Bossified?

I'm not saying some dont need changing but the Mushy Mender regens so quickly and has high AC anyway, without EX mode!

EX8 Bossified stirge is a handful as well!

[bsb5652]

We will first tackle the base blue print. Since EX's are all code base pumps, we should be able to adjust that rather easily to effect all of our mobs at once.

[kc2345]

There appears to be a script that sometimes fires on certain event server NPCs to give them insane damage resist - over 200-300 resist to different damage types. This makes them almost impossible to kill.

I've seen it affect Boggle Crag in Eon and Forgrimmithal in BDL. I suspect it also affects the Eon Hall Monitors.

Blueprint wise, the Trinity Guard Imposters have insane DR (Epic damage reduction 15/- feat) and Epic Energy Resistance X to a number of different damage types. There are a number of NPCs with these feats.

As these increase difficulty without being reflected in a change in CR, I would suggest using a script to remove the Epic DR and Epic Energy Resistance feats from all monster NPC blueprints and replace them with an appropriate (10%-30%) amount of the corresponding damage immunity (physical for DR)

[bsb5652]

I just programmatically removed epic dr feats over dr 5/- from all mobs, as well as anything higher than Epic Energy Imm 3 or higher. Changes have been pushed live!

[Aenain]

That should balance against the CRs a little. If I have time I'll go test some mobs.

[bsb5652]

I just did another pass removing DR 5/- to DR 9/- feats from mobs after KC pointed them out to me. There was at least 100 mobs that it hit. I am resnapping the creature catalog and will roll out the changes shortly.