As you're probably aware, the old Dragon Tower is no more. No longer will a bunch of different dragons with wildly different preferred environments dwell together frat-house-like, playing pranks on the dean who yells 'Dragon house!' in anger. Probably details about the tiny bit of questiness and echoes involved will be posted here soon; this post is to talk about some of the mechanics of this.

A ruined dragon tower stands in place of the dragon tower of old.

Additionally, Tiamat and the five ancient dragons have each established lairs of their own, scattered throughout Thera. Each of these is a very small area explore.

In a sense this is an experiment in a different kind of exploration challenge; there's little special knowledge to find or puzzles to figure out, beyond discovering the lair locations themselves, and I imagine they'll all be reasonably well known soon as word gets around. What they are, however, is a much bigger challenge with much smarter dragons than you've encountered in the past. Along these lines, the rewards are much higher as well. In terms of pure hp/dam/etc. stats, the dragons haven't gotten a lot tougher and Tiamat specifically actually got powered down significantly, but... well, you'll just have to see.

I strongly recommend you take on most or all of the Ancient Five before trying to tackle the new Tiamat. Consider it a friendly piece of advice.


Some thing else of interest debuting here is the concept of area clustering. If you use the where command in the area the green lair attaches to (for example), you can see PCs in the green lair, and vice versa. Currently, this is only for the no-arguments where command only -- it doesn't change how call lightning, stalk, swimto, etc. work. Currently, this is only being used on the six lairs. We'll be keeping an eye on how this works out and consider expanding it somewhat to reduce the size of the world as far as looking for enemies. We're still discussing the best way to handle the other factors around this.

I just realized I forgot to add one key thing I wrote probably a year ago to each of the six lairs.

One more fun(?) surprise coming NCR.

Whats the minimum number of players you think it takes to defeat this bitch?


Side note: Can I have questform Tiamat for my next shapeshifter?

CraftedDeception

I'd say 5 or 6, but I'm sure at some point a smaller group will manage it.

I pick that number just because I've seen some groups of about that size make good runs at it but make one or two big mistakes. If not for those mistakes I think they'd have made it.

Just thought I'd re-call attention to this:

I strongly recommend you take on most or all of the Ancient
Five before trying to tackle the new Tiamat. Consider it a
friendly piece of advice.

That's exactly what I thought to myself when I saw the log on Dio's. I bet it would have gone differently had they done the right thing.

The dragons themselves seem tougher since I used to chop through them like they were cake and well now they beat the piss out of me even when I am not the direct tank. I feel their dam redux has gone up.

Pretend there are no preps in the game, for a minute.

If you fought a PC once, then fought them again an hour later and they were taking visibly less damage, what would you assume?

that they invented preps

That they learned a resistance to my weapon?

n/t

Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man.

.

Pretend there are no preps in the game, for a minute.

If you fought a PC once, then fought them again an hour later and they were taking visibly less damage, what would you assume?


I'd first check to see if my weapon of choice had changed. Or, if anything in general had changed with my character.

If that's not the issue, I'd say "protection" of some kind had been cast...but that seems contradictory to your first sentence.

All else failing, I'd say there is some kind of "learning ability," such as StSF, where the dragon is basically adapting to you, and this is represented in dam redux.


Hitting any marks there?

>If that's not the issue, I'd say "protection" of some kind had
>been cast...but that seems contradictory to your first
>sentence.

Well, not exactly. The dragons aren't chugging potions or anything, but sometimes there just happen to be invokers or healers or the like standing right next to them.

happy hunting(running).

Sounds good for the game but my current mage's wand was in that old tower.

...when other areas changed, the wand stayed in the same area. But this one didn't

If you've explored that area at all. Especially if it stayed on the same mob. Yeowch.

I'd be pissed if I was one of the individuals that affected though (especially those that don't cheat). Searching everywhere in Thera looking for your wand. Finally finding it, then having to start all over? Lame.

General dragon mythos always had red dragons and fire, white and cold, and I can't remember if green, black, or both those dragons liked swamps...or what terrain blue dragons liked. Always seemed like blue dragons in stories chilled on some cliff near open plains or desert.

Anyways, can we make reasonable assumptions based on their favored terrain?

nt

A little more detail for anyone who didn't grow up with D&D or any of the billion things inspired by their conception of chromatic dragons:

Red Lair: Reds like hot places; this is one of the trickiest lairs to find, probably, because the obvious choice is volcanic Mount Kiadana-Rah and we did not go in that direction because it's already quite full of crimson dragons. However, I can safely say there's magma in the Red Lair and that hopefully narrows it down a bit.

White Lair: It's somewhere cold. (To the best of my knowledge, this is the only lair found so far.)

Green Lair: It's in a forest.

Blue Lair: It's in a desert.

Black Lair: It's in a swamp.

Tiamat: She used to be on top of the Dragon Tower, and she's still in a high-up place.

Some of the entrances to the lairs are not obvious.

Happy hunting!

If you make an area that's extremely dangerous, and impossible to enter as a ghost (to go collect your ####), and you'd never be able to retrieve while naked.. make it explore.

Waiting at the pit, hoping and praying that you notice your #### return before anyone else (and before your naked ass gets PKed) is NOT what I would call fun.

To try and keep it balanced right. Please be patient!

If you are exploring the area well below the advertised levels, you're not expected to last long.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

I'd have to ask what it takes for an area to be considered an "area explore". I've looked through a pretty decent amount of the new tower, and I can't believe that it's missing something on the checklist that all the rest of the explore areas have.

This is the same reason the Octogonal tower was made area explore.

You simply cannot get back to it for your corpse.

The dragon tower is worse, because you can teleport into it. This means if you teleport there, you have to wait at the pit no matter what. That's just crazy.

It also makes exploring there a far, far bigger risk than I think anyone wants to take. Gear is IMPORTANT, and difficult for some classes to get alone (if at all, comfort that evil conjurer buddy of yours).

Easy way to know when you #### will return. It usually comes back about the same time you start scratching yourself from hunger and thirst. Some of the most powerful info in the game!

'

To RP the tower's destruction. Or is it supposed to encourage people to find the new lairs?

Yes and yes. Mostly I just thought it would be kind of cool to run a little quest and have some flashy echoes.



Merelda Dragonsbane stands before the entrance of the Dragon Tower, spell book open. She gazes up at it, righteous determination blazing in her eyes.

Her comrades Joharion, Sefnovan, and Leeya enter the first floor of the tower, using their magics to sneak past the draconians.

Merelda raises her voice in a spell, the whispers of which can be heard echoed by her fellow mages as they take their places. The walls of the Tower begin to shake.

Emende Dragonsbane stands at the entrance to the Draconian Archmage’s study, watching him sacrifice the children of his people to fuel an unthinkable evil.

“Our deal, then, is sealed. You’ve tapped the essences of all your draconian, and given me half their power. I’ll guard my Elders and guide them to their new resting places. You will have what you wanted. Power,” she states.

A flaring white light begins to grow at the base of the Tower and the walls shake more dramatically.

The Draconian Archmage puts the final touches on a pentagram drawn in the blood of his people, snarling as Merelda’s spell begins to wash over him.

Emende looks up, startled by the spell’s power and the swiftness with which it is affecting this place. She hisses in anger and turns, running from the Tower.

She stops at the edge of the clearly, turning and casting one last desperate spell. She falls to her knees with a roar.

The top of the tower bursts out in an explosion, raining chunks of rock to the ground below. Bloodied and broken, Tiamat’s gigantic form can be seen flying through the opening, heading south.

Merelda screams with rage Tiamat escapes, her entire focus on the sky as her twin sister creeps up behind her and stabs her in the back.

As she crumples the spell begins to unravel. You see the forms of White, Red, Green, Black, and Blue dragons escaping from the top of the Tower, each one’s bloodied form taking flight in a different direction.

will there be any rewards given out for those who participated in the questiness? This is the first global quest I've been involved in since conjurers went in (so very long ago), which predated imm xp, edge points, etc...