I've done some dumb things in my day. God knows I make idiotic mistakes, and I am frequently wrong about #### I am positive I am right about.

Today all my previous frustrations in CF were surpassed by the fight with the kuo-toa king.

Lets break down why I think this fight has problems, and how I think it could be made better.

1) A shield that snatches noremove weapons. I certainly cannot come up with a reasonable excuse why there is one item in cf that can strip my noremove weapon from me. I mean through my +20 whatever strength I am gripping it with. Break it, fine I can accept. Snatching it out of my hands when the creator of the weapon itself did not intend for it to ever be removed is just...illogical?
How about it not stripping noremove weapons?

2) Calling priestesses. How about we put a limit on how many of these this fellow can call. Isn't thirteen mobs a bit high for one king to call? Could we cap it at say...two times the number of characters in the area at that time?

3) Dispelling nearly everything, nearly every round. How about we tone down the frequency of the mprog by about 20 points. If its currently doing the dispel every other round, how about 1/4 rounds. Or tone down the level he casts at. Even then it is still nasty.

4) Risk vs. Reward. I certainly realize that the reason this mob is so hard is because he has not one, not two, but three BADASS items. Maybe we can split these items up on three seperate, but also badass mobs to balance all of this out.

Something has to give. When a group with three paladins, an invoker, warrior and a transmuter get smoked by a single mob and then come up with the belief that doing it as ghosts is easier, something is wrong! From what I hear, the mob in the Inferno with swordmaster gauntlets is now easier then the king. Is that the intended affect? Or do you want players to have to spend hours RL fighting a mob for a piece of gear anyone can loot if we happen to die? To me this type of battle is nothing more then a massive time-sink. Wouldn't you rather we were out pking?

And no, I did not die to the mob. Honestly, I'd love to see a realistic response to this post. Beyond a smug "You aren't doing it right". Ill be anxiously awaiting the possibility I get to see just that. Thanks for reading.

Noremove != nodisarm. I'm guessing his shield can't snatch nodisarm weapons.

I've killed him exactly once, and it was with a maran shield paladin, healer and transmuter. We didn't do the full monty and go for the "third piece of badass gear", so I can't speak to how hard that might be. I just kept forging new weapons to replace the ones he snatched. Also, I think I was the only one to actually fight him, and we made copious use of healing sleep. Also, non-dispellable water breathing.

Defiance in general pisses me off.

I as a paladin player never get it, because its so gear-whorish to ask 5 people to come assist you get a weapon...etc. Its just lame that, the better a paladin you play, the less likely you are to ever actually get this. Frankly, I roll my eyes every time I hear some gear-whore and their buddies going to get it. I don't utilize my cabal-mates for that, and I don't get why its so widely accepted. If anything it should maybe be some sort of quest thing, or whatever. I will never have this weapon because any paladin I play won't value armor enough to risk other people's lives over it and that kinda irks me.

I've thought about making it so you can't wield Defiance if anyone but you has ever gotten killed trying to get it for you.

I've seen 3-4 different paladins go and get it themselves (successfully), and to me, that's probably the most RP-appropriate way to handle it in most cases. Risk your own life, absolutely, but other people's...

As a total aside, there's a very easy way to get it (this one's small group, not solo) that doesn't involve anything that could be remotely called special knowledge or bug exploitation that I'm a little surprised I haven't seen anyone do yet.

Unfortunately, I will never figure out what you mean, or how to get it solo without attaining other items first or doing the ghost thing.

Woe is me.

I would be willing to bet in involved a warrior.

Impale/artery then wait around until he bleeds to death? Maybe have a transmuter quicken him to exacerbate the bleeding?

Advanced lock pick?

I disagree with you. The main reason why people think gathering good gear is greedy, or gear whorish or whatever, is usually for ooc reasons. The PLAYER wants Defiance (or any other piece of nasty gear) for selfish reasons. He wants to be more powerfull. But imagine it from a charachter's point of view. They want good gear to kick their enemy's ass. For an evil charachter, he obviously wants shiny things for selfish power, but a for many cf goodies, their duty is to eradicate evil. A maran has sworn to wage a war against darkness. 'Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country' from movie General Patton (1970). Now, if you are waging a war, you want to win it. And winning fights in cf require gear. In fact, I am way more peeved by the people who disregard gear and personal safety, and think that is a way a goodie should be played, than the people who are obsessed in gathering a fat set. The most lethal soldier is one that is well armed, and kicking ass. If the marans who go there to get Defiance readily agree to accompany the paladin so that the team (Golden Aura) could wield this mighty weapon of evil asskickerness, and die doing it, *shrug* casualties of war. No different than these dudes dying to imperials or dying to scions. They are promoting their cause and die doing it.

My two cents

As a paladin, should you be willing to sacrifice your friends and allies to obtain a sword with which you can eradicate evil? Some probably have the rp to justify it, but all of them?

'As a paladin, should you be willing to sacrifice your friends and allies to obtain a sword with which you can eradicate evil? Some probably have the rp to justify it, but all of them?'

Just saying, it's a matter of perspective. There is also a difference between sacrificing friends, and putting friends in danger. There's also a distinct difference between 'dragging unknowing friends into death', and 'having your friends who acknowledge the risk willingly help you with a difficult and dangerous, but well rewarding (from the pov of team (Golden Aura)) task'. People in cf die all the time. Is a paladin poorly roleplayed if he drags a group to a too hard ranking area and they die? What about dragging friends into bad odds retrieve? I'm just saying, if the sword is good enough that all the players are willing to risk 1/3 con to get it, why would the charachters not be? I'd like to emphasize that the CHARACHTERS have to be aware of the difference defiance makes. There have been legandary magic swords all throughout fantasy literature, and the goodie side has faced many perils to grab that fat piece of equipment, to slay the nasty dragon or whatever. The only difference is that in fantasy literature team goodie usually wins, unlike in CF, where team goodie makes a habbit of loosing 1/3 con for every charachter participating in the task at hand.

I'm not saying that every paladin should be ready to endanger his friends, even if they willingly wanted to go. Taking it to the other extreme, however. Consider that someone deliberately geared up poorly (not using all the good gear available to him). One view could be that he is a piss poor maran. He's supposed to kill evil, and by poor armor, he weakens himself, thus helping evil. The problem here is that we always evaluate good eq in terms of how we, the players see it, not how our charachters would see it.

P.S. The author of the above text has never played a paladin, and has never been on a Defiance trip. The author of the above text has however been on the recieving end of Defiance asskickery several times. The sword is a general bitch.

And if half the paladins who went after defiance had some such logic or entries in their role, I'd applaud them. Sadly it is sometimes more along the lines of "help me get some phat lewt, biyotch"

Let me also add that Defiance isn't just a sword. If you read the description on it. The sword appears to be imbued with the soul of a fallen paladin. I argued once that retrieving a captured soul from the grasp of evil is a worthy cause.

'Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country' from movie General Patton (1970).

Thats just not how I view paladins I guess. I don't think you should spam kill yourself or go crazy, but *not gathering defiance* is hardly a big thing to ask.

I've seen a bunch of groups try to fight said king recently. They're all making a common mistake. It's a mistake I don't think they would make if they were approaching him fresh; rather, it's one they make because they "know" the "right" way to do it from before, and that's no longer the right way.

The only thing that's changed is that one loophole was closed. Methods that didn't rely on that loophole still work.

That's vague, but take it for what it is.

We all attacked it last time and got smoked worse than trying it the way we'd been killing it before.

In my experience, when nep writes something, look at the oldest d and d book you can find for a definition. I haven't fought the king in a long time, but I know from my 1st edition monster manual how the Kuo Toa work, and what all the priests are for and kinda how they work.

On that note, the little bastards once took me from 1015 to 7 in one shot.

Yeah, I lived, praises to the stump.