More DDO info from Loki_D20 Demo experience.

[Noah EQ2]

Loki's second report on DDO at E3. This is the info he provided to us at DDO IRC today. There is a TON of info and it is random. Sorry for the crap format.


Loki_d20|E3> Today, I played a rogue in a party of four. We did the main dungeon quest for beta, we didn't succeed (but, we can now succeed knowing how exactly to do think). Level 10. The parties and dungeons you see us play in are for level 10 groups it seems. Okay, so, I locked picked the first door to the spectre room. I moved around a lot to help Eckelberry show the people watching about movemen, straffing, tumbling, jumping, etc

Loki_d20|E3> Skill check. You have a lock pick skill on your hotbar. You target the door, you get near it, you activate the skill, and it either fails or succeeds. Similar for traps. You get the DM flavor text. If you succeed, a box or other item appears that you will use to disable the trap. You then use your disable skill on the item that appears if you spot the trap and if you succeed, it's off. No setting traps to off for party and on for opponents.

Loki_d20|E3> Movement is fine. Tumbling is very easy and seems to be a further range if you have a higher skill.

mattllow> If you fail to pick the lock, can you try again?
Loki_d20|E3> Yes@Myth

Kale> have you yet succeeded in beating one of the demos in the time limit?...many people have reported its hard, because the bosses are challenging

Loki_d20|E3> In the spectre room we fought a while because noone knew what to do but myself so we didn't turn right away.Well, there's only one timed dungeon. It's that CR15 creature that I can never recall the name of. It heals itself, is extremely resilient, has a very high AC, and knows how to roll well for reflex saves.

Loki_d20|E3> So far, 5 groups have defeated it, but it was all people who did the dungeon multiple times or have watched others fail and had the Devs tell them how they should have defeated the creature.

Loki_d20|E3> The creature is intentially too tough to kill with party power. I did what I was suppose to do as a halfling rogue which is to run it through the traps. Only, it didn't work out because I couldn't keep it in the trap area since our healer couldn't heal me or didn't know to

Loki_d20|E3> We easily killed the drider. By the way, the group was a dwarven cleric, human sorceress or wizard (I forget), warforged fighter, and a halfling rogue (myself). We activated the floor blades. Using the floor puzzle we went down and continued to kill the left over creatures by maneuvering them into the whirling blades. No weapons swung so far except for with the drider

Crwth> Are they not smart enough to avoid them? After taking a hit or two?
Loki_d20|E3> No, they're not. They're undead and hellhounds, so perhaps they don't have the intellect required. They're also not too slow. I got two hellhounds and an undead with one blade though

Loki_d20|E3> When you group, the health bars of your party appear on the upper left under the mini-map. You can just target them this way. I found it somewhat annoying to be using my ranged weapon in certain situations when party members were in between my target. Why? Because you have to target the creature and press the left mouse button to attack each time. Sometimes my party members covered the targetting area of the creature, though.

mattllow> Were you able to use flanking to gain extra sneak attack damage?
Loki_d20|E3> My bow shot very fast. About one attack every 1.2 seconds. Against the Inevitable, even though I missed (as did everyone else), I got its attention quickly just because I was attacking it the most.

Kale> well, having party members interfere with ranged combat is reflected in the DnD rules
Loki_d20|E3> Yes, but it's covered up with a feat.

Loki_d20|E3> To do sneak attack damage, I used my Hide ability and then did a normal attack. Now, I didn't come out of Hide mode when I did this, so that tells me that I just wasn't able to do a sneak attack in this situation and that I would remain hidden. But, Eckelberry confirmed that you do sneak attack damage when striking from a hidden position

Loki_d20|E3> There is bluff. You do a critical strike following its use. I only had Hide, not Move Silently. When I was in Hide mode, it just crouched me down. This may be because I was not in a situation where I could actually hide since every situation that I used it in, the creatures saw me prior to me being in Hide mode or it just wasn't implemented. I'll try to test this some more tomorrow.

Loki_d20|E3> Okay, aggro management. The intimidate ability worked very well. When we first went after the Inevitable, I went in and pulled it out past the traps. It stuck to me until the fighter intimidated it. Now, we really couldn't hit the Inevitable (no one rolled a twenty at all) But, it seems to follow based on attacks made against it or heals done to the party. One group that was taking out the hill giants (we skipped this portion of the game today), had a cleric flamestrike from range. The group members in front of him stopped two of them, but the other pressed on towards him but died before reaching him. Intimidate seemed to have a short range. Nothing more. No melee attack. It's a skill. I didn't have time to ask if it would be used in NPC text option choices or other areas.

Kale> CHA based?
Loki_d20|E3> Nothing has changed from the rules. (Edit: Yes, it is Cha based)

Hobble> Does Medium/Heavy armour slow you down? Were you moving quicker than the Fighter?
Loki_d20|E3> I couldn't tell any difference in the movement speeds but I really wasn't able to really compare it since our dwarf cleric didn't move much and otherwise we seemed to move about the same.

Loki_d20|E3> Question *If you get a chance to notice, Do you seem to be doing damage and taking damage by the book? IE d4, d6, d8* It seemed appropriate for level 10 for the most part. It seemed that some traps were really upped in damage and difficulty to support the concept of using a rogue to bypass them and to use them to kill the Inevitable.

Loki_d20|E3> Question *Did anything not look right, or not feel right? * The trap compartment that appears when you find a trap seems somewhat weird. But, I guess it works okay.

mattllow> when a mob takes significant damage does it register in their fighting tactics and animation? or do they fight full strenth and healthy till htey drop?
Loki_d20|E3> Healthy till they drop.

Loki_d20|E3> Oh, one thing about higher level content. Most of the dungeons will be designed like multi-level dungeons. Where the overall objective to complete some quest at the 8th level in a dungeon is what you want to do, it doesn't mean that you'll have to do all the levels at once (but you can). Each level is like a subsection of the dungeon and once you've completed it, that's done. So, this is how they're breaking up epic-like content.

Kale> did you detect and discernable difference in attack speeds with different weapons?
Loki_d20|E3> Yes. The fighter's mace was much slower than with the sword. Also, the rogue attacked much faster overall with ranged and melee attacks since she was using small weapons only. But, the mace did a lot more damage to the undead. And, swapping them out can be hotkeyed to the hotbar.

Kale> how was charcater death handled...what heppened when you died?
Loki_d20|E3> You are told you died, asked if you want to respawn. If yes, you reappear in the Stormreach barrio you start out in. You can then go and try to complete the quest again. I asked about if there would be quests that you can only attempt at once. No answer to that right now. Currently, death penalty is item damage and experience loss. Item wear happens from item use and death. No answer on if sundering would be in game or not.

mattllow> Did your party all get to loot the chest? Do you recall what each of you got from it?
Loki_d20|E3> I didn't do that part of the dungeon as a group. The group that was doing seemed to all get to loot the chest. Ah, one thing. The leader of the party gets the quests for the group.




He gives us a good look at some mechanics of fighting. It seems they have put some good effort forth to keep true to 3.5 D&D. At the moment, the game seems pretty fast pace for a group and positioning can/will play a part of success.

Best thing I read was the fact that NPCs can be killed by traps that are activated by a part member. Using some tactics to get these mobs over the traps can help your part a ton.

-Thanks Loki for the info (he works for http://dndvault.ign.com/ ) and Kale the admin for ddo irc.

[Noah EQ2]

There is this also .. some sshots and info from devs

http://www.ddo.com/index.php?page_id=66&pagebuilder[module]=article&pagebuilder[display_item]=59

[Jooka]

the more I read the more i want to play, hopin I get a spot in beta for sure.

[Noah EQ2]

Originally posted by Jooka
the more I read the more i want to play, hopin I get a spot in beta for sure.

Seems to be the common reaction people are giving...

[Algol Devilstar]

is there a video somewhere? I dont like to get my hopes up until I see it in play...

[Metranon]

Best thing I read was the fact that NPCs can be killed by traps that are activated by a part member. Using some tactics to get these mobs over the traps can help your part a ton.

this sounds good, yes, but it's a double edged sword

Don't want to see things like this overused, and mob AI needs to be good enough to take it into account. Having a Dm that plays monsters accurately according to their intelligence is an integral part of what makes d&d encounters exciting.

overall seems like a good review so far.

[Algol Devilstar]

nm I see that link is a small movie, good character animation from what I saw - very cool!

[Noah EQ2]

Originally posted by Metranon
this sounds good, yes, but it's a double edged sword

Don't want to see things like this overused, and mob AI needs to be good enough to take it into account. Having a Dm that plays monsters accurately according to their intelligence is an integral part of what makes d&d encounters exciting.

overall seems like a good review so far.

Devs mentioned mobs have an "intelligence" to this sort of stuff (traps etc). More intelligent mobs will avoid the traps or not come while you try to put them in it. Simple mobs like in the demo do not have the "int" to not follow.

This is no 100% confirmed thou.

[Ham n Cheese]

I really hope I get into beta.

[findar]

man i can already tell id spend hours running stuff into traps.

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by Noah EQ2
Loki_d20|E3> Okay, aggro management. The intimidate ability worked very well. When we first went after the Inevitable, I went in and pulled it out past the traps. It stuck to me until the fighter intimidated it.

Huh? A construct got intimidated?

[Ronne]

Aren't the inevitable the sentient constructs though?

[Elgonn]

Sentient constructs are still immune to mind-affecting, fear, morale, etc...

Of course the actual game doesn't have a 'taunt' effect so who knows what they are doing. But the description sounds like a Marut (except the lack of spellcasting). The virtual tank.

MM: "When a marut has identified its target, it walks surely and implacably toward the foe, never resting."

Just seems odd to me especially since it would be quite hard to Intimidate a Marut considering its hit dice, wisdom, size, etc..

[Renbeny]

Constructs are immune to fear and mind effects due to having no mind, reflected in their lack of an intelligence score. Inevitables, on the other hand, are aware. I've actually had this come up in a campaign. It's the infamous "DM's choice".

The players enjoyed it. I allowed their fear spell, and they were amused by the Inevitables reaction, since he experienced the effect but had absolutely no clue what was happening to him, having no understanding of what fear was.

[Elgonn]

Originally posted by Renbeny
Constructs are immune to fear and mind effects due to having no mind, reflected in their lack of an intelligence score. Inevitables, on the other hand, are aware.

Although that isn't how it works in d20. They have the type of construct gaining X features. There is no intelligent construct subtype to remove some of them or a specific clause in the creature description.

3.5 SRD Types, Subtypes, and Special Abilities
Construct Type: A construct is an animated object or artificially constructed creature.
Features: A construct has the following features.
—10-sided Hit Dice.
—Base attack bonus equal to 3/4 total Hit Dice (as cleric).
—No good saving throws.
—Skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die, with quadruple skill points for the first Hit Die, if the construct has an Intelligence score. However, most constructs are mindless and gain no skill points or feats.
Traits: A construct possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).
—No Constitution score.
—Low-light vision.
—Darkvision out to 60 feet.
—Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
—Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, stunning, disease , death effects, and necromancy effects.
—Cannot heal damage on their own, but often can be repaired by exposing them to a certain kind of effect (see the creature’s description for details) or through the use of the Craft Construct feat. A construct with the fast healing special quality still benefits from that quality.
—Not subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, fatigue, exhaustion, or energy drain.
—Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects, or is harmless).
—Not at risk of death from massive damage. Immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or less.
—Since it was never alive, a construct cannot be raised or resurrected.
—Because its body is a mass of unliving matter, a construct is hard to destroy. It gains bonus hit points based on size, as shown on the following table.
Construct Size Bonus Hit Points Construct Size Bonus Hit Points
Fine — Large 30
Diminutive — Huge 40
Tiny — Gargantuan 60
Small 10 Colossal 80
Medium 20
—Proficient with its natural weapons only, unless generally humanoid in form, in which case proficient with any weapon mentioned in its entry.
—Proficient with no armor.
—Constructs do not eat, sleep, or breathe.