Desert Mines

Any way you could be more specific about LOS and pathing issues? The area's made out of nothing but tiles so if there are problems with that the fix might not be easy.

What happens is the beetles spawn in groups at each spawn point.  Initially there is a delay for the spawn(s) of a second or two, once you hit the triggers. The spawn points, however, do obstruct movement for a small spot around the trigger point. It may be that a bunch of beetles all spawn at that single point [on top of each other] but are undetectable for a few seconds, as a guess.

Then beetle packs (4 beetles or so in each group, when solo...never been with a party) become visible and depending on the distance to you, they either run directly at you or will attempt to "burrow" to you - much the same  mechanism as the Beggar's Cross Beetle Cave, except they don't burrow when damaged but instead burrow to travel to you and outflank or surround you.

When the beetles spawn, it can be possible to be locked in position by getting surrounded and blocked in. Especially if you stay in the middle of the spawn point. Most often WSAD can jiggle you around enough to prevent it, but sometimes not. Best is to get back from the trigger when you sense it. If on a bridge, the beetles can burrow behind you.

There is one spawn trigger just past the entrance and the campfire area has 3 spawn triggers, I think.  So they probably triggered a spawn of 4 beetle groups, which is suicide if standing in the open. 

I often wondered how these dynamics would play out for a party and it reads like it probably is a bit too much. The beetles bite hard and hit on die roll 2 for my particular mismatch of heavy armor, but blocking one at a time is potentially possible as is out-damaging one on one. When surrounded by multiple beetles, though, they will quickly suck the life from you, even with block.  Well, there are grenades...but in a surrounded party this might kill the party faster than the beetles.


Re:  Loot.   Varies from 0-3(?) metal nodes.  Never any general loot.

And while I think of it:  The firepit is really really hard to trigger.  You effectively need to be standing almost exactly on it's grid point for it to activate, once all the mobs in the proximity are dead.

Edit:  There are also Bestiary entries for the occupants of this mine, but even with an entry, they are still very dangerous.  Bestiary culling was my personal motivation for going in this mine.

So yeah, these guys still really suck. I'll try to be comprehensive but the others will likely add their own .02.

Party: Kitara, Doc, Sarah, Allison

What: Well, we got mauled. Twice. Some observations.

1: Scarabs attack you before they 'erupt' and can be targeted. Allison was whacked twice before finally being able to see one. Being they are doing a good 20-30 damage a hit, that doesn't leave a lot of time. It seems to guarantee you being flat footed, and pretty much guarantees that there is no way to not be flanked. I imagine to some degree that is the design of the dungeon.

2: A party of four spawned 10-14 scarabs (it's hard to get a count with how many). Considering the amount of damage they do per hit (my log doesn't show them hitting for less than 25-30), the amount of tox build up per hit, and the fact they have three attacks (+11/+6/+1), and the fact more of them pop up after you kill one, this really ensures groups will get wrecked.

3: The walkmesh in places is a bit wiggy. Sarah had trouble trying to navigate through and past the scarabs on parts of the second floor after we were all taken down.

4: Beetles just kind of sit there and continue whacking at you even after you're KOed. I don't know if this is deliberate or not. I will say at times it was one of few things that let some of us almost escape.

I imagine a lot of the above (in particular the 'always likely to get swarmed') part is dungeon design. However, it doesn't seem especially survivable at present.

Suggestions: Drop the number of attacks, drop the damage per hit a bit, and perhaps drop the the number of 'revenge spawns'. Dropping how much tox builds up per hit might be a good idea too considering the number of times PCs will get hit (though watching puking corpses is kind of funny).

Who: Kitara, Sarah, James, Allison

1: The scarabs still have a tendency of attacking you a couple times before erupting from the ground, making it impossible to target them while taking a few not exactly light lights.

2: The second spawn of beetles still seems awful high. With a party of 4, it seemed like we were getting over 8 (as in, more than twice our party size worth) of them. To top it off, since they tend to spawn in on the person who last killed one, if the party is spread out, they will often show on weird places like bridges and whatnot where it is easy to get stuck due to walkmesh issues. I might suggest making a range where beetles might appear so they don't just simply pop in 50ft away. I get that's kind of the point, but considering the numbers a party has to deal with on one 'group' it seems excessive.

In the starting room of the mines, just before the stairs down, the campfire in the large room cannot be interacted with unless you are virtually on top of it.

The first time I didn’t fight the beetles in the main room (I retreated to the wooden bridge to minimise their numbers advantage), and they can be normally targeted.

When I was passing through on the way back though, I noticed that the beetles that spawned in the room while I was in it had the black silhouette as if they were out of LoS.

Forgot to mention this, but despite the area being quite dark, it appears to use broad daylight stealth modifiers.