Spirit Bar and Time Urgency

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I dunno. I just got the Spirit Bar not too long ago, so I don't have a really good feel for it yet, but at first glance it seems pretty lame.

When I originally heard the team was going to introduce some form of time urgency to the game, I was hoping for something much different; something more along the lines of: How long you take to do certain quests impacts the outcome and possible future quests.

For example in the OC the race to save Shandra after her abduction could have had something like that. Maybe you could actually rescue her before they got to that cave complex if you tried hard enough and didn't delay for too long along the way. Or if you took way too long something bad happens and makes the future much more difficult. They certainly made it seem urgent, but we all know you could have gone off and done something else for a while and nothing would have changed.

This Spirit Bar thingy where as time passes you get weaker and eventually die unless there's some spirits or undead around just seems really weak in comparison to something like that. Not only does it not really matter to the rest of the story, but I presume you don't get rid of it until the end of the game if at all, and so it might put a damper on just plain exploration for exploration's sake.

I would much rather have certain time critical events happening occasionally that directly impact the plot than to have this grindstone around my neck constantly pulling me down...

What do you think?

 

A poll over at NWVault has shown that the majority of the players dislike the spirit bar, though it has a substantial number of fans as well. I haven't played MotB yet, but to me it sounds like something which will annoy me very much, because I like to take a long time with every D&D game. I usually only play them once, so I want to check out every nook and cranny and do every quest in the first go. Being forced to rush through the game is the last thing I want.

I think I'll make good use of this: http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2Scripts.Detail&id=163

 

Yeah, I'm like that too. In fact, I recently found a really nice amulet in an inaccessible place in "normal" Mulsantir that was reachable through a shadow door from "shadow" Mulsantir. I'm guessing I wouldn't have found it after I got the Spirit Bar because I'm thinking I would be doing less wasting time poking around everywhere.

But again, maybe the Spirit Bar isn't going to be as bad as I think on first blush... We'll see.

I'll have to see what your link goes to later since those sites are blocked from work

 

"Spirit Eater cheat

For those people that absolutely hate the new spirit eater feature, this script is for you.

Changes the Satiate feat to refill your spirit meter without any penalty. Use once a day, at stage 3 hunger."

 

I like the idea of the Spirit Bar, and I like the abilities that come with it, but IMO, they shouldn't have made it so crucial (i.e. death if you don't plan right).

I could see some debilitation like your craving is so acute that you can't concentrate so are more vulnerable is some ways or whatever, but more and more severe debilitation and finally death just seems too extreme.

I suppose they did that to make the whole thing more important and less open to abuse, but they limited how many times per day they can be used and which abilities can't be used on the same day already.

At least the place seems filled with spirits and undead.

 

Couldn't you use the Eternal Rest feat to kill any undead instead of Devour Spirit? I did that to one of those Shadow of the Void creatures that came out of the furnace and got a special essence out of it too.

 

I generally don't have too much trouble with that as long as I uncheck the "Defend Master" part of the AI that's on by default. "Defend Master" causes all kinds of problems with NPCs doing what you tell them.

 

Yeah, I'm getting a feel for it now and Eternal Rest is the way to go IMO. Suppress is almost useless so far as I can tell because you can only use it once per day and it really doesn't give you that much spirit energy back (I used it after a rest when I knew I was going to be surrounded by spirits and Suppress didn't fill the bar all the way back up), and it prevents you from using Devour Spirit or Eternal Rest for the rest of that day. Very lame.

Oh, and you can get Eternal Rest as soon as you get the spirit bar (though it's not obvious if you hadn't already gone to where you have to get it).

 

Just finished Ashenwood, and I have to say the Spirit Bar isn't too bad with a little planning. I was afraid I was going to be in bad shape near the end because there are no undead and I was down to 65. I was able to use Suppress to get back to 80 just before the end and the very end brought me back to 100 with 0 craving. Not too bad.

 

Neutral Good would have been fine as long as you didn't use Suppress often (I have only used it twice so far and now that my craving is at 0, I probably won't use it again). You could have used Eternal Rest as often as you wanted and Devour Spirit once a day with out too much trouble.