Worst enemy

[Aegis]

Any enemies with player classes. Adventuring parties regularly kill off my promising characters while I'm going from dungeon to dungeon. Brotoq used to kill off a lot of my dwarves, until I realized I don't care about saving Norgan. Now I just leave him to die while running for the exit.

[belmarduk]

I feel like Dreadmasters are an example of what is just a bad monster overall. They're invisible, which is a really irritating feature considering how bad see invisible is at doing it's job, and they summon other invisible monsters. Both the dreadmaster and the dreads it summons are hard to hit, and all of them can confuse and put burning hex on you. Because they're invisible and hard to hit, I find that for non casters the only thing I can do is stairdance and let them kill themselves with burning hex splash. The XP and loot reward is practically nonexistant and dreadmasters are responsible for at least six of my deaths in dreadfell. It's just a really frustrating situation. In most cases - even ridiculous over the top bosses like subject Z and urkis - i can easily avoid death without having to cheese, but with the dreadmaster and dreads in general i feel like engaging them anywhere but a staircase is asking to die.

I think a better solution than simply making them visible, is to make see invisible a better stat that is more freely available. If it worked more frequently and consistently it would make the dreadmaster more of a fair fight.

[Frumple]

... none of the ghosts (this includes the dread line) are invisible anymore. They've all got innate stealth, which roughly means see invis does jack against them, but they're more likely to be seen without it. So far as I know, anyway. Given that I have no bleeding idea how stealth actually works, I couldn't say whether that change made it harder or easier to see them.

[darkgod]

Stealth can be seen throught without any +see stealth items/talents (but they help).
Base stealth see power is a function of your level and your cunning

[Final Master]

I feel like Dreadmasters are an example of what is just a bad monster overall. They're invisible, which is a really irritating feature considering how bad see invisible is at doing it's job, and they summon other invisible monsters. Both the dreadmaster and the dreads it summons are hard to hit, and all of them can confuse and put burning hex on you. Because they're invisible and hard to hit, I find that for non casters the only thing I can do is stairdance and let them kill themselves with burning hex splash. The XP and loot reward is practically nonexistant and dreadmasters are responsible for at least six of my deaths in dreadfell. It's just a really frustrating situation. In most cases - even ridiculous over the top bosses like subject Z and urkis - i can easily avoid death without having to cheese, but with the dreadmaster and dreads in general i feel like engaging them anywhere but a staircase is asking to die.

I think a better solution than simply making them visible, is to make see invisible a better stat that is more freely available. If it worked more frequently and consistently it would make the dreadmaster more of a fair fight.

This brings up a point I have been dying to make:

You don't have to fight/kill anything other than very particular bosses to win the game. Discretion and knowing what to fight and when is very important.

[greycat]

I wouldn't care how invisible or stealthy they are if I could ensure confusion immunity by the time I encounter them. Confusion and stun/freeze are what kill me.

[Grey]

Dreadmasters are pretty damned hard to run from though. If you get a pack on The Master's level then prepare for fun times.

Do they still come through the walls of vaults? That's what used to annoy me most - they'd be overleveled and you'd get a whole bunch on your tail at once.

[bricks]

Running away from an enemy that can see and move through walls? Heh, heh. Incidentally, isn't perma-stealth worse than perma-invis, in some respects? I thought stealthed targets were harder to hit. Chain confuse/dispel will shut down the rest of the classes, and the continuously refreshing pool of dreads ensures that you are constantly harrowed by swarms of unspottable somethings. It'd be nice if I could at least see the Dreadmaster so I could target the few attacks I eek out at it. I'd don't think there is anything I rely more on stair-dancing for to kill, not even the Weirdling Beast or the occasional random boss fighting with tactical nukes. Maybe the Unfinished Bone Giant. Bleh, I'm way too bitter about these things.

Just scanning through the code... It's funny that the description of a perma-stealthed monster states "It is a form that screams its presence against the eye."

[Tom]

Dreadmasters are pretty damned hard to run from though. If you get a pack on The Master's level then prepare for fun times.

Do they still come through the walls of vaults? That's what used to annoy me most - they'd be overleveled and you'd get a whole bunch on your tail at once.

I cleaned out a BAD vault with two of those Dreadmasters and Ruined Banshees.
Very hard but also a lot of fun.
No stair dancing, but a lot of teleporting. (The vault helps here as the teleport lands you safely)

If they had healing it would have been impossible, but after a long fight they die.
I used two rings + amulet with see invisible, but still they are not always seen.

Most annoying was not the Dreads, but the invisible doors and special door to the inner part of the Vault.
In there was two Lich, one of them a unique.
They did damage me a lot with cold, and I had no time to switch gear before I had to teleport out to escape with my life.
Now I fail to enter again.
Very very annoying and a LOT more annoying than the Dreads.
I never died from one of those with my rogue, but I must admit I never had them (as Ican remember) on lvl 9 of Dreadfell.

Tom

[Tirear]

Incidentally, isn't perma-stealth worse than perma-invis, in some respects? I thought stealthed targets were harder to hit.

Your attack score is severely penalized any time you cannot see your target. This is the same regardless of what talent prevents it (including blindness, but not line of sight issues).

[Hunter]

Incidentally, isn't perma-stealth worse than perma-invis, in some respects? I thought stealthed targets were harder to hit.

Your attack score is severely penalized any time you cannot see your target. This is the same regardless of what talent prevents it (including blindness, but not line of sight issues).

Does that apply to beam spells as well?

[lukep]

Does that apply to beam spells as well?

No, it only applies to physical attacks (eg, shoot, bump attacks, most fighter/archer/rogue talents)

[Hunter]

Does that apply to beam spells as well?

No, it only applies to physical attacks (eg, shoot, bump attacks, most fighter/archer/rogue talents)

Okay. I was thinking I wasn't hitting as often with my archmage's spells when blind, but it must have been simple paranoia.

[Dekar]

I encountered Dread Masters with my last Marauder too. My primary stats were STR and DEX and I still couldn't hit them reliable.
They and their entourage are really annoying as melee characters basically need hundreds of turns to kill them.
Not sure if they should be nerfed, but there are few other options to take care of them with melee chars I guess, especially if wands gets removed ( that's the plan, right? ).

[TomSawyer]

My level 10 archer just did the quest in Zigur, and while I had no issue killing all the stuff before meeting with a Dread, it just bores me to death that neither the Dread, nor I can kill each other, since I can keep running around regenerating, and so does the Dread.

I have fairly decent equipment I think (blue), 21 cunning, and some invis spotting/infravision/track talents too, but they don't seem to help in any fashion. Miss, miss, miss... for hundreds of turns.... it's just not my definition of fun.

Is there some kind of mod that gets rid of Dreads ? If not, would a kind soul give me some pointers as to how to mod them out, or at least make them less obnoxious ?

Thank you for any help provided.