Tulimshar overall story/balance
There are a few balance and lore-related issues with the area:
Balance
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One of the quests wants you to get 13 raw logs from desert log heads. Since raw logs are a rare-ish drop, this is way too grindy in my opinion. This should be 3 at maximum, especially because desert log heads are in the vicinity of aggressive, strong monsters such as black scorpions and snakes. One can also farm croconut trees, but even this method will take hours, all for a wooden sword. -
The daily guard quests take a bit too long, too. Killing e.g 80 cave maggots will take some time, especially because you need to wait for them to respawn. I discussed this with Xanthem and I was told that using a bot while at the computer is allowed, but it is unreasonable to expect casual players to setup a bot. The amount of monsters should be lowered significantly, especially because the player will be around level 20 when encountering these quests. They will be new to the game and are not interested in an hour of mindless grinding, all for less than 200 GP. -
The monster hunters maggot killing quest wants you to kill 10000 maggots. As said above, the player will be at a low level and seeing such a number is extremely discouraging. The steps should be significantly slower, with some sort of backstory perhaps: - "The sewers have attracted an ungodly amount of maggots and we need to get rid of them before they harm our food stores! Kill 100 of them to prove that you are capable."
- Maggots are very easily to kill and exist in abundance in the city, so getting 100 in total without any time limit is reasonable. This can then be expanded to 500 (400 more), 1000 and even more. Reward the player with something at each step.
Lore
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All NPCs have pale skin. I heard this is a technical issue since there is only one sprite, but it is not immersive. Since this is a desert city, most NPCs should have dark skin (Tonoori). -
The lieutinant wants you to spend a significant amount of money (17x20 GP) getting water from a public well and give it to the guards. -
These guards are wearing heavy platemail in the desert. They need some other armor as wearing platemail in the desert is not really possible. - My research says the higher-ups may have worn scale mail, but leather straps and some chainmail parts were very common.
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Armor is heavy and you get hot in it very quickly. Perhaps just have a few on-duty guards wearing armor while the other ones wear something lighter? The amount of guards wearing heavier armor can be increased when they are on high-alert (suspect a siege may start soon, saw some suspicious activity etc).
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The answer why the water is so expensive for the player may be corruption or some sort of outsider tax. On the other hand hydration is crucial in a desert. -
There is also exactly one working well. The other one near the south exit only gives you sewer water. -
Perhaps distinguish normal water from Tonoori water?
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The Hasan quest, which is funny and 4th wall breaking, has some flaws. If there are repeated complaints from a lot of people, why isnt any guard or the alliance caring? -
The answer may be corruption here or that there are bigger problems than a pickpocket. The Monster King is on the loose after all.
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When the Monster King is looting, exactly none of the NPCs care. The guards do not even try to stop him, but the problems with him should probably go into another issue because some guy in a plaid shirt shouting "GIMME GIMME GIMME" is simply not evil enough. - What are the people in Tulimshar even living of? They surely can not slurp cactus drinks, cocktails and more.
- The fields outside the city contain cacti.
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Cacti fruit (prickly pears) may be a snack and the flowers of the cacti could be made into dyes (already the case) and maybe also tea? -
Some cacti in real life are edible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cactus#Uses -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_farming, the small lake inside the city walls appears to not be saltwater and could be used with e.g aqueducts so fields do not have to be in the city. -
Fishing is probably very important there. Including hunting for Crocs. -
Do they have any livestock? There are many ducks there so it is possible that a herd is somewhere.