Rant- The "balance" of casters

[Sakes]

The problem is that the NWN spell mechanics, while just fine for a single player campaign, are terrible for online play or PWs.

A single roll to determine the outcome of a fight is not a fun game mechanic for either of the two parties involved.  Random chance is a part of games, but only when the result of each individual roll is small, and whoever gets the most rolls in their favor has an advantage not an all-out victory.  By allowing random chance to give one person or the other and advantage you ensure that in a battle between two characters of near equal abilities played by players or near equal abilities anything can happen, but when there is a distinct gap between the two characters or players, random chance alone is not enough to determine the victor, or at the very least it would take monumental odds to overcome the difference.

The NWN combat system in terms of spells and saves is all-or-nothing, black-and-white, system.  You either land the spell or you don't, they die or they don't.  Your either immune to death spells or your going to die to anyone throwing them.  Thats it.   no compromises and no middle ground.  

Because of this, spell DCs are always going to be hotly contested.  

Mages will always say that with the proper gear a warrior can outfit themselves to negate any chance of failure, therefore mages are weak and underpowered.  


Warriors will always say that not all warriors are lucky enough to have ideal equipment, aren't always forewarned of the fact that a death spell is incoming, equipping all save gear is a serious determent to other abilities, and that almost any chance of failure is death because nothing spots the mage from spamming death spells over and over until they land.  

Both are right.   Both are wrong.   My best advice is to keep in mind we're here to RP.  If your looking for balanced combat and a well designed PvP system I'm afraid you've picked up the wrong game.

I don't think anything further is going to be gained by rehashing the same old arguments.  For myself, I think things are fine the way they are, if Clerics have survived 5 years without wisdom rings I think they'll survive a bit longer.

[void incarnate]

Because of this, spell DCs are always going to be hotly contested.  

Mages will always say that with the proper gear a warrior can outfit themselves to negate any chance of failure, therefore mages are weak and underpowered.

There's a reason this is being contested. Spellcasters on the server are neutered by lack of items that improve DC. The quip about clerics surviving 5 years doesn't hold much water when you look at the reason people are playing clerics; this is seen as an RP server, hence the strange class combinations. Clerics didn't have to "survive" anything accept diminished player interest, the same as any other class, and of the casters they're the best equipped to survive period against in-game adversity.

I hardly think this is a case of "both are right and both are wrong". If this issue is rated low in the importance scale because other projects are on the table, that's cool, but to blow this off as though things are "fine as is" given the new loot tables that support virtually all but casters?


-Void

[BraliusMelchior]

I don't see the "all but spellcasters" supported from the loot tables. I pick up tons of scrolls and wands ALL the time, every time I go somewhere. Things that if put to use would save your castings per day enough to allow you to go for long periods without rest and still effectively contribute in a party.

That and just yesterday, I ran across 1 nice set of mage robes, 1 decent set of mage robes, 3 mage-specific rings, and some INT boosting gear that I don't remember the exact specifics on.

I know this is a little off-topic, but I have to pose the question: With the new loot table, has there been some sort of scripting added that improves the drops to fit with which classes are in your party? I only ask because I get so many bard-specific items when I play my bard, yesterday I was in a party with 2 wizards and we got a lot of mage-like stuff, etc... -- Also, if there is, how does it handle multiclasses??

Anyway, sorry about that, just was on my mind.

As for the balance of casters. The only thing that's annoyed me is when monsters are immune or strong to certain spells and it just doesn't make sense. There have been times I remembered when I tried casting several types of spells on one type of monster, only to find out that this simple barbarian-like monster had the saves of a mid-level monk. It's just disappointing when you're trying to use a variety of spells for different strategies, only to find out that save-less spells are not just the last resort - but the only way you can go.

The next time I find some monsters that are set up like that, I'll be sure to mark down what they are/where they are - so I can provide an example. I haven't played a mage in so long though, that I honestly can't remember where I had those issues.

I gave my thoughts on PvP in Hald's thread.

[Shanra]

As far as I know (though I'm not the one who did the loot system) that no, its not specific to the classes in your party.  That you found that stuff may have just been coincidence.

[Sakes]

Because of this, spell DCs are always going to be hotly contested.  

Mages will always say that with the proper gear a warrior can outfit themselves to negate any chance of failure, therefore mages are weak and underpowered.

There's a reason this is being contested. Spellcasters on the server are neutered by lack of items that improve DC. The quip about clerics surviving 5 years doesn't hold much water when you look at the reason people are playing clerics; this is seen as an RP server, hence the strange class combinations. Clerics didn't have to "survive" anything accept diminished player interest, the same as any other class, and of the casters they're the best equipped to survive period against in-game adversity.

I hardly think this is a case of "both are right and both are wrong". If this issue is rated low in the importance scale because other projects are on the table, that's cool, but to blow this off as though things are "fine as is" given the new loot tables that support virtually all but casters?


-Void

I would suggest you read the rest of my post you quoted where I explain the situation from the warriors point of view, as it already addresses your questions.  

I'm not going to bother typing the game arguments over and over.  Agree with them or don't, read them or don't, they're valid in my opinion.

[ZippyConspiracy]

I don't see the "all but spellcasters" supported from the loot tables. I pick up tons of scrolls and wands ALL the time, every time I go somewhere. Things that if put to use would save your castings per day enough to allow you to go for long periods without rest and still effectively contribute in a party.

That and just yesterday, I ran across 1 nice set of mage robes, 1 decent set of mage robes, 3 mage-specific rings, and some INT boosting gear that I don't remember the exact specifics on.

I don't think we're necessarily talking about items when it comes to "all but casters" and it slowly morphed into that. I believe originally the loot complaint was about how all wisdom classes get the short end of the stick. There are plenty items for wizards and sorcerers to stack up their main stats, but clerics, druids, monks, etc get...what? A +3 wisdom amulet and a +1 wisdom ring with -1 constitution (or was it charisma)?

I could be wrong, 'cause I'm terrible at keeping up with a thread that branches off in so many different directions.

[Gossamer Faith]

Wisdom rings?  Fuck yeah, I'd wear them on Vessan and make him even more of an AC-whore.  =D

[TertTheSwift]

Hmm... yeah... let's think.   How many characters have better than even-odds on passing a DC 36 will save (which with dominate monster is not prohibitively hard to get with say, a sorcerer)?    Very few.  They fail, and the caster kills them at his/her leisure while cackling maniacally.

Casters get knocked down - so do big burly fighters with epic focuses in discipline, because if someone really wants to kill someone, they can buy a true strike potion off a PC.  

Casters have their disadvantages, yes - they are squishy, especially when unprepared - but any character has a damn hard time dealing with a juiced up attacker who catches said char with its pants down.  

I could probably list the advantages and disadvantages of pure-class casters against other characters all day long, and when I was done wasting my time, I think they'd come out about even.

Item-wise, let's just say I havent seen a lot of big heavy swords to go 'ooh-ahh' at drop recently, either.

[theMannequin]

With the right equipment, Pania at level 20 can get her saves above 35.  But that includes adds to Charisma and items that boost saving throws.

[Shade6.7]

If one DC point needs to be given up for epic mage armor, I’d pay that price any day. You can’t cast anything if you are dead.   50 AC is possible for a level 25 wizard, vs what 41 AB? So what 60% hit chance going down by a cumulative 25% per swing, not to mention a 25% good conditions out right miss chance per swing? Sure it isn’t 15% but it also isn’t instantly fatal. While 37-39 DC is fairly easy to ascertain. How many characters can really claim to own two 3+ rings, a 5+ scarab, a 3+ fortification cloak ect.



Most items that cast spells are one use per day, making it impossible to keep casting, let alone use items are a full round action, and hasted spell castings are two per round, there is no way you could keep up.


Nobody is forcing anyone to take empowered spell feat, but it is certainly worth while, and if you plan on making a “caster” cleric wouldn’t you be taking spell casting feats? Wizards are indeed better spell casters, that is why they have 1d4 hit points and no armor feats.

Ultimately I will not disagree that nobody in full plate should be able to use evasion, and all evocation spells suffer from this greatly. But in the end, I don’t believe a 25 wizard vs a 25 fighter will ever go in the fighters favor given even conditions.

[TertTheSwift]

Which is one reason I developed the bad habit of my fighters being really cheap bastards in PvP, as far as stacking the deck in their favor  ahead of time.

I say bad, because it's kind of a dick move, not because it doesn't work.

[AelrynBloodmoon]

My point is precisely that you would give up the extra DC for extra AC- and why wouldn't you? What incentive does ANY mage have to give up 20 points of AC for one extra point of DC (arguably something that should be more important than anything else for a mage.) What incentive does ANY cleric, even one focused predominantly as a caster, have to deviate from their standard cookie-cutter spells that will function just as well as if they'd not paid a single bit of attention to their spell-casting?

My point is not that giving up one point of DC for such benefits are unreasonable; completely the opposite. My point is that expecting ANY caster to give up the cookie-cutter tactics for an extra point of DC is -completely- unreasonable and -never- worth it here; and that seems wrong, since they're casters[/u].

Those rings and those cloaks are, in my experience (have the loot tables/merchants been altered while I've been busy helping get the new house livable?) pretty easily accessed by anyone over level 21- since the conversation more or less pertains to things as applicable to a level 25 character, I'd say anyone the conversation applies to can get the items you mentioned fairly easily- the +3 fort cloak can be purchased at the merc guild (if you're 21+ and they won't sell to you, you just have to talk to your merc friend that you probably leveled up with most of the way.)

Seeing +3 rings drop isn't all that uncommon at such high levels either- and it shouldn't be; you're level 25 and expected to fight monsters like Visen, with a staggering +60 AB, monster true seeing, immunity to sneak attack, who-knows-how-much SR, and an AC high enough that I had to land a crit to hit at all... to do ten damage. (Kudos on making Visen difficult, Tsu- you put him on my list of impossible things to kill that must be slain. ^_^ First I need to finish the ToD, though.)

The +5 is the hardest of what you mentioned there to get- and I believe I've had a hand in selling 2 or 3 of them to vendors. >.>

(Most) Clerics can't cast haste. There are also haste potions freely available to everyone (including meleers). To start off combat casting haste, you must sit still while the melee closes with you- saying the caster could start off with haste pre-cast without you having buffs opens the counter-argument that you could charge buffed while the caster wasn't hasted. You -can- keep up, it just takes effort and forethought. I'm disappointed in a cleric's lack of ability to use forethought to deviate from the cookie-cutter trend in a beneficial way, however.

As a caster cleric, you -are- taking spell-casting feats- but much like most wizards will scoff at silent spell because Empower Spell or Still Spell are more useful, empower affects only a handful of spells in any meaningful way for clerics- maximize and extend are both extremely superior for the cleric.

Anyyyyway- I will agree with you; in most (1 on 1) cases, the 25 fighter will lose to the 25 mage/cleric/druid (Because unless you buff, you're never going to get close enough to land the first knockdown.)

In most cases, the 25 rogue will lose to the 25 Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin (because all that pretty extra sneak damage doesn't mean anything if you can't knock them down on the ground and keep them from swinging back at you-in fact, if they're swinging back at you, you'll never get the extra damage without tossing a darkness first, and from there good luck winning the IKD spam fest.)

And in most cases, the 25 mage/cleric/druid will lose to the 25 rogue (because all that pretty DR means nothing when you get knocked to the floor for an extra 10+d6 of extra sneak damage with no discipline to resist every attack.)

But I don't think I argued any of those things too terribly hard- it tends to work in a Rock-Paper-Scissors format, and that's fine.

But if Wizard, Sorcerer, Cleric, and Druid are all Rock, with regards to casting gear Wizards/Sorcerers get boulders, and Clerics/Druids get pebbles.

That doesn't make any sense to me because even if you gave the wizards/sorcerers the pebbles and the clerics/druids the boulders, you'd still trounce the cleric/druid all over the place with the sorcerer/wizard. Unless one rock works significantly differently against paper and scissors than the other, shouldn't all rocks be made (roughly) the same size, if not the same shape?

And if not, why did the rock with timestop get the better end of the deal?

But R-P-S aside, it's evidently possible to get around +15 specifically against death spells with nothing but purchased gear(I'll recheck with the person who was checking inventory while I was out and verify the stacking of the saves) and about the same for mind-affecting spells. Where can I go as a caster to buy +15 discipline?

(It should be noted, at this point I'm really only continuing the conversation for the sake of it; getting improved evasion removed from items was more than I was expecting, and I'm pleasantly surprised it happened- people intrinsically hate casters when it comes down to number-crunching time and I expected fervent support of anything that allowed people to beat down on them, including improved evasion on items- however, I still feel my opinions are valid- as are everyone else's, of course.)

[jcly kite]

Why are clerics/druids and wizards/sorcs both rock? Are they all pure caster classes? I wouldn't consider someone wearing full plate a pure caster class.

[AelrynBloodmoon]

Is a wizard that takes still spell and heavy armor proficiency to wear full plate while casting still spells and focusing every other feat towards his casting a pure caster? Keep in mind, if he does that, he still has more metamagic feats to play with than the cleric, and higher AC over-all (pretty sure clerics can't get epic mage armor.) And, odds are, higher spell DC's, as well.

[jcly kite]

You know as well as I do that Still'ing all of your spells means you can't apply any other metamagic feats to them, and you won't be able to cast level 9 spells at all. You also won't be able to adjust your metamagic use based on whether you need heavy armor or not for each encounter (unless you know EXACTLY how many spells you will cast with armor and without BEFORE preparing them... I doubt it). Wizards do get a lot of extra spells, feats, and skills, but they still suffer from the fact that the spells they prepare each day are the spells they are stuck with until the next rest.

Is heavy armor and a shield worth giving up all of your other metamagic? Maybe for some people, but I'd say that's debatable.

Epic Mage Armor? Yes, that is for arcane casters only. Does it ultimately give them a higher AC? Maybe not, if you knew EXACTLY what it does.

I'll provide some background information on AC, for those people who don't know the exact mechanics.

There are several types of AC:
1) Base Item AC (based on the armor/shield type)
2) Armor Bonus AC (armor/bracer enhancements, spells)
3) Deflection AC (rings/cloaks/helmets/etc enhancements, spells)
4) Natural AC (amulet enhancements, spells)
5) Dodge AC (DEX/tumble, boot enhancements, haste, spells)
6) Shield AC (shield enhancements EXCLUSIVELY)
And of course the 10 that you get for just existing (12 if you have Armor Skin).

The maximum BAC is 11, given from just wearing full plate and a tower shield. Armor/Deflection/Natural/Shield stack with each other, but they DO NOT stack with themselves. Dodge stacks with itself until +20.

EMA gives +5 Armor/Deflection/Natural/Dodge, each, for a total of +20. HOWEVER...
Clerics can cast Magic Vestment for +5 Armor, Shield of Faith for +5 Deflection, and potentially Barkskin (domain) for +5 Natural. They lose out on +5 dodge, but, assuming a wizard doesn't wear heavy armor and a shield, the cleric also gets 11 BAC extra and +5 Shield AC for casting Magic Vestment on the shield. However, the cleric does get capped at +1 DEX AC for wearing full plate, but how much would a wizard have? +5? +6? That's still a 5 AC disparity.

Yes, the wizard can still opt to wear heavy armor, but I think sacrificing all of your metamagic feats except Still Spell is straying a little too far from "pure caster".


I don't want to get in a heated discussion or anything, I'm trying to play devil's advocate. I feel like a lot of the information you have provided in some (not all) of the previous posts have been un-objectively weighted in favor of arcane spellcasters. By no means am I suggesting that arcane casters are weak, but clerics are also very far from inferior. Given the fact that divine spells are naturally weaker in terms of raw power than arcane spells, I think it's pretty clear that divine casters were not meant to have the same destructive power that arcane casters do.

I don't have any comments on Druids though. I'm still trying to figure them out.