Legacy of the North
Game Related => Player's Corner => Topic started by: AelrynBloodmoon on May 17, 2008, 10:11:55 PM
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Alright. First things first, and I've said this before; I'm the one of the last ones to say that casters are underpowered. With that said, some ideas/policies that are considered a means to "balance" casters here annoy me, and I want to put them in some semblance of organized text to hopefully affect at least SOME minor change. This won't be too terribly detailed yet, because I expect a backlash of "omg you noob, are you kidding, casters need to be nerfed!" and I'd rather get MORE specific there.
Proceeding-
1: Ability bonuses. All people have equal opportunity with ability bonus gear being capped at a max of +3. Except wait. I've been playing five years. I've never seen ONE SINGLE helmet that provides a bonus to wisdom. I have seen helmets that provide bonuses stealth skills, helmets that provide bonuses to charisma, helmets that provide bonuses to intelligence- why do divine casters get gimped?
This is not limited to just helmets- there are no +2/3 wisdom rings, or cloaks, or gloves, or boots. There is a +1 charisma/+1 wisdom ring that in turn requires you to take -1 to your constitution- in what fashion does this precipitate balance, when any arcane caster on the server (arguably stronger than divine casters were it not for other balance issues I'll discuss later) can easily aquire +8 to his primary stat through 3 items without hurting himself elsewhere?
2: IMPROVED EVASION ON ITEMS IS RETARDED. I'm sorry. It's bad enough that 90% of melee builds find some way to incorporate evasion into their build. Is this really even remotely necessary when you can buy +8 save gear for gold that can be made in a single night of hunting? Or was the unanimous opinion that everyone should be able to wear a piece of armor in order to dodge a field of falling meteor rocks from the sky? :-P
3: +8 save gear. Yes. I'm aware it's epic only. I still fail to see how providing gear that can be PURCHASED to be able to pass ALL saving throws against the spells of ANY caster, even one completely focused towards getting his DC higher to the exclusion of everything else they can possibly do, on everything but a 1, is balanced. +5 vs. mind-affecting spells +3 to all will saves on a helmet is dumb. Enchanters are rare enough as it is, such an item is a slap in the face. Necromancers already have to deal with all the powerful monsters on the server being immune to death spells, and wands of death ward are easily enough accessed (and immune to spell breach.) Fortitude is also the easiest save to raise. While I don't object to some benefit against death spells being offered on items, I fail to see how +5 vs. death, +3 to all fortitude saves, again on a single helmet that can be switched out instantly with a hot-key as the situation demands, is balanced. Necromancy is SUPPOSED to be a feared art- on this server, it's laughable, with the exclusion of horrid wilting- and at that rate, you may as well be an evoker (except everyone has access to improved evasion. :-P)
4: The highest spell DC one could conceivably get on this server off the top of my head and without accounting for NWN's buggy/faulty spell coding would be 39- that's a 9th level spell (10+9=19) +epic spell focus (+6=25) +14 (18 in primary casting stat at start, +6 over 24 levels to get to 24, +2 from greater STAT 2 to 26, +12 from items and spells for a total of 38, or +14 to all DC's- 25+14=39.) Wonderful. Beautiful. I've seen characters that can disarm weaponmasters and IKD chain anyone they fight while wearing gear that gets all their saves up to 35+. If this is not somehow heavily biased in favor of making casters rely on spam of saveless spells or praying for a 1, even though they're level 25 and focused in as many ways as they possibly can be to making their spells work while being completely vulnerable in many other ways, then explain to me the premise behind this, please. I'm aware not all people powergame, but if you use that argument to justify this approach, then casters hardly need the nerf of +8 save gear to balance them- after all, they don't all powergame. :-P
5: Even transmuters get bent over the table- freedom belts are easy to obtain- I believe they're still sold somewhere, aren't they? Bye-bye, flesh to stone.
6: Yes, two of my three main characters are casters. Talic, on the other hand, is melee, and very vulnerable to casters- if they see him. I still don't think he should have access to a +8 save helm. I don't think I should be able to put on a helmet and go from "holy crap, this guy is powerful, he might suck the soul out of my body/dominate my mind and make me do horrible things" to "Hahahaha, you can't beat me! I have a helmet of Mage-screwing. Bend over!" Talic has evasion. He's not terrified of evokers, but at least he respects the ones that can throw their spells competently as something to be cautious of (DC 30+).
7: Again, I know casters are powerful. But it's basically gotten to the point that to provide competitive DC's you have to metagame the hell out of the other person's weaknesses; I'm not aiming to have casters be the uber end all be all, but a dedicated level 25 dc caster that can land a spell on rolls other than a 1 would be nice. It'd also be nice if the wisdom stat received at least HALF as much attention on gear as EVERY OTHER STAT gets. I'm pretty sure even constitution is easier to get bonuses to than wisdom.
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1. On ability Bonuses:
Yes, wisdom only comes from necks. Personally I don't see it as a problem considering Clerics are in my opinion the most powerful class in the game. Clerics can still get strength items to benefit themselves or if they're more caster orientated spell slot items. Yes, DCs will be lower but thats mainly because almost all of the clerical DCs are Evocation, whereas a wizard or sorc needs to pick his school and focus. I disagree with this being a problem.
2. Improved Evasion on items: I completely agree to you, and I want them gone. Furthermore, I'd like Improved evasion completely disabled on medium and heavy armor. I've seen a 2 blackguard/2 rogue/19 fighter completely immune to almost everything because his saves were so insane and he had evasion. People in full plate shouldn't dodge fireballs, and classes that have no business with Improved Evasion shouldn't have it. Its something I've pulled for for a long time.
3. I wasn't aware there was purchasable +8 save gear. The highest I'm aware of is +5 in the mercs guild to either death or mind effecting. Let me know where it sells that and I'll be on your side for removal.
4. The problem with spell DCs isn't a problem with LOTN, its a problem with NWN in general. Death spells are silly. If the necromancer has any chance of them landing, hes overpowered, if he has no chance of them landing, hes useless. Theres no middle ground. A single save to decide a fight isn't fun gameplay. I perposed a fix by making it so that death spells deal a 20% of a targets max life in damage for each point the saving throw falls below the DC then increasing the DCs or reducing the saving gear available. In this way you add a lot more balance because if you fail the save by 1 or 2 you still take damage but don't instantly die. Anyway, I don't see a way to solve this. If we give the advantage to the casters then everyone else will say its not fair.
5. Freedom of movement belts aren't sold anywhere I'm aware of, and I'm not even sure Freedom prevents Flesh to Stone. Its not a big deal if it is, Death Ward and Freedom of Movement are both cleric spells and both level 4. Still, its the same arguement as the one above since both are essentailly death spells.
6. How other characters react to yours will always be up to them, not you. If they don't fear you, theres little DMs can do to make them. I think it stems more from our extremely lient death system then the strength of your character. Whos going to be a coward when the price for bravery is so low? Its been a long time since I've seen anyone RP being afraid of anything, honestly.
7. I think most of the balance issues aren't LOTN related but from bioware and how they made the game. Its balanced for single player, not for multi. The spells are designed to be used against enemies that are fodder, not people. Character designs are made to make people gods. Theres no worry about balance because it doesn't really matter. Sure a cleric might have trouble against an improved evasion rogue, but who cares since your never going to fight one in the OC, and if you do his saves are probably terrible anyway. We're trying to build a house on a foundation thats not designed to hold one, so we're going to have issues. As I said, you can go back and forth on the DCs vrs Saving throws issue as much as you want. Its a terrible gameplay mechanic in any multi-player game, but we're stuck with it so we just have to make do.
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1: Wisdom Gear[/i][/u](mini-rant about why I feel a little more wisdom gear could be included coming up- the last two paragraphs of point 1 encompass the main points of that rant rather nicely, so you can skip the giant wall'o'text coming up in 1 if you prefer.)
So many of the clerical spells being evocation focused is actually one of the main reasons I'm so opposed to them getting so many spell slot items without the option for wisdom gear in those slots instead- as we've just discussed, evasion isn't all that uncommon- and there are other effect-based spells that don't outright kill the cleric gets that become somewhat worthless as well (poison, enervation, energy drain, bestow curse, blindness/deafness, glyph of warding, doom, sanctuary, bane) that all wind up with -extremely- low saves compared to any arcane caster; in my opinion, clerical casters being forced to go for strength and spell slot items rather than the stat items that are so freely given to every other class is the reason you see so many cookie-cutter clerics; Cover the screen in Storm of Vengeance spam, cast divine power and divine favor, and go to town with melee; why bother casting any other spells when their chance of success is only 5% against everyone you meet, with monsters often included in that? Then, because these are cut-and-dried clearly the most effective spells any cleric can cast, and every cleric is casting them, people see their power in melee continuously and consider them overpowered.
Rather than letting clerics buy gear that gives them 13 extra spells per day (most of which go directly towards extra cookie-cutter spells) it'd be nice if they could give up 10 of those extra spells (two rings of holiness) for some extra wisdom (without ganking their constitution. :-P )
The wisdom being available more readily would result in slightly higher DC's overall for wisdom casters, but as a result, that little bit of increase would also encourage a bit of diversity- rather than casting SoV, SoV, Divine power, divine favor, charge, a cleric might cast silence, poison, then hammer of the gods.
Don't forget, clerics aren't the only ones who cast/benefit with wisdom bonuses. Paladins, druids, and rangers can gain a degree of benefit from this as well- most druids I see either spam AoE static spells like clerics do, or buff to the gills then shapeshift. No druid really has any reason to cast spells like quillfire, or infestation of maggots, (although I won't really argue that druids have a weak overall spell selection since they branch pretty comfortably into transmutation as well as conjuration- still, these spells are save based.) A ranger or paladin that might go the zen archer route as dedicated scouts have interesting possibilities as well.
2: Evasion/Improved Evasion on gear[/i][/u] If this were PnP (and between you and me you know how pro-PnP stance I am) I'd absolutely agree with people not being able to use evasion in heavy/medium armor. On the other hand, I've always felt that if you can get your tumble skill high enough to make successful tumble checks even in full plate with a tower shield and you have the strength score to support that kind of movement in that kind of armor, then you can reasonably also benefit from evasion in those limited circumstances (which requires you to spend a fairly large sum of skill points as well as being epic level.) I would agree, however, that improved evasion in such circumstances is always wrong- it's guaranteed results, and doesn't allow for the possible clumsiness that heavy armor presents.
No, my reason for disagreeing with improved evasion being available on gear is more mechanical; Giving people the ability to gain improved evasion on gear is mechanically equivalent with regards to the amount and frequency of damage it prevents to also creating and distributing items into the loot table that give Immunity: Critical Hits or Immunity: Sneak attack. Improved evasion automatically halves ALL reflex 1/2 based save damage, which comes specifically from a specific set of classes rather frequently.
Immunity to crits, on the other hand, statistically prevents half damage about 10% of the time against a specific set of classes (this is me loosely crunching numbers down to, crits happen about 5-10% of the time on average for (usually) double damage. This automatically cuts those particular attacks in half.) However, unlike improved evasion, immunity to crits and immunity to sneak attack don't offer you the ability to COMPLETELY avoid damage; from a numbers point of view then, giving someone an item with improved evasion is mechanically more powerful than giving someone an item with immunity to crits or immunity to sneak attacks- when the mage's guild starts selling such items, I'll remove my objection to evasion/improved evasion on items.
3: +8 Save Gear for Purchase[/i][/u] My understanding from my last shop to the merc guild with Testament (I'll go again soon and verify) is that you're half-right here- The helms give +5 vs. death and +5 vs. mind-affecting... but the +5 vs. death helm also gives +3 fortitude. These benefits stack vs. death spells (+5 vs. death, +3 fortitude) for a total of +8 against death, and +3 vs. ALL fortitude requiring saves- likewise, the +5 vs. mind-affecting has +3 will saves- since all mind-affecting spells are will saves, this too stacks, for a total of +8 vs. mind-affecting spells, and +3 vs. ALL will-requiring saves. Something like that is just a tad overpowered, I think, as well. More appropriate might be +2 vs. death +2 fort on one and +2 vs. mind-affecting +2 will on the other, for a total benefit of 4 vs. death +2 against all fort and identical figures for the mind-affecting/will helm. This isn't an item on par with say, scarab of protection +5 which has universal +5, but then again, amulet item slots are far more valuable than helmet slots, and you can't purchase the +5 scarab, either.
4: Death Magic[/i][/u] Here, you and I disagree somewhat. I inherently believe that anyone who walks around frequently casting spells such as destruction or finger of death and sucking the soul out of people/monsters will quickly develop somewhat of a reputation which will cause drawbacks of its own. Likewise, I'm not saying we should have DC 45 death spells to make them feared, but I'm pretty sure a duergar cleric can throw a higher DC implosion than I can throw an Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy Destruction. (If I could throw at least as well as the duergar, by virtue of epic spell focus necromancy and assuming the duergar cleric doesn't have spell focus, my destruction DC should be 4 higher, and if he has greater spell focus evo our spell DC's should be the same.)
Having a spell that can kill instantly on a low save but does very little if it fails to kill is not overpowered- it's a trade-off. Yes, if you roll a 5 or less, you're going to die instantly. On the other hand, if you pass the save, you spent the round where I was casting charging up to me, and now you're probably spamming IKD at me for all you're worth- and by the same token, losing to IKD spam isn't much fun either. Hell, for all I know because you know of my reputation for casting death spells, you went out and paid a priest to cast death ward on you before you came to slay me. I spent my round casting a spell only to find out you're immune and I have to try to dispel you- if I can.
The fact is, "losing," when viewed mechanically, is never "fun." If you apply the situation and the role-play, however, "losing" to a death spell can be plenty of fun, and so can "losing" to IKD spam. The mechanics can be discussed back and forth, and it can be argued that IKD spam has multiple resist chances, but against a pure caster, no, it doesn't, and that's not really the point; when the spells only work on a 1, they -are- worthless. When they work from a 1-7 (roughly a 1/3rd chance), or even a 1-5, they aren't worthless, but they're still something to be cautious of- just like that IKD spamming fighter if he gets next to you, except he's going to succeed with the IKD on a lot more than a 1-5 on your part.
5: Freedom gear[/i][/u] My mistake. I figured since I know +3 gear is available at the merc store, and any belt of agility with a +3 bonus or higher comes with freedom 1/day, that they sold a belt that let you use freedom. I do know I've seen a number of people with the item, but perhaps it's all from loot drops- in that case, I don't really have any issue with it.
6: How characters perceive necromancy[/i][/u] My comment about necromancy being a feared art had little to do with how characters react to me, and more to do with how characters react to the school of magic itself. Yes, it's true that characters are ultimately free to react however the player decides, and I'm fine with that. But I can't help but feel that there is an inherent difference between how a school of magic is regarded by most players/characters when the player behind the character knows that they're safe from soul-sucking magic unless they roll a 1, and when they know they actually have to be careful because they might die. So to speak, it's the difference between "Another necromancer? Let's go get him!" and "Oh no! A vile, foul necromancer? Something must be done, but what? We can't just charge in headlong- we have our souls to consider." While I don't believe the second response should be mandatory by any means, I do feel increasing the viability of the spell school would result in more respect being given to the school voluntarily as a result of consequences that would no longer be inconsequential as they currently are.
7: LotN balance vs. NWN balance[/i][/u] I absolutely agree with you here, and I didn't mean to imply LotN doesn't do a damn good job of trying to fix what is broken- I'm merely of the opinion that in some cases, the effort to fix what was broken was a little too zealous and could do with some change. So to speak, I believe a nuclear bunker was built in the bank in preparation for a robbery, rather than a locked room with some bullet-proof glass.
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There's only two Improved Evasion items I know of in the entire server, only one of them dropping: A light, Studded Leather armor. The other was a ring, and I doubt any of the current characters have that >.>
+3, Improved Evasion. Now, what other class is there that can only wear -light armor- that does not have Evasion/Improved Evasion available as a feat already? They're either wearing full plate, medium armor, or lighter equipment that doesn't give them a bad wedgy because they're spellcasting or sneaking up on someone.
So far, I don't know of anyone else that doesn't just sell it off if they get it, regardless of class. There's other spells one can cast that would protect one from it.
Also, I dunno if there's much fun in losing because you just got one-shotted from a spell, especially compared to other ways you can also die. Are we also suppose to automatically crap our pants and run for the hills because someone just said "I'm a necromancer"? -slams on Death Ward as an actual spell- Don't need any items to protect against that...
I could say more, but I have to be going for a while.
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There's only two Improved Evasion items I know of in the entire server, only one of them dropping: A light, Studded Leather armor. The other was a ring, and I doubt any of the current characters have that >.>
+3, Improved Evasion. Now, what other class is there that can only wear -light armor- that does not have Evasion/Improved Evasion available as a feat already? They're either wearing full plate, medium armor, or lighter equipment that doesn't give them a bad wedgy because they're spellcasting or sneaking up on someone.
*Respectful snipping*
What classes can only wear light armor isn't the issue- the issue is that ANY class that can wear ANY armor can wear light armor- this means, for example, that a barbarian15/weaponmaster10, or a paladin/champion of torm, or a bard/CoT(or BG), or a druid... or -any- other combination of classes that normally wouldn't even get regular evasion, can all keep a suit of improved evasion handy anytime they plan to face a caster. What's more, if it's a dedicated caster, they can do so freely with little worry about how it will affect their AC to go from fullplate to studded leather- How many mages do you know with a +20 attack bonus? Dropping 5 AC vs. a caster throwing balls of lightning and fire at you for improved evasion is a no-brainer.
Just because it's on studded leather doesn't really make it okay- less so if it's dropping frequently enough that it's well known that "most people" sell it. As I said before, mechanically, it's the equivalent of (not even- really, it's more powerful than) putting +3 studded leather with crit immunity or sneak attack immunity into the loot tables.
I dunno much about the ring- I believe I've seen it once, and I have no idea where it came from, so I'm not really very well able to discuss it- but I can pretty easily say that if I had the option, every single one of my characters would own one. Dropping 3 to a stat for improved evasion against a caster throwing fire and lightning is as much a no-brainer as dropping 5 AC.
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Edit-Afterthought[/i][/u]
And no, you aren't supposed to crap your pants and run for the hills automatically. In fact, if someone was stupid enough to walk up to you, act evil, and say "you should run, I'm a necromancer" I'd rightly expect you to cast deathward, turn into a kobold or a drow, and stab them to death- mind you, you're able to cast death ward.
On the other hand, it's also possible I might dispel you, since I'm a caster, too. Then, it follows, that there's still a CHANCE I might go Shang Tsung on you ("YOUR SOUL IS MINE!") and then you'd still have a reason to be cautious. The bard spreading rumors of a foul necromancer stealing souls in the region might cause people to seek out aid to take down the necromancer, rather than sending them scurrying to the merc guild to buy a helmet that makes them immune to the most potent spells the necromancer can cast in an attempt to "superman" them.
I repeat my earlier premise- when you view it simply as "losing" and "winning," and disregard all other aspects of what's involved, losing is never fun. Realistically, that necromancer's fun is ruined just as much by being IKD spammed so much that he never gets to stand up and cast a spell as your day is by running forward and dying instantly to a death spell. However, that's not all there is to the situation, so the premise doesn't hold very well. If I, as a caster, see you running at me, I have the option to attempt to flee rather than standing still and casting spells at you that might not work, thereby sparing me IKD rape. If you, as a character that knows I'm a necromancer, elect to charge me solo, without deathward, then you might get death-spelled; it's a chance, a risk, either way, and risk is the basis for any potential fun in a hostile encounter (IMO.) With no risk, there is no real sense of reward.
As opposed to outright charging me alone, you could flee, you could seek aid, you could attempt to reason with me, you could leave and come back later. But if there's no risk, and you know I'm a necromancer, why should you consider any of these avenues? You could come at me with a death-ward (in your case, self-provided, but in many cases, something that might have been sought out and role-played to get), and I might try to dispel you; I could succeed, I could fail. Either way, you're going to close the distance with me. Now what? Now we're both at risk- if you can hit me, you can keep me pinned to the ground until I'm dead. If I can throw a spell and you roll in that low range, you're dead too.
Is dying fun either way? No, of course not. But what MIGHT be fun is the increased sense of risk BOTH players must deal with, and the role-play that leads up to it as a result- and I'm sorry, but as long as death spells are passable on a 2 to the majority, the only one who really deals with that risk in that situation is the necromancer- why should he do anything besides spam cookie cutter spells?
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What classes can only wear light armor isn't the issue- the issue is that ANY class that can wear ANY armor can wear light armor- this means, for example, that a barbarian15/weaponmaster10, or a paladin/champion of torm, or a bard/CoT(or BG), or a druid... or -any- other combination of classes that normally wouldn't even get regular evasion, can all keep a suit of improved evasion handy anytime they plan to face a caster. What's more, if it's a dedicated caster, they can do so freely with little worry about how it will affect their AC to go from fullplate to studded leather- How many mages do you know with a +20 attack bonus? Dropping 5 AC vs. a caster throwing balls of lightning and fire at you for improved evasion is a no-brainer.
Just because it's on studded leather doesn't really make it okay- less so if it's dropping frequently enough that it's well known that "most people" sell it. As I said before, mechanically, it's the equivalent of (not even- really, it's more powerful than) putting +3 studded leather with crit immunity or sneak attack immunity into the loot tables.
I dunno much about the ring- I believe I've seen it once, and I have no idea where it came from, so I'm not really very well able to discuss it- but I can pretty easily say that if I had the option, every single one of my characters would own one. Dropping 3 to a stat for improved evasion against a caster throwing fire and lightning is as much a no-brainer as dropping 5 AC.
I both agree and disagree with you. As you’ve already pointed out, in order to wear the improved evasion studded leather armor, a person would need to sacrifice the AC they receive from their full plate. Sure, a mage might not have a +20 AB but that doesn’t mean the mage’s friends don’t. To assume that you’re going to find the mage alone and therefore ditch the heavy armor is a little silly to me, personally. Even if I’m spying on the mage and I know he’s alone, I wouldn’t want to take the chance, but that’s just me. Honestly, I know very few who would give up their full plate to wear studded leather with improved evasion on it. I’m not saying I love these items, but I think you put too much emphasis on their “power”.
I repeat my earlier premise- when you view it simply as "losing" and "winning," and disregard all other aspects of what's involved, losing is never fun. Realistically, that necromancer's fun is ruined just as much by being IKD spammed so much that he never gets to stand up and cast a spell as your day is by running forward and dying instantly to a death spell.
Due to staying up all night my brain is not currently working correctly so forgive me if what I say is a completely failed argument, haha.
I think losing can be one of the most fun things that can happen depending on the situation and the RP that had led up to it, honestly. I don’t think losing to a death spell is fun, just like I don’t think losing to IKD is fun. That’s not because I lost, it’s because I wasn’t really given a chance to do something in the battle. When the epic battle that the story has been building up to for a long times amounts to nothing more than “boom- you’re dead”, it really kills the excitement. However, I do feel necromancers get the crap hole and would not be opposed to them becoming a little more scary.
Don't forget, clerics aren't the only ones who cast/benefit with wisdom bonuses. Paladins, druids, and rangers can gain a degree of benefit from this as well- most druids I see either spam AoE static spells like clerics do, or buff to the gills then shapeshift.
Don’t forget monks! They don’t cast, but they still benefit.
Yes, wisdom only comes from necks. Personally I don't see it as a problem considering Clerics are in my opinion the most powerful class in the game.
Honestly, I believe a well-built/well-played wizard outshines a cleric any day. We give wizards tons of gear to support their class, and not much to help out clerics. I think they should receive similar bonuses from items, whether it is very little or not. I agree with Aelryn when he tried to point out that most clerics become “buff and go” and don’t really bother to cast many spells in battle other than SoV, divine favor, and divine power…because, well, I play a cleric like that. –shrug-
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The wisdom being available more readily would result in slightly higher DC's overall for wisdom casters, but as a result, that little bit of increase would also encourage a bit of diversity- rather than casting SoV, SoV, Divine power, divine favor, charge, a cleric might cast silence, poison, then hammer of the gods.
I'm not sure I follow. If wisdom was available on gear ALL DCs would be higher, including the frequently used spells. It doesn't encourage diversity in any way. Having a good chance to land both a crappy spell and a good spell doesn't make me any more likely to want to cast a crappy one. The only way to encourage diversity is to make the weak spells more powerful, not increase DCs across the board.
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I'm not sure I follow. If wisdom was available on gear ALL DCs would be higher, including the frequently used spells. It doesn't encourage diversity in any way. Having a good chance to land both a crappy spell and a good spell doesn't make me any more likely to want to cast a crappy one. The only way to encourage diversity is to make the weak spells more powerful, not increase DCs across the board.
Casters are less likely to focus in throwing spells in battle when they know that everything is going to save anyway. Why waste the time and why waste the spell slots? Instead, clerics just tend to prepare storm of vengeance, divine power, and divine favor, and focus on cutting things down instead of really blowing anything up. Clerics become more of a glorified fighter than a caster. Increasing the DC on spells helps diversify because clerics will then have more options than just "buff and go" in order to do any damage in battle. I think that's the point he's trying to make, and I very much agree.
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I'm not sure I follow. If wisdom was available on gear ALL DCs would be higher, including the frequently used spells. It doesn't encourage diversity in any way. Having a good chance to land both a crappy spell and a good spell doesn't make me any more likely to want to cast a crappy one. The only way to encourage diversity is to make the weak spells more powerful, not increase DCs across the board.
Ahh, but see, the rub is, they aren't crappy spells. They're -made- into crappy spells because without the ability to boost spell DC's the way every other caster can, the spells are rendered ineffective against a large majority of players (and monsters, too). Yes, the cookie-cutter spells will get a little bit better, but I'd be much less likely to go "SoV, Divine Power, Divine Favor"(all spells that have some guaranteed effect regardless of saving throw) for my first three rounds of combat if I could potentially instead go "Poison, Silence, or Blindness/deafness" with any noteworthy chance of success- sure, it's not GUARANTEED results, but the extra 3 or 4 points of DC that you could potentially get with the extra wisdom gear changes them from spells that only land on a 1 to spells that can potentially work 20-25% of the time- thus making them NOT crappy, and causing reason to use a wider variety of spells.
To top it all off, giving up the rings of holiness for the extra wisdom would reduce the number of cookie-cutter combat buff spells every cleric currently casts by 8(2 divine favor, 2 aid, 2 prayer, 2 divine power) while giving them a wider-spread smattering of bonus spells. Rings of Holiness just -scream- "use my spell slots to buff, then switch me out to get the benefit of some other ring while you're fighting." With wisdom rings, unequipping them will -always- have an effect on your casting, whether you've used the bonus spell slots from them or not.
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Ok. I see what your saying now, players are more likely to cast buffs then offensive spells because clerical DC is lower. Well....
The cap on abilty bonuses is +12. Assuming a player can get to that cap thats a +6 to DC.
A cleric can get +3 from their neck plus +5 from Owl's wisdom, which is +8.
Unless I'm missing something in my math this means Clerics have 2 less DC then mages. In exchange for this they get...
1. Platemail.
2. All their spells at level up, never have to decide which ones to pick or find scrolls.
3. Melee ability thats almost as good as warriors when buffed
4. The ability to heal themselves and others.
5. The ability to remove every negative effect in the game
For 2 DC? Seems like a fair trade to me.
Your saying that 2 DC is going to completely change the way people play clerics? I disagree.
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Owl's Wisdom only guarantees the +5 if you maximize it- yes, you can do this (as a fifth level spell, IF you spend the feat as a cleric to take maximize) but it doesn't address several of the other issues. More reliably, you will get between +3-4 for your owl's wisdom on average, which creates a range of +6 to +7, unless you prepare multiple castings/spam a wand for a perfect roll.
You can do what you're talking about with the rings of holiness equipped, and the facts wind up being, that you still get 2 extra divine powers, 2 extra divine favors, (4 if you drop 2 aids for 2 extended divine favors, again, if you take said metamagic feat,) 2 extra aids, and 2 extra prayers- which, -yes-, in my opinion, is vastly going to encourage buff-and-go cookie cutter tactics more than the extra 2(or three, if you didn't spam owl's at yourself) points of DC (enough to change the chance of your other spells landing by up to 15%.)
Also worth considering- the extra wisdom rings, as I said, will spread your bonus spells out -away- from the cookie-cutter spells, giving you less opportunity to use cookie-cutter spells and encouraging more diverse effects to be used.
Your stance seems to be that the cleric is viable as it currently exists, but that skirts the main issue of discussion here- I never said they weren't viable. I went out of my way to say, repeatedly, that they aren't underpowered. However, clerics ARE neatly herded into a cookie-cutter format, where all clerics are viable because all clerics cast the same spells all the time. It's great that they're viable, but it'd be nice if I saw a little variety between the local cleric of lathander that hates undead and is heavily focused in evocation (presumably to take advantage of both implosion and, against undead, sunburst) and the local cleric of Tempus (with the war and strength domains), who ironically if you dressed up in the same armor as the lathanderite you would have a hard time telling them apart on a battle-field... because they're both using the exact same tactics as each other.
Increasing the available wisdom gear will make some spells for clerics more viable than they currently are, encouraging (at least to some extent) a little variety. If that's not a good enough reason to consider more wisdom gear, as was mentioned previously in the thread there's other classes and categories that can benefit from this as well.
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2. IMPROVED EVASION ON ITEMS - "The Lucky One" short sword has been removed from the loot system for a couple weeks now, was that the one you found? I don't remember putting the improved easion light armor in but if you give me the name of it I can snoop around and remove it.
3. That helmet with +5 to mindaffecting and +3 to will saves DO NOT stack. I have worn the helmet thinking "sweet this is great my only weakness has been nullified!" but they do not stack.
I try not to reply to these threads since Sakes is better at discussing balance issues than I am, and he has far more knowledge than I do on these topics.
Here are our item conventions supplied by Sakes on the DM boards:
Helmets:
+2 CHA (LOTN)
+3 INT
Cloaks:
+3 CHA
Boots:
+3 DEX
+3 CON
Belts:
+3 DEX
+3 STR
Gloves:
+3 DEX
+3 STR
Armor:
DEX +2 (LOTN)
CHA +2 (LOTN)
INT +2 (LOTN)
Rings:
+3 INT
Necklaces:
+3 WIS
+3 CHA
Weapons:
Any +2 (LOTN)
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The only real buttual to my point I read there was that owl's wisdom isn't always +5, so it could be only 3 or 4.
Ok, fair enough, but eagles splendor and fox's cunning isn't garenteed either. Lets say for the sake of arguement that gear is enough to cap int and char even without buff spells. In that case your saying that 2-4 DC is the difference between a wide variety of spells and cookie cutter builds. I still don't see it. If DCs were 3 points higher you'd still have a chance to fail on offensive spells you don't have on buffs. You'd have less of a chance but the chance is still there, and still enough to make you consider not casting them.
I can understand your point, but I don't think adding rings with wisdom is going to solve your problem. Frankly, it can't be solved. If you remove or reduce chance of failure you make instant kill spells like Implosion and Distruction too powerful. Clerics have to deal with the same DC system other classes do, but at least they have the option of buffing themselves and going melee against high save enemies, an option mages don't have.
In short, I don't completely disagree with your arguement that offensive spells aren't worth casting over buffs, but I entirely disagree that wisdom on rings would change that.
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"Kumakawa" is the name of the studded leather armor. It is in the standard NWN lewt.
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Wasn't there a robe or something with a wisdom bonus on it? I remember seeing it at one of the vendors but that was like 3 years ago. Also, doesn't Owl's Insight stack with Owl's Wisdom? (not a self-buff for clerics, but it would still let a cleric reach the +12 cap)
Regardless, I don't think the point was about putting wisdom on rings or not. The main thing I gathered from the OP was that items tend to be biased against casters, stacking lots of saves on every item slot imaginable while leaving casters with little to no ways of countering that "immunity to saving throws".
The thing with spells in general are that they're basically all or nothing. Failing a fortitude save typically gets you killed instantly. Failing a will save might as well be like failing a death save due to being paralyzed or whatever for several minutes. Failing a reflex save could get you blinded, permanently. And, of course, due to the wide range of saving throws that the actual player base has (rather than just the ridiculous saves of certain people), the d20 roll is not nearly wide enough to give a reasonable chance to both those people with saves of 15-20 and those with 35+. Make the DC too high and the people without 35+ saves have no chance of surviving. Make it too low and the people with 35+ saves are now invincible.
I liked Sakes's idea with the partial damage for death spells. I wonder how balance would change if there was a gradient of effects between -5 and +5 of the DC, with more powerful spells given at least a minimum effect (for instance, even if you beat the save of wail of the banshee by 10, you might still take some neg energy damage).
It has been a long time since I have played this game though. My sense of balance has shifted far from traditional DnD characteristics. Then again, Lotn was always pretty flexible in that regard (the work I did typically didn't have any basis on DnD principles - it was just stuff that I thought might work).
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ZOMG! *Ties kite to the server with mithril* Look who stopped lurking, and in my thread too. Annnnd, of course, she got the point of the thread in one. ^_^
Does this by any chance mean we might see more of you, I hope?
The robe was a Sunite Robe- it grants +2 wisdom and a +2 enhancement bonus, I believe. I am unsure it is still available in the module- I received mine from another player several years ago, as well, on Talic.
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I'm actually still at school for summer sessions. I just finished my first year of college (zomg, I think I first played here as a sophomore), BUT my laptop doesn't even have NWN on it lol.
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The Sunite Robe you speak of is still available at the Sunite temple. Avalona Xanthe bought one not long ago.
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I hope it is not being suggested that wail of Banshee is too weak of a spell. Frankly even at 35 to all saves, (Which would be very hard to ascertain, in fact I would love to see base saves, feats and items needed to get it) at a DC max DC of 39, you still have a 15% chance to lose instantly. It is a gamble, you gamble some times you lose. And with all those saves certainly being possible… -Something- else was sacrificed.
Melee classes are under the same pressure as casters are, in fact they are under more since their only attack is defended by one save, AC. A level 25 Wizard can easily get his AC to 50, and have a 50% miss chance, with abusing secrets that will not be revealed in this post you could easily see mid 60s. So while casters have three “ACs” to target, melee only has one save. In addition to saveless spells which melees do not have to promise some sort of damage.
Any sort of buff that comes off an item can be easily stripped with a single despell from a high level caster, if you don’t have a despell handy, epic fail.
When using the stat buff spells if you are using maximize… Again epic fail, empower spell can grant you up to 7+ and is only a 4th level spell. Granted it could only give you 3+ as well, but it likely to give you at least 6+ after two castings, in fact I have only seen it fail once that I can recall. So 7+3+2… 12, max stat buff wisdom. Clerics are the most powerful class in the game, and since the removal of raise dead items from shops, they are the only class that can raise a fallen ally, again buffing them. While I sympathize with wanting to play different aspects of classes, the cleric already has a full cup here.
As for improved evasion, no feat should be on any item, especially a class restricted feat. Feats are abilities that are limited by certain prerequisites and are limited to certain amount per character, that define what a character is capable of . It was voted on a long time ago to remove these items with improved evasion, but they were not taken out of the loot tables to taking them away became pointless. But now that they are not longer dropping all that needs to be done is for players to hand in there old items for fair compensation
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Melee classes also have the problem of casters played by people on faster computers running through a trans to escape, resting, and then coming back fully buffed with fresh spells.
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Melee classes also have the problem of casters played by people on faster computers running through a trans to escape, resting, and then coming back fully buffed with fresh spells.
If this is a pvp reference then the melee character is doing it wrong... That's a software problem, not a hardware problem, so to speak. :wink:
But now that they are not longer dropping all that needs to be done is for players to hand in there old items for fair compensation
You know, I'm okay with most of what you said, but having one of those characters with an improved evasion item I'd really like to know what could possibly count as "fair compensation". It's a melee character; it sacrifices AC (which is a big deal) to be able to wear that item. It's not a high-save character. "Fair" is an extremely subjective word, here.
-Void
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Anyway, I acknowledge Shade's point that ANY chance to fail on a death spell is already pretty powerful, considering the fact that it is instant death after all. This post isn't going to argue anything - it'll just be informative since Shade did ask:
Frankly even at 35 to all saves, (Which would be very hard to ascertain, in fact I would love to see base saves, feats and items needed to get it)
Some of the items here may no longer exist in these forms. I have no idea what has changed since I was last around.
Max level fighter-types have a base fort save of 12. With, say, a constitution of 16(+3), which isn't TOO unreasonable, we'll say they start with 15 against death. Using the gear:
Scarab of Protection (+3)
Ring of Resistance (+3)
Ring of Resistance (+3)
Cloak of Fortification (+3)
Gargoyle Boots (+3)
Ceremonial Uthgardt Belt (+5),
This adds up to +35 against death spells. The crafty fighter may take Spellcraft as a cross-class skill, giving them an additional +2 against spells for a grand total of +37. If you have Luck of Heroes, you end up with +38, making it impossible to fail the DC of 39 if you've turned off automatic failures.
NOTE: I BELIEVE the belt states that it gives +3 fort saves and +5 death saves, which may have led to the misunderstanding that it was a +8 death save item. In practice, due to some strange mechanics that don't seem to always be consistent (I think ability bonuses on items stack), these don't stack.
This isn't completely unreasonable. The MAIN thing they give up would be +5 natural armor from a natural protection amulet. Deflection AC is partially covered by the cloak so you can use up both ring slots, and Dodge is partially covered by the boots (if you don't have UMD, then it's almost negligible since I think the only +5 AC boots are monk boots). Armor AC is still available from bracers and armor, the former likely being used for a strength bonus instead. Throw on a shield and you should be fine for the most part (not sure how extreme your epic level dungeons are). I realize that this not is optimal, but obviously if you're going to gear toward caster defense then you have to give up some AC.
Will save vs. mind spells is a little trickier and may not be possible SIMULTANEOUSLY with fort save vs. death (at these extremes at least), but by using a +5 helmet (nerfed from immunity to mind spells), a lot of the same universal saves items, and probably a weapon (staff lol), it's probably possible. You would probably need to rely more on feats in this case to compensate for your lower base Will and wisdom score (Epic Will).
Equip the Kumakawa and you're basically immune to spells. Note that you'll be unsuited to engage in melee combat with another fighter in a caster-oriented setup like this, but that's EXPECTED.
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My fighter/weapon master fortitude is capped at 35 :( I can get higher than that with equipment, but it won't let me. There is that note.
In any case, as Hald was saying its a hardware issue when the caster can zone, rest, and rezone in the same time it takes you to zone from one area to another. That's not software - even with the computer clean and defragged or freshly installed, if you don't have the hardware to support it, you aren't going to get much more out of it.
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In any case, as Hald was saying its a hardware issue when the caster can zone, rest, and rezone in the same time it takes you to zone from one area to another. That's not software - even with the computer clean and defragged or freshly installed, if you don't have the hardware to support it, you aren't going to get much more out of it.
Then let me rephrase it: if the melee character is LETTING that become a problem, the melee character isn't doing his or her job well. If the melee character is LETTING the zone be a barrier, he or she isn't committed to an attack. These are user errors, not game errors. The hardware/software metaphor simply denotes game problems (balance concerns, etc.) and user problems (tactics employed, etc.).
-Void
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If you are referring to the fact that a melee character can zone and wait for a caster to come through, well, that just seems pretty cheesy on the melee character's part... If you are referring to something else, maybe you'd explain it in a new thread.
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The bonus to saves from equipment and similar bonuses is capped at +20, so if you can't get your base save plus ability bonuses up to +18, you can't get +38. Even a multi-classed melee-oriented character (other than monks-heavy sorts) will never see a base Will save very deep into the double digits. If you're trying to take down a fighter with a fort save, you have to accept the risk that comes with targetting your opponent's strength instead his weakness.
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Hmm, that's interesting. I wasn't aware of the +20 gear cap. I just figured that it went as high as you wanted because I remember having a mind spell resisted by a fighter's save in the 30s (no joke). There must have been some other factor.
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If you are referring to the fact that a melee character can zone and wait for a caster to come through, well, that just seems pretty cheesy on the melee character's part... If you are referring to something else, maybe you'd explain it in a new thread.
The statement in question was that casters can zone and rest, correct? That implies two things. 1) the melee character letting them leave, and 2) the melee character letting them rest. The reverse is true as well: a caster does not have to let a melee character run and rest. Either of these is metagaming and should be handled accordingly. The "hardware/software" reference in full is that what's being suggested is a hardware solution to a software problem: tweaking game mechanics because of ineptness/lack of creativity/etc. on the part of the player.
Since you seem be more focused on the fact that some players are working with sub-standard computers (in which case, I apologize for not seeing that sooner; my earlier point is still valid), I perfectly understand and sympathize with this. If this is true that some of us are working with overtaxed hardware, and I believe it is, then is it not the obligation of the players to communicate with one another? "Hey, my comp is really bad at handling large volumes of spells, how should we proceed?" has always worked for me. Co-op story-telling doesn't become something different just because physical violence occurs. Even in this case, we're still talking more about a problem that can be mitigated/solved between players better than it ever can be due to nerfing certain classes or items (read: still suggesting a hardware solution to a software problem).
Or am I completely misunderstanding what you're trying to say?
-Void
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I hope it is not being suggested that wail of Banshee is too weak of a spell. Frankly even at 35 to all saves, (Which would be very hard to ascertain, in fact I would love to see base saves, feats and items needed to get it) at a DC max DC of 39, you still have a 15% chance to lose instantly. It is a gamble, you gamble some times you lose. And with all those saves certainly being possible… -Something- else was sacrificed.
No, this is not being suggested- although I -would- go so far as to suggest that the ONLY thing that makes Wail of the Banshee (and Weird, as well) worth being cast on this server is the fact that it DOES affect so large an area- and other death spells in general are a disappointment, with almost all saveless spells being superior about 85% of the time even if you're completely focused in making those death spells worthwhile. However, Wail of the Banshee is an EXTREMELY NARROW topic to focus on on the overall topic in general.
Melee classes are under the same pressure as casters are, in fact they are under more since their only attack is defended by one save, AC. A level 25 Wizard can easily get his AC to 50, and have a 50% miss chance, with abusing secrets that will not be revealed in this post you could easily see mid 60s. So while casters have three “ACs” to target, melee only has one save. In addition to saveless spells which melees do not have to promise some sort of damage.
You'll have to forgive me, but this argument comes up time and again, and it still amuses me as endlessly as it does the first time I ever heard it. Aside from the fact that this post was directed at the "balancing" of casters in general, and not just wizards (which back when I first played were the extreme minority- everyone preferred sorcerers,) that level 25 wizard is not getting 50 AC if he has a DC 39 anything- he had to use all his epic feats to get his DC up to 39, and he doesn't have the room to take Epic Mage Armor- and even if he somehow did still get 50AC, I've seen a level 23 meleer with +41 AB- and he doesn't even have a perfect BAB.
There's 20 points of AC he sacrificed and any other epic spell of choice, just to get his spell DC's one point higher- spell DC's that multiple monsters on the server will randomly be completely immune to simply because the people who put them in the module felt casters were too powerful, not because it makes sense in any way for them to be immune to those spells. As for the multiple saves a caster has to choose from, well, he may have multiple saves to choose from- but I bet you ALL the saves he has to choose from to target are higher than his discipline score, which is a nice, fat, juicy 0 that every meleer on the server will exploit- repeatedly.
The 50% miss chance is a faulty idealogy as well- if you're a melee fighter, and you don't have blind fight, then to quote you, well, epic fail- and unless I horribly, horribly misunderstand my statistics, the second roll reduces your miss chance to 25%- leaving you with a 75% success rate- a rate MUCH higher than 5-15%.
Any sort of buff that comes off an item can be easily stripped with a single despell from a high level caster, if you don’t have a despell handy, epic fail.
The casting animation for dispel magic is amazingly distinguished. While you're dispelling them, they can put their mouse over the hot-key the item is assigned to, wait for the dispel, then reapply it instantly- after they've taken the chance to run closer to you. Again, to quote you, if they aren't doing this- epic fail; and if you charge a necromancer without death ward at all, epic fail of fantastically failure-like proportions. :-P
When using the stat buff spells if you are using maximize… Again epic fail, empower spell can grant you up to 7+ and is only a 4th level spell. Granted it could only give you 3+ as well, but it likely to give you at least 6+ after two castings, in fact I have only seen it fail once that I can recall. So 7+3+2… 12, max stat buff wisdom. Clerics are the most powerful class in the game, and since the removal of raise dead items from shops, they are the only class that can raise a fallen ally, again buffing them. While I sympathize with wanting to play different aspects of classes, the cleric already has a full cup here.
Why a cleric should have to give up a feat for empower (which is a pretty worthless feat for them given the nature of a cleric's spell progression and the spells that are often available two levels higher than the spell they intend to empower- Edit; afterthought- And even -more- worthless for a cleric that is trying to go for save-effect spells, to boot...) and two fourth level spells to achieve the same thing any arcane caster can achieve by casting a second level spell, and how this is fair or balanced amongst casters is beyond any logic I even care to attempt to follow, because, I'm sorry, I agree with Zippy 100%; wizards are hands down better casters than clerics, and if you don't believe it I'll take a level 25 wizard vs. ANY level 25 cleric you care to build and slap it around like a red-headed step child- and I won't even use timestop.
Melee classes also have the problem of casters played by people on faster computers running through a trans to escape, resting, and then coming back fully buffed with fresh spells.
My apologies, but I fail to see how a hardware issue and a transition exploit that could just as easily apply in the opposite direction (as it could just as easily be the caster with inferior hardware and the meleer running through a transition to rest after the mage has spent all his spells) has anything to do with the balance (overbalancing, in my opinion) of casters.
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Equip the Kumakawa and you're basically immune to spells.
If the spell allows evasion... Plenty of good ones don't. I don't consider that item to be over powered at all. If you're taking off +5 dragon plate, or something, to don that that's quite a trade off.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Wisdom rings? Fuck yeah, I'd wear them on Vessan and make him even more of an AC-whore. =D
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Druid is the watered down version of the cleric, with fun additions that enhance RP, but only give the illusion of being beneficial. There are unique spells, an animal companion, wild/elemental shape, and animal empathy.
At some mid-lower levels, druids really shine, being able to put to use those extra things that they get over clerics... but once you get into higher levels - your animal companion can become absolutely useless (depending on which one you're using), your wild shape is obsolete, elemental shape is good - but you make some sacrifices changing forms, and animal empathy is pretty much useless. They generally end up with less castings than clerics, can't spontaneously cast anything, and are missing some great spells that clerics get in return for some not so great spells. (Earthquake for instance... wtf?)
My experience with Druid from playing Delimar taught me that you have to put aside game mechanics to enjoy druid, and simply explore what RP possibilities are opened up to you by playing such a unique class. Anyway, just answering to the last part of kite's post... since my only epic character ever was a druid :P
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Where can I go as a caster to buy +15 discipline?
I will have to check for certain, but Avalona Xanthe has three items on her, not purchased mind you, that give her +15 discipline. It makes it worse that she's a paladin/monk, so her discipline goes through the roof. Currently, she has a discipline over 30 at level 13. And, I must admit, I haven't put points into discipline at each level.
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I think he meant from an NPC. There are items that give a lot of bonus to Discipline but I don't think any of them come from vendors.
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I checked, you do have to find them in dungeons (which means you have to be fortunate enough to find them). Some are class specific, such as the Skullcap of the Way which give improved crit (unarmed strike) and +5 discipline. And the knightly gauntlets, which have +2 strength, +2 discipline but only usable by lawful good.
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I thought Dragon Slippers have like +10 discipline on them or something. Regardless, that still supports his point that you can't buy these items from vendors.
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Dragon slippers have +5 discipline on them, but yes, you can't find them on NPC vendors.
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I think the +5 is a mistake, though. They're meant to be +10, as far as i can recall. Sometimes you find them +10, sometimes +5. Dont know why, though.
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Since the old loot system used a combination of custom items and default NWN items that were filtered and auto-tweaked before being handed to the players, there were likely two versions of the boots: one custom version and one where the knockdown immunity was auto-replaced with a standard Discipline bonus. The new loot system most likely has its own variation.