Terrible Woes Of Playing A Fighter On Sigil

[*Godolia il Magus]

I have a feeling you only bring up the most positive aspect of everything, without actually weighing it with the negatives... its easy to make arguments that way, but they won't hold up when put up to scrutiny.

It's the same mechanism there's in the gambling world. Some gamblers convince themselves that they have made a fortune, by playing lotteries, just because they remember only the winning games, forgetting to count the losing games that did cost them a lot of money rather than making them rich. :D

[*rapsam2003]

Epic gate lasts 40 rounds (4 minutes). Regular gate lasts 2/level+3, so a 20th level caster gets 43 rounds (4 minutes 18 seconds).

So after reading all the comments for a few days, I'm going to toss out a few ideas for consideration. Please note, I'm not actually planning any of these, I'm just spitballing at this point with some ideas for balancing. And obviously no plans would ever be made to do all of these!

1. Create new martial feats and edit existing martial feats to improve them based on combined levels of melee classes.
This is actually something that's been discussed and seems to be a popular idea. It doesn't prevent the gish or the dedicated caster build from taking them, but in the hands of someone with greater combat skill they become more dangerous.

2. Adjust UMD to be a little more selective.
Every character, even dedicated casters, seems to walk around with a bundle of wands. Which gets somewhat silly when you've got epic mages casting a gerbil-ball full of cleric and druid spells, or blackguards rocking holy sword. This would be a larger project, but it would push things more towards "play your character sheet" and less "play your inventory". This would also play into making dedicated rogues and warlocks, who actually are supposed to be superior because of their ability to get extremely high scores in UMD and the warlock feat, more useful than current.

3. More UMD locking.
You've probably run into certain items that UMD can't get around. This would allow selective item tweaking to prevent UMD access of things that a character really shouldn't have (for example, evil characters using holy sword wands). Of course it would require notation on the item description of some sort.

4. Gish-busting.
And by this, I mean the practice on many other servers requiring a certain number of levels in any class (although in our case it would be via script and not nosy DMs). This would do away with the common practices of 1 shadowdancer for HiPS, 1 cleric for free feats, 1 monk for AC and so on. Scripting it would probably be a huge pain, but this would definitely be seen as a blow against power-builders.

5. Dedication bonuses.
Kind of the reverse of #4, and even something that could go hand-in-hand with it, this would dole out notable bonuses for those who build within a theme. For example, if all of your levels are within a certain archetype (all melee, all stealth, all divine) or a specific combination (arcane/stealth).

6. Diversification bonuses.
A little wackier, this would provided bonuses to those who actually make a point to go halvsies on very diverse archetypes. A character with no wider than a 60/40 split between divine and stealth, for example. A reason to go outside the comfort zone of "I need X levels to be undispallable and X DC on my avasculate to beat the Hellfire Erinyes".

7. No, your God of Home and Hearth does not support the Travel domain.
Not suggesting that we go to the "Your god is Tits McGee so your domains must be Jiggle and Bounce" extreme, but preventing certain blatant powergrab combos would not be a terrible thing and might actually lead to some diversity of builds.

Again, just ideas and nothing actually planned, but I'd love to hear feedback.

I like all of these.

Although, I do have one question. Do you aim to kill builds that take 2 levels of cleric for the use of EDM? I'm fine with it, if you are. I just want to know if I should reconsider my build. lol

Edit: What I'm getting at is, will folks be penalized for reasonable RP scenarios where they may take 1 or 2 levels of a class? Yes, the metagame reason is for a feat, in most cases. But, say your PC is an Athar preacher. Would it not make some sense to have 1 or 2 levels of cleric because you're actively RP'ing as an Athar preacher?

[*Strawberry Jam]

1. Create new martial feats and edit existing martial feats to improve them based on combined levels of melee classes.

This is the best idea, but not if they get them for free. Fighter already has so many feats, so make it a worthwhile option but still an option. Another thing is if you make it limited per day use and significant enough you give melee builds a need to rest too. Resting seems to be the biggest problem of contention between melee and caster archetypes. Other than giving unfavorable debuffs like fatigue over time, I think this is the only real way you can get them on even ground for rest requirement.

Things like AoE feat that use taunt to pull attention, cause flat footed and lower attack. Bull rush, leaping slam (fake jump skill, str based), something like a hunters mark.

2. Adjust UMD to be a little more selective.

This is not such a great idea, Sigil is high magic but as I said that isn't a bad thing necessarily. The planes require magic for survival and wands are still easier to dispell, it's just by no means can you say it favors only casters if you can use their spells.

3. More UMD locking.

Iffy about this, many classes like rogue survive because they have high umd and can fake alignment and other requirements.

4. Gish-busting.

This just wont have the intended effect, I've seen it before, actually it doesn't stop gishes. It's more favorable to spend a few levels in a class than weaken yourself by only taking multiple level 1 class dumps.

5. Dedication bonuses.

This will work, especially if it's applied to prc classes. Especially if it rewards single and dual clasing but not tripple and quad classing. It would be something you get as a character capstone for reaching max level I think.

6. Diversification bonuses.

Again, it's beneficial to many builds already to take ample levels in either class. There are theurge and eldritch knight combos for all, except for psychic theurge and slogger nogging. The best way this works is with racial prc classes. You've noticed people think it really hits casters hard along with the ecl cap not counting to caster level. In the bloodlines option they had a thing where the "fake level" still counted towards overall caster level. Another thing is a melee race that tries to be caster, or divine race that tries psionics or arcane or melee instead. So a bonus to take their race but still focus on one primary discipline outside the norm for their race.

7. No, your God of Home and Hearth does not support the Travel domain.

This is fine and more interesting, but maybe increase the standard domains of each god by a couple more so the choice isn't that limited. =)

[*rapsam2003]

2. Adjust UMD to be a little more selective.

This is not such a great idea, Sigil is high magic but as I said that isn't a bad thing necessarily. The planes require magic for survival and wands are still easier to dispell, it's just by no means can you say it favors only casters if you can use their spells.

3. More UMD locking.

Iffy about this, many classes like rogue survive because they have high umd and can fake alignment and other requirements.

Can't UMD locking/selectiveness be set for certain classes? For instance, rogues can use most magical items with enough UMD, but Blackguards aren't ever going to be able to use Holy Sword.

4. Gish-busting.

This just wont have the intended effect, I've seen it before, actually it doesn't stop gishes. It's more favorable to spend a few levels in a class than weaken yourself by only taking multiple level 1 class dumps.

It would prevent builds where you take 1 level of cleric specifically to be able to grab EDM. If I understand correctly, that the intent?

[*Strawberry Jam]

Restricting umd locking to specific things like blackguard and holy swords makes more sense yes.

Actually there are a few options for EDM, pally and blackguard for example. In those instances you block cleric dump, now they take 4-5 pally instead, get edm, slightly higher attack, immunity or sneak attack, and cha bonus to their saves.

If they really want to gish their cleric they take a few more levels and then qualify for stormlord, as someone pointed out, a huge asset. But it needs more than a 1 level dump.

It limits options to really powerful ones, then stops people taking a handicap for some unique concept that's overall probably more fragile.

[*rapsam2003]

Restricting umd locking to specific things like blackguard and holy swords makes more sense yes.

Actually there are a few options for EDM, pally and blackguard for example. In those instances you block cleric dump, now they take 4-5 pally instead, get edm, slightly higher attack, immunity or sneak attack, and cha bonus to their saves.

If they really want to gish their cleric they take a few more levels and then qualify for stormlord, as someone pointed out, a huge asset. But it needs more than a 1 level dump.

It limits options to really powerful ones, then stops people taking a handicap for some unique concept that's overall probably more fragile.

Yes, but 4-5 levels of Paladin or Blackguard aren't as easy to do as 1 level of Cleric. It effectively kills powerbuilds where you pick 1 level of cleric just for EDM.
Also, it's a lot better in terms of roleplay to take 4-5 levels of Paladin or Blackguard than to take 1 level of cleric. You will NEVER kill gish completely, and really...you shouldn't try. But you can take a stand against powerbuilds over RP.

Consider the following build (which is by no means optimized) : 10 Fellblade/3 Hellfire Warlock/1 Cleric/16 Warlock. Why in the name of all that's holy would a warlock based build take 1 level of Cleric?! EDM. Plain and simple; it has good synergy with warlocks.
Now consider this build (which is also not optimized) : Blackguard 5/Fellblade 10/3 Hellfire Warlock/Warlock 11. It actually isn't a bad call for a Fellblade build to pick up 4-5 levels of Blackguard, since a Fellblade build needs Martial Weapon Proficiency and BAB +5. Blackguard needs BAB +6, Cleave, and Power Attack; it also gives Martial Weapon Proficiency if you don't already have it.
Or course...ideally, there'd be levels of Ranger or Fighter before picking up Blackguard. If a player picks up EDM as a result of having 5 levels of Blackguard ("Summon Fiend" fits the warlock theme ;) ), then where's the harm?


It's not Gish builds themselves that are the issue. It's powerbuilds without ANY consideration of RP.

[*Strawberry Jam]

Actually 4 blackguard is the archetypal powerbuild that most people know since the original NWN, pally was the sorcerer option. For blackguard you take cleave anyway on the way to overwhelming critical. You might combine it with 5 or 7 weapon master, then any other combo, maybe frenzied bezerker and fighter as base.

For your warlock example, I think, first you play it and then tell us how it works out. I'm just note sure it will be as potent as the regular multiclass combos.

Edit: Even the famously known one level dip shadow dancer "powerbuild" that everyone knows. Sure, fine but at level 2 you get evasion and uncanny dodge, that's enough to make it worth it even without the hips. At 5 you get defensive roll and that now suddenly qualifies you for epic dodge if you're monk :blink:

[*rapsam2003]

For your warlock example, I think, first you play it and then tell us how it works out. I'm just note sure it will be as potent as the regular multiclass combos.

It's not meant to be. As I mentioned, those builds are by no means optimized. In other words, they're not real world scenarios. On the other hand, I don't see how taking enough levels of fighter/ranger to get blackguard would be a bad thing.
I honestly don't give 2 f***s about powerbuilds, so I make builds that I find fun. Always have. If they're not the "best", so what?

But taking several melee base class levels, a few warlock levels, then Blackguard, then Hellfire Warlock, & then Fellblade? I don't see how that would be so underpowered as to be painful. You'd have UMD the whole time, of course. I'm sure such a build might fit under the idea of "Dedication bonuses", because it's melee/invocations with an evil theme to it. Plenty of RP potential too.

[*Strawberry Jam]

I don't think it's underpowered. But it wont break the game, the better multiclass combinations tend to require a few more levels in each class so they're not really affected by rules intended to normalize them. It just impacts characters like you that take things for some unique role play value.

[*rapsam2003]

I don't think it's underpowered. But it wont break the game, the  better multiclass combinations tend to require a few more levels in each class so they're not really affected by rules intended to normalize them. It just impacts characters like you that take things for some unique role play value.

To be frank, I'm not interested in "game-breaking". Warlocks already have enough utility that I'm not worried about it.

I'm sure this will be but the 1st of multiclass "Gish" builds I will do. None of them will break the game, I'm fairly certain. And I think that's the whole point of Ceremorph's "Gish-Busting" comment.

Edit: Still constructing this build, but here's the thread for my melee base/warlock/blackguard/fellblade build.