O:) The term you're looking for is "Twink." A Gish is a melee/arcane hybrid build and can be anything from an eldritch knight to a rogue/wizard, a Twink is a powerbuild that dips single levels for high power at minimum cost.wrote: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.
Terrible Woes Of Playing A Fighter On Sigil
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*Altair
- Posts: 175
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
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*Vandole
- Posts: 86
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
All very valid points Mr. O - I don't disagree.There is one key difference between PnP Slayer and this server's however, (And I'm not sure if this was an intentional decision or just mechanically impossible in NWN2) and this is that slayers can still be buffed by magic as opposed to PnP where even friendly magic must bypass a mage-slayer's SR. (afaik anyway)
Edit: My above comment may actually be incorrect, I have to find my rulebook that had this PrC in it.
We all know how far some buffs can take us.
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*FiveWhats
- Posts: 41
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
A character that relies on another character to function isn't a good character.
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*Ceremorph
- Posts: 1125
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
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.
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.
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*Vandole
- Posts: 86
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
*cough* D&D was intended for a party of four characters, not as a solo experience I'd like to note. So, relying on others isn't such a bad thing in my eyes. I understand playing on a server such as this, it's not always the case, but just because a pure class can't solo carceri or niflheim doesn't mean it's no good.FiveWhats,Jun 2 2016 wrote: A character that relies on another character to function isn't a good character.
- Ceremorph. All I can say at this time (at a glance) is that those all look like good ways to initiate some sort of reasonable balance. I'm inclined to the feats, but the dedication bonus for pure classes might be a good option too. I'm also not opposed to more UMD locks or preventing single level dips, personally.
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*Neethanial
- Posts: 231
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
The dedication bonuses might be more easily implimented by gear sets. "This amazing item only works if you have 20 ranks in umd" or "this this terrifying scythe only works with 10 levels of weaponmaster"
The biggest reasons sooo many take umd is for pfe wands, death ward wands, and monkey boots. A couple cheap charge based buffs and not class locked dodge boots, and you've cleared up most of the temptation.
Before melee boosting feats get put out there, I'd like to see good and neutral summons at least be half as food as evil ones. In fact, evil casters are hands down superior to other casters. That's a problem.
The current custom martial feats don't all work either. These should probably be taken a look at first.
Also, a bit of patience. There's been talk of classes eventually, as well as races in progress. Let's finish the current projects, fix the kinks (giggity), and then see what people think after the dust settles. What might be a problem or idea today, may be a memory or a reality tomorrow.
The biggest reasons sooo many take umd is for pfe wands, death ward wands, and monkey boots. A couple cheap charge based buffs and not class locked dodge boots, and you've cleared up most of the temptation.
Before melee boosting feats get put out there, I'd like to see good and neutral summons at least be half as food as evil ones. In fact, evil casters are hands down superior to other casters. That's a problem.
The current custom martial feats don't all work either. These should probably be taken a look at first.
Also, a bit of patience. There's been talk of classes eventually, as well as races in progress. Let's finish the current projects, fix the kinks (giggity), and then see what people think after the dust settles. What might be a problem or idea today, may be a memory or a reality tomorrow.
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*Gazoo
- Posts: 145
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
As for wands, and I'm trying to go from memory- as I am/was a big abuser and good example of wands. There are many, many more common than just pfe and deathward once you have the jinx:
-invisibility (50 charges as opposed to shorter duration potions). Invis in NWN2 is uber vs mobs.
-improved mage armor
-displacement and mirror image
-holy sword!
-keen edge
-flame weapon
-living undeath (crit immune)
-remove curse and blindness/restoration (for Carceri- they used to spam it, idk now)
-bless and aid for the AB boost
-haste
-see invisibility (mostly RP -can't remember if some mobs go invis)
-stoneskin and ghostly visage (damage reduction)
-greater resistance (saves)
-barkskin if you want to use the neclace slot for something else
-least spell mantle
-mass camo for those that don't have enough hide
Of course, depending on race you may not require some of these.
(Granted many of mine are 12+ rogue level builds, but still...even my non-umd builds have min UMD for many of these. Btw I'm not against the idea of restricting them.)
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EDIT:
**This should probably have it's own thread. It breaks the flow of the fighter story.
-invisibility (50 charges as opposed to shorter duration potions). Invis in NWN2 is uber vs mobs.
-improved mage armor
-displacement and mirror image
-holy sword!
-keen edge
-flame weapon
-living undeath (crit immune)
-remove curse and blindness/restoration (for Carceri- they used to spam it, idk now)
-bless and aid for the AB boost
-haste
-see invisibility (mostly RP -can't remember if some mobs go invis)
-stoneskin and ghostly visage (damage reduction)
-greater resistance (saves)
-barkskin if you want to use the neclace slot for something else
-least spell mantle
-mass camo for those that don't have enough hide
Of course, depending on race you may not require some of these.
(Granted many of mine are 12+ rogue level builds, but still...even my non-umd builds have min UMD for many of these. Btw I'm not against the idea of restricting them.)
_______________________________________________________________________
EDIT:
**This should probably have it's own thread. It breaks the flow of the fighter story.
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*poststructuralism
- Posts: 45
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Ceremorph,Jun 3 2016 wrote: 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.
+1 on all of those nerfs and balances, all good things that would benefit our game IMO (although the characters grandfathered into it are going to hold onto their minmaxed glorytoons forever, you know...unless the nerf bat comes out to get them!)
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*Ceremorph
- Posts: 1125
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
How so? Do you mean the demonologist? Well that makes sense, becaue they're the only class whos entire existence is predicated upon summoning things. But otherwise, I'll share a little secret with you...wrote:In fact, evil casters are hands down superior to other casters. That's a problem.
The only difference between the good and evil summons at any level is their appearance and a minor spell-like ability.
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*shadowblizmasta
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
One thing to keep in mind if you nerf all of that stuff is that enemies will need significant rebalancing as well. I'm perfectly in favor of Holy Sword actually being locked in to Good characters only, and making the martial feats improve with more martial levels. As it is, my gishes and clerics perform better in the high level areas than my straight up fighters and barbarians do.
I don't think blocking certain domain combinations is a good idea though. The problem with domains is less that some of them are really powerful and more that most of them are next to useless.
Fire and Cold stand out as an example. Fire is slightly better than Cold in that Fire Wall is useful for Niflheim, but it's otherwise next to useless. If the other options were better, more people would take them. As it is, Good/Time/Travel/Evil and a couple others are the only ones worthwhile, though I've yet to really try out Entropy or Wrath.
I don't think blocking certain domain combinations is a good idea though. The problem with domains is less that some of them are really powerful and more that most of them are next to useless.
Fire and Cold stand out as an example. Fire is slightly better than Cold in that Fire Wall is useful for Niflheim, but it's otherwise next to useless. If the other options were better, more people would take them. As it is, Good/Time/Travel/Evil and a couple others are the only ones worthwhile, though I've yet to really try out Entropy or Wrath.