Rebuilding Answers

[*Neutral Zone]

It makes little sense to me to have monsters so completely different, when neither are bosses or the like. A better thing to do would be to make them have different strengths/weaknesses, and a similar CR, rather than just having one significantly more powerful than the other.

And yeah, Vandole and I determined the highest DC build possible on the server, will get DC 42 with ninth circle spells and a very specialized build. We were doing vague calculations, so the real value might be a couple points higher or lower. But this also only applies to one school. IMHO I much preferred NWN1 where Spell Focus gave +2 per feat, not +1.

[*zethrenx99]

Something that would promote Party play while not promoting people to power build would be to reduce high lvl spawns for individuals. Even still, in a party setting if you aren't built "right" you will have your face melted in seconds within some areas such as the abyss, grand abyss, maze, carceri. Which doesn't really promote anything but frustration IMO. And as state a lot of this face melting is from lower end spawns which uncanny 20's xD.

[*shadowblizmasta]

A middle-ground that no one would ever implement would be to make it so these areas are passable without uber-gear or powerbuilds by toning them all down. It will leave the power-builders bored after awhile due to not being challenged, but it would let people play whatever they want without having to worry about reaching certain metrics of power in order to not just be deadweight anywhere past the Abyss. More areas could also be added of equivalent power that don't have DR, resistances, spell resistance, or high saves to add even more available builds that work without being min/maxed out the ass.

[*Mick64]

I've never seen anyone rejected from a party because they where too weak, so I'm not sure where this is coming from. Because they where too low (Or too high!) level and would thus make the party's xp drop yes, but that has nothing to do with how good their build is.

I don't know who it is that frowns on rebuilds too, I've never heard anyone complain about it. (Except people who rebuild a human cleric into a myconid rogue or such...) If anything this server's mechanics very much encourage rebuilds, and from what I've seen so do most of the staff. It's a cool way to experience new content, or re-experience old content without losing your character's story progression. Thumbs up to rebuilds.

As for "powerbuilding"...

People keep refering to "area xyz", but come on, we all know what area you are talking about. It's Carceri. No other area requires even an above-average build if you are running it as intended (Turn off Gatecrasher if an area is too hard!), with level-appropriate gear (If you powerleveled through your first 20 levels on a grind train, no you won't have level-appropriate gear) and a party member or two.

The thing is, Carceri was -never designed- to be something you just walk into to randomly grind. It was designed as -the- challenge area of the server. It's where you go if you -want- to have a hard time. If you want to test your skills, your build, your party against the toughest things the server can throw at you.

And even Carceri isn't impossible for pretty reasonable builds. But you need to 1- Have a well-balanced party. 2 - Know what you are doing. The first time you go in, you'll die, I guarantee it. But you learn, and the next time you get further, and the next time even further. 3 - Play strategically! Plan things out with your party, be ready to react quickly when things go bad, fill in your role. You can't expect to click attack and tab out and call it a day like in some other areas. 4 - Stock up on consumables and other items you know you'll need, or might need.

I actually went to Carceri just the other day, doing exactly what I said above.. We had...

Blue Slaad Mage Slayer (Tank)
Werewolf HIPS barbarian (Single-target DPS)
Fiendish something cookie-cutter warlock (AoE DPS)
Human? non-gish caster. Cleric / wizard? Focused on buffing allies and healing and rez (Support)
One more I can't recall at the moment.

Two characters who's defining class is one people usually call worthless (Mage Slayer and barbarian), a very typical build of an average class (Warlock) and a caster who focuses on the least powerful things a caster can do. That's about as far from a party of uber builds that you can get without doing it on purpous. But it's a party that fills in all the needed roles, everyone complimenting each other's skillsets well. We managed to make it to the Ascended Sorcerer and even beat him, though he too too much out of us and we had to flee and withdraw shortly after. But that's because we weren't prepared for him, I'm sure if we did it again with the new knowledge, we'd get even further.

[*Ceremorph]

The thing is, Carceri was -never designed- to be something you just walk into to randomly grind.

[*Love_on_a_Wire]

Blue Slaad Mage Slayer (Tank)
Werewolf HIPS barbarian (Single-target DPS)
Fiendish something cookie-cutter warlock (AoE DPS)
Human? non-gish caster. Cleric / wizard? Focused on buffing allies and healing and rez (Support)

Not to take away from what you're trying to say, but I was chatting with the werewolf at the time of your trip and he said he felt "pretty darn useless". Having a Mage Slayer fully buffed by a Wizard/Cleric/Theurge is pretty up there in sheer power level, since it negates the major weakness of the class. : x

[*Mick64]

Well the werewolf was also under the effect of a crippling bug.

[*shadowblizmasta]

The problem with the reasoning of Carceri being meant to be the hardest of the hard areas and not meant to be solod is that people are soloing the place. When there are builds who can solo it and countless other builds who can't you have a balance problem. The powerbuilders are naturally going to gravitate towards the ones that can solo the hardest areas easily leaving everyone else in their dust. You can go about "fixing" that problem in one of several ways.

You can nerf the things that let these people solo Carceri, which will annoy people. You can give blanket buffs to all the classes that are next to useless, which is a hell of a lot of work and just causes power creep, you can make Carceri harder to the point where it can't be solod, but now the builds that couldn't solo it before are even more useless, or you can just let go of the need for the place to be uber-hard and allow even a human 30th level pure barbarian to solo it by nerfing the place. That would allow so many more builds to actually be viable, and remove the very real problem where people cruise along to mid epics without difficulty only to find they are dead-weight in the hardest areas the server has, necessitating a rebuild if they actually want to be useful.

[*Mick64]

I think the only problem here is people thinking they are useless if they can't solo Carceri. Get that idea out of your head and everything is fine.

[*rapsam2003]

You can give blanket buffs to all the classes that are next to useless

you can make Carceri harder to the point where it can't be soloed

While these two things are hard, I personally think it would go a long way towards actually encouraging party play. Is it a lot of work? Yeah, but I suspect the end result will be better for the server.