Bigbies

[*The_Tarot]

No, I'm not underestimating the power of a well built mage, That's what my character is. Yes, It's powerful. What people are doing is underestimating the power of a well built non-caster.

Considering I bought one of said Adamantine weapons from a character. Which proves the availability of the weapons (Edit: You're not Delad) I'm pretty sure I know what game I'm playing, and the mechanics of said game.

Mirror Image does NOT Absorb the first 6 attacks. (Inless they're knockdowns.) It gives a degrading +7 AC. Which is powerful, but it's no oldschool 2E Stoneskin.

[*Tildryn]

The issue is that if you're hit by one of these spells, you're locked down and as good as dead for several minutes without any recourse. You can go on about how spell mantles 'can' stop a spell, but a Quickened Breach + Bigby will bypass that, and it's also incredibly dependent on both latency and reaction time as to whether one could even get a mantle up in time.

What's more requisite is more capacity to 'break' the hold after the hand has hit. The current checks in place are entirely absurd and unreasonable, or in the case of Forceful Hand, non-existent.

"Save or Die" spells are bad enough. "No Save and Die" spells are just stupid. :P

[*ManyFaced]

The issue is that if you're hit by one of these spells, you're locked down and as good as dead for several minutes without any recourse. You can go on about how spell mantles 'can' stop a spell, but a Quickened Breach + Bigby will bypass that, and it's also incredibly dependent on both latency and reaction time as to whether one could even get a mantle up in time.

What's more requisite is more capacity to 'break' the hold after the hand has hit. The current checks in place are entirely absurd and unreasonable, or in the case of Forceful Hand, non-existent.

"Save or Die" spells are bad enough. "No Save and Die" spells are just stupid. :P

Don't forget that any caster with quickened bigbys, or even a regular one will have an ethereal jaunt or an etherealness prepared. If let's say someone can make them expend all their spells and begin chewing through their 300 DR(with 50% miss chance), the caster will just pop a get away spell and that'll be it. Actually, it's more likely they'll etherealness, zone out, rest, and come back to finish the job.

And that's one thing that does worsen it(and pnp's magic is powerful/limited thing) is that at between every fight a mage can rest, refreshing all their spells. Usually this isn't done to avoid rebuffing(And most builds have 7-10 ninth level spells). Even while the conflict is going on it's pretty common to see someone rest. Can this be fixed, or even balanced? Probably not.

A reasonable step would be to make the hands work closer to PNP, but that would take a lot of work and would lead to someone going to the next killer spell. Non-mages have no options to counter magic built into NWN2, nor do I see an easy way to add it.

Does that make non-casters borderline useless? Indeed. Can we fix that? Nope! Even if more feats were added in along the line of disarm/knockdown it would make the most feat hungry classes just take that to 11.

[*Ceremorph]

The one thing I feel that is being missed here is the primary difference between PnP and NWN2... in PnP, the dungeon master has complete and utter control over what NPCs and monsters do. If a 20th level player mage gets into a spell duel with a 20th level NPC mage with equal powers, they're going to win 50% of the time unless their DM is a moron. That's why class-leveled monsters and classed "pc race" enemies are truly the most dangerous creatures in the game. In ancient days of yore (also called the 80s) when I DM'd, the easiest way to scare the crap out of the people playing in my group was the line "as the door opens, you see three humans and an elf standing within".

In NWN2, however, the monsters are morons, tied to scripted actions. This not only ensures that they'll be predictable if you've faced them before, it also often means that they won't use the proper strategy for the situation. How often have we seen a creature with barbarian levels pause to go into rage, giving the PCs a full round of hacking them to bits? Earlier tonight, I had two epic mage NPCs facing a single injured monk, and I let them loose in hostile mode. What did they do? They both decided to engage the monk in hand-to-hand combat. This is the reason why things like high-DC fear auras and bigby's wind up getting implemented: to level the playing field between intelligent PCs and moron monsters. Take away a Shator Lord's bigby, and he's not even close to a worthy foe an epic character.

[*Mr_Otyugh]

You're going in circles :P

Also until saves are halved or DCs upped by 10, bigbys unfortunately remain necessity. Yes, necessity. Because hardly any other spells have realistic chances to stop people <.< I've tried enchanter and illusionist DC based builds with no bigbies, doesn't work well. 95% of time I had to rely on AC, and spell protections or summons.

I mean there's a reason why everyone uses bigbies and IGMS, it's because they work unlike most other spells :P hold monster? yey, you'll get 2 saves in begin, and one save per round. So if you fail save once, and success another, you're held for split second.

[*The_Tarot]

The issue is that if you're hit by one of these spells, you're locked down and as good as dead for several minutes without any recourse. You can go on about how spell mantles 'can' stop a spell, but a Quickened Breach + Bigby will bypass that, and it's also incredibly dependent on both latency and reaction time as to whether one could even get a mantle up in time.

What's more requisite is more capacity to 'break' the hold after the hand has hit. The current checks in place are entirely absurd and unreasonable, or in the case of Forceful Hand, non-existent.

"Save or Die" spells are bad enough. "No Save and Die" spells are just stupid. :P

I can go on about how mantles can prevent bigbies, Because it's true. A player can just as easily time a mantle between the Quickened Breach and Bigbies (Quickened or not) Use expendables until the player is completely out of spells.

If you complain about Latency, Lag, and Reaction time in a situation involving Bigbies, Chances are anything would kill you anyway.

Wands of Spell Mantle cast faster than Quickened Spells. (Which arn't that quick.)

Reading from scrolls/drinking from potions cast sliiiightly slower than Quickened Spells. (And are uninterruptable. Like a Quickened spell should be.) Bigbies, all bigbies spells have a travel time. Hell, Potions may be just as quick. I can usually drink two a round.

Breachs are poor examples on how to deal with spell mantles when they can just as easily put up a new one the next round. Lacing the field with AoE Battlefield Control spells. (Acid Fog, Bewilderment) that eat through mantles each round is a better alternative.

All it takes is a Foundation of Stone/Storm Avatar potion to render Forceful Hand just about useless. (You'd be dazed, but you can cure that with an item/scroll/wand/potion while dazed.)

Sure. Crushing Hand doesn't get stopped by Foundation. Don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn sure I don't have as many 9th level slots as I do Wand charges, sequencer potions, or scrolls.

Don't forget that any caster with quickened bigbys, or even a regular one will have an ethereal jaunt or an etherealness prepared. If let's say someone can make them expend all their spells and begin chewing through their 300 DR(with 50% miss chance), the caster will just pop a get away spell and that'll be it. Actually, it's more likely they'll etherealness, zone out, rest, and come back to finish the job.

30/Adamantine (up to 300 Absorbed) with Premonition. One breach and it's gone, it's no "Spell Mantle" equiviliant of a defense against melee. - and melee often deal more than 30 Damage a smack. How long does it take to eat through 300 Damage? Two rounds, maybe.

Not only that. If melee bothered to look, there are Adamantine weapons available to them. Which bypass all their DR. Most melee often take Blind Fight as well. That 50% mischance becomes 25%.

This isn't a PvP Server. Ethereal on most respected PvP servers lasts 2-5 rounds max. Otherwise mages could just stay in Etherealness for hours at a time, completely "untouchable."

Untouchable is quoted because there are work arounds to that. Whirlwind Attack (There are items that grant this too.) hits Ethereal. Warlocks Chain Spell hits Ethereal. (And HIPS too! Bounce it off your skeleton.) True Seeing + IGMS hits them. As well as most AoE spells. You can even attempt to get up close and use the "Taunt" skill, to try and get them to do an AoO and break their own Ethereal.

[*pelhikano]

Not only that. If melee bothered to look, there are Adamantine weapons available to them. Which bypass all their DR.

I'm fairly certain we removed all Adamantine weapons and the only ones available is some very low chance drop for some pretty inferior light weapon. Adamantine weapons should de facto be extremely rare and not really an option on SCoD.

Untouchable is quoted because there are work arounds to that. Whirlwind Attack (There are items that grant this too.) hits Ethereal. Warlocks Chain Spell hits Ethereal. (And HIPS too! Bounce it off your skeleton.) True Seeing + IGMS hits them. As well as most AoE spells. You can even attempt to get up close and use the "Taunt" skill, to try and get them to do an AoO and break their own Ethereal.

Well, those are all exploiting bugs and engine quirks. I hope we ever get around to fixing these, but until then, these are simply exploits.

[*The_Tarot]

Not only that. If melee bothered to look, there are Adamantine weapons available to them. Which bypass all their DR.

I'm fairly certain we removed all Adamantine weapons and the only ones available is some very low chance drop for some pretty inferior light weapon. Adamantine weapons should de facto be extremely rare and not really an option on SCoD.

Aeollian, A greatsword. Still around. Drops.

Runed Light Hammer. A Finessable Rogue weapon. Hardly inferior. Infact it's Anti-Mage.
I own two. Not sure if it drops anymore.

Might Makes Right. A Warhammer. Haven't seen this around lately. Wasn't great except for it was adamantine.

Plenty of Arrows/Bolts/Bullets for Ranged Users. Still see these infrequently at the vendor.

and rumors of a holyish long sword similiar to "Hallowed Redeemer" "Purifier" out there.

Well, those are all exploiting bugs and engine quirks. I hope we ever get around to fixing these, but until then, these are simply exploits.

Well, Giving that True Seeing is supposed to see Ethereal. I wouldn't call it a bug exploit. The Whirlwind attack and Chain Spell jumping, yeah. Definitely.

Force effects are also supposed to effect Ethereal targets. - Can I bigbies Ethereal targets nao? :P

[*pelhikano]

Note: I don't even speak about PvP here, which I think shouldn't even figure into what items and spells are legal or not on SCoD, this is merely about NPCs.

That's 3 or 4 weapons then which are rare drops, and I'd never even heard we have a greatsword and that warhammer dropping. Meanwhile, every mage has access to those spells simply by taking them/preparing them, while the meleer must first find one of those weapons (which isn't guaranteed, just a chance).

30/Adamantine (up to 300 Absorbed) with Premonition. One breach and it's gone, it's no "Spell Mantle" equiviliant of a defense against melee. - and melee often deal more than 30 Damage a smack. How long does it take to eat through 300 Damage? Two rounds, maybe.

Not only that. If melee bothered to look, there are Adamantine weapons available to them. Which bypass all their DR. Most melee often take Blind Fight as well. That 50% mischance becomes 25%.

Unless he has an Adamantine weapon which is not guaranteed in any way shape or form, taking down that Premonition (which you helpfully pointed out goes away with "one breach", which a meleer can not cast) will likely take more than "2 rounds", which assumes you hit every single attack for 30 or more damage. With the amount of spells that increase AC (like mirror image) and the way concealment works, I don't see how hitting that often will happen, even with Blind Fight. Meanwhile, a "pure" meleer (not a Bard or similar which also has spells, I mean a Fighter or something) is standing there with *maybe* a spell mantle from a potion or wand, if he has the UMD for wands and/or a sequencer potion for that, and the money and the "leisure time" to have those things manufactured for him by a PC.

The problem is simply that playing a character with no innate magic is far more costly and tedious than playing a caster of some sort (you depend on consumables a lot, not all of which are even sold by NPCs and require you to find a PC first to make them for you). This isn't a problem unique to SCoD either, it's been this way in every world and in every single player module of NWN2 as well. This is why (as I said earlier in the thread) I'm working on adding some areas where these major drawbacks pay off in some way so there's a reason to play a non-magic character.

[*The_Tarot]

I wasn't specifically regarding PvP either. As I said several times. "This isn't a PvP server." On PvP servers, Many features are changed.

The point is the weapons exist, and if you have resources, they're easy enough to get. Aeollians are actually one of the more common "rares" (Purples).

If the Fighter invested in UMD, Then he has access to breach as well, Via wands. If not, then he'd have to make effort to find one of the above mentioned weapons.

Just like everyone else, He has to find an enchanter to make equipment he wants.

In a setting in which magic is as common and routinely used as is putting on pants in the morning. and in a PW where money is pretty easy to get a hold of.

I don't see what the problem is.

I go into Carceri with my mage, I see three or four Shator Lords cast a spell mantle, and know that I'm going to have to dip into my funds in order to kill them in reasonable manner. Tedious when they just cast the spell again the next round.

A Pure Fighter walks into Carceri, Puts on his Anti-Grasping Hand Heavy Armor, available convienantly at your local Halfling Armorer, and goes to town. Sure, Etherealness is a pain, but Etherealness and Spell Mantle is just the same.

Non-casters scale better with available equipment. That equipment is available.