Ad Astra

Since the focus of this place is not going to be PvP, it would be pointless. So, no.

Add to the fact that no one at WotC was thinking of balance when a level 20 barbarian can maybe hit a dragon with more than 2 attacks a round, whilst a level 20 wizard can stop time itself and probably f*ck up a star so it goes supernova.

I wouldn't put it as "no multi-task mages", as ones build is up to ones user. Making sure people shine without running over anyone else is entirely on the DM. I'd rather not get into too many rules regarding what people are allowed to build.

Now having said that, we certainly could use guidelines that prevent arbitrary power building that doesn't actually have any RP basis at all. Again though, I wouldn't get carried away with it.

Regarding actual stat rebalancing? No, I have never been in favor of such a thing.

As it stands the classes are built they way they are to go against the foes of the land Not against Player Characters. It will need to be stressed that if folks are wanting PVP combat then they should pick a different game or server to play. Nothing is ever balanced when it comes to fighting which is what is getting irritating with all the attempts at 'balancing' in certain games these days. Yet I I do agree on restricting some of the power building. for straight mechanical superiority, though I understand that even in the regular games folks will do power builds. This restriction is something that we need to set down as a 'house rule' for the server. Either way just because the numbers say it works doesn't mean it does. ah.. right .. rambling... sorry!

-- Edited by Emiryn on Friday 23rd of November 2012 12:11:58 AM

I wouldn't mind seeing a limit of one prestige class and one multi-class. For clarification, that means you could multi-class once with another base class and prestige class into one class. This would actually affect my own character: I'd have to choose between Arcane Scholar and Shadow Dancer. It certainly wouldn't stop all power builds, but, it would definitely reduce the available number of them to a more manageable level.

Just thought of something--I suppose drastic option #2 is to skip new classes from the vault altogether, and rehaul all the prestige classes (and create new ones) to be little 3 level things with limited abilities that just tweaks a base class a little bit. They started doing this every so often in 3.5 in some later books. The only example I can think of right off that's online is the racial paragon classes here

The major down side is that most overhauls are fairly major projects, even if the end result could be fun.

-- Edited by MimiFearthegn on Saturday 24th of November 2012 02:32:45 PM

Clerics, Wizards, Bards, Warlocks, Sorcerors, Favored Souls can all thrive without PrCs or multi-classing, with clerics and favored souls easily being able to hit 100+ with their crits... take a fighter, swashbuckler or something similar and you quickly notice how lacking their kits are and how they direly need something to make them viable when compared to anyone who can throw a +5 on their weapon and run at the speed of light whilst being immune to roughly 90% of the debuffs in the game. That's what I am talking about it.

I can't count how many times my weapon master/FB elf who hit ~170 (~120 with a tower shield) on each crit died in DM encounters because frankly, without spells, HiPS or Dwarvern Defender, you quickly realize how easy to kill your character is.

-- Edited by Tomekk on Saturday 24th of November 2012 07:28:51 PM

Not to defend power-building but I just don't see how the rule affects anything anyhow. I don't see any much CvC happening and if it does, I'd rather have those things RPed. Power builds can ofcourse affect experience of other party members during mechanical combat on events but I don't believe those are going to be the main focus either, atleast not in the current campaign.

Tomekk wrote:

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That's a stupid PnP rule which nerfs non-casters; no.

-- Edited by Tomekk on Saturday 24th of November 2012 09:04:28 AM

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 Ok, well, it was just a thought. I brought it up because I personally don't want to see what you mentioned before: Frenized Barbarian/Weapon Master.  Or any combination of anything where every other hit is for 100+ damage.  This isn't even a CvC concern for me, as I intentionally play my characters to be bad at CvC.  And as it's been mentioned, CvC should be fairly rare as it is.  I'm more thinking of the poor monsters and NPCs.  

But I guess yes, it's pointless to actually suggest nerfing anything, becuase it ends up offending someone else no matter what the suggestion is.  For instance, nothing about what I suggested was meant to nerf non-casters, but, I guess that's how Tomekk sees it.  

So for that matter, I'll just say that the more content the better.  It's all sure to terribley unbalance one thing or another, but, that already exists as it stands.   Basically, the more classes that are overpowered, the closer to fair we get, because nobody really wants to have their favorite thing nerfed. 

 

I think you can 'balance' some of your magic vs. non-magic classes better with limiting resting. Many mage players hate this, and insist that they cannot play if they cannot rest every other minute, which is sorta understandable if you're talking about pure mages trying to compete with a weapons master in constant damage output. But if you're trying to combat the short term buff spell power level (which a lot of cleric builds seem to rely upon for that extra oomph), limited resting basically solves it. The divine feat progression becomes less attractive when its not instantly rechargeable. Warlocks also "get their due" in such scenarios, as the magic based class that never has to rest (though warlocks seem quite capable of holding their own regardless).

And I supported getting rid of immunities! Just not Protection from Evil for plot reasons.

There isn't any stat or mechanics for a lot of things that should be in there. Between the casting without tiring and the fighting all day long (provided you don't die) you have to go figure. I have taken base classes and surprised the hell out of people by figuring out potent combos of feats and gear that would make you call it a powerbuild. The only criterion that seems to earn the peg powerbuild is the appearance of being powerful.

Honestly, I have seen people damage the balance of this game far more on prior servers by simply attempting to 'balance' the classes. They were trying to fix one problem and they created a whole new can of worms in the process. It might be easier to just say that we refer back to core rules. Certain things could be tweaked to fit core. One being that clerics do NOT get armor proficiencies. And little things like that. But, I'm not exactly cozy to the notion of completely rewriting the core rules where it doesn't suit someone's tastes of balance.

With regards to the magic vs nonmagic. Shame on the non-magic users for not fighting smarter. I'm not trying to be mean here but its true. I've seen smart people take the straight forward approach against classes that you shouldn't take on head on... Its kinda like when you go to tackle a monster or an encounter. Do you have only one tactic at your disposal when you approach every problem? Nine times out of ten the casters win because their strengths work best when the opposition is relying on only one mode of attack. What happens when you pull something clever though? Suddenly they may not hold the upper hand.

Now I noted above the discussion of support characters and an indirect reference to frontliners. I can personally attest to having played a fighter as a support character in a battle. Sometimes you are not going to be hacking at the frontlines. Sometimes it might be smarter to get up with others. Pull out a bow and start laying down covering fire with the rest of your group. That is all aimed to keep the group alive and soften up the threat. Not all mages and clerics are wholly support just as not all combat classes are frontliners. Its all how they're played I suppose.

The spells were written the way they were written for better or worse. Given the nature of the spell selection in this game I would caution the annihlation of the counters to some very nasty spells. Most of those buffs were made to be counters to the other nasties that casters can sling. Now if we took a look at the bigby line of spells. I could see if someone objected to the versions implemented as they do not follow the pnp rules very well at all. I'm of the mind that some spells should never have been implemented unless they are correctly implemented. Rather than digress into specific cases it is easier to suggest that anyone with the curiousity go looking up the pnp versions of some common spells. In particular the spells that earn the most notoriety. Now I do realize that it appears to be extremely powerful when you have the means to wholly block a certain form of magic or energytype at middle range levels... death ward is 4th tier. Energy immunity is between 6th and 7th depending on class. It feels almost godly at first. Until you think upon some of the counters that are in game. Albeit they require a caster to pull em off. You can debuff em. Also... energy immunity isn't going to save you from a sword swinging powerhouse if they get you in close quarters and spells like premonition won't help much when the person hitting you is something like Vorgazar. "Oh wow I absorbed 30 damage off of his crit... I'm still in a lot of pain right now..." Heh. you get the idea there.

Personally I am in favor of implementing more from core rules. Just as long as it is done sensibly. Some features were intended to counter other features and I want to stress that adding or removing one features without ensuring that their counters are fully functional could lead to moments where everyone in witness would just be like. 'Really?' Did that just happen now?

I'm gonna close this up by saying that I'd be in favor of cleaning up any inconsistencies betweent he classes in nwn2 and how they are on the pnp sheet. There are a few glaring differences that do make a huge impact on how you would experience or build your character. Clerics being one with the whole no armor proficiencies in pnp. ( You may not think that would make a huge difference at first but try playing a cleric with that). Well, balancing takes time, foresight, and lots of lots of readjustments when you realize things didn't work out the way you hoped.

3.5 Did introduce clerics being able to wear all kinds of armor. as I think they were going for more of a battle cleric in some respects. I did not mean to say that support roles could not be taken up by other classes, nor that melee classes are always on the front lines. I was stating my point of view on how I saw the classes and Did not mean to offend anyone with my statements.

Now I do agree that there are tweaks that are needed to tidy up the game.

The thing is. These different classes do come with their tradeoffs. Class tweaks and or class based feat tweaks can be brought to bear as needed. I don't expect to perfectly emulate pnp in this game. There are just too many things that couldn't be reasonably scripted out to work on the fly. That doesn't mean we can't have a few tweaks here and there to bring the experience closer to the rulebooks.

If there are any glaring discrepancies between the nwn2 version of the rules and core we could always start noting them for future fixes.

I'm still confused about the concern over magic users vs. non-magic users from a roleplay stand point. What exactly is the problem people are worried we'll have? And why does it possibly entail giving pseudo-magic abilities to non-casters?

Taurus Daggerknight wrote:

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About resting; yes, I agree, instant rest is dumb, it always was. I'd ask that we only allow resting on the main ship/ at select inns and NOT mid session unless the DM specifically says "yes, the PARTY may rest here.". Now that right there will solve a lot of the mages issues.

-- Edited by Taurus Daggerknight on Tuesday 27th of November 2012 06:32:32 AM

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 *waits with gleeful anticipation to turn off the rest button so she can spam save character commands from it whenever she wants*

I'm all for removing race and alignment requirements on classes, though I would point out that this contradicts most ideas of what "roleplaying a class" is about. The emphasis is then definitely on the class' abilities and not on what the class is "supposed" to be.

As a player of a wizard, as you likely know, the rest thing is uh...well important. Here's the deal: if there is going to be a lot of action, then frequent resting has to exist. Or, melee classes have to be limited in some way. I'm not ok with classes having "infinite action potential" or IAP(TM) unless all of them do.

For me this is a deal breaker. I'll understand if you want to go through with the rest limitation, but, I will respectfully back out of the project if you do. This isn't a threat, it's just a bottom line for me. I simple despise some people having huge downtime and others not.

Well melee classes, have to rest due to their hit points, and since they take most of the hits I think it's pretty much balanced regarding to the rest. Wizard have wands and other items (blast staff you can find on sigil) to make sure they keep having things to do while they're out of spells.

As for hide in plain sight, what about restricting its use to the PnP rule : You cannot hide in plain sight if you're not at 10ft of any shadow, that not counting others peoples shadows of course unless you're something like a bad ass level 10 shadow dancer. Finding shadow isn't actually so difficult, its just to make sure people won't abuse it by hiding in plain daylight in the middle of the desert.

Well it should be made clear that at launch we will have basic default game balance (Light's Kaedrin additions aside). I'm not going to disable rest until everyone agrees upon it, or anything like that (though I do think "r" makes a far handier save character button :p ).

BUT, I do think that DM's not letting people randomly rest mid-session is an important policy, and I would definitely be implementing it in any session I happened to run. It really is a matter of being fair to everyone. We are stuck with the class system, its a hallmark of DnD, and all the spellcasting classes are balanced around being forced to rest at some point (or not, in the case of the warlock). As it is, said resting requirements are really really lenient in NWN2. All that said, we aren't going to have a leveling system, we are going to all be starting out at max level, and no resting restriction suggested is going to put more stress on somebody than running through the Abyss in Sigil.