Kensai

[Kreydis]

You're literally arguing for a 10% increase to save chance vs options. Any any DnD setting it would be your death. But in Arelith it's perfectly fine because almost all monsters are cookie cutter slabs of meat that require almost no thought on how to take down.

Congrats, you haven't convinced me why taking called shot over saves is silly to you. All you've done is prove the point of many in that this server is basic with it's monsters at the best of times. But you agree with me on that part to some degree at least.

[Cortex]

what

[Kreydis]

Just raging, don't mind me. Or do mind me and perhaps take a lesson about how easy arelith truly is. And that everyone's builds are disgustingly similar.

[gilescorey]

This thread's certainly jumped the shark.

[Nitro]

Just raging, don't mind me. Or do mind me and perhaps take a lesson about how easy arelith truly is. And that everyone's builds are disgustingly similar.

Something something don't blame the player, something something, the game.

[High Primate]

Just raging, don't mind me.

Sure thing.

[Shadowy Reality]

Kreydis is trying to shake people a bit. There are so many well defined builds that people refuse to look at anything else and just discard other options as weaker, much like they are doing with Kensai.

We're talking about KD being useful when you take into account you can chug True Strike potions? Why don't I hear anyone defending Disarm? I'll argue taking their weapon is far more combat winning than getting them down for a round. I know I took it over KD in one of my melee builds and I forced combat to stop several times due to it.

[Cortex]

well if you take a look at my optimale builds 2h ones get imp disarm

Though generally it's because Knockdown is more useful in PvE, and you don't benefit from Disarm in PvP as much. The penalty to disarm is also greater unless you take Improved Disarm(also triggers an AoO without it), while Knockdown is useful without Improved KD.

[Septire]

Just raging, don't mind me. Or do mind me and perhaps take a lesson about how easy arelith truly is. And that everyone's builds are disgustingly similar.

There are so many well defined builds that people refuse to look at anything else and just discard other options as weaker, much like they are doing with Kensai.

Compared to the old days, before the adventuring XP update and the respawn penalty changes, I'd be more inclined to agree that for the time it took to level up it is more desirable to flesh out a character in entirety and concern oneself over not ending up with a complete brick for a character.

The server is pretty easy to level now, with few set-backs. Tedious at times with the grind, but in general it's brainlessly easy. There's more reason now to just play something the way you want to play it without worrying too much about the finer details of a build.

All this talk about kensai being a trap class really comes down to expectation, as I mentioned before. The path is decent enough for the leveling process. It starts to break down a bit at higher levels, and in context with PvP.

Though I am being facetious here, what would that warning label say? "WARNING: this path sucks for PvP. If you are new to the server and are serious about PvP, please read the build guides on the forum and consult the Arelith/NWNwiki. Your character will not be viable in PvP! If you travel solo, you will not be as nearly as effective than if you party! You have been warned!!" You really think that this is the first thing a player is going to leap to when they see the Arelith front page and are looking for a RP server: PvP? Solofarming?

There's so many players caught up on trying to find out how to make the game easier for themselves (powerbuilding is the path to easy-mode, in my eyes) that they fail to see that other players do not share the same set of priorities on why they play Arelith to begin with. This feat is bad and you should feel stupid for taking it, this feat is optimal and you should feel stupid for not taking it. Who cares? I'm a filthy casual. Let me experiment. Hell, experimentation with build concepts got us from believing RDD and Shifter were OP to the meta that we have now.

I find it cathartic to step away from the powerbuilding arms race, once in a while. And I have a great deal of fun just playing something different without holding myself to these standards of perfection.

tl;dr: Powerbuilding arguments trigger a dev who cares more about people enjoying the game than PvP mongering/arms-race. Fun means something different for each person.

[Cortex]

Or, or, maybe people "powerbuild" their characters to be able to play through the module in a comfortable way, PvE or PvP. There's not even that many "powerbuilt" characters in the server, contrary to popular belief.

Really, what is your definition of powerbuilding?

Is a 20/7/3 a powerbuild? Because it isn't unstoppable or anything, I would argue there is no powerbuild in Arelith right now, because there is no build that is a "trump all no weakness bow before me" god tier thing, in the days of old prior certain changes, sure, especially with Raven Dragonshaper, but now... There's good builds, decent builds, and bad builds.

[Septire]

Easy: achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties. (of a period of time or way of life) free from worries or problems.

I would consider few difficulties to be comfortable. Players not having to worry about aspects of the game such as DC-based spells by countering with unisaves or spellcraft dumps, as one example. Then again, following a guide level-by-level could also be comfortable. Does not require a great deal of thought to accept a guide at face value and not really question it.

What do I consider a powerbuild? Well, that's a bit harder to define because there's no clear demarcation where something crosses from being general play into powerbuilding. When we say "powerbuild", we nevertheless elicit some understanding from what the speaker is talking about. I think it's easier to look at it in terms of powerbuilding strategies or powerbuilding principles, and how far a character follows those strategies. The 20/7/3 build you mention takes 3 levels for UMD and tumble (and possibly spellcraft if the 3 is bard). A 3rd level character would not normally be able to achieve skill ranks of 30 with so little training. If a 3rd level character could not achieve those ranks, it is doubtful that you would have picked up the class, since it doesn't offer much at all outside of those skill ranks.

I don't believe you are actually interested in becoming a bard/rogue, nor are (for example) paladins or wizards suddenly going to turn away from what they've been doing their whole lives to pursue a life of larceny, thieving, burglary, or thuggery (rogue) or suddenly take to instrument playing, tale-telling, and side-kicking (bard). You can say that you've woven it into your RP and try to fabricate an explanation, but that's just paying lip-service to RP to try to justify the sudden spike in effectiveness, the real motive for taking the class.

If we change the definition of a powerbuild from the number of powerbuilding strategies/principles applied to the character, to any character that can "trump all, no weaknesses, bow before me", then no, there's no powerbuilds. What I am referring to is when players play characters that push the systems to their limits, beyond what would be plausible for a character with that sort of level distribution, for the sake of maximizing AC, versatility, AB, saves to spells, and similar stats. That's what I mean by powerbuild.

I've played good, decent, and bad builds, and the amount of enjoyment I've had doesn't seem to strongly correlate with how strong my character is, but rather, if the character's personality is decent and the RP is fun. It seems unintuitive to willingly play something weaker, but give it a shot. There's characters I've made as throw-aways, or at a whim, or behest of someone else, that I've ended up having the most fun with. Xei'zex/Baelun was at the request of DM Talos and Sarog's player. Salindra was just designed to be a classic assassin. Dartak was designed as an anti-powerbuild to annoy people. None of these characters I would deem as optimal, with the exception of perhaps Dartak for being cheesy. I played these characters for years and found the game to be really fun.

I think when people feel that their character is adequate (or good), they tend to invest more time in detailing their character and fleshing them out more, and for this reason they tend to have more positive RP interactions, not just for the mechanics themselves. It is easy to correlate a good build to being favorable and welcomed in RP/a group, but I think there are other reasons, like the one I pointed out here.

[Cortex]

Rogues were versatile masters of stealth, combat, and various skillful tricks. Where other adventurers had the power to defeat their enemies, rogues used their wits and their natural resourcefulness to exploit their foes' vulnerabilities as well as to lead their allies safely through dangerous environments, disarming traps and opening lock along the way.

Bards were versatile arcane spellcasters, capable in combat, art, and magic alike. Bards practiced magic as they would art or song, using their artistic talents to induce magical effects that either bolstered their allies or hindered their enemies, typically through charms and illusions. In addition to their magical skills, bards were artistically talented and extraordinarily well-learned, possessing knowledge in a wide range of fields.[1] Bards were among the most versatile of adventurers, capable of learning from practically any trade.

These definitions above are so broad and don't really include a "way to roleplay the class", they don't have alignment restrictions. A rogue doesn't have to be a thief, robber or a thug, he can just be a specialist, a bard doesn't have to carry a mandolin about, they're a jack of all trades. There is no need to justify either class when the actions and mechanics given to the character already displays such, that's just like a weapon master doing bigger criticals, you notice they've dedicated some time to learn the blade, just like someone with sneak attacks dedicated some time to exploit weaknesses.

Gimping yourself on purpose is making the game "harder" by yourself, because by no means the game forces you to gimp yourself. A lot of games have more streamlined skill trees to avoid scenarios where you can muck up a character build, DnD/NWN grants more freedom, in order to best tailor a character for the module you're playing, in this case, Arelith.

Maximizing a character to earn the best results in stats is just "manually" setting the "skill tree" to what would a more standardized option in another game (regardless if it's average/overpowered/underpowered), like picking "Warrior" class and then picking between "two hander", "sword and shield" or "dual-wield", each having different and unique attributes without much variation (minding that while variation is good, the more options to customize a character there are, the more complicated it becomes to balance the class and game world, and that only a select few of the variations are bound to shine while others rot, just like in Arelith and other servers).

RP/the character himself and how much you have fun with it depends on the person, theoretically you can have fun with a garbage build you took for some reason or another, but that alone generally won't properly justify not going for a better option unless there is no better option for the concept (see: rangers and druids).

The best roleplayers I know tend to make really good builds, or at least, gimick builds with clear strengths, while a few others don't care about the build and generally suck in PvP/PvE, ultimately the build doesn't affect the quality of the roleplayer, so it shouldn't even be brought up in a discussion like this to begin with.

[Septire]

These definitions above are so broad and don't really include a "way to roleplay the class", they don't have alignment restrictions. A rogue doesn't have to be a thief, robber or a thug, he can just be a specialist, a bard doesn't have to carry a mandolin about, they're a jack of all trades. There is no need to justify either class when the actions and mechanics given to the character already displays such, that's just like a weapon master doing bigger criticals, you notice they've dedicated some time to learn the blade, just like someone with sneak attacks dedicated some time to exploit weaknesses.

I'm going to side-step this strawman, it's not the root issue. You don't see Paladin/Wizards or Paladin/druids, /fighters, /monks, because they don't offer nearly as much mechanical benefit that rogue or bard does. It's not impossible for such things to exist in an RP context, but you don't see them at all. To me, taking those classes with a shaky RP reasoning is not primarily for RP, and factoring RP into it is to blatantly contrive a reason to justify mechanical gains. Further justification of the RP a class could offer is just more of the same. I was sitting here considering editing that part with a huge disclaimer because I was worried that it would have been preyed on and we would derail, but you beat me to posting.

If I understand your argument, you are trying to separate RP from builds, to show that how you RP a character is independent of the build, so why not just powerbuild (my definition) to make things easier and more convenient? Why would a player want to play things the hard way?

Should RP not be brought up in conversations like this? The OP is talking about Kensai being a trap class. I am trying to show that there's RP merit that the path can offer, and that RP doesn't require a good build. I am saying that build quality subtly affects the roleplayer when you consider time investment on developing the character's personality and story. I am saying that if a player invests more time and care into defining their character, for whatever reason, they're likely to get better RP interactions.

You are saying that RP sits on a different layer from the mechanics and anyone can RP. So we're really arguing for the same thing, the only difference being that I am saying builds don't matter and you're saying why gimp yourself. I'm just saying ultimately, builds don't really matter as far as story goes. If you want to adhere to the Maximizing strategy, by all means, but there's fun to be had in not following it as well. That's my whole point.

Some of the best roleplayers I have ever seen on the server had detestably terrible builds. I'll add more later, maybe. Lecture is finished and I have to cut it short.

[Dalenger]

So yeah I think the kensai update looks cool. Nice to see some life breathed into a dead path. I still think its a trap for those who really care about optimal, but for me not having to worry much about ever buying haste wands will be nice.

Though I PRAY to the devs to add a -slow command so that monks & kensai folk can walk next to everyone else without having to stop every 12 feet.

[Shadowy Reality]

Optimal is not something you should strive for at all times, stop beating the Path for not being optimal. You can't optimize without it having impact.

Many people optimize by having characters with 8 Charisma and 8 Wisdom? And somehow, those characters are often great at leading people, with strong personalities, etc.

With 8 Wisdom your PC should be aloof, struggling to see and survive the world as regular people do. With 8 Charisma your PC should be easier to manipulate than most, he lacks force of personality.

Kensai is far from an awful Path. It offers benefits and weaknesses, yet reading this thread you definitely get the wrong impression.

[Iceborn]

What ^ said.

Or, or, maybe people "powerbuild" their characters to be able to play through the module in a comfortable way, PvE or PvP. There's not even that many "powerbuilt" characters in the server, contrary to popular belief.

I don't think I've seen a fighter without blackguard/pally levels in positive charisma for a long, long time.

[Cortex]

when mechanical snobs meet rp snobs

[Kreydis]

when mechanical snobs meet rp snobs

ON AN RP SERVER!

[Hunter548]

A certain amount of optimization, build savy-ness, mechanical power, whatever, is to be expected when we're playing a game like D&D 3.x with levels, classes, feats, progression, etc etc etc. The game is, at it's absolute core, about four to six people delving into a dungeon, killing monsters, getting treasure, and repeating this while uncovering a story about an evil overlord for them to stop that the DM is telling them about.

Arelith bends this formula to have it be uncovering a story being told by your fellow player rather than a DM, and sometimes you're the evil Overlord, but the core is still there. (Incidentally, this is why some degree of PvP balance is important, because if players are the ones telling stories, and can play both heroes and villians, PvP is inevitable and probably necessary for the server's health to some degree.)

Optimizing doesn't necessarily preclude roleplaying, nor is someone who's better at roleplaying automatically less optimal. Can it get silly at times, yeah, sure, but it doesn't Have to be completely without roleplay, nor do three levels define every aspect of your character.

If you want people to not take a bard dump on their wizard, make it less compulsory. Even ignoring PvP, a wizard without discipline will occasionally die when fighting monsters through no fault of their own, because a gnoll walked up, tripped them, and then ate them. Parties only help so much, and dying to something you had literally zero way of responding to because of a quirk of the game's engine isn't fun, it isn't an interesting story to tell, and it isn't a mark of a difficult game, but a bad one. This is why people take rogue dumps on their WMs (Because if you don't have evasion at RDI, you'll die with absolutely nothing you can do about it, and you need UMD for areas like the Talassians, Pandemonium, Troll Caves, etc etc etc).

Solve that, and you probably solve the "problem" of skill dumping and dip classes.

On the actual topic du jour: Kensai absolutely is a newbie trap class, not because it's necessarily bad at PvP, but because it locks you out of some options that are very important on Arelith, and that won't be readily apparent to a new player who makes a simple fighter to test this awesome server they just found, only to find out the fighter rapidly becomes worse than all his other fighter friends. A lack of clarity potions, antidote potions, breach wands, etc will hurt, and your average new player who's not as familiar with the server as the rest of us won't realize that there are some areas where that sort of thing is helpful to have, party or not. Incidentally, Kensai'll still be a bit of a trap for new players even if no one has UMD, because of the lack of access to potions.

Can you work around these limitations as a kensai? Sure. Is it harder to do so? Yeah. Should a new player be made aware of that to some degree before they select the path? Yeah, probably.

The advice of "party up" doesn't always solve this either, unless there's some hidden room in Cordor that automatically spits out 2-3 base class NPCs that I've not noticed. 99% of the grinding groups/parties I've been in on Arelith over the past eight-ish Kill me years haven't been the archetypical balanced D&D party. Sometimes we don't have a cleric because the characters involved hated the gods, or just didn't know any clerics, or were of a certain religion that no one played clerics for. Sometimes we didn't have mages because there weren't any online at the time we decided to go. Sometimes we didn't have rogues. Sometimes we were four WMs. You can't expect every little weakness of a class or build to be covered by another character, because oftentimes it's not going to be feasible. Self-sufficiency isn't an inherently bad thing.

[Kreydis]

Self-sufficiency isn't an inherently bad thing.

You know what is? Every character being a carbon copy of each-other.

[Nitro]

Self-sufficiency isn't an inherently bad thing.

You know what is? Every character being a carbon copy of each-other.

So... You want people to make sub-optimal options to please you? If people want to min-max, there's nothing wrong with that, everyone likes to play the game in their own way, and none of us (bar the DM's) has the right to tell anyone else "You're doing it wrong" because we don't like the way they're playing it.

[Hunter548]

You know what is? Every character being a carbon copy of each-other.

Except this isn't the case in the slightest.

Arelith build variety right now is actually some of the healthiest I think it's ever been for anyone not a wizard/sorcerer.

[gilescorey]

You know what is? Every character being a carbon copy of each-other.

I feel like you're definitely getting away from the thread topic (helpfully notated at the top of every post- it says Kensai). If you want to talk about this self-diagnosed issue of every character being the same, you might consider making a new thread.

[Irongron]

In the early days of Arelith I saw a lot more 'player=policing' of people's builds, and there was definitely a noticable elitism about those who didn't 'mini-max' (because it was all about stats in those days).

I'm glad we've moved away from that. Sure I can sometimes get a bit depresssed when I see a lot of Arelith discussed only in terms of builds, but I much prefer that to when it was a taboo subject (and DMs would punish the RP rating of those they perceived to be doing it)

As a player though, I can't say it interests me all that much at all. Of my last (maybe only?) five level 30 characters 3 didn't have UMD, and I really didn't give it a thought, or indeed any of their weaknesses - I really was just enjoying playing the character. I'm not saying that the 'correct' way to play, but it is 'a' way to play. I'm personally glad that people can find different things to attract them in such an old game.

Sure, Kensai may be a 'trap' (not terribly fond of the term) but then so is playing a gnome over a human, as by level 30 your human friend will be able to do all kinds of things that you can't. I'm happy people enjoy playing it, and I find it hard argue it is ultimately unrewarding, when we have plenty of players who quite plainly state that they do enjoy it, warts and all.

To return to nostalgia, and those 'golden days' of NWN, I remember I would regularly get probing tells asking about my character's build (especially after successful PvP), whereas now that just never happens to me. Furthermore the RP I see on a daily basis is often far advanced from what I had been used to in the past.

I don't really feel we're becoming more mechanics focused than we were, as a larger community, though it has become a trending topic on the forums largely due to the current make-up of our active users, and, more importantly, the direction of many recent updates.

As for the updates, to Kensai and much else, I really do feel they have been crucial. On taking ownership of the server a theme that I kept returning to was how I felt we had lost sight of the 'game' aspect of NWN, as I sincerely felt much of the content was heavily overpowered (and still is). I recall when Animal Companions were adjusted I read a comment along the lines of 'Yes, my familar is unstoppable, but it's absolutely okay because its fits my character's RP'. Needless to say this wasn't a comment that really fit to my view of what Arelith should be.

With Kenasi I'm really only interested in the ratio of people that enjoyed the class, to people that went on to heavily regret it. Though it is now clear that Kensai is extremely unlikely to ever be removed, so the topic is a largely academic one.

[Kreydis]

You know what is? Every character being a carbon copy of each-other.

I feel like you're definitely getting away from the thread topic (helpfully notated at the top of every post- it says Kensai). If you want to talk about this self-diagnosed issue of every character being the same, you might consider making a new thread.

Rarely does anything stay on topic past page 1. So while you're right to single me out, their was really no point to this thread outside of "Yay and boo"