Arelith

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:10 pm**

Can someone explain the mechanical benefits of discipline to me? I'm tempted to just drop it from my build all together, because any DECENT build is going to be able to beat a full spec with ESF disc right?

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:11 pm**

This is with a sidenote that the build I'm running will have excellent AC somewhere in the high 60's. If they can't beat the AC then what would be the point? I could see the 5% roll messing everything up, but I'll have KD as well. So.

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:14 pm**

If you're flat footed or they beat your AC in a good roll, you're toast. You can make your discipline higher than your AC, not to mention you still roll a d20 on top of your discipline, having KD yourself won't matter if they got good discipline.

33 ranks
14 ish from gear
14 assuming youre a STR build with 38 STR
10 epic skill focus disc

71 discipline. Now nothing short of a lucky true strike would KD you.

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2017 1:27 pm**

Only 26 STR, Not sure if I could stat my gear with it. I want 1/1 STR/CHA with Level 2 cleric slots. Could I add +2 DISC on the back end?

Posted: **Fri Aug 18, 2017 2:37 pm**

It's fairly simple.

If you're sure your character, their concept and style of gameplay, will get into a lot of PvP situations then Discipline is pretty much essential. Even with high 60's in AC a decent WM (or similar) with a TS pot will land a hit on you and then knock you down. If you're on your arse with no Disc then you're dead, simple as.

However if you're certain that your character won't be one that'll be in PvP very much at all, if any, then Disc can be avoided. I had a character with no Disc but he wasn't really a PvPer in any way, he pretty much avoided conflict where he could both actively and through his "story". Because of this I never really needed Disc.

To Summarise:
Definitely going to PvP relatively often? Take Disc
Not going to PvP often if at all? You can do without it.

Posted: **Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:41 am**

What do You think about going PARRY instead of Discipline for DX-build chars?

With smart toggling of the mode - You could essentially be much better with it then with Disc

Posted: **Sat Aug 19, 2017 12:49 am**

That seems pretty unreliable. What if whatever you're fighting is more than 1 guy? What if it's a monk with five million attacks? What if they have a summon along that soaks up your parry and then knocks you flat on your Snuggybear (where all that DEX dodge AC matters for nothing).

Posted: **Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:28 am**

Yeah, parry is absolutely not a replacement for discipline. Even ignoring all the cases Nitro outlined, you're never going to be able to parry all 4-5 attacks a meleer has post level 16-18.

To address the original point though: There's a lot of circumstances where your AC will be less because you're flatfooted, or dispelled, or w/e. Discipline also gets a d20 roll to resist a KD attempt, while your AC doesn't. What else are you gonna take anyways? Every build needs discipline, for good reason.

Posted: **Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:47 pm**

Buying parry instead of discipline is a thinly disguised attempt at suicide.

Beyond the points already brought up, any natural 20 automatically bypasses the parry check, at which point you're on your Snuggybear, not parrying, and super duper dead.

Similar logic applies to high AC builds. You don't want to be the guy who dies an honor-destroying death to someone 10 levels lower than you because you cut discipline from the build, got unlucky, and had a natural 20 slip through your 68 AC.

Darkness_Dawns wrote:This is with a sidenote that the build I'm running will have excellent AC somewhere in the high 60's. If they can't beat the AC then what would be the point? I could see the 5% roll messing everything up, but I'll have KD as well. So.

You may also have KD, but the other guy guaranteed won't be trying to skip discipline. You may well find yourself in a fight where your opponent, having examined you while you were both rolling for 20s (happens a fair bit in pvp when at least one player is super defense built) and realizes that the examination check has "Discipline: Garbage, please KD" towards the bottom. Suddenly, you're fishing for 20s against someone who can soak lucky hits until he runs out of kits, but who tears you a bonus Snuggybear when he finally gets his 20.

Darkness_Dawns wrote:Can someone explain the mechanical benefits of discipline to me? I'm tempted to just drop it from my build all together, because any DECENT build is going to be able to beat a full spec with ESF disc right?

Not really. Late game, most builds can get 55+ disc reasonably well, even if they have no strength to speak of. 55 disc isn't a perfect defense, but it'll save you most of the time against most builds. You'll be looking at 33 ranks (32, if something is compelling you to finish your build out on a class with no disc) + 12-18 from gear + ESF disc if you grab it, prior to taking any strength into account. Most melee builds won't hit more than 48-50 AB prior to popping either true strike or a whole stinking huge mess of cleric buffs, both of which you can see coming, and respond to by gtfoing from melee range or throwing down the improved expertise or whatever other defensive buffs you've got. Even in the worst passive vs passive case (the only case that's likely to happen cold and untelegraphed, before you have time to counterplay), 55 disc beats out 50 AB roughly 75% of the time.

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:35 pm**

Several obviously trolling posts removed.

This section of the forum maintains its value exclusively for being a public, open, and basically friendly place for people who don't know as much about the game as they'd like to ask questions and have them answered. So long as it's educational, there's value here. The moment it dissolves into snark, trolling, or intentionally misleading advice, it loses its value.

Furthermore, Aelryn, while there was nothing wrong with the tone of your post, the salient point for this particular forum is:

Aelryn Bloodmoon wrote:I agree that it is 100% of the time mechanically superior in every way to have discipline rather than not have it, to the point that in certain fights not having it will (al)most definitely get you killed

And you probably could have summed up your post with just that sentence.

A builds and mechanics forum isn't the place to tell someone that they can win with poor builds, so long as they play well. While manifestly a true statement some of the time, it also doesn't address the OP's inquiry of, basically, "does taking discipline help my build?".

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:03 pm**

Ecstatic wrote:
A builds and mechanics forum isn't the place to tell someone that they can win with poor builds, so long as they play well. While manifestly a true statement some of the time, it also doesn't address the OP's inquiry of, basically, "does taking discipline help my build?".

I disagree 100%. This topic has basically told everyone that you MUST take discipline to be viable. That is wrong. It is better, yes in almost every aspect, but to suggest that others telling people you do not have to have it is wrong and removing it does nothing but spread misinformation.

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:23 pm**

Griefmaker wrote:This topic has basically told everyone that you MUST take discipline to be viable. That is wrong. It is better, yes in almost every aspect,(...)

What?

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:24 pm**

Orian_666 wrote:To Summarise:
Definitely going to PvP relatively often? Take Disc
Not going to PvP often if at all? You can do without it.

This is the most important thing IMO. If you have epic dodge, high AC, and only fight NPCs, you're fine without discipline. If you are trying to RP a character who can defeat other PCs in duels though, then you probably need as much discipline as you can get.

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:27 pm**

Griefmaker wrote:Having discipline is better than not having discipline, but to tell people that is misinformation!

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:35 pm**

Griefy, you're entitled to your opinion, but you are not moderating these forums, while the moderator team is.

I would leave the issue there, except that there is some value in getting the following point across to the entire forum audience:

We have a whole forum in which you can tell people that they will be fine without discipline, and I will not delete your post so long as it remains civil, because you are entitled to contribute that opinion. Stressing that skipping optimal choices is perfectly fine by me basically anywhere but here. This subsection, however, is one that I treat under the assumption that new players, or at least mechanically inexperienced players, will come here with questions looking to learn. In that spirit, I am insisting that people refrain from muddling raised questions by offering off-point or misleading advice, devolving the thread into a flame war, or trolling. All of which had been done in comments I have since deleted.

The OP did not come here asking if he could play the game while making less-than-optimal choices (that was entirely you, reading the question you wanted to answer into what was actually asked).

He came here asking whether discipline was a worthwhile investment, to wit:

Discipline-- Worth or not worth

Darkness_Dawns wrote:Can someone explain the mechanical benefits of discipline to me? I'm tempted to just drop it from my build all together, because any DECENT build is going to be able to beat a full spec with ESF disc right?

Darkness_Dawns wrote:This is with a sidenote that the build I'm running will have excellent AC somewhere in the high 60's. If they can't beat the AC then what would be the point? I could see the 5% roll messing everything up, but I'll have KD as well. So.

You'll notice, provided you read what was asked, that at no point is the OP curious about whether he can play Arelith on a suboptimal build. He is curious whether discipline is worth taking on a build, particularly one with a lot of AC. (Actually, you can further infer that he is interested in PvP, see bolded statement, and that he's going to be in melee range, see italicized statement).

If someone asks you "do I need gasoline to use my car?", it is manifestly unhelpful to say "you'll do just fine walking", because it is an answer to something that has not been asked, even if you feel you are offering a worthwhile alternative solution.

The answer to both the question the OP has asked, and the rhetorical one I've asked above is an emphatic "yes". That is not a subjective opinion.

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:36 pm**

Gotcha. I do appreciate the input. I guess my line of thinking was that having a high enough AC would be grounds to ignore it. I actually haven't gotten into a PVP situation on Arelith yet, but I'm sure it'll come. I decided to max out DISC since I can afford it, but I was trying to decide between spot / disc because I couldn't afford both of them.

Posted: **Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:50 pm**

Yeah, let me be frank.

I'm been playing NwN since the day it was released. Ordered it on Ebay (anyone remember when that was popular?), had the original multi disc set, the works. It's been 15 years.

Throughout much of that period, I've been playing PWs. And of every PW I've ever played, Arelith is by far one of the easiest.

Can you get by without discipline here? Yes, absolutely. You can also get by as a pure rogue, or as a wis-based zen archer fighter, or as a kensai. Virtually anything works on Arelith if you're halfway savvy because it is easy.

But in a builds & mechanics section, that's irrelevant. When somebody asks what's optimal, and what's in their best interest to take, it's only polite to give them helpful advice. And telling them to neglect discipline -- one of the core, most useful skills -- just isn't helpful. It's straight up sabotage. Which, let me be clear on this: is absolutely not a nice thing to do.

Posted: **Mon Aug 21, 2017 3:22 pm**

Lemme summarize: discipline is 100% necessary to be both viable and optimal, otherwise you will die to any level 12 with Knockdown. That's it. Period. End of discussion. Wild mage? Better take a discipline dump class. PM with 80 AC? Better take discipline. Done.

Posted: **Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:45 pm**

Jack Oat wrote:Lemme summarize: discipline is 100% necessary to be both viable and optimal, otherwise you will die to any level 12 with Knockdown. That's it. Period. End of discussion. Wild mage? Better take a discipline dump class. PM with 80 AC? Better take discipline. Done.

I understand this is the case. I'm not arguing the facts, here. But if taking a dip into a disc class is absolutely necessary to be viable, maybe we need to figure out a way to balance that. Somehow.

Posted: **Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:52 pm**

You can sort of get away with it, if you're a pure healer cleric, or pure druid.

Though they're very niche and you still have the potential to get absolutely murdered - but err, yes, you do need it otherwise.

Posted: **Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:01 pm**

There's a few issues with Discipline. For one, it favors STR builds in melee. Second, it limits viable combinations of classes.

That said, requiring cross-classing isn't necessarily a bad thing for the meta. For example, the requisite cross-classing for skills/feats is why battle-clerics can be dispelled at all.

It's not an easy or simple issue to fix, and any proposed fix risks creating new problems. Still, I wouldn't mind non-STR characters getting some kind of boost or alternative to discipline, or certain classes having a viable path if they go pure.

Posted: **Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:02 am**

yellowcateyes wrote:There's a few issues with Discipline. For one, it favors STR builds in melee. Second, it limits viable combinations of classes.

That said, requiring cross-classing isn't necessarily a bad thing for the meta. For example, the requisite cross-classing for skills/feats is why battle-clerics can be dispelled at all.

It's not an easy or simple issue to fix, and any proposed fix risks creating new problems. Still, I wouldn't mind non-STR characters getting some kind of boost or alternative to discipline, or certain classes having a viable path if they go pure.

Link it with Parry? It's the only dex-based combat skill I can think of.

Posted: **Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:44 am**

Parry is very useful and powerful as is for DEXers.

Posted: **Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:52 am**

Wytchee wrote:I understand this is the case. I'm not arguing the facts, here. But if taking a dip into a disc class is absolutely necessary to be viable, maybe we need to figure out a way to balance that. Somehow.

This.

This right here.

Side note: my little bit of sabotage is that certain casters can possibly get away with the no discipline gamble. Generally the tactic requires you being able to take a beating while still doing your adversary grievous harm in the process, i.e. reflexive damage, summons, etc.

Is this reliable? No. Is it situationally dependent? Certainly.

Posted: **Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:05 am**

Skill dumping is what balances several builds.

Arelith

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