Dragonshape bug, or unlisted update.

[Voidhawk]

THe true seeing is gone from the shape. It's not listed in the dragonshape update, so allowing myself to wonder, sine the spell shapechange still grants true seeing in form.

Looking at the changes I didn't think they were incredibly horrible, though it's certainly a major gimp. But loosing the true seeing combined with the rest, eh, that's stiff. And not even mentioned.

So bug or feature pleasure?

Also, why does the bronze dragon have bettter stats then the others? significantly higher dex.

[Cortex]

It was removed on purpose.

Bronze has better DEX (and thus AC), while Green has 3d6 sneak/12 Hide MS and Red has better DR penetration, AB and damage.

[Voidhawk]

Could have lived with the rest, but not the true seeing, should have gone bat totem after all. oh well. The end of dragons is here.

I don't see the reasoning for gimping the shape beyond use, cause lets face, it, we're all done with drakes now of any kind. It wasn't that hard to kill a dragonshaper, if you had a bit of skill and some intelligence, most you can just implode due to their terrible fort saves, a few mages could spam them down with misile storms quicker than they can kill. their ac aint all that without uncanny dodge. but yes it was overpowered, more agaisnt some classes.

Now it's close to useless. and I see no fun trying to rp this change.

I think other routes could have been taken, but there's nothing much dragon about it anymore.

One of the biggest changes arelith met that boosted dragonshapers was actually the resting script. When that change came that ambushes only came after you rested and renewed your abilities, dragonshapers could go all over. Then there's artefacts that meant that shapers had a chance to combat bad fort saves, and their main weakness was spells. These changes made the dragonshaper even more powerful, as was posted on forums several times. And now.. it gets heavily gimped, instead of a moderating nerf. I have played dragonshapers, died as dragonshaper, and I have killed dragonshapers myself on clerics and mages. Cause that's the people that do that stuff. I like aspects of the game that is -hard-. that requires skill. Like how it used to be to lvl a mage before the silly -summon in front of you- script. and yes, its nice and easy, but where is the fun in that.

[BegoneThoth]

Most dragon-shapers actually had a really really good fort save given full spellcraft, druid being favored fort, open pre-epic feats for great fort/luck o heroes/strong soul, picking a +fort background, and the massive con injection from shifting.

[Voidhawk]

Maybe we need to define a good fort save first, in my world that's a 40, at least, spellcraft you can't count on, since any mage or cleric that knows their stuff, will know ways to avoid that. and not counting spellcraft or epic feats staying just over 30 was about the best you could do.

But with stuff like girdle of fortitude, artefacts and the druid skin, yes my dragonshaper hit 43 fort. his only weakness was magic users, funny how's there some balance after all, that was what killed me, just about every single time. In forgotten realms, magic kills dragons. wm's don't just swat them down left and right.

I'll take this moment to give kudos to Thurmore Circie who took me down in dragonshape singlehandedly, cause he knew his stuff. What one mage can do, a few can do even better.

As it is now, the feat might as well be disabled entirely, it's a joke.

Dragonshape has been broken a long time, the temp hp got renewed as you change transitions, its synergy with monk was terrrible good, the list goes on and its been reported on forums for years. It definitely needed toning down. But maybe it didn't need to be utterly gimped.

[gilescorey]

Dude you have (more like, had, ahaha) 40 dr, "impossible" my Snuggybear. It was borderline impossible without a true-striking WM or battlecleric.

And now it's doable, and honestly? The new numbers are still pretty enormous. It just doesn't have free true sight (which, wait for it -- is a druid spell you can cast! Wow.) And you can actually use epic spells, and take epic spell foci, instead of a bunch of G.Wisdoms.

It's just not an almost universal "I win" button, and that's good. The fact this took as many years as it did is kind of strange.

[Voidhawk]

I could have sworn i wrote it was overpowered, and needed toning down, I don't see me writing, "bring it back as it was." But nice of you to read it so thoroughly.

Going from one extreme to another isn't what fixes things, it it about the reverse of what went down with animal companions.

[Peppermint]

- Dragons never had bad fortitude.

Let's assume pure druid.

That's 17 Fortitude (Base) + 11 (Dragon Shape CON) + 7 (~35 spellcraft) = 35.

That's the absolute lowest a dragon shaper will have. That doesn't include endurance potions, save feats, save items, or bonuses from other classes. That's raw. And that number is quite solid in itself.

Sure, persistent areas of effect will bypass that spellcraft score, but implosion will not.

- Dragons never suffered from a lack of uncanny dodge.

They had true seeing. If you managed to get caught flatfooted, you were literally not paying attention. And even then, you could fall back on your 40 DR to mitigate a lot of that damage.

- Dragons were not uniquely vulnerable to IGMS.

-pray. Healing potions.

Look, man. I'm not saying dragons were unkillable. But you're doing yourself a disservice by making them appear weaker than they were.

At any rate, druids aren't meant to be dragonshapers now. They're meant to be druids--with dragon shape. Hence the reduction on the requirements. It's a utility tool, not your entire class.

[gilescorey]

I could have sworn i wrote it was overpowered, and needed toning down, I don't see me writing, "bring it back as it was." But nice of you to read it so thoroughly.

Now it's close to useless. and I see no fun trying to rp this change.

It's
Not
Underpowered

[Voidhawk]

I know I wrote it somewhere. Ah yes.

Dragonshape has been broken a long time, the temp hp got renewed as you change transitions, its synergy with monk was terrrible good, the list goes on and its been reported on forums for years. It definitely needed toning down. But maybe it didn't need to be utterly gimped.

To take it straight on, you can't count on spell craft, once more. -7 fort. implossion on the ground, no spellcraft. same for a lot of spells.

A dragonshaper without uncanny dodge, looses 14 or more ac from dextery in some situations that can quickly get them killed.

Now we're getting to the 40 dr which is one of the things I like about the change. I'm fine with it.

Read my very first post. I was ready to swallow every last change but the true seeing was too much. Cause that's where the dragon feeling vanishes, even the spell shapechange gives you that. Nor was I saying the dragons were exclusively vulnerable to igsm, I was merely ponting out the shapes largest weaknesses. I wasn't saying they should not have more.

I'm fine with toning down the shape, that's written all over this post. I don't care about the monk synergy, I don't care about the dr, I don't care about the ac or ab really. and have stated they should be toned down. But there are thigns that make a dragon, like heightened senses. A chance to rp scent to some extent.

[Cortex]

please take this to feedback

[Peppermint]

To take it straight on, you can't count on spell craft, once more. -7 fort. implossion on the ground, no spellcraft. same for a lot of spells.

Wrong.

A dragonshaper without uncanny dodge, looses 14 or more ac from dextery in some situations that can quickly get them killed.

Correct, you can be hit rather easily during timestop. There are few other ways to render a dragonshaper flatfooted (provided he's not sleeping at the keyboard).

[Voidhawk]

To take it straight on, you can't count on spell craft, once more. -7 fort. implossion on the ground, no spellcraft. same for a lot of spells.

Wrong.

A dragonshaper without uncanny dodge, looses 14 or more ac from dextery in some situations that can quickly get them killed.

Correct, you can be hit rather easily during timestop. There are few other ways to render a dragonshaper flatfooted (provided he's not sleeping at the keyboard).

ETA: Just noticed Cortex's post above. He's right. Will take further discussion into feedback.

This is only in regards to the spellcraft thing, has this been changed on arelith in a recent past? cause that's how we used to implode dragonshapers. And why most folks target implossion on the ground..?

[Peppermint]

It has never worked that way.

[Voidhawk]

Just to make sure. So this is all lies lies lies, or does it just not work for implossion, but still other spells?

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Spellcraft

[Peppermint]

They're talking about something different.

Spellcraft does not apply to persistent areas of effect (e.g. grease). It does apply to instant areas of effect (e.g. fireball, implosion).

[Voidhawk]

Thank you for clearing that up.

[The Salt Elemental]

I'll take this moment to give kudos to Thurmore Circie who took me down in dragonshape singlehandedly, cause he knew his stuff. What one mage can do, a few can do even .

I wanted to point something out here that a lot of people believe.
Dragon shapers were not, and I repeat, not completely unbeatable. Yes it beat a lot of builds, but a d-shaper could be put down by certain builds. Easily. A good wizard was one of the old dragonshapers weakness if you knew how to do it right. I know from experience playing both a dragon shaper and a wizard. And have engaged with pvp with a d-shaper on my wizard. Alternatively, you could chug t-strike potions on a weapon master to down a d-shaper.

I don't say this to take away from a kudos, but it does irk me a bit when people say the d-shaper was completely op. It did have builds it could lose against. Playing my d-shaper I found most people didn't want to engage with me out of fear of dying. Even when I knew they could potentially kill me.

[-XXX-]

Well, sure, it was doable, but... consider how much skill and effort it took for a player to take down a dragonshaper, then compare with how point-click simple playing the dragonshaper actually was...

And to stay on topic, having True Sight 24/7 is powerful. I can sort of understand the reasons behind removing it from dragonshape (even though it feels awkward from the lore viewpoint as dragons do have it). Especially since, as gilescorey points out, druids have true seeing on the spell list.

[Dreams]

Dragonshape is still amazing, just different. People gotta chill.

[Nitro]

And to stay on topic, having True Sight 24/7 is powerful. I can sort of understand the reasons behind removing it from dragonshape (even though it feels awkward from the lore viewpoint as dragons do have it). Especially since, as gilescorey points out, druids have true seeing on the spell list.

They don't though, dragons only get the following extrasensory abilities in the 3.5 Monster Manual:

Blindsense
Dragons can pinpoint creatures within a distance of 60 feet. Opponents the dragon can’t actually see still have total concealment against the dragon.

Keen Senses
A dragon sees four times as well as a human in shadowy illumination and twice as well in normal light. It also has darkvision out to 120 feet.

As well as a recommendation that most dragons purchase maximum ranks in Listen, Search and Spot.

So if anything, it would be nice if dragonshape got permanent see invisibility as an effect, since that's closer to the lore than truesight.

[Scurvy Cur]

I'll ask the rest of the team where on the priority list "buff dragonshape" is.

We'll probably get to it once we're done making PM a full BAB class.

[Trunx]

I'll take this moment to give kudos to Thurmore Circie who took me down in dragonshape singlehandedly, cause he knew his stuff. What one mage can do, a few can do even .

I wanted to point something out here that a lot of people believe.
Dragon shapers were not, and I repeat, not completely unbeatable. Yes it beat a lot of builds, but a d-shaper could be put down by certain builds. Easily. A good wizard was one of the old dragonshapers weakness if you knew how to do it right. I know from experience playing both a dragon shaper and a wizard. And have engaged with pvp with a d-shaper on my wizard. Alternatively, you could chug t-strike potions on a weapon master to down a d-shaper.

I don't say this to take away from a kudos, but it does irk me a bit when people say the d-shaper was completely op. It did have builds it could lose against. Playing my d-shaper I found most people didn't want to engage with me out of fear of dying. Even when I knew they could potentially kill me.

People have claimed mages beat dragonshapers a few times in this thread. How does a mage beat a dragonshaper with a hoard of heal potions and a player capable of typing -pray? They'll run out of spells far, far before the DS runs out of hit points.

Also, a WM has a hard time hitting an IE'd optimal DSer even with True Strike (and when they do hit, the damage gets reduced by 40, and the DSer has a massive health pool, and temp HP gets refreshed if they transition, etc). That's even if the DSer chooses to stay still and be hit, which he certainly doesn't have to do.

[Peppermint]

I don't know why every time we nerf an option people will say, "But I can beat this class in PvP!"

Like, that's great. I'm sure you can. Even if it were super overpowered in PvP, you still could.

But that's not the point.

PvE is a thing, too. And dragonshapers were virtually invincible in PvE.

That is not okay.

[Diegovog]

I remember seeing a post not too long ago with the classes and combinations count in the server. If I remember right, WM was by far the most played class while druid was at the bottom along with dwarven defender, wasn't it?
And this is the biggest nerf I've seen by far from my time in the server.
If you thought dshape was unbalanced why not take slow steps in a class that isn't even that widely played?

Because now, every single character that were made around dshape are now ruined. They had to invest 5 more points in wisdom which is now absolutely useless and they have monk levels which doesn't even work with the intended build. Not only that, but now the removal of true seeing also makes the choice of bat totem even more important.
Especially druid/cot/monk since they are easily dispellable, making their AC even lower than just druid/monk. Also, the sole purpose of CoT was for that wisdom bonus. Making it an useless investment.

As it is now, the way I see dragonshape is only there for rp purpose and all the older builds were completely ruined.