Barbarian and more.

[Invader_Nym]

I don't know how we went from barbarian rage 4x a day with post-rage fatigue to unlimited rages with a 1 minute cooldown and no penalties at all.

This is a class who's central premise is running ahead of the group, becoming temporarily invincible, and wiping everything out without using any sort of plan or strategy whatsoever.

It's actually now possible to spend over 50% of an entire hunt enraged, which is obviously ridiculous.

Arelith's' move towards short cooldowns, infinite castings, and mega-cool-powerups-for-everyone has made it into a really unsatisfying RP-lite MMO. With infinite mass haste, infinite missile swarms, infinite darkness, infinite barbarian rage, ect ect, dungeon-crawls aren't about working together to succeed but about who can mash their powerups the fastest.

The fundamental problem with barbarian rage, as with all balance issues, is that you don't pay a proportionate cost for the advantage you get. Barbarian rage is supposed to be transient damage; the cost is meant to be that it's a scarce resource that you have to use sparingly and spend carefully. Well, it's not exactly transient, and not exactly scarce, when the cooldown is only 1 minute and you're able to be raged for over 50% of a hunt.

All the major balance issues in the game constitute fundamental failures to assign an appropriate cost to a perk. The skill dump is the quintessential example of this. You can take 3 levels in a class and get 30 levels worth of ranks in that skill.

There are other less obvious examples, like the paladin/sorcerer multiclass. Here you 'unlock' a paladin ability that continues to improve even after you've stopped taking paladin levels. You're afforded a class-based advantage without paying the proportionate cost of having to go deep into that class.

It's the same thing for druid/monk builds. Your monk bonuses (UBAB and monk AC) continue to improve even when you've stopped taking monk levels.

These are all examples of a failure to assign an appropriate cost to an ability, which is something that I think has clearly happened with barbarian. Until we draw sharp focus to the fundamental idea of balancing power and cost we're going to continue groping around in the dark in our efforts to balance things.

Speaking on barbarian specifically, it's always been my position that you can't fix barbarian because it's conceptually incoherent. There's actually a timeless idiom that expresses this perfectly: only fools rush in. You can't design a whole class around the idea of just zerging into a massive group screaming and flailing. It's ridiculous, and all the failed attempts to implement it in a PW effectively underscore its ridiculousness.

[Invader_Nym]

I also want to add that the one thing that really made D&D great traditionally was that certain things were scarce, and that the scarceness of those things imposed upon the players the need to demonstrate wisdom and cunning in how they go about utilizing those scarce resources.

When we make everything infinite then the net result is what I described earlier: people running non-stop through dungeons, hasted/raged, demolishing everything without any real strategy or teamwork, or really roleplay, at all.

[-XXX-]

D&D was not designed for persistent worlds. The vancian approach is pure evil

[Nitro]

Are we really going to re-tread the old skill dump argument wrapped up in a post about barbarians? Almost half your posts across various topics in the last month have been about how skill dumps are the devil. Maybe you should give it a little rest.

[Hunter548]

If you put too much of a cost on barbarian rage, you directly affect the viability of barbarian as a class; It's pretty much their sole class feature; Make it too onerous, and instead of playing the class about getting angry and fighting, people will just play fighters or weapon masters who get angry and fight, because their class features (And a few other classes) are always "on". Barbarian rage is a far cry from stuff like dipping monk on druids (Which currently isn't that great of a choice anyways, ironically) or paladin on sorcerer. Vanilla barbarian rage is by and large a worthless class feature - partially because the bonuses suck in vanilla, but also because you get so few of them that 90% of the time you're a sub-par fighter. You get no bonus feats, and don't really have anything to make up for it (Uncanny Dodge is pretty irrelevant, and the DR/Slight HP increase compared to fighter just gives you rough parity for how much extra AC the fighter has). Regardless of that, it seems a bit strange to bring up balancing a class you apparently don't think should exist because of realism, or should be underpowered because of realism.

Arelith literally always been an MMO, by the nature of being a PW. Either you're working with some sort of different definition from the rest of us for MMO, or you're applying some sort of snobbish connotation to the term.

Let's not pretend infinite missile storms or infinite mass haste are still extant class options, either, outside of the odd legacy weavemaster, who's just that: An old, legacy character.

Removal of skill dumps would be unhealthier for the game than just leaving them in. Taking them out would upend all semblance of balance, not help the notion - and let's not pretend a lack of skill dumps is any more realistic than having them.

[sad_zav]

Are we really going to re-tread the old skill dump argument wrapped up in a post about barbarians? Almost half your posts across various topics in the last month have been about how skill dumps are the devil. Maybe you should give it a little rest.

[Ebonstar]

D&D was not designed for persistent worlds. The vancian approach is pure evil

D&D was designed for persistant worlds. What it wasnt designed for was players able to optimize mechanics allowed by a game engine to override basic game sense utilizing opposites and things that go against pen and paper because its not directly overseen by one single DM.

We as players have turned it into an MMO rather than a true persistant world, because we have among us those who live to tweak and min max every possible option to get to end game.

This inherently is the real problem. D&D doesnt have an end game like MMOs do. End game by definition is for linear gameplay.

D&D by its very nature isnt linear, because hey i want to go through this small group of trees instead of down that creepy looking road that is ripe for an ambush.

Linear MMO style makes you deal with the ambush on the road because your are headed to the end game and point A to point B and C and so on.

The day we as players forget about end game and see the entire journey as hey lets go this way even though it wasnt planned, is the day the Devs can stop balancing what isnt broken and can start going back to Creatiing which is why they probably started being a dev to begin with

[sad_zav]

D&D was designed for persistant worlds. What it wasnt designed for was players able to optimize mechanics allowed by a game engine to override basic game sense utilizing opposites and things that go against pen and paper because its not directly overseen by one single DM.

are you really saying that D&D doesn't allow for min/maxing innately, and that it's a unique "problem" to nwn?

We as players have turned it into an MMO rather than a true persistant world, because we have among us those who live to tweak and min max every possible option to get to end game.

What is your benchmark for a "true persistent world"? because arelith is the best one on nwn

This inherently is the real problem. D&D doesnt have an end game like MMOs do. End game by definition is for linear gameplay.

D&D by its very nature isnt linear, because hey i want to go through this small group of trees instead of down that creepy looking road that is ripe for an ambush.

Linear MMO style makes you deal with the ambush on the road because your are headed to the end game and point A to point B and C and so on.

nothing is stopping you from doing this. if you find wandering around and stumbling upon something that'll kill you when you know better OOC to be interesting (i don't), more power to you. you can do that.

The day we as players forget about end game and see the entire journey as hey lets go this way even though it wasnt planned, is the day the Devs can stop balancing what isnt broken and can start going back to Creatiing which is why they probably started being a dev to begin with

honestly i think this train of thought only serves to invent problems for people that want to have them. balance is getting better. better balance leads to a more rounded experience. a more rounded experience facilitates RP. it doesn't hurt it.

[Cerk Evermoore]

i feel hide in plain sight is unrealistic, remove please.

[-XXX-]

D&D was designed in the 70's. The most advanced computers of that era would be surpassed by contemporary calculators, so saying that D&D was designed for persistent worlds is silly.

[Red Ropes]

Arelith is doing the smart thing in adapting DnD to something that functions on a PW. Like XXX said this was not designed to be anything impervious. In actual PnP you can get ignore rules, failures, and so forth at the discretion of your DM. Some places play with permadeath, some tables decided to nerf weapons, and so forth.

...thats what DnD actually was about. Gary Gygax himself, actually, wanted you to make your own shit up. From the lore (he was very ralcitrant to share Greyhawk with the world, it was HIS personal tabletop campaign and he didn't want the people who were playing in it to learn his lore), and the system was never meant to be gamey. It was just its own setting for people to be able to play SWORDS and SORCERY instead of previous iterations of war gaming.

So I don't think this makes it wrong.

Just like how multiclassing, dips, and so forth are not quite wrong. Maybe some of them need looked at, some very much are desirous. But if we play on a server where people can't dip, mundanes become filthy shitbeasts that no one wants to play and we end up with wizards and clerics who type in all lowercase ruling the world.

The diversity created allows for vast concepts to exist, they don't entirely make things OP. Things should and can change and adapt.

But the whole PnP is better thing, is wrong objectively, for a PW. As a PW can't have the same level of intimacy in a community as large as Arelith, nor does a rigidly hardcoded version of a previous campaign setting allow much to work with. Adapting DnD to a PW, would be what Gary would like because it's you, changing it to fit your needs and vision, and that's super hippy and cool.

[CosmicOrderV]

*Slow clap for Red Ropes' reply.*

[Invader_Nym]

Are we really going to re-tread the old skill dump argument wrapped up in a post about barbarians? Almost half your posts across various topics in the last month have been about how skill dumps are the devil. Maybe you should give it a little rest.

Yep, my post that was 95% about barbarians and 5% about skill dumps was a post about skill dumps. Thanks for the super plausible interpretation.

I'll reiterate the central point of the post, which you probably didn't have the time to read in your rush to get in your jab.

When a game makes something super powerful available without attaching to it a proportional cost, then you get balance problems. This Barbarian rage thing is so utterly indefensible that I have difficulty seeing how it got implemented in the first place. Who sat down and said "You know what'd be great is if we made one class that rushed ahead of everyone else and killed everything before everyone else got there, all while not need to pay any sort of price at all to do it."

Arelith feigns concern for balance without ever really looking to fix the things that lead to balance issues, mostly because players like you get in a panic whenever the thought of losing power is brought to the table.

[sad_zav]

let's revert all the ranger changes then. they were made without a concern for balance and made them OP. that's why everyone plays rangers

you're taking a fat dump on the efforts of the dev team that made your class not-trash, nym.

[Invader_Nym]

let's revert all the ranger changes then. they were made without a concern for balance and made them OP. that's why everyone plays rangers

you're taking a fat dump on the efforts of the dev team that made your class not-trash, nym.

Rock and roll. I was against hide in plain sight from day 1 and think it's the most ridiculous thing on the planet. You can just poof out of existence while someone's staring right at you. It's ridiculous. I'll add the caveat that because we've made it a totally trivial matter to detect hidden characters anyway, HIPS isn't out of balance; I'd prefer they were both gone.

Edit: Stealth is actually a complicated issue: we've devalued sneak attack for rogues by giving everyone full HP. What's the value of 1 round of slightly inflated damage if the opponent's hitpoints are so inflated that your sneak-attack round can't bring them past 'barely wounded?'

By the way, I don't know in what universe 'everyone plays rangers'. I don't think I've played with another ranger consistently since I've returned to the game.

[Red Ropes]

[Nitro]

all while not need to pay any sort of price at all to do it."

You mean aside from access to heavy armour, the glut of bonus feats a fighter gets, being forced to pick between EWS, skilldump and WM since they can only get 2 of the 3 and halfway-decent saves outside of their rage. Then yes, if we disregard all of that they don't have to pay anything. Barbarian as a base class is awful, there's no way around it, and the barbarian rage as it currently stands is the only thing making them remotely playable, letting them compete with WM's for limited amounts of time.

Yep, my post that was 95% about barbarians and 5% about skill dumps was a post about skill dumps. Thanks for the super plausible interpretation.

I'll reiterate the central point of the post, which you probably didn't have the time to read in your rush to get in your jab.

I made the jab because you seem to be on some sort of balance vendetta against some things that have been core to the balance on this server for a long time, and instead of proving actually valuable feedback on how to fix things, you propose to remove imbalance by just stripping away working systems because of their perceived 'imbalance', systems that most players can agree are in fact not unbalanced but rather you seem to have a personal vendetta against.

Arelith feigns concern for balance without ever really looking to fix the things that lead to balance issues, mostly because players like you get in a panic whenever the thought of losing power is brought to the table.

Case in point. If you'd like to provide actual maths as to how barbarian rage is unbalanced in comparison to the standard 20/7/3 build you'll find that any number of people will gladly engage in actual debate over the matter, but instead you're standing up on a stump, proclaiming things X and Y overpowered and calling anyone who responds "no" powergamers afraid of losing their power.

[sad_zav]

i was being sarcastic

there's not a lot of them despite their buffs. barbs have also seen a down-turn because they've been getting little nerfs here and there, too.

if you think HiPS is dumb, then so is hide/ms in general. how are you hiding in the middle of the street in broad daylight?

[Invader_Nym]

Case in point. If you'd like to provide actual maths as to how barbarian rage is unbalanced in comparison to the standard 20/7/3 build you'll find that any number of people will gladly engage in actual debate over the matter, but instead you're standing up on a stump, proclaiming things X and Y overpowered and calling anyone who responds "no" powergamers afraid of losing their power.

What makes you think I'd disagree with you that barbarian isn't over-powered when compared to weapon master? Why do you think 20/7/3 is standard? Because it's such a meh build?

[Nitro]

Because if you're arguing that everything is overpowered you're objectively wrong. Every class can't be OP together, then they're balanced. But what I'm getting then is that you don't really care about individual class balance as much as you want to lower the general power level of the server as a whole. In which case cool beans, you do you good luck. But don't be surprised when people react negatively to your posts because that's a very subjective viewpoint that not everyone is going to share. I have no desire to go back to the days of proto-arelith where a barbarian is an objectively worse fighter who can use a really crappy rage three times per dungeon run.

On a more practical side, arguing for sweeping changes like that is terribly inefficient because it would eat up an incredible amount of work hours to change the whole server into a lower-fantasy setting. Instead, might I suggest you have a look at the Prisoners of the Mist server? They seem to be more aligned towards what you want out of a NWN server than Arelith.

[CosmicOrderV]

I just started playing a barbarian not long ago, and I would like go say a little on it.

I've played on arelith off-and-on over the years; seen the past attempts at changing barbarian.

I think this present one is my favorite so far. The damage bite-back they had before was Out Of This World. The base class definitely needed some love, as it mostly appealed to people who wanted to bank on that fear aura rage aura.

Now it seems a bit mored toned down and evened out. Early game, it behaves a lot like a fighter, with small bursts of damage. You get medium armor, a shield, and have at it.

What begins to happen before too long, though, is your AC is out-scaled by your enemies. So even if you do get heavy armor proficiency, you ALSO need tumble, otherwise, you are just not going to have a good time being the front line, unless you are in rage. So far, it feels pretty fair. Short burst tankiness and damage, otherwise, you're going to get hurt.

I think the Dev's made a good choice down the line to give the barbarian bonus AC at higher levels, because it helps to alleviate this issue a little bit. The fear aura wasn't made so game changing, high CON totally helps the barbarian, AND the other epic rage feats are actually attractive options now.

All and all, I've not gone past level 12, but it seems solid so far.

[Hunter548]

Are we really going to re-tread the old skill dump argument wrapped up in a post about barbarians? Almost half your posts across various topics in the last month have been about how skill dumps are the devil. Maybe you should give it a little rest.

Yep, my post that was 95% about barbarians and 5% about skill dumps was a post about skill dumps. Thanks for the super plausible interpretation.

I'll reiterate the central point of the post, which you probably didn't have the time to read in your rush to get in your jab.

When a game makes something super powerful available without attaching to it a proportional cost, then you get balance problems. This Barbarian rage thing is so utterly indefensible that I have difficulty seeing how it got implemented in the first place. Who sat down and said "You know what'd be great is if we made one class that rushed ahead of everyone else and killed everything before everyone else got there, all while not need to pay any sort of price at all to do it."

Arelith feigns concern for balance without ever really looking to fix the things that lead to balance issues, mostly because players like you get in a panic whenever the thought of losing power is brought to the table.

You're ignoring the fact that, to delete spawns like that, the barbarian does have to make sacrifices: Namely, when he's not raging he's very easy to kill (Because he has no AC), and against high-AC spawns they struggle substantially. Their saves also aren't amazing (Especially reflex).


Our disagreement with you isn't because we're worried about losing power - neither I nor Zav are playing barbarians right now. It's because we disagree with the arguments you're trying to make.

[flower]

Is not the dodge ac of barbian permanent and not being lost outside of rage?

It is possible to make barbarian with AC almost (!) even to the WM build.

However, NWN is not DnD 3.0. It is neither DnD 3.5. Neither 4.0. It is standalone game inspired by DnD (between 3-3.5e), and attempts to turn it into PaP editions would need total rework of the game itself.

And to the ire of some people, balancing tweaks can be only done based on full possible power of each class taking into account obtaineble gear. So, yes, you need to come out of character level 30 with gearing costing millions, because it is state where many people will reach in the game.

Skill dumping, class dipping are corner stones of NWN, and its balance, and build building.

[Ork]

In the end, your posts offer no substance other than "Nym is angry about X". Give it a rest.

[Invader_Nym]

In the end, your posts offer no substance other than "Nym is angry about X". Give it a rest.

The 24 posts that followed really scream 'this is a meaningless conversation.' If you want to look at a post that offers no substance and does nothing to move a conversation forward, see the quoted text above.