Nerf this

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Shadowy Reality » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:05 pm

Kreydis wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:02 pm
People won't even use poison if they can for some reason.
Having played an assassin some months back. I was very disappointed in the poisons. Some of them have really good effects, like confusion, or blindness, which theoretically would let you get sneaks in. The DC is low that most of them would be fishing for 1s against epics. They also take up the temporary essence slot, so I usually went with the temporary essence instead.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Kreydis » Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:43 pm

Shadowy Reality wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:05 pm
Kreydis wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 11:02 pm
People won't even use poison if they can for some reason.
Having played an assassin some months back. I was very disappointed in the poisons. Some of them have really good effects, like confusion, or blindness, which theoretically would let you get sneaks in. The DC is low that most of them would be fishing for 1s against epics. They also take up the temporary essence slot, so I usually went with the temporary essence instead.
Well. . . That explains that I guess. I thought the DC's were all 40+, or greater if you had assassin levels.
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Re: Nerf this

Post by TimeAdept » Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:46 am

I never had issues on my assassin with poisons taking my temporary essence slot. Is this a new change?

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Re: Nerf this

Post by CosmicOrderV » Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:57 am

When somebody says hearing about a quick PvP encounter breaks their heart, as with prior comments, I can't help but draw into question where that heart is. This is just a game. Putting our feelings in the IC mix isn't a healthy choice. Now I totally get trying to make that game more immersive and all around enjoyable, buuuuuuut, sometimes we lose. You do yourself a disservice to get worked up about it. Maybe the comment was hyperbolic but it's a little worrisome all the same, just because of how prevalent getting too attached to these things tends to be.

As for Assassin poisons, the the most you're getting is at max a +5 to the DC (18 levels). Even the more "High DC" poisons like Widow's Kiss only have a DC of 25. Plus none of the custom poisons have functioning secondary effects. You're looking at max a DC 30 poison. That's still not great.

Once more with no sarcasm, I would say this has been one of the more entertaining threads in a while, though. It's fun to hear all the different experiences, weigh in the numbers, and feel like it could all lead to a change.



I can't help but think loosely related concepts could heavily effect some of the points.

Getting rid of Paladin's alignment restrictions, scaling its bonus saves with level and charisma (rather than purely CHA), letting them smite both good and evil, and making their spell-casting ability score be Charisma instead of Wisdom, would all greatly help the class become more common, which in turn might give us some more reliable data to understand the role of Holy Sword. Perhaps more importantly I should think, it also solidifies their concept as a paragon of their alignment, rather than purely a LG holy crusader.

Then some additional logical changes for Blackguard...
Take Blackguard's Dark Blessing, and replace it with some sort of innate tankiness of a different variety (warlock style), along with removing their Smite (since that's solely paladin now), and giving them some sort of Player Tool 3 option to place a Hex on an enemy every couple of minutes, instead. Make its alignment requirement any non-good.

Some logical changes for Champion of Torm...
Then take the Divine Champion (Champion of Torm) and base it instead off the 3.5 class, Divine Emissary, with some Good Aligned Warlock flavor. Basically someone who has fulfilled an oath, or made a deal, with a powerful non-evil planar entity and been granted favor because of it. Keep its non-evil alignment, but allow a Weapon Focus in ANY weapon, as requirement. Remove Smite. Instead add the ability to summon an outsider like warlocks/blackguards. Make these summons range between Archons (lawful), Guardinals (nuetral), and Celestial Eladrin (chaotic).

I'd suggest changes for warlocks too, but I have a bad habit of digressing :oops:

Once we get HAKs and can add rad new spells, it will absolutely allow each caster type to blossom a bit more, rather than them all relying on the same few feats. Therefore also easily allowing us to scale back some of these more powerful feats like EDK.

The elemental shapes for high level druids runs into similar issues that Palemaster has. There comes a point where being Crit Immune, Sneak Immune, having a ton of damage resistance, regeneration, immunity to mind effecting spells, +40 to +44 to hit, and 46-56 AC, all whilst having three summons? Becomes a bit ridiculous. Just pick Conjuration Foci, and drop an EDK on them while you're literally unassailable. The only weakness they have is usually poor Discipline, meaning you can spam KD to at least keep them locked down, but that does require hitting first, and assuming Elder Air Elemental (Size: Huge) as I have with the numbers above, this requires Improved Knockdown, otherwise their shape is immune to knockdowns from medium targets.

And then as well, call me crazy, but I would love to see a a totem druid's wild-shape buffs traded out for something more caster oriented (along with general druid adjustments):
Have their totem wild-shape changed into a custom polymorph ability that grants relevant shape bonuses, such that they can be transformed AND cast spells at the same time. Maybe this would also fix the issue with Panther Totems not getting their bonus. It would DEFINITELY help the fact that Bat Totems can't even use their special ability in 'Bat Form' (bat totems still read as being given True Sight, during character creation, btw). Just give'em a small pool of scaling temporary-hit-points, severe skill penalties (things like -100 Persuasion and -100 Appraise), and a batch of relevant soft-bonus ability score increases. Then when we finally get HAKs and can add fun new spells? Ch'yeah. Oh yeah and buff Dragon Shape's perception skills, and nix Umberhulk's True Sight (give it perma Amplify instead).
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Re: Nerf this

Post by Tarkus the dog » Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:18 am

Skald Haldi wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 10:09 pm
I can't comment on EDK or all the other nonsense. However - I can speak to original point in question (Holy Swords).

Since my character tries her hardest to find paladins... I've seen all of this first hand.

I've been collecting actual lists of all the active high-level paladins on the server, I can count them by name on my fingers. At one point, my character had a note I would show to other paladins listing all of the "known" paladins - most of whom hadn't been seen on the servers for months. Paladins are so rare it's sad. The majority of "paladins" I see (like myself) have taken a dip of only three levels. If these high-level paladins are so OP, where are they?

In contrast, the few high-level paladins I have spent time with have been utterly demolished in every PVP encounter that I've witnessed. As one of them said to me (while in the Fugue). "I was just hoping to get one hit in". Nope, he got destroyed so fast, he never even touched the enemy. This character was an established level 30, fully decked out. He knew what was going to happen when PVP was coming, but he was resigned to it - because he wanted to stay in character. His AB wasn't high enough, his AC wasn't high enough, and he didn't have the summons to compete.

Regarding the other points about paladins: Divine Shield / Divine MIght. People throw those out as if they are always on. Both of them take a whole round to cast. From what I can tell, during that time you are flat-footed - and neither raise your AB. Furthermore, both are based on your CHA, meaning your other stats aren't great. In other words, these can sometimes be useful during PVE (not as great as you might think). PVP? Nearly useless. If you're taking three rounds to "divine shield, divine might, holy sword" you're already dead. Furthermore, even if you do get the chance, it's not game breaking, because you'll still have a tough time breaking a "viable" AC.

If holy sword is really as great as you say, PLEASE DON'T NERF IT! Better yet, go play a paladin!
It takes a single round to use Divine Shield + Might (while hasted), and no it doesn't make you flat footed while casting it. The 8-10 dodge AC that you get for 48-60 seconds is pretty strong, especially in Arelith where you can refresh it -- In vanilla you can only use it again after it expires. To call Divine Shield/Might nearly useless in PvP is to speak the untruth. Your argument is made completely invalid by the fact that you are speaking from the perspective of a player who didn't even haste himself to begin with. This is the first thing you do in any fight. A decent paladin player won't simply stand there casting their spells, and especially not without being hasted.

It is absolutely game breaking that a single spell allows you to remove someone's spells by simply hitting them. To put this in another perspective, this is similar to mordenkainen's disjunction on hit. Should we push for implosion on hit for clerics, for example, since you can technically 'counter it' by having high AC? I don't think so. The numbers are there. Also, 'A bad apple spoils the bunch' is something to keep in mind when considering game balance. Let me explain:
If these high-level paladins are so OP, where are they?
Here's one I just made in PGCC:


Barskin + mage armor buffs:
Image

Damage, m damask only (1d6 fire essence)

Image

Saves:

Image

Looks pretty standard. Runes give you a +6 to all of those saves if you bother going that far. Now let's check when fully buffed: (Divine shield, divine might, prayer, aid, divine favor, holy sword, deafening clang) No bless because I assumed no one bothers slotting that.

Image

Image

And on top of all of that, you have dispel on hit.
His AB wasn't high enough, his AC wasn't high enough,
This can only be true if your friend didn't properly buff himself ( which I assume that is what happened), otherwise this doesn't align with the images above.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Ork » Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:25 am

Five pages. I agree that holy sword needs a nerf. If you lose as a paladin against an equally leveled opponent, you might be bad at the game.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Vrass » Thu Apr 11, 2019 3:43 am

Dying super fast in pvp is not fun at all. Yeah its just a game, but if you lose every single time then there is something wrong that needs to be fixed. If a character can take a stroll through hell solo and survive against those mobs for over an hour then there is no reason why they should die in 10 seconds to anything except maybe the hardest super-bosses on the server. It does not have to be a huge nerf... but EDK and Holy Sword are definitely too powerful as they are now.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:28 am

Tarkus do it again this time as a wood elf with moonblade.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:41 am

Nitro wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 9:43 pm
Astral wrote:
Wed Apr 10, 2019 8:12 pm
Which means its capped at 42 at max roll vs lvl 30 mundane CL + 12 = 42.
Holy Sword can only dispel anything on a roll of 20 against lvl 30 mundanes and a roll of 17+ against lvl 27 casters without arcane defense abjuration. That's not overpowered at all. Sorry to disappoint. If something must be done to this spell, I'd say a nerf in the form of having the dispell on hit proc no more than once per round is a pretty significant nerf, if anything must be done and I wont say anything should be done at all.
That's 17+ on each attack. Several times per round. At that point it's not even unreasonable to fish for 20's against pure mundanes because it will happen sooner or later, it's not like you lose anything from trying it. Unlike a regular caster who has to waste time and spells trying to dispel, the paladin can just keep hitting and doing useful things. And when, inevitably, the dispel goes through the paladin pretty much wins because they are now fighting buffed against buffless.
Uh.... I'm not sure you understand how dispel on hit works. it will proc every hit and roll separately on each spell it tired to dispel. So basically its gonna take an average of 20 hits to dispel all buffs from a mundane as each buff needs to roll 20 on every hit to be dispelled. 20 hits is a lot, considering that the paladin also has to wind-up for 5-6 rounds if they can even get to that point without dying. I'm not saying paladins are weak by any means, I just say the dispel on hit is not overpowered AT ALL and that paladins have counters and as I've said and others have said, where are all these broken paladins who rekt pvp? I dont see them anywhere. I see balanced paladins who win sometimes and lose sometimes and I've played with most if not all lvl 30 paladins in the past 6 months.
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Re: Nerf this

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:42 am

Astral, you posted about how you don't play the UD on principle. You don't see paladins running up and smiting you probably because you're not the evil they are particularly fond of smiting.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:51 am

I've seen a few mentions of "well my buddy got wrecked in PvP before they could respond and that means things are unbalanced". Responding to that without quoting any specific person:

There are kind of 2 (well more but meh) elements of "balance" that tend to get brought up in these threads.

The one that tends to be covered in NWN/3.P is the idea of balancing at the highest limit of what one can do. Optimal build, optimal approach, ramp up time to reach optimal, counters etc.

The other part is "balance" in the idea of shrinking (but not eliminating) the gap between the floor and ceiling of what one can do due to build choices and tactical decisions. If an optimal weaponmaster can kill 5 even level but non-optimal weaponmasters then there is a lack of "balance" there. This generally isn't a focus for games like NWN/3.P as the way the numbers work don't allow such.

For example shifting a single point of AC where an attacker goes from needing a 19-20 to only being able to hit on a 20 is multiple times more valuable than making the attacker go from needing a 2-20 to 3-20. At that high end Bless would actually double the damage output with its meager +1 and with all other things being even turn an even fight into a landslide victory. That doesn't mean Bless is OP, rather the system allows for such a huge change with a fairly minor buff.

Usually there is going to be a much bigger shift like someone continuing to type while their opponent casts Divine Favor and smacks them while they're flat-footed, possibly doing 10x the damage they'd normally do to them in a round. That's not really a balancing fault with Arelith, more that the underlying system NWN runs on is built that way.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by JubJub » Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:46 pm

Cerk Evermoore wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:42 am
Astral, you posted about how you don't play the UD on principle. You don't see paladins running up and smiting you probably because you're not the evil they are particularly fond of smiting.
Considering how few paladins there seem to be about, I don't think there is much running up and smiting occuring. They certainly aren't running wild in the UD.

If the paladins were so super powerful you would see alot more of them.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Aftond » Thu Apr 11, 2019 2:34 pm

JubJub wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 1:46 pm


If the paladins were so super powerful you would see alot more of them.
Paladins are Snuggybear boring to grind and very restrictive in their RP. Change those two and there would likely be many more paladins.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by -XXX- » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:46 pm

Paladin is a mediocre class #Holy sword not OP

Turning EDK into BBOD hits Wizards and Sorcerers hard, while Druids, Clerics and Palemasters are having a laugh over it

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Re: Nerf this

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:33 pm

-XXX- wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:46 pm
Paladin is a mediocre class #Holy sword not OP

Turning EDK into BBOD hits Wizards and Sorcerers hard, while Druids, Clerics and Palemasters are having a laugh over it
Not saying I even like the idea of the BBOD style EDK but you could give an attack/damage debuff to the caster as well for example.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:12 pm

xanrael wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:33 pm
-XXX- wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:46 pm
Paladin is a mediocre class #Holy sword not OP

Turning EDK into BBOD hits Wizards and Sorcerers hard, while Druids, Clerics and Palemasters are having a laugh over it
Not saying I even like the idea of the BBOD style EDK but you could give an attack/damage debuff to the caster as well for example.
Casters dont care about attack/damage debuff because they only want to cast spells.

Holy Sword really doesnt seem op after the clarification that it takes rolls of 20s (on the dispel check to each buff individually) to effect mundanes and 17+ to effect casters who want to kite back from you anyway + paladins got a long wind up.

No one (at least I didnt notice) said to turn EDK to function exactly as BBOD. Just to add some drawback like % spell faliure that may or may not be higher than 50% depending on what is legitimate. Leaving EDK as is, is by far a worse option. I personally want to see it changed from a no-brainer feat that any epic caster can pick and click it to win most fights. Adding some kind of % failure means you need to THINK when you want to cast it. What spells you cast before/after you cast it etc etc.

EDIT: Hells, maybe even give it a weave master kind of CD, meaning you cannot cast any spells for a duration of X seconds after casting EDK cause your character needs to regain focus and energy after unleashing an Epic Dragon Knight.
Last edited by Astral on Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Nerf this

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:15 pm

Astral wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:12 pm
xanrael wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 6:33 pm
-XXX- wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:46 pm
Paladin is a mediocre class #Holy sword not OP

Turning EDK into BBOD hits Wizards and Sorcerers hard, while Druids, Clerics and Palemasters are having a laugh over it
Not saying I even like the idea of the BBOD style EDK but you could give an attack/damage debuff to the caster as well for example.
Casters dont care about attack/damage debuff because they only want to cast spells.

Holy Sword really doesnt seem op after the clarification that it takes rolls of 20s to effect mundanes and 17+ to effect casters who want to kite back from you anyway + paladins got a long wind up.

No one (at least I didnt notice) said to turn EDK to function exactly as BBOD. Just to add some drawback like % spell faliure that may or may not be higher than 50% depending on what is legitimate. Leaving EDK as is, is by far a worse option.
I meant when I said "as well" to have both a spell failure AND an attack/damage debuff on the caster when casting EDK so it would affect both casting and battle/gish builds that have access to EDK. Again though I'm not saying I'm sold on the idea of arcane spell failure for it, but you could hit anyone that has access to it with a debuff they'd care about.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:21 pm

The damage/attack debuff is meaningless and unnecessary in that case. Casters with epic spells dont use weapons at all except battleclerics which would be hit harder than anyone else for no reason, through this nerf.
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Re: Nerf this

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:23 pm

And melee palemasters, and wildshaping druids.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:24 pm

You want to nerf EDK for anyone who uses it equally. Why add a factor that effects some builds and doesnt mean anything to other builds?
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Re: Nerf this

Post by xanrael » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:28 pm

Astral wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:24 pm
You want to nerf EDK for anyone who uses it equally. Why add a factor that effects some builds and doesnt mean anything to other builds?
So... one person rightly pointed out that a spell failure chance is not going to affect someone that has done all their casting before plopping down an EDK and will be attacking without spells during the duration. That the spell failure chance only affects some builds and not others. So I suggested to add in addition to a spell failure chance an attack/damage thing so it would also affect those builds as well.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Cerk Evermoore » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:32 pm

Even if you add a % spell failure. The person will just start casting all their spells from wands/scrolls to negate the whole problem.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:35 pm

xanrael wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:28 pm
Astral wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:24 pm
You want to nerf EDK for anyone who uses it equally. Why add a factor that effects some builds and doesnt mean anything to other builds?
So... one person rightly pointed out that a spell failure chance is not going to affect someone that has done all their casting before plopping down an EDK and will be attacking without spells during the duration. That the spell failure chance only affects some builds and not others. So I suggested to add in addition to a spell failure chance an attack/damage thing so it would also affect those builds as well.
Well, I see your point. Hmm... but maybe hit their AC instead of ab/damage. Cause the dragon is already doing all the damage for them. If they arent effected by the spell failure chance, maybe them slightly easier to kill by an AC debuff.

EDIT:

Cerk, that's a nerf still. Using wands/scrolls (which take whole round of action even if you're hasted) is worse than blasting IGMSs and Mords and CC from your spellbook.
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Re: Nerf this

Post by Kalopsia » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:39 pm

I’d rather slow the Dragon’s movement speed a little so hasted people can outrun it.

If you’d really want to nerf casters while their EDK is out, lower their movement speed and AC.
Make them easier to pin down in melee.
And make EDK disable stuff like Gsanc.

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Re: Nerf this

Post by Astral » Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:44 pm

Kalopsia wrote:
Thu Apr 11, 2019 7:39 pm
I’d rather slow the Dragon’s movement speed a little so hasted people can outrun it.

If you’d really want to nerf casters while their EDK is out, lower their movement speed and AC.
Make them easier to pin down in melee.
And make EDK disable stuff like Gsanc.
I like your direction of thought a lot. Slowing the dragon doesnt hurt pve at all. only pvp. Which is what people really complain about.

EDK disabling Gsanc and slowing the caster's movement is too harsh. The caster is dead in seconds before the EDK finishes buffing itself unless pale master.
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