the trouble with these two additions were this imo... your looking at this save bonus which only happens once a char hits level 30, the time for progression seems forgotten when you dont have +6 saves vs spells, the +2 ac to compensate forgets that removing the permahaste drops your AC by 2 so thats no compensation it simply means your slower you lose the disc bonus and now have to rely on having a caster haste you. And the statement of kensai with permahaste being slower than hasted party members I had found never came to play because the Kensai was your melee beast in the front and noone who wasnt scouting wanted to run out from to far.Scurvy Cur wrote:And that's natural.
They were given 1 apr that stacks with haste to give them a buff that is unique to the path (Old Kensai were plagued by the fact that other classes could replace their main class feature easily). They were given +6 saves vs spells to help ameliorate their lack of access to death ward, FoM, and mind blank. They were given access to clarity and other potions because these are such staples of gearing and running any melee class that lack of access seriously hurt their viability. They were given +2 AC to compensate, basically, for the bonus AC that would be gained from using a barkskin wand instead of a potion, plus the 1 dodge AC given from mage armor. They were given perma freedom because the guy doing the Kensai buff was worried that they still didn't have enough.
... with perma freedom.
I think the biggest problem is when these changes are made your only balancing on what will exist at level 30. thats great but what about all the time spent prior. Not everyone rushes to level 30.
sometimes balance changes effect those who are not rushing the levels to get to 30, but take more time and invest in the growth and evolution of the character and that is where these things hurt the most.
my char plan was F WM Kensai on creation before any of the recent changes, speed and beyond. this gave me plenty of leeway for my third class if i even took one, which i did with CoT, but the point is it wasnt all set down on paper to level 30 on creation, and these balance points while good for some have totally wreaked havoc with mine, and a few others im guessing who just shelved of deleted and moved on