Dungeons- Dispels/AC/etc

[onivel]

KoA .. Clerics have always been the beast class of DnD. Nearly all of the benefits of most other classes with few of the draw backs. If you really want to make fighters more relevant, tone down all the ungodly summons we have or significantly shorten their duration so that they are good for 1-2 encounters at most. I would be inclined more towards the later. Let them serve as the reinforcements for a bail out when the bulk of the party is getting overwhelmed or to bring in against boss NPCs. They are your fighter substitutes.

[trylobyte]

Dec 25, 2013 13:31:02 GMT -5 kingofaquilonia said:

Well really I would be fine with it if we needed a well balanced party but the fact is... that one cleric or that one high level mage or that one caster gish, can plow through the dungeons on there own , only the mords will get them.

They have NO need for the fighter/barb/front liner.

That and I guess its just one of my things but the dungeons on the server I don't consider being something that's supposed to be stupid hard where you use like 300,000 gold worth of supplies to get through them.

I usually only expect that kind of difficulty in a DM event. Anything where a DM isn't involved I expect to be able to beat the crap out of, I know I build my characters well. However dispels are just... they make me want to punch the Orphans... all of them... >.<

If they're running something close to appropriate for their level and not using summon scrolls that vastly outlevel the place then yes, they do need that front-liner.  Aelie is a lot less useful without someone like Victoria, Aesa, or Bass to hide behind ensuring she lives long enough to cast her spells, because even a 50 AC and 50% concealment doesn't change the fact that she dies in a few hits (3-4 in frost giants, or a crit and a stiff breeze) or a natural 1 on a saving throw vs. death (No death ward for the arcane caster) or petrification.  That front-liner is also going to be tasked with clearing out the hordes of mobs, since as you get to Witchlords the caster is going to run out of spells if they try to clear it all themselves.  The only class I could see reliably soloing dungeons is the cleric, and that's because a cleric is a fighter with their own buffs and heals.  I'd actually argue that a party without a front-liner is even more screwed at higher levels than one with no mage, since healing can be done through kits and the rogue can use scrolls but nobody can replace that high-DPS wall of HP known as the melee guy.  You can use summons in a pinch, but summons are, well, dumb.  They're also very hard to maneuver and they have a tendency to do stupid things at the worst possible time.  I'd much rather have a good PC fighter at my side than my dragon summon, even if said dragon is so much harder to kill, simply because the PC has a brain and knows not to charge ahead when I'm buffing, knows to kill the casters first, and won't accidentally hit me with its spells or abilities.

[Edge]

The best way to nerf the gish fighters and the clerics would be to knock the buff and summon spells to 3.5 durations - minutes per level rather than hours for the first, and minutes per level rather than 24 hours for the latter. Two main differences would be no buffing parties at the beginning of dungeons (rather, people would rely on scrolls for the chump encounters, and save actual, short-duration buff spells for boss fights) and summons being only used rarely as emergency backup or distractions, rather than long-term allies. (Also summons being nigh-useless before level 8 or so.)

THAT SAID, you're still going to end up with the issue of "Why buff the fighter when I, the cleric, can buff myself and be just as good or better in the fight?" Because, as Onivel said, Cleric (and Druid, though the majority of what makes a PnP Druid a badass did not make the trip into NWN) in 3.0/3.5 is quite easily the best class in the game, barring perhaps a God Wizard (again, most of whose tricks either didn't make it into NWN or got severely nerfed).

And, as stated before, it'll require a complete revamp of the server dungeons starting at about level 10 or so, because currently they are built with "players will have access to X Y Z buffs and be using them constantly" in mind. Changing the availability of those buffs, either through removal of scroll access or changing duration, will change the balance of the server drastically.

[Edge]

(No death ward for the arcane caster)

You didn't pick up Shadow Shield? Or one of the staves that casts it?

[trylobyte]

Dec 25, 2013 13:48:33 GMT -5 Edge said:

(No death ward for the arcane caster)

You didn't pick up Shadow Shield? Or one of the staves that casts it?

DERP.  I knew that, I have the freakin' spell.  I blame the holiday season.

A flip side to nerfing buffs and summons, though, is that it hits low-level characters a lot more than high-level characters.  Even if my summon only lasts minutes per level, that's still half an hour, and I can cast it nine times a day.  Compare that to the poor newbie mage whose badger lasts for three minutes and he can only cast it twice.  Low-level caster buffs will be nearly worthless since they often won't last longer than the fight you cast them for, especially if Fear comes into play (as it often does with low-level bosses).  I'm against that change for that reason, and only that reason.

[The Red Mage]

A mage may be able to do a dungeon with a summon, but every mage would rather have a PC fighter/barb/whatever. Buffing up a summon and trying to solo things has to be the most boring playstyle imaginable ever. Sit in invisibility and heal your summon or whatever. It stinks.

The higher tier dungeon you get, the less summons become effective.

Maybe in dungeons that do not allow teleportation/ dimension door/ mords mansion, you could make casters not be able to summon either.


-Edit- I don't agree with changing stat-based buffs back to the duration they were a couple years ago. Buff's durations were made longer so mages could bring more offensive spells instead of just being back up and reback up copies of buffs to other people. People are going to have their basic animal buffs and stuff like that. Decreasing the duration back to the way it was would just add to the consumable/ inventory problem.

[Edge]

Dec 25, 2013 13:51:28 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

Dec 25, 2013 13:48:33 GMT -5 Edge said:

You didn't pick up Shadow Shield? Or one of the staves that casts it?

DERP.  I knew that, I have the freakin' spell.  I blame the holiday season.

A flip side to nerfing buffs and summons, though, is that it hits low-level characters a lot more than high-level characters.  Even if my summon only lasts minutes per level, that's still half an hour, and I can cast it nine times a day.  Compare that to the poor newbie mage whose badger lasts for three minutes and he can only cast it twice.  Low-level caster buffs will be nearly worthless since they often won't last longer than the fight you cast them for, especially if Fear comes into play (as it often does with low-level bosses).  I'm against that change for that reason, and only that reason.

Yep, it's a legitimate reason.

And with that combined with the MASSIVE overhaul the server would require to adapt to a change of mechanics like that, I'm likewise against it. That is a STUPID LOT of work for very little gain.

A mage may be able to do a dungeon with a summon, but every mage would rather have a PC fighter/barb/whatever. Buffing up a summon and trying to solo things has to be the most boring playstyle imaginable ever. Sit in invisibility and heal your summon or whatever. It stinks.

Agreed wholeheartedly. In addition, unless you just really like going out and killing things and have no interest in interacting with other players, it's got to be mind-numbingly dull. Whereas taking along the local sword master and giving him/her a share of your spells and setting them loose as a wrecking ball of destruction on the enemies is far more entertaining IMO, and has the opportunity for RP and interaction involved to boot.

[tenorgeneral]

I should point out there was a server very recently that actually balanced all the classes very well, and managed to balance their content very well as well.  And, the best part is, their code is all open source.

**But of course, as previously said by edge, that would necessitate re-balancing the whole server (which while it would be a big project, wouldn't be so bad if it was both a shared effort by many people and made things more balanced for everyone right?)

[Edge]

I'm not familiar with whatever server you're dancing around, so could you tell us what it is/was directly please?

If it is actually balanced, and the resources can be integrated with our own stuff without conflict or further headaches for Vincent (who, for the most part, is the only script wizard we have left) then yeah, it might be a step in the right direction. But we'd have to determine that before even considering the idea of asking sufficient numbers of people to step forward to help in a conversion effort.

[Masque]

Edge: As I stated earlier in the thread, you really can't - it's built into the core mechanics of the game - without introducing new mechanics such as the things that were brought in near the tail end of 3.5 that narrowed the gap slightly such as Book of Nine Swords, Tome of Magic, and such like, or Pathfinder's revamps to some of the martial classes such as Ranger's Favored Terrains and Quarry, Barbarian Rage Powers, and so forth.

In NWN there are much easier changes that can be made that can make a significant difference to the way things work due to things like the Z axis simply does not exist and a lot of the source material that makes the casters mental broken (instead of just broken) simply doesn't exist. While the gap between what melee can do in comparison to magic is not quite as great as it is in D&D. 

That being said CD has never shared that vision and that is fine to be honest it is an old server and it is what it is. The server design was built around a specific party dynamic and that is why when people try and run things outside of that dynamic the difficulty will increase or diminish appropriately.

I think adjustments to the immunity spells would allow the challenges Vincent is looking to create and would result in less dispels stripping fighter types of their more essential buffs and leave dispels as a tactic favoured by the more significant enemies like boss monsters. 

That is a pretty decent compromise from both positions and we also might get some cool new dungeons to explore.

The idea of what would create ultimate balance is largely irrelevant because no-one really agrees what that is and on a server where Adamantium Full Plate, Shadow Adept and Hospillater are actual things people can play with. It would be nearly impossible to create that balance if on the off chance everyone agreed and the resources to do so where also present.

Lets take the small wins where we can and be happy for it. 

[ThayanKnight]

I would also like to note that not every cleric is a melee beast. While it is possible with the tools available, some choose not to go that route, just as not all fighters will be sword and board etc. So many of us must rely on parties as much as anyone else. D&D games don't start without some ooc collaboration, so getting a group together for adventure is no different.

[Fire Wraith]

It's also not quite so easy to just go "oh, sure, we can use that". This sort of stuff is not just plug and play, there are no simplified install wizards to merge code bases and haks. People get paid serious money in the real world to do things like that. Changing it takes effort, incorporating new stuff takes effort, because it can all very easily break stuff, especially when operating on a server to the complexity level of CD.

Now, if we were starting from scratch, it'd be a different matter, because we wouldn't have to worry about the legacy stuff... but that's really not an option.

As for 'balance', no, I can guarantee you it isn't - why?  Because "Balanced" is an opinion judgment, as any glance at any number of forums for any number of games will clearly show.  There has never been a game in existence where at least someone didn't think it needed tweaking.

[Masque]

I think balance is something that can be objectively measured but only within a subjective framework. If something has worked to your specifications is something that can be defined as either a yes or a no (within reason). It is the construction of the framework that is the difficulty and it is the framework itself that will often come under fire. 

For example if the design goal for CD is - Red swords should be stronger than Yellow swords and the game is balanced to achieve that end we can objectively see if that is the case or not.

If red should be stronger than yellow is something people will argue over and that is because people have different tastes and different expectations of what type of game we're playing and due to this being a co-operative multi player game of make believe tea party that has literally had hundreds of different contributors over the years it is understandable that people do come to it with different expectations. 

If CD even had any specific design goals and a structured approach to its construction? I have no idea. I would assume a loose framework existed and that has probably changed a bit overtime. I am pretty sure FW or Vincent could elaborate if they wished but it is nearly impossible to argue coherently for an idea (especially around the concept of balance) unless you have a specific design goal behind it and then how this change achieves that goal. 

For example I could argue Goblins should receive + 25 to all statistics, gain the ability to cast spells like a sorcerer of their HD and gain a breath weapon in the name of balance. Rightfully people may question my sanity. If I then explained it is because I wanted to make Goblins balanced with Dragons. Then again people may question my sanity but there would be an actual starting point where people could attempt to explain to me why Goblins were weaker foes and why not all monsters needed to be balanced with each other etc.  

[The Red Mage]

Can we keep the discussion on how to manage dispels and buff control? I can barely follow.

[dom101]

Dec 25, 2013 17:21:40 GMT -5 ThayanKnight said:

I would also like to note that not every cleric is a melee beast. While it is possible with the tools available, some choose not to go that route, just as not all fighters will be sword and board etc. So many of us must rely on parties as much as anyone else. D&D games don't start without some ooc collaboration, so getting a group together for adventure is no different.

QFT.  Ever since I dropped Blackguard with Bass, he's absolute shite all around.  Groups are a requirement, these days.