Blunt Balance Request

[Aliana]

I'm writing in response to the change which removed critical immunity from most of the mobs on the server.

While there are good reasons for this change in that on an undead-heavy server which seeks viability for rogues and mundane characters who become weaponmasters to reach the pinnacle of weapon training it has removed the roleplay-derived ability of blunt weapons to more readily smash creatures resistant to finesse attacks.

I fully acknowledge that the small immunity/resistance to slashing/piercing still exist but they are trivialized by the exponential damage multiplication that critical hits and sneak attacks offer by their very nature.

My recommendation is that existing weapons in the loot table receive a more generous allocation of keen property that in my subjective opinion seems to exist on the vast majority of bladed weapons and it's absence from blunt weapons, which excusable when blunt weapons were the de rigueur for monsters on which the keen property was useless this bifurcation between monster types no longer exists in practice and the enhancement to crit range offered most bladed weapons should become universal so that martial blunt weapons remain competitive with their bladed equivalents. 

While it may be said that these examples are cherry-picked I offer them as evidence that my view of the loot table skew is offered in good faith on the merits of evidence.

Scimitars (Purple)



Warhammers (Purple)





Blue Tier Weapons



Things to note

The Blue Scimitar is a defacto blunt weapon and has presumably always undermined blunt weapons although it's keen property, as stated was useless against undead and so it was merely versatile.

The additional damage property on display here and as roleplayed permits spiked warhammers and nailbat clubs which can as a result feasibly be keen, if there are roleplay purist arguments against keen on the basis that it is magical sharpening.

 The Purple Scimitars when not keen appear to offer very powerful utility effects which allowed the keen property to be traded off when facing undead. An apparently vestigial form of balancing around crit immunity.

For full disclosure there are popular deities whose favoured weapon of heavy mace allows their favoured souls the proficient use of warhammer. I will however defend occasional 'up gunning' from a ceremonial mace of blessed rest to a very large hammer as being no worse than the draconic pantheon who do not of course wield curved swords approving their favoured soul's use of such weapons as being 'close enough for goverment work' 

[Edge]

Keen has already been altered on this server so it can be applied to any weapon from casting or scroll, regardless of damage type. There are some keen blunt weapons already in the loot, and more on the way as blunt weapons in general are rather underrepresented compared to swords and other more common weapon types.

But as to going through the entire loot table and making all blunt weapons keen? No, not happening.

[Aliana]

Dec 10, 2021 23:55:06 GMT -5 Edge said:

Keen has already been altered on this server so it can be applied to any weapon from casting or scroll, regardless of damage type. There are some keen blunt weapons already in the loot, and more on the way as blunt weapons in general are rather underrepresented compared to swords and other more common weapon types.

But as to going through the entire loot table and making all blunt weapons keen? No, not happening.

Keen being available from scrolls and party members would explain why it appears under-priced in itemization in the same way that EB/AC appear to be (with rare exceptions) baseline functions of item tier is because it would be difficult to put an absolute value on it when Greater Magic weapon exists.

Going through the entire loot table is indeed a hammer to crack a nut, pun intended. A sprinkling of more competitive weapons for underrepresented types is the elegant solution as these are the ones that will be snatched from oblivion if they are sighted in pawn inventories.

The variety of drops on the server and the occasional thrill of 'This item can do what?!' is part of the appeal of dungeon crawling and standardization or a balance inquisition was never my intent. I'm grateful for the prompt and hopeful response.

Just as an offhand parting word, since it appears the server staff do listen even if this one is much less likely to have a fix or even be seen as a problem in it's current state. I caveat again this is a personal and self-indulgent point that has grown in the writing of this response. 

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I find Paladin as a class underwhelming, given that the roleplaying restrictions (even if not as visibly enforced) are as harsh as those of a Bladesinger if taken seriously it would be nice to see a Paladin be worthy of the reverence in which they are held by those they fight to protect. The tabletop divine classes added to C&D seem to add Paladin features to full-fat Divine Casters and in doing so outcompete unless the intention is to make a purely 'roleplaying' character that sacrifices the ability to fight monsters for social status.

For a Heartwarder of Sune this is fine. For the eponymous Holy Warrior it is deeply frustrating to me that an Archetype that is so defined by the restrictions on when they may draw a blade in anger makes such an average contribution when doing so.

i understand that the classes as presented may be exactly as they are in tabletop and that alterations or buffs may compromise a perceived need for canonicity but it seems to have the victim of power creep and it saddens me because i'd like to play one, but I can't swallow the idea of playing a character that has such thoughtful deliberations over when and how to take action while I, as a player feel a sense of relative mechanical helplessness.

If it helps tie a seeming tangent together my original 'last line' was going to be a request for Weaponmaster/Blackguard/Paladin themed items that help to flavour them and further develop a unique playstyle. Then I thought that maybe these items would be enough to make Paladin feel like a powerful holy warrior and I remembered how much I actually want to play one. But feel unable to.

[Garage Trashcan]

Paladin discussion likely requires its own thread, but as someone who has played one as their main PC for nearly 2 years, I disagree that paladins are useless mechanically. They're a solid B+ class when played to their mechanical strengths, and CD metagame balance is not and will never be the same as tabletop balance as, frankly, we all know tabletop balance to be crap.

Paladins benefit a ton from a bard or rogue dip (as do most classes) for UMD/tumble or from PRCs like Hospitaler or Divine Champion to get more bonus feats. With how feat heavy paladin builds are, this is highly recommended. There are a number of other viable options, such as going tanky/support with Knight Errant.

Clever itemization allows to to function as *almost* a mini-cleric, as higher level gear gives you a good number of spell slots. Extend Spell is also a terribly overlooked feat on them to make the most of Divine Favor, Bless, Aid, and Bless Weapon.

Cleric/Hospitaler builds will always be stronger because of access to WoF, SoV, Crusade, and epic spells. That's just the nature of NWN. Play paladin because you enjoy paladin. It's functionally fine as-is, even if it might benefit from some small QoL without overarching changes.

No clue if this was tied into the blunt weapon thing, but I'm not on Discord and wanted to chime in with my 2c

[Wolfgar]

I've been trying to make paladin build for few days now and I'd say they are not great but they are not terrible. Main problem with the class is that you're getting no reward for going into the higher levels and bit of imbalance compared to barbarian/ranger/GK which all got extra feats while paladin didn't. Sure you can take hospitaler but it's not impactful as it is for cleric and in my building I in the end rather went with figher. I think extra feat every 5 level in line with barbarian changes would put paladins in the right spot they deserve, especially given the 1/2 rule.

As for keen it's missing mostly on old weapons and it's fairly common on new ones. But if you have UMD/arcane levels you're better off using bit better weapons without keen and getting keen from scrolls anyway.