Gladiator League

[bknuckles]

How can we have team names when we haven't chosen the teams? Can we make a name after?

I can't call it Voss and the Vossettes, if I didn't draft Voss

(But that would still be funny)

[The Nameless Bard]

Oct 20, 2014 14:24:26 GMT -5 dom101 said:

Oct 20, 2014 14:16:21 GMT -5 The Nameless Bard said:

I know this may blow you away, but my post was not malicious in any way whatsoever.  Sorry for posting something I've seen work in the past.  Nothing you said even remotely applies to what I said either.  Their method was simply to add a bit more flavour into PvP situations (they are still mechanical PvP battles), which clearly you're not interested in, which is also fine.  Personally, if I can steal from somewhere that has done something with success in the past, then I'll do it.  

There are so many others ways you can talk to your fellow players rather than that kind of aggressive tone. How about:

"Hey man, thanks for the suggestion, but I'm looking to go a different direction."

A response like that, rather than a passive aggressive one goes a lot further to promoting cooperation with your fellow posters than slamming on me for no apparent reason.  

I actually wasn't referring to your post, that's why nothing I said remotely applied to what you said.

Then I apologize to jumping to a conclusions as I didn't see anyone else discussing anything similar in between that post and your last one so I thought you were referring to mine.

[dom101]

Well, generally a team is a brand all it's own; since you could trade Voss for a more powerful combatant, etc.  For instance, the Dallas Cowboys aren't the Dallas Troy Aikmen, or the Dallas Emmit Smiths.  The team doesn't and likely shouldn't focus on your players.

[bknuckles]

That makes sense. Okay, I'll think of a team name!

[Remmy]

Oct 20, 2014 11:39:34 GMT -5  @belladonna said:

Oct 19, 2014 23:19:33 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

No.  No.  No.

Rather than all this, just ban scrolls and wands/rods/items with spells.

I am so tired of people calling HiPS and Knockdown cheesy, instead of being legitimate tactics.

They are not cheesy by themselves, but they can be if used in a certain way. Hide in NWN is treated by many as invisiblity, when it really is not. Hiding in D&D requires some measure of cover, or concealment to start the process, and does not render the user invisible. Moving behind boxes, blending in with the crowd, crouching through tall grass, etc etc. These are how hide functions.

HiPS allows for being within 10 feet of a shadow (not your own) to count as one of these modifiers to start the process, but the Shadowdancer is just using the shadows to -start- the hiding process, she isn't actually hiding IN the shadow. She isn't Peter Pan's shadow. She has physical form and can still be harmed if something damages her square. NWN cannot easily replicate this, and mechanically the implementation of HiPS can be abused in a variety of other ways. Again, going back to rules the person to be hiding would have to disengage from combat, flee from it (likely provoking an attack of opportunity) and then hide, which is a move action. NWN seems to allow you to click the button even if you are striking or being struck and then resume attacking a moment later. If you were the target of a person and you click hide their combat just shuts off entirely and they become flat-footed and thus vulnerable to sneak attacks until they click on you again. And I believe they can begin hiding when they are being targeted by a hostile spell, canceling it and potentially wasting the spell in progress (I could be -totally- wrong on that, so if I am please correct me, someone). This is one of the ways that a person with HiPS can cheese the system, constantly dipping in for a moment to render their target flat-footed and sneak attack them to death, if they have them, which frankly most who take Shadowdancer do.

Further NWN has armed Shadowdancers with this amazing ability without putting in any of the truly effective countermeasures that would negate it. You cannot cast daylight on an object and plant it in an arena and suddenly render the shadowdancer unable to use that ability, nor other light spells, unless you RP it and the shadowdancer on the other end actually pays attention and goes along with it. If they do then bless their heart... but I have seen countless shadowdancer players since the PrC was added who would not give two shits about it and would keep going. Even if you have massive spot the ability to hide on a whim beats it, as the spot check is only once per round, and a quick SD will spring their next attack before then.

tl;dr: Hide in plain sight itself is not cheesy in of itself but has been used in a cheesy manner for years and NWN has not effectively provided any of the legitimate counters to it, nor altered spot to do so, even if you could pump it as high as a rogue can get their skill.

Note: I like rogues, and I am not calling for any changes to be made for shadowdancers. They are a wonderful class and in a lot of cases the RP provided by them has been interesting. I am just pointing out that in a strictly PvP setting they can be abused greatly. Also those wands/rods/items/scrolls are some of the ways to try and beat a shadowdancer, or level the playing field with many caster classes. They are in the same boat as HiPS, not cheesy themselves, but can potentially be used for such.

[onivel]

There is this wonderful spell called Glitterdust that F's over HiPSers very nicely. Best thing is you don't need to be a caster for it as there is an easily accessible item IG that can be used by anyone for the effect.

Oni - Player of a squishy HiPSer

[Garage Trashcan]

There's also scripts in play that give you a massive Hide penalty if you hide within 1-2 rounds (can't remember) after coming out of stealth, so abusing it is much more difficult.

[trylobyte]

I have three reasons for proposing rules.  I don't especially care what rules the League has or doesn't have (as I will not be participating beyond Aelie being a potential supporter/announcer) but I did want to acknowledge three factors of good gladiatorial matches.

1)  X should not be required ONLY because it's the only way to counter Y.  Glitterdust, for instance.  If it's the only possible counter to HiPS spam then it becomes mandatory when facing someone with HiPS but is otherwise pretty useless in all circumstances (except for blinding people with single-digit Will saves).

2)  If you're making it a spectator event, the fight should be fun to watch.  This is my only complaint with Darkness, really - It makes the fight difficult to spectate because even with Ultravision everything is black.

3)  Blatant cheese should be ruled against unless everyone can do it.  Word of Faith fits here.  An AoE Blind with no save auto-wins a fight, especially if spammed, but only clerics can do it.  If you're fighting a team with a cleric using this tactic and you don't have one yourself, you're almost guaranteed to lose.  That's just no fun.

[trylobyte]

Oct 20, 2014 15:37:56 GMT -5 Garage Trashcan said:

There's also scripts in play that give you a massive Hide penalty if you hide within 1-2 rounds (can't remember) after coming out of stealth, so abusing it is much more difficult.

In that case my objection to HiPS is withdrawn.  I wasn't sure if that was on CD or not.  Carry on!

[The Nameless Bard]

Oct 20, 2014 15:41:58 GMT -5 trylobyte said:

Oct 20, 2014 15:37:56 GMT -5 Garage Trashcan said:

There's also scripts in play that give you a massive Hide penalty if you hide within 1-2 rounds (can't remember) after coming out of stealth, so abusing it is much more difficult.

In that case my objection to HiPS is withdrawn.  I wasn't sure if that was on CD or not.  Carry on!

However, it is still only checking once per round, large negative or not.

Hide with HiPS.
Move in. Listen/spot check fails, player is hidden.
Swing first flurry.
HiPS.
Move in.  No check for the rest of the round/other two flurries.

By round 2 you'll probably be hooped as you'll fail the next check.  

[Deleted]

Fine.  Ban HiPS.  But then also ban healing potions/kits, cure spells, knockdown (as already mentioned), any auto-hit spells (IGMS), all displacement spells, all summon spells, etc etc etc.  Because each of these requires limited methods to counter/avoid them.  Fair is fair, after all.

/sarcasm

Seriously, guys, where do you draw the line?

[trylobyte]

Ban fighting.  It's the only way.  Jeez, I regret bringing up the subject of rules at all.

[The Red Mage]

Oct 20, 2014 12:19:52 GMT -5 onivel said:

Oct 20, 2014 11:41:08 GMT -5 The Red Mage said:

Improved Knockdown only removes body size advantage against knockdown. All playable races are the same size (ie: a Halfling doesn't need improved knockdown to knockdown a human without penalty). A Halfling and a human both with improved knockdown would roll the same against a Hill Giant, though where they would be immune to vanilla knockdown.

The suggestion was for spamming the ability, not using it. The server doesn't penalize using it like most other servers.

Also I thought the size category wasn't in place to determine if you hit... it was given as a bonus or penalty to resist on the discipline roll ( ie bigger size opponents get bonus to resist and smaller get penalty to resist.

It's both. I may have been wrong about Halfling vs Human, I think they(human) get a +4 to discipline against Halfling. It's been a while since that has been relevant to me.

And yeah, the hide penalty really means nothing even with glitterdust. You can have 0 hide afterward and still use HiPS effectively against someone with 20 spot if the person using it knows how to use it.

There should just be some common courtesy rules, in my opinion. We cannot balance PvP on this server at all. It's not a PvP server and there are too many things that haven't been altered or are auto-win buttons or templates. There just needs to be a way to make the RP take the center stage instead of builds/ tactics/ exploits.

-Edit- And yes, HiPS can waste a spell per day if it's a targetable spell. Only ground-targetable spells are reliable against them(gust of wind, greater thunderclap, icestorms)

[ClockworkMayhem]

Honestly, the best counter to HiPS is a high spot/listen. Glitterdust isn't exactly a hard counter to HiPS if the character in question has a really good H/MS; at least not in the experiences I've had, but then, the only ones that have tested this against Mouse cast it from the music box or the scroll - does caster level matter on this? I know some spells have been altered from the spell descriptions, slightly (at least, I've been told so), and not all the descriptions have been changed to reflect it. Is Glitterdust one of these?

Another good one, as RM mentioned, are ground-targetable AoE spells, but they should be picked carefully, as some are definitely better than others.

[The Red Mage]

Glitterdust doesn't scale, no. The DC is only for blind. It does the -50 to hide automatically.