Oh where has my Darkness gone?
Personally I dislike having to log on as a DM to be a police officer. I excel at it, and get called all kinds of wonderfull names, in game and in the forums, but its not what I became a DM for.
The more solutions to issues that can be solved by scripting instead of direct intervention I am all for. I think it has been said best already, if in turning the darkness ability to the 3.5 standard breaks your whole character then that is a indication that the ability was busted to begin with. We already have a long history of adjusting things to the 3.5 ruleset so you cant even say we were going after an isolated issue. As time and effort progresses things I am positive we will see more changes for better conformity.
Nuff said.
The more solutions to issues that can be solved by scripting instead of direct intervention I am all for. I think it has been said best already, if in turning the darkness ability to the 3.5 standard breaks your whole character then that is a indication that the ability was busted to begin with. We already have a long history of adjusting things to the 3.5 ruleset so you cant even say we were going after an isolated issue. As time and effort progresses things I am positive we will see more changes for better conformity.
Nuff said.

*Computers are alot like air-conditioners. They work great until you open windows*
Well frankly I am tired of the Drow debate.
I predominately play Dwarfs (yeah go ahead and snigger). Have an orc as well
. I have a dwarf ranger, a PM build and a Druid one. So you cannot call me a cheesy bugger. They all do well because I build them specifically for solo play but can assist when I party up.
As for the complaint that a dexxer can't make it on the server, I'm sorry to disagree with you. My ranger is a dexxer and does fine with Ice Giants and Amazons (to a point). Never actually travelled with her to Sunken so can't talk about that. Fact is I don't use Darkness (screwed or otherwise), don't have conceal or impr invis and I do FINE! This is whether I choose to solo (more often than not) or party up.
As many have said building a character around one strategy shows lack of foresight and adaptability. A character which has a kryptonic weakness is the toon master's fault noone elses.
Hmmm - i think i've waffled for long enough
Oh BTW can we introduce a level limit of say 13th to FD so that those who hate being picked on at low level don't have to. Also this helps $chase$ not have to "intervene" to remove said characters and shout that he will run around with a wooden spoon spanking those naughty toons!
I predominately play Dwarfs (yeah go ahead and snigger). Have an orc as well

As for the complaint that a dexxer can't make it on the server, I'm sorry to disagree with you. My ranger is a dexxer and does fine with Ice Giants and Amazons (to a point). Never actually travelled with her to Sunken so can't talk about that. Fact is I don't use Darkness (screwed or otherwise), don't have conceal or impr invis and I do FINE! This is whether I choose to solo (more often than not) or party up.
As many have said building a character around one strategy shows lack of foresight and adaptability. A character which has a kryptonic weakness is the toon master's fault noone elses.
Hmmm - i think i've waffled for long enough

Oh BTW can we introduce a level limit of say 13th to FD so that those who hate being picked on at low level don't have to. Also this helps $chase$ not have to "intervene" to remove said characters and shout that he will run around with a wooden spoon spanking those naughty toons!
Tres Nawt {CLAD}, Tres Baf {CLAD}, Tres Leyana {CLAD}, Tres Q'sara {CLAD}



The bigest issue with the change is the fact that due to subrace, Drow have that ECL3. At level 25 I was getting on average 67 XP from Frost Giants, the ones I could survive. Now, I walk into the caves and get smoked.
Do I go back to killing Arctic Wolves for 4xp? If you make a change to Drow, say drop that ECL3 to ECL1, we would be more in line with other races and get somewhat comparable XP. Having to fight a CR 29 at level 25 verses a non subrace that gets the same XP fighting a CR 26 at level 25 is a huge difference in what your up against. The former darkness helped to compensate for that, somewhat. It did not make the Drow invulnerable to death by any stretch of the imagination and it still took much longer for the average Drow build to level verses any other non subrace.
If the largest deciding factor in changing darkness was that a few players who made Drow rogues with HiPs that could wander into Frost Dale at level 6, which you considered an exploit. Instead of tagging all Drow, a Gate Keeper NCP could have been set up to trans players into the play area beyond Frost Dale. NCP "read PC level" level aproved "NCP teleports PC to waypoinnt xyz". That way you stop all races, classes that you believe to be of a level that is too low and are able to exploit areas for powergaming. This same idea could be applied to the Ferry Men. They read a PC's level before the sell a ferry ticket to a particular area. If they don't qualify by needed levels then a ticket is not sold. Or level restrict some tickets like to Sunken or Frost Dale.
All you've done is force Drow to drop down in CR critters that they can handle to where the XP is so much lower that it will take 5 times longer to level. Now, it's just not worth the other benifits for the time it takes to level with a 20% concealment instead of a Darkness plus that ECL3.
So where do I go for XP that is above 25 points per kill? Tell you what. Take away the ECL3, Concealment/Darkness and the SR extras and I'll be happy to play my fav character, the Drow in the service of Lolth without those goodies. At least I then would be able to take on critters closer to my own level, get decent XP for the effort, invest a reasonable amount of time per level, even with my monks and archers. It's that ECL3 that kills us. Not losing Darkness.
My last words on this subject. (As everyone cheers)
Do I go back to killing Arctic Wolves for 4xp? If you make a change to Drow, say drop that ECL3 to ECL1, we would be more in line with other races and get somewhat comparable XP. Having to fight a CR 29 at level 25 verses a non subrace that gets the same XP fighting a CR 26 at level 25 is a huge difference in what your up against. The former darkness helped to compensate for that, somewhat. It did not make the Drow invulnerable to death by any stretch of the imagination and it still took much longer for the average Drow build to level verses any other non subrace.
If the largest deciding factor in changing darkness was that a few players who made Drow rogues with HiPs that could wander into Frost Dale at level 6, which you considered an exploit. Instead of tagging all Drow, a Gate Keeper NCP could have been set up to trans players into the play area beyond Frost Dale. NCP "read PC level" level aproved "NCP teleports PC to waypoinnt xyz". That way you stop all races, classes that you believe to be of a level that is too low and are able to exploit areas for powergaming. This same idea could be applied to the Ferry Men. They read a PC's level before the sell a ferry ticket to a particular area. If they don't qualify by needed levels then a ticket is not sold. Or level restrict some tickets like to Sunken or Frost Dale.
All you've done is force Drow to drop down in CR critters that they can handle to where the XP is so much lower that it will take 5 times longer to level. Now, it's just not worth the other benifits for the time it takes to level with a 20% concealment instead of a Darkness plus that ECL3.
So where do I go for XP that is above 25 points per kill? Tell you what. Take away the ECL3, Concealment/Darkness and the SR extras and I'll be happy to play my fav character, the Drow in the service of Lolth without those goodies. At least I then would be able to take on critters closer to my own level, get decent XP for the effort, invest a reasonable amount of time per level, even with my monks and archers. It's that ECL3 that kills us. Not losing Darkness.
My last words on this subject. (As everyone cheers)
no one is cheeering because you dont post man, all comments are valued and i can understand that u and others spent weeks/ months getting a high lvl drow build only to find its a little more challenging to lvl now 
But something had to be done to the drow they were dominating the landscape of NS 4 for several reason as has been pointed out
Many ppl like playing drow just cause there drow ( D&D experiences novels etc ), but there are those that made drow just for the darkness thats it no other reason - mass cheese.
If we look carefully we see that other cheeseyness has been changed as well like the paly sorcer with 1 lvl of paly made infamous by a certain individual or that 1 lvl of Shadowdancer or even the monk/druid epic shape combo thats allowed on other crappy servers
I guess my point is these guys are working really hard to eliminate the cheese factor which in the end makes a much better server for us all to play on - one that lives up to the depth and quality of the actual world we choose to spend hours in.
I dont have a problem with the solution that has been reached and as someone showed earlier its supposed to be 20% concealment - only issue i see now is if its working properly cause i was on mountain with that other guy and the ogres were concealed 50% and we were only 20% lol
happy hunting to all of you

But something had to be done to the drow they were dominating the landscape of NS 4 for several reason as has been pointed out
Many ppl like playing drow just cause there drow ( D&D experiences novels etc ), but there are those that made drow just for the darkness thats it no other reason - mass cheese.
If we look carefully we see that other cheeseyness has been changed as well like the paly sorcer with 1 lvl of paly made infamous by a certain individual or that 1 lvl of Shadowdancer or even the monk/druid epic shape combo thats allowed on other crappy servers

I guess my point is these guys are working really hard to eliminate the cheese factor which in the end makes a much better server for us all to play on - one that lives up to the depth and quality of the actual world we choose to spend hours in.
I dont have a problem with the solution that has been reached and as someone showed earlier its supposed to be 20% concealment - only issue i see now is if its working properly cause i was on mountain with that other guy and the ogres were concealed 50% and we were only 20% lol
happy hunting to all of you

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- Nemesis Revised
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im hoping using darkness token on the ground still works the same way it does before the 20% concealment udpate. does this work? has anyone tried it? hopefully, a drow can still cast on the ground and do battle with blinded mobs (unless they use UV, so at least UV will still have some use).
any1 tried this?
any1 tried this?

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- Mr. O'Dearly
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Here I was gonna go look up Githzerai in v3.5.
<sarcasm>They seem to be a bit overpowered...</sarcasm>
DND version
+6Dex, -2 Intelligence, +2Wis
Darkvision
+4 AC
SR 5+class lvl
3/day daze, feather fall, shatter, plane shift
+2 ECL
NS4 version
* Favored Class: Monk
* Must be Neutral-aligned
* +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength, -2 Wisdom
* +2 Persuade, +2 Taunt
* Spell Resistance 5 +class lvl
* +4 AC Deflection bonus from Inertial Armor (psychic force)
+3 ECL
Id say change the bonuses on wis and int. +2 to int doesn't really help for much because you dont get skill points from it. I think that would put them on a little bit more level field with drow. Whether or not to move it to a ECL +2.... i dunno.
But all this really belongs in a new topic. If anyone after this feels the need to reply how about copying and pasting into a new topic.
<sarcasm>They seem to be a bit overpowered...</sarcasm>
DND version
+6Dex, -2 Intelligence, +2Wis
Darkvision
+4 AC
SR 5+class lvl
3/day daze, feather fall, shatter, plane shift
+2 ECL
NS4 version
* Favored Class: Monk
* Must be Neutral-aligned
* +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, -2 Strength, -2 Wisdom
* +2 Persuade, +2 Taunt
* Spell Resistance 5 +class lvl
* +4 AC Deflection bonus from Inertial Armor (psychic force)
+3 ECL
Id say change the bonuses on wis and int. +2 to int doesn't really help for much because you dont get skill points from it. I think that would put them on a little bit more level field with drow. Whether or not to move it to a ECL +2.... i dunno.
But all this really belongs in a new topic. If anyone after this feels the need to reply how about copying and pasting into a new topic.

Gith is on the change list anyway. Forget where I dug up the current version, but the Faerun version seemed too strong (granted Faerun Drow get +4 dex and another stat boost for the same ecl).
Tep wrote:I login and there's a dwarf to kill. You can't ask for much more than that.
Alkapwn wrote:NC has the most amazing melee build there is. Its a friggin unstopable juggernaut of pain.
githzerai get no blind and slow vs light spells.plus they will be getting a revamp like all other planar races i would think.i really think the sr races should get the 11+character lvl now,with bigby dc's of over 100 vs discipline sr is kind of useless now compared to an innate 40 damage reduction and 5 ac that an earth genasi gets.As for the drow stat boosts,charisma and int can be ok,int doesnt add skill points so thats pointless to anyone but a wizard,they get a con decrease to btw.take away darkness following the drow like its meant to be and give them ecl of 2 like its meant to be with there natural sr,its what makes them who they are.