A few things noticed while playing a mage

[Denort]

Good points. The deeper I get into Bioware's code, the more I don't understand why they half-assed the translation of 3E's spell system (stuff that stacks that shouldn't, crippled metamagic, clerical domains totally off the mark, etc.). Most of the problems that occur with the spell system/casters over any sort of long term play with NWN on duel-servers, non-PvP and PvP PWs are a consequence of Bioware's design decisions. Maybe the development got rushed and they just didn't have the time.

While some of the decisions made by Bioware seem more than a little perplexing you must remember what NWN was designed for.

NWN was designed for a single person to run through the official campaign and then maybe play some extra modules alone or with friends and a DM.

NWN was not designed for persitant worlds especially PvP worlds like NS4. Just because the game can be bent, broken and spindled in such a way that allows this does not mean that Bioware should add support for (or should have originally supported) everything necessary to run a PW right.

I imagine that Bioware will take the popularity of PWs on board while designing their next game which thankfully will not be bound up in the petty restrictions of the D&D franchise. Hooray!

[Spura]

What does everyone think of this.

Good saves start at 1, not 2. They start at 0, the same as bad saves, if your first level in the class is not your character level.

In addition, weapon/armor proficiencies and certain class abilities depend on being taken at level 1. For example, a starting fighter would receive all the normal free feats, but multiclassing into it later will only garner shield, light armor, simple, and martial weapons. Maybe even make it dependent, such as getting light armor if no other proficiencies are had, medium if light, heavy if medium.

Another example: Divine Grace is only gained if your first character level is Paladin. Prohibit Paladins from dabbling in "arcane knowledge" and remove Divine Grace if multi classing into Sorceror, Wizard, Bard. This is probably too fascist and prohibitive, but just another example of the latter idea.

I don't get it. How is THAT gonna help with the spells that have saves. You DON'T need a paladin to have saves too high for anyone to pass. Besides paladins can't multi into bard. Also one of these changes would make mage fighters spend 6 feats on gettin still spell and full armor instead of 4. We all know mages have feats to throw around.

Anyway the point is, anyone, and I mean anyone on this server can get +9 to saves vs spells if they take a level of either bard, wiz, sorc,ranger,paladin, druid or cleric and get 43 spellcraft. That coupled with the fact that a lot of spells are in schools you don't have the feats to focus and a lot of mages don't have maximum int cos they took PM or still spelll or just a lot of epic spells, makes for a crap future for save spells.


EDIT: Update for lvl 8 spells.
Greater Sanctuary: My god, what have you done to this spell. I agree, the bio version is overpowered, but now it does nothing. Seriously, the only difference between greater sanctuary and lvl 1 cleric spell sanctuary is 7 DC cos of spell level difference. Mine has will save DC 27. Any child can save vs that. Seriously. Don't expect ppl to take Abjuration focuses. Seriously if that DC was 10 to 15 higher I would CONSIDER taking it.

Horrid: Hm let's see... 25d8 with a save vs 30d6(empowered IGMS) no save. Yes tough choice.

[satantrik]

I don't get it. How is THAT gonna help with the spells that have saves. You DON'T need a paladin to have saves too high for anyone to pass. Besides paladins can't multi into bard. Also one of these changes would make mage fighters spend 6 feats on gettin still spell and full armor instead of 4. We all know mages have feats to throw around.

Anyway the point is, anyone, and I mean anyone on this server can get +9 to saves vs spells if they take a level of either bard, wiz, sorc,ranger,paladin, druid or cleric and get 43 spellcraft. That coupled with the fact that a lot of spells are in schools you don't have the feats to focus and a lot of mages don't have maximum int cos they took PM or still spelll or just a lot of epic spells, makes for a crap future for save spells.

I totally missed spellcraft, those were just a couple of examples of what can be done to make the save/power progressions a little more controllable. Since we really can't "add to the top" with "Heightened Spell" metamagic and higher level spell slots, etc. we can always take a little off the bottom.

One of the things being thrown around is emulating the save and spell resistance engine functions in the script so we can have more specific control over it. If this goes through, taking out spellcraft's save bonus is definitely possible - it'd have my vote.

[Denort]

One of the things being thrown around is emulating the save and spell resistance engine functions in the script so we can have more specific control over it. If this goes through, taking out spellcraft's save bonus is definitely possible - it'd have my vote.

Rather than take it out completely, why not have the Spellcraft saves bonus only apply to spells that you yourself can cast. Intimate knowledge of your own spells should help in resisting their effects.
High level casters can keep a saves bonus against casters of the same type. Low level casters will not see the same benefits, hence taking a few levels of bard and dumping points into Spellcraft will still give you +8 save vs spell but only against the few spells you have selected.

+8 save vs Daze anyone?

[Ragefist]

Some of the ideas for the classing posted above seem to solve some of the problems involved therein, but you guys (the Devs) face a much worse challenge, IMO. NWN was made to be bent over and cheezed like only a true power-gamer/min-maxer can. There is no RP reality to a bloody bard deciding to then become a ftr and then transform into a dragon as a prestige class . . . RDD as a prestige class is supposed to be prohibitively hard to get into, requiring roleplay and feats and a benevolent DM (as far as table gamin goes). The same goes for most of the prestige. It seems likely that people will just have to buckle down and grin in acceptance of the tardedness of the DnD system past lvl 20. Seriously, what do they expect. Read the Faith and Pantheons guide . . . a large portion of the gods of the NWN world would kill to be lvl 40 and get all the crazy crap characters in the game get .

Other than that, all that can be done are continued balancing acts by the hardworking devs and working toward a zen state of patience for those of us who play the game.

[Spura]

Dammit ppl. Topic here is NOT about how much can cleric buff over fighter and about PrCs. FYI pure bard would have about same saves as bard RDD so please stay on topic. The last reply had nothing to do with the topic here. Saves are high without paladin, without PrCs. It mostly has to do with spellcraft.

[Spura]

UPDATE

Sunburst: Duration of blindness nerfed from permanent till resting to 3 rounds or so. NOW WTF!! Devs systematically nerfed anything I could put in my slots other than IGMS. Way to go!! I guess that means more empowered IGMS for me. No, wait, make that slot bigby.

EDIT: No actually it applies deafen for 1 round and blindness for 3. Yes thanks for 1 RD of deafness, it help tons. Hm yes.....Sunburst -> deafness yes.....it all makes sense now.... I hope readers notice heavy sarcasm

So they went out of their way to nerf a save spell to 3 round duration while they left clerics with no save spell ( Word of faith) with one round per level duration. I guess I just don't have the brain capacity to comprehend the superior balancing behind these changes.




Everybody's complaining about how they mages only cast bigby and IGMS. Well guess what! Everything else is either vastly inferior by default or just plain nerfed and pissed upon till it no longer retains a shred of it's function.

[Epistaxis]

Dammit ppl. Topic here is NOT about how much can cleric buff over fighter and about PrCs. FYI pure bard would have about same saves as bard RDD so please stay on topic. The last reply had nothing to do with the topic here. Saves are high without paladin, without PrCs. It mostly has to do with spellcraft.

A pure bard is helpless against spell casters with fort save death magic. My 23 level bard(1 level of RDD) fully buffed including bard song and +5 from equipment only got fort 17 (base fort is 8!!!). The few spell casters i have met in PvP has killed me in one round with a DC high enough for me to need a roll of 20 to survive.

If you want to increase the DC's of the spell casters all non powergaming chars will be squashed like small insects in no time. I know you can build a char to get saves high enough to survive a meeting with a wiz but why punish all characters not played by powergamers.

[Epistaxis]

Rather than take it out completely, why not have the Spellcraft saves bonus only apply to spells that you yourself can cast. Intimate knowledge of your own spells should help in resisting their effects.
High level casters can keep a saves bonus against casters of the same type. Low level casters will not see the same benefits, hence taking a few levels of bard and dumping points into Spellcraft will still give you +8 save vs spell but only against the few spells you have selected.

+8 save vs Daze anyone?

That would improve the odds against powergamers but would for sure break the balance between non powergamed chars and spellcasters. I do not think there is a good solution to this as long as both powergamers and others play in the same world fighting each other. IMO the best solution would be to disable all death magic and increase the DCs on all the elemental damaging spells.

[Brennan068]

NO! do not disable death magic. I personally do not use it and don't really like when it is used on me, but please ... Stop the nerfing.

Non powergamed characters have made a choice (I'm one really and I'm happy with my decision) they have rounded characters. Good in a lot of things but not the best in any. A powergamed character can (usually) kill them. Ok, live by the rules of the world and respawn (or spam the shout channel for a rez like so many of the powergamers do.)

The real trick is to not take getting killed so seriously.

The next trick here is to realize that the powergamers have a weakness, the nature of building for a powergame character means that they give up a rounded character for one powerful in a certain thing. Either let a character built for exploiting that weakness come (a death magic spammer really only needs a character with a few levels of cleric to come and wipe him out) and avenge you or giggle, dust yourself off and get back to playing.

By taking certain feats (and getting very lucky) at lvl 15 with a nonpowergamed character, I took down a powergamed sorc who was 10 levels my senior (he respawned and came back and killed me, but it was all fun.) These feats made sense from a rp point of view and conveniently allowed me to exploit this character's weaknesses.

[Epistaxis]

Hehe, I did not mean it seriously when i suggested to disable the death magic, forgot to add the smiley in the post. Have died many times to death from NPC's as well when I roll a 1 on my save. It only adds to the challenge of the game

I do prefer to play a allaround char like yourself and do not mind being killed now and then as it is all part of the game but would hate to see the DC's improved more than they allready are. I am just saying that it is wrong to improve the DC's on the death magic spells to counter the powerbuilds as it would indeed nerf the non powerbuilds. The same goes with decreasing the savings throws on the chars. I would hate to play here if a powergamed char was needed to survive for more than a single round in PvP.

[Throst54]

spura, quit talking like an enraged 3 year old... it's beta, none of the spells are set in stone, say what you think is wrong w/ them and why, dont throw a fit.

[Spura]

spura, quit talking like an enraged 3 year old... it's beta, none of the spells are set in stone, say what you think is wrong w/ them and why, dont throw a fit.

For all the talk about how busy they are, and I believe them, they took out of their time to go change spells that weren't overpowered or anything like shadowshield. I've never seen anyone complain about shadowshield.

[Spura]

Dammit ppl. Topic here is NOT about how much can cleric buff over fighter and about PrCs. FYI pure bard would have about same saves as bard RDD so please stay on topic. The last reply had nothing to do with the topic here. Saves are high without paladin, without PrCs. It mostly has to do with spellcraft.

A pure bard is helpless against spell casters with fort save death magic. My 23 level bard(1 level of RDD) fully buffed including bard song and +5 from equipment only got fort 17 (base fort is 8!!!). The few spell casters i have met in PvP has killed me in one round with a DC high enough for me to need a roll of 20 to survive.

If you want to increase the DC's of the spell casters all non powergaming chars will be squashed like small insects in no time. I know you can build a char to get saves high enough to survive a meeting with a wiz but why punish all characters not played by powergamers.

my bard RDD fighter has 2 base saves higher. And you forgot about fort you get from spellcraft.

[Spura]

NO! do not disable death magic. I personally do not use it and don't really like when it is used on me, but please ... Stop the nerfing.

Non powergamed characters have made a choice (I'm one really and I'm happy with my decision) they have rounded characters. Good in a lot of things but not the best in any. A powergamed character can (usually) kill them. Ok, live by the rules of the world and respawn (or spam the shout channel for a rez like so many of the powergamers do.)

The real trick is to not take getting killed so seriously.

The next trick here is to realize that the powergamers have a weakness, the nature of building for a powergame character means that they give up a rounded character for one powerful in a certain thing. Either let a character built for exploiting that weakness come (a death magic spammer really only needs a character with a few levels of cleric to come and wipe him out) and avenge you or giggle, dust yourself off and get back to playing.

By taking certain feats (and getting very lucky) at lvl 15 with a nonpowergamed character, I took down a powergamed sorc who was 10 levels my senior (he respawned and came back and killed me, but it was all fun.) These feats made sense from a rp point of view and conveniently allowed me to exploit this character's weaknesses.

Your bard should still reach over 30 saves. Spellcraft bonus to saves doesn't show up on char sheet because it is only vs spells.

Dwarven guardinan CR 19= 31 fort
My necro focused mage lvl 20= wail DC 32

EDIT: Ok just to keep other mages informed, so that they don't make same mistakes I did. They nerfed Prismatic spray(no idea why).