lordvan52681 wrote:Arcane archer has to have 10 lvls of non-AA anyway. all its making you do is choose either 10 caster levels or 5 caster and 5 non-caster. not that big a deal. If you go Bard you get the best of both anyway.
Arcane Archers are WEAK enough already. Making them weaker helps no one.
Whether you consider AA weak or not is your opinion. However to say they need 9 lvls of fighter to give them good BA is downright foolish. a lvl 30 AA makes every arrow they fire a +16 arrow. And, at most, this rule will only take away 4 BA from a class that has the (arguably) highest BA.
The only problem with the AA class is damage. they can hit anything, but dont do much damage to anything with piercing resist.
well, I for one like the change... it's simple, and easy to work around, and it partially solves the problem of ultra-uber level40 builds that everyone will be able to get around the corner (I assume this is why this change is coming).
It does deflate the power of RDD a bit, but AO has the widest range of class choices so that's fine, just fine! But more importantly, it will help weaken the cheese casters (including clerics) -- if you want the 'cheese-power' of 2 subclasses, your casting power will be limited to 30 levels.
Sure AA's will be hurt, but a rogue archer -can- dish a LOT more damage* than any AA can on this server (tips hat to Sirus) so why bother building one? (unless better arrows/bows come out).
lordvan52681 wrote:I were to get offended everytime someone disagreed with me, i would never be happy.
Don't impose your problems onto me. You said what you said. You only dig yourself in deeper trying to change what you said. Again, you don't understand the issues.
Back to what I said, you have to keep up your AB with the non 1 BAB/lvl classes by multiclassing. Arcane Archers get 1 BAB/lvl, so that's not the issue for them specifically (though you certainly want an AA to have BAB 16 or better at level 20 for 4 attacks). The problem for Arcane Archers is that they have requirements that almost always force you to multiclass, but you also want to get in as many AA levels as possible. Usually you do this by taking a couple of levels (1 or 2) of an arcane caster class (usually wizard). Forcing players to take more levels in the arcane caster class only lowers the abilitie of an already WEAK Prestige class. (No one seems to have any real arguments against the class being weak other than put-downs against me, so lets call it settled).
What I find ironic in all this is that there's another discussion going on at the same time about how non-caster builds need help compared to caster builds. The consensus here is that only a very few classes actually need to be limited (Paladin, Monk, Shadowdancer, Blackguard). Why limit anything else? No one can say.
Don't impose your problems onto me. You said what you said. You only dig yourself in deeper trying to change what you said. Again, you don't understand the issues.
With due respect I suspect your reading things into the persons comments that were not there. Also I suspect you are not aware of the level of involvment the player in question has within the world... I believe he understands the issues all to well.
This is a forum its about opinions and NOTHING makes one persons opinion more valid than anothers, play nicely kiddies
Celorn wrote:Sure AA's will be hurt, but a rogue archer -can- dish a LOT more damage* than any AA can on this server (tips hat to Sirus) so why bother building one? (unless better arrows/bows come out).
I agree that rogue archers do alot more damage. tried them both, and the rogue kills the AA especially if the rogue also has SD levels (which they almost all do).
However, I dont see how adding better arrows would make the AA class any better (in terms of comparing to rogue archer). the rogue will always do more damage but hit less. Adding better arrows just moves the gap up a little, but the gap stays the same.
But this is no fault of the devs here, rather the way the classes are. the only way I can see to make the AA class better is to find a way to code them so that they add damage to every arrow they fire greater than the enhancement they already give them. I dont even know if this is possible, but if it were, it might make the AA a more prominent class.
All of this has no effect on my previous argument though. Making a person take 5 lvls of their subclasses has no effect on the damage output (with the exception of taking 9 lvls rogue over 5) and so I still think that the new rules are good.
It is worth it IMHO to lose few BA I would normally get in order to force the chezier builds to pick their classes more carefully. And as Celorn said, this is a simple solution that will get rid of most of the cheezy builds.
Just a thaught on AA, would it be codable to add sneak damage when using a bow only.
note: this is a seperate issue to should it be done
Would it be a good solution to add say +1d6 "Point Blank"/4-5 levels
(sneak) damage with bow only. It would boost the pure archer should not require heavy coding (see above) and doesn't involve hugely complex/creative solutions.
I to think this mite be a good thing to add,and it will make pure characters much better.But i also think waiting until maybe the jobs for factions and planar areas are in,then maybe do a vault wipe.Makes it easier for dm's,so they dont have to delvl some ppl and what not.
On the AA not being better then a rogue archer,it depends on the situation,but i know for a fact a well built AA would spot any sd and easily beat any rogue archer 1 on 1,AA's become weak against mages and ppl with premonition.In a party AA's are awesome,so any guild investing in a high lvl AA would be wise.
Oh my gosh, you guys get off topic so fast its crazy. All I was asking was if the rules had gone in or had been taken out. They've been taken out so just stop it.
lol, the topic got changed to whether AA was a good class with those possible changes, and then got changed again to whether AA was a good class period
well, yeah, the side-tracking was due to the fact that some builds{PRCs} need to multiclass AND get tons of levels to be decent...(AA, PM, RDD, etc..)
and yes, the post was withdrawn and has not become {scripted} law yet... but it's coming in some form...
The intention of this thread is to explore any potential/major problems that could result in having this rule become the 'way'....
the fact that 4 levels of the mid-ab classes are needed for every 3 ab might be a reason to make the limit -4- levels minimum instead of 5, just to open up a few non-mage builds that would be made a LOT less powerful (ie: 2 subclasses with a 4/6 split instead of being forced to do 5/6, thus limiting your main class to 29 levels which some know is just short of 'perfection' ';..;')
but, on the other hand that will just make most builds a bit more even in the end (L40) and to get some of the technical benefits from certain classes will slightly nerf the other classes/main class, and strip off some of the bad cheese (and thankfully, nerf some of the cheesy bought-40's that only contribute to the server by stalking low level players around Avendel)
I'm sure that there are many long-time NWN players that have seen the same thing I have on many servers: the developers get caught up in a neverending battle to prevent a few character builds from dominating all others. When one build is toned-down or eliminated, others appear which are then toned-down or eliminated...
I'm very impressed at how NS4 has approached this problem: by assigning most Prestige classes to factions, restricting the alignments and classes allowed in factions, preventing alignment changes, preventing multiple Prestige classes in a single character, and restricting or eliminating certain feats. My biggest concern with this idea of requiring all characters to take at least 5 levels in each class they have, the "Rule-of-5", is that it is a wide-sweeping solution to very specific problems. This seems to be counter to what has made NS4 work so well: instead of addressing powerful classes on a case-by-case basis, a general solution is being applied to all classes that is detrimental to builds that are not in any way problematic.
I've pointed out that the Arcane Archer is only going to suffer more from such a rule.
I mistakenly thought Shifter would be also, not knowing (along with many other players) that all Epic Form feats are already so restricted that this rul change has no effect on them.
No one is arguing that classes other than Paladin, Monk, Shadowdancer, Blackguard, and Rogue need to be subject to this rule.
Since people have been more responsive to my specific examples, here are more that aren't Arcane Archers or Shifters:
I said, "Non-casters need to keep their BAB high, which means multiclassing for all classes that don't get a full 1 BAB per level pre-epic (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard, Assassin, Harper Scout, Pale Master, Red Dragon Disciple, Shadowdancer, and Shifter)". For example, a class already brought up is Rogue. Rogues are a great primary class, but they always benefit from multiclassing with a fighter-like class (1 BAB/level) to boost their AB and attacks. Additionally, it's worth considering multiclassing with a third class for extra abilities and/or to try to counter some of the Rogues' weaknesses. The Rule-of-5 only limits rogue builds that aren't problematic, other than preventing characters with just 1 level of Shadowdancer.
after going through and re-reading all the posts, I have to say that the best argument (in my opinion) came from celorn.
Most builders know about the BA progression before lvl 20, and they go in incriments of 4 for this reason. With the rule being set to 5 it means you must either mess up the BAB progression by selecting 5 levels preepic, or lose the chance for 30 levels in the PrC.
If it were toned down 1 level (to 4 lvls minimum for all classes), this would no longer be a problem. However, this may be what the Devs want; choose between the best BA or the best PrC bonuses, not both.
