I'm back.

[Amoenotep]

nwn isn't that complicated. i'm not a genius and i do alright...i don't even min/max builds and i can hold my own.

the trick is to find something you enjoy about it...and do that. i enjoy ganking lowbies. i do that

[Ace-of-Spades]

Well, yes...spawns can be as powerful as you want to make them in the toolset. On WoW, well I honestly thought people made that game out to be extremely complex, far more than I thought it ever would have been when I started playing it.

D&D can be a complicated game to a point, but it does not take a genius to play it. Don't worry, I'm a 20 year old college student who has never had the joy of playing a nice PnP D&D campaign. All I know about D&D and role playing came from this game, and my 5 years of experience on it.

And LoL, Amoenotep.

[Korr]

Maybe its not the smart people who have the problem, thinking they can always do everything themselves. They dynamics of this game doesnt allow for that. It takes a wise person to be able to accept that they cannot know. I have been playing NWN since it came out, and playing pen and paper D&D for 15 years (on and off) I played every edition so far but fourth. When I go to make a new build, or want to test something I always ask someone that has made a character like that before. The application is always different than the design.

[VagaStorm]

Yes but if you suddenly lose focus in combat and stop attacking you become flat-footed to ALOT of monsters.

Oh yeh, forgot to add that one. Many time when surrounded they will start walking around and get between you and the on your hitting, you can drop out of combat mode and just stand there, -then-, you aer flatfooted and you can see your hp going down at an amassing speed.

[Ade]

What I don't understand is that it takes one round in combat to become "un-flat-footed" yet you can instantly become flat footed again. The time should be the same on both sides, as this current setup gives people who who rely on dodge AC a disadvantage that is based solely on the game's interface.

Isn't Divine Shield natural AC in the offline mode?

[LinuxPup]

Isn't Divine Shield natural AC in the offline mode?

no

[Gornickthy]

no

A man of many words.

[Ade]

Well, maybe DS SHOULD be Natural AC, then. Pally doesn't have many options for naturally increasing his AC like other classes. He has Tumble (when maxed increases AC by 4) and Armor Skin (which increases it by another 2). As far as I know, there are no other ways for him to increase his Natural AC (not even sure if Tumble increases Natural AC or some other type).

It's a DIVINE SHIELD; to me, shield implies SHIELD, not some increase in agility that allows you to dodge better.

I'll bet the Loremasters at Bioware didn't think that one through.

BTW Lv. 38 now.

[disastro]

dodge ac is better because it stacks. it will always add to your ac until you hit the cap of 20 dodge ac. other types of ac generally will not stack (i.e. deflection ac from spells or gear, or natural armor from ammy etc.)

its a divine because divine intervention moves your spleen from where the pointiest end of the rapier is

i think you can also instantly recover from certain kinds of flatfootedness. if you change out gauntlets in melee for example, you are instantly flatfooted. but as soon as you click on an enemy you are un-flatfooted again as far as i can tell.

[Ade]

I recall reading somewhere that it takes either one round or one turn of being "in combat" for the game to even start considering your dodge AC.

Maybe this was something I read when I was looking up pencil and paper rules.

All I know is, if the character is doing his "sway back and forth in combat" stance, dodge AC should be in play...(unless he's totally surrounded).

Also, what constitutes as "totally surrounded?" Is being able to weasel out just barely also enough space for dodge AC to work? I really wish the combat log would distinguish when dodge AC is being employed (or that some message would appear over the character's head like with Tumble) so I know when it is being calculated in my chance to evade an attack. Without assured knowledge as to exactly when dodge AC is on or off, combat with more than one foe seems to be a total crapshoot.

It just seems odd that I should be dodging most attacks and then, because a character shifts over very slightly, I start taking 180 damage or something absurd. I don't think any other sort of attack evasion requires this degree of luck and precision.

[Korr]

Any time that you have an action icon in the top left corner of your screen you are not flat-footed. When you are surrounded by monsters you are not flat-footed, every monster but the one you are attacking gets a +2 flanking bonus to their attacks.

[Ade]

Ah, this is useful information to have, thank you.

[disastro]

definitely check out the wikia links for a better idea on how flatfootedness is implemented in nwn. another way to get a good feel for it is to roll a dex based character with no uncanny dodge (famous example: pure bard). you will be rockin when you're not flatfooted, and dead when you are.

once you get the hang of it you'll see how it works.

the reason getting surrounded can get bad is because it's possible to go flatfooted when you try to run out of a pack and get stopped short. of course, you tend to hit this situation when you most need your ac, heh.

[Ade]

Yes. So perhaps in those situations it is actually to one's benefit to stay and fight.