Oh where has my Darkness gone?

Falazure- · Post by **Falazure-** » Mon May 22, 2006 1:24 pm

yeh its got nothing to do with wanting something that helps things not attack you, i mainly play sl and i would like to see more incentive for drow to be played from sl,i think maybe giving shadow legion drow a bit of a better darkness then the one given,maybe an added concealment bonus or some hide.Being loyal to Lolth should have more benefit then some drow who grew up on the surface.im glad the old darkness is fixed,it was way to easy to exploit experience,so keep the visual that doesnt make everything blind,and maybe add a little more to it,nothing major.

Nemesis Revised · Post by **Nemesis Revised** » Mon May 22, 2006 2:38 pm

my suggestion to both devs and hopefully players might respect this:

give drow the chance to have their concealment scale up every five levels.

a level 0+ drow gets 5% concealment
a level 5+ drow gets 10% concealment
a level 10+ drow gets 20% concealment
a level 15+ drow gets 30% concealment
a level 20+ drow gets 40% concealment
a level 25-above drow gets 50% concealment.
[and maybe a level 40 drow gets 60% concealment as a reward]

to joran, hopefully this scaling system will make players not dare fighting arctic wolves at level 5, since they'd only have 10% concealment. if they tried fighting the wolves at level 4, it'd be horrible since they only have 5% concealment.

staying at 20% is a pain since at higher lvels, 20% wont be useful really. but scaling it may help, as we see how it's used by an earth genasi for example.

$chase$ · Post by **$chase$** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:23 pm

may this never happen. 60%lol

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon May 22, 2006 3:38 pm

why not? doesn't kick in till lvl 40 when its not entirely useful anymore.
Its only 10% more than improved invis and it takes you 40 lvls to get it.

Does True seeing see through the new drow "darkness"?

Post by **Yonwe** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:13 pm

Well, short of some extensive customized coding, 60% concealment is a simple impossibility; DnD, and by extension NWN, doesn't have concealment higher than 50% in any form, and I myself would suspect it's beyond the capacity of the engine to handle it. 50% is about as good as you could get it for concealment itself, having to switch over to alternate means of hiding or avoiding attacks once you got there.

kingfatzo · Post by **kingfatzo** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:28 pm

$chase$ wrote:o no my lvl 6 drow cant kill everything on the server. boo hoo.

haha ! that is awesome

so much to read, but that really sums it up !

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:41 pm

I have no problem with the change. I've played a tiefling, and once you learn what you're doing, the darkness token is/was very easily exploited. Like say, constantly getting sneak attacks when under darkness, being able to use missile weapons in melee without getting AoOs back, mobs acting stupid, and the 50% concealment. While it's true high level caster mobs can easily dispel it, a clever player knows just where to go to powerlevel, mostly FD. With the right class combos, they can go park in FD by level 10, level on wolves to about level 16, then level on giants from that point forward. And as for the whole "My wiz can't hit crap" argument: drow favored class is cleric, and gets a TON of buffs to pump AB. Tiefling favored class is rogue, and so nicely benefits from the ability to constantly sneak everything. How many people taking advantage of darkness are also taking advantage of favored classes?

Also let's not forget that the darkness token lasts much much longer than the spell, and is mobile. Much better than the spell by far.

Personally, if there's an ECL +3 race that has it too tough, its Githzerai. Who every bothers to make one here?

Also, I like the upgraded light ability of aasimar. Makes the +2 ECL worth it. Before, aasimar weren't a bad option, but the light ability was nowhere near equal to the teifling's darkness.

Celorn · Post by **Celorn** » Mon May 22, 2006 4:55 pm

Nemesis Revised wrote:my suggestion to both devs and hopefully players might respect this:

give drow the chance to have their concealment scale up every five levels.

a level 0+ drow gets 5% concealment
a level 5+ drow gets 10% concealment
a level 10+ drow gets 20% concealment
a level 15+ drow gets 30% concealment
a level 20+ drow gets 40% concealment
a level 25-above drow gets 50% concealment.
[and maybe a level 40 drow gets 60% concealment as a reward]

Excellent idea (up until the 60% lol) if all the other subraces are going to have sliding-scale ability upgrades, then so should drow...

How about at level 40, the drow darkness becomes.... darkness? like it was before? And scale it wider like:

10% from 1-9
20% from 10-15
30% from 16-25
40% from 26-38
50% (and/or the old darkness) at 39 or 40...

Draco Nightspawn · Post by **Draco Nightspawn** » Mon May 22, 2006 9:45 pm

Well just took my drow out and tried the new concealment, he lasted about 30 seconds against 3 amazons. My drow is 32nd lvl , monk/fighter/SD and with "normal" darkness would last against that many.
IMO he is not worth the effort to even try and lvl anymore. Most of my toons are drow and if this is the way of their ability change it sucks imo.
Drow have darkness, not 20% concealment bonus, not hips, not improved invis or any of that *cencored*. Give the drow/telfings their darkness back.

Post by **Mr. O'Dearly** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:02 pm

lol, well, i think ive found the inspiration for the new darkness:

DnD Players Handbook V3.5 wrote:Darkness
This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). ....

You say you want Darkness?

That is precisely what you have been given, just not Bioware's broken version.

randdo · Post by **randdo** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:18 pm

$chase$ wrote:o no my lvl 6 drow cant kill everything on the server. boo hoo.
get over it. the days of putting up darkness and nothing attacking you are over move on

A most constructive post. I'm also very impressed that you actually have a LvL 6 Drow that can take on "everything" on the server with darkness. That absolutely nothing attacks your Drow. ((Kind of makes you wonder who might be just a wee bit prejudice against Drow builds regardless of their class.))

As for every other Drow in NS4 Darkness acted like a magnet pulling everything all at once within range on top of them. Then if not extremely careful, they get their butt handed to them more often then they'd like. Maybe conceal will actually stop that from happening and the Drow will be able to pull one mob in at a time. We'll see.

As you can tell I'm not happy having what made a Drow, a Drow, removed or changed into a visual effect only. I've already been looking into other subraces that can come into the service of Lolth, specially those with 50% conceal and less than ECL3. As far as the Drow SR bonus, it helped a bit with lower level baddies and players but against anything with a CR 26 plus or a player caster over level 20. Trust me that SR didn't help. Beside that, Bigbies are now no longer effected by SR so there isn't that much to a Drow's SR anymore. Drow SR is over rated unless your just about a pure monk and dump all your epic feats into SR x 10.

Oh.. Oh.. Oh... I was just wondering, now that the Drow Darkness Bug has been fixed I'm guessing that DM's will be leaving lower level Drow characters in FD alone.?

Nemesis Revised wrote:my suggestion to both devs and hopefully players might respect this:
give drow the chance to have their concealment scale up every five levels.
a level 0+ drow gets 5% concealment
a level 5+ drow gets 10% concealment
a level 10+ drow gets 20% concealment
a level 15+ drow gets 30% concealment
a level 20+ drow gets 40% concealment
a level 25-above drow gets 50% concealment.
[and maybe a level 40 drow gets 60% concealment as a reward]

I like Nemesis's idea with a slight change. At Level 40, a fully matured, trained SL Drow gets back the Darkness (as a SL incentive) as it was along with the 50% concealment. (Not the old Darkness from way way back when before the AI changes). That way it also gives Drow a target to aim for. Make the painful ECL3 leveling little easier to take.

Draco Nightspawn wrote:Well just took my drow out and tried the new concealment, he lasted about 30 seconds against 3 amazons. My drow is 32nd lvl , monk/fighter/SD and with "normal" darkness would last against that many.
IMO he is not worth the effort to even try and lvl anymore.

hehehehe... Another Drow completes a successful test of having their butt handed back to them in under 30 seconds by their chances being reduced to 0% survival as a dexer. I refer back to my post that started this thread.

Alain · Post by **Alain** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:34 pm

Mr. O'Dearly wrote:lol, well, i think ive found the inspiration for the new darkness:
DnD Players Handbook V3.5 wrote:Darkness
This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). ....
You say you want Darkness?

That is precisely what you have been given, just not Bioware's broken version.

Finally someone gets it right.

Joran · Post by **Joran** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:40 pm

Mr. O'Dearly wrote:lol, well, i think ive found the inspiration for the new darkness:
DnD Players Handbook V3.5 wrote:Darkness
This spell causes an object to radiate shadowy illumination out to a 20-foot radius. All creatures in the area gain concealment (20% miss chance). ....
You say you want Darkness?

That is precisely what you have been given, just not Bioware's broken version.

bump for Draco

Well just took my drow out and tried the new concealment, he lasted about 30 seconds against 3 amazons. My drow is 32nd lvl , monk/fighter/SD and with "normal" darkness would last against that many.
IMO he is not worth the effort to even try and lvl anymore.

hehehehe... Another Drow completes a successful test of having their butt handed back to them in under 30 seconds by their chances being reduced to 0% survival as a dexer. I refer back to my post that started this thread.

The fact that the simple change of ONE ability completely demolishes your entire build and makes you unable to survive is a crystal clear indication that said ability is broken and overpowered.

CrazyJ · Post by **CrazyJ** » Mon May 22, 2006 10:56 pm

Can someone double-check the coding for the concealment? I had a drow in my party on Ogre Mountain an hour ago... she was running darkness, and I had a summon and an animal-emped companion. Fighting ogres under the darkness, the combat text feedback was showing a 50% miss chance for my animals. 20% chance to miss for the ogre targeting us.

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Mon May 22, 2006 11:00 pm

randdo wrote:Oh.. Oh.. Oh... I was just wondering, now that the Drow Darkness Bug has been fixed I'm guessing that DM's will be leaving lower level Drow characters in FD alone.?

Why should the DM's stop stomping people who are powerleveling with exploits in FD...or anywhere else for that matter?