Shifter nerf

[Daltian]

I am 24 druid/11 shifter. Got all lvl 30 gear on me (really good gear, armor is +6, shield too, +5 ac from barkskin and Forest home boss boots on(+2 dodge, +8 dex). Also have +5 deflection on me. In IoD I was KDed to death. I have max points in discipline and disc rings. Seams it isn't enough with my current ac (51 i think). Also I have 25 dex and 23 wisdom. Needed dex for blinding speed so that also helps my ac. Otherwise would be even worse. Got 50% concealment from deep gnome too. In FD giants I simply got beat to death. No KD. Also, since i got subrace spell resistance, I probably lived much more then lvl 22 that was supposed to go there would. Was in vampyre form.

I must add that for this toon undead was only leveling form. Its aimed for Rak shape but I "will" get that at lvl 40 after I use +2 wisdom book. Can't test that, I really hope that one day shifter is good again and I get the will needed to finish leveling it. Atm its too risky to use a book on it.

Might I add that I have so few lvls of shifter and so many druid because raskasha spells depend on levels of druid for spell penetration and damage multiplier.

did you look to see what your disc was once you shifted..not what is in your normal form to chek vs their attack rolls? Tep

I belive my disc is around 50 when shifted.

[Lokey]

Might I add that I have so few lvls of shifter and so many druid because raskasha spells depend on levels of druid for spell penetration and damage multiplier.

Also on my list of things to fix

[Shhhhhhh]

I'm leveling up a Shifter/Druid atm, sadly dont have a higher lvl one yet.
Atm I'm at 5 druid and 5 shifter and what stood out for me is that the shapes all lost a ton of AC.
the greater wildshape 3 gives less ac or the same ac as what i have in normal shape ( 31)
The most usefull form to level atm seems to be the wyrmlings since they have a bit higher AC (36) and decent ab plus damage. Fighting ogres with that shape goes without much problems, so its not a real issue that shifters cant lvl or anything, but its a big change from earlier when you were happy when you got a new shape because it meant you became stronger.
Dunno if lower lvl feedback is wanted too, but if not I'm always open to someone giving me free exp


any feedback on any shifter shape is appreciated. especially for lvls, gear, stats, and how it performed Tep


After playing a few more levels and testing out the special abilities of the shapes, i can see i was a bit hasty with my earlier comments. The higher level shapes becomes nicer when you get better weapons and the special abilities can be quite usefull.
Its simply a bit of a change from the earlier leveling experience with the harpy, which caused you to cruise through these levels.
The basilisk petrify DC seems well chosen, not too high so its too easy, but not too low so you cant use it.
5 druid 9 Shifter now, and curious to see what changed with the other shapes.

I wonder if it is an option to give the creatures weapons that a druid/shifter can pick a focus feat in so those feats can work too. You cant get martial weapons prof or exotic if you stay pure druid/shifter which means no focus feats or improved crit feats.
Tho the switch to giving them weapons is already nice, much easier to see what type of damage you do like this.
anyway up to this level I cant see anything wrong with the shapes or shifter, its not as easy as leveling used to be, but still different and more fun than other classes and a shifter doesnt feel weaker at all than other classes too.

[Eldaquen]

Last night I realized Netya'nis in dragonform was blinded (True True sight removed). In my opinion this greatly unbalances Aetheria as dragons were one of the few classes able to counter SD builds.

Netya'nis spot in elven druid form is 55 buffed with True sight. As dragon her spot decreases to 53, same buffs. Seems she is hitting the skill cap and she is not wearing spot gear. Her wisdom modifier is 17 buffed.

You requested recommendations so here goes: would you please give dragonshape an adjustment to spot/listen or remove the multi-class restriction from dragonform.

Dragons vision is based beyond the normal light spectrum that humaniods see. In cases of red dragons I submit they see in infared, blue dragons able to see a spectrum I know not the name but involving seeing the electrical impluses within every living creature (since they due to their nature). SD's are described as operating in the border of light and darkness. SD's skills involve light - not heat, the electricity within themselves, the scent they give off or even the sound they make as move beyond the sound a humaniod can hear. I submit dragons sense of smell and hearing is as much a part of how the detect prey as their sight.

The cosmic powers that be - set forth to become a dragon a druid must be pure or shifter class only, so long ago. I summerize this was an attempt to balance the server originally. Due to the changes since and especially the recent recoding the basis of this rule is gone.

I realize the rule is an Aetherian tradition but this reminds me of the parable of the pot roast. One day while helping her mother make dinner she noticed her mother cut off the end of the pot roast before placing in the pan. even though the pan was big enough for the entire pot roast. She asked her mom why. Mom resonded because that is how my mom always cook pot roast. The daughter's question got the mom to wonder why herself, so she called her mom to ask why she always cut the end off before placing in the pan (which again was big enough for the entire roast). The grandmother gave same response because my mom always cooked it that way. So, the mom called the Greatgrandma to ask why. The greatgrandmother replied "because my pan is too small to fit the entire thing of course". Just because its tradition does not mean it makes since to continue to do something.

Please consider either adjusting the spot/listen in dragonform or allow multi-classing with dragonform to balance the build vs SDs.

[Lokey]

Shifter forms are a pain because PnP isn't much of a guide for most of them. Harpy, Gargoyle, Manticore, Medusa, Basilisk, etc...these are low CR monsters with one special ability that make them dangerous (gaze -> stone on the latter two, flight before it's readily available to players for the former). They have lousy stats and no special protections otherwise, if they're in hold monster range, they're done.

Dragons have the opposite problem, they're scary in PnP. A full attack from a dragon even a tier below what you're recommended to face is pretty much death barring some dice silliness. Even the weakest type of dragon (white) has tons of abilities to make players dead or get itself out of dodge. Yeah, dragons have something along the lines of tremorsense, etc... in PnP. All of them have blindsense, which means it's hard to get sneak attacks on them (if you can, you've already won)--hence that immunity.

Stealth is just a mess in NWN. There isn't much that can be done (NWN2 at least has a script function to get around that limitation). Whether you have 900 spot/listen and someone using HiPS has -900hide/move silently, the engine stuff still happens. That's a seperate issue that we'll work on, just wish I'd have known how bad it was years ago so we could have ripped it out then. True sight is the only thing that gets around it, however true sight makes all mundane stealth worthless. However, as a dragon you have limited abilities to make use of it...it's something on the table.

Elda, I'm a scientist in real life, so don't try that line of bs Besides, we don't even know what spectrum of EM exist in DnD for that matter. Usually Arcane Sight (get this permanenced, it's worth the 1k xp hit from that spell) or Mind Sense/telepathy (thankfully rare) are the easiest ways to see things without bothering with spot/listen rolls. Besides true sight lasts all day, is in the Druid book, but leaves some things wanting as far as I can tell--it's due for a revisit.

Pot roast: sear the outside then cook at no higher than 250F if a lean cut. For stuff like round cuts, I've gotten good results by throwing into a hot oven (like 450F) for half an hour then cooking at like 250-300F for like 15 minutes per pound. Not filet mignon of course, but you can get pretty close with a non-prime cut of meat that costs 1/5 as much or less.

Weapons: I intentionally picked things not on the druid/shifter list. (I'm pretty sure the claims of unarmed focus, crit, etc working with creature shapes are wrong by the way.) They're there because then we can use the properties of your weapon, which hopefully helps things scale better.

So where are we...?

I've been looking at the druid elemental shapes and hoping to get that wrapped up. The first set needs to be useful levels 17-20something, the elders until it's reasonable to get dragon shape. Water seems underpowered, earth overpowered because its ac came out way too high. Probably change to light hammer from warhammer. Animal forms...I need to make a new druid anyway, I'll look at them soon.

[Eldaquen]

Well I hope you found it an amusing read anyway.

Thanks.

[burrahobbit]

Elda, I'm a scientist in real life, so don't try that line of bs

What kind of scientist?
How much do you know about light and radiation?

[Lokey]

Physics in college (kids, don't do this. Do organic chem or bio and get into medical). I've done Immunobiology R&D and stuff at a testing lab doing various neat things.

So various microscopy...but it doesn't matter much, no matter what field you're going to deal with E&M to some degree whether you know it or not

[burrahobbit]

Do organic chem or bio.....
So various microscopy...but it doesn't matter much, no matter what field you're going to deal with E&M to some degree whether you know it or not

Well, this is the route i took and i find Eldas argument very compelling.

[Ryddwillow]

<Lokey> What are the high level druid/shifters doing anyway?
<LinuxPup> anything they want.
<Lokey> lol, I'm starting to see the problem.

LOL, they are not doing a thing as we speak--welcome to nefraholic syndrome.


All I read is nerf this nerf that, when is it gonna stop and let the players play. I see no really great improvements to any class except the poor TC ppl in which the 2 plus nerf stick hit them hard and everyone jokes about it from the higher ups. I'm not complaining nor rejoicing, I see what I see. I found dragons to be unharmful for me except in sd class or a weak melee class.
Heck someone changing ns4 wiki gonna have a heck of a time with all the new updates.

There is no communication here as to why things are being done, we cant lvl in fire plane by ourselves any more because we are too powerful?

I mean heck get rid of all armor and equipment and give us plus 3 plate and weapons and move on.

What was wrong before? Joe smoo a crappy builder couldnt pk me w/ his lvl 40? or joe smoo could lvl fire plane by himself? or joe smoo could lvl dwarfs by himself? who cares.

This ns4 is getting ridiculous because we try to build a build and it gets nerfed in a week and it takes some ppl more time to lvl a char here due to RL issues and they get frustrated.

Are we trying for that? communication is a great tool.

I mean im waiting for like 2 weeks to begin a new build to see if that gets nerfed.

*SHrugs shoulders* Poor TC once a great faction made of nothing to something and back to nothing, competition is great, lets not try to break them.

[Fezz]

Man you know as pink, you and I have had our fights mate, but jeez if you didnt hit the nail on the head right here.

You are peeing ppl right off because your changing crap right after a wipe - and a LOT of the stuff isnt making it into the changelog.

I said it with the shifter stuff ppl are left to log there toons in to find its been hit with the nerf bat. COMMUNICATION is certainly the key.

It also seems that since the wipe nothing but nerfing has taken place, shifters, spells, barbarian rage, barbarian fighter heal skill bonus, the removal of horses after ppl used skill points on ride that are now worthless and the list goes on.

Couldn't you have done most of these changes (if there even needed) before the wipe ?? for example the pure barb/fighter healskill was around for mnths and mnths NOW all of a sudden its too cheesie. Can you not see how ppl are gettin the poops ?

As far as certain builds soloing stuff before, its simple - i made many of my builds BECAUSE they can solo - im an Aussie and i dont party all that much, i have a handfull of ppl that know me on here, and i party with them sometimes - if they are on. As far as pvp goes i got smashed as often as i won, even with the so called overpowered shifter.

The thing is when a dm pops up next to you at 24 soloing dwarves in the planes and makes comments about shifters, i think who am i hurting ?? whats the big deal ?? clerics were owning me in pvp in two rounds. So what if i can solo PvM, the problem would have been if at 24 i was totally unstoppable PvP AND PvM then i can see the need for changes.

What more is there to say ?? we are not the only ones that have a problem with all this. BTW my pure monks quivering palm does nothing, all i get is a message that its an invalid target:valid targets are lower lvl creatures - a DM told me they have to be lower lvl then me so i was 18 tried a FD wolf - same message, it hasnt worked once on anything since i got it at 15 on the mountain. Maybe you can take a look at it

[Shhhhhhh]

I do hope more changes are comming to the Epic feat shapes. I tried all besides the Dragon one. And none of them seem even playable. So many nice things removed on all shapes, it feels more like you're playing the same character but with a different appearance and weapon now when you shift. At lvl 21 I used a book to get construct shape. You'd think that one was pretty powerfull since it requires 27 wisdom, but no such luck. I really want to lvl further to check out dragon shape, but dont see how I could get the exp, besides hiding in a party and hope they dont notice I'm not really helping. Or are you not suppose to be able to solo trolls or efreets at lvl 21?
Anyway was removing all these things really needed it was great and fun to find out all the special things each shape got and try to figure out which shape to use where.
And still, besides the risen shape, none of them caused major problems and upset the pvp balance.

oh and vamp dominate didnt seem to be working too, no message, nothing.

[Malik]

Shifters aren't near done, we are working on them, soon enough they will be back to a playable and enjoyable class. There are many forms that must be considered and takes a massive amount of time to balance them based on how many different takes a shifter can be. (Dex based, multi classed, pure, caster/shifter)

[Amoenotep]

this is pretty much going to cry baby crap...if you have valid feedback on your shifter/shapes then post it in the newly created shifter feedback thread in Ideas and Suggestions......