I'd like Paladin

[mining]

Stunning Fist needs engine calls which is risky because stability and risky because lag.

We could restrict the # of fists you can take, i.e. SF IV at the most. This is only a very partial fix, though - only limits DCs, not the efficiency of getting them.

[Rufio]

well, don't mean to be getting off topic, but is it possible to change the base dc? like instead of being 10+1/2 character level + wis + stun feats at 40, could it be made just 1/2 character level + wis + stun feats, or does that have the same stability issues? I don't think that solution is optimal, it would make stunning fist useless on anything without a bunch of feats, but it might be better than what is in place now.

I wouldn't mind limiting the amount of stun feats that you can take, it isn't much different than being limited to 3 spell focus feats, just how would you handle all the stunning fist builds already out there with loads of stun feats?

[Amoenotep]

did i hear someone say wipe?

[Shadowalker]

did i hear someone say wipe?

More of a tactical strike... tag the intended targets and let smart weapons finish it.

[Eldaquen]

The main issue with stunning fist as it is currently implemented is the ability to chain them together on an already stunned target. Chaining attempts together keeping a target stunned with hope of counter is the issue. Perhaps adding a timer so once someone is stunned then they are immune to repeated stun attempts for x seconds (maybe 30 to 60 seconds.)

This is the same issue with KD attempts, the ability to chain attempts repeatedly to keep a victem immobile indefinately. Which was considered OP in the case of grease (at least a reason given as to why grease's DC was capped at 25).

But I believe actually changing stunning fist isn't needed. We all know those with stunning fist are going to use it, so we all build with that in mind and adjust fort accordingly or attempt to use any other ability to be immune to it.

But if a decision was made to make a change then there is an an easy fix: add more items that boast fort saves. If anyone and everyone is able to have high forts then there will be fewer reasons to abuse the ability. Kinda like how there are so many reflex and will save boasting items available which make certain spells useless, because any build (even those with low reflex and/or will) are able to have decent reflex and will saves if they use the right combination of items.

[Daral0085]

But if a decision was made to make a change then there is an an easy fix: add more items that boast fort saves.

I don't think it's that simple. The fact is, stunning fist almost always gets a much higher DC than any other fort-based ability or spell. Such other abitilies include: implosion, wail, black blade of death, SL death attack and poison, and a multitude of lower level spells (greater thunderclap, etc). Raising fort saves to make fort competitive with stun fist would render everything with lower DC completely useless, and would also skew PvM for that reason (lots of mobs use fort abilities with adjusted higher DCs, like tiamat sorcs).

[Jmana]

The problem is two-fold. First you can get ridiculously high stun fist dc's im talking 61 and ive even seen a viable build with 63.

This leads to only 2 kinds of characters i can think of that render you immune. Champion of torm's (mine has 61 fort with NC token) or anykind of PM with 10 lvls. Everything else forget it.

I had an RK stun fister with only 55dc i killed a pure fighter with it and he was stunned the whole time i was doing less than 20 damage a hit, took a while but he never became un-stunned which is the second problem.

Ive got 30 stun fists to use spread them out and no one is going to become un-stunned because while your stunned if i hit you again and you fail the save your stunned for another 3 rounds.

As far as i can tell limiting the number of imp stun you can take to 4 as mining suggests is a good idea but wont help against the numerous already built stunners, is there anyway to code it that while your stunned your immune to further stun fists attempts? this would fix the second problem i think and stop you from chaining them all together so your perma stunned and allowing you atleast some chance of not being stunned during a fight.

Personally im kind of sick of the relic game because ive noticed that a lot of the characters involved are either stunners hipsers or both, and im tired of coming up with cool ideas and then realizing ive got no chance of resisting a stun and/or no chance of spotting a hipser.

Id like to build some things with no spot and only enough fort to resist the imploders no one is using anymore because stun is way better. I cant remember the last time i seen anyone actually cast an implode in pvp. As far as hipsers go wasnt there some talk a while back about a cool down being introduced so you couldn't abuse the F1 F2 trick, whatever happened to that idea??

Well those are my thought's on the topic sorry it's so long but i feel pvp is very 1 dimentional atm and very boring. Time to pvm for me i guess

[Daral0085]

Everything else forget it.

Not that simple. There are actually quite a few special cases that can resist stun. PM is one, there is also elementals (druid), certain shifter builds (construct shape, undead shape), CoTs is another you mentioned, but also well-built paladins/BGs can pretty reasonably get 50+ fort and resist stun. I know of at least one RK pally/sorc that gets like 55 fort and is unstunnable most of the time.

As for hipsers, I agree that hipsers (and corresponding spotters) tend to dominate the metagame in pvp, and I think a reasonable nerf would be appropriate, but I'd say my main concern about that is it would not impact all factions equally, since SL/TC tend to depend a lot more on hips than other factions, while AO doesn't even get SD. That said, I think it's a moot point because my understanding is that the devs want to nerf hips, but ran into technical limitations that made it unfeasible.

Regarding implosion, I'll have you know I built a full 48 DC imploder cleric and I use him , but you're right, they have major issues. And it's not the spell dc vs. fort that's a problem, it's the other limiting factors. Namely, spell resistance and spell mantles. If you have 35 caster levels and ESP, you still have a 15% failure rate against racial SR. Against SR spell from another 35 caster it's 25%, and against monks it varies. My caster couldn't take ESP, he only has GSP, so for him its 25% and 35% respectively. Then you add in spell mantle which completely blocks 2-3 implosions and you're talking about an average of maybe 4-6 implosions before you even get a fort roll, much less a kill. The central issue here is that clerics can't lower enemy SR, while mages get mord which breaks both mantle and SR.

This is not to say that clerics are worthless or bad, but just that their offensive capability is limited because there are some common ways to counter it. The way the game is designed right now, it is possible for almost every build on the server to be immune to 48 DC implosion by getting fort + spellcraft that high. It requires tradeoffs, which some people make and some people don't, but that's part of how the balance works. So in one case, everyone dies to implosion but it's not overpowered, people just underfort. In the other limiting case, nobody dies to it because they all stack fort. There's nothing that changes with the caster or the spell, it's just that people build against it or not. But what this means is that if everyone stacks fort, my imploder cleric is basically reduced to irrelevance and I never have any reason to log it in again. I might as well log a dexer cot or something and destroy faces, because my imploder is now worthless. That's life.

[Bargeld]

I think you all have wandered into the realm of strategy, where it's more about the toon selection in any given fight, rather than a single ability of any one build. The beauty of the game is that there is (supposed to be) no single build that beats anything else 1 on 1. Even given the DCs and abilities you mention, there is always something that can beat it. What is the spot, fort, and SR on your monk stunner? Think it will beat a DC 47 wail from a hips caster after multiple tries? How about a gdispel, neb, slow, bigs7, igm igm igm? What about a damage shield con build (barb or PM)? Hipsing crippler? Etc. etc. But if you don't have the right toon, you just won't win. There are many faceoff combinations like that.

I said it 2 years ago that imp stun fist should be +1 only. I even talked with mining about that exact thing about 6 months ago. I seem to remember the "hooks" and "stabilty" issues being the reason, but i can't remember 100%. Point is... there IS a reason, or it'd be done by now.

The solution to the current topic is to just make more toons. Nothing is stopping you from making toons with 36 fort and no spot. Just better be sure it makes up for it in some other way, and hope you don't run into the 'wrong' toons. Learning how to play your toons also includes knowing the best way to fight a battle. That includes knowing when, and who, not to fight.

[mining]

I often build my toons with a critical weakness - no keen senses, meh fort, low will/reflex, bad discipline, you know, something that leads to a specific build destroying me. Yeah, I hate fighting that specific build, and it leaves me open to all sorts of onoes, but when you're fighting other stuff, it feels great.

[Lokey]

WoG: Stun fist code is in the attack routine--it's engine and oh so horrible.

See http://www.nwnx.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1175 with source at http://nwn.virusman.ru/svn/nwnx2-linux/ ... s/weapons/ If someone were to disassemble for the stun fist call and reroute it, we'd be happy to run it

ETA: Tep reminded me we have events running, and that might be able to grab a Stunning Fist use and do something with it there (wouldn't be able to leave in melee and so on, but could redo things possibly).

[mining]

It looks interesting - the bit about Dev Crit could be worth looking at too. Issue is, as always - how much lag/CPU usage would it cause.

[Lokey]

Acaos (who knows more about programming than all of us put together) is involved with higher ground, and that module has a significant resource cost. I think they're running like 3 instances of their module on the same server limited to 20 players each, but not sure if it's polling a function signature or something trickier--they do some other things, but I think the melee attack resolution hook is their limiting factor.

[Midterm]

How about people who have greater than Stunning Fist IV have stunning fist disabled, but they get a rumble token with dc equal to their attack + stunning fist dc?

[Bargeld]

Oh yeah, now I remember how we tangented off during that conversation... mining was explaining how that server side work-around functioned. We used similar concepts for 'bots' in other games, to add functional abiltities, stat tracking, automated event routines, etc. This way is far more intense than it was back then.