It'd be pretty neat to nerf stunning fist

[BlkMamba]

If you cant change the stun duration, how about putting something into the toons for a shorter stun duration
Like a job NPC to shorten stun duration to a max of (such time)
wouldnt effect spells like SoV or whatnot, they have to save every round anyhow
once 1 NPC was made could be copied to the other faction, just tap and go

[Celorn]

Stunning fist is a nice gimmick, but it seems to be another flavor of the week, just this time it's causing spells like implode to be 100% laughable etc...

If there's a wipe, might I suggest you finally bite the bullet and create a small ns4.hak that can be used to fix all the hardcoded garbage?

NS4 over the years has done some truly amazing things with scripting and NOT using HAKs, but is the only reason you don't make a hak is; because there's never been one? I'm not saying make 57 haks that include hundreds of MBs of new models and graphics, but a single, easily digestible hak that can cure HiPS spam, stunning fist, et al, and fix other things if there will be a wipe. (perhaps another thread for this)

[Amoenotep]

no neversummer module has ever used a hak and to my knowledge they never will. part of the foundation the servers are built on is that anyone can buy the game, update it, and login straight away with no need for anything else ever.

its just the way it is.

stun duration is only a couple rounds...its the spamambility/crazy dc that is so bad.

[Ryddwillow]

Why mention this when nothing can be done about it? Have ppl talk about a pipe dream? I mean I do have sayings but when it cannot be done why mention it?

[mining]

Why mention this when nothing can be done about it? Have ppl talk about a pipe dream? I mean I do have sayings but when it cannot be done why mention it?

Doesn't matter if its uncodable, the more ideas the better.

Read the OP, think a little.

[cRaZy8or5e]

Why mention this when nothing can be done about it? Have ppl talk about a pipe dream? I mean I do have sayings but when it cannot be done why mention it?

Doesn't matter if its uncodable, the more ideas the better.

Read the OP, think a little.

Methinks the Gods doth ask too much of our poor li'l willow

[Daltian]

Is it possible to give 5 round buff +2 to fort save (stackable up to max saves bonus which is 20 if I remember right ) of whoever is stunned. That way you fix spammability, reward the good save characters and punish ones with really bad saves so stunning fist isn't nerfed too much. Of course, you can change the modifier(+2) and duration (5 rounds) when implemented to balance it properly.

[mining]

Is it possible to give 5 round buff +2 to fort save (stackable up to max saves bonus which is 20 if I remember right ) of whoever is stunned. That way you fix spammability, reward the good save characters and punish ones with really bad saves so stunning fist isn't nerfed too much. Of course, you can change the modifier(+2) and duration (5 rounds) when implemented to balance it properly.

This echoes another idea I had (boost all saves so stun becomes feasible to save (like 50% or whatever) for most toons, then buff spell DC's as required to meet this) but you hit the +20 cap really fast - including spellcraft, most builds are at the +20 cap vs saves.

[Daral0085]

Well, that would get kinda messy because you'd have to buff the DC of not just spells, but every fort-based ability. That means stuff like assassin poison, shifter abilities, various factional tokens (not certain if any have a save vs. fort, though), AA death arrow, and if we want to be consistent, weapon on-hit properties. Though to be honest, I'm not sure if anyone gives a damn about weapon on-hits. So an across-the-board saves bump would get complicated real fast, even if it were possible. It would probably end up ninja-nerfing a bunch of things that get overlooked.

[mining]

Well, that would get kinda messy because you'd have to buff the DC of not just spells, but every fort-based ability. That means stuff like assassin poison, shifter abilities, various factional tokens (not certain if any have a save vs. fort, though), AA death arrow, and if we want to be consistent, weapon on-hit properties. Though to be honest, I'm not sure if anyone gives a damn about weapon on-hits. So an across-the-board saves bump would get complicated real fast, even if it were possible. It would probably end up ninja-nerfing a bunch of things that get overlooked.

Well, I'd want to write a wrapper saves function anyway to replace the bio one.

[Celorn]

Going back to the OP on this, if you are going to rewrite the saves routine from scratch, that could be AMAZING for NS4! You could open up so much with that, not just 'fix' stunning fist...

Playing other MMO type games over the years, the things I've noticed that makes pvp fun and more balanced are:

- Short-duration crowd control for ALL classes, with around the same duration. NS4 PvP would be a lot more fun if there were more ways to control your opponents rather than just remove or nerf the overpowered ones into uselessness. Translated into NS4 this could include ALL of the following to be brought up to even levels, what would be cool is to bump up the DCs & Spellpenetratoin of lower level spells up to max so that they are not put away and forgotten as you level up, but give them the same diminishing returns as all others by bumping the resist/challenge DC each time it is used (with timer cooldown like the healing potion implementation):

Stunning Fist:
---If you are making the saves wrapper you could possibly put diminishing returns for subsequent stun attempts, say +5 vs stunning fist each successful stun. With this implementation, you could add the same stun effect to 'smite' good/evil ';..;'

Fear (effects):
---All spell and ability causes of fear should get bumped up to be usable, but have a SHORT duration and have diminishing returns for repeated use - if a cooldown can't be made then the same +5 vs. the fear could be added.

Crippling Strike:
---Being able to remove more and more strength each hit is a strange form of CC, it would be better if instead it applied both the 'Called-shot: leg & arm' routines instead, also, or instead a short daze effect would work too.

Daze (effects):
---Spells and abilities that daze should be bumped up in power, but lowered way down in duration to normalize them with other crowd-controls. You could give the called-shot leg slowdown and drop AB by a certain amount.

Confusion/Charm (effects):
---Similar to Daze, but slightly different adjustments, called shot leg slow plus an AC drop instead.

Dominate (effects):
---Similar to daze, except it drops you from your party and turns everyone hostile, I believe the pit guards and certain mindflayers do this to players which is creative and mimics the WoW priest mind control spell a bit, but is really horrible when it happens in your party . Not sure if we'd want this in PvP but something less annoying for PvP would be best - allowing a player to control an enemy summon might be interesting, but would have to scale appropriately.

Insta-Death (effects):
---I'm not a fan of insta-death spells, but if you bump up the DCs for these, instead dropping the effected (save-failed) to 10% of their health or something so you would have to follow-up with a killing blow might be cool. It would also make PvE more interesting and less aggravating.

Channeled spells (Like ray of ___ /frost/neg/etc):
---I think a cool implementation for these would be to follow the shadow-priest from WoW's 'Mind Flay' spell, causes damage and slows the target (no save), possibly extend the duration to match the other CC abilities.

The Bigby spells:
---AMAZING job on this, I think these spells are finally looking pretty usable and fun! Of all the CC in ns4, these seem to be pretty well balanced all around, not much to change here.

Weapon on-hit (effects):
---I'm thinking this would be too over-the-top, as some would be pretty brutal if the DC was bumped, what might be cool is if there was a '# x per day' spell instead, with a bumped-up dc/no sr check on the weapons instead to apply different conditions to the target.

So 'on hit' below would actually be 'use weapon ability with a finite # of uses per rest':
-on hit; castable spell slow = which would perform; called-shot leg
-on hit; hold = short stun
-on hit; doom = would perform called shot-arm & leg?
-on hit; vorpal = similar to the death effect described above, tho a lot less powerful since it's a weapon ability...
-etc....

Anti-magic cone
---REMOVE THIS FROM THE GAME. I hate this effect with a passion (i've actually /ragequit ns4 more than once because of it), I'm very glad players can't use it and hope they never will!

[Korr]

Well Ive made a few stunning fisters...

My CoT can kill pretty well.
My pure fighter can stun you long enough to disarm.

If the duration of the stun cant be changed, can you loop an event so that 1 round AFTER the stun is applied a clarity (or stun immunity) is applied.

The biggest difference between what is going on in NWN vs PnP is that stunning duration in PnP is 1 round, NWN its 3 (3x standard is huge. Imagine 30d6 fireballs instead of 10d6).

If thats not possible, and you do something like relevel all the ISF chars... can you make it apply to quivering palm too? If we cant pump the DC crazy high I wanna 1 shot people with it!!!

The real issue though, is the duration if that cant be fixed theres not a lot to really save stunning fist.

I think Lokey said cap it at 2-3 ISF for a toon? Which takes off 14-16 DC... meaning 45ish DC stunning fists. Doesnt sound too bad at first, but we also have to HIT first, which means beat an AC check and possibly a concealment check. So while that DC is on par with spells the application is not. If we do get reduced to 2-3 ISF then can we make it a whole round action touch attack? Most spells are in line with that (touch attack vs regular attack).


PS :
Pale Master = immune to stun
Certain Shifter shapes = immune to stun
AC = stun deal breaker (just dont fail the first the rest wont get u)
Fort save = stun deal breaker (who roams the epic areas without a decent fort anyway? Theres so many death spells out there its ridic!)

Thats 2 immunes and 2 ways really ANY toon can get away from being stunned.

On a side not, can you apply stun immunity to outsiders (which would cover a lot of subraces, but not all) for stunning fist? An elemental would be immune, so a genasi is close to that.

"Story mode" : A monk wouldnt be able to precisely strike the anatomy of an outside to generate a stun effect. (Though this wouldnt cripple over from critting the outsiders, because you chop anyones damn arm off its a crit!)

[Korr]

Couple more thoughts :

Allow ISF to be taken only if pure monk OR if non-monk. This will allow high DCs to be available with lower AB (pure monk) or with less uses (non-monk) which will promote wider character builds (except for pure monks hah!).


Delay the stunning fist, have a status pop up over your head "Your body is growing stiff" and delay the effect 2-3 rounds (chance to run, chance to invis, chance to do something).


Apply some crazy DR and elemental resistance to characters affected by stunning fist. Youre stunned but youre not dead!

[Amoenotep]

ever try to chop the arm off a beholder?

[Rufio]

AC = stun deal breaker (just dont fail the first the rest wont get u)
Fort save = stun deal breaker (who roams the epic areas without a decent fort anyway? Theres so many death spells out there its ridic!)

Thats 2 immunes and 2 ways really ANY toon can get away from being stunned.

This just isn't true. You make it sound like I can just build anything I want and just add some ac or fort and be good.

First of all, any hipser or corner sneak can completely negate that high ac. This is an important point, since a good number of stunners are also hipsers or corner sneaks. Even the CoT stunner can make a highly effective corner sneak. So this means you need high AC, high spot, and keen senses. Even then it is possible to hips spam to take advantage of conditional hide modifiers to catch a spotter flatfooted for enough time to hit with a stun. Now, there are some stunners without hide, mainly CoT stunners, pure fighters, and dragons. A CoT stunner can get mid-60's ab while still getting a DC 60 stun, so you are going to need 80+ ac to protect from that which only divine shield builds, gith monks, and PM builds are going to get without needing to be in IE mode all the time. A pure fighter has less ab self buffed, but can also get mid-60's party buffed. It also has the rumble token which will work on most any high AC dexer, which it can then chain into stunning fist.

Fortitude is the most reliable protection, but also the hardest to actually do. For planar areas, all you need is 52 fort vs spells to be 100% safe from pretty much everything. It is incredibly easy to get +9 fort vs spells from spellcraft and int, so 43 fort is all most builds need. If you have that, then you are still going to get stunned almost every time against a dc 60+ stunner. So, if you really want to be safe, you are going to have to shoot for as close to 60 fort as you can. As anyone knows who has ever tried this, if you aren't a CoT, Paladin, or BG, this is close to impossible, especially if you don't have access to every +1 universal save item.

What stun effectively does is extremely limit your build possibilities to a few things that can reach hyper-inflated fort scores, uber-ac spotters, pale masters, or constructs and elementals (both of which suck for serious pvp anyways).