Blackguards

[rocketkai]

The smite from pure Pally or pally/cot smiter is inherently superior compared to bg's smite. That's because you only get 30 bonus damage from pure bg, but 40 from the former two. If considering the greater smite feat. That's the maximum 110 damage difference on regular hit

We knew he was a sorc pallie or BG and due to the name, we assumed pallie (besides, that would get the same saves and AC bonuses). I'll check the log for the summon ABs... would be cool if it actually was higher than the charsheet reported. The way it appeared is that the summoning and chr bonuses of the caster and any buffs (even a str buff!) capped at 64 on the charsheet.

I don't actually know what the smite damage is gonna be, but I threw everything I could at the damage... 36 unbuffed chr (+13 mod) for div might, smite good 9, power attack and the lvl 30 corrupt weapon. Without crits, a standard hit so far has been about 260, but I think some got soaked by armor/shield. Should be x4 for scythe, so i guessed about 1200. I suppose damage could get a bit better with some buffs/items, but who puts super items on a one trick pony? She doesn't even have a white scythe yet

Double duration shield/might would be nice. Corrupt weapon is 2d6 divine vs non-evil @ 30. Would be nice if the detect token showed neutral instead of just good, but that is a minor thing.

[Twiggy]

Sorcerer- cross between fighter and caster. higher effectiveness using illusion spells.

I'm confused... a sorcerer is the epitome of spell caster.

depends on what fantasy realm you read i guess. But sorcerers tend do be more undisciplined and raw power while wizards are more powerful yet tradition bound. Wizards tend to be stronger between a sorcerer and wizard, wizards are pure magic while sorcerers tend to be something like a spell casting fighter. Mage and sorcerer are thrown out there as a general specification to magic users, whoever when the two are actual seperated, wizards are the more powerful. IE. Dragonlance realm. Wizards are more powerful but are stuck to following rules and guidlines, whereas sorcerers don't have as strong of spells but are bound only by their imagination and raw power in what they can do. Sorcerers generally don't need to speak as well while wizards need to speak use movements and also components.

Daral i put shifter as a caster prc class because you need to be a druid to be a shifter. so it enhances the spell casting class. in either case it's semantics of where it is placed. what's important is what shifter does or is supposed to do better than other classes.

and bargeld everyone isn't gonna have the same builds. everyone has their own flare to add. as it is right now, why would you be a barbarian when you could get the same thing but more feats as a fighter? just an example, not a perfect one as there are slight differences but still, the differences are slight enough not to be concerned about it. this would open up more possibilities, in a perfect world. However seeing as these changes might not come I was just stating that balance isn't making every class comparable, it is making each class incomparable in whatever the class does best. People can make different builds to kill evil but in the end that's the paladin's job. Why make a paladin if a fighter sorcerer rogue can do the same thing and have higher ab, ac, and damage to every other thing besides evil too (just an example)? that's my reasoning anyway.

[mining]

Well;

440 great smite
15 divine might
10 weapon enhancment
2d6 holy sword
5 divine favour
3 prayer
18 str bonus (1.5x12)
====
473 minimum damage.
x4 crit
====
1892 minimum smitecrit damage using a standard weapon.


My paladin is built around 1k heavy flail minimum crits, so ~2k minimum smite crits.

BGs... suffer from having too much.
They get paladin bonuses, but no pure class bonuses. They get a summon, but not a killer one like PMs. They get sneak attack, but no crippling. They get smite good, but not enough smiting class.

They're the 2nd best dip class in the game after SD, 5 levels gives at least +5 saves, 1d6 sneak attack, 4 BAB preepic, and DM/DS if you so wish.

[LinuxPup]

Well in NWN, and definitely in NS4, Sorcerers are at least equal to Wizards in spell-casting power, and are in no way second-class arcane casters.

[Amoenotep]

wiz vs sorc....wiz wins with preparation because options

sorc wins if unprepared because of amount of single spell options

[Bargeld]

The running theme that I see in Twiggy's rationale is that each class is specifically that, a class... not a build. A barbarian is great with DR and dual wield, but what if you could take some (but not all) of those DR strengths and add to it a healing domain cleric. Sure you wouldn't kill as quickly, but instead of the 1000 hp the pure barb has, you end up with 7000 hp due to your healing abilities. The ab may be 5 or so lower and your DR maybe not as much, but when you put a Pure barb up vs a cleric barb should it be that the pure barb will always win, just because pure anything should be the best at what it does? And that's where it gets interesting for most of us.

I dont want a pure class wizard that hellballs and greater ruins and who's balor attacks everything, yes has 350 hp and gets knocked down by a lvl 6 monk. I want an SD wizard who can be defensive in a specific way. Or perhaps a sorcerer bg with divine shield and super AC who stands in the middle of battle and spams ice storms. Maybe a cleric PM who is immune to crits, has a scythe and 80 ac and can heal himself.

Pure class is the root of all evil, as that is the 'fallback' for those who don't want to get into the game more or learn all the specifics. Throw +2 and +4 books into the mix to help meet pre-reqs and you have a cauldron of available choices to mix and match. Of course you need to know how to mesh them together in order to make something better than the pure version, but the pure version should not always be the top-shelf brand. Nor should there be a specific counter, or only 1 or 2 counters to anything.

Beyond that, this is not a solo PvP realm... this is a factional and guild based realm where teams fight vs teams, and that synergy is much more important than the solo strength of a single build.

Bringing it back to the BG discussion on hand, yes, the bg is pretty clearly a good class for 5 levels or so to get a few benefits, but the cost is still somewhat expensive due to (relatively useless) feats and skills that usually don't apply to the other classes being mixed it. For a specific purpose, it has a use or 2 but that is about it. Since there is no such thing as a 'pure' BG, like there is a pure pally; they will never be an 'anti-paladin' BG.

[burrahobbit]

wiz vs sorc....wiz wins with preparation because options

sorc wins if unprepared because of amount of single spell options

Whoever hellballs first wins.......

[frogofpeace]

its weird to see people arguing who have no concept of the class and have never played one, although that is kinda the norm here

Kill 'em

[Twiggy]

The running theme that I see in Twiggy's rationale is that each class is specifically that, a class... not a build. A barbarian is great with DR and dual wield, but what if you could take some (but not all) of those DR strengths and add to it a healing domain cleric. Sure you wouldn't kill as quickly, but instead of the 1000 hp the pure barb has, you end up with 7000 hp due to your healing abilities. The ab may be 5 or so lower and your DR maybe not as much, but when you put a Pure barb up vs a cleric barb should it be that the pure barb will always win, just because pure anything should be the best at what it does? And that's where it gets interesting for most of us.

I dont want a pure class wizard that hellballs and greater ruins and who's balor attacks everything, yes has 350 hp and gets knocked down by a lvl 6 monk. I want an SD wizard who can be defensive in a specific way. Or perhaps a sorcerer bg with divine shield and super AC who stands in the middle of battle and spams ice storms. Maybe a cleric PM who is immune to crits, has a scythe and 80 ac and can heal himself.

Pure class is the root of all evil, as that is the 'fallback' for those who don't want to get into the game more or learn all the specifics. Throw +2 and +4 books into the mix to help meet pre-reqs and you have a cauldron of available choices to mix and match. Of course you need to know how to mesh them together in order to make something better than the pure version, but the pure version should not always be the top-shelf brand. Nor should there be a specific counter, or only 1 or 2 counters to anything.

Beyond that, this is not a solo PvP realm... this is a factional and guild based realm where teams fight vs teams, and that synergy is much more important than the solo strength of a single build.

Bringing it back to the BG discussion on hand, yes, the bg is pretty clearly a good class for 5 levels or so to get a few benefits, but the cost is still somewhat expensive due to (relatively useless) feats and skills that usually don't apply to the other classes being mixed it. For a specific purpose, it has a use or 2 but that is about it. Since there is no such thing as a 'pure' BG, like there is a pure pally; they will never be an 'anti-paladin' BG.

I get what ur saying but that's not what i mean. A pure barb vs a barb/cleric would have different purposes. A pure barb should do more more damage, a barb/cleric would be more durable. they have different purposes but weaker in what a pure classes "purpose" would be. a barb/cleric wouldn't be able to heal as well but would have better offensive capabilities. what you are saying is fine. and they serve a purpose, but the purposes are different then wat a pure classes would be.

Linux if wiz's and sorc's are exactly the same then why would you choose a wizard over a sorc or vice versa? i'm sure it isn't the novelty of just picking one over the other. wat makes one better than the other? maybe my definitions were poor, but the simple fact should be wat makes each different and unique and BETTER than another class. IMO sorcerers are better dualists because they can counter other spellcasters much easier.

Tep not necessarily. it's dependent on how many spell slots have AND what is mem'd. and burra, i also agree lol.


as far as blackguard goes, this is what has been stated so far.

BG's are weaker than Pallies in terms of smiting, weaker than rogues in terms of sneaks, and weaker than clerics or other summoning casters in terms of summons.

so what is the purpose of BG's? IMO they kill good aligned things. kinda like the CoT and Pally kill evil. since their sneaks are not high enough to be a sneaker, and their smite isn't high enough to challenge a pally, that's where their summon should come in. makes up for the loss of damage. Paladins wade into the thick of evil things and starts slaying, BG's are different in that they send in their summon and then sneak attack/smite the enemy while distracted. BG's summons should be made into tanks able to draw agrro from npc's and take damage from pc's. Also BG's get two summons, and undead and a demon type it looks like, so those two summons should be beefed up to do two different things maybe, one a tank the other a dpser. just some suggestions. The spells of BG will not reflect pallies spells. inflict wounds and contagion, are nowhere near Freedom, Aura of Glory, divine favor or any other pally spell. but that also means they don't need to invest points into wisdom and can instead invest in str, con, cha or whatever their other class might need (if they are going 30 bg levels)


Bg's need to be on par with pallies to keep the "balance" so IMO the summons should be beefed up. Prolly made scalable dependent on how many BG levels you have. 30 BG levels should give you a monster of a summon.

[Lokey]

Sorc is better because you don't need the number of options a wiz has to be effective almost anywhere. This is our fault, because we stupidly gave players what they wanted in too many cases.

I've seen Aiea's BG, and there's definitely some choices there that could have been better It's possible to make a bad cleric after all.

BG has 1 epic feat / 3 level class (from a good list, we're not talking RDD choices here), how much could it possibly need? Summon is not the focus I'd want to give the class by the way.

[Rufio]

BG has 1 epic feat / 3 level class (from a good list, we're not talking RDD choices here), how much could it possibly need? Summon is not the focus I'd want to give the class by the way.

yeah, the ns4 wiki doesn't list all the epic bonus feats that you can take oddly. Just looking at that the selection looks really terrible

*goes to update wiki*

It was missing Epic Reputation, Epic Weapon Focus, and Great Smiting.

[Daral0085]

Yeah.... some of us don't need to take a feat to have an epic reputation. Noobs.

[mining]

Here's basically the difference between wizard and sorc:

Wizard = easier to crossclass with stuff like SD, because you get skills,
Sorceror = more nukage.
Wizard= DC 48 with ranger.
Sorceror= DC 48 with Harper Scout.

I'm fair sure thats it.

[cRaZy8or5e]

Here's basically the difference between wizard and sorc:

Wizard = easier to crossclass with stuff like SD, because you get skills,
Sorceror = more nukage.
Wizard= DC 48 with ranger.
Sorceror= DC 48 with Harper Scout.

I'm fair sure thats it.

Wizard has to preplan spells according to the fight he expects to be in.

Sorc has all the spells he knows at his disposal, they are just drastically fewer than what the wizard can bring to bear.

[Cahaal]

omg, we just can't seem to stay on topic to save our lives...Wiz vs. Sorc, rogues in NC, shifters...

Please lets keep this about BG's and the fact that neutrals are allowed to be Divine Champions doing divine damage and are not subject to being smitten. I think all CoTs should have to be good aligned to serve Torm and fight evil. I know BG's aren't pally's but share some similarities. They aren't CoTs but share some similarities (prestige class and the champion to the destruction of the extreme alignments.) Double duration Divine Might/Shield should be available. NC have made some amazing CoTs (dual wielders with high AB and AC, amazing stunners). How many amazing BG's are there? Someone brought up spell selection. BG's get inflict crit and serious, create undead, summon fiend, bulls strength, corrupt weapon and contagion. At end game the create undead is useless (mine is actually named useless <3), contagion DC is so low I haven't had anyone fail it, the inflict are really only usefull for healing the summon since it's a touch attack and can't beat racial SR. Corrupt weapon on my 29 BG is 2d6 divine vs good only. IDK how that really compares with pally holysword or any CoT equivalent since I don't have one. Maybe someone here can shed the light on that.

That leaves the summon that has really crappy AC, not focused in the weapon it uses, goes into detect mode ALL the time dispite not having listen or spot, and caps quickly. My summon was doing no physical damage to the CoT attacking me. Only his 3-11 points of elemental damage broke through and he took 10 divine per hit from the CoT's divine aura thing.

Sorry for the long post. I just got really frustrated reading about lots of things that didn't pertain. Maybe it's the pain killers i'm on following my car accident and i'm just being overly sensitive. If so I apologize now.