This wont make me any friends but SD...

Donan · Post by **Donan** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:10 am

the SD class seems to be way to easy to get IMO. I think to get to use a SD you must have minn 8 lvls of either rogue/ranger/monk. I mean come on a wiz, everyone wiz and 1 lvl sd or sometimes through 1 lvl of rogue or monk to get SD easier. wizards are very strong as they grow, as they should be. but adding HiPS to me makes very cheese build (btw i hate using that word

) everytime i log on it seems the great trend to make ur wiz/sorc/ even cleric sd. i may conced a cleric with trickery could go for the SD but even then there should be a great show of commitment to attain such a powerful ability.

besides the obvious irritations i feel from it i look at my rogue, pure rogue with SD (yes only 1 lvl sd) but at lvl 30 drow it sucks that a much lower lvl wis can add that 1 lvl sd buff themselves and cast crazy spells with much better efficency then I can trying to find them. I didnt like the 1 rogue lvl for casters to get uber spot/listen but adding the SD now seems rediculous (wont go into my build but everything geared for hide/MS).

I started to make a new rogue, teifling, after i lvled a bit figured why bother. even if i go the route of making her tons of scrolls/pots/staffs to use (which i hate also) still wont be even close to the strength of a caster SD.

Whats solution? no idea but doesnt mean i have to like it. All i can say is SD should be huge commitment if you are not a class that would usually use hide while rogue/ranger/even monks seem to be someone who may want to use the shadows but casters or even meleee geared toons would not.

/edit not to make anyhting spam but zing, that is the most disturbing avater i have ever seen and yet i watched it over and over for 10 min

Jain · Post by **Jain** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:41 am

I agree - to a degree

i wonder if you could simply add a check when casting any bigby's spell, or wail .. ie:

IF caster has any SD levels then say "sorry, your powergamer build is not welcome here, your spell fizzles." ;P

wiz/sorc's are still too powerful 1 vs 1 but at the same time you don't really want to nerf the spells any more then they are already... it's bad enough that a wiz/soc can throw up epic armour/warding, and a pile of other buffs, then hit you with a mord, a bigby, then wail or igms, but to have them HiPS as well? that's pushing it a bit too far.

Post by **Zing** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:48 am

I quite agree that this is a good topic for discussion.

I've watched many wiz use HiPS in a ridiculous fashion

MLoki · Post by **MLoki** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:28 am

Was always kinda surprised that anyone could be a SD and that the Drow faction had Assassin as their Prestige class instead of Shadow Dancer. Yeah it makes sense for them to be Assassins but for game balance it would make SDs less common a build and restrict them a bit more.

MLoki

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 3:14 am

Depends on the type of HiPSer.

Ander has no cleric or wizard levels, so while he's a decent HiPSer with ranger spells boosting his hide abilities, he doesn't have True Seeing , Clairaudience/Clairvoyance, Spell Resistance, any spell mantles, and he can't dump Wails/Implosions/Greater Ruins/Hellballs from Stealth mode like a sick HiPSer build. Now some of this is available as limited use magic items, but they tend to have lower levels and thus shorter durations than if they were casted by players. Also, even with the LA messenger bonus, traveling stealthed take a bloody long time. So it's a good build in the right circumstances.

I agree the wizard with 1 rogue/monk and 1 sd level is sick, and it's really an exploit when you come right down to it. Most of these builds involve hoarding skill points for several levels, then taking a rogue or monk level and dumping a huge pile of points into the skill. This is a problem with the NWN engine, by pnp rules skill points cannot be hoarded, but I suspect NWN allows it to avoid the complications of half ranks in cross-class skills. Unfortunately, it tends to be used as an exploit for either stealth builds or skills like UMD, and that doesn't help in pvp games using a ruleset that was never really designed for pvp use. I wouldn't really want to see the prevention of skill point hoarding either, as it would mess up legitimate uses of it, that is, taking ranks in cross class skills (particularly Spot and Listen).

Post by **Netrom.dk** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 8:43 am

It might be time to spark this back to life then: http://www.nsrealm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1113

Jain · Post by **Jain** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:46 am

You know, making Shadowdancer the unique PRC is the perfect solution! Assassin is a pointless class for the most part, it has some good points, but all factions can have assassins. Monk and paladin are better to take

I don't think that thread about making consecutive class levelups for 4, 5 or 10 levels will ever be accepted -- just too restricting, to make a build playable on NS4 you really need to take 1 level of 'this', then 2 levels of 'that', and another level of 'this' and you don't -really- have to limit classes like paladin or monk because you really benefit from 4 or 6 levels of those.

In any case, a change such as this (OR even the questionable consecutive levelup change) would require a vault wipe to be fair...

maybe a POLL could turn up some results?

Post by **Zing** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 10:51 am

My understanding would be that in a minimum of 5 levels per class environment you could take the levels as you pleased until say level 32.

For example:

30 Fighter/1 Ranger/1 Rogue

-Now forced to take either Ranger or Rogue only.

30 Fighter/5 Ranger/1 Rogue

-Now forced to take remaining levels as Rogue

Jain · Post by **Jain** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 11:10 am

I still don't think I like that whole idea anyhow... it doesn't really solve it since you can still pool/dump skillpoints, and taking 5 levels of shadowdancer is actually a GOOD idea since you get uncanny dodge and evasion at 2nd and defensive roll at 5th.

Same idea with other classes, smart builders will take more than 1 level of many of the -cheese- classes but you wouldn't want to be forced to take 4 or 5 in a row, at any point, given that you really have to build for playablity just to survive.

It gets rid of a bit of the pure cheese, but still allows for processed cheese.

Post by **Netrom.dk** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:22 pm

Jain wrote:shadowdancer is actually a GOOD idea

Then why dont we see this more often?

P. Fricebottle · Post by **P. Fricebottle** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:39 pm

Netrom is right, I always am a halfling and never have gone past 1 level of shadowdancer. Its just plain pointless because I've already learnt all the Uncanny Dodge and Evasion as a rogue. But maybe I should do that sometime, a monk halfling (I have to) shadowdancer....hm....

Kromix · Post by **Kromix** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 12:56 pm

to netrom, Because lvl 32+ is not attainable reasonably... my mage i'm working on needs 5 lvls in sd... and a few more in monk... i already have 2 sd lvls...

Post by **Netrom.dk** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 1:09 pm

This level 1 cheese goes beyond only shadow dancers, although those are the ones where the cheese are clearest. What about 1 level of pali to get better saves from cha? or 1 level of monk to get evasion, tumble and cleave?

People tend to focus mainly on the SD cheese, but it happens in more classes, the link i posted could help some of this.

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:10 pm

Jain wrote:I still don't think I like that whole idea anyhow... it doesn't really solve it since you can still pool/dump skillpoints, and taking 5 levels of shadowdancer is actually a GOOD idea since you get uncanny dodge and evasion at 2nd and defensive roll at 5th.

I'm not entirely sure myself; I took 7 levels of sd on Ander (for the Slippery Mind), but to be honest the only ability I've really found useful over those levels was HiPS. Oh yeah, Evasion is good, but sacrificing some of the sd levels for rogue would have gotten me to the same place.

Elagneros · Post by **Elagneros** » Mon Jan 02, 2006 2:18 pm

Netrom.dk wrote:This level 1 cheese goes beyond only shadow dancers, although those are the ones where the cheese are clearest. What about 1 level of pali to get better saves from cha? or 1 level of monk to get evasion, tumble and cleave?

People tend to focus mainly on the SD cheese, but it happens in more classes, the link i posted could help some of this.

To be honest I think the level 1 bonuses of the monk (+Wis to AC, Cleave, and Evasion) are cheesy when combined with cleric/druid/paladin (especially cleric and druid since they can easily buff Wis), or 1 level of paladin with sorcerer/bard (Cha bonus to all saves on two classes with Eagle's Splendor) are both more cheesy than 1 level of sd for HiPS, at least on sd builds that use significant amounts of rogue/ranger/monk levels. Also, toons that are taking sd need at least 7 levels in at least 1 other class (the minimum for the 10 ranks in Hide and Move Silently), where the monk or pally cheese can easily be reached at level 2.

And to be honest, I don't want to see Ander get nerfed up either.