a pair of ideas

[lord_modred]

i'll make this short and sweet

first off, finish the familiars as soon as possible, or just provide the basic bioware familiars, they're invaluable to low level casters.

second, do the same thing to polymorph/tensers transformation/shapechange that you did to summon spells. you take transfiguration spell focus, your various transformation spells become gradually more powerful with the number of focus feats taken.


that is all

[Kromix]

Yar! i agree...

[Zing]

Always good to get ideas, but it's Melee'rs that are having the hardest time right now.

[Elagneros]

Also, I'm under the impression that the devs are working on getting jobs to all factions right now; NC got theirs a few months ago, and now the MA jobs were recently put in. Just a little something some players have been waiting for since NS4 went online...

[P. Fricebottle]

Also the Devs aren' done with the AO jobs unfortunately as far as I know. The Wyrmling Watcher and Dragon Slave jobs aren't necesarily finished. I don't know if its fixed or not, but I took every kind of slave to Chirrem and talked to him and got nothing.

• As for ideas for melee characters...

Theres not much we can do to even out classes, lets face it. Melees are better than mages at low levels and vice versa at high levels. We could put more epic weapons around in the Planars and good armor there too thats better than the gear at the Amazons (Amazons got good mage gear like Slave Rings, the Ritualist Robes of the Head Ritualist, and the melee gear isn't that great like a club but theres a kama but thats monk and they're already balanced against mages).

[Flailer]

Yeah, jobs for AO need a serious reworking and it's on the list.

And, sweet lord, if only you knew how hard we're working toward trying to balance things. That's been some of the consuming discussions lately. Send asprin...

[lordvan52681]

i fell ya Flailer, been trying to think up a good way to make fighter better, but all i can come up with is dev crit. and thats so overpowered it would instantly make mages obsolete.

Some suggestions ive heard and MIGHT work are:

Make a dev crit item (like the drow darkness item) only usable X times per day.

Make fighter class only items. (like a +5 plate only usable by pure fighters)

allow dev crit for pure fighters only (like the dragonshape for druids/shifters)

dunno if any of these would work, or if theyre even feasable, but anything to make fighters better gets my vote. I prefer fighters but with the low magic here, they just cant stand up unless they are A) part caster or B) in a team with a caster. even then 1 mord will destroy most tank builds.

And I dont believe nerfing casters is the solution either, only making fighters better.... somehow =\

[Celorn]

well, the 'holes' in most fighter builds (especially against mages) are;

• - only 1 +5 weapon to chew thru mage-DR,
  - low will saves,
  - str. fighters; low reflex saves,
  - dex. fighters; low fort saves
  - no haste (except by potion) to catch up to mages/clerics with haste

And dex fighters have even more problems -minus the reflex saves- (ie: bigbys is a death sentence, and disarming their small/tiny weapons is WAY too easy, and they can't carry much).

Once more +5 (and beyond?) weapons are introduced into the realm (hopefully of ALL types) then not only will that open up the melee classes to be more diversified, but at least it will give fighters a fighting chance (pi).

As for saves, perhaps some fighter-type-only (ie: not usable by cleric, mage...like the draco skull on ns3.5 is not usable by bard) helmets or amulets with more + to will saves (in addition to other stats) could appear, not usable until level 30 or something, just as an incentive to stay 'pure'.

Also, for the semi-casters like ranger and paladin, I really hope to see some more gear that gives them extra spellslots - (the currently found amulets are useless without the +4 natrual armour bonus that the ice/crystal/crafted have) why not have some helmets, cloaks or weapons that have slots for ranger/paly, and more useful ones for bards (ie: CHA boost AND bard slots).

Anyhow, carefully adding gear to help the balance rather than cramming in more code seems to be the easiest option, and if you make sure the gear is very high level, then clerics/mages with UMD will have a hard time getting enough UMD to use them, (hopefully nerfing their build by wasting skill points and feats to get enough).

[Myrdyr]

I'm not sure how easily Dev Crit can be customized to be balanced. If items could easily be made to have a dev crit with a fixed dc (rather than 10 + wielder's str bonus + 1/2 wielder's level), then it might be worth looking into.

On the other hand, vorpal is exactly that, except it is a reflex save against a set DC in contrast to dev crit being a fort save.

[lordvan52681]

they cant alter Dev Crit. thats why all the servers have either banned it or left it alone =\

[RandomCracker]

What about enabling devestating crit but with a real low DC and only be able to be given to Pure fighters as from the sugestion from above....

Since its fort save it would be very ballenced vs mages but you wouldnt be able to run around devcritting everything to death

just my 0.02$

[lordvan52681]

they cannot alter dev crit. this includes DC.

[Elagneros]

Make fighter class only items. (like a +5 plate only usable by pure fighters)

allow dev crit for pure fighters only (like the dragonshape for druids/shifters)

I was thinking along the same lines myself. Some good gear that is limited by class so only pure classes or classes with more "natural" PrC choices (like a fighter/WM) can use them, and unusable by cheese classes. Maybe have some of this gear grant immunities to spells or special attacks, and make them unequippable by casters, since they can cast spells that block this sort of thing.

I've been thinking about Dev crit for pure fighter only too, but didn't really bring it up because most servers tend to totally block it. But a pure fighter has really nothing going for him, he can't use any magic, and is vulnerable to magic without any casting levels or access to UMD. Natually, Dev Crit would have to be severly limited to pure fighter, and I say to block it tofighter/WM, since that would be a lot of massive critting.

[Death Dealer1]

dev crit won't ever come in...vorpal, wounding, ability drain weapons are the only way possible to keep the uber's from being unbeatable...since most of these DC's aren't over 30 or so....

[Kromix]

vorpal swords with a not useable by everyone exept ftr. and not put in only useable by frt... this way it wont be overriden by a fighter lvl?