I swear I read something but now I can't find it.

[P. Fricebottle]

You can call me crazy, but I swear that when I woke up this morning and logged on later that I found and read an update that was to eliminate the cheese by now forcing characters to take 5 levels of each class they multiclass into. Like a level 35 sorc/1 pally had to start leveling up to level 40 as paladin. Am I just imagining that I read this, or was this removed before a whole flame war popped up? I'm not meaning to start anything, but I swear I'm going crazy.

[Zing]

Yes to all the players I'm sorry for the confusion, this was totally my fault.

I removed this update from the server as I unknowingly 'jumped the gun' so to speak before a concrete admin decision was made.

Feel free to Cheese your little hearts out

IMPORTANT NEW CHARACTER BUILDING INFORMATION

You've asked us to address the amount of "Cheese" builds on the server and we have listened.

You must now commit at least 5 levels to any class that you take. You may take these levels in any order, but ultimately 5 levels of each class you dedicate your character to are required to hit level 40.

Examples:
Sorc 20, Pali 1:
Sorcerer levels can keep being added until Sorc 35 Pali 1. At this point only Pali levels may be taken to meet this commitment.

Fighter 30, Bard 1, Rogue 1
Only Bard and Rogue levels may be taken at this point. Ultimately both of these will have to hit level 5. The levels can be taken in any order but when either Bard or Rogue hits level 5 only the other class will be advancable.

*Note
For the very small percentage of +lvl 32 characters who are now in violation of this rule you will be unable to level further. Please contact your local friendly neighbourhood DM to help you re-level the last few choices.

[Ragefist]

Hmm, intriguing -- now if only the PrC's in NWN weren't mostly coded to suck so hard -- sorry assassins, you know it's sorta true though .

[Death Dealer1]

assassin would be alot cooler if they could make their own poison...or coat a weapon with a poison so many times/day...

[P. Fricebottle]

Ah okay, I was afraid I was imagining things.

[Go'f]

assassin would be alot cooler if they could make their own poison...or coat a weapon with a poison so many times/day...

A simple adjustment could to be make poison = crippling strike in the short term.

[Myrdyr]

Okay. I can see why you want to get rid of the builds which front- and/or back-loading with four classes: Paladin, Monk, Shadowdancer, Blackguard. Why not just limit these classes?

I suppose some would argue that only 2 Assassin levels, 2 Barbarian levels, and 3 Rogue levels can be a bit cheesy too. Are their any others?

Common guys. While you're removing the cheese builds, you're also making it much harder to make many of the weaker Prestige classes into passible characters, and making it harder to focus on a single Prestige class.

While all the Prestige classes are going to suffer, you're especially hurting two:

Arcane Archer: Do I really have to point this out? This is a prestige class that you almost always are going to have two other classes with just to make the requirements and you're almost always going to want to take mostly AA levels. Give the poor archers a break.

Shifter: Doesn't the Circle have it hard enough as it is without more restrictions on what they can do? Let them take a minimum number of Barbarian or Ranger levels to get their AB up if they want to.

I really can imagine any reason not to let a player take just a few Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Sorcerer, or Wizard levels to round out a character.

*Stepping off soapbox* I feel better now

[Go'f]

I really can imagine any reason not to let a player take just a few Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Sorcerer, or Wizard levels to round out a character.

Fighter (and sub types) 4 for max attacks - 5 at least means there is some hang over by build end - not a big issue to have to take 1 more level

Rogue 1 is a big skill dump cheese, many wizard (Int) types use a level of this skill heavy class to drop there high int hoarded skills into spot and listen etc to make them effectively as good at observation as one who dedicated there whole career to it - for just 1 level of application.

Cleric - 1 level of Cleric will give you the domains - summons caster cheese apply here

Ranger 1 - Dual wield favoured enemies a very front end heavy class

Wizard/Sorc 1/Bard/Druid - I can only see these beeing of use for access to magic items and maybe for access to some PrC's. if this is a problem or not I am unsure.

I like the 5 minimum as it means a pure class would have a decent advantage over a multiclasser who would presumably be getting something from that 2nd or 3rd class

My personal opinion is its a heavy hammer to fix cheese builds and it will probiblu just change the Ubber build to some other combination so focusing the attacks may be better, then again it is a level playing field so maybe not

[lordvan52681]

I think Ive come to be known as the person to point out flaws in peoples arguments, so why not jump in here

Shifters cannot take any class other than shifter or druid if they hope to get ANY epic shapes.

Arcane archer has to have 10 lvls of non-AA anyway. all its making you do is choose either 10 caster levels or 5 caster and 5 non-caster. not that big a deal. If you go Bard you get the best of both anyway.

[Death Dealer1]

well...my strongest AA's were 9 ranger 1bard/sorc/wiz....

i'm not sure if this is coming in right away or not so i can't lvl my PM anymore....5fighter 3wiz means that i have to wait and see as my final 2 non PrC lvls are coming very soon for the build as it will end up being 30 levels of PM.

[Spura]

Having 5 levels of a class minimum will break so many cheese builds and generally powerful builds. Even the 16 cleric 4 fighter + something are gonna have to take additional fighter.

As for shifters. It is not like you can multi if you want the good shapes.

[MLoki]

Yeah but I guess I would be the one to point out that the requirements for RDD require just 1 level of a Bard or Sorc so now you are going to have to dedicate 5 mage levels to get a non casting prestige class? If RDD actually contained some other benifit to casters this wouldn't be a problem but more often then not RDD is used for melee builds and the 1 level of caster hurts the build more then helps it. What is it going to do to these builds if you have to take 5 levels now.

MLoki

BTW, I was planning on rounding out this character with 5 Sorc levels anyways but the question is will I still be able to if this gets implemented?

Disciple Red = unlevelable?
Monk 20/Sorc 3/ RDD 10

[Myrdyr]

Shifters cannot take any class other than shifter or druid if they hope to get ANY epic shapes.

2-4 levels of barbarian or ranger pre-epic would still allow epic shapes, while giving a few extra feats and the possibility of 4 attacks.

Arcane archer has to have 10 lvls of non-AA anyway. all its making you do is choose either 10 caster levels or 5 caster and 5 non-caster. not that big a deal. If you go Bard you get the best of both anyway.

Arcane Archers are WEAK enough already. Making them weaker helps no one.

If you go Bard, then you suffer a xp penalty for an elf, you have to spread your scarce stat points into Charisma to qualify for AA, and you are lowering that all-important AB that is basically all the AA has going for them at highest levels.

If you go Wiz, then you are lowering your AB even more (to the point where you might lose an attack).

If you go Sorc, you're combining the penalties of both the Bard and the Wizard.

What you're missing here:

1) Neversummer already limits builds by not allowing alignment changes, preventing multiple Prestige classes, and limiting the classes and alignments allowed for certain Prestige classes. (Yes, Rangers are front-loaded, but in Neversummer that gets you nothing because of these restrictions already in place).

2) Meeting the requirements for many Prestige classes, most notably the Arcane Archer, is best done by multi-classing, especially with the restrictions of point #1.

3) Non-casters need to keep their BAB high, which means multiclassing for all classes that don't get a full 1 BAB per level pre-epic (Bard, Cleric, Druid, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard, Assassin, Harper Scout, Pale Master, Red Dragon Disciple, Shadowdancer, and Shifter).

4) Many Prestige classes, especially the Arcane Archer, require close to the maximum allowable levels (30) in their Prestige class to be viable. Combined with everything above, you don't have many options. Adding further restrictions will either lower your AB, lower the number of Prestige class levels you can take, or both.

[Myrdyr]

Disciple Red = unlevelable?
Monk 20/Sorc 3/ RDD 10

What's being proposed would force you to take only Sorc levels if you were Monk 25/Sorc 3/ RDD 10.

[Spura]

Shifters cannot take any class other than shifter or druid if they hope to get ANY epic shapes.

2-4 levels of barbarian or ranger pre-epic would still allow epic shapes, while giving a few extra feats and the possibility of 4 attacks.

It's a rule on this server. You can't take any epic shape feats if not pure.