Player Suggested Fixes, Changes, and Revisions to the PW.

[TheVoid]

Post here for any questions regarding the PW as far as changes, revisions, and fixes to the mechanics, playability, and difficulty level of the content within the module.

The Staff will review the request, discuss the topics as a player request, and address the topic in the community thread or directly in a PM to the interested parties.

[Kegor]

Just a common desIgn trope from other mmo's, but one I think works well, I would like to see more quests that encourage you to explore the server at a pace that reflects your CL. Kind of like the delivery quest to maltz, or the ore quest in he cloak wood mine. Along the same lines, I thInk the to and from points for the quest where you do a supply run from nashkel to bergost should be reversed, as it sends you backtracking. If the quest originated in bergost, It would push you to explore nashkel.
(sorry for the bad spellings)

[TeoDeathDealer]

Me first! How about changing eldridge master requirement from 16 warlock to 8d6 blast dice so we daggerspell mage is a little more accessible pre-epic?

[Vlaid]

I've been using a lot of the custom feats for my first character; mainly the ones that apply to charge and shields. I'm going to document some of the bugs and some of my opinions on the feats in here in hopes they can be ironed out in time.

Bugs

• Shield Charge triggers the cooldown on Knockdown and Improved Knockdown. Unsure if this is intentional, engine limitations or simply erroneously left out of the description of Shield Charge. If it's intended it would be nice to have it added to the description of the feat.
• Shield Charge (and posisbly Shield Slam/Knockdown, haven't been able to confirm which abilities trigger this bug) will at times trigger an extremely long cooldown of multiple hours. Sometimes the cooldown is displayed over the icon( listed as "2h" for example), sometimes the icon will appear ready for use while having the erroneous several hour cooldown displayed in the combat log "Can not use this ability for 30345 seconds". I've seen this occur from general use of the ability(s) and from simply transitioning. Generally I have to relog to fix this, sometimes transitioning will fix it (as well as sometimes breaking it when it's working correctly). When the bug occurs, it affects: Knockdown, Improved Knockdown, Shield Slam and Shield Charge identically (in that they all gain the extremely long cooldown simultaneously and become unusable).
• The Attack Bonus added from Charge and Furious Charge do not seem to be applied to the trip attempt incurred from Shield Charge (the touch attack portion). It is very hard to test if it gets applied to the Resist check after you Hit because the actual dice roll is invisible, you only see your result and the defenders result. It would be nice if this could be changed to make the opposed roll visible.

Clarification

• The description of how Shield Bash works is a little confusing to someone with no experience with the feat. I've been playing D&D games for over a decade now and it was still confusing to me. As long as I understand how the feat works correctly, I would suggest the following description to replace it:

  "You may make a single off-hand attack with your shield, at your highest attack bonus, which incurs a -2 penalty to all attack rolls while Shield Bash Mode is active. This stacks with the normal penalty to attack applied by using a Tower Shield. Taking the Two-Weapon Fighting feat reduces the penalty of Shield Bash Mode to 0 and taking the Improved Two Weapon Fighting feat reduces the -2 penalty to all attack rolls caused by using a Tower Shield (seperate from Shield Bash Mode's penalty) to 0. The damage of the shield bash is determined by the size of the shield used (larger shields dealing more damage), if it has improved shield bash damage as an item property and by all other normal combat damage modifiers. No other feats or effects which apply specifically to two weapon fighting apply to attacks made with your shield."

• The description of Charge/Shield Charge mention that you are more vulnerable to piercing weapon damage during the duration of the Charge, but leave it quite vague. It would be nice to have the feat description state more clearly how much more vulnerable so players can properly weigh the pro's and con's of charging in a given situation.

Gameplay/Mechanic Suggestions

• Shield Bash feels like it scales poorly. You can only ever get a single attack and gaining a shield which improves the damage of your shield attacks is only available directly from DM's (as far as I know). The single extra attack is great at lower levels, but when you have six attacks baseline, one more attack with all the restrictions placed on it and the feats required makes it feel a little lacking when you factor in that a normal two weapon fighter is not far behind in AC than a shield user (even moreso if the Two Weapon Fighter is of the Temptest PRC). I would suggest re-evaluating Shield Bash. These are just the first ideas that came to my mind so take them with a grain of salt. The important part is just that Shield Bash could use some higher level scaling.

  Allow every other attack gained by your BAB to grant an extra attack with your shield. For example: At level 1-9=1 attack with shield, 11-20=2 attacks with shield, 21-25=3 attacks with shield (maximum allowable attacks with shield).

  Give shield damage damage scaling by level similar to monk unarmed damage. In that depending on which shield size you use, your damage with your shield bash will go up as you gain levels.

• The feats which apply to Shield Charge and Shield Bash are quite extensive. In total, there are 10-11 (11 if you take improved two weapon fighting for tower shields) feats you'd want to get if you wanted to specialize in offensive shield attacks; Shield Charge, Shield Bash, Shield Slam, Two Weapon Fighting, possibly Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Powerful Charge (adds +4 to trip attempt), Furious Charge, Epic Charge (also requires Improved Initiative), Knockdown, Improved Knockdown (adds +4 to trip attempt). Even if you don't use a tower shield, that's a LOT of feats. To tone this down slightly, I would suggest simply combining Furious Charge and Powerful Charge. It is a Background however, and it would likely be too powerful to continue being a Background selection if the two feats were combined. Not sure the payoff would be terribly great with rebuilds needed (on the other hand, how many people even take Furious Charge or Shield/Charge feats?)
• I have a love/hate relationship with Shield Slam. I dislike how it functions much like Taunt where it cancels your attack and you must re-enable your attack, making how effective it actually is purely dependant on your ability to re-click the same target through a sea of red, and to a lesser extent your latency. If at all possible, it would be preferrable to have it function in a more passive capacity. Example: You use the ability, it goes off, and incurs whatever penalty (such as an AB penalty until the start/end of the next round, removing the last attack of the round) is appropriate.

For the record though, I wouldn't much mind at all if no improvements/buffs were made to the shield/charge style feats. They are simply amazing and fun to use as is. I am far more concerned with seeing the bugs worked out. Thank you again whoever took the time to script them for us, I've always wanted to play a more offensively oriented shield user.

Just wanted to end on something positive =)

[ragnarok1983]

Defensive feats for two-handers (large only?) maybe?

Dual-weapons peeps already have similar stuff with two-weap def. One-handers have shields (worth 1 to 8 AC).

That long arse halberd has to be worth something right!? It's not like NWN2 lets me get a free attack from my increased AT&T-reach-out-and-stab-somebody range. And disarm is not meaningful in our PW (unfortunately against mobs and understandibly against players due to bugs) which was an advantage that two-handers once had.

Also, maybe an improved-tower-shield proficiency feat to lesson that to-hit property. Possibly for Fighters only (level >/= 10?).

I play casters and noncasters, but I'm always trying to look out for the noncasting types. It's not like they get to truck along with mirror image, ethereal, imp mage armor, tortoise shell, barkskin, and spiderskin all the time.

[Grog]

Hello, as I posted in the general forum, I was wondering if we could see the epic feats Fast Healing I and II added to the PW?
They require a substantial investment into Constitution to attain (25) at the cost of neglecting offensive power, so I believe they would balance out. I think it would be a nice help out to our more tanky characters and promote more people to play 'beefy' characters. It would also be nice for those that don't have access to much healing.
Thanks.

[dzidek1983]

could i ask for some mid level instance with undead on the surface... something for level 7-12?

we have a lvl 1-3 graveyard and all others are waaaaay above lvl 10...
even the fields of the dead have wizards that spam IGMS - those can kill a mid level character in a round

[Vlaid]

With the new edition of the Baldur's Gate the farmlands no longer connect with the Dead Lands or whatever it was called (northeast path out of the farmlands once you take the east gate), but does connect through the North Gate. Just a wild guess based on the transitions locations it seems like the transition to that area should connect from both locations.

[Kegor]

I after reading a post on death, and a few questions were discussed by The Void regarding epic characters in events that I agree with. The point was made that public evens quickly become epic zergs. Having seen these are few times, both as a lower level toon trying to join in, and an epic level doing the zerging, I think this should be addressed, as it not only makes the events boring, but it kills the event for any non epics that want to join in.

Form what I have seen, when epics show up, the event has to be scaled to give them a challenge...making any lower level characters that are there useless as they are rolled as soon as they manage to get aggro, regardless of their planning, RP, or whatever.

If the DM does not scale a public event then when an epic shows up, they can show up and defeat the entire event pretty much alone, with little to no risk to themselves (Sorry RabidBadger for doing this to two of your events myself). This once again makes the lower level characters redundant, as they don't get to add anything to the fight, and become an cheering section for the epic guy(or girl) rolling everything in front of them.

So as it sites, we are kinda in a catch 22, and at the end of the day any non epics may as well not show for public events, as sooner or later the event will scale outside their CR, or some epic will show up and you will get to be a cheering section.

So..I am not a DM, but from reading some of your posts I am starting to see this a point of frustration..and I am sure it has been talked to death. So my question is this, is there any realistic thing that can be done to limit the levels that enter an event? Either by grabbing that party you want to run an event for and dropping them in a DM area so once it starts, no one else can join in, or setting some sort of class range to cone into an area for the duration of an event. Like if it is a cloakwood event, only level 12 and below can come..or something like that.

I am sure that if was any low hanging fruit here, it would have already been picked. And I also thank all the DM's for the great events that they do run that make this server interesting.

[tooley1chris]

Me first! How about changing eldridge master requirement from 16 warlock to 8d6 blast dice so we daggerspell mage is a little more accessible pre-epic?

+1 and not just daggerspell mage but dragon slayer and other future warlock viable PRCs.

[Solarina]

Ive seen all the medium and heavy armor feats. It would be nice for light armor to have a feat option as well.

[Vogar Eol]

I would like to see a few more level 1-5 CR areas. One noteable problem with current areas of this CR level is ranged combat not allowing characters to run away.

[tooley1chris]

Me first! How about changing eldridge master requirement from 16 warlock to 8d6 blast dice so we daggerspell mage is a little more accessible pre-epic?

This would really help with daggerspell, dragon slayer, and future prc being viable. As is, as an example, daggerspell mage/warlock combos get a couple 2wF feats and +1d4 damage in exchange for losing ability to pick +50% damage to EB. Thats silly. Also Daggerspells HD and Med BAB progressions were MADE for wizards wanting to upgrade their combat capabilities which makes it a good trade off, FOR THEM. Warlocks gain nothing from this increase as they are the same progression. I would again like to recommend a higher BAB possibility PRC for melee minded warlocks. K already has such a PRC made up. Mystic Knight I believe. And we do now use some of his stuff in this world that are NOT in lore books...

[maximus mischief]

id like to see more DM interaction, outside of guilds and "events". its always fun to be rewarded with a token when doing some good RP, or even to be led through some kind of bonus story line during an adventure.
the chance of these things happening adds a lot to the experience. i havent come across any DM interaction yet, but i would like to know theres a chance of it outside of events and guilds.

[Clangeddin]

A bunch of biased suggestions from my point of view.

1) Man-at arms challenges: I notice most of them scale with (half) class level + charisma, however this makes them rather weak for builds that cross class with other defensive themed classes such as the dwarven defender. How about making it based on taunt skill (it would take account of charisma already as well) with lower (or none at all) base DC?

2) Dwarven Defender: Think this class could get Taunt and Tumble as class skills? =>

3) Low level monsters have too much AC? This could be probably a difference in expectations, but I have this feeling that lowly batiris or goblins should not have 25+ AC in a low to mid magic server such as this one. I don't know about higher level monsters as I'm only level 9.