Incoming Update

[Theodore01]

Any boost need to circumvent that, like giving bonuses to some classes for heavily investing in the class. Barbarians, swashbucklers, epic rogues and man-at-arms are some base classes that could use a little something IMO.

Just give them some useful epic feats for free in their epic levels.

[Rhifox]

There are also spells, like Mirror Image, that are much more powerful in-game than their PnP equivalents, due to Bugsidian's impementation. Nerf them in some way, e.g. decrease the number of images. Equally the whole real time/game time balance, which makes 1 minute/10 minute per CL spells too powerful could be fixed.

Yes to nerfing certain spells, like mirror image. I'd also remove Premonition and Greater Stoneskin, as these just really aren't necessary and aren't in PnP (Premonition is, but it acts completely differently).

As for 1/10 minute per CL spells, I think those are fine. I also think that 1 hour per level spells should actually last one hour real time. The Vancian spellcasting system is lorewise about spellcasting divided up into days. And on Baldur's Gate we do go by a one RL day = one lore day. I was serious with my suggestion above, about only one rest per reset. The long duration spells work fine when you can't just rest whenever you want to replenish all the short ones, and that's how it's supposed to be canonically.

[King Leoric]

There are also spells, like Mirror Image, that are much more powerful in-game than their PnP equivalents, due to Bugsidian's impementation. Nerf them in some way, e.g. decrease the number of images. Equally the whole real time/game time balance, which makes 1 minute/10 minute per CL spells too powerful could be fixed.

Yes to nerfing certain spells, like mirror image. I'd also remove Premonition and Greater Stoneskin, as these just really aren't necessary and aren't in PnP (Premonition is, but it acts completely differently).

Agreed. Nerf some spells, and make a normal rest system, not once in a hour. Or leave everything as it is. Ofcourse, it is hard to kill a spellcaster, if he is fully buffed. But, if you allow him to do that, be ready to pay.
Everything is pretty balanced now. Well, maybe now server is missing dr magic items to resist a Missile Storm, but everything else is good. Just catch a mage unbuffed, and he is dead.

[Rhifox]

Ofcourse, it is hard to kill a spellcaster, if he is fully buffed. But, if you allow him to do that, be ready to pay.

Yup, exactly. I've always been of mind that it's silly to think of trying to build to kill casters fully buffed. You get them when they aren't ready, and avoid them when they are. Limiting rest frequency and removing some of the silly spells like Premonition would allow for non-casters to better catch them when they aren't ready.

[Moltrazahn]

Ofcourse, it is hard to kill a spellcaster, if he is fully buffed. But, if you allow him to do that, be ready to pay.

Yup, exactly. I've always been of mind that it's silly to think of trying to build to kill casters fully buffed. You get them when they aren't ready, and avoid them when they are. Limiting rest frequency and removing some of the silly spells like Premonition would allow for non-casters to better catch them when they aren't ready.

Then I suggest that the following patch releases a class or weapons with on-hit: mordenkains disjunction . It ain't op if they have to hit you first!

To be serious tho. If one increases the buff times to what they actually are supposed to be, and reduce the rest-times per day (or say you can rest x-amount per day outside. Then and as many times as you want in an inn) ... then playing both melee and caster could become more tactical I suppose. Or something along those lines. Casters become more focused on where and what they cast (and on whom) and melee stand out more duo to sustainability.

... I feel like this should be a topic of its own.. given that it's not part of the new patch at all... and more "what if" :3

[Invoker]

I read comments that are either PvP-oriented (adamantine weapons) or "in a vacuum" (removing DR spells, rest once every 9 IRL hours), completely out of the server's context.

First of all, proper mages do not need to be buffed to kill an opponent. It's a myth. My wizard, a pure spellcaster, no Hide in Plain sight or melee combat skills, can and most likely will kill you if you "catch him unbuffed". If you don't believe me, I will give you practical demonstrations.

The reason why casters need buffs (outside of events. Because DMs can spawn things ON you, which is ofc retarded, but it happens nonetheless) are: lag, concentration checks, low HP and terrible players behind the characters. All of these except lag (well...and perhaps being horrendous...) are solved by Quicken Spell, SLAs, Scars, items and certain type of building choices.

If you eliminate rest possibilities, you will kill the melee builds as well, since right now they can't do jack without casters babysitting them.

If you remove DR spells, you will obtain absolutely nothing. Shadow Shield is more than enough DR to play this game as everything but the glassiest of mages, which are the easiest to kill anyway WITH the DR spells on to begin with...

Also, there are plenty of dispels that are far more powerful than they should be, and Breach effects that hit spells they should not hit, and don't even exist in PnP. Before "making things like PnP", maybe it would be wise to give this a think: in PnP, non-casters might be legends, but casters are gods. Right about like BGTSCC, just as Lockonnow implied in his post.

The obvious way to balance non casters is to make items available to them (now they are forced to UMD), so that they don't NEED casters to buff them.

Nerfing casters can also be done, and it's easy to do it properly without butchering them as described above. But it will do NOTHING for the melees, aside from making them even less playable.

[chad878262]

You can't make hour/level spells an hour IRL without also making the server clock in game 0000-0900 all the time. The in game time will always start at 0000 hours at reset and the hour/level spells are based on the in game clock. So unless we want to always play from midnight to morning we can't make hr/level a real hour.

[Bad Omens]

It would be nice to boost non-spellcasting characters, somehow. Past updates, and the upcoming one, is all about love for spellcasters. The amount of content wizards have gotten in server history is outrageous comparatively. One problem that I see is that spells are free content to memorizing casters, while whatever melee upgrades comes along tend to require feat investment or if good enough, becomes tacked on to powerful spellswords.

We discussed this while testing the new content on server2. As Karond mentioned, melee build have no space to choose new feats. A good way to add melee builds more flavor and make them more efficient is to give melee builds bonus feats from a specific list in accordance with the class abilities

Dor example, a barbarian can choose a feat every five levels from the shild bash or charge line of feats, a monk from the combat focus feat, a rogue from the sneak strike feats.

This would add flavor, more variety in combat and more importantly new content that will revive the interest in melee builds

I think what Mentalist is saying is quite reasonable, for what it's worth.

[Rhifox]

I read comments that are either PvP-oriented (adamantine weapons) or "in a vacuum" (removing DR spells, rest once every 9 IRL hours), completely out of the server's context.

The server's context as I see it is a persistent world set in the Dungeons and Dragons setting of Forgotten Realms, where spellcasters must in-universe rest 8 hours to regain their spells.

First of all, proper mages do not need to be buffed to kill an opponent. It's a myth. My wizard, a pure spellcaster, no Hide in Plain sight or melee combat skills, can and most likely will kill you if you "catch him unbuffed". If you don't believe me, I will give you practical demonstrations.

Never said that they can't. What I said is that if you are going to engage a mage at all in pvp the last thing you should be doing is engaging them while they are buffed.

If you eliminate rest possibilities, you will kill the melee builds as well, since right now they can't do jack without casters babysitting them.

The ideal scenario is that melee and casters need each other. Casters buff up melee, melee tank and deal damage for the casters.

If you remove DR spells, you will obtain absolutely nothing. Shadow Shield is more than enough DR to play this game as everything but the glassiest of mages, which are the easiest to kill anyway WITH the DR spells on to begin with...

Premonition is a 30/adamantium spell that has no visual effect, and can be extended to last an hour long at level 30, and will be recast multiple times throughout the day until there are no more uses, then rested for 5 seconds to replenish the uses. This causes a high level spellcaster to have more or less permanent 30/adm. That is the main problem with it in my opinion, not its DR (though the DR on Prem is rather silly high). It gives casters one more 'buffer' against melee taking them down early in a fight before all the other buffs come on/save-or-dies come out. If you want to have DR, it should be something you have to spend a round to activate, and that has a visual effect to discourage you from using it when you're just sitting around yapping with people.

Also, there are plenty of dispels that are far more powerful than they should be, and Breach effects that hit spells they should not hit, and don't even exist in PnP.

Dispels were buffed up to PnP levels, weren't they? That's what I've read on this forum.

Nerfing casters can also be done, and it's easy to do it properly without butchering them as described above. But it will do NOTHING for the melees, aside from making them even less playable.

I'm not sure how anything described is 'butchering them', except the rest limitation. And that is an in-lore limitation. We are playing on an RP server that takes place within the FR world. The Vancian system is part of the lore of the universe and should be in effect.

[MopKnight]

It'd actually be modestly simple from a complexity perspective to add a concentration check for keeping a buff up to produce a DnD 5ish 3.5 homebrew.

For every buff you have up that isn't a melee like ability, you add +5-10 to your concentration check if attacked. If you fail it, a buff falls. So you can buff up low and safe or you can buff up high, get loads of damage/abilities and fall if you get hit. You could probably get away with a one a round concentration check, in fact, upon being hit for the first time and that would do it.

It also handily balances UMD too, since UMD users have no concentration at all and buffs will autofall if attacked.

No nerfing caster abilities required. Lowers power level of entire server in one fell swoop. Makes higher level buffs far more powerful than lower level buffs. Melee built casters (Eldritch Knights, paladins, blackguards, rangers etc) would get a smaller bonus increasing as they level, representing their increasing power of concentration in melee, but would otherwise have to skill for it too.

The trick with implementing this would be separating buffs by spell (ensuring that casting four Bulls Strength only cast as one spell) or simply implementing a group version of those spells at a lower level to avoid additional scripting burden which is, I believe, how DnD 5 does it.

The result would be an interesting situation in which spell casters would prioritise active over passive spells on most levels, where abilities with active power would supercede passive power and UMD everything would be dramatically weaker.

It ironically also makes group combat far more interesting since now anyone involved with a caster should preferentially protect them in case the groups buffs fall.

However, I am aware that as the local DnD 5 fanatic, my view is a minority one.

[Steve]

Spell Costs.

Spell casting in gold.

add either a gold or XP cost to spellcasting, and watch the popularity of melee builds soar!!



Solved.

[Invoker]

It would be nice to boost non-spellcasting characters, somehow. Past updates, and the upcoming one, is all about love for spellcasters. The amount of content wizards have gotten in server history is outrageous comparatively. One problem that I see is that spells are free content to memorizing casters, while whatever melee upgrades comes along tend to require feat investment or if good enough, becomes tacked on to powerful spellswords.

We discussed this while testing the new content on server2. As Karond mentioned, melee build have no space to choose new feats. A good way to add melee builds more flavor and make them more efficient is to give melee builds bonus feats from a specific list in accordance with the class abilities

Dor example, a barbarian can choose a feat every five levels from the shild bash or charge line of feats, a monk from the combat focus feat, a rogue from the sneak strike feats.

This would add flavor, more variety in combat and more importantly new content that will revive the interest in melee builds

I think what Mentalist is saying is quite reasonable, for what it's worth.

+1

I read comments that are either PvP-oriented (adamantine weapons) or "in a vacuum" (removing DR spells, rest once every 9 IRL hours), completely out of the server's context.

The server's context as I see it is a persistent world set in the Dungeons and Dragons setting of Forgotten Realms, where spellcasters must in-universe rest 8 hours to regain their spells.

That is simply not the case. Otherwise, you'll have to do the same for traveling (you in Nashkell and me in the Gate? See you next week), changing clothes, tending to weapons and Ao knows where it ends. Utopistic.

First of all, proper mages do not need to be buffed to kill an opponent. It's a myth. My wizard, a pure spellcaster, no Hide in Plain sight or melee combat skills, can and most likely will kill you if you "catch him unbuffed". If you don't believe me, I will give you practical demonstrations.

Never said that they can't. What I said is that if you are going to engage a mage at all in pvp the last thing you should be doing is engaging them while they are buffed.

I was answering to King Leoric in that particular pass.

If you eliminate rest possibilities, you will kill the melee builds as well, since right now they can't do jack without casters babysitting them.

The ideal scenario is that melee and casters need each other. Casters buff up melee, melee tank and deal damage for the casters.

But the only thing you will obtain in this fashion, is to keep the melee just as needy...and prevent the casters from providing. So melees will need, casters will fall short and jaunt away, melees will die. Everybody sucks.

If you remove DR spells, you will obtain absolutely nothing. Shadow Shield is more than enough DR to play this game as everything but the glassiest of mages, which are the easiest to kill anyway WITH the DR spells on to begin with...

Premonition is a 30/adamantium spell that has no visual effect

It has a crystal clear visual cue on BGTSCC.

and can be extended to last an hour long at level 30

It lasts 1h/level...

and will be recast multiple times throughout the day until there are no more uses, then rested for 5 seconds to replenish the uses. This causes a high level spellcaster to have more or less permanent 30/adm.

This isn't the case. When the damage cap is over, you need to recast. That's when you get killed. This is the reason why nobody that can play caster ever needs more than one cast per rest of this, maybe two if you eat a breach at the wrong moment.

That is the main problem with it in my opinion, not its DR (though the DR on Prem is rather silly high). It gives casters one more 'buffer' against melee taking them down early in a fight before all the other buffs come on/save-or-dies come out. If you want to have DR, it should be something you have to spend a round to activate, and that has a visual effect to discourage you from using it when you're just sitting around yapping with people.

I see what you mean, but it's wrong. Namely, you talk about PvP, and nobody buffs vs proper melees in pvp: you are either buffed, or you don't need to be. If you aren't and you try to buff, you die in the next 6 seconds. If you don't think so, you have never seen a proper melee's damage. Also, there IS a visual cue.

Also, there are plenty of dispels that are far more powerful than they should be, and Breach effects that hit spells they should not hit, and don't even exist in PnP.

Dispels were buffed up to PnP levels, weren't they? That's what I've read on this forum.

No. Dispels were buffed to disproportionate levels to deal with other issues. Breaches DON'T EXIST in PnP.

Nerfing casters can also be done, and it's easy to do it properly without butchering them as described above. But it will do NOTHING for the melees, aside from making them even less playable.

I'm not sure how anything described is 'butchering them', except the rest limitation. And that is an in-lore limitation. We are playing on an RP server that takes place within the FR world. The Vancian system is part of the lore of the universe and should be in effect.

No. Otherwise, casters should be able to cast spells like Wish and Timestop, fly and, in general, tear the world apart like the demigods they are in PnP. Also, in PnP you don't play without a DM present.

Your model is just not applicable.

[Calodan]

What about making a couple of custom feats for pure melee PCs? One that grants Spell resistance 12 +1 per level and another one that would grant on hit mords? Make the on hit mords a epic feat. Both could require that you have no spell or spell like abilities to take? Then give melee classes a few bonus feats to up build potential?

[CommanderKrieg]

It makes me very sad to see this update. They put in one like this before and after one day it was taken out of game and the server was rolled back. This will effectively make any rogue with life saving UMD the victim of my drow powerbuild who will in no way be effected by this. In fact it will make it much much stronger now that I can whoop down any fighter with a a greater dispell.

Its important to remember this is not World of Warcraft.

Tank DPS Healer etc?

All of those things are great when they work in a team, but we are all scattered on the server. Will this make everyone get together to work in harmony to accomplish common goals? No. Its like when they nerfed anything else. People just stop playing the class and move on. Neverwinter nights doesnt have the community numbers of other MMOs.

This change wouldnt be bad if there were already counter options for fighters, rogues, and assassins. Even if the spawns were turned down with caster abilities. I dont really see a great benefit for RP here, I predict that players will simply roll up whats powerful. We will see a bunch of cleric/FS with the wrong domains and crap RP come around. Then when they are tired of hearing "You suck", they will quit and we will be back to a server population of 14/70 Woo! Progress!

I'm not trying to be completely pessimistic, but the NWN2 community is dying and I fear this will put off a lot of people when they figure out how much it affects RP diversity. Some classes will just be not worth taking. It just makes the draw to going to another server more alluring, and its not like NWN2 is coming back up on steam sale anytime soon.

There is going to be a lot of damage to a lot of classes in play right now, with good RPers. They will either have to change builds, or rcr their characters. Which makes very little RP sense.

"Hey bob, werent you an arcane trickster?"
Bob: "Yeah dude, but now I am a favored soul.. you didnt know? It was in my blood all along!"
"Your just finding this out?"
Bob: "Yeah thats why I can cast mass deathward and implosion like the very best divine casters. Oh yeah I can now summon an angel from an epic gate spell like the high priests!"
Bob: That makes sense!

Its like saying "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette", but in this case there arent going to be more eggs. The few you find might even be rotten after that.

[Calodan]

I assume Krieg you are speaking of the dispel fix that makes the need for casters to have 29+CL in order to be effective? Yeah it pretty much stomps out VARIETY pretty quick. I have a build for Kory all ready to go once this dispel fix goes in. Currently he is a FS/WM/R but once the dispel fix goes in I will drop the WM BC it eats up CL and go for 26FS/4R to not be dispelled BC if he can be dispelled being a melee FS would pretty much no longer work......However we already see a general swing in favor of PBs already that only lose variety with this fix.

Is it possible to put this fix in and then change dispel, greater dispel and mordekainen's caps to 25CL instead of 29+CL needed?