Balancing Bards and FS?

[chad878262]

At the end of the day, it would be irresponsible to make nerfs to Bard/FS in the current environment of the server. It has already been stated that the top priority once the current release is stable will be to see about beefing up classes mentioned such as Barbarian, Swashbuckler and Rogue (to a lesser extent).

(by the way, Bard got a 'nerf' with the addition of multiple lore skills and disabling bardic lore adding bard level to lore, now they have to significantly invest a lot of their points in the various lore skills if they want to RP having knowledge (at least a little) in every subject and they can't fall back on 26 bard levels to give them the equivalent of near max Lore: Arcana)

This is coming from someone who has advocated for nerfs for no other reason than the pre-mentioned build variety... It's somewhat frustrating that grouping up you meat sooo many favored souls and bards. However, as I said before, in the current environment there has been a lot of changes and I think the dust needs to settle a bit before we decide to throw more grease on the fire. Most in QC (who have more experience than me) have stated there desire that we don't nerf anyone, but instead bring more reason to take lesser used classes. I can't say that after you have done so you won't still need at least some small nerf at the top tier, but I think that's a more intelligent way to start in order to give people new options without the potential for ruining existing PC's that people have spent years RP'ing with.

[Invoker]

it's very much a small scale MMORPG, it has all the traits plus some more in regards to RP

I got to give Cham a +1 this one. D&D is not an MMORPG, but this is BGTSCC, not D&D, and while it is not massively multiplayer, it most certainly is a MORPG.

It's not the first time I read this, and it does seem to be the server's latest development direction, so you both probably have a point.

obs: I don't want to ruin anyone's fun but when your "Fun" is making the game boring to the others then that should be looked at and if possible change or do you want for the DM's to do events like this "Please no bards and FS so the rest of the party can do something".
Also quit this mentality of "You can't balance D&D" Well, D&D is balanced around having a DM and a party of like 3 to 5 people while this server has most of the time 40 players and no DMs outside of events etc. So there is need for balance so everyone can have their fun, want it or not this is a MORPG as someone already pointed it out, you can't justify every little imbalance with "Well its like this in PnP" or saying its impossible to Balance, when that is not the case

I think there is a tad bit of confusion here:

1) Any DM who can't handle Bards and FSs from behind the client, cannot properly use the client and should be trained/assisted with it.
2) Any DM who can't mechanically handle Bards and FSs also should not, for the same reasons, be able to handle Monks, Warlocks, Wizards, Sorcerers, Druids, Dwarven Defenders, good Archers and a number of other characters that are pretty much in the region of those two classes. That obviously means point 1).
3) DMs can and should (and do) use player caps for events. When they do not, they should split groups using the same criteria. When they do not do this either, should give up on balancing and make progressive encounters (example: very easy, easy, medium, harder, hard, with the last one being challenging for the less powerful characters), taking pains to have characters use their skills in between. This way, everyone gets to RP their character concept, and feel useful in 80% of the event's fights.

Nobody needs nerfs to have fun.

[Thorsson]

obs: I don't want to ruin anyone's fun but when your "Fun" is making the game boring to the others then that should be looked at and if possible change or do you want for the DM's to do events like this "Please no bards and FS so the rest of the party can do something".

Whose fun is making the game boring to whom? For me, who has been playing here for years, and never an FS or anything other than a part-time Bard until now, I can honestly say my fun has never been compromised by a Bard or an FS, except possibly indirectly when DMs make monsters that I can't touch. But TBH IMO that's a failure on the DM's part.

Also quit this mentality of "You can't balance D&D" Well, D&D is balanced around having a DM and a party of like 3 to 5 people while this server has most of the time 40 players and no DMs outside of events etc. So there is need for balance so everyone can have their fun, want it or not this is a MORPG as someone already pointed it out, you can't justify every little imbalance with "Well its like this in PnP" or saying its impossible to Balance, when that is not the case

D&D is not "balanced" by a DM. A good DM makes sure that the party has challenges that need input from all characters; he doesn't try to make them mechanically equal, which is impossible if you are to have variety. Therefore, as has been pointed out numerous times now, what needs to happen is that the monsters/items/areas are changed such that they allow all types to have an input (why not anti-magic areas, for example?). Only then should the nerfbat be thought about.

obs2: Before someone says "But if you start balancing classes they will just lose their flavor ! might as well remove all of them and just make a single class" That is a logical fallacy and false, Balancing a class won't automatically make it equal to other classes in the mechanical side or RP-side that's just not the point of balancing.

Classic Straw Man.

[Boddynock]

Injecting some levity...

http://i.imgur.com/S1FnuHk.jpg

[joleda]

How does one buff all classes weaker than the Favored Soul, Bard, and Dragon Druid? Which abilities does one add? Does everyone get Weapon Specialization? Does everyone get High saves? Does everyone get to sing? Does everyone get damage reduction and immunities?

[Thorsson]

How does one buff all classes weaker than the Favored Soul, Bard, and Dragon Druid? Which abilities does one add? Does everyone get Weapon Specialization? Does everyone get High saves? Does everyone get to sing? Does everyone get damage reduction and immunities?

Wrong approach. One cuts drastically down on the 'Spot' script, Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Immunity and other things that penalise other classes. One adds things like anti-magic zones that hamper casters. All of sudden there's no "magic bullet" build that works everywhere. Then you have items that balance out how much benefit you can get from buffs, like +5 weapons (casters still have the advantage that they can pick up weapons with added bonuses rather than enhancement).

[Kinkurono]

I never said D&D is balanced by a DM but its balanced with DM and Players in mind but oh well.

I do agree there are other ways you can balance it, It's also if you want to buff everyone else as well.

[Thorsson]

My point is that it's better to have a complete strategy for making things better than lurch from one nerf to the next!

[joleda]

Give mobs cold iron, alchemical silver, or adamantine ammo and weapons?

[Calodan]

Give mobs cold iron, alchemical silver, or adamantine ammo and weapons?

Shadow shield is nice.......

There are about 4+ other DR spells one can use so that would not actually work in a sense but would be interesting in a small scale. Basically every PC that would work against would not be a magical one. Divine and Arcane provide spells for that.

On a totally different note not related to the quote......

Honestly the conversation should be how do we push forward the ability to have pure fighters and sneaks become more viable? How do we add things for EVIL players to go out into and RP their evil ways? They need dungeons of good guys and places to rob. When do we get a zone where UD and Surface can interact with a little less restrictions? A known area of certain danger and intrigue? What about those vendors going in with some high end items that was talked about in threads months past? What about the balance of the new loot system where we can all loot it but now only once per reset? Honestly this servers got 99 problems and Favored soul ain't one!

There is so much more better use of the time that the people who volunteer to make this place better than to find ways to limit us mechanically because people feel it needs to be done for no reason other than the class is an ass kicker. I am sorry but that just does not make sense.

[joleda]

I think limiting looting a chest to once per reset is genius!!! Before, when someone else looted a chest, I would have to meta-game and wait for it to respawn a lock and loot. I would bet many people probably get more chest loot now than before. The current system is group friendly.

History lesson: Every server reset was a mad dash to the treasure chests. Considering that some chests took 15-20 minutes to respawn, the number of people that could loot a chest, during an 8 hour server uptime, was only 30-40. Top it off that each chest could be looted twice, and many people would rarely get their chance. I often gave up trying to get loot. It was so frustrating for so many people that the Staff had to put level requirements on the chests. There were players that would run their top level toon around the lowbie dungeons and ninja the chests, while invisible, because all chests had the same loot table.

@Calodan, I meant no disrespect. with my quote about giving mobs alchemical silver, cold iron, and adamantine weapons. Adding that kind of weaponry would increase the difficulty for casters, while not affecting melee'rs much at all. It wouldn't decrease anyone's power output at all. I was simply trying to add to the following logic:

One of the reasons for the current pyramid is the current monsters. If these were more varied (like fewer had Spot and some had higher AC) then this would help certain builds (like Rogues) while hindering others (like EDM Bards). Nothing you can do on that side about FS/Cleric or Dragon Druid though. CoDzilla rules PnP too...

Also, idea of "balancing" DND sounds silly to me. DND is not balanced, some classes are stronger, some are weaker. It is not a mmo, and it is not designed to give everybody a fair chance. You pick character, you figure out how to survive using this character and skills.

I think we ought be conservative and careful in terms of nerfs but this sort of mindset is not very productive, sort of like shooting yourself in the foot. First of all this is arguably not Pnp DnD but based on it, we take what we -want- from sourcebooks, so we can have balance.

I don't care that it's not an MMO, MMOs aren't the only games that need balancing, (which btw I disagree that it's not, it's very much a small scale MMORPG, it has all the traits plus some more in regards to RP) if we, here, didn't bother with some notion of balance, things would be a lot worse than they are now.

I think conversations like these are healthy to have on a calm level even if no changes spur from them. But then again I think closing these discussions would be pretty much censure and overall unhealthy for the server populace... Anyway.

Think about solutions creatively and don't base your lines of thought with categorical opinions...

How does one buff all classes weaker than the Favored Soul, Bard, and Dragon Druid? Which abilities does one add? Does everyone get Weapon Specialization? Does everyone get High saves? Does everyone get to sing? Does everyone get damage reduction and immunities?

Wrong approach. One cuts drastically down on the 'Spot' script, Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Immunity and other things that penalise other classes. One adds things like anti-magic zones that hamper casters. All of sudden there's no "magic bullet" build that works everywhere. Then you have items that balance out how much benefit you can get from buffs, like +5 weapons (casters still have the advantage that they can pick up weapons with added bonuses rather than enhancement).

What if some mobs had a randomly lower Spot skill, or didn't have Uncanny Dodge, or couldn't cast dispell. It could be a simple variable that is 'rolled' when the mob spawns. Is that possible?

[NeOmega]

The root of all evil is the Divine Power spell which makes BAB progression of any cleric / fs build completely irrelevant. Two things are happening:

- Due to Divine Power (mostly) and other cumulative buffs cleric/fs surpasses high BAB classes at their primary role

- Divine PRCs that are supposed to make a cleric more specialized in combat (like Hospitaler or Warpriest) are because of Divine Power useless, they gimp cleric's spellcasting giving him in return high BAB which he doesn't need.

Therefore, I think that removing Divine Power completely from the game would be quite a good solution. Some other things could be touched as well such as nerfing Death Ward to its pnp version (which is without the Ability Drain immunity) and making Stone Body / Iron Body slow unaffected by Freedom of Movement.

I don't want to remove it, I wouldn't mind seeing it give +6 or + 8 STR. The BAB part is TOTALLY TERRIBLE though. Horrible.

You would remove many Cleric/FS from the game. Because with the fixed dispel you can't afford to take many Hospitaler or WP levels or you become dispellable.

And then you nerf Bards and then you have to nerf Arcane Casters and Druid Dragons.

Where does it stop?

Am I the only one on this server who has ALWAYS feared dispel mobs, even before the fix? Is it because I am the only one who still plays anywhere from level 1 to level 20 in my spare time, but rarely play epic?

They are defeatable, you just have to think, and proceed with caution, plan back ups. What I have been hearing is that people don't like them because they slow down their hack and slash extravaganza, where you can just run around mindlessly killing everything and watch Game of thrones at the same time.

Dispel mobs were always deadly to my casters. I always approached the batiri in the cloakwood caves, the orc mystics in sharpteeth and the demon touched orc etc with extreme caution if I am using buff spells.

And you are saying changing divine might, from a spell that makes clerics and FS fight like barbarians (WTF), to spell that just makes them stronger, would make people quit playing them?

Well, it won't make me quit playing them. I rolled up my clerics and FS because I wanted them to be clerics and FS, (with the supposed weaknesses that would come from being a caster and not a fighter or barbarian). When I found out how divine power worked, I kind of felt like I had just discovered the rope-a-dope from the original Baldurs gate. (where you get the enemies to attack only one at a time, it worked the whole game, and took the challenge out).

[NegInfinity]

Wrong approach. One cuts drastically down on the 'Spot' script, Uncanny Dodge, Sneak Immunity and other things that penalise other classes. One adds things like anti-magic zones that hamper casters. All of sudden there's no "magic bullet" build that works everywhere. Then you have items that balance out how much benefit you can get from buffs, like +5 weapons (casters still have the advantage that they can pick up weapons with added bonuses rather than enhancement).

That's a good idea. Diversity in areas and mobs -> more classes are useful.

Am I the only one on this server who has ALWAYS feared dispel mobs, even before the fix? Is it because I am the only one who still plays anywhere from level 1 to level 20 in my spare time, but rarely play epic?

Nope. Never went to sharpteeth with my eldritch knight, because of orc mystics. Because one spell - and you're very very squishy.

Well, it won't make me quit playing them.

You alone do not represent all people playing clerics.
Thorrson has better idea - it would be better to add monsters and areas where favored souls doesn't work well. Anti-magic zones, no-rest multi-level dungeons, etc.

[Thorsson]

Am I the only one on this server who has ALWAYS feared dispel mobs, even before the fix? Is it because I am the only one who still plays anywhere from level 1 to level 20 in my spare time, but rarely play epic?

I've never gone beyond level 21. But then apart from a couple of half-hearted goes, I've never really played a proper caster either; nor have I ever bought a wand or a scroll.

And you are saying changing divine might, from a spell that makes clerics and FS fight like barbarians (WTF), to spell that just makes them stronger, would make people quit playing them?

Yes I am, because to anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen it is clear that would be the case. That you might still play a Cleric is like me still playing non-casters, our individual proclivities. It's blindingly clear to anyone that has seen changes in the makeup of BG characters over time, that the majority go where the power lies (hence the abject failure of the no power build rules!). We shall now see a lot more full casters and a lot less F/WM/FB/Ro...

[matelener]

Am I the only one on this server who has ALWAYS feared dispel mobs, even before the fix? Is it because I am the only one who still plays anywhere from level 1 to level 20 in my spare time, but rarely play epic?

I've never gone beyond level 21. But then apart from a couple of half-hearted goes, I've never really played a proper caster either; nor have I ever bought a wand or a scroll.

And you are saying changing divine might, from a spell that makes clerics and FS fight like barbarians (WTF), to spell that just makes them stronger, would make people quit playing them?

Yes I am, because to anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen it is clear that would be the case. That you might still play a Cleric is like me still playing non-casters, our individual proclivities. It's blindingly clear to anyone that has seen changes in the makeup of BG characters over time, that the majority go where the power lies (hence the abject failure of the no power build rules!). We shall now see a lot more full casters and a lot less F/WM/FB/Ro...

Removing BAB increase from Divine Power will reduce cleric's AB from... 60 to 51 which ironically is the AB of a pure STR barbarian in Epic Rage. But yeah, after this nobody would play clerics anymore with so horrible AB and 9 circles of divine magic making one immortal.