Fix dispels to be in line with dispel fix

[Hoihe]

So!

Vanilla dispels were buffed above their intended qualities to balance out the fact that previously, Cl = HD for purposes of resisting dispels.

Now, we have Cl = Cl, making low Cl builds much more vulnerable to dispels.

But we did not adjust down the buffed dispel variants to their vanilla state, essentially pigeonholing gishes to only exist in form of



As intelligence based Gishes, who in order to get enough damage/AB to be relevant and not just end up forced to be buffbots for the party, need to multiclass to Swashbuckler to be brought up to par get dispelled to kingdom come.

Please keep the promise and not just fix dispel Cl = HD, but also reduce dispel bonuses to vanilla states.

[AC81]

I'm not sure what that picture above is but I think dispels are pretty well balanced at the moment and with the addition of Bladesinger arcane gishes now have quite a bit of variety while still being able to maintain a high CL.

[Velaris]

lol full metal alchemist

And i'd have to agree that dispels could use some fixing, though I'm not sure how the mechanics work exactly.
I do now I went the swashbuckler/bladesinger route and at 23 still get dispelled by batiri mages in cloakwood mines. Fear the batiri!

[Hoihe]

I'm not sure what that picture above is but I think dispels are pretty well balanced at the moment and with the addition of Bladesinger arcane gishes now have quite a bit of variety while still being able to maintain a high CL.

The picture means that the only viable gishes are those who go 16 int with +3 item and otherwise dump strength with autostill fullplate.

[chad878262]

I'm not sure what that picture above is but I think dispels are pretty well balanced at the moment and with the addition of Bladesinger arcane gishes now have quite a bit of variety while still being able to maintain a high CL.

The picture means that the only viable gishes are those who go 16 int with +3 item and otherwise dump strength with autostill fullplate.

Bladesinger with 26 INT and ~14-18 DEX is very much viable, but requires Elf. Either as a Max CL build (W10/EK10/BS10 - CL 29) or as mostly melee with some casting (W8/SB5/D7/BS10 - BAB 26, CL18 with level 7 spells). STR based arcane Gishes work just fine of course, but require W/EK/DS with autostill, and can certainly focus on attaining CL30 (W13/EK10/DS7 - BAB23).

On topic: We have discussed the Dispel Fix and Dispel caps in QC multiple times and I do not think Dispel/Greater Dispel will be lowered to vanilla NWN2 numbers, which would make CL20 immune to dispel and CL25 immune to greater dispel (vs. 25/30 as is today). Certainly would be interesting to see what others think, but considering common thinking is that divine/arcane gishes sit at the top of the build hierarchy I don't think it likely we empower them further. Consider that F8/W12/EK10 would have 5 bonus feats from fighter which could include Epic Weapon Focus while not needing the qualification feats for Dragon Slayer and not needing to 'waste' a feat on martial weapons to qualify for EK. This is just one build that would be immune to dispel with the CL25 functionality in place. Likewise a build with Assassin/Arcane Trickster could have HiPS and CL25 for dispel immunity, as could Bladesingers with 5 levels of SB for double INT to damage and of course EDM Sorc gishes. There are so many builds that would make current gishes look like chumps and would basically be immune to PvE content. We would then likely go back and put more breaches on mobs and chests which would be a pain, but would likely be necessary to slow down what is otherwise unstoppable.

All this is coming from someone who originally did argue for reducing the dispel caps to vanilla, but simply put M3nt and others were and are correct that you can be just fine with CL27 or lower, if you make sure you have a backup plan or three. Likewise nothing is stopping you from making a CL30 gish if you want to. Sure the damage is pretty pathetic, but you are basically invulnerable in PvE and with IPA you'll do enough damage to get by.

[Hoihe]

I'm not sure what that picture above is but I think dispels are pretty well balanced at the moment and with the addition of Bladesinger arcane gishes now have quite a bit of variety while still being able to maintain a high CL.

The picture means that the only viable gishes are those who go 16 int with +3 item and otherwise dump strength with autostill fullplate.

Bladesinger with 26 INT and ~14-18 DEX is very much viable, but requires Elf. Either as a Max CL build (W10/EK10/BS10 - CL 29) or as mostly melee with some casting (W8/SB5/D7/BS10 - BAB 26, CL18 with level 7 spells). STR based arcane Gishes work just fine of course, but require W/EK/DS with autostill, and can certainly focus on attaining CL30 (W13/EK10/DS7 - BAB23).

On topic: We have discussed the Dispel Fix and Dispel caps in QC multiple times and I do not think Dispel/Greater Dispel will be lowered to vanilla NWN2 numbers, which would make CL20 immune to dispel and CL25 immune to greater dispel (vs. 25/30 as is today). Certainly would be interesting to see what others think, but considering common thinking is that divine/arcane gishes sit at the top of the build hierarchy I don't think it likely we empower them further. Consider that F8/W12/EK10 would have 5 bonus feats from fighter which could include Epic Weapon Focus while not needing the qualification feats for Dragon Slayer and not needing to 'waste' a feat on martial weapons to qualify for EK. This is just one build that would be immune to dispel with the CL25 functionality in place. Likewise a build with Assassin/Arcane Trickster could have HiPS and CL25 for dispel immunity, as could Bladesingers with 5 levels of SB for double INT to damage and of course EDM Sorc gishes. There are so many builds that would make current gishes look like chumps and would basically be immune to PvE content. We would then likely go back and put more breaches on mobs and chests which would be a pain, but would likely be necessary to slow down what is otherwise unstoppable.

All this is coming from someone who originally did argue for reducing the dispel caps to vanilla, but simply put M3nt and others were and are correct that you can be just fine with CL27 or lower, if you make sure you have a backup plan or three. Likewise nothing is stopping you from making a CL30 gish if you want to. Sure the damage is pretty pathetic, but you are basically invulnerable in PvE and with IPA you'll do enough damage to get by.

Lowering dispels would not make gishes any stronger than a bard, and a pure bard has absolutely no weaknesses compared to the thousand a gish has.

[chad878262]

We don't balance other classes around Bard, Favored Soul, Dragon Druid or any other top tier class of which arcane gish is very close though I would agree below. Simply put if you are building a Greatsword wielding, CL22 Gish with a 10 STR you are kind of self imposing some pretty significant 'penalties' and this is not a function of the class combination being weak so much as knowingly building contradictory to what it is set up to do. Great sword is set up to be wielded by high STR while high dex / int lends itself to weapon finesse and combat insight. I have played and still do play gish builds and they do perfectly well in PvE 1-30 when built for the mechanics you are looking to utilize. Trying to make a high intelligence, high dex build that uses a great sword with 10 STR is going to end up with lowish AB and barely passable damage (if it's passable at all). I'm not trying to bash your concept as I know from our previous discussion that this is what your RP has dictated. However, building your concept contrary to the existing mechanics does not then warrant adjusting the mechanics to fit your concept.

Lowering immunity to greater dispel to CL25 empowers both arcane and divine gishes as well as Bards. You end up with Favored Soul Weapon Master Rogues with CL30, or Bards mixed with 9 levels of Dread Pirate, or Blackguard Rogue or other combinations where you have all the goodies of those power builds while gaining evasion, EDM, extra inspire courage AB/Damage or whatever other bonuses. So simply put such a change makes the PvE content less challenging and, in some cases not challenging at all which is a bad thing IMO. So to your point about Arcane gishes not touching Bards, how about a B21/F4/WM5 or a B23/R3/BG4? Probably a bit stronger than a simple B26/R4 or B26/BG4 since instead of Evasion or EDM/Divine Shield, it has both alongside dispel immunity.

[mrm3ntalist]

The dispel caps where discussed recently. There will be no change.

[Hoihe]

We don't balance other classes around Bard, Favored Soul, Dragon Druid or any other top tier class of which arcane gish is very close though I would agree below. Simply put if you are building a Greatsword wielding, CL22 Gish with a 10 STR you are kind of self imposing some pretty significant 'penalties' and this is not a function of the class combination being weak so much as knowingly building contradictory to what it is set up to do. Great sword is set up to be wielded by high STR while high dex / int lends itself to weapon finesse and combat insight. I have played and still do play gish builds and they do perfectly well in PvE 1-30 when built for the mechanics you are looking to utilize. Trying to make a high intelligence, high dex build that uses a great sword with 10 STR is going to end up with lowish AB and barely passable damage (if it's passable at all). I'm not trying to bash your concept as I know from our previous discussion that this is what your RP has dictated. However, building your concept contrary to the existing mechanics does not then warrant adjusting the mechanics to fit your concept.

Lowering immunity to greater dispel to CL25 empowers both arcane and divine gishes as well as Bards. You end up with Favored Soul Weapon Master Rogues with CL30, or Bards mixed with 9 levels of Dread Pirate, or Blackguard Rogue or other combinations where you have all the goodies of those power builds while gaining evasion, EDM, extra inspire courage AB/Damage or whatever other bonuses. So simply put such a change makes the PvE content less challenging and, in some cases not challenging at all which is a bad thing IMO. So to your point about Arcane gishes not touching Bards, how about a B21/F4/WM5 or a B23/R3/BG4? Probably a bit stronger than a simple B26/R4 or B26/BG4 since instead of Evasion or EDM/Divine Shield, it has both alongside dispel immunity.

I have to ask then: Why is it important that the builds designed to be stupid powerful through stacking goodies needing to be challenged, at cost of builds otherwise having difficulties leveling?

Those characters won't grow any weaker no matter how hard one tries to make dispels more unforgiving, while concepts outside of the box get pigeonholed back inside.

[chad878262]

I disagree about pigeon holing. I play a CL25 gish with HiPS and he does fine. I only use HiPS defensively when I know caster spawns are in the area so that I can HiPS if one starts casting a greater dispel at me. The simple fact is that your build has so many issues it is nowhere near any box. It get's low AB due to using a great sword with 10 STR (assume 14 after bulls), while having low damage. Meanwhile to help land hits it has Shadowdancer, which it wouldn't need if it was not so heavily focused on high DEX/low STR. It could gain CL by dropping fighter and or SD levels. There are many ways to have the build be improved, but they are outside of your RP and that is fine. However, if we start making changes to make every purposely sub-par built character powerful we end up with a server that has no challenge.

Honestly, don't you think a non-caster Fighter with 14 STR using a Great sword would have even greater challenges than you are having with your gish (or at least equal challenges)? The response to such a build would be to either increase STR or use a different weapon and build with WF/Combat Insight/SB/Duelist in mind. At least in non-dispel area's your gish has better AC, mirror images, displacement, etc. to keep you from making a trip to the fugue.

[Argumantive]

I disagree about pigeon holing. I play a CL25 gish with HiPS and he does fine. I only use HiPS defensively when I know caster spawns are in the area so that I can HiPS if one starts casting a greater dispel at me. The simple fact is that your build has so many issues it is nowhere near any box. It get's low AB due to using a great sword with 10 STR (assume 14 after bulls), while having low damage. Meanwhile to help land hits it has Shadowdancer, which it wouldn't need if it was not so heavily focused on high DEX/low STR. It could gain CL by dropping fighter and or SD levels. There are many ways to have the build be improved, but they are outside of your RP and that is fine. However, if we start making changes to make every purposely sub-par built character powerful we end up with a server that has no challenge.

Honestly, don't you think a non-caster Fighter with 14 STR using a Great sword would have even greater challenges than you are having with your gish (or at least equal challenges)? The response to such a build would be to either increase STR or use a different weapon and build with WF/Combat Insight/SB/Duelist in mind. At least in non-dispel area's your gish has better AC, mirror images, displacement, etc. to keep you from making a trip to the fugue.

I must say the pigeon holing is something adamant on the server as it is.

The point being that bard/dc wizard/druid are overpowered to the point it is not even funny.

You said the balance is not around FS, bard or dragon shape druid, I would ask, Why? Why is it some classes gain nerf immunity.
IC, I really find it immersion breaking a bard, an artist can even dream about fighting a gish or a wepaonmaster one on one, and even dream about having the upper hand.

As it is, the balance is skewed, be it for casters, spotters/listeners, or whatnot. The server is balanced with a very set mindset in mind, thus making anything but a cookie cutter build, irrelevant, both PvE and mainly PvP.

If Balance is an actual issue then I must say that lowering the dispel check is a logical thing since it was countermeasure to a mechanic which is no longer exists.

The thing is, any kind of un-counterable mechanic, be id breach spells, no save spells or percentage based spell (instadeath, drown etc) along with dispells, are just htings that put a whole build down the dumpster since they ignore things like, hp/ac/sr.
Balance wise, no single ability/spell should be reasonably uncounterable. (And yes, I am looking at mord and vamp feast). The sole existance of "iwin" buttons ruins any sembelance of "balance".

[Deathgrowl]

The picture means that the only viable gishes are those who go 16 int with +3 item and otherwise dump strength with autostill fullplate.

Someone better inform all the bladesingers running around that they're not viable!

[Moltrazahn]

To qoute Gortrek Gurnisson.

"Armor are for women and girly elves"



Besides. Hoihe. You should not come between the strong bromances which are flourishing!