Animate Dead Nerf

[Steve]

As I see it, the problem with Evocation spells is that they are Dice Dmg based PLUS have a DC/Save, and on BGTSCC we have very high HP mobs and especially bosses. Yet, high DC spell schools like Necromancy have just a DC/Save, but are a "Save or Die" type of spell. No matter how high you would buff the Dice DMG, there are just going to be higher HP mobs and Bosses to never make those Evocation spells equal DC Save-or-Die spells.

Perhaps if one was to remove the DC/Save part of Evocation spells, there would be a much greater "play-a-bility" for Evocation (just simply a greater reliability in dmg output). Maybe. One could easily justify making Fireball spells for Levels 3, 5, 7, 9, so that the Dice Dmg would scale. But then again, isn't Metamagic supposed to help with the scaling, by employing Empower and Maximize to whatever efficiency possible?

Furthermore, one could also argue that creating a Feat like Blast Infidel for Evocation Arcane Casters would help Blasters along. I mean, what Arcane spell is going to give a near guaranteed 300 dmg per cast like a Harm + Blast Infidel?

I mean, we rarely even have touched on the play-a-bility of a Warlock, right? Talk about a "class above" Blaster. Obviously, we don't want to make Evocation Mages like Warlocks. But maybe almost like Warlocks?!?

Conjuration really shines by summoning and buffing, then kicking back under inviso and letting your "ally" do the dirty work. Same with Enchantment. Necromancy already has so good "Save or Die" spells that to also grant upper class summoning is pretty much unbalanced across Spell Schools. IMHO, each Spell School should have some sort of equivalent, but not a like-as-like type of power.

I think there are ways to improve the situation between power levels of the different Spell Schools, but let's be honest: every change takes work, and then to consider and especially DEAL WITH the cascading effects of those changes. That in itself may prevent changes/balancing/whatever.

[Blackman D]

the only problem tho is that you cant compare summon series with animate dead

undead have their own summon series that is not in game that has the exact same restrictions as the normal summon series; animate dead is specifically designed to scale uncapped with caster level for the purpose of remaining useful always

it also allows for a assortment of types of HD which is much harder to do in game

but evocation and summons were buffed for the same reasons and thats because they sucked at epic levels, there is little to no reason to revert anything back to a useless state

[mrm3ntalist]

Variety already happens along the way to 30 though. Making fireball alone relevant in the epic levels is of course not a problem but this spell is not an island, it remains that an evocation spell of an higher spell level would have to be better than a level 3 fireball so you would have to similarly buff all evocation spells.

If you want to keep a decent power increase between spell levels then buffing a lvl 3 spell to be playable in epic levels, like say 30d6 fireball from 15d6, how far would you have to buff burst of glacial wrath which is already at 30d6 ? 45d6 ? And then greater ruin to 70d6 ? Isn't that quite too much when blasters are already playable, altough quite inferior to DC casters ? Keeping the difference between spells constant that's what it would look like. As far as I'm concerned the only feasible solution to make blasters relevant is areas where other ways of killing monsters become much worse than they usually are.

The other option is to reduce the difference in power between spell levels, watering down the importance of spell levels, not very appealing to me.

As for summons and fighter PC replacement, where is the middle ground ? 35 AB ? 20 damage ? 40 AC ? Aren't the best summons already near the power of a bad melee PC ?

Not all the way but up until lvl20. After that level blasting spells and summons simply dont worth the time and the headaches. And no, lvl3 blasting spells or summons dont have to be the same with higher level ones. However, the majority of blasting spells should be reworked, whether that is just plain increase to the damage dice, or a bonus damage on a second/third round for npcs only, or a secondary effect etc. Nobody says that those low level spells should be as powerful as lvl9 spells, but they should worth a place in a wizards spell book even in the epics. The reason they dont on BG is because of how the mobs are setup.

Summons cannot be compared to the power of the worst built melee pc. The AI cannot even come close to the ingame decisions a player can make. Even a fighter that you hit random on level up, with a wizard's buffs will be able to clear any area of mobs. When you use a spell slot for a summon, then another X slots to buff it, you should expect at the very least to be able to tank mobs (not kill ) and not just die fighting 3 enemies.

Stronger summons and blasting spells will allow a playstyle such as using summons to tank while blasting them with spells, a style that currently simply does not exist. It wont come even close to the efficiency of DC spells such as Dominate, Wails, FoD, Laitaes 2nd chance, sunburst ( for the disable, not the damage) etc.

[Valefort]

What kind of unbuffed AB, AC, damage are we speaking about for summons then ? And same for blasting spells, suggest figures.

[mrm3ntalist]

The summons should never be without enchantment otherwise the difference that the buffs will do will be too great. Like i said before the summons should be tanky first and foremost, then doing little damage.

So an end game AC in the high 30s or low 40 should be appropriate. The AC stats should be something like +3 Armor enhancement, +2Natural etc ( something that can even scale with CL ). A total AC in high 40s ( after buffs ) would be appropriate. The BAB/AB combo should be high enough to allow for just lesser damage. High enough BAB to allow 3 attacks per round and AB high enough to allow only the 1st attack to hit, the other 2 will hit on 20s. Thats the end game stats and they should scale all the way to CL30.

After that you can have the summons with different stats regarding HP/DR/immunities etc. Some summons could have better physical resistance, while other better elemental/magic resistances. Higher level summoning spells should have higher resistances (HP, dr) etc

All those numbers are very conservative. Currently with the dominate monster (DC spell ) you can have a pet with considerably higher stats compared to the mobs of the area. Even in such cases the pet is not very effective since the AI decisions or multiple mobs or spells etc damage it rather quickly.

[mrm3ntalist]

About the blasting spells the PvP consequences should be taken into account. A degrading damage over time ( lesser damage compared to the initial for X rounds) and only for npc is the safest way to go. There will be no need to change the mobs stats which will make them easier for meleers, it will have 0 effect in PvP and will be much easier to balance.

[mrm3ntalist]

And for the love of what is holy, just stay away of the needless nerfs and focus more on getting some new areas, different bosses etc. The game is currently very boring mechanically. No new areas have been implemented for years. No new items to go after. On the contrary two of the newest areas have been disabled for what, 2 years now?

[Maecius]

This was a decision made by Endelyon and myself, so please don't blame the devs or QCers chiming in here:

They're bleeding for sins not their own.

That being said, as most of them have already expressed, this decision was ultimately made to try and bring more balance to the server:

In the past, we've tended to "buff up" "weak" classes and abilities rather than "nerf down" the things that everyone knows are way too strong. Senior server leadership has largely (although not unanimously mind you) decided that it's probably better to be a little more liberal about nerfing things that are overpowered, moving forward, rather than to continue in carrying on with an arms race that'll leave us having to, from the ground-up, redesign all of our (in some cases already heavily inflated) spawns and encounters because we've made our players too powerful for the game they want to play -- and thereby robbed it of its challenge.

That being said, if we do overdo it, we're always open to feedback and suggestions. There's nothing that can be done that cannot be undone -- well, there a few things, but they're usually not nerfs. There's also, admittedly, a fine-tuning process in everything we do design wise. More often than not we simply won't know how certain buffs or nerfs will play out until they're tested by the players themselves in a live play environment. QC does a great job testing content before it goes in game, but they don't do it 24/7 and they usually don't do it with a bunch of other players around them in a "live play" environment.

Moreover, in this particular case, QC wasn't asked to test the Animate Dead nerf before we put it in game. We pretty much made the call that it was way too strong and turned it down a notch. If we cranked it down too far, let us know some alternatives -- alternatives besides, you know, "I don't like this book of matches you gave me, give me back my flamethrower." Mrm3ntalist is was ( ) doing a good job with his last first post at giving valuable, actionable feedback, if you'd like a model or a template for it.

I can't promise we'll do anything, mind you, as we haven't discussed it at all yet dev-side or QC-side. And we might ultimately end up deciding after a re-look, if we give it a re-look, that "no, yeah, this is the Goldilocks zone for the Animate Dead spell." But I can promise that we'll at least look at this thread -- as evidenced by the participation of so many devs and QCers in this conversation so far -- and, if we do happen to see a good argument that speaks to one of us individually, we will bring it up for staff deliberation.

And for the love of what is holy, just stay away of the needless nerfs and focus more on getting some new areas, different bosses etc. The game is currently very boring mechanically. No new areas have been implemented for years. No new items to go after. On the contrary two of the newest areas have been disabled for what, 2 years now?

The devs who do the building and the devs who do the coding aren't wielding the same swords, my friend. I do know that several of our area designers are currently working on area maps, however -- although, at this stage in our server's development, any area we put in is probably going to require that we take out an area (or areas) of equal or greater size if we don't want the server to start crashing.

That being said, we are currently trying some experimentation with "front lines" maps and other rotating maps that can be pulled once the server's "story focus" on a particular region shifts to somewhere new: Thereby opening new windows on our world without badly impacting the existing "main maps." Though even here, the builders have very high standards for themselves and for the server, and they put dozens of hours into their maps, even the maps they know are "temporary," so these can take a long time. A lot longer than most code fixes anyway. But we're getting off-topic at this point, and this would be something better discussed in another thread.

[AlwaysSummer Day]

I'm glad to hear we have moved away from the "buff everything else, don't Nerf anything ever" strategy to the "Nerf a few things, buff a few things, and meet in the middle" strategy. It should save a ton of time.

[Laenor]

To be honest, we should buff create greater undead to a 1 turn/level duration.
The Vampires are good enough for most epic areas if you spend slots to keep your summoning properly buffed.

As a Wizard, usually, you'll never be a proper blaster, but there are numerous other ways to make use of your spells to kill epic bosses without too much hassle.
My own level 30 Wizard does not have any issue killing the frost giant king or the dragon in the naga cave.

Everything else will mainly rely on having a buffed dominated creature to have a proper damage output until you reach the boss.

[Young Werther]

u shuld nerf DIVINE power. It is be a 4(3) level spell that level 30 usses all the time. It very broken.

[Zeland]

u shuld nerf DIVINE power. It is be a 4(3) level spell that level 30 usses all the time. It very broken.

Just because it is a low level spell doesn't mean it is broken. Some of the best spells are lower level.

[chad878262]

u shuld nerf DIVINE power. It is be a 4(3) level spell that level 30 usses all the time. It very broken.

Just because it is a low level spell doesn't mean it is broken. Some of the best spells are lower level.

The fact that it allows FvS and Cleric to bet better Warriors than warrior classes enough to last for more than enough time between rests is what makes it broken.

Regardless what is done +/- at the end of the day D&D is an unbalanced system. There will always be have and have not races and classes.

[RaiderOne]

I kinda gave some feedback earlier about animate dead (pre-nerf version) so ill repost it here in a better format.

The spell has social and RP downsides that make being a 'proper' i have minions necromancer harder. If you dont take the minions no one cares what you do but that removes the fun and iconic image of being a necromancer. Now because of the social stigma I doubt that many neutral/good characters use the necromancy summon spells, and as there are much better alternatives why would they? If a necromancy summon was on par or even better than another summon I doubt its going to break the bank. If it encourages some more evil toons then thats a bonus as good/neutral ones are 10 a penny.

The spell sometimes does not summon creatures due to pathfinding/terrain etc. Not much can be done except to find an open area, but this does make it easy to waste and get nothing.

The spell summons from a random list of creatures. Based on my experience the creatures it summons can be classified as follows;

Skeleton with scythe - this guy is the best one of the lot, he does reliable damage and the skeleton resistances keep him going as fewer enemies use bludgeoning weapons. This skeleton is the power I would like all of the animate dead summons to be, at which point I would then say the spell is very good for a necromancer. Due to quantity over quality you are doubtful to buff any of the summons but if you do its this guy.

Zombie with axe and board - should be tankier than the scythe skeleton but actually isnt due to his lower damage output and worse resistance due to monster weapons. He crits hard thanks to the battleaxe but still less so than the scythe. At level 18 with descecrate and spell focus feats he still dies pretty fast often without contributing much damage to the fight.

Skeleton archer / other skeletons - these are very disapointing and weak at everything. Their offence and defence are of such a level that enemies can ignore them or often kill them in a few hits.

With the previous spell version I have found that at my level (18) with desecrate etc you only get mileage out of this spell in lower areas, or as an addition to other players and or summons. On its own it is almost a waste as the summons dont live long enough to take out most enemies. If I was to say anything about this spell it is that it is quite powerful in CR8 or less areas (mostly due to scythe skeleton) and gets much worse when unsupported when you reach the gnoll and orc caves. If you support the summons with other things they can do well in the gnoll/orc caves but do struggle to perfrom after that. The defence and offence gained by extra HD does help, but is very quickly over taken as CR increases.

Though I would like the creatures summoned to be reviewed and improved to equal terms. A sugestion to curbing the potential power of this spell could be to have the base spell be a bit weaker but have it benefit more from necromancy focus / specialisations . This would allow those dedicated necromancers/specialist mages to retain the spells power without making it availible to every caster.

The creaturers summoned could also be standardised to give you X Y Z instead of a random group. If summon options/choices were used I would go with standard which is the same 3 creatures randomised if they are a zombie or skeleton, same stats like the normal summons do but with the 'skins' changed. The second option would be horde, which gives you 5 summons instead of 3 but removes some of their offensive strength and retains defence. Workers or meat shields basically.

The alternative undead summon spells equally have their ups and downs. I wont get into them at this point but except to say that due to the varied nature, abilities, resistances, etc i dont think that undead summons can be as easy to balence with only a HD level like the standard summons are.

[Zeland]

Regardless what is done +/- at the end of the day D&D is an unbalanced system. There will always be have and have not races and classes.

100% ^^

That's why I think instead of nerfing things like Animate Dead that aren't game breaking good, the staff should focus on fixing bugs and glitches in the system IMO.
For example, all the group summon spells have a chance to not summon the correct number of mobs in tight spaces. Shouldn't that be fixed first?