Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2019)

[Valefort]

Correct.

[Okan]

Don't you think its a steep price to pay that much for 80 percent chance of nothing happening?

[YourMoveHolyMan]

You're still getting your str damage added again as bonus damage, if I'm not mistaken. So its +your str mod in damage plus 20% chance of extra.

[Okan]

A very good point, in my mind I was thinking the STR bonus and the maximization together for some reason.

[Calodan]

WOW just wow....As usual wasting time nerfing instead of creating....GO FIGURE......Guess I will fully just RCR out of my Spear FvS cause it won't be useful for my playtimes anymore.

[izzul]

can we have it adjusted a bit

(+2 BAB from current BAB) + (CL/4+1 or HD/4+1 AB).

instead of suddenly become 30 BAB, only +2 BAB from current BAB
ex: full cleric lvl 30 will have 22 BAB. this will increase it to 24 BAB(not so powerful compared to 22 straight up to 30 BAB)

[Grendunor]

I would like to thank our dev team for taking the time away from development projects to address game balance in this trying time where QC is without the leadership that's kept things reasonable for so long.

I'm sure they have the best of intentions of turning your fight with the three mook fire giants from a short encounter into a harrowing pitched battle in which your character barely escapes alive from a flurry of iron horns improved knockdowns and interestingly glitchy ambush spawns.
New design philosophy seems to completely miss the point that your characters are supposed to be heroes/villains in the setting. Adventurers are meant to be the ratcatchers the people you loose on the throngs of the slavering demons, from the plucky underdogs to champions of their ideals who beat back the hordes for civilisation.

I feel BG has lost that tone in favour of campfire powwow's in which no one is motivated to do anything because if it's a real threat NPC's will handle it, PvE content is unreliable in terms of rewards, and PvP is often used as a vehicle to force your ideas rather than tell a story.

To those who're nerfed worry not the RcR is here and so the power builders will crunch and search and tinker and make something capable once again of soloing the content they care about the only ones affected are those who don't enjoy tinkering with the crunchy bits and have to deal with less mechanical power to go behind their RP.

When in doubt Barbarian is faceroll, Warlock is a mage with no rest timer and for the love of god take UMD

[Kaeldre]

People keep asking for "challenging content" while playing things that have no drawbacks and a ton of power. Players who actually choose not to pick the best tools in the toolbox because we ignore a ton of prcs and classes that need to be used, will suffer as people keep clamoring for tougher and tougher content for their easy builds.

By reducing the gap between the best and the mediocre, players might actually finally start using all the new PRCS and frats we have.

You seem to imply that the pool of players that choose to play clerics and favoured souls are all powerbuilders, while the average players choose other options. Which would justify nerfing these two classes. This chain of logic is a gross generalization. Just as mages and fighters contain a spectrum of players, so does clerics and favoured souls. This change will hit the mediocre players of this player pool the hardest, the same pool of players you claim to vouch for.

An entire class was made redundant by this spell. A class that was meant for divine casters to take they wanted to melee.

I assume you are speaking of the PrC class warpriest. Changing Divine Power wont make this class become viable when clearly better options such as Hospitaler and Dragon Slayer are available. If you wanted to make this class viable, then I would suggest taking a peek at the D&D version to improve the PrC class instead of impairing the archetype as a whole.

A cleric with 10 str and dex at lvl 30 can get 50 AB for free - 20 AB bonus and 30 BAB.

That cleric build will also not be able to take divine might. Which means you are stuck with damage numbers under 20 when buffed. With that kind of damage you do not kill anything quick enough. The average fighter has a damage reduction of 12/-, which means you'll do 8 damage/hit. Mages have access to a damage shield with 30/-, even if you do not factor in displacement and mirror image it will take forever to break their defence. Your AB numbers mean nothing unless you can deliver in damage.

As an arcanist gish, i either need to gimp my main casting stat or take a feat to have remotely similar AB - and i'd not deal any dmg and make way less apr. To be anywhere near a cleric's prowess i need to sacrifice the like of 10 ish cl - taking a prestige class to be able to not wear armour/cast in armour (-4/5 cl from bs or duelist), taking a prestige class to deal decent (20-30) dmg (-5 cl), taking a prestige class that eats 1 cl. Or not sacrifice 5 cl but spend 3 epic feats to be able to cast in armour. With all this, i got a BAB for 21 and a cl of 20 and a dex/int of mod 8. With all this, i only got +10 ab from the spells i can cast. I can also drink 2 cleric pots for +12. My dcs suck, i cant heal, everything can dispel me. My only advantage is 57 AC if i am ok with having only 33 AB. And i still can't heal myself or have spell resistance.

For the last 8 ab bonus, i MUST give up my ability to drink poyions of heal or cast spells.

When creating a cleric, favoured soul, wizard or sorcerer you generally decide to specialize in either casting or melee combat. I cannot be certain what you have opted for, but your numbers are not representative of what gishes and achieve in melee combat. Here is a link to an alternative:

http://nwn2db.com/build/?307110

It reaches an AB of 57 and an AC of 56. It also has access to Improved Combat Expertise for a total 62 AC when needed. It is not easily dispellable. It doesn't need armor. It doesn't need any DC. The arcane spell list provides the best no save spells in the game. It has IGMS and Polar Ray for damage, the Bigby line for disables and the best dispel/breach available through Mordenkainen's Disjunction and more.

It is notoriously difficult to kill with premonition, displacement, mirror image and elemental shield as protections when faced with physical attacks. It has great saves and several layers of immunities against casters, in addition to spell mantles. You are also a great support character due to possessing the single most effective buff for grinding, extended haste.

I dont understand where this disparity in abilities lie. If clerics are getting nerfed, then why are gishes allowed to roam unhinged?

Clerics? dump wis and get to level 30 and cast their buffs and DP and boom - 50 AB. For free. at 6 apr, 7 with haste. their dmg isnt that high, but they can get 13 str, get IPA and wield a 2 hander and not even notice either the AC loss from 2 handing thanks to extended regen and dr, nor the ab loss due to having 30 BAB + 20 AB + 3 STR. For free. No drawbacks. With a morningstar, that is at least 1d8 + 4 + 5 + 9 dmg not counting divine favour and other dmg buffs.

Meanwhile i need to play MAD, get only 21 bab, 26 int/dex buffed, 20 cl, dip into SD to dodge dispels and gain access to EW, Can only heal with pots or clickies, and do 1d6 + 2x8 + 5 +1d6 dmg using a piercing weapon after getting 11 levels of martial classes with an AB of 21 + 8 + 5 + 4. With 11 levels of 0 cl progression.

Now? clerics will be limited at least to a min ab of 42 ( 22 BAB and 20 AB bonus) - still for completely free.

In conclusion, I feel that your argument that clerics are insurmountably better than gishes unfounded.

[Kaeldre]

Yea DP consumable now benefits a high bab pc more than any cleric build. Ridiculous.

I would also like to highlight Ewe's observation. Since Clerics and Favoured Souls already hit the AB cap, Divine Power will not be useful to them anymore. By contrast, fighters do not reach that cap. Which means they will use an Elixir of Divine Power in PvP to boost their capability. Essentially, we are making the most iconic spell Favoured Souls and Clerics use useless to them, whilst making it a must have consumable for all fighters. To me, that does not sound like sound game design. Did QC deem this a desirable outcome?

[Kaeldre]

In pvp Requiem is pretty op, you can run out of a silenced area.. and for Sonic immunity, anyone with a wand of lesser spell breach makes that useless.

I agree. The damage portion seems the part needs to be nerfed, not the healing.

Running out of a silence area does not restart the requiem, it's on a 2m CD.

And as long as the target of the Song of Requiem is silenced he will be immune to sonic damage anyhow, which means that movement on the bard's side is meaningless when damage is concerned.

While the ability is strong it is very easy to counter. Casters can use Energy Immunity if they want to keep casting spells, while everyone else can use silence wands. I can find reason in bringing down the healing aspect a peg, but decreasing the damage will only affect and encourage the unprepared. To the prepared people this ability does nothing.

[Pan-some]

Make sure the npcs get the same nerf.....????

[Grendunor]

DOn't blame QC they are just there to "Test Bugs" Administration is of the opinion that the Dev team is more qualified to handle balance and gets a vetoing say in any opinion QC has.
You want to know where changes come from see Valefort, Chambo and, Endelyon.

Though there may be more in the dev team who want to come out and own these changes as their ideas. From the outside looking it though It speaks of how out of touch These balance changes are compared to current meta build.

As for the imbecilic idea that Clerics are better fighters I can only look confused at the screen.


Cleric make excellent pinch fighters in that their combat ability is based upon bursts of higher performance through the use of
< Stonebody/Battletide/Haste/Prayer/Divine favour/Divine might/Aura vs alignment> Then tossing on and EDM and setting to work.

For this, you have a limited uptime with about 3 minutes of -effective- combat ability where you really shine.

- Downside

* You are HIGHLY vulnerable to dispells as your ability is based on words
* Your class play is based around knowing when to spend your spells on wards and when to coast
* Crazy long buff times and slower pace of play
* Without buffs, you are a worse bard. You have no effective party support outside of the limited range of spells left
* Bab of a pure sneak without HiPs
* No skills crap UMD
* Your DC's are so bad you hope for half damage and pray they don't have improved evasion
* Edit additional: Forget good AC, your rumpsteak is feat staved so you'll sit pretty as punch at 45 AC is you shove in CE somehow but hey who cares your DR is bad your UMD is worse and you're plinking for 8-12 damage an attack without EDM

Fighter

Assuming you built competently and didn't go pure fighter for some reason
+Full Bab (30)
+AB of 50's unbuffed
+ weapon specialisation/mastery
Access to high damage PRC's like Weapon master or FB
+ None of this is dependent on wards meaning you only gain from team play and don't overlap

As an example, I can take Ringo out alone and do crits on a 17-20 with a greataxe for upwards of 260 damage quite happily on my own. But within a team group with party support, I can have the character break 300 on crits with solid base damage numbers of 60-70 and sit fairly pretty at 50AC

Grandpa Gren (Favoured soul), however, would max out at around 130 damage on a crit with his warhammer and somewhere in the 55-60 AC range his combat effectiveness in a party was more to provide support and a metal wall. Combat was slower and required more planning counting uptimes and rationing bursts of ability which you just never have to do on a purely martial.
Just watch your health bar and try to use as few consumables as possible.

what would take a 30-40 minute run thorough snake hills on a favoured soul is a 20-25 minute run on ringo.

In regards to PvP Favoured Souls and Ringo fought, and after taking the time to buff Ringo still pulled out far in the lead.
- The PvP argument is player depended so I'll cede it's not a good yardstick though the favoured soul knows his character-

Tl:DR
Favoured souls/clerics are not better fighters it's an entirely different playstyle with much more limiting build options due to caster level requirements.
Here's some rush enjoy

[cosmic ray]

I would like to thank our dev team for taking the time away from development projects to address game balance in this trying time where QC is without the leadership that's kept things reasonable for so long.

I'm sure they have the best of intentions of turning your fight with the three mook fire giants from a short encounter into a harrowing pitched battle in which your character barely escapes alive from a flurry of iron horns improved knockdowns and interestingly glitchy ambush spawns.
New design philosophy seems to completely miss the point that your characters are supposed to be heroes/villains in the setting. Adventurers are meant to be the ratcatchers the people you loose on the throngs of the slavering demons, from the plucky underdogs to champions of their ideals who beat back the hordes for civilisation.

I feel BG has lost that tone in favour of campfire powwow's in which no one is motivated to do anything because if it's a real threat NPC's will handle it, PvE content is unreliable in terms of rewards, and PvP is often used as a vehicle to force your ideas rather than tell a story.

To those who're nerfed worry not the RcR is here and so the power builders will crunch and search and tinker and make something capable once again of soloing the content they care about the only ones affected are those who don't enjoy tinkering with the crunchy bits and have to deal with less mechanical power to go behind their RP.

When in doubt Barbarian is faceroll, Warlock is a mage with no rest timer and for the love of god take UMD

+1

Well thought out balancing this is not.

[izzul]

Make sure the npcs get the same nerf.....????

Pan Some Epicness

[Calodan]

Yep just crap moves on this server over and over again. No real imagination. Just cheap moves.