Game Balance

[Young Werther]

If it depends on the arrangement(trademark pending) you'll still not get ab when divine favor runs out.

[Valefort]

The order of the buffs doesn't matter, you've got to read Ravial's post in context, which was an answer to wildsheep.

The cap is 20 indeed but assuming you reach that cap (which means casting a bunch of round per level spells) you'll still lose at most 8 AB (and remember that with old divine power you had to be in a group to reach that 20 AB cap), which means 42 AB without taking STR or feats into account in a server where the AC on mobs is low so I can't find any situation where this change will cripple clerics.

[Mursey]

As the player of two clerics, I have to admit the changes don't bother me at all.

[cosmic ray]

I can't find any situation where this change will cripple clerics.

When I described the nerf as crippling, I was referring to the spell itself, not to the class. Of course clerics won't be crippled, but if they end up not using the spell, then the spell will.

Where is that post made by Ravial?

[Ariella]

Even if we ignore the AB, the spell is still giving a strength bonus to hit and damage as well as a boost to temporary hp. The only thing i would change on the spell is to switch it from self only to target. But i am a sucker for a good support character.

[Steve]

That change opens up specialization paths for clerics, ie casting over bashing or bashing focused, the change to Hierophant is to be understood with that in mind as well. Making a low BAB caster focused divine PRC would now be more meaningful.

As for the change to divine power at most it removes the 6th attack and a few AB points (and that's only if you're in a group giving you more AB bonuses, like wizard or bard). On the other hand divine power is now -buffed- for builds who include high BAB cleric PRCs, for example a cleric 20/Hospitaler 10 has 25 BAB, and therefore got +5 BAB from old divine power but would now get +8 AB from it, specialization.

Thanks for clearing that up Le Valefort.

[Wildsheep]

It is true that 42 ab without taking into account str and feats is okay on this server, but I do want to point out that getting a +1ab costs you a feat. A loss of 8 ab and an attack is by no means a "small nerf".

On the opinion that 'clerics are like fighters but better' I think Grendunor wrote it better than I could and we should be making fighters better, not everyone else worse.

[matelener]

42 AB without STR or feats, is not just ok. It's GODLIKE.

It breaks a little my mind, the complaint that you've reached +20 AB magic cap and somehow it's not enough ?

[Wildsheep]

42 AB without STR or feats, is not just ok. It's GODLIKE.

It breaks a little my mind, the complaint that you've reached +20 AB magic cap and somehow it's not enough ?

It is how things have been balanced for a decade. I was only pointing out that this isn't a small nerf.

Also, I'd rather have a proper discussion. Throwing around accusations and insults only makes people take a defensive stance and usually works against those tossing around the insults.

[edmaster]

You guys are so going about this the wrong way.

1. The 20 Cap limit is Hard coded, no way to get around it.
2. These Buffs Cleric Cast on themselves? It only last for a bit, Once it's gone...., the cleric is rolfstomped, think of it like sex. You Pop in some Viagra to really add some power to your motion, but you blow the lid fast and it doesn't last very long. With Fighter? They don't need much except good Prcs and Equipment, and they can go All night long baby. If you want to make Martial more attractive than your average FvS EdM Dance boogaloo, Add more Interesting PRC's. Think outside the box, look at source books, or hell, pull some pages from Pathfinder, they do Martial Classes very well.

[Progressive-Psy]

[pimpjwp]

So cleric fs and bard were slighty to strong so we depower them but a dragon druid running around with a 63 ac full caster level of 30 does the same dmg in melee as most front line fighter and has 700 hp while spamming 37 dc one hitter quitter spells didnt make the depower list lol lol lol. Are we kidding ourselves? How is depowering all but the qc favorite class the dragon ( yes many of you ran this as your main for years)balance? Shouldnt the dragon get a hit to if clerics and bards are . As it stands there twice as powerful as oh say 30 monk, 30 fighter, 30 rogue, 30 bard, 30 man at arms, 30 warlock, 30 of almost any class . So if were so obsessed with balance how has this went unchecked for years just saying. If we wanted clerics fs and bard much less powerful than the druids why act like its balance just straight say i want the dragon more powerful than those classes saves alot of time

[Mursey]

Just because Dragons and Druids haven't been made more reasonable by the team yet, it doesn't mean they won't be in future. It seems to me that the team are making small changes to watch the size of the the ripples, rather than changing up too much at once and causing even larger waves.

Take a look back at the change logs. Most of the changes the QC team have made to the various character classes to promote balance have been adding and improving to existing classes rather than taking away. But there comes a point in any meta-game when the positive changes reach a sort of critical mass and stop improving the game and actively begin making things worse.

When you reach that point in a game's development, it's time to start easing back on things a bit. I freely admit to not having any epic level toons at the moment, but I've been tagging along on plenty of quests and events with characters who are at epic levels. And even bosses that are supposed to be epic challenges for groups are dying too fast and too easy to just one or two characters, let alone being able to pose a challenge to a decent sized party. The last time I saw a party go after the White Dragon in the Cloudpeaks, this supposed big bad threat went down in about 90 seconds.

Easy challenges are boring. D&D is supposed to be about adventuring parties working together to take down dangerous villains. I appreciate that for some of us here on the server really, really enjoy the solo grind. But where's the challenge? Where's the incentive to work together? If these changes make the cleric just a little less powerful and encourage people to party up more, then I am all for them.

And if it should so happen that other character classes get reigned back in a little bit as well, then I'll be all for that too.

[pimpjwp]

We already have multiple classes that are so nerf no one runs them say storm lord ,warrior of darkness and theres more . Nerfing only hurts things and makes more imbalance. To hold back a targeted few classes and giving the dragon a free pass when there already stronger than most clerics and bards any ways is baffling . So were going with the druid players who were stronger than 80 percent of the builds on the server now is stronger than 90 percent of them but were mentioning balance. Did we all forget exactly what balance means or is it balance with the exception of staff favorite build slash rp style . This will completly throw off the balance even more than it is . One nerf meams four other things are gonna have to be nerfed and presto sooner or later multiple classes are useless .
There will never be even steven balance in d and d unless you have plus 12 god items like trinity is this what we want here cmon. Low magic means a very big unbalance instead of crying my un optimized broken toon cant do what a toon thats made to kill things and optimized is just out of hand . Anyone can make a cleric fs bard or dragon and stomp anything they encounter. So instead of breaking things just leave them be . Perhaps beef the lesser classes like rogue instead of depowering only part of the problem . But to only depower some cleric fs and bard and to leave the dragon alone speaks volumes about what is wanted around here .

[Mursey]

In game-theory, the phenomenon you are talking about is called power creep.

It's an inevitable fact of any long running game system. It's one of the main reasons why major game systems such as 40k, D&d, Shadowrun and the like need to have a new edition released e try few years to return some semblance of game balance. (The other reason being to make more money , but that's a topic for another time).

Due to hard-coding and program restrictions, that option doesn't exist in NWN. Which means that when the critical mass of power creep is reached and it becomes mechanically impossible or mechanically impractical to advance poorly performing classes or player-units any farther towards balancing, the only practical solution is to begin reducing the power levels of classes that are ahead of the power-curve.

IF you don't begin nerfing at this point, and continue trying to make balanced classes more powerful to keep up with the over powered ones then what actually happens at this point is that you paradoxically end up with FEWER powerful classes ahead of the power curve rather than more. Because eventually you reach the power ceiling for any given class, and can no longer make it more powerful within the thematic limits of it's role in the setting. So you end up with only a handful of classes that people actually play.

Eventually the effort required to improve the very weak classes to a point where they are as far ahead of the power curve as the currently overpowered classes just puts the classes that are currently balanced against the existing power-curve far behind the new curve.

So you then advance those classes in terms of power, which just means you shift the balance point of the power-curve forward again.

Eventually the characters' power curve gets so far ahead of the monsters' power curve that the monsters no longer represent a challenge to the players.

Now your probably thinking: Well just advance the monster's power curve as well. Thing is it's not that simple. The DM client limits how much extra attack bonus, hit points etc that you can give a monster. Which is why we don t have 30HD goblins running around.

The server is already at the point where it can't make the monsters much of a challenge to our characters. And because the player power curve is already so far in advance of the ceiling for the monster power curve, I honestly think the only way the dev team can rebalance the game is by applying the nerf bat


So I for one welcome the nerfings. Bring 'em on team. And keep an coming