Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2021)

[yyj]

I currently play 2 characters that have maxed out UMD and I have used just a single premonition scroll in the 2 months I had them. I personally feel that these splits are more powerful with the classes than with the feats.

Currently in one build I get UMD from a 3 level assassin dip that gives me sneak attack, death attack, access to spot, hide, tumble , uncanny dodge and poison use ability.

Or with whirling dervish which is also a crazy prc that gives a lot of goodies.

I analyzed this and decided that my builds are more powerful without these feats. We are already in a world where everyone and their mother has maxed UMD and spot, these feats aren't as strong as people are suggesting.

[Yugo]

None of my characters have high spot and high umd, assuming everyone does is a bit..... presumptous?
And i don't see why it should be forced to feel decent as a character build?

[DaloLorn]

I respectfully disagree with your opinion
I don't think maxed out spot and being able to cast 9th level spells from scrolls becoming common thing is good for the server as a whole.

YYA's assertion is that it is already common. To a degree, it is incorrect: There are some builds which could not previously afford a UMD, Spot, or Tumble dip. However, there are three factors to consider here:

• That so many people here consider UMD a mandatory skill that massively improves any build is, to my mind, a clear indicator that UMD is broken. This brokenness is nothing new; people have been complaining about it since I first came on BG. This might, if nothing else, cause some people to review the skill and address the issues related to it.
• Not everyone has the feats to spare on Extra Skill. Not everyone had the levels or class slots to spare on Rogue dips, either; that's probably a big contributor to why we allow Rogue dips.
• Whether they obtain a skill via Extra Skill or class dips, one still needs to spend skill points on a skill.

None of my characters have high spot and high umd, assuming everyone does is a bit..... presumptous?
And i don't see why it should be forced to feel decent as a character build?

Most of mine don't, either. It's probably part of why I can't solo bosses or PvP.

[Rhifox]

• Whether they obtain a skill via Extra Skill or class dips, one still needs to spend skill points on a skill.

Notably, it is vastly easier to invest in Extra Skill versions of skills, as you can space those points out over your entire build, rather than only being able to invest on the levels that give it as a class skill (something that can make it hard for a 3/4 level rogue build to fill out too many of its class skills. You can only invest those skills on the levels you take that dip, and if you're only taking 3 levels then maxing the skill out will still require cross-classing in epic levels).

... not that very many people actually spread their skill points out that much for this to be as much of a hassle as it is for those of us with RP skill arrays. But it still means that that Extra Skill-takers will have to spend less points on the skill overall than they would in a dip. Aside from all the other benefits gained by not needing to dip for the skill.

[YYA]

YYA's assertion is that it is already common. To a degree, it is incorrect: There are some builds which could not previously afford a UMD, Spot, or Tumble dip. However, there are three factors to consider here:

I disagree, because the underlined part is simply a matter of player preference. Humans get that extra feat at level one, and those extra skill points per level, while being able to disregard the multiclassing experience penalty quite easily, which allows a great deal of flexibility to have maximized UMD, Spot, and Tumble by just taking the Rogue class and Able Learner feat at level one. You can maximize all three skills by merely having the intelligence ability score of 10 as a Human. If you want more skills, you just have to raise your intelligence to 12, 14, or 16, which is very doable with most builds. And this right here is where player preference kicks in, because some people just do not want play as a Human character, and there can be great many things they consider to be far more important, or desirable, than having access to maximized UMD, Spot, or Tumble All in all, it is the player that has decided that something else is simply far more important. There are also character builds that have no choice but to spend their epic feats on non-epic feats, and having to spend one or more feats on Extra Skill, will just push more builds into taking non-epic feats with their Epic feats. Any build that was previously available, will have to shift their feats and skill points around, and some players will simply conclude that it is something they cannot afford due to individual preferences.

• That so many people here consider UMD a mandatory skill that massively improves any build is, to my mind, a clear indicator that UMD is broken. This brokenness is nothing new; people have been complaining about it since I first came on BG. This might, if nothing else, cause some people to review the skill and address the issues related to it.

It is not. It really is not. But when the random item generator spews out an otherwise usable item that has some alignment or class based restriction, the cross-class skill rank investment into UMD can save you from the hassle of trading that item into something your character can use, or even RCR-ing into a slightly different alignment. Moreover, you have to consider the historical perspective of this situation, because there was a time when the server did not have the random item generator. For example, the best Dodge boots one could hope to place their hands on were +2 Boots of Hardiness (+2 Dodge and Constitution) or a pair of some Monk only +3 Boots. If you wanted AC as high as possible, you had to get UMD, or participate in DM events in hopes you would get those +3 Dodge boots without the monk restriction. Thus, the perception that UMD is a mandatory skill is bit of a server specific cultural tradition.

And these days, you can even find quite a number of wands from the random loot, and thus if you can afford the skill investment, UMD is a nice skill to have. But it is in no way a mandatory skill.

• Not everyone has the feats to spare on Extra Skill. Not everyone had the levels or class slots to spare on Rogue dips, either; that's probably a big contributor to why we allow Rogue dips.

Rogue is a base class, and if you consider what the adventuring life is like, there are some skills from the Rogue class that make adventuring life far more easier. It is not difficult to reason why a character would have levels of Rogue, and the most common explanation being some kind of rough days of youth. And if you wanted to make something like a merchant priest of Waukeen, the only real way to do it was to take a Rogue/Bard dip in order to acquire Appraise as a class skill. The only difference today is that you can either get the Extra Skill feat for it, or take the class dip and spend a feat on Practiced Spell Caster and potentially one more on Able Learner. (You might not need to take Able Learner it if you can take a four level dip and spread it to levels 1, 10, 20, and 30 -- but it depends on your character's intelligence modifier too.) Multiclasing is not something vile, but sometimes it is a necessary evil.

• Whether they obtain a skill via Extra Skill or class dips, one still needs to spend skill points on a skill.

Yup.

None of my characters have high spot and high umd, assuming everyone does is a bit..... presumptous?
And i don't see why it should be forced to feel decent as a character build?

Most of mine don't, either. It's probably part of why I can't solo bosses or PvP.

At the moment, I think that only one of my characters actually has UMD, and it is to overcome item restrictions. Two of my characters will have that spot skill investment. And when it comes to PVP, you might not even need a high spot investment if the Rogue you fight just cannot kill you with their first attack flurry out of stealth.

[DaloLorn]

YYA's assertion is that it is already common. To a degree, it is incorrect: There are some builds which could not previously afford a UMD, Spot, or Tumble dip. However, there are three factors to consider here:

I disagree, because the underlined part is simply a matter of player preference. Humans get that extra feat at level one, and those extra skill points per level, while being able to disregard the multiclassing experience penalty quite easily, which allows a great deal of flexibility to have maximized UMD, Spot, and Tumble by just taking the Rogue class and Able Learner feat at level one. You can maximize all three skills by merely having the intelligence ability score of 10 as a Human. If you want more skills, you just have to raise your intelligence to 12, 14, or 16, which is very doable with most builds. And this right here is where player preference kicks in, because some people just do not want play as a Human character, and there can be great many things they consider to be far more important, or desirable, than having access to maximized UMD, Spot, or Tumble All in all, it is the player that has decided that something else is simply far more important. There are also character builds that have no choice but to spend their epic feats on non-epic feats, and having to spend one or more feats on Extra Skill, will just push more builds into taking non-epic feats with their Epic feats. Any build that was previously available, will have to shift their feats and skill points around, and some players will simply conclude that it is something they cannot afford due to individual preferences.

Druid 30 (required to get the most kick out of dragon druids, or any of the epic wildshapes introduced in the past year), monk 30, etc. Like I said, some builds are flat-out prohibited from taking a UMD dip, and those will benefit if they can spare a feat on Extra Skill.

• That so many people here consider UMD a mandatory skill that massively improves any build is, to my mind, a clear indicator that UMD is broken. This brokenness is nothing new; people have been complaining about it since I first came on BG. This might, if nothing else, cause some people to review the skill and address the issues related to it.

It is not. It really is not. But when the random item generator spews out an otherwise usable item that has some alignment or class based restriction, the cross-class skill rank investment into UMD can save you from the hassle of trading that item into something your character can use, or even RCR-ing into a slightly different alignment. Moreover, you have to consider the historical perspective of this situation, because there was a time when the server did not have the random item generator. For example, the best Dodge boots one could hope to place their hands on were +2 Boots of Hardiness (+2 Dodge and Constitution) or a pair of some Monk only +3 Boots. If you wanted AC as high as possible, you had to get UMD, or participate in DM events in hopes you would get those +3 Dodge boots without the monk restriction. Thus, the perception that UMD is a mandatory skill is bit of a server specific cultural tradition.

And these days, you can even find quite a number of wands from the random loot, and thus if you can afford the skill investment, UMD is a nice skill to have. But it is in no way a mandatory skill.

Able Learner (or regular cross-class skills, if you have the SP to waste) allows sufficient UMD to use restricted items. People here seem worried about using Extra Skill to UMD scrolls, centered primarily around the Bigby line, Storm Avatar, and Disjunctions. (If there are other popular UMD spells - and there very well may be - I am not yet aware of them. Except I guess using Regenerate scrolls to heal your pets.)

[YYA]

Druid 30 (required to get the most kick out of dragon druids, or any of the epic wildshapes introduced in the past year), monk 30, etc. Like I said, some builds are flat-out prohibited from taking a UMD dip, and those will benefit if they can spare a feat on Extra Skill..

Alright, let us look at a Druid 27/Rogue 3 or a Druid 27/Bard 3 that gains full acess to UMD. If you want all the Druid goodies, you will have to spend a feat on Natural Bond (Regain Lost Animal Companion Progression), Practiced Spellcaster (Regain Lost Caster Level), and potentially one more on Able Learner (Ease of Leveling Up Skills) -- and even if you take all three, you still have four Pre-Epic feats left to grab: Spell Casting Prodigy, Extend Spell, Natural Spell, and Spell Focus. (A human druid could also grab Greater Spell Focus.)

And if we look at what the Dragon druid would lose out on; it pretty much just amounts to -3 Dodge AC, -3 points of DR, -3 points of DC from its Breath Weapon, Wing Buffet, and Frightful Presence, and 3d6 points of damege from the Breath Weapon and 2d6 points of damage from the Wing Buffet.

One would think access to Mirror Images, Concealment, extra Haste attacks, +4 AB from Greater Heroism, etc, etc, would be able to overcome such petty losses a three level dip in either Rogue or Bard would incur.

And yes, 'Extra Skill: UMD' can be easily taken by just about any Druid build, while going for stuff like Improved Combat Expertise and what not -- but it does not change the inherent weakness of UMD consumables: namely low caster levels and breach lists. It just takes one little *Poof* and it is so long to Mirror Images, Concealment, Extra Haste Attacks, +4 AB from Greater Heroism, etc, etc. Normal users of UMD can just reapply for as long as they have enough gold to buy replacements. A Dragon druid has no such luxury, because every time he reverts back from the Dragon Shape he has expended one of his uses of Wild Shape. Thus it is far more likely that such a Druid character sits on a mountain of UMD consumables, and never really makes use of them.

As for the druids with Legendary Animal Shapes and Epic Elemental Shapes, if you multiclass: you will have little bit longer cooldown timers. Not the end of the world. As for Epic Elemental Shapes, aside from cooldowns: it is just few points of damage and DC, if even that. It depends on the form and abilities. But the malus that usually turns Druids away from UMD use is simply that to make use of their UMD, they will simply burn through their uses of Wild Shape.

As for Monk 30, well, it offers Monk level based Spell Resistance, which is very nice in PvE. But long ago, the default Monk build used on this server was either a dexterity based Monk 25/Shadowdancer 5 or Monk 20/Assassin 10. These characters usually either cross-classed or went full in on UMD, and the loss of Spell Resistance waseasily negated by playing a Deep Gnome or a Drow... Sure, a single class monk can benefit from having full access to UMD, but it is without HiPS and either Epic Dodge or plethorora of kama based Death Attacks. (Five Death Attacks in the first flurry with perfect two-weapon fighting.) If the opponent fails his save, he might be paralyzed, which means that he gets torn to shreds. Sorry, but a level 30 Monk with full access to UMD just doesn't sound nearly as scary as a Monk 20/Assassin 10 that also has full access to UMD and practically for free.

Able Learner (or regular cross-class skills, if you have the SP to waste) allows sufficient UMD to use restricted items. People here seem worried about using Extra Skill to UMD scrolls, centered primarily around the Bigby line, Storm Avatar, and Disjunctions. (If there are other popular UMD spells - and there very well may be - I am not yet aware of them. Except I guess using Regenerate scrolls to heal your pets.)

Healing Kits with maxed out Heal skill just works far better when it comes to healing pets, at least in my opinion. But then again, I rarely if ever play a character with Strength ability score of 8 or lower. And if those scrolls are truly such a concern, then those can be wiped off from merchant stocks... which means that players have to craft them, which will be far more expensive... and thus curb their use to 'special' occasions for everyone but the richest of players. And then the complaint will be that only a few ancient players can make use of them... etc. Actually, I think that is already one of the current complaints about it. And if the 'mechanically significant' skills are not allowed, then players will eventually complain that they are forced to ruin their role-play concepts by having to take those levels of Rogue and Bard, etc, for the skills they would want to have for role-play reasons. For example, a single class Fighter who wants to spite his Wizard father, but was still shown around few things while he was growing up... so there is that possibility to use UMD with great reluctance or only during the hour of greatest need.

As for balancing out UMD, good luck with that endeavour, because the nature of UMD is that it just adds numbers on top of numbers. If I sit and think about it, either you just cut it off from the game, or someone sees a colossal effort to introduce some kind of 'Elixir Toxicity' mechanic that simply removes earlier cast spells if too many were cast with Wands or Scrolls. And even after that massive effort, instead of using four UMD buffs, UMD users just use something like three or so. Nothing has really changed.

[Steve]

If epic fighter bonus feats are any feat, rather than the fighter bonus feat list, then I presume it would be available.

Someone with a lvl 30 toon to spare has got to test this ASAP!!!!

[mrm3ntalist]

If epic fighter bonus feats are any feat, rather than the fighter bonus feat list, then I presume it would be available.

Someone with a lvl 30 toon to spare has got to test this ASAP!!!!

I work today but if no one tests this by the time i get back home, I will

[mrm3ntalist]

Only the fighter bonus epic feats ( fighter 20+ ) allow to pick self concealment. It is not available for the re pic Fighter bonus feats.

[Steve]

Only the fighter bonus epic feats ( fighter 20+ ) allow to pick self concealment. It is not available for the re pic Fighter bonus feats.

Cheers!

[YYA]

Only the fighter bonus epic feats ( fighter 20+ ) allow to pick self concealment. It is not available for the re pic Fighter bonus feats.

Thanks for clearing it up!

[YYA]

Yeah, I had 25 units of Healing Moss on one my character, and the bench ate it all to produce a single +1 Healing Kit.

[Kitunenotsume]

If the recommendation is to unstack, could we have an inclusion in the dialog as to what size is appropriate for each option?

[DaloLorn]

If the recommendation is to unstack, could we have an inclusion in the dialog as to what size is appropriate for each option?

3 moss = 1 healing kit. I think 1 moss = 1 healing potion, but I've never really bothered with the potions.