Kip up, Tumble and Hips

[RedLancer]

From what I can find, the ability to "kip up" is tied to class features (Thief Acrobat) and a feat in Complete Scoundrel; what's the justification for everyone with Acrobatics ranks getting it for free?

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#tumble

Ah, the good ol' "We're not really epic characters but here's a select epic skill usage" gag.

[selhan]

Why it feels like some people never even seen the stats of a pure Hipster? lol

AC barely 40 buffed
AB looks much worse
Saves pfft might as well not even say they have any
HP look like they dying even after a rest
Lucky if they can even take 1-3 Solid crits some cases a simple hit for that matter depending who's swinging at their heads
And people want them to get knockdown easier? lol
Nearly every Hipster class will rp they hate magic, there a damn good reason so.
A Dex base "Sneak" without Epic Dodge , UMD is utterly terrible to try and play unless they tossing in Swash or duelist which will make attacks even more horrid
And when they do want to make sure they gonna land something, most cases they gotta reveal themselves anyways and have wards from every region of Faerun

Any plain sneak attacking build shouldn't be trying to face anything face to face to begin with.
Most that are anything better than mediocre put a whole lot of homework into the build, but they still had to give up something that hurts their feelings.
I will never consider hips to be Op, its the "Oh snap GTFO" button. Op is when a 300 dmg zerk hits you that flipped your entire HP pool 2x over lol

[tjhyland]

I agree 100%

[Garnet]

Agreed, rogue life is tuff! Not only are we required to have Epic Dodge to stay alive (I use that the term 'stay alive' loosely, because at 200HP its easy to get killed in 1 or 2 crits instantly..... It happens.... Rogue life ), but Epic Precision is literally -required- to play; otherwise, we do 0 Damage to many monsters because of Immunities and our 0 strength to overcome DR.

I've never really understood why there is so much dislike for rogues . We got burned on the addition of the "Stealth Icon", almost completely got wiped out from the suggestion to remove 'skill stacking' on gear, but.... here we are again trying to take stuff away something else... Its quite hard to play a rogue. We can't even dream of going to the higher level areas for loots without -a lot- of help; yet, there are plenty of classes that I see go to Skull Gorge, or the Pirates alone, and take on a whole army while the player behind the screen is half falling asleep. Its comical that they can run through at full speed mindless with little thought needed, but we aren't talking about 'bringing them down'. And to be clear, I'm not suggesting they need to be changed either-- everyone finds enjoyment playing the game in different ways....

I guess I don't really understand where these sort of requests are coming from... does it stem from a lost fight in PVP?

[Mork]

I guess I don't really understand where these sort of requests are coming from... does it stem from a lost fight in PVP?

Of course it does! It's how I noticed that you can knock someone down and get zero attack rolls on them before they'll do equivalent of 3 rounds of actions in 1 second! Hips OP - your bluff won't work on a Pally

[Garnet]

I don't think '1 fight against 1 person' should trigger a game-wide change that's going to affect all rogue players. Us rogues get demolished by that quicken-cast spells & Instant death magic as we have no will saves, we immediately die... Or horrid wilting, that one hurts! definitely been killed by it by another player . HIPs didn't even matter since they attacked first (justified RP led to it) and then they just shoot the ground-- don't even have to see us .

I think the examples for different match-ups of players fighting players are probably numerous where one side feels it was 'unfair' because of something another character did... A Paladin in the death-magic example above would of likely easily wont that fight.. rogues not a chance. Either way though, changing something to affect so many players I hope isn't viewed lightly.

[Deathgrowl]

there are plenty of classes that I see go to Skull Gorge, or the Pirates alone, and take on a whole army while the player behind the screen is half falling asleep.

Then the problem is those other classes. Rogue is fine. The high epic areas shouldn't be easily soloable by anyone.

I have a rogue16/whirling dervish4/shadowdancer10 that I have played for over a decade. I too greatly dislike the stealth icon as it kind of takes away immersion (but I agree with the reason for its implementation). But beyond that, even with my quite weak build, I can solo the Frost Giant King with barely any consumable use.

From a PvE perspective: A standard rogue20/assassin10 hits harder than basically anything else, and most mobs and even bosses on the server have AC low enough to be hit with several attacks in the rogue's first flurry (which means landing the sneak attacks). They also have two of the best defensive feats in the game: Epic Dodge and HIPS.

The only true competitor for sheer damage output is some archer builds.

So I disagree that rogue life is tough. Rogue life is fine. But I also disagree that HIPS is OP. HIPS is fine.

The problem lies elsewhere.

But as far as any suggestion here goes, I stand by my usual perspective: Fix PvE before doing anything about character build options. And as for PvP, no one should seriously care about these particular points. If both sides know how to use their build best, PvP is won by those willing to spend enough gold on heal potions.Very little else matters.

[Mork]

Not sure why it turned to discussion about rogues when every class can have and use all mentioned abilities. PvE aspect is there it is cause of how much good AC matters in PvE and that can be achived by a lot of builds.

[selhan]

Not really about change of discussions, its more of players simply concerned about losing interest in what they enjoy, who were not the reasons of main discussion, and someone else trying to reassure them its not the issue.

From what it look like, you had a pvp scenario that had a bad outcome because you felt whom ever it was you were in engaged with , had some sort of unfair advantage over your character. Now your pushing a complaint about said scenario wanting to nerf it, without considering how it might effect others who wasnt involved or had nothing to do with what was going on nor has that same build,, and beginning to feel a lack interest in their game play because of it. The only reason why i peaked on this thread was because yesterday someone was thinking to do a whole rcr, a complete different build because they said this thread was leading to a nerf that kills what they made. Not in those words but yeah that just scratches their whole character concept they had going for them. I didnt get into the details but I understood how the guy felt, because I play a dedicated hipster and been heard all kinda complaints about hips since nwn1

[Mork]

Hips was always there and always was a great ability. Kip-up is custom feature and it is implemented as I've explained not to work as a free action in defenders turn but currently working as reaction in attackers turn often prohibiting even single attack roll on someone knocked down.

Hips and tumble/jump teleport was just mentioned to portray how many actions can be stacked in very same second in a mechanics that derive from turn-based system. If you knock someone down you should be able to roll all remaining attacks on KD-d oponent and not be deprived of entire round of attacks cause it's faster for any light armor user to get up than you to attack. I feel it's a reasonable concern.

It stems from how light armor users have evasion, kip up and tumble while heavy armor users have ... +1 AC and much greater difficulty in finding proper (Entropium/Mithral) armor while +3 melodic light chain is available in unlimited quantities from vendor npc.

If you look at normal plate it becomes even more absurd cause 8/1 fullplate is actually 1AC less than 6/4 mithral chain... I know I'm not the only one seeing this as many people pointed out this problem during discussions on discord.

[Rask]

there are plenty of classes that I see go to Skull Gorge, or the Pirates alone, and take on a whole army while the player behind the screen is half falling asleep.

Then the problem is those other classes. Rogue is fine. The high epic areas shouldn't be easily soloable by anyone.

I have a rogue16/whirling dervish4/shadowdancer10 that I have played for over a decade. I too greatly dislike the stealth icon as it kind of takes away immersion (but I agree with the reason for its implementation). But beyond that, even with my quite weak build, I can solo the Frost Giant King with barely any consumable use.

From a PvE perspective: A standard rogue20/assassin10 hits harder than basically anything else, and most mobs and even bosses on the server have AC low enough to be hit with several attacks in the rogue's first flurry (which means landing the sneak attacks). They also have two of the best defensive feats in the game: Epic Dodge and HIPS.

The only true competitor for sheer damage output is some archer builds.

So I disagree that rogue life is tough. Rogue life is fine. But I also disagree that HIPS is OP. HIPS is fine.

The problem lies elsewhere.

But as far as any suggestion here goes, I stand by my usual perspective: Fix PvE before doing anything about character build options. And as for PvP, no one should seriously care about these particular points. If both sides know how to use their build best, PvP is won by those willing to spend enough gold on heal potions.Very little else matters.

Could not have said it better myself. PVE rework needs to be completed before we start looking at sweeping any changes due to PVP. PVP is something a very small number of players on the server are even remotely interested in, and its something that has never really been "balanced" in this game at all and probably never will be. I haven't engaged in PVP in probably 5 years other than goofing around with some friends to test spells or something.

Making big changes to classes over something maybe 5% of the player base engage in isn't wise before we look at underlying issues with PVE, the thing the majority of the playerbase actually engages in.

[Mork]

Making big changes to classes over something maybe 5% of the player base engage in isn't wise before we look at underlying issues with PVE, the thing the majority of the playerbase actually engages in.

What I ask is not "making changes to classes" it's looking into recently added feature (Kip-up) that breaks knockdown in PvP and further debalances light vs heavy armor choice.

[Fumbles]

I am a relatively new player that migrated from a server which had a serious need for a complete PVE overhaul, to the point where only a few classes/builds could actually do PVE at all without being carried, and the difference between there and here is like night and day. I really do not see the problem with PVE in general really and I just don't get the idea that there is an urgent need for a PVE overhaul. Sure there are underperforming archetypes, and a few things that are a bit, but not overpoweringly, strong, but in general, PVE is in a very good place here. Nothing here is actually busted. Truly busted stuff tends to be so overpoweringly good that it overcentralizes the game and challenging it means making it impossible for anyone else to do anything. The main problems here are a lack of dungeons and of course the previously mentioned underperforming archetypes that need to be boosted. Boosting mobs or nerfing systems isn't the way to fix those problems and in fact exacerbates those problems because it ends up crippling underperformers as it makes it even harder to keep up while the overperformers (none of which are all that crazy here) are often more inconvenienced than crippled. As for kip up itself in a PVE context, it's fine, and the archetypes hit the hardest, such as those that attack with magic as Vancian casters, tend to be ones that need help not nerfs.

[Afendaria]

As for kip up itself in a PVE context, it's fine

In PvE , I really don't see an issue with it either. . . The monsters dont care about your Tumble or HiPs skills.

As mentioned here earlier, with gold, healing pots, and other counters out there, you can still fight it out against people with Kip Up and Hips, even without using Spot, or the Knockdown feat. . You just need to know your kit well enough, and the counters out there..

PvP rarely happens these days like it used to.. . so I don't think its all that big a deal to focus on right now, anyways.

[Ithilan]

I actually think a more annoying part of the Kip Up being baked in to the skills baseline for less armored individuals, is how many creatures now immediately get up from knockdown.

PvP is as others have eluded to, such a niche situation largely. With a hundred and fifty million variables to take in to account, it is not even a rock paper scissor scenario and theres plenty of ways to beat the sneaks for various builds, even if they have the advantage of the opener. It is the same in most other games with stealth characters, it is an opening advantage and playstyle more than anything else, but comes with a trade off.

You can make a beastly tanky sneak as well though that goes mid to high 50s-60 AC, so its not all 40 AC glass canons. And thats the beauty of this game and the options we have on the server, variety. And also makes it hard to implement changes that impact a broader selection of builds, as opposed to individual classes.

That being said, I think the sad part about Kip Up being made so universally available, is how it really makes heavy armor builds a bit obsolete. Every one builds for a mithral chainmail now at the least, and the setting already has a big issue with redundant armor types. After the changes I made my DD drop his entropium full plate, in favor of a chainmail as well.. and that to me breaks immersion a bit, for mechanical advantages and circles back to the issue with Acrobatics being mandatory, just like UMD is and now light armors are.

I prefered kip up being TA only, but then I just build around TA repeatedly so I guess I shouldn't chime in.

TLDR: PvP doesnt matter, build around PvE/PvM balance and immersion rather imo.