Owl's Insight to P&P equivilent duration

[DaloLorn]

I'm with JAG and renshouj on this. Given the prevalence of immunities and inflated saves in PvE and PvP alike, DC druids aren't exactly the most threatening thing out there. (I say this as someone who's tried building one. Sure, you can probably get a pretty high success rate against basic mooks, but you're not likely to scratch a boss or an even semi-competently prepared PC.) Druid/monks sacrifice a ton of monkiness (and likely epic wildshapes, which are a lot more powerful than the monk levels) to benefit from the spell, or a ton of druidiness to be competent monks. Archer druids miss out on favored enemies, high BAB, and all the other sweet goodies associated with the traditional archery classes/PRCs.

I won't deny that the spell is powerful. But this power manifests itself either as buffing the weakest druid/shaman archetypes to a vague semblance of competence, or as buffing solid non-druid/shaman builds to godhood. I'm pretty sure we're trying to deal with that latter part.

I'd sooner go with something like this:

• Make Owl's Insight a self-only buff. You can't take a pocket druid/shaman to buff your monk/WIS ranger to high heaven anymore.
• Either massively nerf elixirs of Owl's Insight (AoS' proposal of increased costs is one option; another is to institute a CL limit) or remove them outright. TBH, it might also be worth considering doing something about Tortoise Shell, but that's a separate discussion.

[Almarea90]

I also must agree that the issue isn't really the spell itself but the fact that everyone and their grandmother can use it with full CL. I also agree with JustAnotherGuy that the duration of the spells compared with the inflated interaction time in DM events -is- a problem.

Now with regards to the solutions offered:

- Making Owl's Insight personal imho wouldn't really sort the problem, but would encourage people to rely even more on elixirs and less on the spellcaster. Personally I would prefer seeing a group making an IC effort to find someone who can cast that particular spell, which would also make the spellcaster feel valuable, rather than a one man army who can sort everything by themselves just chugging down potions.

- Ramping up the cost might work in the short term, however I am cautious that this will further widen the divide between those who have endless resources accumulated and those who don't. Another thing to consider is that this could be detrimental to the master alchemist, especially if they take advantage of the auction to sell. Ramping up the cost of production would mean also ramping up the cost of selling the elixir, which means a bigger fee from the auction. If that batch of elixirs goes unsold, the master alchemist risks losing more than they would gain.

Granted I am not a dev and I am unsure if this is doable, but what I would suggest is making no nerf or minor nerfs to the spellcaster version and instead nerfing the consumable version. And this is something I would take into consideration for some or all elixirs. The below might improve things if they are doable:

- Reducing the elixir CL cap. This should reduce the duration and make it easier to dispell, thus preventing those who have money from being as strong as a full spellcaster without investing in the class. Now, I appreciate that the master alchemist instead has invested in the class and might be frustrated by the change, so an alternative solution, if possible, could be allowing the full CL -only- if the elixir is used by the master alchemist themselves either on themselves or someone else. I also appreciate this might be hard to implement.

- Adding a UMD requirement for the consumption of elixirs (if possible based on the CL of the elixir). Of course everyone and their grandmother has UMD, and the skill requires a separate discourse, but at least this would make the use of elixirs slightly less OP than wands or scrolls.

- As it was proposed, nerfing the duration to 1 min/cl or 1 rl hour would be also a solution. This would give an additional advantage to the spellcaster who can extend it over the elixir user. Personally I would opt for 1 min/cl as this would further reward investing in the class progression rather than a flat 1 hour.

- Empowering the zoo spells to the same duration. As much as I would like it as a spellcaster, I understand this would likely be nightmare for the devs and would likely further upset the already precarious balance of the game.

[DaloLorn]

All five of your proposals are technically doable, and mostly without any real hassle (the class-specific CLs and UMD checks are easily the toughest of the lot, but still feasible IMO). I actually mentioned the CL cap as an alternative to increasing elixir costs.

However, as you suspected, increasing the durations of the lesser animal spells doesn't solve the problem. (As fun as it would be for me to never need ability score items again, I'm personally not too keen on reducing Abyssal Might/Animalistic Power to absolute insignificance, and it would be a pretty hefty buff to basically everyone.)

As for the rest... it's ultimately up to the team to decide which ones, and everyone else to offer coherent arguments to help them decide.

[KOPOJIbPAKOB]

Just as Tortoise Shell, Owl's Insight only becomes imbalanced when it's elixired. The issue is not these spells, the issue is Master Alchemist class that, while not being imbalanced on its own, provides imbalanced features to other characters.

The fix is simple and there already were precedents (eg Divine Power restricted to 12 cl). Restrict the elixir CL to somewhere between 12-15 for both. The elixirs will remain useful, just weaker and easily dispellable. I also support making Owl's Insight self-cast only.

[Blaze]

What other elixirs are so popular besides owl insight and tortoise shell?

Implementing such a nerf means cutting sharply the earnings of a master alchemist and part of their RP

The cost of these two elixirs is among the highest but what has always made me turn up my nose is to give a similar buff possibility without any investment other than gold farming.

Scrolls require a high investment in UMD but have a CL cap, while elixirs have the maximum cap at 30 CL without any investment in UMD, just...WHY?!

In my opinion, the alternative is to increase the elixir's crafting cost and at the same time increase the scrolls CL.

PnP comparison?
If we were to take into account PnP in each spell there would be an endless list of nerfs.
Premonition doesn't grant DR: 30 but uncanny dodge +2 bonus to Reflex saves and Dexterity checks.
Shadow shield is not a spell but a feat,

Hidden: show

You get a +2 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities with the shadow descriptor. You also get a +2 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities that draw on the magic of the Shadow Weave. These benefits stack with each other.

Mage armor is ''armor'' AC, not ''armor enchantment'' ac, it works on clothes but not on armors.

I could go on listing many other spells but honestly nerfs, whatever their nature are, what benefit do they bring to the gaming experience? Balance? After cosmo UMD update can we really talk of balance?

Ramp the cost up 6x per elixir creation, cutting down overabundant usage from non druids.

I agree with AoS, just for the first part. increase the crafting cost but don't touch the duration, especially in DM events because it's painful to waste 100k+ of elixirs/scrolls/wands.

[Dragonslayer]

The fact that there's such strong pushback against getting a +12 to a stat, any stat, for the duration of an entire server reset confuses me. Even the spell as is is a massive buff for any druid caster, WIS monk, or whatever else build that relies on WIS for skills/DC/ab/ac. There exists no other equivalent in the entire game, bar none. With the glut of consumable play already present on the server, making it more difficult for consumable based builds (and let's be real here, normal casters won't be affected much if at all by a 15 minute duration as they can rest and regain it in short order) to roll through content is a good thing, in my opinion.

And yes, I've seen monk WIS builds roll through content with one of those potions downed, thank you.

[Rhifox]

PnP comparison?
If we were to take into account PnP in each spell there would be an endless list of nerfs.
Premonition doesn't grant DR: 30 but uncanny dodge +2 bonus to Reflex saves and Dexterity checks.
Shadow shield is not a spell but a feat,

Hidden: show

You get a +2 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities with the shadow descriptor. You also get a +2 bonus on all saving throws against spells and spell-like abilities that draw on the magic of the Shadow Weave. These benefits stack with each other.

Mage armor is ''armor'' AC, not ''armor enchantment'' ac, it works on clothes but not on armors.

I could go on listing many other spells but honestly nerfs, whatever their nature are, what benefit do they bring to the gaming experience? Balance? After cosmo UMD update can we really talk of balance?

And I'd love to fix these two. Shadow Shield is another particularly egregious spell.

Mage Armor would be stronger if it was armor AC instead of armor enchantment AC, though. That'd be a big buff to clothies and Dex casters.

And Cosmo skills are not likely to stay in their current implementation.


As far as everyone pointing out elixirs... those are another problem. It's a class that, frankly, never should have been added, that's had to have so many exceptions baked into its coding to try and balance it and even with those, elixirs are still extremely powerful and practically mandatory for many people. It's another class that needs looking at, both to remove the silly exception coding and to make it less potent overall (and something that people can't just use as an alt).

[Blaze]

For the UMD cosmo fix just make it as per PnP

Ability score roll DC:5 (wis/cha for divine and int/cha for arcane)
UMD DC: 20+CL
Raise the scrolls CL to 30 for an UMD check of 50

Completely removing cosmo UMD it's not a good idea now, you should give a 100% rcr token because 16 ranks would not be enough and players would go back to dipping classes like rogue / bard / warlock / WD for the 33 ranks.

One way to solve the use of elixirs is simple, a daily cap (per rest) of 1 elixir.
A monk or cleric can use owl insight or tortoise shell, any melee noncaster can use tortoise , greater heroism or displacement.
No more tortoise + superior resistance combo, owl insight + tortoise shell, amplify + clairaudience against hipsters.

Wands, just remove some of the most op wands like mirrors + displacement and redisgn the PvE completely for such a change, we all know what are the most broken wands and even if I use a shitload of those, I don't mind less wand usage. At the same time, any caster would be more powerful both in pvp and pve.
Balance is always an issue and it's impossible to find a middle ground

[DaloLorn]

The fact that there's such strong pushback against getting a +12 to a stat, any stat, for the duration of an entire server reset confuses me. Even the spell as is is a massive buff for any druid caster, WIS monk, or whatever else build that relies on WIS for skills/DC/ab/ac. There exists no other equivalent in the entire game, bar none. With the glut of consumable play already present on the server, making it more difficult for consumable based builds (and let's be real here, normal casters won't be affected much if at all by a 15 minute duration as they can rest and regain it in short order) to roll through content is a good thing, in my opinion.

And yes, I've seen monk WIS builds roll through content with one of those potions downed, thank you.

A couple of quick corrections:

• For my part, I do agree that it's an overwhelming buff to anything, except DC druids. It would be an overwhelming buff to DC druids, too, if not for these factors:
  • While it certainly skews the odds against mundane NPCs in your favor, those mundane mobs are too numerous and too spread out for an offensive caster to be effective with anything less than an infinite supply of spells. Even if you're using save-or-die spells, Reserve feats might count, but even on a failed save, you're probably better off wildshaping and smacking the enemy down.
  • Most bosses are immune - if not formally, then through inflated saves and Epic Resilience - to any DC spells you might want to cast.
  • Unless caught completely unprepared, a lot of player characters will be about as hard to land a DC spell on as a boss. Spell mantles, protections from alignment, mind blanks, and various other immunity and save spells from elixirs, scrolls, wands and spellbooks alike are a staple of BG's PvP environment, and that's not accounting for the save boosts offered by rampant multiclassing, stacking save items, and that sort of thing.
• Normal casters actually will be affected somewhat by a 15-minute timer (... unless they extend, and even then, only if they can rest every time the timer expires). The maximum rest timer is 20 minutes. Additionally, as stated by others, DM events and other RP-intensive adventures can make very short actions take a very long amount of time.

[Dragonslayer]

The fact that there's such strong pushback against getting a +12 to a stat, any stat, for the duration of an entire server reset confuses me. Even the spell as is is a massive buff for any druid caster, WIS monk, or whatever else build that relies on WIS for skills/DC/ab/ac. There exists no other equivalent in the entire game, bar none. With the glut of consumable play already present on the server, making it more difficult for consumable based builds (and let's be real here, normal casters won't be affected much if at all by a 15 minute duration as they can rest and regain it in short order) to roll through content is a good thing, in my opinion.

And yes, I've seen monk WIS builds roll through content with one of those potions downed, thank you.

A couple of quick corrections:

• For my part, I do agree that it's an overwhelming buff to anything, except DC druids. It would be an overwhelming buff to DC druids, too, if not for these factors:
  • While it certainly skews the odds against mundane NPCs in your favor, those mundane mobs are too numerous and too spread out for an offensive caster to be effective with anything less than an infinite supply of spells. Even if you're using save-or-die spells, Reserve feats might count, but even on a failed save, you're probably better off wildshaping and smacking the enemy down.
  • Most bosses are immune - if not formally, then through inflated saves and Epic Resilience - to any DC spells you might want to cast.
  • Unless caught completely unprepared, a lot of player characters will be about as hard to land a DC spell on as a boss. Spell mantles, protections from alignment, mind blanks, and various other immunity and save spells from elixirs, scrolls, wands and spellbooks alike are a staple of BG's PvP environment, and that's not accounting for the save boosts offered by rampant multiclassing, stacking save items, and that sort of thing.
• Normal casters actually will be affected somewhat by a 15-minute timer (... unless they extend, and even then, only if they can rest every time the timer expires). The maximum rest timer is 20 minutes. Additionally, as stated by others, DM events and other RP-intensive adventures can make very short actions take a very long amount of time.

I mostly agree with you, except for the assertion that DC druids have anything really going against them.

As of right now, a 30 WIS Druid can hit a base DC of 24 prior to spell level, with Prodigy and epic caster levels. Add Hierophant to that, pop in an additional 1 DC for epic caster levels and you're looking at a base of 25 prior to any Spell Focus feats. Make it an Aasimar, and you can hit 36 WIS by investing in Epic Wisdom all along the way, making your bonus +13, making your base DC 27 prior to spell level. Now, add owl's insight? Your WIS is 48, 2 below the maximum stat allowable, and an instant +6 DC, making your base DC 33. Which means your 9th level druid spells carry a base DC of 42, prior to any spell focus feats.

In addition for Hierophant, and I'm quoting Invoker here:

-) Blast Infidel: it's rather good, because 150 to 300 negative energy dmg Harms (and with your DCs, it will be 300 often) are on par with several Epic Spells, and better than a few of them.

-) Spell Power & Advanced Divine Spellpower: excellent, for obvious reasons (spell power, length, resistance to Mords which are a major weakness for Druids)

-) Oak Friend: this is absolutely overpowered for party play. It's just ridiculous, and will allow you and your team to walk over everything this server has to offer, including many DM events.

And in addition to those DC spells, you can also pick up an additional +2 DC to Contagion, Infestation of Maggots, Poison, Quillfire, Mass Contagion, Swamp Lung, Blood to Water, Dehydrate, Hypothermia and Cascading Plague. And you're affected by mantles as any wizard or sorcerer, but you have the added bonus of spells like Storm Avatar, Bombardment, Whirlpool, Drown, Earthquake, etc. With a breach wand, mantles, immunities, etc. are about as pierceable to the druid as anyone else. And when you're wildshaped? Can still cast all of those things, as opposed to a wizard who is restricted from casting while shapeshifted.

Call me crazy, but druid casters have a lot to work with.

[Rhifox]

Not that supposed druid DC caster that gets cited as a reason OI is "needed" even exists. They all just go dragon shape.

And JAG, I *wish* I could get 41 AB outside of shape for hours upon hours without having to invest anything into it. That's not a reason OI is needed, it's just another perk of its power.

[DaloLorn]

Loosely in the order they were brought up:

• Aasimar, okay. Maxing WIS, okay... except the epic feats. As tempting as it is to take Great WIS, I really think it's a lot better to sacrifice a point or two of WIS so you can get an epic wildshape. Not taking any of the epic wildshapes is a massive nerf to your primary class feature, and the extra point of DC is simply not worth it.
• Similarly, taking Hierophant (or any other class, really) comes at a considerable cost. Although most of the epic wildshapes can be accessed by a 20-level druid, so you could take all 10 levels in Hierophant without completely trashing yourself, all of them except Magical Beast (easily the weakest one) derive assorted statistical benefits from having more druid levels. If you do it like me and take more than 10 levels of various PRCs? You're going to need all that casting power, because you've just rendered yourself virtually useless as a shapeshifter.
  
  (... Note to self: Don't do things like me. )
• Spellpower, okay, you get +3CL... but Advanced Divine Spellpower? That modifies a cleric ability. You have no reason to take it as a druidic hierophant, if you even have the ability to do so. (I don't think it's physically possible, thankfully, but still.)
• This is a relatively minor one, but wizards actually can cast while shapeshifter. Shapechange -> Illithid. It's not nearly as powerful as Dragon Shape, though...

[Steve]

Problem with ALL dc builds is that epic Bosses and many simple epic mobs have such inflated Saves and Epic Resilience that casting is kinda worthless.

[DaloLorn]

Problem with ALL dc builds is that epic Bosses and many simple epic mobs have such inflated Saves and Epic Resilience that casting is kinda worthless.

I mean... DC 42 might actually present a credible threat to a boss. Maybe. But most bosses just have blanket immunities to anything stronger than a mundane damage spell, which is even worse than mere inflated saves.

And, as mentioned, anything less than a boss is generally not worth wasting a spell slot to kill, because there's a lot more mooks than there are spell slots.

[Dragonslayer]

Problem with ALL dc builds is that epic Bosses and many simple epic mobs have such inflated Saves and Epic Resilience that casting is kinda worthless.

I mean... DC 42 might actually present a credible threat to a boss. Maybe. But most bosses just have blanket immunities to anything stronger than a mundane damage spell, which is even worse than mere inflated saves.

And, as mentioned, anything less than a boss is generally not worth wasting a spell slot to kill, because there's a lot more mooks than there are spell slots.

The point of that little exercise wasn't to say whether or not druid DC casters were feasible or not. They clearly are, even with whatever changes you might make to the build so that it's more well rounded.

My point, was that with a single level level 5 spell, you can be a DC caster as a druid that's on par with at the very least in terms of DC any sort of wizard/shadow adept/red wizard/bloodmage. That in shortening the duration, you aren't really even hurting most of the builds that use it but making it not only in line with PnP but also more a burst buff that it should be, as opposed to a long term one. I mean, it's not even breachable, so unless you're an abjurer who can kick some serious dispelling rear end, there's no way for it to be dispelled.