The Infinite Unbalanced BGTSCC Mechanics Thread

[Sun Wukong]

The DM that comes up with some asine restrictions on shadows is just plain incompetent. A shadow only requires a source of light, and objects. The only place where HiPS doesn't have a shadow is on the planer Plane of Lightless Visibility and Absolute Flatness.

[Valefort]

Or somewhere with no light at all !

[Sun Wukong]

Or somewhere with no light at all !

What is a shadow? An area with lack of light. Hence... The area would be 100% HiPS zone!

[chad878262]

I disagree. If you're out in the middle of the plains surrounded by grass or in the midst of a desert there would be a distinct lack of shadows which you could use as cover (for example). Regardless, to bring it back on topic... HiPS has been mentioned as OP and there already exists a mechanic which would somewhat mitigate the power of it.

Another list of OP'ness...

Melee Mastery/Ranged Mastery/Unarmed Mastery - One feat which gives equivalent benefit of Weapon Focus, Greater Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization (+2 AB/+2 Damage). Unarmed and Ranged only requires 4 levels of Fighter too.

Mithral Chainmail - one AC less than full plate for only 14 DEX investment (with +4 bracers available)... Having a +3 one available with all the other stats it gives (+3 CHA, bonus to perform) is a bit ridiculous. That MCM should be nerfed further (along with many of the other epic weapons/armors/items).

[Nemni]

Death Ward. Let's have a cheap spell that makes you immune to a whole array of things and then make it last for hour/level!

... but fantasy games that actually are balanced often end up bland. Like the fighter swings a sword for 2.1 seconds for 200 damage and the wizard casts a fireball for 3s that deals 285 damage. Then another magey class arrives and cast another ball of totally different color. Great balance, much fun.

[Tekill]

The longer this list gets the more balanced things appear.
...its like the 3 stooges syndrome- this balance becomes....indestructible!

[Born2BeWild]

hips+ghost step combo

[Steve]

RE: HiPS

What I'd offer is the most broken part of HiPS is that even if you have NO h/ms Skills whatsoever, just clicking Hide will break targeted attacks against your PC.

And just for giggles, I'll add another pet peeve "unbalanced" aspect of BGTSCC:

Disparity between Level 1 and 30 PCs interacting with each other.

In reference to how D&D was designed to be played—in campaigns with PCs in level-relation to each other AND the encounters they would face during the Campaign—BGTSCC presents both PC/NPC encounters that, imho, are the base of why powerbuilding and power-creep are prevalent.

As has been pointed out many, many, many times before, D&D does not exist as some truly balance game in the first, although the PnP version of D&D does incorporate limitations for "balancing." So in a way BGTSCC has no requirement to itself become some paragon of balancedness-ness in contrast.

That said, there are definitely a number of kooky mechanics that give one pause and possibly an annoyance with "how things work" mechanically. Should they be change though? Yes and no, because as the past has shown, mechanical "adjustments" are made all the time to better facilitate the game play...but that game play then becomes less fun.

Carry on!

[Invoker]

knowledge of game mechanics...

QFT.

[Hammer_Song]

3 pages in and no-one has mentioned Favoured Soul?

[izzul]

Regarding the Epic shops...

Original suggestion/direction was supposed to have items that were close, but still below what could be found in the loot table. Instead items implemented are stronger than most items found in the loot table. A good change would be to make epic shop items (and to avoid grandfathered gear, existing items on PCs) a bit weaker...

two scenarios

1.-Old players who worked hard to find/trade/grind their gold and items to buy MFP/epic gear before the hell shop was introduced will dislike hell shop as it disrupts 70% of their 9 years of effort collecting things.(be it either +4 EB item for mechanical power, or +4 sense motive/intimidate item for RP powerbuilders).

-Hence this will lead to less trade interactions between players (ex:i can just run with my lvl 20 to loot grind low lvl chests from Soubar to Nashkel for 2 weeks and buy that Epic +4EB,+2vampiric regen, 1d4 piercing longsword or buy that +4 diplomacy/intimidate item for my bard to use in Events). Lesser RP interactions for trade/leads to self grinding/login with 20 toons to find gold and do loot run ignoring low lvl RP in dungeons.

-this leads to grandfathered items being hoarded(ex:i dont need to buy/trade my Epics/grandfathered items since hell shop items is better than what you can offer)

-leading to some people complaining that "he never trade his epics/he is a hard guy to barter with/his stash sits there piling up(without realizing that it takes people more than 5 years of hard work to gather them)

scenario 2
-hell shop item helps old and new players alike and many mechanical/RP build can be implemented. (ex:finally my spear can pierce the Balor since now i have a +4EB cold iron super spear/ ex:fnally i can make a 90 appraise toon with this new hell shop items). This leads to easier dungeon content thanks to the newly implemented yellow encounter it balances things a bit.

-leads to happy both old and new players alike. ex: now i have that +4EB 1d4 crit Sylvan scimitar and i dont need your Epic Viper anymore. i dont need to interact with you in game since your toon is Evil, and i can keep playing with my own cliques where i ignore you both IC and OOC.(sarcasm)

-leads to more people experimenting with new classes and builds that was not so interesting before hell shop items was introduced and RCR every 2 months.

All in all, there are Pro's and Cons. more Pro's in my opinion but the Cons comes at the a cost everyone needs to accept to pay it off

[izzul]

Storm Avatar UMD scroll.

[V'rass]

Lol you think stuff on this server is OP, you should visit Haven and see the kind of gear, spells, feats, and class powers you can get there. OP does not even begin to accurately describe the ridiculously insane goodies you can get there. Often right from lv 1.

[Young Werther]

Doors, corner sneaking, transition points, heal pots, crit immunity, duration aoes, divine cheddar, logging out and waiting for server reset, penalty-less death at 30, anything DM related pretty much.

Oh, nvm I see this all falls under the preview of mechanical knowledge and already pointed out.

In NWN1 mobs follow you past transition points. I wish that were here.

[Hoihe]

Spot (used against hide, disguise and feint...no other skill shuts down so many other skills/abilities).

Full Spell Casters (all of them) - Can fight better than fighters, many can sneak/be skill monkeys better than heavily invested rogues. Basically there is a spell to make them better at everything than the "Tier 2/3/4" classes that specialize in doing something specific. That's D&D though...

DEX/INT melee builds - more AC and damage than a STR Fighter based build. Can generally get AC higher than sword and board with damage as high or higher than a Two hander.

HiPS - would be closer to D&D if this was simply replaced with 0 cooldown Hide in the Shadows which Rogues currently get at class level 21. Requires using the environment rather than just popping in to invisibility out of nowhere.

Anointed Knight/Warrior of Darkness - Gives much needed will saves to Fighters and for the cost of one feat (iron will) you get 3 useful feats plus two (usually) epic feats in addition to opening up useful skills and getting more skill points per level. Every Fighter build is better if they take either AK or WoD then if they go with some other selection.

Bosses - Many of the top end epic bosses are cake walks for the melee power builds and casters while they all have immunities against everything Rogues do well. (go solo the Balor naked with a R16/M3/NWN3/A8 M3nt...I dare ya! ) Not so much that bosses are "OP" here just that I wish the balance of the server was such that there were bosses designed to be more difficult for what is considered the 'typical' power builds rather than them all having similar immunities, strengths and weaknesses.

Dex/int builds only work if you munchkin things.

You literally can't carry anything - and I say this as someone who has access to magic to reduce the amount of stuff I need to carry.

When I played a DW10/sorc10/EK10 with 18 strength, I could just loot half the server and still run casually.

As a wiz11/swash5/duelist5/sd3, I just open a chest and get encumbered. And still not have enough AB, HP and damage to do anything.

Meanwhile strength fellow just...
Gets AB from STR
DMG from STR,
AC from STR,
carry weight from STR.