Coming Soon: Discussion Thread (2021)

[The_Sorting_Hat]

Dragon druids, favored EDM, well built bards, good blaster warlocks, a few gish builds, edm maa, all do about the same power level, be it in different ways. I'm really not sure what got you this upset. Ive played stronger builds than those stats you're so worried over and it didnt break the universe.

[mrm3ntalist]

Dragon druids, favored EDM, well built bards, good blaster warlocks, a few gish builds, edm maa, all do about the same power level, be it in different ways. I'm really not sure what got you this upset. Ive played stronger builds than those stats you're so worried over and it didnt break the universe.

Shifter is a non magic user, comparable to meleers. The stats I mentioned are with no magic. If you add magic they go off the charts. Like 60+AC, 50sAB, extra immunities etc. I dont know where you get that i got upset. I LOVE-LOVE-LOVE powerful builds and like i said before i already saved 2 characters with enough xp to get them to 30 for the shifter. I would be one of the first that will have multiple shifters with retarded equipment and have fun with that.

My comments are mostly to what I consider balanced.

[Kalgain]

Could you please leave darkness domain for Selune or give moon domain blindfight? blindfight is also a requirement for silverstars of selune PRC which already takes away 3 feats.

[izzul]

Could you please leave darkness domain for Selune or give moon domain blindfight? blindfight is also a requirement for silverstars of selune PRC which already takes away 3 feats.

need to know how many clerics affected, and how many feats lost from each individual PCs

[mrm3ntalist]

Could you please leave darkness domain for Selune or give moon domain blindfight? blindfight is also a requirement for silverstars of selune PRC which already takes away 3 feats.

Darkness still gets bindfight according to Rhifox's excel doc

[Rhifox]

Could you please leave darkness domain for Selune or give moon domain blindfight? blindfight is also a requirement for silverstars of selune PRC which already takes away 3 feats.

need to know how many clerics affected, and how many feats lost from each individual PCs

Working on a solution for this. Gods that have Darkness now will most likely continue to have Darkness as it thematically fits the god. Another solution will be offered for gods that lose non-appropriate domains that could break builds (prc/feat requirements), such as adding that feat to a different domain or giving that god a custom, lore-appropriate domain.

Reminder once again that Deity-Domain list is not final and still actively being worked on.

[The_Sorting_Hat]

Yea, but then with that logic... Any melee build gets insane if you add magic on top. Of course it would. As there's another character buffing them, so you really have the power of two people in one.

I just counted what each character can do themselves, don't see much of a difference between magic and non-magic builds, especially when it's either a warlock or a cl30 thing that doesn't get dispelled short of a very few situations where it's unavoidable.

Anyway, I'm excited to see if it ends up being too strong. My 30rcr toon is ready as well

[Steve]

Dragon druids, favored EDM, well built bards, good blaster warlocks, a few gish builds, edm maa, all do about the same power level,…

The issue is that over the many recent years, no NEW classes/PrCs were added anywhere near these power levels, because everyone knows they are OP and provide the Soloists Dream and the DMs nightmare!!

For a long time now, builds such as Ranger 30 and Paladin 30 were used as benchmarks to power, for new additions. As another example, even the upgrade to Barbarian 30 was nerfed after coming online, but it STILL is rather op when you consider the many, many other additions since!

Sure, we can argue all day to Sunday that D&D isn’t a balanced game, and NWN2 and furthermore BGTSCC just make it even less a balanced game. But what ends up happening is, that since this game game rewards build-play over Role-play like 25-to-1, players gravitate toward the power of builds and that leads to a population OF powebuilds, RP skewed a d non-reflective of Abilities/Skills, and a ton of non-group, non-collaborative play.

And the Shifter is going to bring in a total “wave” of Form Fanatics, which will just get goofy.

[The_Sorting_Hat]

What do you mean by -tota wave of forum fanatics-?

...sorry, I don't spend much time here. This shifter thing is making me spend more time on the forums than I know I should

[DaloLorn]

TBH, the stat blocks outlined earlier are somewhat disingenuous:

• You're only getting 9 regeneration if you have a regeneration cloak, Shifter 17, and the Ogre Mage shape active. Arguably, if you're a druid/SS you can self-cast Vigor for maybe 11 regeneration at a time, but... it's dispellable, and it'll only last for short bursts. (I guess there's also Fast Healing, whose prerequisite CON also reduces the odds of corpsing yourself while shifting out of most shapes, but throwing that much into CON is going to require sacrifices elsewhere.)
• 10 DR is only available at Shifter 20, and only in certain shapes. Three of the five shapes are counterable with either cold iron or alchemical silver, and the other two are clearly designed to be the beefiest, tankiest shapes you get. All five shapes can be relatively effectively targeted by magic, and as I mentioned in the other thread, I think we're going to see more Silverstars coming out of the woodwork to abuse Shifters' greatest weakness.
• 55+ unbuffed AC... sure, on the owlbear, with ICE. My earlier calculations did overlook the existence of the Armor Skin feat, but the owlbear is still the only shape capable of hitting the theoretical maximum of 58 unbuffed/64 buffed AC. Anything else is going to fall short of that by at least a few points, and/or lose DR.
• 40+ unbuffed AB... okay, I can see that. +4 gloves, no less than 25 BAB, and a strength score ranging from 20 (naked gelatinous cube, the weakest of the melee shapes) to 37 (owlbear with +4 item) gets you between 34 and 42 AB on the lowest-BAB Shifter build I can think of. I guess 32-40 if you were deliberately screwing up your BAB progression with odd-level low-BAB classes. You're still going to have room for +16 AB from external sources after you put your gloves on, so we're looking at owlbear ABs in the late 50s to early 60s depending on the build if properly buffed and forgoing CE/ICE. Autohits almost anything I can think of, which is pretty scary... but I can't think of a lot of decent melee builds that couldn't manage that kind of offense under a full set of buffs.
  
  They'll still need to cut through Premonitions and innate DR, though, because they don't get to use the right weapon material for a given opponent. They'd better have good creature weapons if they want to regularly deal damage outside Ogre Mage - unlike monks, they don't have the option of switching to kamas/quarterstaves if they run into, say, a certain feytouched warlock with 9 DR/cold iron and infinite Dark Premonitions... 8)
• 26 STR isn't a given. Multiple forms clock in under 16 base STR, and there's a few that don't even hit 12.

Dragon druids, favored EDM, well built bards, good blaster warlocks, a few gish builds, edm maa, all do about the same power level,…

The issue is that over the many recent years, no NEW classes/PrCs were added anywhere near these power levels, because everyone knows they are OP and provide the Soloists Dream and the DMs nightmare!!

For a long time now, builds such as Ranger 30 and Paladin 30 were used as benchmarks to power, for new additions. As another example, even the upgrade to Barbarian 30 was nerfed after coming online, but it STILL is rather op when you consider the many, many other additions since!

Sure, we can argue all day to Sunday that D&D isn’t a balanced game, and NWN2 and furthermore BGTSCC just make it even less a balanced game. But what ends up happening is, that since this game game rewards build-play over Role-play like 25-to-1, players gravitate toward the power of builds and that leads to a population OF powebuilds, RP skewed a d non-reflective of Abilities/Skills, and a ton of non-group, non-collaborative play.

And the Shifter is going to bring in a total “wave” of Form Fanatics, which will just get goofy.

I remain... cautiously optimistic. On the one hand, a Shifter promises exceptional flexibility, being able to competently occupy half of the possible roles in a party with barely any preparation in advance. (More if they take a Rogue dip and ranks in Open Lock/Disable Device!) You can be a tank, a brawler, a blaster, a font of infinite invisibility, a mediocre archer...

On the other hand, I also see reasons why they would not be as effective as some of the other builds you're discussing, and a number of glaring weaknesses that the class has little to no defense against, especially if they're trying to solo. What if spellcasting mobs start packing True Form and Reveal Thyself spells, and the Shifter finds that their amazing stat block has evaporated for the next several minutes? What if the Shifter picks the wrong shape for an encounter, and dies trying to shift into a better shape? What if they pick a fight with something they can't tank without consumables? The shapeshifting mechanics guarantee that a Shifter who loses enough of their HP will be locked into their current form until they can recover, which in turn guarantees that they can't even try to down a few Heal potions in an emergency.

[Rhifox]

Also as an fyi, this will probably not be done before the weekend. Some deliberation and work still needs to be done.

We'll consider what to do about current clerics needing RCRs once we're closer to release (though it may not need that in most cases, so we might be able to get away with just 100% tokens). Sorry for the delay, but it ended up being a bigger project than originally expected.

[Steve]

Valefort fixed it so that a PC doesn’t auto-die from low HP in Form, going back to Original Form—a script calculated the ratio of HP so that you get something similar in lost HP, between forms.

[DaloLorn]

Valefort fixed it so that a PC doesn’t auto-die from low HP in Form, going back to Original Form—a script calculated the ratio of HP so that you get something similar in lost HP, between forms.

Oh, wow. This has been a productive nine months, hasn't it?

[Grendunor]

Dragon druids, favored EDM, well built bards, good blaster warlocks, a few gish builds, edm maa, all do about the same power level,…

The issue is that over the many recent years, no NEW classes/PrCs were added anywhere near these power levels, because everyone knows they are OP and provide the Soloists Dream and the DMs nightmare!!

For a long time now, builds such as Ranger 30 and Paladin 30 were used as benchmarks to power, for new additions. As another example, even the upgrade to Barbarian 30 was nerfed after coming online, but it STILL is rather op when you consider the many, many other additions since!

Sure, we can argue all day to Sunday that D&D isn’t a balanced game, and NWN2 and furthermore BGTSCC just make it even less a balanced game. But what ends up happening is, that since this game game rewards build-play over Role-play like 25-to-1, players gravitate toward the power of builds and that leads to a population OF powebuilds, RP skewed a d non-reflective of Abilities/Skills, and a ton of non-group, non-collaborative play.

And the Shifter is going to bring in a total “wave” of Form Fanatics, which will just get goofy.

Steve, Paladin 30 is not a benchmark for power same with ranger 30. To be quite frank most 30 levels of X class build are not going to stand up to PvE content now a days without some impressive golden years grandfathered gear handed down from DM god. You quite simply don't have the sustain* or damage to overcome what's in front of you alone.

Power in builds comes from multiclassing and playing off synergies and that's the way 3.5 has been since it was first spewed forth into the hands of Munchkins and Grognards.
What you don't seem to grasp is that the power creep you complain about is a direct result of PvE content being tooled stronger to "Keep up" with the powerbuilds. The alarmist complaints of "This is to OP" leads to a development mentality of buffing the content to match or challenge while Nerfing existing classes which leads to those RP builders suffering where what once was okay at handling -some- content now struggles or outright falls flat.

What is created there is an environment where to clear content you need to build for power rather than pure RP concept. You will never stop people from powerbuilding, and for many putting together such builds is a meditative process and part of the enjoyment of the game.

This can be mitigated -somewhat- by joining an adventuring party however unless one person in that group meets a certain benchmark of durability things are going to fall apart fast. Even then that is no sure fire thing as there is no Holy trinity (Tank/healer/DPS) mechanic in the game backed up by aggro/threat tables that allows for such focused subdivisions.

Dm's have the whole deck to build a monster to target flaws in builds a DM not being able to challenge a party is a fictional problem that if for some reason comes up has the hive mind of the older vet DM's to educate on how to crank the dial of difficulty up for the party or certain aspects of it. Example. You may have 50ab, uncanny dodge and spicy ac, but when your will save is equivalent to crumbled toast and the Neatherese ghost just hucked a Disjunction you've a round or two to patch that problem before you're drooling on the carpet for several minutes while the rest of the party plays hero


Granted this topic is not the purpose of this thread so i'll end it here

*Sustain refers to fighting without excessive reliance on consumables in a manner than makes tackling the content spend more gold than it earns thus failing to achieve the incentive of a loot run.

TL;DR
Balancing for content powerbuilds means stepping on "RP builds"
Nerfing X class hurts those who don't spend the time hunting down synergies more than those who do

[cosmic ray]

I'm not sure this thread would be the right place to make the following suggestion:

I have noticed that some deities have only two or three domains on BGtSCC, whilst others have up to eight (!!!). Is this big domain update going to address that to some extent? It would be nice not to have any deities with only two domains, as that makes character concepts less varied because a cleric's identity within his faith is supposed to be represented by the domains he took.