DaloLorn wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 6:24 amDruid 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.
DaloLorn wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 6:24 amAble 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.
