Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

This post should not be viewed as a complain, I just hope to sharpen my skills to be able to build characters which can reach lvl 30 and unfold their potential before updates destroy their main mechanics.

There are many builds, like conventional arcane casters, gishes, the standard edm favored soul (i am not so familiar with bard builds), which are very strong and have been playable for a long time. There have also been more unconventional builds like karonds dwarven defender which still is successful after years.

My main problem is that i do not want to play very conventional builds and always fall into the trap that these builds get nerved after i alread have spend a considerable amount of time on them.

In the last few months my three builds:

a crit northlander barbarian, a summoner that relies on expose weakness and a moon blade cleric have been rendered a little useless.

My question is: Is there a way to build unconventional characters which have a lesser chance to be affected by updates? Are there things to consider that might not be found on the wiki or this forum.

I feel you. Had builds of mine hit badly by the CL bug fix, the Light Blindness penalty, the abolition of alignment changing spells, the nerfing of Expose Weakness, the removal of Bear Warrior extra damage, and more. I suspect it's inevitable: the newer your build concept, the more unconventional it'll be, but also the more likely to rely on features that still need tweaking. I just wish there was a periodical free RCR window.

There was a RCR period.

I am a bit confused by this. To the OP, could you provide any specifics around what recent changes have nerfed your character builds?

Rudolph:

Rudolph wrote:CL bug fix, the Light Blindness penalty

In fairness, this was updated in the March 2016 update... I think we can all agree that was a major change to the server mechanics, but there was 6 months of free RCR after that update as various bug fixes went in and we had a 2nd RCR period about a year after the end of the first one for over a month.

Rudolph wrote:abolition of alignment changing spells

Only way this would nerf a build is if you were using them to create an otherwise illegal build, which is why the change was implemented. Only DMs should be changing alignment and it should require RP to do so. It should not be a way to build some kind of hellfire daggerspell mage warlock or Paladin/Sorceror/Blood Mage.

Rudolph wrote: the nerfing of Expose Weakness

While discussions have been had about EW, it has not been nerfed. The auto hit has been fixed, but frankly it works better than it did before. Even if this was nerfed to 1/3 the power that it has currently it'd still be a 'must pick' for anyone that qualifies.

Rudolph wrote:the removal of Bear Warrior extra damage

when did BW extra damage get removed? Valefort made it so they can get MORE damage by allowing weapon elemental bonus damage to apply in bear form.



I am not trying to lesson your argument as there is absolutely a need to avoid continuous changes with the server and this issue has been recognized by Admins and Staff. Now, there is also the desire to ensure the PvE content is still challenging for varied styles of play and that requires ensuring there aren't builds that can one shot the white dragon for instance. Changes will occur over time, but if you post specifically what changes have negatively impacted what builds I'd be happy to take a look and suggest any changes (perhaps minor) that would provide you with a similar outcome to pre-change mechanics.

Recent changes to my builds:

Northlander Hewing Crit build: It was decided not to fix the bug, that northlander hewing does not calculate critical hits correctly.

Moon Blade Cleric: Moon Blade was nerfed from 1d8+1/2lvl (max+15) to 1d8+1/2lvl (max+10)

Expose Weakness summoner:

Aspect of Sorrow wrote:Author: Valefort
Date: Sunday, November 19, 2017 6:43:20 PM
Message:
Expose Weakness's AC decrease from a single source set to not stack.

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Since bear warrior shape is based on rage, it was probably fixed along with the fix of normal rage which added the weapon enhancement bonus as extra damage (just my idea, not proven)

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I understand some of the changes completely: eg northlander hewing + crit build could be pretty op (more so if it would maximize bonus physical damage on crit). I am looking forward to seeing what happens now to those players playing builds relying on ew. Do people now rcr to favored souls and arcane gishes? If this happens do these classes need to fear a severe nerf too?

Kalgain wrote: My question is: Is there a way to build unconventional characters which have a lesser chance to be affected by updates?

Yes. Don't build a character so reliant on a single effect that if it were to change slightly you would reconsider the characters existence.

Moonblade is still a fantastic spell and Northlander Hewing is still a good choice for many two-handed builds. Expose weakness has its own threads so I'll leave comments on that one to those.

I don't really understand the question beyond this. There are multitudes of unused builds, spells and feats that would allow for an unconventional Build for any character you could imagine. Updates to fix exploits, bugs, dis-balancing effects or the expected power level of the server are part of an online game.

I can feel his pain very well, as i also had 3 builds rendered useless over the years by sudden 'fixes' or nerfs.

Latest example: multiple attacks with shield bash.
All the time the feat description stated that you get 3 attacks, now you need to spend 3/4 feats for it.

If someone needed EW Auto-hit and/or -15 AC in order to be viable then they probably were going a bit too far in nerfing their build in the first place.

Note that the build types EW are meant for, the ones that take SIGNIFICANT levels in the classes that grant evasion from vanilla NWN2 are the least impacted by the change. See, the AC malus goes against dodge AC, but on a sneak attack dodge AC (positive or negative) doesn't count. So Rogue's and other sneak attack based characters have never really benefitted from the AC malus, only from the stacking damage on turn to get around enemies with high DR.

If you are building a melee focused character that needs Expose Weakness to hit enemies then I would say there are other things you could do to improve your Attack Bonus legitimately. Enemy AC's are not very high on this server and 40AB is generally plenty for 97% of the mobs and bosses on the server. There might be 2 bosses that you'll want to use a gr. heroism pot or some other buffs for, but otherwise it's simply not difficult to land hits without abusing broken AC Debuff.

That said, we are still discussing EW so I don't know that the full non-stacking is where we will land when all said and done. I do know it's not going to remain at -15 AC.

Sounds like moonblade nerf was -5 total damage, which is not so bad considering the other benefits.

Northlander Hewing, yeah I think it is kind of difficult to make the damage calc work right for critical hits, but even if it wasn't too difficult to implement it would make it too powerful. It compares quite favorably to Improved Power Attack, especially when you consider it only costs one feat instead of two and the original implementation only gave you half your APR, so that feat was actually improved, as opposed to nerfed.

Bear Warrior Rage actually has nothing to do with Standard Rage to best of my knowledge. As I understand it there have been inconsistencies with what was written about the class on the old wiki, vs. forums, vs. what's in game, but we have not nerfed that class at all and in fact it has been given a couple of improvements in the past year or so.

I think a lot fewer people play Favored Souls then is often mentioned. I also think Arcane Gishes are something people play because they like the RP and the idea of them moreso then because they are powerful. If it is just about the most powerful buff+bash Favored Soul and Cleric is just plain better. Arcane Gish builds generally either have lower caster level or their BAB is a bit low or their damage sucks (or a combination of the three in some way).

I have played gishes, I have a level 30 bard, I have played DC Wizrards, many rogue/sneak builds as well as non-caster melee characters. None of them are especially difficult once you learn that you can't play one like the other and expect to be successful. I can't use my rogue the same way I use my Thayan Knight and then get upset when I die, right?

I'm not seeing anything in the changes listed that should cause an otherwise fun concept to be unplayable, but perhaps your experience is different. I'm not trying to come off as saying "L2P Newbie" so much as trying to understand what it is about the changes, or lack of changes that makes a given feat or class too weak to be viable. Based on what I have read thus far and based on my own testing everything is still quite playable, but that doesn't mean my experience is universal!

Regarding NH and crits there's no decision to take, it's not technically possible to do.

chad878262 wrote:Note that the build types EW are meant for, the ones that take SIGNIFICANT levels in the classes that grant evasion from vanilla NWN2 are the least impacted by the change. See, the AC malus goes against dodge AC, but on a sneak attack dodge AC (positive or negative) doesn't count. So Rogue's and other sneak attack based characters have never really benefitted from the AC malus, only from the stacking damage on turn to get around enemies with high DR.

Except for monk, no? It just reaches about 40 AB with a significant wis/dex investment and can hardly be expected to attack out of stealth all the time. Flurry doesn't help if your highest attack can still be too low. EW could help, after several rounds of chances to apply it. Another example is the spirit shaman, that is not originally meant to use EW perhaps, but that struggles for AB. There are probably more examples.

The least affected by this are the classes that already have plenty of AB to spare. The typical powerful clerics/fs, high str barbarians and bards. EW is the most useful for classes that struggle with AB. That's why in my opinion this is not a good change. (Though I've also heard that some of the highest AC monsters might get nerfed a bit, which ofc helps.)

Nemni wrote:Except for monk, no? It just reaches about 40 AB with a significant wis/dex investment and can hardly be expected to attack out of stealth all the time. Flurry doesn't help if your highest attack can still be too low. EW could help, after several rounds of chances to apply it. Another example is the spirit shaman, that is not originally meant to use EW perhaps, but that struggles for AB. There are probably more examples.

chad878262 wrote:we are still discussing EW so I don't know that the full non-stacking is where we will land when all said and done. I do know it's not going to remain at -15 AC.

40 AB would be perfectly fine for a pure or mostly pure monk when you are getting 3 attacks at that AB. If EW is -3 AC that is effectively 43 AB, maybe it stacks to -6 AC which is effectively 46 AB...more than enough. Stacking 15 AC malus is too much when EW is no longer difficult to trigger. In practice the way it used to be it was tough to get it to fire on the first attack every round so more than likely you were usually only applying -6 or -9 AC to a given enemy (most likely a boss since mobs die before too many maluses can be applied.) Point being, looking at it as a nerf isn't wholly accurate since it applies more often now since if the first attack misses it will apply on the next. Thus you are virtually guaranteed to apply EW every single round as opposed to the old mechanics where it was very difficult to trigger it when you want to. 'Fixing' the auto-hit comes with some other variables which make it necessary to rebalance the specific mechanic, but Expose Weakness is still the best feat you can take for anyone that has the qualification for it.

Nemni wrote:

chad878262 wrote:Note that the build types EW are meant for, the ones that take SIGNIFICANT levels in the classes that grant evasion from vanilla NWN2 are the least impacted by the change. See, the AC malus goes against dodge AC, but on a sneak attack dodge AC (positive or negative) doesn't count. So Rogue's and other sneak attack based characters have never really benefitted from the AC malus, only from the stacking damage on turn to get around enemies with high DR.

Except for monk, no? It just reaches about 40 AB with a significant wis/dex investment and can hardly be expected to attack out of stealth all the time. Flurry doesn't help if your highest attack can still be too low. EW could help, after several rounds of chances to apply it. Another example is the spirit shaman, that is not originally meant to use EW perhaps, but that struggles for AB. There are probably more examples.

The least affected by this are the classes that already have plenty of AB to spare. The typical powerful clerics/fs, high str barbarians and bards. EW is the most useful for classes that struggle with AB. That's why in my opinion this is not a good change. (Though I've also heard that some of the highest AC monsters might get nerfed a bit, which ofc helps.)

Were you able to time your EW correctly on every round before? The answer to this is a big no. Many EW attempts missed, however there was the autohit bug - i hope you agree with that removal.

With the new EW version it is easier to use the EW on most high AB attacks. Not only that, but if the EW fails on an attack, because it is implemented as an on hit effect, it will carry over to the next attack, hitting almost everytime. This not only ensure a constant AC debuff, but more and continuous bleeding damage. It was far more powerful and that is why it was suggested to lower the stacking of the AC debuff.

Using the Monk that you used as an example, this version of EW will ensure that one of the many attacks will hit, which in essence means that your build has +3-6 AB. In regards to effectiveness and usability, the current EW is hands down, so much better than the previous version.

I don't think the unhappiness is always about having your build nerfed into unusability. For those that enjoy the mechanical aspects of the game, working towards a specialty or perfecting an unusual ability is part of the fun. The cherry on the top and of the sundae, if you will.

Telling somebody their build is still decent isn't going to help them feel better if the bonus they worked towards has vanished. downright wimpy builds can do just fine on this server if they take their time and acquire decent gear and consumables, so the disappointment when a build gets nerfed probably isn't about its overall viability. anybody would be disappointed if they built a (semi) unique and finely tuned automobile that hummed along beautifully, only to have the engine sabotaged by a rules change on the track. Or perhaps it's like having a work of art vandalized. My analogies are weak, but you get the idea.

I'm agreed with most content points in response to the initial posts. Yes, there was an RCR period at some point, which was good. And yes, some of the changes I mentioned were not debilitating in most contexts and many needed to be made. I just suggested occasional free RCR might be made regular after a certain amount of changes to encourage experimental builds. In the spirit of the first post, I didn't mean to complain, though, just to point out that there are other players who particularly enjoy making builds that heavily rely on new features, are build around one effect, or otherwise push the envelope into the unexpected.

Small points:
1) Since the last update, EW seems to no longer stack with itself. That's the 'nerf' I meant. +3 AB versus 1 or 2 Epic feats is no longer a no brainer.
2) The BW might have been improved in reality, but was changed compared to the initial wiki entry, where it had ca. 1d6 more damage than is possible now (+2d6 as well as +4 EB), which one of my concepts relied upon to reach the minimum dmg I stipulated. The bear roar, too, made a difference that might make me want to RCR and push Intimidate.
3) An example I haven't mentioned: Northlander Hewing was made unusable with ranged weapons after I had built a crossbowyer around that possibility (I know it seems weird, but then so are Mighty crossbows, and I like weird).
4) Yes, the alignment change spells allowed for otherwise illegal builds. Which was great fun for me even though they needed careful planning and the casting requirements prevented OP outcomes at least as far as I could see. The downside is, if you make any mistake with such builds now, they are utterly unfixable even with free RCR. That's fine, though. I'm just saying to illustrate a playing preference.

There's a difference between -3 AC which the patch notes suggests and -6 or -9 as some have talked about. I agree that -9 probably wouldn't be a nerf in practice. I also agree that potential -15 AC from a feat is a bit extreme. But what I don't agree with is the idea that this hurts the builds that need this feat the least. More builds than just rogues rely on EW in epics to be viable (or just fun to play). The builds that care less are already the strongest on the server. This is especially true when you consider that it was the builds with the least AB that got the most out of the autohit bug. Fixing bugs are great and all, build diversity is also great to promote, but balance also matters.