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

Hi guys,

am I the only one having problem with the Crippling Strike's effect not applying against some bosses?
I didn't see it working against the Green Dragon or the Fire Giant or the Balor. They are definitely not immune to critical hits so I'm just checking if I missed something...

Thanks in advance for any explanations ^_^

As designed, unfortunately. Rogues/ Swashbucklers abilities are pretty much designed against by the high end bosses. Also makes poisons relatively useless in boss fights. You're only option is to use UMD for defense (which means warding up, eating greater dispel/ breach/ mords, then warding up again) and HiPS to slowly whittle down the massive HP. Like most non caster builds taking on top end bosses like fire giant and balor will usually cost as much as you make unless you get a really nice item drop. Not to say rogues aren't strong in other situations, but many epic bosses are defended against many of their abilities.

In my specific case I'm playing a duelist/swashbuckler, not a rogue, but this problem seems to be affecting also NPCs in DM events:
today I was roleplaying a duel against a warrior, trying to damage his tendons and weaken him little by little trying not to kill him but none of that reflected in the mechanics... didn't end well XD

It's difficult to me to see the bright side of this situation. Such warrior is already useless against any undead, which is an obvious downside of that style. If you take away the rest, there's not much left...

Yeah, Swashbuckler is hard to justify past level 12. Weakening/wounding critical are blocked by so many bosses as well as things like death ward. Unfortunate as SB19/WM7/X4 could be an interesting (if limited) build. With the extra crits not working when they would be most helpful such a build doesn't really work very well.

Blame the casters who would otherwise freekill the bosses by draining and killing with a DC spell No good solution here to my knowledge.

Some bosses are not immune hopefully.

Caster's can still one shot bosses with the right spells, but I understand the reasoning. Just unfortunate that the key abilities of another class get shafted. Wizards just use piercing cold empowered polar rays (ASoC/Frostmage), vampiric feast, avasculate, save or x, bigby/igms spam, cloud spells, etc....

All of these spells have special settings against bosses (avascualte and vamp feast), I was more thinking about spamming enervation into finger of death. That's a frost giant king dead in 3-4 rounds, one of the few high epic bosses who is not immune against draining abilities/spells.

I get it, but I have seen the Frost Giant King one-shotted by a Wizard within the past year or two. My point was that a caster can one shot many of the bosses and the ones they can't one-shot they can certainly stay alive long enough to kill in 4 or 5 rounds anyway. That's why Wizard's are the most powerful. Some enemies should absolutely be immune to Crippling Strike, Weakening Critical, and Wounding Critical (basically any enemy immune to critical hits). However, most should not. Rendering one of the combo's a Wizard can utilize to destroy a boss while still having many other ways to easily dispatch them and hurting a class like Swashbuckler has never made much sense to me. However, this is an old discussion and as I said, I do see the point on both sides. Just disagree with how it works, doesn't mean I have a better option and as you say, there is no real way to make one stat decrease ability work while still defending against the other.

Of course we could give some enemies spell resistance instead of immunity to stat loss, which would of course just mean Wizards have to spend a round or two casting Assay Resistance and/or Mords before going to Energy Drain/Empowered Enervation/Finger of Death. Would still add 1-2 rounds where the boss can be doing something against the wizard. Giving bosses Spell Resistance when they should not have it is no different (in my opinion) then giving them immunity to stat drain when they should not have it.

Or how about just some aura that produces 50% universal spell failure on all hostiles within its radius?

As you have discussed, Critical Hit Immunity/Deathward is there because of Arcanists and to some degree due to Frenzied Weapon Masters. These days UMD can be dispelled, hence the Frenzied Weapon Masters are more of a glass cannons than they were before. Thus, if Arcanists are the primary issue, why not not toss that aura with 50% universal spell failure on them? Perhaps the boss goes down in one spell, or not at all.

If such coin toss is too unfair, well, perhaps it could come with a concentration check to negate.

It could just have something like: 'The sheer fury and wrath of "Boss X" makes it harder to focus on spell casting.'

How would that sound?

And why is it an issue that a class that's otherwise useless (DC casters) gets to shine where their speciality is?

Only thing DC casters are good at is single target deletion and PvP. For PvE, their only option is afk play (summons).

It would be nice if something could be done at least on the side of the NPCs
If the DMs had a choice to use something not immune it would be more fun and also more gratifying for a Swashbuckler to see their actions and their feats' effects reflected in the mechanics during a RP event.
I just thought it would be helpful to point this out but I don't know how difficult that is to put in action... maybe there is an easy fix, maybe not... in any case no worries ^_^

Wouldn't instead of blanket debilitating immunity be better to just put up Necromancy immunity like Shadow Shield does? Since most of these seem to be necromancy spell. It would be neat if SBs main abilities wouldn't be devalued in epic dungeons.

Valefort wrote:Blame the casters who would otherwise freekill the bosses by draining and killing with a DC spell No good solution here to my knowledge.

Some bosses are not immune hopefully.

Sure! You could remove them, so that then the SB can autoattack bosses into oblivion in seconds. Yep, sounds good. Just how many STR and CON points are you going to give them to make them last 3 rounds, exactly?

As you have discussed, Critical Hit Immunity/Deathward is there because of Arcanists and to some degree due to Frenzied Weapon Masters.

I really don't think so, no. A lot of classes can perform on that level, and force that kind of stuff. I don't see wizards/sorcerers and WM/FBs as sticking out at all.

Invoker wrote: Sure! You could remove them, so that then the SB can autoattack bosses into oblivion in seconds. Yep, sounds good. Just how many STR and CON points are you going to give them to make them last 3 rounds, exactly?

This is a fair point! To be honest though, I think also the boss can easily put a SB into oblivion in seconds.
But why not considering to decrease the feat's effectiveness? Like giving to it a % of success? Could it make everything more interesting, random and balanced? It still needs to be a critical hit and if you add another % of success it becomes less likely to happen.

Invoker wrote:I really don't think so, no. A lot of classes can perform on that level, and force that kind of stuff. I don't see wizards/sorcerers and WM/FBs as sticking out at all.

These days, sure. There are lot of new PRCS, spells, class changes, and wonderfu feats. But way back when the nebulous concept of 'server balance' was first formulated? There was not that many alternatives. Not to mention how PvP has always been a dead horse in one way or another, Arcanists and Frenzied Weapon Masters have been the topic of great many threads on the multitude of BGTSCC boards.