Lawful-Half Giant

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

On Creation, No, you can't make a Lawful Half Giant.  Through CDQs or something?  I donno.  If NWN completely makes Half Giants incapable of becoming Lawful, then it's something that can't (or won't) be fixed due to what would likely be involved: lots of time the Team doesn't have.  If you can slowly shift to Lawful?  Then make a Half Giant thats True Neutral and work towards Lawful....  Can't really say much more.

[Weeblie]

Answer to the removed message: Ah, per orth's clarification and the fact that script changes are not really done for normal CDQs, it's more or less a case of "no".

[Angelic]

I am asking about the fundamental traits of Hill-Giants and Half-Giants that are the basis for these restrictions. If you have them in place for players to better understand their roles, then it should be easy to explain. I only wish someone would.

Some of this information is available in-game. The clarification you seek was made available to me (in part anyways) through IC inquiry. There is information from the to-be-released handbook in the Grannoch forum that is directly relevant. I shall not transcribe here as it is from a restricted access forum. Suffice to say, in my experience, rarely is there no good reason for something in this game, just rarely is that reason readily accessable (in an OOC sense) to explain that something.

[Gulnyr]

just rarely is that reason readily accessable (in an OOC sense) to explain that something.

This is part of the problem, if I understand Eyvind correctly.  If half giants are a playable race and players are expected to play them appropriately for the world, shouldn't any IC reason why they are the way they are be readily and openly available for players to read and understand so they can better RP characters of that race?

As it is, especially considering that [post=1193532]Ed just said[/post] there is no IC, lore-based reason, any IC explanation is basically just a hand-wave to explain the mechanical reasons (which are design flaws from a certain perspective, though that isn't the Layonara team's fault).

[Eyvind]

It's not a Design Flaw. Remember that Neverwinter Nights, the medium through which we play in the world of Layonara, is Dungeon and Dragons at the Core, Rule Set 3.0, and was not designed to make Layonara possible. It was designed as the game Neverwinter Nights. All of what has become Layo so far has been hard work for All involved, and trying to find a code to work around the Alignment issue for Half Giants is not something on anyones "must fix" list with an MMO in the works. Also keep in mind that when the MMO comes out, there will be no half giants, no half orcs, no half ogres or half elves. The only half-anything will be a Ling... a Halfling (and maybe a Quarterling aka Brownie). So really it's for now just a "this is how it is and it's not changing" sorta thing until the MMO, where it will be a non issue for stated reasons. This borders on asking why a Paladin has to be lawful good, when an order Like Rofirein's Knights, a Lawful Neutral God, can't match their Gods alignment.

My point was that if this carried over into the MMO, it /would/ be a design flaw. I am only hoping that it won't be carried over, and from this thread it seems reasonably certain that my hopes will be answered.

the next time you log in if you were to make an adjustment from Neutral to Lawful, you would be booted from the game as part of the sub race application process. He could shift to 65 points I think it is before it'd be deemed Lawful, not certain of that number offhand though.

As far as I am concerned, this topic is essentially resolved. I am satisfied with the cumulative explanation here and my previous post stands:

I can only hope the MMO will not have design flaws such as this.

Thank you all, once again, for taking the time to lend your thoughts and knowledge on this issue. It has put my mind at ease.

[lonnarin]

Nor will I make any lore changes to make a lawful half-giant possible,

Should still fix that half-giant entry that explicitly states that Half-Giants have as varied alignments as humans.  That I think is the most confusing entry.

The goddess of giants, Grannoch is Lawful Neutral.  If she created them all, wouldn't they be in her image?  I heard some parable that Pyrtechon corrupted them in some manner.  Is this why giants and ogres are typically chaotic?  Because if we trace the blood, The Mother of All Giants is Lawful.  How did most of her children wind up being chaotic or evil?

[Dorganath]

I can only hope the MMO will not have design flaws such as this.

Kind of harsh to call it a design flaw, but in any case...

(and not to mention that half-races in itself are no longer possible).

So by this, that means that there won't be any "flaws" with half-giants...because there won't be any half-giants.

[Eyvind]

Kind of harsh to call it a design flaw, but in any case...



So by this, that means that there won't be any "flaws" with half-giants...because there won't be any half-giants.

I apologize. I did not mean to sound harsh. I only wish the best for the Layonara MMO.

I suppose the essence of what I am trying to say is that I hope the MMO will not have restrictions on characters that don't have clear lore rationale behind them.

[Dorganath]

Should still fix that half-giant entry that explicitly states that Half-Giants have as varied alignments as humans.  That I think is the most confusing entry.

The goddess of giants, Grannoch is Lawful Neutral.  If she created them all, wouldn't they be in her image?  I heard some parable that Pyrtechon corrupted them in some manner.  Is this why giants and ogres are typically chaotic?  Because if we trace the blood, The Mother of All Giants is Lawful.  How did most of her children wind up being chaotic or evil?

Giants are as varied as the elements. So as a group, they can span all the alignments. Children do not always follow the alignment of their parents, afterall.  

Grannoch didn't, however, create half-giants....giants and humans did.

The LORE page does make two distinctions:

Half Giants are as diverse as humans in alignment. Few, however, fall into the extremes of Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil; instead they are usually somewhere in between, tending to the chaotic.

As a race, no alignments are excluded, however, just below we have this:

All PC Half Giants must be submitted as one of the following alignments: True Neutral, Chaotic Neutral, or Neutral Evil.  Yes this effectively eliminates a Half Giant Monk. The lone exception to this rule is if a Half Giant is submitted as a cleric of Az'atta, in which case they may submit with a Good alignment.  Because Half Giants cannot be Lawful, Lawful Evil is not open as an alignment on submission for this race.

The emphasis is mine, and these appear one right after the other.

We have a similar rule for dark elves; they are alignment-restricted at character creation, even though half of the dark elf enthusiasts love to point at Drizzt as to why it's silly to not allow a Good-aligned dark elf on submission.  For half-giants, this is further limited for administrative and balancing reasons.

[Dorganath]

I apologize. I did not mean to sound harsh. I only wish the best for the Layonara MMO.

I suppose the essence of what I am trying to say is that I hope the MMO will not have restrictions on characters that don't have clear lore rationale behind them.

The MMO is a skill-based system, and the mechanics of this system are fully ours.  A big part of our problems with certain special cases is that there's a whole bunch that NWN doesn't let us control, and so we're somewhat at its mercy.  The MMO's system is intended to provide a great degree of freedom in building a character while attempting to keep everything in some semblance of balance regardless of player choices.

There still won't be any half-giants though.

[Link092]

While the vile Toranites, Berylites, Voraxians etc gather to oppress these children of prejudice....

No, no,no. Toranites aren't Evil..... and Voraxians because they're allies. the Berylites can stay though.

[Angelic]

This is part of the problem, if I understand Eyvind correctly.  If half giants are a playable race and players are expected to play them appropriately for the world, shouldn't any IC reason why they are the way they are be readily and openly available for players to read and understand so they can better RP characters of that race?

Ideally, however I think the delayed release of the next version of the player's handbook and the reasons for such delay have been well covered in other threads.

[Gulnyr]

I guess, then, that I would ask why information specifically pertaining to a race that was released prior to the full release of the handbook was tucked away in a faith forum where it would be inaccessible to all players of that race (since not all half giants follow Grannoch), and why that information would not simply have been given to a (potential) player of a half giant when all this started rather than having the Loremaster himself eventually come to this thread to say there is no IC reason.  It's not really all that important now, though, and I don't really need those answers.  

You may be absolutely right that there is some reason tucked away, and it would be awesome that there is a reason.  At the same time, it seems sort of pointless and ridiculous to have a reason if it isn't available to the people who need it and if its very existance is going to be publicly denied by the boss.

I hope you can understand why that's confusing and potentially even frustrating.

[EdTheKet]

OK, this thread looks like it could spiral down and I don't want that.

To address this:

The clarification you seek was made available to me (in part anyways) through IC inquiry. There is information from the to-be-released handbook in the Grannoch forum that is directly relevant.

I guess, then, that I would ask why information specifically pertaining to a race that was released prior to the full release of the handbook was tucked away in a faith forum where it would be inaccessible to all players of that race (since not all half giants follow Grannoch),

There is no information pertaining to the half-giant race in the Grannoch forum.
The only piece of handbook text in there is the following:

The Kerekk of Grannoch is a church in decline. Once powerful with the prayers of the giant kind, it is shrinking as the chaotic nature of the giants and their slow slide into savagery take their attention away from their goddess.

Though there is no current hierarchy for all of the giant races, this was not always so. In each race of giants there are two shaman of Grannoch, called the Son and Daughter of the element that race attunes with (Son of Earth, Daughter of Fire, etc.). This is carried down from the beginnings of the Kerekk, when there was the Four. The Four were the first clergy of Grannoch, each a powerful shaman of one of the four elements and called the Son or Daughter of that element. Elected every fourth Flower Blooms at a gathering in what is now the Lake of Rays, the Four traveled the continents to each community, teaching the tribe’s shaman, renewing the faith, sharing the sacred texts that existed to bring Grannoch into every giant home. They traveled together and presented the worship of Grannoch as a totality of the Four, none surpassing the other.

Over time, the nature of chaos came to the forefront of the giant peoples. Grannoch embraced a lawful view of the world, yet her people could not resist the opportunity to wage war against each other. The Four continued to spread the word until a day that is called Four’s End. On this day, sometime in the second generation of the world, the Four came to a forested giant village preparing for war against an outpost of humans who had been mining the giant’s land. The leader of the humans was a half-giant named Vassi the Bear, who held a strong grudge against the giants for their slights against him when he tried to join their community. When Vassi heard that the Four were at the giant village, he sent his best assassins to slaughter them in their sleep. Three of the Four were killed that night; one escaped with the help of the local shaman. The giants went to war with rage in their hearts for the death of their clergy, and the remaining of the Four, Levka Son of Air, made his way back to his temple alone. That marked the end of the Four, for there was no gathering the next year due to a tribal dispute over the forest west of the Lake Bevlynn. Nor the year after, or after ... however, the naming practice carries on.

You may be absolutely right that there is some reason tucked away,

If there was a reason, I would have stated so in my earlier post. The only reasons are those I already mentioned.

Now, this half-giant race that will not be in the MMO, and for which no characters can be submitted unless they're born before 1420 has taken enough time and energy I believe. I don't think there is anything else to be gained or explained here.

Thank you for your attention.

[jrizz]

Why are half giant monks considered over powered? I cant see anything in the junction of the two that really makes that much of a difference. Can someone explain please.

[ycleption]

Why are half giant monks considered over powered? I cant see anything in the junction of the two that really makes that much of a difference. Can someone explain please.

From this thread: http://forums.layonara.com/fixed-bugs/115003-race-description-half-giant.html

Basically, the idea is that the monk class shores up the HG weaknesses, and vice-versa; I don't know that it's any stronger than certain playable classes, but here you have it:

after making the requisite additions to INT and CHA to meet the min/max rules, a HG monk could start with:

STR 14 (+2 race, +3 subrace) ==> 19
INT 14 (-2 race, -4 subrace) ==> 8
WIS 14 ==> 14
DEX 14 ==> 14
CON 10 (+4 subrace) ==> 14
CHA 12 (-2 race, -4 subrace) ==> 6

Base AC: 16 (10 + 2 DEX + 2 WIS + 2 dodge [racial])
Skill points: 5/level (calculated without subrace penalty), Tumble is a class skill, so AC +1 at level 2 and every 5 levels thereafter
Monk AC: +1/5 levels

The base AC is almost as good as a 1st level human fighter is going to get, based on the armor they can afford (using a shield is the only way the fighter gets an AC advantage with starting funds).  At level 20, without any special equipment (and advancing neither WIS or DEX every four levels), the HG Monk would have a "naked" AC of 25 (16 flat-footed), with the class and Tumble bonuses.

An extra attack per round (via Flurry) and Cleave as free feat (especially when doing +4 damage from STR bonuses, and don't forget a higher base unarmed damage for being a large race), can make survivability much easier (the best defense is a good offense) -- rats and skeletons (typical low-level enemies) are particularly vulnerable to Cleave given their low HP and swarm tactics.  The only drawback here is the -2 to-hit penalty for a large race (which makes the extra STR a wash for AB, but still extra damage).

As you gain levels, then the Monk abilities start kicking in.. Improved knockdown for a HG without the INT requirement?  That's size large plus one category.

[Angelic]

My mistake, I had always read the assassination of the Four (or, three of the four) as an event that precipitated the rise of the chaotic (non-Grannoch) factions of the giant races.

Sorry for any misinformation.

[jrizz]

From this thread: http://forums.layonara.com/fixed-bugs/115003-race-description-half-giant.html

Basically, the idea is that the monk class shores up the HG weaknesses, and vice-versa; I don't know that it's any stronger than certain playable classes, but here you have it:

Thanks for the post. That argument has so many holes in it there is no way it can hold water You mine as well say the monk class is overpowered as we have seen, a perfectly optimized and equipped monk is untouchable without GM help. That stands true for many races. A HG monk is not going to be anymore or less powerful then a elf monk if made perfectly but the HG monk will take longer to level.

can make survivability much easier

And there is something wrong with increasing survivability?

[lonnarin]

Brownie monk with weapon finesse.  That's the uber combo right there...

12 -> 10 STR
18 -> 20 DEX
12 -> 10 Con
14 -> 14 Wis
12 -> 12 Int
8 -> 8 Cha

+2 Listen and Spot, Trackless Step (+4 Hide, Move Silent in outdoors), +2 Dodge, and I think +1 AB and AC for being size Small, so AC 18 Starting out.  With +13 Move Silent and Hide at lvl 1. (+17 hide if factoring in size small, and +21 hide if the game mechanics properly handled size tiny)

Spell Resistance unfortunately gets overlapped between racial and Class, though still useful until you get the class version, also monk unarmed damage from the smaller chart.  other than that though, The Brownie is well suited for the class, and I dare say would rock more than the giant.  I'm not even certain that the game mechanics take into account the large size for large unarmed attacks anyhow.  So Half Giant monks being too unbalanced?  Nonsense.  It's when they have heavy armor, a tower shield with a greataxe that heads even start to turn.  Or when they start a 22 con barbarian with toughness that gets 19 hp/lvl since lvl 1. (who then pumps con 5 more times till 20th and buys a full set of all 3 +2 jewelries and +2 stone boots of dodge/constitution, 35 con before spells! yikes! that's *500* hp before an endurance spell, makes Bjorn's 326 look puny)

Of couse I'm one of those weird people who just schooses race/class combos for RP factor alone.  My deep dwarf monk started with 14s across the board, and a +4 racial vs poisons which was then overlapped by immunity.  Over time, survival is far more about what kind of party you can scrounge together and the inherent power of your class abilities and AB progression as much as it is stats.  Especially once you start stacking +1 and +2 jewelry.

//Sorry to sidetrack the thread.  Just whenever somebody mentions balance and builds, my hooked on nerdphonics kick in

[Link092]

ohh..... that sounds epic......... but I think a Brownie Barbarian would be cooler.