A few thoughts...

[Falonthas]

i did like milty's analogy of aoe being the softening siege form

if we were in  an army and a fireball came erupting out of nowhere followed by another shock and awe kind of spell

guess what morale would take a hit until someone happened by to stabilize it

your nice little army would be looking around and be worried about being the next shish kabob when al the sudden a dwarf comes into view to cleave them in half with his axe

maybe this is all good to help us not rely on just ourselves and have to keep our friends handy

[Chongo]

Righto.  I'll try to help with questions where I can, that was a lot of reading though and it has bounced all over.

First, epic mage weakness.  Put the DC chart next to the saving throw chart and you'll understand where the problems are.  It's wacky at the ~20 levels how much of an advantage the DC chart has, and it's wacky at ~32 to see it shift.  Rhynn, you're a high level mage in NWN.  Dems da breaks.

Most high level casters give up on DC spells except for enemies they know to be soft in the area for some odd reasons.  A lot go the pure buffing route.  A lot take no-save based spells.  A lot turn into frogger tanks in my experience.  Ask Alantha or Lin'da.  And bear in mind these aren't the aforementioned 'maxed DC/ bad for the rest of us' mages.  I've seen their character sheets... they're lower DC then you.  But they know which ones they can effect and what they can be doing when they don't have control over the situation.

Regarding evocation concerns in particular... you know, Layo has done a fair bit to give evocation a plus up, they've lifted some damage ceilings, made some spells pretty fierce... but it's still going to end up disappointing in the epics, it's just the way evocation goes.  Monster HP outweighs the damage scales on evo spells, and we're a moderate difficulty server to boot.  No crits!  What has this led to on epic creatures?  They all need something else to provide moderate damage!  Rogues and evasion.  Dunno, it's not like that in all cases, but a lot of creatures of Layo hit the wicket on one of those evasion classes.  Now, that said, Lin'da was quite good at wrecking havoc with major evocation direct damage spells, she was a few points off max DC, and she knew where to use it.

Regarding TS, I've always like the +20 spot/listen as well.  Better for PvP that way too.  But, let's not go there, it's not all that bad as is, and facing the facts, there's a whole server of monsters built up around the exisiting TS, so even if we weren't in closing stages of development, it'd be unbalancing to adjust it.

Regarding new creatures and old.  Here's what happened.  Old creature areas that were farmed due to creatures developed in a soft saving throw manner for mass kills were changed.  The exisiting creatures weren't changed, but generally speaking, at least one new creature type was added to require at least some melee prowess in the mix, and low melee prowess at that.  Some old creatures were altered to take fear immunity off of them since that's the major bug with weird.  New creatures were designed differently and off of what's in my head on saving throws, so yeah, you're not going to see 95% success rates on a wail most of the time.  And yeah, most of them have a slight weakness here and there amongst many strengths.

Regarding all of Milt's comments... dead on.

Regarding cookie cutter spell sheets... *waves head back and forth*.  Yeah, on any server that's NWN that you go to, you're going to find the cookie cutter design laid out and waiting for you based on what NWN provided us with.  Then you're going to see slight variations based on how the individual server balanced/ overbalanced/ underbalanced the spells they made changes to.  There are ways around it, but they're never quite as effective.  You usually have to max DC the build for some of the other spell schools/ types.  And on top of that you have to accept that you aren't going to have the same effects.  It doesn't mean they're not cool or not useful, it just means you have to really tweak some standard building procedures.  It's the same for melee's.  Just because a dual dagger wielding melee isn't going to do the crits the scimitar weaponmaster can doesn't mean you can't build him well.  It does mean he's not going to be the easy build.  It does mean you're going to have to strive for excellence in an area other then damage output, but you sure as hell can make him good.  Same thing goes for casters.  And hey, I wish there was more variation in NWN as well.  I wish we had monster lvl 9 spells in each spell school.  I wish I could mass polymorph enemies into chickens as a transmuter.  I wish I could make an archer that would do as much damage as my melee's.  But it's not the way it works, and it takes striving for excellence in other areas while accepting your inabilities to keep your head up.

Regarding Prantz, don't make the Rael Chosen or the All'ra the basis for new creature comparison.  It's the most powerful and largest city in the world.  It was overtaken by a vastly powerful foe.  It has a lot of very scary history surrounding what you're seeing.  Definitely don't base things on the All'ra.

You know, it all gets pretty humorous after a while with balance.  One person is whispering in your ear that xxx was too easy, another is whispering that it's too hard.  Most of their input is situational and based on the party they were with.  People fail to realize the impact of groups a lot of the time in their perception of balance.  And I'm mostly addressing other folks here, not you Lynn.  When you add up the value of spells from every caster type in one group, balance goes out the window.  Epic bards, clerics, mages in one group?  It's an enormous plus-up on character sheet stats.  I personally feel that on some servers, and perhaps Layo as well, GM's have initially made mistakes in their perception of balance as they find groups like these having such an easy time.  So they balance to that scale which makes things wildly hard for all other group scenarios.  Places where it's exceedingly clear that it was balanced for groups consisting of all brackets of caster and all brackets of melee.  And this often ends up being punitive for the rest of the server, and makes these regions even more capitalized upon by the large all-powerful groups.  I can say with pretty full confidence that I didn't really build anything like this.  There's one region that takes a pretty kickin' party, but I certainly try to avoid this sort of thing.  Raven, the old Hawaii group... there's no real fair way to balance for them.  There are ways to make it fun, but it has to be fair to the rest of the server who can't organize into groups of 9 that are well organized by class.  Anyhow, that was addressing another subject that has come along these general lines that I thought I'd address.  Suffice it to say that this sort of thing is not the goal or purpose of the team.

A lot of folks are pointing to the update to say things were taken away from casters.  It's wrong.  If you could see all my PM's and all my posts, I'm am vehemently against detracting from a class.  You empower other underpowered classes or character types, you don't steal from a certain class.  Everyone should have their niche.  Now, this could be said for spells as well Lynn, but it's hard, it's a long process, there's a server built up around what we have had for years, and we're not rewriting the spellbook.  And on top of this all, the update introduced regions or themes that weren't necessarily favoring the caster classes.  Like the Thunder Peaks.  And of course, there's an outcry that the world has been rebalanced to be punitive to casters.  And this is where I get confused.  Numbers haven't changed.  All the creatures casters grew accustomed to being able to deal with are the same except for the removal of the fear exploit in many cases.  Sure, in the areas where we had pretty standard 20k per 10 minute weird/wail fests, there have been additions.  But the creatures aren't changed.  There's just one little addition to promote a group (of 2) and say 'don't weird/wail spam this place'.  So things are the same they've been.  The new areas are more 50%ish on DC's.  There are immunities and weaknesses.  But this outcry is far from holding any water.  Nothing has been dealt with punitively.  There's just more for other types of groups.  The empowering of something else without detracting from another.  If anyone has complaint with that... I dunno, I guess they really need to be the center of focus for 100% of in-game situations.  Again, this is a bit off your topic, I'm just wrapping up a lot of folks concerns on balance.  But here's the wrap-around.  This update occurred right around when a lot of mages were nearing that magic DC/ST shift due to their levels.  So they've learned to blame the update somehow.  Dunno.

Honest truth is that on most servers I've played on, I see a recurring theme.  Mages quit at around level 30.  Some stick with it, but a large number of them quit.  And it's the DC/ST change, they're used to a certain ability in gameplay and they are unable to adapt in a manner that keeps them interested.  And there are definitely ways to adapt and be a vastly helpful addition to any group, it's just up to the player if they're happy with that or not...

[miltonyorkcastle]

I don't know about epic mages spending most of their time doing strange things (othr than 9th levels spells, which are in themselves strange due to their sheer power and impressive visualizations). I wonder why anyone would think that epic mages are only concerened with epic magic and wierd planar manifestations. Why wouldn't epic mages (or epic characters in general), be interested in more concrete study and advancement? For instance, hiring a personal army, or becoming the baron (*coughs* T'ak*coughs*) of some outpost/city.

But anyhow, that's not really what I wanted to look at.

So in the end mages are left as magical arteliry unless the DM allows them to do more...

It's so very hard for me to agree to this generalization. There is so much more a mage can do for a party, from scouting to disabling traps (without a pixie) to outright melee fighting and more. Sure, a "pure" caster might have a hard time with any of those things, but that's the disadvantage of heavy specialization.  

Perhaps that's what this is really all about: Specialization.

Certainly, you need some specialization by which to make a living. However, the more specialized you become in one field, the more useless you become in other fields. Over-specialize, and you'll be totally awesome at one thing, and totally suck at everything else. Spread out too much and you'll never be great at anything.... but then again, at least you'll be able to do some of everything.

The classic "balanced" party has one highly specialized character-type from the four major DnD adventuring assests: Combat, Skills, Arcane magic, and Divine magic. However, what happens if you lose one of the party members? The whole party falls apart because no one else is able to pick up the slack.

The better adventuring party has members that can do a little bit of everything. If the healer goes down, someone else can take their place. Perhaps that person won't be quite as efficient as the designated healer, but it's better than having nothing. You don't have to be a master in a field to be useful in it.

Now, is that saying that "pure" casters, or "pure" rogues, or whatever you want to call the highly specialized variant of a class is a poor character choice? Not at all. Rather, those that choose to play such character types need to be aware that if they go that route, they will excell in a few situations, and be mostly obsolete in the rest. In other words, don't complain that your character is obsolete if you made him/her that way...

Now, in the case of Rhynn, and the complaint about her power as an illusionist being null, that's different. It's different in the sense that because illusion is her specialization, it should be the one thing she rocks at, even if she sucks at everything else. And she feels that with so many creatures having TS, even her specialization is useless. And that's a problem we have in strong part due to game mechanics, which is laid out in detail above by Dorg.

[LynnJuniper]

So Chongo, you say this is the way things get when you hit a certain level. You've posted lots about it happening BEFORE the update but I didn't realise the impact until just now, and I have gone to blame things that shouldn't have been blamed and for that I do apologize.

The simple question is this:

Are there things I/Rhynn can do without turning into a Buff Monkey Casting the Spam 4? If so, show me/tell me? Or Find a Cool In Game Way Of Figuring it out besides going in and dying 200000 times?

if you want to start something alla what 8bit was doing with the "How classes should work" Seminars I'd support that, but Something you need to understand and Im pretty sure you do: A lot of people come here to RP and Don't know jack about DCs and ACs And Charts and stuff. I know I don't

Milty: Ohh this is going to be interesting when In Character it finally dawns on Rhynn that what she's done was focus so hard on her illusions that she's sort of indept for her level in everything else. Can someone say Mage Rage?

But thank you, for understanding what I'm saying. Thank you So So So Much!

[Chongo]

Well, you're an illusionist with a pretty darn high DC as I recall from spying on your sheet, so I'd say that your character is fairly 'built' around the concept of the spam 4.  I can't exactly fight the choices in specializing that you've made.  

You could learn how to counter-spell.  That'd be a nifty trick to learn and learn to do well.  You could also perhaps learn the spells that are based around no-saves or perhaps ones that are very 'active' group oriented magics.  You see very few mages that actually actively clean up the mess of enemy spells that are well within their capability to clean with let's say... a gust of wind?  I'm just throwing out ideas that are different from the norm of 'me sorceror, me charge, me weird, me hit-monkeys clean up, they stunned'.  And hey, there's nothing wrong with the spam 4.  Thunderclap works.  Wail works.  Weird works.  *shrugs* There are a lot of funky things a mage can do and they are the most variable and most fun of class types.  They are 'the class' to maintain an individual's interest.  And regarding effectiveness, you're weird DC is actually high enough to last in ability for quite some time unless I'm mistaken and it wasn't 37ish at lvl 24.  That's fairly maxed, and should work just great for you for some time.  Again, it's your focus of specialization.

Try experimenting while with a group and you probably won't have to worry about dying.  Read your spellbook again.  Try new spells.  Break the mold yourself.

[LynnJuniper]

Yeah but I'm more an illusionist because the concept sounded cool, not because of any sort of power. I don't know how to make a successful build. I didn't build around the spam four, because I started playing Rhynn and got to level 20 not even knowing what spells were coming next because I never read the NWN handbook. :-P

I think Im going to look through what I have. My problem has ceased to be with the Mechanics and fighting part of it...

What I was refering to, what Milty I think was refering to is GM quests, where any figment, glamour, anything illusion wise to trick the NPCs is nulled, because the GMs put true seeing on all or most of their main characters....Its kind of a bummer for someone in an RP sense, for a character who'se life is wrapped around illusion

[Chongo]

Okay, your phrasing confused me then.

To the RP sense of it all, at a certain point you need to find the tempo of each quest.  I think in every quest there's going to be a pace you need to find on what leeway you have to force your own ideas when there are, let's say, eight other individuals that can potentially be doing the same.

I think the issue with magic, is that it's so wildly variable in the minds of each caster playing individual.  For example, you have a evocationist, a diviner, a transmuter, and an illusionist in a quest.  There is a pivotal point where the group is in a hurry to find the solution to the magical trap they are in.  All 4 very different mage types try to force-emote.  They say they are going to do xxx in their xxx speciality of xxx school of magic.  And their 4 solutions are wildly different, and only one meshes with the course of the quest.  3 of those casters are going to be let down that they can't control the weave in that instance.  Or maybe... they communicate and most aren't let down because they find a viable solution, together.

Compounding this issue is the idea of the 'epic' caster.  Someone that has focused for so long in their one school of magic that the feats they have accomplished are godly in nature.  It is often an outright offense when their ability in magic is clashed with several other individuals attempting to do the same thing on a quest.

Magic is pretty abstract.  Everyone has a different solution set.  Sometimes many solutions work, but again, it's a GM trying to move a story forward in the interest of everyone playing on the quest, and furthermore ensuring that there is a buffer whereby one individual's actions can end the quest for all.

[LynnJuniper]

"It is often an outright offense when their ability in magic is clashed with several other individuals attempting to do the same thing on a quest."

laughs

Yeah Chongo! I just have to remember, and catch myself on a good enough day to remember For the love of GOD Remember: Rhynn's Frustration doesn't always have to be mine!

Some days, are just wildly better than others. Thanks for the time you've taken out to explain things in about three different ways.

[Script Wrecked]

Third, I have never found material components on the corpse of an enemy caster who cast spells with required components.  It's pretty annoying when players have to spend three consecutive feats for an ability that every NPC seems to be born with innately.

Lootable components...did you notice you also can't take their shoes, clothes and other equipment?  Come on, this is such a silly argument and is based solely on how loot generation works and nothing else.

Either a spellcaster has the three eschew-materials feats, or they have spell components.

Ionnarin would seem to be making the point that NPC spellcasters don't have either.

"Shoes, clothes and other equipment" are not spell components.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Weeblie]

Maybe all the NPCs do have taken the three eschew feats...?

Even among caster PCs, those are without doubt the most popular feats to pick.

[ColtCommando]

Dorgonath was simply making the analogy that while yes, you will never find the spell components to the exact spells the creatures are casting on their corpses, neither will you find that spiffy sonic damage dagger that rogue is obviously hitting me with on its corpse.

[Acacea]

That is inaccurate. It's not a limitation of the engine but a Layonara restriction of game balance. When NPCs die and the Harvester marks their souls shortly before they respawn at the local NPC bindstone, he takes out his bitterness about the long-lived adventurers by looting the corpses before we can get to them, and occasionally being kind enough to put an iron double axe in place of a mithril acid short sword. He's tricky like that.



(Edit- Well, post edited while I was typing, but the joke remains! )

[Dorganath]

Either a spellcaster has the three eschew-materials feats, or they have spell components.

Ionnarin would seem to be making the point that NPC spellcasters don't have either.

"Shoes, clothes and other equipment" are not spell components.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

Of course they're not. That that wasn't the point.  There's actually 2 points here:

1) Nobody can know whether or not the NPCs have the Eschew feats or not.
2) If we were going to be finding spell components, then we should also be finding shoes, clothes, rings, pocket lint, food, water, and anything else such a thing would have on his person at the time.

I'm sorry, but this whole argument just sounds like the "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist" mentality.  The problem with that is that the game represents maybe 10-15% of what would really be in the world if Layonara were a real world. The reasons for not being able to see/touch/hear/smell/taste that other 85-90% are many.

Now, having said that, if you guys really want to see these things dropping in lieu of things like gold and useful items, then I'm sure that can be arranged. Of course, then you'll have to deal with increased lag, as everyone ignores the piles of pocket lint in the creature drops.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

I remember in Baldurs Gate, EVERY creature dropped what it was equipped with...  which led to there being over 1000 suits of armor you didnt want laying around, along with weapons, useless rings...  even the occassion boot.

[Script Wrecked]

Apologies for belabouring this point, and I appreciate that having a conversation face-to-face would be much easier than by posts, but hey, you're over there and I'm over here.

Either a spellcaster has the three eschew-materials feats, or they have spell components.

Ionnarin would seem to be making the point that NPC spellcasters don't have either.

"Shoes, clothes and other equipment" are not spell components.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

Of course they're not. That that wasn't the point. ...

My point was that spell components from a fallen spellcaster would be useful, and not in the same category as the aforementioned personal miscellania. Ibidem the pocket lint.

I'm sorry, but this whole argument just sounds like the "if I can't see it, it doesn't exist" mentality. ...

Actually, its the "if I have to go through the grief of getting spell components or spend three feats on eschew-materials, then everyone should go through the grief of getting spell components or flash me their three eschew-materials skill badges so I feel better" mentality.

Regards,

Script Wrecked.

[Script Wrecked]

I remember in Baldurs Gate, EVERY creature dropped what it was equipped with...  which led to there being over 1000 suits of armor you didnt want laying around, along with weapons, useless rings...  even the occassion boot.

I use to sell them. Didn't everyone?

[LynnJuniper]

You know, this has gotten a little off track. To bring it back on track I'm going to bring up another slight peeve of mine, and maybe someone can help me with it. I've identified a lot of my problems with this in the days I had this post with PMs given to me (Thanks Milty and Chongo!) but there is still one thing I would like to question
-------

Epic Characters...They do epic things...and for that, people know who they are...Following?

So Why is it , that 'epic NPCs' (not the named ones even, Milara, Selian, etc) Can do all of these fancy things that PCs couldn't even dream of or try...but no one's ever heard of them? I understand quest progression...but it kind of miffs me when some random nobody from some quest that will either die in the end or isn't plot eccencial can do things that no PC will ever be able to directly accomplish....but their name isn't even on the maps?

[Pibemanden]

Regarding new creatures and old.  Here's what happened.  Old creature areas that were farmed due to creatures developed in a soft saving throw manner for mass kills were changed.  The exisiting creatures weren't changed, but generally speaking, at least one new creature type was added to require at least some melee prowess in the mix, and low melee prowess at that.  Some old creatures were altered to take fear immunity off of them since that's the major bug with weird.  New creatures were designed differently and off of what's in my head on saving throws, so yeah, you're not going to see 95% success rates on a wail most of the time.  And yeah, most of them have a slight weakness here and there amongst many strengths.

Well I can only agree with you in that wail/weird was a bit too powerfull before, it is a great change that you aren't limited to those two spells as the only way to control a spawn simply by taking half or more of it out in the blink of an eye and then sitting back watching the fighters handle the rest. However this removes some crowd control the mages were used to having, which makes it hard to figure out what to do now.
Thankfully for me I have never really relied on those spells or the (in)famous spam four combo. So I have run around the world with a next to useless setup that worked great from time to time when spam four wasn't used and a little bit of melee power that hurt a few creatures backing up the melees.
However if you are not used to having a niche besides spam four you are going to have a painfull time learning. And really, most would rather not do that due to the fact that pain often leads to death which isn't all that liked because in the end that leads to the deletion of a loved character. Sure testing is fun, but when it leads to loosing something important for you, you would rather just say that the whole thing is wrong and you can't hurt anything and will die within the next short while if you try going out under these new conditions.

You know, it all gets pretty humorous after a while with balance.  One person is whispering in your ear that xxx was too easy, another is whispering that it's too hard.  Most of their input is situational and based on the party they were with.  People fail to realize the impact of groups a lot of the time in their perception of balance.  And I'm mostly addressing other folks here, not you Lynn.  When you add up the value of spells from every caster type in one group, balance goes out the window.  Epic bards, clerics, mages in one group?  It's an enormous plus-up on character sheet stats.  I personally feel that on some servers, and perhaps Layo as well, GM's have initially made mistakes in their perception of balance as they find groups like these having such an easy time.  So they balance to that scale which makes things wildly hard for all other group scenarios.  Places where it's exceedingly clear that it was balanced for groups consisting of all brackets of caster and all brackets of melee.  And this often ends up being punitive for the rest of the server, and makes these regions even more capitalized upon by the large all-powerful groups.  I can say with pretty full confidence that I didn't really build anything like this.  There's one region that takes a pretty kickin' party, but I certainly try to avoid this sort of thing.  Raven, the old Hawaii group... there's no real fair way to balance for them.  There are ways to make it fun, but it has to be fair to the rest of the server who can't organize into groups of 9 that are well organized by class.  Anyhow, that was addressing another subject that has come along these general lines that I thought I'd address.  Suffice it to say that this sort of thing is not the goal or purpose of the team.

I have seen the powers expressed in a wellbalanced group where everyone knows what they are doing and everything just flows, because as most know I am part of the Raven group and we are quite decent when everyone is playing up to their best. However I have also seen what other groups can do and seen their dynamics due to not limiting my play time to be only Raven trips and such. And one thing I must say when I look at what that was like is that there is a huge difference from what you can do if you know that this person will do this and this and the other that, but still it worked before people knew how to get the creatures and get them fast before anyone got killed.
But since the upping of melees there is a bit of a gab suddenly, because before the melees asked the mages/clerics for directions and what they should do and who went in and such, but the update have made that much more dynamic, at least in the updated areas. So the melees and the casters are confused, they see their spells poofing because of SR or a save and think they have to break combat because now hell is comming to get them. And that is usually when you die because as soon as you become unfocused on what is really going on you loose control over the combat and without control over that your front and then your casters fall.
Also before people were scared to death over loosing hp because that usually meant you were loosing, since most of the time creatures were locked up somehow while you were pounding them or lying dead on the floor. However that isn't so anymore, as long as you have enough hp to actually make it out of the battle or take some more hits you aren't really in trouble because you can always heal up again after or get a potion/spell in your back.
But still this is new to most and if you don't try and risk it nothing is going to come from it, only frustration of dying to something below what you could handle before with a good spam four'er and some fighters to mop up.

A lot of folks are pointing to the update to say things were taken away from casters.  It's wrong.  If you could see all my PM's and all my posts, I'm am vehemently against detracting from a class.  You empower other underpowered classes or character types, you don't steal from a certain class.  Everyone should have their niche.  Now, this could be said for spells as well Lynn, but it's hard, it's a long process, there's a server built up around what we have had for years, and we're not rewriting the spellbook.  And on top of this all, the update introduced regions or themes that weren't necessarily favoring the caster classes.  Like the Thunder Peaks.  And of course, there's an outcry that the world has been rebalanced to be punitive to casters.  And this is where I get confused.  Numbers haven't changed.  All the creatures casters grew accustomed to being able to deal with are the same except for the removal of the fear exploit in many cases.  Sure, in the areas where we had pretty standard 20k per 10 minute weird/wail fests, there have been additions.  But the creatures aren't changed.  There's just one little addition to promote a group (of 2) and say 'don't weird/wail spam this place'.  So things are the same they've been.  The new areas are more 50%ish on DC's.  There are immunities and weaknesses.  But this outcry is far from holding any water.  Nothing has been dealt with punitively.  There's just more for other types of groups.  The empowering of something else without detracting from another.  If anyone has complaint with that... I dunno, I guess they really need to be the center of focus for 100% of in-game situations.  Again, this is a bit off your topic, I'm just wrapping up a lot of folks concerns on balance.  But here's the wrap-around.  This update occurred right around when a lot of mages were nearing that magic DC/ST shift due to their levels.  So they've learned to blame the update somehow.  Dunno.

I don't really think it is only this, as I said before the server shifted so you actually need a balanced party, and well no offence to anyone but that was hard to get before. And if you are used to walking around in an unbalanced party then you have a hard time finding the balance where everyone use their strengths. So you will end up running around in all the old areas sighing and moaning about all the new cool areas you want to see but can't because you get kicked around there while the old huggy firegiants barely scratch you.
So you end up giving up playing because;
[list=1]

• "Well nothing new to see anyhow only areas where I die horriblely." Well this can be cured by trying again and again which would likely kill your character and make you feel even more frustrated, or you could wait and wait for a balanced party to show up, which sadly doesn't happen much these days so you become frustrated too.
  
• "Where are all the fighters?" Ehmm... Sorry to say but most good fighters are playing in the no magic zone because they lack someone to make them strong so they can go cut down something outside of no magic land because magic hurts fighters. So to a degree the less casters there is the more the fighters will play with themselves and their no magic.
  
• "The fighters have way more fun than me*pouts*, they go slaugther away alone and leaves me to do nothing, plus they get all the good stuff!"... Well again sad but true, no decent things to fight outside the no magic area makes your fighter sad and he goes to try something out himself with his other fighter friends then the mages gets sad and go home because they can't jump around as much as they used to do so they are left to sit in empty Hempstead or toss potions at the happy whackers which doesn't make a happy mage since he/she is used to casting spells all over the place.
  
• "No on is around to RP with or anything anymore" Again as an effect of more and more casters leaving because they can't do anything they become more and more frustrated and when there is nothing to do people leave. Sad fact but true...
  

Frustration leads to the worst of feeling, I have been there too. Back when the new update was released I was minutes away of quiting the server for good, especially the Raven people and Chongo heard for this and I am happy to say that they are nice and understanding people who helped me feel a little better. But deep down I was bitter because I felt my character had been reduced to nothing while everyone else got the great stuff. Now however after having played with the update for a while I have found out that my niche is actually quite usefull if I use it right and point my spells in the right direction. Even more the new rest timer helped a lot too getting a little more punch into the caster classes even after level 20 without making them into spell spam machines.
However many have yet to find their place in combat and what they can and can't do, they feel frustrated about being smacked down each time they try maybe even with the bad side effect of getting a token and thereby taking another part of the ten or fifteen step road to permanent death. So the casters feel it is their time to leave and as they do the fighters focus more and more on the new magic zone making it hard for the existing casters to actually go do something so they become frustrated too and decide that it isn't worth the wait and simply just logs to find fun another place.
I am not trying to blame anyone for anything here this isn't the fault of the update or of some people in particular, it is simply just the way things go if people forget what made the place here fun for them. I almost forgot it and left over it but I found out that even though I need more melee prowless than I did before I am still having fun going through both new and old areas with friends and the like trying to find that special thing you need, that cnr you need to get just past that step on the crafting ladder or just gain fame and true by showing new people around or showing new places to people.
My advice to people is, don't let yourself feel down over that you can't poke around with four spells in your book and someone to clean your mess, but remember that you have a whole range of spells at your disposal and a lot of friends to go out with to test that new tactic or make a succesfull tactic for getting to that special place you always wanted to see. I am looking forward to seeing more casters and so is Storold, let them show their ability to bend the weave with their best abilities and have their fighter brothers and sisters help them get to the good places

[Script Wrecked]

So Why is it , that 'epic NPCs' (not the named ones even, Milara, Selian, etc) Can do all of these fancy things that PCs couldn't even dream of or try...but no one's ever heard of them? I understand quest progression...but it kind of miffs me when some random nobody from some quest that will either die in the end or isn't plot eccencial can do things that no PC will ever be able to directly accomplish....but their name isn't even on the maps?

Or conversely, how does the PC necromancer take over the world with his single undead summons, whereas his NPC counterpart has an army of undead? *shrugs*

That is one of the oldest paradoxes since the earliest days of the "D&D Boxed Edition", best not contemplated by us mere players.

Or, you can put it down to too much DM creativity.

[Weeblie]

You know, this has gotten a little off track. To bring it back on track I'm going to bring up another slight peeve of mine, and maybe someone can help me with it. I've identified a lot of my problems with this in the days I had this post with PMs given to me (Thanks Milty and Chongo!) but there is still one thing I would like to question
-------

Epic Characters...They do epic things...and for that, people know who they are...Following?

So Why is it , that 'epic NPCs' (not the named ones even, Milara, Selian, etc) Can do all of these fancy things that PCs couldn't even dream of or try...but no one's ever heard of them? I understand quest progression...but it kind of miffs me when some random nobody from some quest that will either die in the end or isn't plot eccencial can do things that no PC will ever be able to directly accomplish....but their name isn't even on the maps?

From an IC point of view:

Most of the unknown epic NPCs are in fact not unknown. They are surely less known than the plot epic NPCs, their names not used as a tool of complete fear, but nonless there ought to be stories behind them. A lore check, espeically from a bard, is the "one" way to get this information. The NPCs are very unlikely a random nobody, it's just that you (the player) is the one not knowing about them.

Besides, some types of NPCs, namely those comming from Underdark (Dark Elves, Illithids, Beholders, etc) are usually already (in pretty much all settings) already presented as powerful as "normal sub-epic characters" while still being an "almost nobody down there".

From an OOC point of view:

The bad guys are always more powerful than the good guys. No matter how powerful the good guys become, there are always someone else above them in the food chain. The simple reason is otherwise the risk of boredom. This is something that I would say all campaigns/games are suffering from: Power inflation.

With all that said, one has to consider that in quite a lot of quests, the NPCs are not of epic power. Actually, the NPCs might not be powerful at all. It's just that if one attends a quest aimed at epic characters... well... one kind of has to expect the baddies to be of epic proportions also. Take a random quest aimed more towards low/mid level (say "Pseudonym - Stand Alone Quest") and one suddenly notices the NPCs are generally rather weak to nature...