Class Discussion

[ZeroVega]

Some of the people of Layonara seemed to have lost their voices due to a phobia over the past year or so, in recent days I would say they have found it and are not afraid of speaking out any more (note I said phobia and not fear). Harloffs post was an interesting one but the thread that pertains to it has gotten off track a bit and seems to have become strictly a class discussion. So I've decided to make this post so that people actually know what we're talking about. If you feel like changing the subject in this thread please restrain yourself and make a new one for your new topic. Thank you.
  Wizards: Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard's strength is her spells; everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar; a small, magical, creature that serves her.- (Pulled from NWNWiki.)
  There have been several posts made in recent days that seem to point toward an imbalance in power between Clerics, Wizard and other classes. *Blows a trumpet blast* I have decided to come to their rescue. As we read above, wizards can, "use their spells to devastating effect." Notice that it doesn't say devastating to enemies, simply devastating. What does that mean? Well it means I COULD use Meteor Swarm in a party but then I'd have all 5 of my alotted PK tokens in a span of six seconds. That sort of rules out that spell for Party use doesn't it?
  Wizards have their pros and cons; butfrom level 1-10 Fighters rule, it's as simple as that. Wizards have few spells to choose from and even fewer to cast. They have spell components to deal with until level 12 (and then 18), which significantly reduces the number of spells they can select or cast (for fear of running out of components). From about level 12 to level 20, yeah, wizards can solo MUCH better than most of the classes out there. Put them in a group with a cleric and a few fighters though and they turn into a buff-monkey, using half of their spellslots for hastes, some for buffing spells and others just for spells to hold the enemy still while the fighters beat the snot out of them.
  The biggest reason, I think, that so many see wizards as being imbalanced is because they are able to overcome the level 12-20 gap faster than fighters BECAUSE they don't need a party to get to as many places. So we'll break it down again. Level 1-11, fighters rule as they can solo or travel with another fighters and take out tons of stuff that a wizard or a couple wizards have no chance of. Level 12-20 Wizards rule because they are able to go places and kill things that fighters can't without magical help. Levels 21+, wizards and fighters rely on each other euqally. There are creatures that wizards simply cannot damage due to SR or Spell Absorption. Likewise there are creatures that neither can damage without a magical weapon or an arse-load of buffs AND an extremely skilled fighter to actually swing the pokey stick at it.
  I'll give you one last example for wizards and just how vulnerable they can be. Tath did not cast a single damage inflicting spell during the entire Defense of Pranzis quest. Not one. Why didn't he cast them? Well the dwarves that we mostly fought were immuned to paralyzation (crosses off three spells), death magic (crosses off another few), mind affecting (crosses off several more) and the combat was so close that any remaining damage spells would have fried everyone. Thus the buff-monkey effect came into play. Fighters did all the work, wizards sat back and looked pretty.
  So, I have defended my beloved class. Let's hear your thoughts on the topic, feel free to drag another class in (perhaps the class with more Epics than any other class *cough cough*).
  ZV-

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Balancing is a dificult task. Discussions like this may reveal some points that are easier to overcome than the obvious ones, so let us hear them.

On higher levels/epic levels the priests/clerics are by far the strongest class. The enemies have by then become immune or very resistant to mage spells and are best taken down through physical damage. A priest (and to a certain degree paladins as well) can turn himself into a juggernaut for short durations and take down things even buffed fighters cannot - the really bad to hit and damage bonus spells are caster only.

I am not sure this should be addressed before the switch to NWN2 since it is time consuming and there are lots of other unfinished projects at this time, but a bit of discussion is probably healthy.

[feniox]

I'm only going to make my post on this brief and to the point.

This discussion came up on IRC last night, but the point I was trying to make seemed to get ignored and the conversation went off onto one about unbalanced classes and casters vs fighters, etc. At the time I said that I thought the idea of caster restrictions was brought up because in fantasy there are traditionally a sparse amount of those characters in comparison to everyone else. This viewpoint was dismissed as "naive" but I still stand by it. I don't care much for the conversation of balancing, or whether certain builds can solo better than others, yes there has to be as much balancing as possible, but really I'm not that bothered. If somebody wants to rush around by themself and own every dungeon by themself then that's their choice, I have never and will never choose a class or character to play based on their strength or weakness at soloing.

In short, I think all classes have their advantages and disadvantages, and because of these certain classes will always be more popular than others, that is inevitable. But from my own point of view, the only reason I would support any kind of numbers restriction is simply based on an aesthetic. As I said in the other thread, I did a check at the time and 25 of 47 characters online we casters. This means that in a low-magic world, around half of the characters are still wizards of some description (please note that this isn't a complaint, merely an observation).

That is the only reason I would support any kind of restriction on classes, for what are essential RP reasons, because the way I can see it DnD will always be unbalanced to a point, wizards and clerics will always be able to achieve things that fighters can't, and vice versa, but does any of that really matter? I don't think the strength differences between the classes are that huge, simply different, and as long as certain classes don't start dominating every aspect of the game (which we all know will never be allowed to happen) I'm not sure the caster classes need to be altered any more than they already have been.

[Harlas Ravelkione]

Good point Feniox. Varka raised the same issues in another thread and it makes sense in a lot of ways. The problem is though that people play on this server to entertain themselves first and foremost. By barring people from the class they prefer to play we will probably turn a lot of people away.

[Ar7]

Totally agree with Tath on all points that he stated. These opinions have been around for a long time and are extremely difficult to change. The reason why people view wizards as overpowered is because firstly, the majority knows that it's hard being a low level, thus weak wizards are taken as given, secondly, only a small portion reaches the epic levels, thus the severe "buff monkey" effect (love this label Tath) is never known by the majority. As such, the time when wizards rule (12-20) is the only time that they are judged by.

Let me just stress that the buff monkey effect is really serious. In epic quests people drag wizards along only for haste, protection from spells and mind blank. Really annoying if you ask me, a wizard has all of his spells, but there is no point in casting them.

So a couple of my conclusions.

If you wish to change the wizards ruling 12-20 then you have two choices both of which are impossible. Firstly you can change their spells, again, but I think we are standing really close to the red line of absurd here. Secondly, you limit their number, I proposed that a while ago, during a similar discussion, but the official answer was clear: "We have enough rules and limitations as it is"

The buff monkey effects, two choices of fixing it once again. First, you can give all spells a progression, from level 1 to level 40, so they never stagnate. I know many agreed with me when I proposed this, but unfortunatly it is too time consuming, as I was told by the DM team, as such it is out.

The second choice is to change how creatures are built. The wizard is interesting to play because he can have an answer for any enemy, be it a weak or strong answer, there should always be one. Right now though, we see that it doesn't matter how you play a wizard, the enemy will simply have "immunity X, Y, Z" or will be immune to magic as a whole. I talked to a person who said that it is possible to give creatures high Spell Resistanse, not 32, but 50 and more. What does that mean? It means that by giving creatures these instead of total immunity you give spellcasters a chance. A wizard can memorise spells that lower Spell Resistanse and by that can still cause damage, even though it will take a lot more spells to do that. I am not 100% sure that this high SP can be given, but I certainly hope so, it would make for a much more interesting game, so I would like official opinion on that.

So what I wanted to say, wizards are not powerhouses, they have problems, problems that are difficult to change and that will most likely live until the last days of NWN2. Hopefully NWN2 will be without them.

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Everyone's complaining about Wizards being too powerful... Och. I tried playing a Wizard. I failed. Badly. I'm just no good at playing a prepared spellcaster. Add that to LOW HP and LOW AC, not to mention LOW AB...

I have to be honest. If I can't do ANYTHING in a fight, that cuts a whole lot of the game's attraction for me. Just slices it right away. Half of the attraction to NWN is the fact that you get to actually watch your character kick some monster tail. When I just die, every time I try to go fight something... It's not so fun.

I couldn't get past the low-levels, because A) I didn't see the point; keeping track of which spells I've got prepared is a bear B) I didn't have the dedication to the character type. Now, I'll probably be submitting a sorcerer sometime in the next couple of weeks, but not another wizard, or even cleric or paladin.

[darkstorme]

To be fair, clerics get spontaneous heal castings... but I've never really been able to get behind the cleric character.  I just can't bring myself around to such a pious viewpoint, in RL or in DnD.

Personally,  I think Sorcerors are the way to go.  While, given preparation, a Wizard can mop the floor with a Sorceror, the Sorceror's ability to use light weapons more than makes up for it.

This is all moot, as my own personality type goes far better with a Bard, so this is where my first spellcaster will be drawn from. *laughs*

[Nibor21]

There are other balance issues here.

I have tried to play the 'classic' barbarian. High strength, good dex, chain mail and a two handed weapon. What I have found is that she doesn't compare to a fighter, as a result while a level 9 fighter can happily get to the first lot of iron on level 2 of haven mines, as a level 14 barbarian I can't unless I cheat and swap to sword and shield.

However Karana does compare favourably to fighters when she is in a well balanced party - she just needs a cleric with her at all times!

The other issue I would make is that characters should have a certain Int to be allowed to play a figher (say 10) to reflect the mental discipline needed to train in arms. If they don't have this Int then they should be limited to the barbarian class

[Faldred]

I've been trying to stay out of this, partly because I don't have any high-level characters to make a fair comparison, and partly because I appreciate how freakishly hard game balance is.



However, as to the point of there being limits on the number of casters, et. al., I don't think it is necessary.  There has to exist some natural balance of characters, especially at the lower levels, or all the spell-slingers won't be able to survive long enough to come fully into their power.



I think one of the things you see, is that while "tanks" are easier, in general, to play, especially at lower levels, they find themselves eventually outstripped in ability by those for whom they previously tanked for.  That is, they generally only continue to increase in power linearly over time, while the casters get progressively stronger.  So, with very few PrC options available for many fighter types (unless very carefully planned from character creation), it may start to be frustrating or boring to play a straight tank type through those middle levels -- as a result, those players may tend to start new characters, or just play less often, leaving the mid-level powerhouses to be the spell casters.



I don't think the problem is so much balance as it is a lack of options for "tanks" -- much of which is limited by the 3.0 ruleset, the NWN engine, and just how much you can really do with a custom PrC, which in and of itself is a lot of work, not including all of the balance issues that would have to go into it.  More options would allow these players to develop specialities that would give them more of a sense of keeping up with the wizards, et. al.

[Ne'er]

There is a line somewhere in the DM's guide for the 3rd edition about Barbarians and fighters. It says that one on one, the fighter will win practically every time, due to the feats and the armor. The barbarian can even be in a rage, but it'll still lose. So why play the barbarian? They have a better hitdie, and thus get more hitpoints. They get fast movement, and eventually even DR. Still, perhaps not comparable to a well-built fighter, but if you want to play the more powerful class, play the fighter.

As for setting an Intelligence restriction on a fighter, that doesn't really seem like it would work. After all, there are plenty of not-so-bright warriors out there. They don't rely solely on their rage, or their natural strength. Instead they are well-trained. Frankly, it just doesn't seem like they need to be intelligent to be a fighter. Although many fighters you may notice have the high intelligence anyway, as you'll need it to go Weapon Master.

Now there are spell casters. I can't play them in NWN because I lose track of my spells and I can't cast them fast enough. As a result I play fighters or some form of fighter. And i must agree with the others that have said above that mages are weak at low-levels, and less than powerful at epic levels. They should be powerful though. But once they run out of spells, the game is over for a mage. For a Fighter, they can keep fighting at the same rate until they are dead, or until there is nothing left to fight. So the way I see it is burts of lots of power, or a steady, not quite as great a power.

The way I would see solving the "problem" is that the rest restriction are greater. But frankly, I don't really want it to happen as that will hurt everyone and make the game less fun, and more tedious. So I guess that just means we aren't really going to be able to solve the "problem", because as Ar7 said, the solutions only cause more problems.

In my own opinion though, it really isn't the wizards/sorcs that are overpowered. The clerics are hands down the best solo-artists out their, due to their defensive spells, combined with a small amount of offensive spells for when things get rough. Mixed in with a decent base attack as well as a decent hit die, you have a jugernaut. What is the weak spot of the cleric then? The fact that they have to comply with with their dieties dogma, they have to be active in the religion. They get their powers and, much like paladins, have harsh restricitons if they plan to keep them. Where as others can be dynamic and shift alignments and dieties, the cleric cannot. It is an RP restriction, but it is still the thing that, I think, makes sure that clerics are balanced. After all, why would a cleric of Aeridan be blasting the life out of everything?

So yeah... I guess that's just my take on it. I guess if you want to solo, make a soloing character. If you want to play something else that won't be good at soloing, do that.

[Dorganath]

Everyone has their favored classes...everyone has classes they dislike or envy because of whatever reason.
  The fact is, however, one really cannot just cherry pick two classes at random and say "These are better/overpowered/whatever because of A, B and C."
  I said this back in the other thread, and I'll repeat it here.
  Balace is a "big-picture" issue. It's macroscopic, looking at the whole of the situation, rather than the microscopic details between Thing 1 and Thing 2.
  Balance is taking all the plusses and all the minuses for all the classes over their entire span and saying, "Does this work as a whole?"
  You can't just look at fighters and mages and then decide to "fix" mages based on that. You can't look at rogues and clerics and to the same. You have to look at the whole picture, and that means take all of them together.
  And to touch briefly on something Ar7 mentioned, we do plan to design the systems, (magic, combat, etc.) for NWN2 to scale appropriately through level 40, even though we'll only have 20 levels initially.

[dfiremann]

I seem to remember this discussion a couple years ago.  I also seem to remember playing a couple years ago...

The only true success I've ever seen in Layo is through group play- a reliance on all specialties.  Against any given opponent, a particular class may solo better.  I think it's the character that adds so much.

[ZeroVega]

Dooooooode! My personal fire-putter-outter is back! (Off topic? Yes. But totally necessary.) Gonna bust out the old Fireaxe and get jiggy with some giants?

[Dorganath]

Oh-ho-ho....sneaky dfiremann....being all stealthy and such.  

[Ar7]

Dorganath - 6/27/2006  9:42 AM    And to touch briefly on something Ar7 mentioned, we do plan to design the systems, (magic, combat, etc.) for NWN2 to scale appropriately through level 40, even though we'll only have 20 levels initially.

 One of the best Layonara news lately!

[miltonyorkcastle]

one thing about NWN, and video games in general that are based off of PnP systems:  you can never get the full use out of the character class in the video game.   There are so many things you just can't do.  For instance, in a PnP game, I played a human barbarian.  In the middle of the night, we were attacked by a small band of orcs.  One of the orcs stuck a spear pretty deep in my barb, so he raged.  In his rage, he didn't even bother drawing his sword.  He simply picked the orc up that speared him, and proceeded to use the one orc as a club to kill the other orcs.  After killing two orcs in this manner, the other orcs ran in fear, and the ranger in the party picked them off until he couldn't see them anymore.

Oh, and to Ne'er, it was true in 3rd ed, that fighters could always own barbarians.  As I'm sure you know, that has been remedied in 3.5, in that Barbarians are much more comparable, and actually worth taking as a class all the way up to 20th.  Same with Rangers.  Both of which made me happy, as I prefer to play the wilder fighter types.

Still, even in NWN2, which is based on 3.5, there will still be sooooo much you just can't do.  Things that help to "balance" the classes.  Like grappling.  If a mage isn't prepared for a wrestling monk or barbarian with stilled and silenced spells, contingencies, and/or pre-cast repulsion spells, a 7th lvl monk can own a 15th lvl wizard by wrestling him to the ground, pinning him and gagging him.  Without being able to move or speak, mages are pretty darn useless.  There's a reason why mages almost always hide behind something big, buff, and mean in PnP.  They're so physically weak, a few headbutts from a barbarian and a mage has a hemmorage.

Grappling, however, just isn't viable in a video game like NWN.  There are too many parameters to define.  It can be done, but would be far too cumbersome and quirky to be truly effective and not screw people over at the same time.

Bascially, DnD was never meant to be perfectly "balanced," but the video game versions are even less so, simply because you are extraordinarily limited in what you can actually do.

[Chongo]

I'm going to throw a few things out there, maybe it'll create more conversation, maybe it'll kill the discussion. Dunno.  I've worked balance a good bit. As most of us have. From playing on several worlds, playing a multitude of characters, helping out on the dev side, crunching numbers on PvP arena's, reading literature, and for some, running our own servers. On the latter I'll say that my experience is that it is an ever swinging pendulum of player complaints and concerns, that at some point you just need to start holding the course you and your core team have in mind... because chances are you guys have the 'best' scope out there that involves every aspect. You know all the monsters, all the weaknesses, all the little tweaks you've put in to favor less powerful player choices. The players know their own scope, which while accurate, is only one picture of hundreds. So let's all understand that balance is a process, from the ground up, that succeeds with the gentle care and caretaking of a gardener who planted it. How'd you like that metaphor eh? Eh?  So a few things:  - Individual class balance is an MC Escher staircase ideally. And it is for certain on Layo as well. For every build, there is something better and something worse depending on the circumstance. And for every build, there is something or some situation, that will kill it in a manner that suggests 'lack of balance'.  - Every build you make has a maturity, and often a decline or long build up depending on that maturity. Complaints on class strengths almost inevitably come from the time you're at your weakest looking at someone else at their strongest.   - Every class can be made to be overpowered. Every class.  - If we wanted true balance, the concept of what we're playing would be destroyed. It's incredibly easy, make a chart grid of every variable and match every class to it. I'll say it now... I love the power struggle, and deep down you do to.  - It's controversial to say this, but talent plays a role. Some folks just are a bit more savvy with the game mechanics once they're in there. They've been doing it for 5 years. They know every counter, whether their group has it, and how to capitalize on it. And they've learned to use what they have and call it quit when they don't. And since we all love growing as individuals... I'm all for this admission.  So I say who cares. Love the inequity and find youre place in it. I'm playing a character that I know to have around 5 moderate to serious 'number based' handicaps. And I'm happy when I find my counter in a group. Enjoy the highs and lows.  I did a little 4 bit balance analysis based on class and magic level a short while ago for Layo. No one asked for it, I did it because I was hoping to show something to the staff on one imbalance in particular. It was a quick version of all the power rating systems the arena servers use, wholly based around melee. I expected to illustrate the weakness of barbarians in particular. What ended up happening is that the PR's ended up pretty darn close. Yeah, barbs were a bit low. And yeah, clerics of course won the day. Yeah there are some spell based inequities. But it wasn't that dire.  I can tell you that the core staff seems to be looking forward on projects, instead of doing little things like altering rage durations and effects, or requiring certain metals for Rod applications. And at this point I say it's a good thing. They're looking forward and really taking a whole load of lessons learned, a lot of knowledge, and a lot of experience... and applying that towards our new medium, be it NWN2 or whatever.  And even then there will be concerns and complaints and hard times for an individual here and there. And it'll point to one of the factors in the bulleted list I put up above. And I say it's good because I don't want balance. I want the highs and lows so that my character's life is exciting instead of steady and reliable.

[Talan Va'lash]

I second chongo on most points. Especially:

- Every build you make has a maturity, and often a decline or long build up depending on that maturity. Complaints on class strengths almost inevitably come from the time you're at your weakest looking at someone else at their strongest.

- Every class can be made to be overpowered. Every class.

- It's controversial to say this, but talent plays a role.


Oh, and Nibor21 - Your observations are quite accurate about a level 14 barbarian's soloing ability.  You are also correct in your assessment that their soloing ability is not an indicator of their overall power (i.e. in a party.)

My advice to you: Keep putting those points in con and intimidate! at higher and higher levels the importance of AC starts to give way to HP and the high HP barbarian will compare quite favourably.

Also you get some nice stuff next level iirc

[ZeroVega]

Brilliant post Chongo... it is a post that I will most certainly be taking credit for in the future when I quote it as well.    I believe it is, in essence, what the GM Team has been saying all along (in perhaps a more detailed yet broken down format). Each class will have strengths and weaknesses, highs and low, the point of balance is the point in which all classes can work together and play an equal role in a party. This IS a party based server so if you find your Ranger stinking it up solo and feel like you need to point to the fighter and "cry foul" because he's better at it, you probably need to simply take a step back and look what what you can both contribute if you work together. As Chongo said, it'll probably come out being pretty close to equal.

Now, that said Chongo also made another GREAT point. The GM Team has worked on balance of classes for years in NwN, but we are at the crossroad of NwN2 and although they will not stop working on NwN Layonara it seems more prudent that they work on RELEASING a "balanced" NwN2 Layonara than putting too much more effort into things that cannot be moved over from NwN to NwN2. It's sort of like eating a plate of pasta (ready for this?), you know that you have room to finish it off (polish off NwN), but you're getting full (coming toward the end of your NwN time) and there's still dessert to be had (NwN2); so instead of eating the last few bites (continuing to put obscene amounts of time into NwN), you decide to forgoe your slurpy noodle dish for something even sweeter (NwN2). Yes, you had to wait a bit until everyone else was finished to get your dessert (wait until they've balanced NwN2) but in the end, you'll have more enjoyment from it than you would have your pasta!

Wow... I thought that sounded cool when I wrote it, but now I'm not so sure... ZV-

[Weeblie]

Lovely metaphor, ZeroVega!