Thoughts on game balance

[Yosemite Sam]

In the previous version of Layo, all the "hard" enocunters had death magic. Made Clerics required.  Heh, back then, mahogany was the hardest wood you could get, and the high teens where the highest characters.  When this version of Layo was announced (and we all got to try some of the things in the beta).  This was discussed, and the players where told that this would change. It has.  I think this is/was for the better. Caster/Fighter balance is always a tough issue, I know.  No game ever seems to find a completely balanced solution. First, magic users had it to hard, with the addition of more spell components.  This is not a problem for anyone who plans to play a heavy casters, as the feats eschew materials get taken by every serious caster.  I think only the secondary casters dont take them, bards, rangers, paladins.  
But I digress. What replaced the "all the hard encounters have death magic" mantra.  In this version, I would have to say, "hordes of creatures with sneak attack".  Come on, sharks with sneak attack? This has lead to the absolute supremacy of the casters with a good summons.  Golems dont take sneak attacks, so they last longer against the hordes then the fighter PCs.
I am suggesting that maybe its time to add some level of fortifcation to Layo, at the highest end of the CNR chain of course.  100% (heavy) would be to much. 25% and 50% (light and medium) would be more reasonable. This would allow the front line fighters to last a bit longer agaisnt the hordes of little creatues with sneak attack.
I am not sure what to suggest to make an encounter hard without death magic or hordes of sneak attack.  But I am hoping that someone can think of something else.  Just as death magic can still be found where appropriate, I would like to see less sneak attack and something else to challange us in the next version. Go ahead, post your suggestions, I sure the developers wouldnt mind more ideas.

[Pankoki]

Fortification is not part of the NWN mechanics. There is only immunity to sneak attacks. The thing is that some of these encounters don't need to be seen as "Oh great more sneak attacks". No. Some of these high level encounters were made that way to represent an ability a monster has that otherwise has no way to be implemented on them. It was likely either, "Sneak Attacks", or add 4d6 to its primary weapons.
  I hope you can see why some of them were made the first way.
  Unfortunately you are right, most summons are constructs or elemental beings with immunities to sneak attacks. And unfortunate ON/OFF button that is not easy to circumvent without having to rework complete spawns all over the place. A lesson learned, and a guarantee that we all have that in mind now when making high level encounters. We can't however guarantee that we will come and revisit every single encounter in the game without a formidable reason, or a bug report or spawn suggestion. Not until we decide the direction Layonara will take in the future.

[Yosemite Sam]

Darn, more limitations in the engine.  Note I didnt say the all shouldnt have it, just would like to see something else.  Just as some encounters still have death magic, sneak attack should remain.  It just seems to me that too many of the difficult encounters seem built around it. Too bad Fortification isnt available, either.  I holp the nwnw2 engine is a big improvement over this one, its age is really showing.  Jumping, I want jumping. No more being stopped by the pebble on the ground, I say!  DDO and WoW both allow you to jump.  On the other hand, Guild wars does not.

[Talan Va'lash]

Yosemite Sam - 9/16/2006  6:06 PM

Darn, more limitations in the engine.  Note I didnt say the all shouldnt have it, just would like to see something else.  Just as some encounters still have death magic, sneak attack should remain.  It just seems to me that too many of the difficult encounters seem built around it. Too bad Fortification isnt available, either.  I holp the nwnw2 engine is a big improvement over this one, its age is really showing.  Jumping, I want jumping. No more being stopped by the pebble on the ground, I say!  DDO and WoW both allow you to jump.  On the other hand, Guild wars does not.

From what I've seen there will be no jumping in NWN2, or if there is, it will have very little or no mechanical impact.

What i've read says that nwn2 is still, in essence, a 2D mechanical world, represented with 3d graphics, kinda like that chess game where the pieces were monsters and they'd beat each other up when you capture a piece... The monsters were 3d looking, but they could only move left, right, forward and back, no up and down. It looks like NWN2 will be the same as NWN1 in that you can make stuff look higher and lower... but it really isn't, or at least, it doesn't mean anything.

This is why I can attack a griffon thats 10 meters above me with a dagger (in NWN)

[Weeblie]

2.5D?

[Dorganath]

Talan Va'lash - 9/17/2006  6:09 AM  This is why I can attack a griffon thats 10 meters above me with a dagger (in NWN)

 It's only fair since the griffon is attacking you!

[Dorganath]

To be accurate, NWN/NWN2 are 3D games, but motion in the Z axis is restricted based on geography.
  Jumping, climbing and several other type skills can be managed with GM interaction. With some coding, a "safe" jumping system could be made, but it's nearly pointless in the framework of NWN/NWN2. One could probably argue that there are plenty of places where one could jump/climb/etc. if PCs had that ability. While true, some of those places would in fact break game mechanics.
  A good example of game-breaking PnP things that don't work in NWN is teleportation (in any of its forms). Teleportation was not included in NWN1 because it allowed the player to get past things that were important to the game. I'm not talking about getting past dangers like traps but rather teleporting past invisible triggers that actually advance the plot/story/area/mechanics. Seeing no reliable way around this, Bioware did not include Teleport, Dimension Door, Plant Door, Tree Walk and that whole line of spells/abilities.
  In a PW, that's mostly of lesser concern, but not completely. When we added teleportation for Wizards and Druids, we did so with a system that could be (and has been) restricted to where the system could be used. There are places that cannot be imprinted for later return. There are places where the items cannot be used. In other words, we have control, and nothing gets broken. If it does, then that breaking gets tweaked, but that's the kind of control we have with the current system.
  Similar things could be said for climbing and jumping and the like. Where we want to allow climbing and jumping, we have a system that manages that. Where we don't have that, it's just not permitted because we don't want it to be permitted.