The World of Layonara
NWN Discussions and Suggestions => CNR Suggestions/Discussion => Topic started by: Chrys Ellis on August 23, 2005, 08:00:00 AM
-
I just managed to make my first oil of sharpness. It was no easy task, but I heard it added keen to a weapon, so I thought it would be worth it. Here's the ingredients:
[list=1]
- 2 essences of speed, which in themselves are not that easy to make. Each essence takes 2 thistle leaves and 2 hops, which are not in the easiest of locales.
- 2 bags of mahogony sawdust
- 2 pear juices
- 1 ingot of adamantium
In addition to this, the oil is the hardest thing to make as an alchemist. I'm a 14th level alchemist, and with my stats maxed, I only had a 30% chance to make this thing. I attempted 5, and only managed to make one. To put things in perspective, the next most difficult thing to make is a level IV silver or titanium enhancement, and I would have a 70% chance to make that in the same instance. After all this, the last thing I expected was that the keen would be...TEMPORARY! Huh?
Seriously, for the ingredients that go into this, and the extreme difficulty in making it, why is this only temporary? Other things, like silver enhancements, add permanent bonuses to weapons, and they aren't nearly as difficult to make. For what is involved in making this, the effects should really be permanent. It was a bummer to finally make what should be the best thing an alchemist can make at this point, only to see this.
If it's been decided that permanent keen is just too powerful, then please change the recipe. As it stands, it's definitely not worth making it.
-
Just to make a follow up. I was there with Xiao and i tested the oil. The duration of this effect is very short, maybe one or two battles. So i must say i agree with Xiao, this oil is simply not worth it, and was a big big dissapointment to make...took us quite some time to gather all the stuff for it.
-
I think a permantly keen weapon is a bit overpowered. The spell keen edge has been powered down I think to rounds. Would be completely nuts if anyone, with lvl 14 alchemy of course, could get the permanent effect.
-
While I agree that there inconsistencies in alchemy – including oil of sharpness - that could use adjusting I do not agree with making keen permanent. Oil of sharpness certainly appears “overpriced” and I agree it shouldn’t be the hardest task in alchemy, but…
There are other considerations to make. Alchemy allows non-spellcasters to prepare potions that emulate spells, this is major benefit in a low magic world. If the potions were powerful and easy to make there would be little need to bring clerics and mages, hence most potions require hard to get ingredients, have shorter duration and are less powerful.
Also keen is brilliant for making wonder combo’s. Add the right feats, high rate of attack and various bonuses and it shines. A permanent keen is simply over-powerful in the right (or wrong) hands and should/would raise the levels dramatically making it only available to very high level characters.
As I see it oil of sharpness should be easier to make, but not more so than you saved it for the most important battles.
:)
Rolf
P.S. I think potion of clarity is even more overpriced *grins*
-
Then either make the recipe even harder, and keep the effects permanent, or make it much easier, at least in terms of components, and keep the effects temporary. The way it is is just ridiculous
-
I agree!
Reduce the difficulty by removing the adamantium ingot and make it easier to make.
:)
Rolf
-
If it is easy to make, then you can make a huge batch and then have a permanent keen sword anyway simply because you have alot of them.
-
It shouldnt be easy to make, but easier.
:)
-
Making a large batch of anything, even cure potions, is not quick and easy. While the creatures guarding the resources are easy enough, and its within say, ten screens of Hlint, its still time consuming due to resource spawn times and quantities.
Toss an emerald into the recipe and make it permanent :-p
-
Na just make the ingot needed mithril or maybe even two.
-
The duration on the minimum caster level of keen (which is probably what it has) is 5 rounds. 30 seconds.
Keen is a pretty big property. The reason it would be even huger here as a permanant stat is that you can add elemental damage, which is mutilpied on a crit (not sure if thats true to the pnp rule or not.)
For example, you get to choose between two swords: a keen longsword or a longsword with 1d8 fire damage.
I know which I'd pick. But if you could apply keen to a weapon you could have both. Which is big.
So yeah, if it were permanant the recepie would have to be like Mithral and Emeralds (and the emeralds would be the easy part heh).
-TV
-
Maybe make it so you need mithril ingot and 2 bags of emerald dust.
-
I'd say permanent sharpness is a bit extreme. Lower the required lvl in alchemy and the ingredients a bit instead.
While doing that you might want to consider Potions of Clarity as well, which require 3 ruby dusts right now. Thats a bit much for a low lvl potion.
-
Clearly, people see permanent sharpness as a huge bonus to a weapon. Personally, instead of lowering the requirements for temporary keen, I would like to see the requirements raised and keeping it permanent. Something like an emerald and/or a mithril ingot. Clearly, it will be a long time before anyone would be able to have that on their weapon, and it will surely be a rare thing. Also, make the lvl req. go up like 5 lvls when keen is added, or something.
If keen is kept with a one or two battle duration, it should be about as hard to make as any of the ability raising potions, in terms of resources and difficulty in making it.
-
I'm a 14th level alchemist, and with my stats maxed, I only had a 30% chance to make this thing. I attempted 5, and only managed to make one.
Does everyone know how crafting levels work toward percentages? Basically, each level you go up is 10% added to your chance. You are level 14, the max level is 22. There are 8 levels, that is, 80% between you and your maximum ability in alchemy. I am assuming you had yourself buffed by a wizard or cleric, so your 30% is probably more like a 5% or 10%, right?
Okay, so let's take 5% chance, unbuffed, and level 14. At level 22, that is an 85% chance to make the item. Fully buffed, it is trivial, and you can make the oil 100% of the time.
At that point, it is simply a matter of ingredients. Your list was -
2 essences of speed, which in themselves are not that easy to make. Each essence takes 2 thistle leaves and 2 hops, which are not in the easiest of locales.
2 bags of mahogony sawdust
2 pear juices
1 ingot of adamantium
The main suggestion is to take out the ingot of adamantium. Tell me, how hard would it be gather enough for 20 or so potions without the need for adamantium? Even WITH Adamantium, once you hit the point where it is trivial to make the item, how much of a hassle is it to just knock out a run of adamantium or two and keep them at home until you get the other stuff?
I think it would be a touch overpowering for a max level alchemist if this was easier to make.
-
Keen will never be made permanent. Period.
The recipe was created to balance the power of the ability. It is at this point what the team considers to be fine, powerwise.
So the recipe will remain as it is for now, these components can be obtained all in mass quantities.
-
Getting above lvl 14-15 in alchemy is not an easy feat.
-
Please tell me if I have this right on possible enhancements:
+1/2 Bonus from metal used to create
1 elemental damage
1 metallic damage
Weight Reduction
Visual Effects
Keen (temp from spell or oil)
Holy Avenger (temp from spell)
Flaming Weapon (temp from spell)
I know it would take a lot of effort, but what about altering weapons to have a maximum of 3 magical enchantments(remember, the bonus for the base metal it is made from counts as a magical enchantment)? It would mean altering all the custom weapon blueprints. Then you could open up more options for permanent weapon enchantments, like Keen, because you would have to sacrifice one of your damage enhancements for the boosted critical chance. Perhaps make the exceptional version of any weapon capable of a 4th enchantment to truly make them exceptional.
-
Keen is a very deadly thing. Let's take this whole idea into some perspective for a minute. Keen doubles your critital threat range. That means that when you roll a twenty, or roll into your threat rage (the little numbers with the X and a value at the end on your character information sheet..) you have the chance of scoring extra damage based upon your threat modififer. We'll just be simple here for a moment and use your average and rather common rapier. If you score an 18-20 on your attack roll, and you actually hit, you roll another attack. If you hit again double damage is served. Now let's add Keen to that little weapon, shall we? A Keen Rapier criticals on 15-20. Now let's make that Keen Rapier in the hands of a fighter with Improved Critical Rapier. That rapier now criticals on a 12-20 range. Do you see why Keen is not a constant effect, Xiao?
But finally, and I believe one of the best reasons Keen is not allowed to be applied to weapons as a constant effect, are Weapon Masters. A Rapier in the hands of a Weapon Master, with just Improved Critical, and all of those nifty feats they gather, is if you can believe it 13-20 x3. Thats as if they're attacking with a battleaxe that criticals on 40% of their attacks. That's a lot of possible damage.
So, in short, I am quite happy Keen weapons do not exist, or are atleast very rare.
-
Imagine a fighter/weaponmaster with a scyth
on a 20, x4 damage, becomes
19-20 x4 damage with improved crit
19-20 x5 damage with 5 WM levels
17-20 x5 damage with 7 WM levels
13-20 x5 damage with Keen
Even scarier, look at Derrick Loadson, who uses two swords that now crit on a 15-20 for x3 damage and has 6 attacks per round. (4 main hand 2 off hand)
He has lotsa money, and would have no problem buying 2 keen enhancements, crits on a 10-20 for x3 damage, attacking 6 times per round ... that is actually very scary ...
Imagine him hasted, buffed, and loaded with heal potions ....
-
"So, in short, I am quite happy Keen weapons do not exist, or are atleast very rare."
to my knowlege there is only one keen weapon in Layo, it's only a dagger, and it doesn't have any elemental enchantments on it, and will likely stay that way, because Lue isn't selling it (sentimental value)
-
Pankoki - 8/24/2005 7:44 AM Keen will never be made permanent. Period.
The recipe was created to balance the power of the ability. It is at this point what the team considers to be fine, powerwise.
So the recipe will remain as it is for now, these components can be obtained all in mass quantities.
Good call. What amazes me is that I've NEVER seen a mage cast keen edge on this server. Awesome spell. -TV
-
Eiight Bit and Zhofe,
Thanks for the info. Interesting stuff. Do this with a different spell every two weeks and I will love yo....errr, be happy I mean.
Thanks,
Etinfall
-
I WANT KEEN! Har!
I thought Titanium Rods made a weapon keen... I must have been mistaken.
Also I thought Keen only added 2 to the critical threat range... not doubled it.
OK So Since Zhofe brought up Derrick the Weapon Master
Derrick is a dual weilder. I also took improved two handed AND improved critical
As a level 5 Weapon Master my crit multiplier is x3
Lets Haste Derrick Mwhahaha
I crit on a 17-20, 7 attacks per round. When I crit... I do around 62 Mwhahah
At level 7 weapon master my critical threat range goes up by 2... so I will crit on 15 - 20
So I would be able to dish out massive damage... but hey I should I'm a Weapons Master. Honestly giving permanent keen to a Weapon Master would not really give him that much more power. (unless it does in fact double the critical threat range)
And besides... with a Will of 4, a level 1 colorspray spell pretty much does me in.
-
If the weapon has a natural 1 crit rating, it doubles it to two.
If the weapon has a natural 2 crit rating, it doubles it to four.
If the weapon has a natrual 3 crit rating, it doubles it to six.
Stacking in D&D doesn't work like one would necessarily think though.
Two doubles doesn't make a x4. It makes a x3.
Which is important when factoring things like Improved Critical and such.
-
So with a scythe like the example above... which is a 1 point crit rating with a 4 point multiple for damage...
With keen and and improved crit that goes to a x3 (since a x2 and a x2 == x3 instead of a x4), or an 18-20 x4.
With the weapon master talents that becomes a +2 or 16-20 with a +1 damage multiplier or x5.
The ending threat and damage multipler are 16-20 with x5 damage. In the hands of a strong half orc a weapon like that can do in the hundreds of damage.
A level 20 fighter with a 30 natrual strength would go up to a 42 buffed. That's a +11 bonus.
A +2 weapon, of course with a GMW cast upon it for a +4 bonus.
Improved Power attack adds an additional +10.
The scythe damage is a base of 2d4.
So on a minimum roll, thats 2+10+4+11. Or 27x5 which is an astounding 135.
Given proper buffs, elemental damage, and so on the number will can can skyrocket even higher.
Then we take something like a rapier. Perhaps a duelist and a weaponmaster to boot at high levels.
The rapier beings at an 18-20 crit rating, with imp crit and keen it drops to a disturbing 12-20. With the weaponmaster talents it becomes 10-20 x3.
Now, the run of the mill duelist isn't overly strong, so you won't have the massive strength bonuses. But with you doing x3 damage 50% of the time... and when you consider it will x3 the precise strike and the elemental damage it can and will sustain as much as that big half orc can burst for.
Anyway...
There you go. A min/max review of crit ratings and why the Oil of Sharpness is hard to make. Will never become perm and why it requires fairly hard to get ingredients.
The above numbers should be fairly solid, I haven't had to really do that since I was building PrC's and such and having to compute things like that... but I think I still remember all the tricks.
-
"A level 20 fighter with a 30 natrual strength would go up to a 42 buffed. That's a +11 bonus."
Should read:
A level 20 fighter with a 20 natural strength could go up to a 32 buffed. That's a +11 bonus.
if it was 42 the bonus would be +16, and I dont think a natural str of 30 is possible at level 20 even if you ridiculously min/max
-TV
-
The highest natural strenght that a character would have at level 20 would be 25, by starting with an half-orc and putting every ability increase on Strength.
-
Close enough.
-
Talan Va'lash - 8/24/2005 7:06 PM
Good call. What amazes me is that I've NEVER seen a mage cast keen edge on this server. Awesome spell.
-TV
I am not a mage but I cast Keen Edge ALL the time. But not on myself. I use a rapier and Keen Edge has to be used on slashing weapons I believe so it doesnt do a thing for me. I cast it on Iradril and he crits all over the place with his bastard sword.
I agree with everyone here that it should be a non-permanent effect though. On the other hand, I think there should be a handful(maybe less) of keen weapons out there that can be found. Make them extremely hard to obtain, but it would be cool if they existed. Of course they might exist and I just dont know about them. :)
This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks. When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that? Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?
-
"I agree with everyone here that it should be a non-permanent effect though. On the other hand, I think there should be a handful(maybe less) of keen weapons out there that can be found. Make them extremely hard to obtain, but it would be cool if they existed. Of course they might exist and I just dont know about them. "
I only know of one in existance currently. There are probably some in the loot tables somewhere, and I guarantee they're extremely hard to obtain ;)
"This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks. When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that? Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?"
3rd edition. Its to allow for the fact that a natural 20 is an automatic hit, so, you can hit and get hit by something that cant even match your AC on a roll of a 20, but ensures that said creature won't crit against you since it needs incredible luck even to hit you.
Question:
in 3.5 improved crit doesn't stack with keen - is it a 3.0 thing that it does? or an NWN thing?
in 3.5 elemental damage (at least the elemental damage on the swords described in the DM guid) is not multiplied on a crit. Same question as above, change in 3.5? or NWN thing?
-TV
-
This is semi-off topic but related to critical attacks. When did D&D change to where if you roll a critical hit then you roll again to make sure you hit or something like that? Am I the only one who finds this a little silly?
You don't roll again to make sure you hit. You already hit. You roll again to see if you critically hit. The range of numbers is not the critical range for the weapon, but the critical threat range, meaning when you roll within that range you haven't gotten a critical hit, but threatened a critcal hit. But that's all semantics.
What it means is a harder-to-hit enemy is harder to get a critical hit on, which makes sense. There must be some reason they are hard to hit in the first place, whether that's good armor or good reflexes or whatever. That better defense is going to make what would have been a critical hit on a less protected target into a more glancing (normal damage) hit, and that's what the second roll represents.
Rolling a single die for determining criticals would make it just as easy to crit against a well-protected target as a moderately protected one (though the moderately protected one would still be easier to hit).
Sorry if that's not very clear.
-
I had a system once for 1st Edition AD&D for critical hits and critical misses. I took it from Dragon magazine, and it covered all types of critical hits for major types of weapons, as well as critical miss effects.
The way it worked (or at least the way we used it) was that if you rolled a natural 20 on the to-hit roll, you get to roll a critical hit on the appropriate table (edged, missile, blunt, etc.). The roll was d100, and the majority of results were double damage, with another range of about half the size being triple damage. Then it got interesting...anything from incapacitating a limb to amputating said limb to causing excessive bleeding (death within 1d8 rounds if unhealed) to decapitation/arrow-through-the-eye/crushed skull (i.e. instant death).
But the flip side was the critical miss. If you rolled a natural 1 on the to-hit roll, you had to roll against the critical miss/fumble table, which could be anything from drop weapon, to break weapon (magic weapons took a permanent -1 penalty...a +2 sword became +1), to hitting oneself for half/full damage, to hitting one's party member for half/full damage, etc.
They really made combat interesting....especially when an archer somehow hit himself...heh.
-
*points up* Gul said it better than I did.
-TV
-
yeah, in 3.5 PnP Dnd, Keen and Improved Crit do not stack, unlike in NWN where you can stack the living begeezes out of everything.