The World of Layonara
The NWN Persistent World => Layonara Server => Topic started by: orth on February 04, 2006, 12:59:26 PM
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The amount of level 8+ mages soloing and/or transforming into a melee attacker are becoming a concern to the team. How do you think we should address this problem?
Is it enough to ask that you consider the focus of this server towards roleplaying and a balanced system please. If that's not enough then maybe the mages can speak up on how they'd expect us to make changes. If you don't - expect anything from more drastic rest measurements, required components for spells even if you have eschew, 24 hour spell timers (real life 24 hours), mana systems. We don't want to go through all that trouble.
Just because you are capable of performing something with the Bioware system is not an implicit declaration that the Layonara team approves of it. If you know something's really wrong and against the spirit of the world, it's simple DON'T DO IT.
Thanks!
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As I see it, such actions are a result of previous changes that were implemented. Spells that were considered overpowering, those that in essence formed a base for any spellcaster (meaning they were cast the most) were changed in a way that made them quite ineffective. I am speaking of Firebrand, Greater Isaac's Storm and some others. In a situation where a mage needs many direct damage spells to defeat a group of monsters or a single polymorph spell, it is obvious that many will choose the latter. It is simply a question of efficiency.
I suggest making the direct damage spells more powerful and as a counter effect, nerf the polymorph spells. This will help bring back the mages to their original roles.
Such actions will also change the situation where in a large party, a mage can be rather useless. His only role is to haste and cast stoneskin. Many of the creatures have a large amount of hitpoints and a Firebrand or Isaacs storm really don't make a difference to the outcome of the battle, they only quicken the ineventable victory. The damage dealt by firebrand to a monster is roughly the same that a fighter deals out when he hits a monster. The only thing is that a mage has a very limited amount of spells, but a fighter deals out damage many times per round.
The situation with epic level monsters is even worse, there only melee damage makes a difference, because the creatures are often immune to most spells.
No wonder the mage chooses to go into the melee, it makes him a much more efficient character. So make the spells more powerful and nerf the polymorphs, give the mages the ability to do what they were supposed to be good at.
PS. I myself have always only one Tenser's memorised and use it as a last chance spell. When everything else is exhausted, I charge in.
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I personally can't see what's wrong with using polymorph a lot. Myself I mostly use it to heal in troll-form, I prefer to fight in halfling-form. Maybe you could get enemy casters touse dispel magic to get the mages back to normal form. This, coupled with the above mentioned increase of the usefulness of energy damage spells, would help a lot. It's already hard enough to be a damage mage with the normal spells, it's a lot better to be a control mage with acid fog and such, an enchanter with Hold Person, Dominate Person, etc,an illusionist, or a necromancer. Damage mages are one of the weakest kind of characters ever, no need to nerf them.
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Personally I've always thought that rest's should be limited to one rest only in every 24 hour 'game time period ' anyway. But I don't think that the other systems are really fair...especially if you start requiring componants for spells even if the eschew feats are taken. Basically I would say that the polymorph spells shouldn't merge any armour, items or weapon bonuses, if I remember correctly the polymorph spell does but the shapechange spell doesn't.
The problem with tenser's is that it is a PnP spell and I think that the NWN version is the same as the PnP one. However I think that if you really feel the need to change it the best thing you can do is to cap the time it operates for and prevent it being used as an extended spell.
However the real problem is with NWN and its lack of available spells compared with PnP and I'm not really taking about combat spells but the more interesting ones which could be used out of combat. Its something I hope that NWN2 will address.
By the way Bil always has either a polymorph spell or a shapechange spell memorised in case he runs out of spells and he's still in a dark smelly place. For him its a last resort as a happy goblin has a whole party of adventurers between him and danger :)
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In response to Varnart, there's not a problem with polymorph on its own. The problem comes in when it's used to turn a weakling party mage into a solo tank for a short period of time. The world was built around groups and RP, not solo mages able to tear up a continent.
In the past, there have been certain combinations of spells which were abused to no end by a small group of mages and ultimately the Team weakened them as a result.
As a member of the GM Team, Co-lead Content Developerand as a player whose main character is a Sorcerer/Fighter, the primary responsibility for keeping things in balance falls to the player base. For the Team to do it is a lot of work that we shouldn't have to do. And remember that we're all doing this on a volunteer basis.
But most importantly, if the Team makes and enforces changes, you the mage player base will most likely not appreciate them at all. Yes, it would be a matter of a few bad actors spoiling things for the rest, but sometimes it has to be done when all other methods are insufficient.
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I think what orth is saying, is that casters shouldnt use the transformation spells as a means to easily run around and solo stuff. If you are in a party, and the mage use a transformation spell to aid the party, i think that would be exactly the meaning with having the spell. Of the transformation spells, its only really tenser's that is effective as an offensive spell. The shapechange forms have much lower AB, and are really more like a defensive spell.
Like Ar7 says, a transformation spell is good to have as a last resort, when spells run out or are useless to the situation. That is the way i use them too.
I do see the point about the damage spells being too weak for many situations, leaving the mage to choose alternative spells, which are often much more effective in a party anyway. Heh, so my point is, to quote orth, "If you know something's really wrong and against the spirit of the world, it's simple DON'T DO IT."
EDIT: Wow, 3 posts before i could get my little response typed up. :)
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I don't think the point of this is whether or not it's O.K. for mages to use Shapechange or Polymorph spells at all. It's a spell, and they're gonna use it. The only problem is when mages start soloing like a fighter with a baggie full of magic tricks. It's sort of like before, when wizards could cast Elemental Sheild, Mestil's Acid Sheath, and Death Armor, then pop on Ethereal Visage, soak up the damage and let the sheilds dish it out. Now, I'll be the first person to admit I used that a few times, but once I figured out it was giving me an advantage that just wasn't right I stopped. It's about balance, and for a server that is build for parties no one should be able to solo around the world and level like it is being suggested that people are. (Did that make sense?)
ZV-
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My .02.
I usually am not able to get on during the time when most are logged into the server. So when I have Nob I like to craft so I go and gather stuff. I'm not getting to any level quick where Nob goes since he just can't handle much on his own. I've used troll form before when I take a good amouont of hits to help regenerate quicker and I've even used it in party play when I see someone is getting overwhelmed.
I wish it was easy enough to just say, don't do it and we wouldn't do it on Layo but someone usually ends up doing it anyway. As to a fix, I am not sure, longer rest periods will end up penalizing the mages and penalizing parties that use mages since the spells will be longer in coming.
@ steverimmer, I don't like the idea of requiring components even if I have eschew, those are feats Nob has taken and if they become useless then Nob effectively took those feats for no reason. And as rare as feats are I wouldn't like to see that happen.
I do think the Ar7 has a good point, Nob has Issac's Greater and it's really a prety much a useless spell since it has a hard time killing a monster, by the time I get it off in a party the monster is dead. So I just do buffs in a party since I really can't contribute any other way effectively. Troll form does merge the armor but not jewelry, I lose spells when I transform, even with Tenser's. Tenser's is a last resort spell for me as well as it doesn't last that long. Maybe nerf the polymorph spell to either round/level or somehow the casters armor comes off and buff spells are removed. Just an idea.
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the problem with Tensers is the fact that it gives you Tensers sword, if we can change it so that you must use yor staff or what ever weapon you have equiped it doesn't become as bad anymore because the characters arn't getting a free flaming +5 sword
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Thunder Pants - 2/4/2006 6:31 PM the problem with Tensers is the fact that it gives you Tensers sword, if we can change it so that you must use yor staff or what ever weapon you have equiped it doesn't become as bad anymore because the characters arn't getting a free flaming +5 sword
*coughs* It's actually a +3 Flaming Sword. ;)
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still it's a flaming sword they shouldn't have, Tensers isn't supposed to give them any kind of weapon proficiency and as such while i agree they should be allowed to cast it, if they are forced to use their querterstaffs at best it's much more ballanced
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Greater magic weapon, rod 4 fire, flame weapon...and the staff is better than the sword. That wont change anyhting.
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Maybe make it so all self buffs are dispelled while polymorphing but you are allowed to be buffed while polymorphed. This means other party members can still buff the polymorphed person, but they still have no chance of getting some spells like premonition, shadow shield, greater stoneskin or any of the magic shield spells (ontop of whatever else they have), but as long as theyre still with a party they can get spells while polymorphed.
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I think that would be too extreme.
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hmm don't like the sound of that...usually when Bil uses it things have already gone bad and he's not in the best of health. Without the buffs still in effect, the chances of getting away alive are not good :(
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My character Rashar uses Tenser a lot in combat. In fact that is how he fights the most of his battles. I RP him as if he learned to fight by the warriors he normally travels with, so for him it is not only battles, but also background and it identifies him as a character.
Tenser is powerful, no doubt, but I also loose 1 spell on every spell lvl every time I use it, so I don't really see it as that big a deal balance-wise. Upping resting times would set an effective stop for that, but then mages would be suffering a lot more than is necessary in my opinion. It is a powerful class, but it takes one a lot of time and effort to get to lvl 10, and after that without the transformation spells one could do nothing alone. Yes, Layo was created for parties, but players (at a lvl where one can party with them) are not always around, so mages should (like priests and fighters) be able to handle things on their own. I am not saying handling things on their own means to rule a continent, but nerfing spells further might make the class under-powered.
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Here are all the problems I see here.
1. Classes will level at different speeds at different levels. Ie: Derrick leveled faster than Tath for quite a while, until Tath hit level 10-12, then he shot past Derrick for a while, that is until now, when most of the creatures that give Tath decent experiance are immuned to his magic, now Tath needs Derrick (or someone like him) in order to fight them.
2. No one class should be able to "rule a continent," and no class should be totally self sufficent, however it seems to me that there is a natural order which has been put in place that sort of works it out. Wizards can solo for a while, so can the warriors, simply at different times, and different levels.
3. And the final problem is that no matter what happens here, someone will cry "foul!" If the GMs lower these spells power, it will make some people happy, seeing that it needed to be done to control the rate of wizards gaining levels. However it may anger those who play arcane spellcasters. On the flip side, if nothing is done about it then people will start calling for something to be done. The only real solution is players policing themselves. If you can go out between levels 8 and 16, and gain a level simply by soloing, stop doing what you're doing! It's probably gonna get your entire class in deep doo-doo. Nuff said.
ZV-
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We've had too many use these methods then look back and say it should be changed.... thats lame. They knew it was wrong... then had a cow when they saw others using the same method.
Casters (Mages and Clerics) can still do more today Solo than any Fighter class can once past level 8 or so from then on.
I am very pleased to see Orth and the team present this to the public to have them try and offer fixes themselves.... but I wanger when the dust settles here the team will do what they feel is best for the world as a whole.
Remember that folks... the team thinks what is best for the entire world.... not for one class or character... I know it's easy to think one sided when it involves a race, class, etc. that you have. But sit back and look at the big picture and you will almost always see why they make the changes they do.
G-452
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"....We've had too many use these methods then look back and say it should be changed.... thats lame. They knew it was wrong... then had a cow when they saw others using the same method...."
So very true, and sad.
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...anything from more drastic rest measurements...
When i first came to layo, I was very surprised when my rest timers didn't increase with level. A majority of the servers I've played on that I consider well balanced (whether that balance is high, medium, or low magic) had scaling rest timers.
i.e.
1st-4th level you can rest as often as you want
5-7 - 6 min
8-10 - 9 min
11-15 - 15 min
16+ - 20 min
Or something like that. The exact times aren't important in this example is more the concept.
I wouldn't mind something like this being implemented. Its fairly common on other servers and deals with the issue of higher levels being able to keep "short" duration spells up almost constantly. It also adds back in the time issue in spell tactics which is an issue that is greatly lessened around level 10 when your turn/lvl spells last the whole rest timer.
-TV
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I have used tenser's recently to good effect, but I really don't think that tenser's by itself is that much of a problem. I think what you are seeing is that around 11th/12th level, a mage/sorceror finally has enough cash to flesh out his/her spell book or in the case of the sorceror finally has enough known spells to come up with some good spell combinations. Also, the arcane caster's spell duration now covers a full rest period so that a buff/rest/buff cycle becomes much more realistic.
I think that some other tactics, most noteably the darkness/ultravision tactic, are far more unbalancing.
I agree with the assessment that many arcane casters are driven to transformation and hit me and you'll get hurt type tactics (e.g. acid sheeth) by the weakness of the offensive spells. It takes a huge number of elemental attacks to kill anything and most of the hold or instant death spells will quite frequently be saved against by the target. I find the lost spells from tenser's to be a major pain in planning my rest periods so that I fully reset my spells, otherwise I don't get them back.
The other thing about mages is that they remain quite fragile even at mid-levels when not prepared. Unless you spend some time buffing, you can easily be killed by a single misclick when sneaking around Mistone doing invisible resource gathering.
The most efficient use of a mage seems to be to get together with a bunch of fighters, stoneskin them, flame their weapons, cast other appropriate protections and then haste them and stand back and watch them fight. It is efficient, but not very rewarding. It would be nice to see my spells do more damage than a critical hit from the fighters, but it almost never happens. So, a fireball becomes a convenient way to bring the bad guys into an ambush by the fighters, but doesn't really harm them that much.
My experience at low levels was that I lived by the charity of the fighters who allowed me to party with them. I could make them invisible in a pinch to recover graves and things like that, but my spells didn't last long enough to have any significant effect.
In closing, I would like to note that many or even most of the front line fighters in the quests I've seen or discussed with others who participated have been druids or clerics. At the high levels, fighters seem to be the most under-represented class. Of the fighter types I have seen at high levels, almost all have been either rangers or paladins.
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Just the opinion of a fighter player here:
Now, about the comments saying that fighters can solo well, I have to agree completely. Jet is now level 13, and the toughest place he can really solo is Haven, and even then he can't get to the bottom, where some classes are capable of fighting alone in numerous areas on Central. Fighters are more stable than mages, and will fight the same in almost any situation since they don't get spells, but they can't heal themselves or become a powerhouse like a mage or cleric can.
And about fighters killing mosters before mages get the chance to use attack spells? There are some monsters fighters will never be able to kill alone. A fighter will need a mage or cleric to kill any epic monster, since a lot of them have a very high DR and some are immune to most physical damage. That's where the mages come in. Buff the fighters, and they can kill high DR monsters, but that still won't help against something immune to physical damage. That's where damage spells come in.
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Maybe, forcing character's to rest longer (i.e. making no offensive action) to regain spells?
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Weeblie - 2/5/2006 4:12 PM Maybe, forcing character's to rest longer (i.e. making no offensive action) to regain spells?
Thats what I've always belived...once per Layo 24 hour period unless you're at a safe campfire somewhere or in an inn. I think that making spells less effective is not the way to go, it just takes a lot of the joy out of being a wizard. But wizards have only a limited number of spells, so they need to rest. Making rest periods once per layo 24 hours would solve this I think and make wizards use their spells more effectively. I think its about 45 mins real life or something like that.
Of course this would effect other classes too unless there is a way of seperating spell recovery from hitpoint recovery.
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Thunder Pants - 2/4/2006 6:44 PM
still it's a flaming sword they shouldn't have, Tensers isn't supposed to give them any kind of weapon proficiency and as such while i agree they should be allowed to cast it, if they are forced to use their querterstaffs at best it's much more ballanced
Actually, by PnP, it's supposed to grant Simple Weapon Proficiency for the duration, but that's really neither here nor there.
I think if the sword can be yanked out, that would go a fair way toward cutting down the power of the spell. Though there are some of us who would be *more* powerful if that happened, considering I've taken improved critical greatsword and would love to use mine while tenser'ed.
I don't think that the spell needs cut in power (though making the str and con bonuses from Tenser not stack with Bull's strength and Endurance might help with that a bit). Speaking as someone who hasn't taken the Eschew feats, it's kind of expensive to use that spell at a cost of a Bull's Strength potion or a scroll every time.
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I think one of the problems is that a responsible mage/sorceror will have to focus on buffs and polymorphs. Many of his spells are simply to dangerous to use in a combat were he risk killing party members with if he uses these spells. Thus logically a mage would focus on spells than can improve himself and his mates, and spells that will damage enemies only.
However, I cannot see any way around the fact that spellcasters in general are more powerfull than combat oriented characters (at high levels at least) especially in a low magic world. To my knowlegde spellslingers have been more powerfull than combat characters in all D&D rules. Perhaps it could be ballanced a little by chossing a bit higher magic level for the world thus giving the combat charecters some of the spellslsingers abileties, and making all monsters a bit more difficult. But I honestly don't think that there is a way to make spellsslinger dependent on having party members (they always have an extra party member in their spellbook anyway), it will of course always be an advantage to them. Another possibilety could be to force all spellcaster to multiclass and thereby making them less powerfull, this would however make ALOT of characters illigal.
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After reading all the posts again I like a combo of sorts. The graduated rest times that Taln mentioned or a 24 hour game time rest period and a removal of buff spells when a mage casts a transformation spell. The rest option however has the side effect of possibly affecting quests if the rest period is too long as the party will be without mage spells until the rest period is over.
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A 45 minutes (24 Layo hours) rest period will kill a mage.
Imagine a low level wizard/sorcerer with perhaps 3 fireballs, a Lesser Isaac's Storm, a few Magic Missles and some buffs. His buffs will probably end in 10 or so minutes, depending on a level. But now imagine that you play such a character, that you are with a party and imagine how you spread those couple of spells to 45 minutes. You will stand there like a tree lump flinging an occasional spell that bothers people more than it helps, since all have to stop and clear the way. You can of course get a crossbow and shoot once per round hitting occasionally for those "very important" 4-6 damage.
Now imagine a high level wizard/sorcerer, I play one so I can speak from my own experience. Creatures get really powerful and to make a difference and help the party a wizard/sorcerer needs to cast many spells, often almost his all arsenal during one encounter. I will bring the latest example, we were on a quest with very high level foes, there were many wizards in a party, all nearing epic. With some enemies it took myself, Bil, Brac, Savin to cast Isaacs storms and Bigby's hands in large amounts to make significant damage. If we had a 45 minutes rest period on us, well, we would have been useless.
I still say nerf or even remove Tenser's and increase the power of other spells. It will return arcane casters to what they have been originally meant for.
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Definately don't change the rest timer.
Concerning Tenser, I noticed that it was overpowered yes. Of course I use it though, but I thinbk there are two things that could balance that spell.
1. Making the spell non extendable.
2. Get rid of the extra hitpoints the caster receives when changing.
As for the other polymorph spells. I think the concerns here are more about proper RP than them being overpowering. Can't write a script to force good RP.
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Twopoints, and an example:
Filatus - 2/5/2006 1:02 PM Can't write a script to force good RP.
I think this says a lot.
Also on rest timers....
The previously mentioned 24 hour period (RL or IG) of either rest or interval of use would apply to certain spells, not necessarily all of them. If extending the rest timer were deemed appropriate (or perhaps a level-based scale as Talan mentioned), it would likely be applied across all classes...or at least all spellcasting classes. Otherwise, something simple like that would seriously unbalance mages in the opposite direction.
In my PnP days, it took longer to rest/study for higher-level spellcasters (arcane or divine) in order to regain all their spells. If we only had a limited period of time, we had to pick which spells we wanted to study/regain, and higher level spells took longer to study than lower-level ones. This would be difficult to enforce in an encounter-rich online game setting, but a close approximation would be extending the rest timer as a character gains levels.
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After giving it some thought I got an idea:
Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...
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Harloff - 2/5/2006 9:01 PM After giving it some thought I got an idea: Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...
The problem with that is Bioware's AI I think, even if creatures have them, they don't use them :(
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I can remember a certain guardian of the Mahogany trees on the mountain in Beta 4 that took care of buffs rather nicely. One or two of that type of thing in a spawn will certainly keep mages from solo'ing.
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EdTheKet - 2/5/2006 9:05 PM Harloff - 2/5/2006 9:01 PM After giving it some thought I got an idea: Introduce more monsters with dispel magic, spell breach, greater dispelling etc. that would ensure that people wouldn't have that great advantage to the monsters buffing before a fight. and thus encourage people to form parties with charecters that are less dependent on buffs...
The problem with that is Bioware's AI I think, even if creatures have them, they don't use them :(
Not even if they don't have anything else?
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Another thing to remember regarding soloing mages here recently is that DT's have been turned off for a while. I certainly have done a lot more soloing recently as a result and I imagine a lot of others have too. I have a died a lot of times and learned a lot more about what works and what doesn't against various creatures. I think if you look back through many of the fast leveling soloing mages of the past you will find that many if not most ended up in DT trouble. I think the system has generally worked well that way. I have found that soloing as a mage I go very rapidly from complete controll to death. Conversely when I play my fighter, I can note that hitpoints are disappearing too fast and often get clear without dying.
Another idea. If at least some of the spawns included a chance of some other monsters (e.g. a 15% chance that forest of mist spawns included spell casting giants) the tailored buffs for each spawn wouldn't be guaranteed to work. It really isn't that realistic that when buffing up for a fight, we always know whether we will need elemental protection or not.
One final note, the power of a higher level mage is matched by the weakness of a low level mage. A strong breeze is about all it takes to kill a mage through his first 5 levels. It seems like most of the previous adjustments have weakened the low level mage as much or more than the high level mage. Please keep this in mind when making your adjustments. I think many players get so frustrated with low level mages that they either quit playing them before they become effective, or compensate by excessive power play when they get to a decent level
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And then the point of buffs would be?
As I see it here, there needs to be a clear goal of what you wish to accomplish. Do you wish to a) Reduce the usage of Tenser's b) Reduce the melee combat that a wizard does overall c) Simply warn the mages to stop exploiting Tenser's d) something else.
Because the way I see it now, what started as a warning statement regarding mostly Tenser's Transformation has now once again turned into a nerf the mages thread.
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I have absolutely nothing against mages, clerics nor any other spellcaster I just gave what I saw as a simple solution to the "problem" soloing mages using tensers. And there can only be two solutions making monster more diffiicult so that mages cannot kill them on their own or reduce the power of mages. The simplest solution would of course be to remove tensers, that would remove all exploits of that spell instantly.
These are only suggestions, I don't know if I like them or not but I just like solving problems. (perhaps that is why i became an engineer...)
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@Ar7, We have no intentions to 'nerf' mages...but we do need to fix this problem. A mage should not be as good as a fighter in melee combat--simple as that.
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I myself don't want to Nerf the mages AR7, I play one myself. I just would like to have a role in what happens rather than something being put into effect with no input fromm the players.
I think what you have said is well thought out and practical. The last thing I want is another nerfing of mages.
The problem is that many players do not read the forums regularly, at least from what I've seen, and those that don't won't see this message and will continue as they did before and force a change. I'm just looking at things that would hurt the least if a decision is made to enforce a rule.
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There is a lot of things in this game that makes mages solo...
First of they're actually brought up to solo, if you're a mage and ask how you can make money you'll be told to go gather resources as soon as you get invisibility. This makes a lot of rather low level mages spend a lot of the time running across large distances to get stuff to sell.
If a character begins doing that the character will miss out a lot of gaining IC-friends to help him out. But as long as he is below level 8-10 it should be a big problem because he can rely on random parties to form to make him able to go the standart places like haven mines, grey peaks, dire woods cave and other places on Mistone where people regulary go either to complete a quest or more likely to gather even more resources.
But as soon as he gets to the right before mid-levels he'll find himself in trouble. He now has to choose wheter he will spend most of his time invisible traveling in great circles around Mistone, Rilara and Dregar to gather even more resources and money. But sometimes the mage doesn't have to travel invisible because he can actually with his buffs handle the spawns at these places, fx. red light caves, varius kobold spawns and other places where the monsters deals 1-8 damage per hit. This enables him to earn even more money for himself and therefore is worth the (Small) risk involved in killing those low level monsters.
But when you remove the token system you also remove any risk the mage is taking soloing. He can try to take out any spawn because if he dies then he will just return to the bind stone, rest, cast bull's and invis and get his grave. He has no reson of fearing death and therefore he goes to solo in places where he is pushing luck...
This of course only applies to the low-mid level mage. Because when you hit the 8-10 levels you wont be leveling so fast without some friends to help you and some regular DM-run quest apperances. So those mages will have to slow down their gathering a little and instead focus a bit more on rp. But when you remove on of the things that threathen the mage's exsistance in this world he doesn't even have to barther to check wether his friends are online or have the time for going somewhere. He just find's his strongest summon and some buffs for himself and his summon and off he goes to counqer the world, or most of the places where he couldn't solo before because he had a chance of dying... Earning much xp and money along the way, and if he gets killed... well the good old bull's+invis still works for him.
Another "problem" with mages is the real powerhouse mage/fighter these characters have all the advantages off both classes and doesn't even suffer if they use the "Exploit"(I think it is at least) of the combo rest-buff-put on armour. If you build a hypothetical 15/5 mage/fighter and use this trick you'll have a party consisting of a level 15 mage and a level 12 fighter(At least in BAB) this is a very powerfull build indeed...
Mages aren't overpowered if they are rp'ed right. But if you don't do that they'll be one of the most powerfull classes in this game world.
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I beg to differ...a fighter/mage multiclass is not a powerhouse.
My primary character is a sorcerer/fighter. At 20th level now, he can draw some pretty powerful spawns, but with the fighting ability of a 6th level fighter (well, slightly better, but you get the point) and the spell-casting ability of a 14th level sorcerer, the only things he can really handle well, solo, are the low/mid level spawns. And in addition, he doesn't have/use any polymorph/Tenser's spells and the only summon he currently has is Greater Shadow Conjuration, which is just illusion and not as good as the real thing.
In my case, against a 6th level fighter, he's strong. Against a 14th level mage, he's strong. Against another 20th level character (pure or multiclass), not so much.
Edit: At least in the case of a fighter/mage combo, there's an RPreason to go melee.
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Bottom line is, spell casting classes are (potentially) stronger than non-spell casting classes. That is how it is, how it always have been, and how it should be. But the point is, that it is in a party of different classes that you really get the most out of every one. A mage is much stronger with a fighter in front of him, a fighter is much stronger with a cleric to buff and heal, and this list could go on.
The classes are very different and that is a main reason why i like this game. We all know that a well balanced party will get you much farther than any mage or other could solo. Not to mention you would a lot more fun doing it. I really dont think Tenser's is stronger than a fighter of the same level, maybe compared to a solo fighter, but if the fighter was buffed he would be way stronger than the Tenzer'ed mage.
All that being said, i could see the transformation spells being put on a longer rest timer. They are probably extremely taxing spells to cast for a mage, so it would make sense to need a bit longer between casting them. But that is for the balancing team to decide.
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I think this would better be solved if we had non-combat spells. For example, instead of giving wizards a teleport at level 14 (I think), actually put the teleport in game. Dimension door is a level 4 spell, makes you teleport short distances, and takes up Polymorph slots. Tenser's is a level 6 spell, right? Change it to level 7, and then bam! there's that Greater Teleport taking up slots.
As for Fighter/Wizards being overpowered, have you ever played one? It's HELL to get past the first few levels. You don't have as much HPs and AB as a fighter, your spell durations suck, and you gotta split your money between weapons, potions, armor, and spell components. Then you get to the mid-levels: Yeah, that's the paradise of fighter/wizards, where you can cast extended buffs that last your whole rest timer, you can afford good weapons and armor, and you can deal tons of damage with greatsword+bull's strength+flame weapon. Then come the high levels. You start to notice your BAB is a LOT lower than the other fighters you know, monsters have great damage reduction and elemental resistance, have high attack bonuses, and enemy mages can dispel your buffs on GM quests.
As for wizards being too powerful, I think not. I mean, we can't cast fireballs cuz they'll hurt our party members, there's no use in casting missiles because when they get there the monster is already dead, and now the fighters don't like us having some fun?
Just my 2 copper pieces
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Ok... Mage/fighters may not be a powerhouse when you reach the high levels and GO high level places. But compared to other high levels in low level areas they have an advantage. But I am not blaming any one of building strong characters, all I am saying is that I would like to have the rest-buff-put on armor thing stopped because it isn't good rp. If you want the benifits of wearing armor and buffing you either have to still your spells or try to beat the armor failure check.
And for the part of playing a fighter/mage I am actually playing one but I haven't reached the high levels yet so I wouldn't know how strong the build will be when I get there. I can only speak about what I am expiriencing now.
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I agree with what the mage players are saying. Most spells have already been altered to prevent them doing massive amounts of damage. Mages are the hardest low level characters to play. They have very few spells as the start and can not wear armor. Compare that to a fighter who can go straight out into the world and kick butt.
Too often it seems that the answer to all the problems on Layonara is to change the spells. No one is saying that fighters shouldn't be allowed to have big swords that do a lot of damage. It was said earlier that a fighter does damage every round (with mulitple attacks), a spell for the most part is a one time burst of damage (ignoring those effects which damage mulitple rounds).
Raising the resting timer once again kills the mage. If a single spell is hurting the balance of the game then eliminate it from the game. Don't punish all spellslingers for a handful of players. If Tenser's Transformation is the problem disable it and lets move on. Don't cripple the mages anymore.
To prove my point look at some of the high level mages and what they have started doing .. multiclassing. Why? I believe it is because most of the upper end spells are either way toned down or worthless. I could site a few examples but I think most know what I am talking about.
***Note*** I don't have a mage character. I do have a cleric and I didnt' even mention how some of the divine spells have been reduced.
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By the way, if you're going to remove Tenser's then remove Divine Power as well. With Divine Power clerics make the best fighters in the game, especially archers with Zen Archery.
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If Tensers is the problem then just make it a mage version of divine power...ie stop the transformation, lose the sword and just give the increased stats and hp. I know that someone said that if a staff is buffed etc it can be a better weapon than the Tensers sword yet that holds just as much true for the cleric. I've just cast it on Bil unbuffed and it only has an armour class of 22 and two hits per round. Considering a fighter of the same level has four hits per round and this only lasts for two turns at level 20 I don't really think it could be classed as overpowered...its just that other wizard spells give AC and DR and can be used with this spell. But there again so can a cleric with Divine Power. It should be a better spell anyway than Divine Power given that it is two spell levels higher. On the other hand if you just want to stop mages engaging in melee then you don't really have much more of an option than to ditch the spell, but I bet that the same problem will come up with the other polymorph spells afterwards.
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I'm going to steer this conversation back to the core issue.
The problem is NOT the spells. The problem is how some mage characters choose to use the spells and abuse game mechanics.
On a quest earlier today, we had instances where the mages more or less HAD to get into melee. The reasons were simple...lots of enemies, some spell-resistant, some (beholderkin) who had a nasty habit of dispelling buffs AND significant difficulties resting due to the previously-mentioned lots of enemies. In my personal opinion, such uses of Tenser's and Polymorph were appropriate for the situation, done so in a party-based environment and ultimately the right choice. If these spells were removed or weakened, the tide of our battles likely would have gone a different, and a very negative, way.
Used properly and in the environment upon which Layonara is designed (that being parties), there is nothing wrong with these spells.
Once again, I bring up personal responsibility of those who play mage characters. We shouldn't have to nerf anything. I don't think we even want to. But the levels of spell abuse across all casting classes can get quite silly.
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Dorganath - 2/5/2006 11:45 PM Once again, I bring up personal responsibility of those who play mage characters. We shouldn't have to nerf anything. I don't think we even want to. But the levels of spell abuse across all casting classes can get quite silly.
If the problem is spell abuse then we should try to make some guidelines so a player would know what is good and what is bad.
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To quote orth at the top of this thread:
Just because you are capable of performing something with the Bioware system is not an implicit declaration that the Layonara team approves of it. If you know something's really wrong and against the spirit of the world, it's simple DON'T DO IT.
Do you really want us to spend time defining every possible abuse, along with corollaries, special cases and exceptions? Or would you rather we spent that time putting effort into expanding and enhancing this game world?
Really...it's not that hard. If it seems like you're getting away with something, you probably are. Layonara is a low-magic world. Contrast with Forgotten Realms (which NWN was designed for) which is high-magic. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's right.
The choice is simple. Either the mage community begins to show some level of responsibility and self-enforcement, or the Team will have to make some changes that no one will like.
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I dont think the magic itsself you should reduced. I think the approvel of the Classes sould be. Ive alwese had the idea that a mage/sorc is a rather rare thing. And more so on a so called "Low magic server" So instead of taking what the Arcanists can do and limiting it more. Make the class harder to be approved for. In most stories magic usesers are generaly feared and disliked byt he commen foke, if the classes themselves were limited more, then this could be better shown.
I use the summen spells alot, and ive alwese thought that it was a bet easy for me to be able to solo about anywhere. But what i have come to nitice is that just becouse i can solo it with a golem dosent mean i should. Mainly in the case of exp. with a golem i get about 95 exp for a certen critter, without i get about 150 or so. This is why i would rather have a fighter with me over the golem. and sence the golems have been limited in there time, its much more useful to cast my buffs on a fighter so the will last for 36 turns, instead of on my golem in which case they only last tell he is expired.
As for tensers and pollymorph. Ive never used tensers much before. Polly i used often with an older char, cast fireshild, polly zombie, and get a buch of guys to attack you, worked well... though that char now has 8DT.. so maby not that well... anyways, this is only effectife for so long. eventually you dont get much.. or the monsters can kill you anyways.
Well... sence most of this hasent been productive to our topic... My opinion is to simply limit the class. Mage types are not so overpowered. Ive gone up against things that i could kill with one spell.. but oh.. whats this.. knockdown.. knockdown.. oopse im dead. Mages have huge power and Huge weaknesses, very little middle ground. I can kill a BBN or a fighter in one spell.. but if he gets to me first, im gone. I once had a test with an old friend here, he was about level 16 Bbn/Battlerager. and i was level 11. we had our little fight and ran a few tests. But everytime it was the same thing, if he got to me, i was gone, if i could stay away from him, he was gone.
Its really just a RP responsablity i guess, and to better inforce that responcablit, a limit on the class. Also, ave in alteration in a Mages rest might be effective. Maby make there rest time increased, or where they can rest. I read in teh PnP books a bet on prepareing spells and how one needs a clam quite place to rest and prepare. If there was somehow a way to add something into the game for these to limit where one can sleep... *shrugs* its just an idea and i have no idea how the engins work so i dont know if it can be implamited. Anyways im talked to long, good night all.
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LoganGrimnar - 2/5/2006 11:45 PM I dont think the magic itsself you should reduced. I think the approvel of the Classes sould be.
I really like this idea. There are classes we restrict for their power, since Wizards and Sorcerers would definatly fall into those categories, restricting who could play them would be an interesting thing to do. Make them rarer, possibly more vital to have in a party. The only problem is that it doesn't solve the problem ofwizards and sorcerers who are currently being played and the misuse of spells. Like Orth said it's really up to the player to decide how somthing should be used and for the most part, it's common sense.
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I have not used polymorph spells for offensive melee use, but it's
still hard not to notice how good it can be. So I don't really care
if it becomes weakened or not, which might be a problem when I now
give suggestions/opinions.
The selective(for the spell in question only) 24h rest timer seems
like a good solution at first glance, but like someone mentioned
above, there are times like in quests when you want the Tenser etc
fully powered up to reflect the proper outcome. So the long timer
would be troublesome there.
Lowering the AB(-1 ab/lvl or some such ) and make the poly spells
primarily defensive spells, would also solve the "solo monster mashing".
But like with the extended rest timer, it becomes a hindrance in some
situations.
Lowering the duration of the poly spells (by half or some such) is
probably a better way to go than the two previous ones, but still
not all that good.
Dispelling all buffs upon transformation would be devestating for people
like me who use the polymorph spells to get away. So I'm all against it.
Changing Tenser's weapon won't affect the spell as a whole all that much
on its own. And a staff gives kind of the wrong image of Tenser spell.
If you go down this road, weaken Tenser's sword instead.
Moving Tenser's up one or more spell levels might be a good solution.
I think I would have to do some proper testing to get a more exact
opinion.
This suggestion may prove impossible scriptingwise. But if you make
Tenser(since it seems it is this one that is by far the most powerful
one) a "Quest spell" by implementing an on/off toggle so the GMs can
turn it on and off at will on a server. So when the toggle is on one
or more of the above suggestions can be in use. Whenever it's on
tenser can for instance have reduced duration and/or reduced AB. Or
the spell could simply be unavaible till a GM turns the toggle off.
(edit: got on and off mixed up)
And I really really dislike the idea of restricting classes even
more than they are.
One or more seem to think that their mages are at the mercy of
fighter type people's goodwill at lower lvls, when it comes
to killing stuff in a party. I myself never had the experience
of others not wanting my sorcerer to come along because he was
ineffective during the low lvls. If anything, it has always been
the opposite. That should be saying a lot, cause he can be quite
annoying to anyone who's not immune to gnomes.
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Oh, yeah, I forgot to add the solution that my previous post was meant for
from the start.
Add a large xp penalty, similar to the summon penalty, when a mage solos
as Tenser or whatever is appropiate. The summon doesn't affect the xp
when it's not in the vincinity of the battle, don't forget to add that
to tenser's as well (but in like reverse?).
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I have to say I don't like the idea of restricting base classes, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Having Paladins and Clerics adhere to a deity is one thing, it adds a certain level of roleplay to the world that you just don't get anywhere else. Artificially limiting the number of PC spellcasters? You do realize that, as adventurers, our characters are rare and unusual enough already. There are thousands upon thousands of NPC people in the background that no one ever sees, the commonfolk of towns. It's right there in the Layonara Campaign pdf. Hlint alone has 1,830 non-adventuring population. That makes our number of mage dragon-called look pretty low-magic by comparison.
To be perfectly honest, I don't fully understand how one solo's with Tenser's Transformation. I've tried it before (as a fighter/wizard, buffed-up melee is my primary attack normally anyway), and unless I have greater stoneskin on, it's not pretty (due to the loss of ac from my armor getting shunted off, I get hit a lot more). Are these folks applying Tenser's transformation after buffing completely? In which case, isn't that what wizards/sorcs are supposed to do, use magic to their advantage? Is the problem here that people are soloing? Or that people are soloing by pretending to be a class that they're not? I've seen clerics cruise across places solo with, as people have said, Divine Favor(or is it Power? Whatever gives them the AB of a fighter and a str of 18 if they don't already have it) underneath their own myriad buffs. Wiz/sorc can't even cast while transformed. Clerics still can. (I didn't mean this as a dig toward clerics. I travel with one regularly, and more often than not I would've gotten myself very killed without him, but the fact of the matter is there)
I noticed some people mentioning area-effect wiz/sorc spells like fireball being a limitation in themselves. I have only a couple of things to say to that. Get your party some elemental protections, travel with a cleric that can cast Spell Resistance, or find people with evasion (or learn to aim, but I realize that's kind of difficult when in laggy situations). I travelled in a group yesterday in which everyone had one of the above. I was throwing Cone of Cold like there was no tomorrow, and I heard no complaints. You may not *like* using spell slots to provide resistance to your party, but it's better than not casting area effects at all if that's what you really want to do. Tradeoffs. It's not impossible, you just need to work out how to do it.
*breathes*
After saying all that, I must agree with Frendh's idea. Put an XP penalty on people while they are Tenser'ed. If they're going to fight like a summon, they should get XP like they have a summon out.
edited -> I also like the idea of limited duration and slower duration progression as miltonyorkcastle suggested below. It slows up the effectiveness of the spell without making it worthless or taking it out altogether.
Finally, I disclaim all of the above, as most probably know my primary character is a fighter/wizard. So while I tried to avoid too much bias in the above, some is going to slip in no matter how hard I try.
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Okay, lots to comment on here.
First, as has been said, especially in a low magic world, between the levels of 11 and 20, mages own. Period. (and if you want to talk about power classes, talk about clerics. Nothing solo's like a cleric.) Here's a breakdown:
1-10: fighters rule.
11-20: mages rule.
21-30: fighters rule again, but need heavy support from mages for "toughies"
31-40: fighters reign supreme, as their saves and magical gear cover everything.
Of note: Clerics pretty well get the best of both worlds and are the most self-sufficient class. Bar-none.
Secondly, whatever you do, please, DO NOT raise the toughness of the monsters. Having played on powerservers, the bar keeps raising as the PC's have to find new and more ingenious ways of abusing the AI to defeat monsters until the monsters are beyond god status. It's ridiculous. However, I don't want to weaken the PC's either.
Third, there are a number of damage spells that are so very useful in PnP, that are plain stupid to use here, unless you get lucky and have some really nice rogues as front-liners. I.E. Cone of Cold.
Fourth, increasing the Rest duration is no good, IMHO. I could go into a whole discussion on that, but I'd rather offer a solution to the existing problem. So, here it is:
Milty's TENSER/POLYMORPH/SHAPECHANGE Solution for Mages. (que thunder and ominous music)
As so many spells have, create a "cap" in power for polymorphing. That is, just as magic missle gains a new missle every odd level, then caps at ninth, I would suggest having Tenser's (since this is the primary offender) have a slower rate in it's duration increases, and then cap off. As it is, I believe it lasts a round per level. Change it to this:
Tenser's lasts 1 round every 2 levels, up to a maximum of 10 rounds.
This accomplishes three things:
1) Soloing will be long and boring. Even with summons to act as tanks, a mage using Tenser's will run out of "juice" long before the battle is done, twice as fast as before, in fact, and will be forced to recast far more often. Even sorcs with tons of spells will find themselves out of spells (using Tenser's especially, with the spell loss it incurs) after one solo battle, and have to sit around and wait another 8 minutes before they can get their spells back.
2) The spell is still useful for a mage to use to support a party. Five rounds as Tenser's does plenty of nice damage. And it can still be used as an "oh crap!" spell by that same token.
3) A mage will never stay transformed so long that he becomes the "fighter with a bag of magic tricks" It will take getting to 20th lvl just to last ten rounds transformed, and will never go beyond that.
Right, so, that's Milty's cure-all for polymorph problems. Duration caps, and perhaps in some cases, slow down the duration-increase rate.
And having said all this, I am in favor of bringing back some of the power to the mass damage spells. Fighters are supposed to be most efficient one on one, while mages are supposed to be most efficient against mass enemies. Capping the duration on things that make caster's into fighters makes it much more applicable to give them some of their mass damage back.
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orth - 2/4/2006 1:59 PM
The amount of level 8+ mages soloing and/or transforming into a melee attacker are becoming a concern to the team. How do you think we should address this problem?
Is it enough to ask that you consider the focus of this server towards roleplaying and a balanced system please. If that's not enough then maybe the mages can speak up on how they'd expect us to make changes. If you don't - expect anything from more drastic rest measurements, required components for spells even if you have eschew, 24 hour spell timers (real life 24 hours), mana systems. We don't want to go through all that trouble.
Just because you are capable of performing something with the Bioware system is not an implicit declaration that the Layonara team approves of it. If you know something's really wrong and against the spirit of the world, it's simple DON'T DO IT.
Thanks!
What exactly is the problem then?
Mages are using Tensor's transformation. Is that the problem? The recent post that this is not about spells made me go back and read the original post to figure out exactly what this was about then and its not at all clear.
Using the spells that exist is wrong?
"If you know something's really wrong"
I don't. And to have players police themselves and avoid doing whatever is being refered to here, then what that is must be much more explicitly stated.
I guess more clear communication is what is needed here to communicated exactly what the offending issue is here.
-TV
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I think it would help if we defined soloing and had a rule similar to the camping rule for soloing. At some level I think a character should be able to get resources by himself. (e.g. It seems obvious to me that my 14th level fighter should be allowed to get copper by himself. He can also easily get platinum by himself in the bottom of haven and I think this is probably OK). My 15th level mage can get fire opals by himself. Is that OK? I really am not sure on that one.
Perhaps soloing might be defined by xp per creature. (i.e. if you get 1 xp per creature it seems obvious that you are only getting resources. The giants are closer to 200 xp apiece so they do give pretty good xp) Any thoughts?
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Talan:
The problem is that Tenser is decently strong across the board. Decent turns
quickly into Very strong as the buffs heap up as the mage gets lvls. Especially
for wizards. You get 3 attacks wich all counts as first attack. The AB does not
decrease with the second and third, like with normal characters. The AB doesn't
cap, but increases with lvls. AC caps at some not too impressive number.
Then (before using tenser obviously. This is the way I talk) you cast all the
buffs you generally cast on a fighter. You know how it goes. The mage is still
quite inferior compared to a fighter type. The crazy stuff starts now. You
add Greater Stoneskin, Acid sheath or Elemental Shield, Shadow Shield, Premonition,
Shield, Energy Buffer, lesser, normal or greater Spell Mantle and Finally a buffed
summon. I may have missed one or two goodies.
When you transform into Tenser you get a nice buffer of Temporary HPs. As soon
as you notice you are about to lose the whole buffer, you quickly withdraw
change back to normal, recast Greater Stone Skin then change into Tenser again.
Changing to and from Tenser is basicly like using healing spells on yourself
if you do it right.
If you do this, you are probably twice as strong as any fighter type at the same
lvl. I realize what goodies(self only buffs) you can use varies depending on
what lvl you are currently at.
I believe they(GMs) don't mind it being powerful, but they do not want it to be used
for hours and hours of mindless solowork.
When you use certain spell combos and notice "Wow! I can't do anything even close to
this with any other class." you should consider to start using the combo in moderation.
It's not likely a combo that was meant for Layo.
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*Looks up* Hence my Duration Cap idea. It will be impossible to do any efficient (still could do it, just would be aweful slow) solo work for "hours and hours." Unless you are 18th or better, in which case, you _should_ be able to solo 90% of Dregar, and should probably be in a party roaming Xantril.
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An Epic Ranger cannot Solo 90% of Dregar... why should a 18 or better Caster Class be allowed to?
And a solo Figher class never rules above a caster class past level 8'ish thru level 40..... NO WARDS for solo fighter. one death spell and your toast unless you like gambling that you will beat the save.
Things are not balanced when it comes to Solo vs. Solo and they never will. *shrug*
But I applaud the team for doing all they are to help!!!!
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Ah, thanks Frendh, that made it a bit clearer. I guess I just don't think in those terms... Would a once per rest limit on casting tensors be appropriate then? It seems like the main issue would be meming many of them to use them repeatedly in the fashion you described. It sounds like (from this discussion) that it isn't the spell that should be changed but the manner in which the spell can be/is used.
@ Enzo - I've had a much lower level character that was barely a caster (talan) and one that is a lot lower and not a caster at all that can solo a lot more than 10% of dregar. In fact I have a ranger who can solo many areas on dregar in the low teens. And not through any exploiting of the AI, just using stealth, tactics and... a strong build contributes a lot.
-TV
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Talan Va'lash - 2/6/2006 4:02 PM It sounds like (from this discussion) that it isn't the spell that should be changed but the manner in which the spell can be/is used.
EXACTLY! However, if this cannot be realized by the mage community then our only real choice is to change and/or remove certain spells.
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*chuckles* what do you mean "no wards" G? That's what magic items are for. *snickers* Seriously, I don't know of any magic items that offers death wards (nor would I really like to see one exist, since who would need a cleric with them anymore?), but then, how often does a 30-some-odd level fighter have to go up against 10+ casters all casting death spells so that his chance of rolling a one is significant? Honestly, when the PC levels go way up, it's not the hordes of meat shields beating you down by shear numbers that are your feared enemy- they're predictable- it's that one really powerful lich or three really powerful witches that have more at their disposal than meager death attacks. They know that if they're death attacks fail, they better have some stupidly high AC or DR or that fighter is going to rip them apart. And that lich only has a 1 in 20 chance to see his Wail work? Not good odds for the Lich. Maybe I think like a dwarf, but when it comes to 30+ lvl fighter types, "death-ward is fer pansies."
And perhaps my idea of "90%" is less than accurate, as I look back and consider some of the places and baddies on Dregar. Still, having played epic casters on servers with stupidly powerful creatures, my breakdown from above still holds. That said, you ask why an 18th level caster can solo Dregar and Enzo can't? Well, it all comes back around when, and I promise you, you break 30ish, and the mages can't do squat to an enemy, but you single-handedly kick it's butt. I've seen it happen too many times. See, 3rd ed. DnD (and 3.5) put a lot of stock in AC. AC caps determine the strength of an enemy, in many cases. In a low magic world, the AC cap is equally low, and it's not long before the fighter's AB breaks that cap. Archer's can actually get some of the very best AB's. 30+ lvl fighter types just plain don't miss that often, especially with blindfight, and because they do stupid high amounts of damage, even the all powerful demigod gets a good chunk ripped out of it before it manages to get a Hold Monster off on the fighter. Archers even have the advantage of being able to start tearing into a mage from outside most spell ranges, which means the caster has to spend a round moving into range before getting that death ray in or whatnot, all the while getting pummeled by rapid shot.
This is to say nothing of critical hits, which again have a whole lot to do with AB and AC. A single crit from a 30+ lvl fighter can end the fight in a single round. Either because the caster will fumble the spell, or just outright die from HP loss.
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I haven't tried using tenser's while buffed to the max, but I can see the point made above about the power of repeatedly casting this spell. Since I'm an evoker, which by the way has seemed an extremely poor choice for this world, I can't use summons to bail me out when I get in too deep. I try to have one of these spells in my hip pocket to get out of a bad situation and it has often worked for that. I've also used it when the party I'm with is in danger of getting overrun by creatures with magic resistance. I would hate to see the spell go away entirely, but it might not be too bad for it to be limited to maybe 2 or 3 castings per 24 hour period.
I haven't really spent much time at all on Xantril, but based on my limited experience thus far fighting creatures with magic resistance, I probably would be useless for anything but buffing without this spell. If I had my feats to do over again, I might be able to find room for the spell penetration feet, but as it is I usually can't seem to get spells through even on fairly weak demons. This seems to be one of the few ways that a mage can contribute directly to fight against creatures with magic resistance.
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Orth, you state that 8+ mages go melee. Tensers is a 6th circle spell, which I think one can first get at level 11? So I’m guessing the problem you and the team are seeing are also polymorphing and this was not intended to be a discussion of Tensers alone? Or was it?
Or is it more then that? Are Mages able to go melee to often, even without a shapechange? Are we talking clerics and bards as well? Fighter/Wiz combos?
I guess I agree with Talan. This is a very interesting discussion from very experienced people, but I don’t know who’s on topic and who isn’t.
(No offense intended to anyone.. : )
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PS. And can any 18th solo 90% of Dregar? Guessing it depends on what you mean with 90% .. killing? Or just getting around. ;)
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This discussion isn't only about Tenser's however. My level 7 mage can out perform a level 7 fighter using the normal polymorph spell. Doesn't even need to be a rocket scientist to figure out how.
Tenser being the next on the step. But even then it doesn't end there.
You go to level 9 spells and then you got Shapechange. The shapes from this spell are brutally retarded for a mage. One of the shapes has DR, insane HP, regeneration, decent AB. You name it.
And while I strongly believe that the spells like this represent the power that mages can obtain from being unique or whatever. You then got people abusing these spells left and right, going over every single spawn in west, central, and east and not breaking a sweat, doing it constantly, day and night, 24/7 until they reach level 20 in a period of three months.
Well... we got a problem.
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Well if it all comes down to not soloing it would make the game much more boring for some people... Basiacly if you like crafting you will end up wasting a lot of peoples time getting things that you could have gotten on your own, which in my oppinion is much better because you're only wasting you own time and not other players who might just like to chat a bit more. If Storold should ask people each time he is going to get sand or greenstone people would think of him as a nuisance.
Parties are good, yes. But they're not good for mindless gathering opperations, If I where going to get silver or some gems, besides greenstones and malanchite, I would most definatly get a party and not just try to get it on my own even if I had a chance.
Off-topic:
errk - 2/6/2006 11:20 PM
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PS. And can any 18th solo 90% of Dregar? Guessing it depends on what you mean with 90% .. killing? Or just getting around. ;)
Well if it just depended on going around my level ten can do that fairly easy:). Killing stuff is a whole differend matter;)
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3 months..................level 20....................*cries*.............I want that too! I've been here with Taislin for 6 months and I'm level 9.......*cries more*
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People seem to mean different things when saying Soloing.
What I mean is when you go alone for greater gain.
Great XPs or great CNR is what I'd consider a greater gain.
(*grumbles about his small vocabulary*)
Chopping oak or digging sand are not among what I consider
a greater gain.
Like always, I might be wrong.
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Characters have roles.... Roges are toast if they Solo anything that is a challenge... unless they are a shadowdancer and spam HIPS to death.
The problem is Most classes NEED help to really shine..... Put a Ranger, or Fighter with a caster and they are awesome. Put that Rogue behind a meat sheild and they are killer!!!
BUT... the Caster (once into the low teens or even lower depending on the power build) can do whatever they want with or WITHOUT the rogue, ranger or fighter..... that right there is the problem... and I beleive is the issue being addressed.
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@G - I think you just used the key term to this whole conversation, "power build". If this is suppose to be a RP server then why is Power building even being used. I have seen so many posts on the forums that revolve around how can I make my character uber instead of how can I RP my background and alignment properly. If people would think of the RP aspects first instead of how can I get to level 20 in 3 months, then this whole topic would be void.
3-6 months ago I could count the number of level 20+ players, I knew their characters by name and could probably state some event Chanda had with each of them. Now I look at who is online and say .... what the heck .... who is that character and when did they start playing ... there is no way they are level 20. Seriously I have been on this server since Nov 04 and Chanda only just made level 15. Chanda has to do a lot of soloing because that is the nature of her character. She doesn't do well in groups of "goodies" and thus the only groups she gets to be part of are other shady characters. The effects of my soloing nature are reflected quite clearly in my 7 DTs.
We as a community need to stop this Uber rush. Maybe we need a level 20 cap or something. The problem being adressed in this thread is more than simply one or two spells that are being abused. Its the mentality of the community. When there were only a handful of gms around the level 20 was covenented. Now its just another level with a quest involved. *end rant*
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Ah, ok, Pan I’m starting to see the point (I think).
I can admit to polymorph and tensers for killing and what not. But I can hardly say I’ve done it for XP alone.. (ok, I had 3k left to 8.. : )
.. I’ve had my eye on Shapechange for some time.. I can see how that spell could be a problem in Layonara since the fighters don’t get the same flurry of magical weapons and armor that they do in single-player, they simply become unbalanced.
But.. that is a spell you can get at 17, right? Then they are almost at the lvl 20 cap. And will be stuck there for quite some time.
As a player that only plays mages (not very good however.. :), I suggest reducing the spell duration first (seems to be the easiest and most effective). If your going to change the polymorph spells, can’t you make instead make it possible to alter into something else for more RP then anything else? Such as a whale, demon/angle (for cool looks only.. ). Gaseous form? Table? (ok.. I'm streching it a bit..)
.. oh well.. again. I see your point. Pity it has come to this, but I guess the game system itself brings this on as it was not primarily intended for persistent worlds.
@Aragon, I see your point as well, but the problem with powerbuilds and fast leveling in general can (probably) never be fully solved. I personally don’t think a community such as this can self govern itself into following a general consensus. If the system changes, people will try to find ways around it.. Intentionally or not.
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This is getting wildly off-topic, but I suppose it has relevance.
Level 20 in 3 months is just a bad idea for several reasons.
@Varnart in particular, there's no reason why you would or should want to have reached level 20 in 3 months. I've been here since 10/1/2004 and just hit Level 20 a week or so ago. I know another character who's been here 2.5 years and just hit level 20 this past weekend. Don't be in such a hurry.
A character who reaches level 20 in 3 months cannot progress past level 20 until that player has been around at least a year and that character has been around at least 8 months. A character that shoots through the levels then gets to wait until he/shefulfills all the minimum requirements of being able to go past 20th level, and then only maybe, because part of being able togo into Epic levels is having contributed to the world, and that is done through RP, not power-leveling.
In an RP-rich world such as this, there's so much less depth to those who rise rapidly than there are to those who take their time and rise at a more reasonable rate.
How this has any relevance at all to the discussion at hand is that in general, the mages who go out and solo a continent laying waste to all that is in their way through spell power, form alterations and summons are doing so for two very non-RP reasons: GP and XP. Pure mages are supposed to be mages, not fighters.
Polymorph, Tenser's and Shapechange are there as examples, as Pan said, as to what can be achieved through power and as such they should be used, but used appropriately. They are not intended to be tools that turn mages into general-purpose fighters. This is the practice that concerns the Team. This is the practice that needs to stop, or these spells will be weakened for all, and not just those who abuse them.
Now please, instead of having further debates on the merits of polymorphing or what "soloing" means, let's discuss the issue that is most applicable to our intent, and that is responsibility.
How do you, the mage community, think this should be handled? What is the best possible outcome for all? And how will you ensure that the Team doesn't have to penalize everyone for the actions of a few?
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Thanks everyone for your feedback. After the next update I will focus a lot of attention on combat oriented issues and take into account everyone's opinions and offer a proposal to the team. We're capable of doing a lot more now, with relative ease with some of the core systems we have in place, so I think we could offer a lot of alternatives to "broken" things and make combat and magic a little more exciting and fun.
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Here's what I think would be a good idea. Since I play a wizard with all of the above spells. I don't really use them unless I'm in a group and my other spells have little affect, but that's neither here nor there.
Polymorph Self: Lasts 1 Turn +1 Round/2 levels
Tenser's Transformation: Lasts 1 Turn + 1 Round for every level above 12 to a maximum of +5 (Capping it at 17)
Shapechange: Lasts 1 Turn, +1 Round per level to a maximum of +25
Personally I think these are all fair time limits. Polymorph Self, in my mind looks fair because it's only a level 4 spell. It can still be used to heal on up, or help out in a fight, or work for a getaway, and can be extended with the small inconvenience of a level 5 spell slot. Tenser's time looks fair as it's capped off at level 17, which is when you'd get Shapechange anyway. Now Shapechange is definatly a safer spell as far as Protection goes, however from my experiance Tenser's does far more damage, and hits far more often. Shapechange also seems fair to me. It caps mid Epic and instead of lasting the 17 Turns it currently does at level 17, this will last for far less time, but still plenty to make getaways or help turn the tide of a battle by buying your buddies some time.
Also, I see dropping Tenser's Sword to +1 and 1d6 Fire Damage would be better than it is now, which I believe is +3 and 1d8 Fire Damage. With these changes even simple spells like Elemental Sheild will last longer than the change it's self, and will help diminish soloing. No more long drawn out battles with giants and ogres. Two to three minutes will now be the average for a shapeshift which will hopefully "fix" this "problem"
Also on a last note, I must agree with Ar7 quickly, that if certain spells were a bit better, I might never use spells such as Shapeshift. I believe setting spells back where they were power-wise, and raising the level needed to cast, or perhaps having a certiain amount of Int required as a pre-req before being able to pick the spell would help bring the "spell-slinger" back to wizards and sorcerers.
ZV-
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As ZV says, Tenser's is much better offensive than any of the shapechenge forms. I cant believe that there are anyone using shapechange to solo stuff. With an AB of 16-19 and two attacks per round, you attack like a 10th lvl fighter. What they are good for are, as ZV says, as a last resort to run into the battle to take some blows for the fighters in the party, and of course they allow for some nice RP situations on quests.
And about bringing the "spell slinger" back. I play a wizard, and when im in a party, practically all my spells go to protect the fighters and hastes and stuff. So i dont have many slots for damage spells. The few times i chose to prepare some, i always end regretting it because they simply have no effect on the battle. I dont say that all the damage spells should be turned up, but...Try and compare it to the damage a weapon master dishes out.
I tried to kill a giant in the forest of mist with empowered greater missile storms. I had four of them, and the giant was still standing. That is 4 8th lvl spell slots to 'almost' kill one giant. Im not really an evocationist at all, so i probably wouldnt use many damage spells even if they had not been changed. Sorry that got way off topic again. :)
You could let the spell's damage dice also be dependant on feats like spell focus and greater spell focus. Anyway, just a random idea really.
My last comment is, find a party to travel with and have some fun with. It's so much more rewarding.
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Having thought about the issue for some time, after all, I do play a wizard, I came up with something that seems to me as a good way to solve this problem. What has come up in this discussion is more than a problem with a single spell or a spell group, there is a mistake in the way the arcane casters are handled as a whole.
As I stated earlier the overusage of polymorph spells seems to be coming from the changes made to other spells and I see that some of the other players seem to agree with that. But now as I thought of my previous words, I could already imagine what the words "Increase the power of the spells" stirred up in the minds of the GMs. I needed to be more clear, more specific in term of what I expected when I wrote that.
As I look at the previous changes made to balance the spells, it seems to me that they were made in an effort to balance a single spell for the entire range of characters. But it is hard to make a spell fit a level 9, 16 and 22 spellcaster. There are bound to be problems, it shall be too good for the low level or become worthless to the high level. Such changes will always leave many unhappy and I believe it is what we are witnessing now.
What I propose is to make the spell consist of many spells, each meant for low, medium, high and epic level character. What do I mean by that? I shall take Firebrand as an example and try to explain. I take Firebrand because it was considered too good at low levels and changed, making it quite useless at higher levels, so it illustrates my point completly.
Firebrand a level 5 spell, so
For medium levels 9 - 15 Firebrand does 1d6/level (fire) to a maximum of 10d6
For high levels 15 - 20 Firebrand does 1d6/level for each level after 5 (fire) to a maximum of 15d6 on level 20
For epic levels 20+ Firebrand does 1d6/level (fire) to a maximum of 15d6 and 1d6/level after level 20 (divine) to a maximum of 5d6 at level 25
The specific changes to each spell are a matter of debate, but this example simply illustrates the idea. There are many possibilities to experiment with different damage types, damages ranges (1d4, 1d6, 2d4 etc) and different effect (stun, silent etc)
What does this accomplish?
- Spells are balanced and usuable around the level range, arcane casters actually will feel that their spell makes a difference.
- Eliminates the "It took 4 empowered Greater Isaacs to almost kill a giant" problem
- Gives mages progress in the epic levels. I am not saying this because I play an epic mage. It is simply a matter of logic. Enemies become more powerful at epic levels, fighter classes gain AB to help them become better at what they do, but mages/sorcerers have to face MUCH tougher foes with the same spells they got to face giants on Dregar.
- This will lean sorcerers/wizards towards casting spells, rather than going into melee.
Such changes can be applied to Tenser's and Shapechange.( different shapes at different levels for example )
But with the problem of abusing I think talking is more important. It is not efficient to simply monitor players' actions for a few months and then afterwards hit the player base with a "We had to change X and Y, because you broke the spirit of the world" As easy at it often sounds, the spirit of the world is a hard thing to determine correctly.
The players who are abusing are known, especially since they level very fast. The DMs who notice this should talk to each player they see overusing some spells. It is the best choice of action, people who are doing wrong will actually know 100% that THEY are the ones doing the wrong thing. I am sure some of the players do not know if the problem is with them, not to mention those that do not read the forums.
The DM team does not have to police the players. A quick two sentence explanation of what a player is doing wrong is enough and it is often the most efficient way to change things. In most cases it should be all that takes to make a player reconsider, but in some exceptional cases a few punishments should apply.
What I am trying to say is, do not bend the system to correct the errors of a few. Try to change the one who did wrong.
This was a long post, hopefully it will find feedback with constructive critique.
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Good post AR7. Good ideas and sound reasoning in my opinion.
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Like Harlas I like Ar7s post. I agree with it too. It's not really empowering spells, it's giving them a more natural progression that doesn't end 1-3 levels after you attain the spell (which is what happens with many damage spells). Also it would still be a fair idea to tone down the Shapechange ect spells to assure balance.
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Interesting idea Ar7...and I'd point out thatStoneskin has a very similar progression. This concept makes a lot of sense ina lot of ways.
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Thanks for the good post Ar7. I want to point out something you stated that while on the face of things seems to be 100% true and it certainly should be logical..however...
"...But with the problem of abusing I think talking is more important. It is not efficient to simply monitor players' actions for a few months and then afterwards hit the player base with a "We had to change X and Y, because you broke the spirit of the world" As easy at it often sounds, the spirit of the world is a hard thing to determine correctly.
The players who are abusing are known, especially since they level very fast. The DMs who notice this should talk to each player they see overusing some spells. It is the best choice of action, people who are doing wrong will actually know 100% that THEY are the ones doing the wrong thing. I am sure some of the players do not know if the problem is with them, not to mention those that do not read the forums.
The DM team does not have to police the players. A quick two sentence explanation of what a player is doing wrong is enough and it is often the most efficient way to change things. In most cases it should be all that takes to make a player reconsider, but in some exceptional cases a few punishments should apply...."
100% agree, as a matter of fact it was the rule of thumb for a long time. But then the world got so large that even the large team we have could not keep up with everybody. Add on top of that that a good amount of the people before (and perhaps now) where so aggetated and hostile when we spoke to them that it sort of ruined the fun of the world for the GM team (and yes that includes(ed) me). So yes, we must talk to players--but trust me on the fact that fully 60% or more of those that we talk to take things the wrong way and then swamp us with arguments, hostility, and just plain aggrevation that it kills the GM spirits. So really... in order to keep morale going for the GM team we need to do it with code because even after speaking to a few people they continue to do things. And then we have step further in to the arguments, harsness, meanness fromt he player because we have to go to the next step (temporary or permanent bannings) because x, y, z player did not do as we requested. And then during all of this time that player now has their friends involved and flaming on the forums or speaking in channels such as icq, irc, etc. So yes....you are correct, talking should do the trick--sadly it does not very often--and on top of that kills the morale of the gm's and the desire to gm or even play while the player continues to stir the flames in other areas out of our control.
While it could and should work, most of the time it does not and then we get to other very bad issues. Thusly, why we 'nerf' or change things for balancing. It is really a no-win situation for the team--no matter what--but we still have to do something.
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Very good ideas Ar7. Making more spell progressions like it was done with stoneskin makes alot of sense.
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I agree with Ar7, and sympathize with Leanthar. I have to say, though, that it's discussions like this that make this server, persistent world, community, whatever you want to call it, so excellent. It's this communication between the GM team and the players that keeps the game from grinding to a halt. Sorry for jumping off topic. I just had to say that.
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Just PLEASE don't worsen Polymorph Self. It's the only way I have to get out of trouble when I'm out of invisibilities, and if the duration gets THAT short I can't survive enough to RUN AWAY. Also, about that thing of getting lots of GP and XP being out of character, that's not necessarily true. For example, take a monk. They're suposed to try to attain perfection through self-betterment and experience. This means more levels. My character Taislin is a follower of Deliar, and the most important things in his life are money and fame, though especially money. It would make sense if I went through Mistone killing all the monsters I found to get their gold!
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I'd love to comment on that, Varnart, but I would end up getting WAY off topic, so I'll just be quiet...err... sort of...
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That was a great post Ar7 and I'd agree with everything you said there about spell progression. Now thats someones actually suggested it makes me wonder why I'd never thought of it before :)
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Ar7 does have a great idea with progressive spells, it does make sense.
With a stoneskin, you first learn how to use it, it isn't all that great, but with time, practice, study and personal magic power, you can make it quite potent within its limited range and nearly perfect (but not quite as good as the greater version obviously).
As many have stated above, a low lvl fighter is the power for it's range, then a mid-high lvl mage rules the land (with a cleric being the combination of the two with healing ability added in), but once Epic is reached, the same mass-effecting spells just don't cut it anymore
(Example: Over this past weekend, a fair sized group ranging in classes and I believe all were at least 17 or higher went into the underdark for reasons not needing to be explained here. We first came upon enemies that were a little difficult for fighters to handle, but 1-2 mages with the right spells could clear the lot in a few seconds, we move on; next we come to enemies that could kill a mage if any two lock onto you regardless of spell buffs, here the fighters were doing the best, we move on; now we come to things that no mage, nor fighter alone could possibly do, it took a combination of support to go further, we move on; and finally, we came to a place where most magic spells were useless unless they added to attack, AC or speed, and the only thing that counted was how many successful physical attacks (that dealt damage) we done by as many attackers as possible (on one enemy in particular, 90% of the damage counters above it's head were 0 and the highest number I think was 11). Even a fully buffed person in Tenser form was having little effect (I think they even said that their weapon was ineffective, and two other fully buffed, Shapechanged people with an incredible AC each died as the battle time went into the 5 minute range, along with most of the rest of our party, and we had a good group too, with good communication and tactics) The whole area and enemies were very cool though.
The point of the above story I am trying to make is that as danger progresses into Epic region, no amount of spells that can be cast at a distance really matter because of how some of the key spells one would want to be cast were altered, so all that matters is melee. And weakening the only true melee spells a mage can resort to is a bad idea (I'm not making a jab at the Staff either, they were just doing what they thought was necessary at the time for the good of all)
A mage can gain levels quite quickly using the few transmutation spells with other magical aid backing it up, equal and better than any fighter up until lvl 20.
The real problem has already been stated before (a single mage with the ability to Polymorph, Tenser, Shapechange, go Invisible, cast a summon, etc...) can gain experience far quicker, and go places few others can in safety.
It's the experience that kinda throws me, a person gains experience from kills to further their knowledge in their class and the world, and hence, gain lvls. A fighter will learn to use their chosen weapon better, a druid will be able to call on greater portions of nature(and eventually become one of four pure versions of it), a cleric will grow more in touch with their deity, and a mage gains experience from constant use of spells and study, but once a mage changes shape (unlike a druid in my opinion), they are no longer using their vast knowledge to analyze an opponent, use spell combinations and find the exact means to defeat them, they are just bashing the heck out of it, that's no way to learn magic, no matter how effective. You are resorting to baser tactics (sorry all fighters), that you really should be above unless the need is necessary.
The Idea was mentioned for an XP penalty whenever a mage makes a kill while shapechanged akin to a summoning XP penalty, I think that is a great idea. Something like only recieving 1/2 xp while in polymorph and drop to 1/3rd while in Tenser, and 1/4th while Shapechanged (by the time you reach near lvl 20, experience from killing just won't matter anymore anyhow). If you have a summon out, it will drop it even further. If a person wants to spend hours and hours soloing in a different form, killing anything and everything they can for experience when they would be having a better time in a party while staying in their native form, then they will have proven they really just don't belong here in Layonara, and it will severely slow a mage down once they gain access to these spells, so they will only use them when the need is great.
There is no need to weaken the spells, just what you learn from using them (the XP reward)
Sorry for the long post, trying to spill my brain while it's still full before off to class again....
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I agree with D Blaze, and others, that if the team finds that they need to make some changes to those spells, a significant xp penalty makes sense. 1/4 across the board for all three transformation spells sounds fair to me. At least i see no reason why they should be different.
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Ar7 and D Blaze, nice posts.
Had this thought of maybe making the strenght of the Weave in different locations shift.
Still early stage thinking but basically had the idea like... if a druid or ranger are walking in the middle of the great forest they likely would feel more at home and be a stronger opponent. Just as staying around in a city might not be their favorite place to be.
If for some reason the weave was stronger in some parts of the world...
Not sure it makes sense here...
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Just an idea on Polymorh type spells.
Make it that the caster and anyone in the party get 0 xps when they are Morphed.
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It's a choice.
A mage can choose to give up spells that kill lots of things at once at range, or they can kill things one at a time in melee.
Mages are powerful.
A transmuter is incredibly powerful at high levels. But then... so is an invoker.
In a 1:1 fight, yes. A mage will destroy a warrior. They kinda should be able to at higher levels.
If a mage is choosing to go down the transmutation path, that's not really a bad thing. They aren't any more powerful than a warrior, the difference is the mage is self buffing. If he used those buffs on the warrior, then the warrior would be the whirlwind of death.
It's a choice. The mage is choosing to give up spells that are AE/Direct damage in exchange he can turn himself into a death machine a few times a day.
In a polymorphed state, mages are unable to cast spells. So they only thing they can do is precast. Which is why we lowered durations back in the day.
It's a rest timer issue to me. Mages are strong because they can rest so often.
That's the balance.
Should add 30 seconds per level to mage/cleric rest timers up to a max of 10 additional minutes.
That would help to balance out the spell selections and bring the mage/warrior power break closer.
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I been reading this since then start and i dont like mages, dont know much about them, and dont plan to play one but so far the 30 secs per lvl sounds like the best i have understood.
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i have a fun idea, though it will take a little work for the team. how about nerfing the spell so there is a chance for failure instead not polying into what you wanted.. say 50
% chance to morph into what you want.. and the rest split into say a penguin.. a cow or something else. than it will be at the players risk, and make the spell for a duration of 24 hours game time, reguarless of how many time the spell caster rests.
G
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cptoad - 2/8/2006 10:59 PM i have a fun idea, though it will take a little work for the team. how about nerfing the spell so there is a chance for failure instead not polying into what you wanted.. say 50 % chance to morph into what you want.. and the rest split into say a penguin.. a cow or something else. than it will be at the players risk, and make the spell for a duration of 24 hours game time, reguarless of how many time the spell caster rests. G
hehe, I can just imagine the penguins now....
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oooh!! I would cast the spell just hoping to fail and become a penguin! :D
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I have no idea how to code or program etc, so forgive me if this sounds ignorant but why not just have a simple solution.... while in Tensers or polymorhed they gain no XP. Think about it, how would it further your career as a mage to think like a troll for 2 hours?
Addressing what G-452 said....
It's like how many people used to crawl back from the haven mines etc and then decided 'geee maybe this aint right, i AM afterall only a halfling how the heck could i carry 154 ores?' ok nerf it! and another good one was AFTER everyone got rich on the wood glitch we nerfed it, After everyone harvested supplies with summons or polymorph it was nerfed and once again AFTER everyones already benefited from soloing using Tensers we now decide to nerf it. Kinda makes it a bitter pill for those to swallow that continue to do the right thing but are slaving there butts off at level 8 while others went from 0 - epic in the same amount of time. But don't listen to people wanting to nerf mages thats just silly.
No xp and have the monsters killed drop no items or gold, then why would folks use it except in emergancies or during quests etc?
If they use it at a critical juncture that saves the lives of others etc reward them then.
peace
den
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Well... there's no real reason to deny a person transformed experience. That would be like saying... ok, warriors in plate armor get 10% less xp than someone in chainmail, because you're in more danger in chainmai.
Transformation is one of the many paths a mage can walk. You don't cut it off because it's powerful. You find the what is causing the imbalance and address that.
The real issue with spellcasters in NWN, is the way resting works. In P&P casters have to consider what to cast and when because they need to wait 24 hours before resting. In NWN its a few minutes. Increasing the time for higher level casters to rest won't make them weaker, but it will cause them to consider more before going all out in every encounter.
My cleric, is possibly one of the strongest pure melee characters on the server. I'm not bragging, if you don't belive me, ask around.
What makes him powerful? I can fire my full load of spells every 10 min. Which means usually 2-3 enounters. If that was +10 minutes, then I would have to think more cautiously about what to cast and when. To hold back incase something happens betwen event 1 and event 6.
That's where the weakness of casters are. Is a mage stronger than a warrior when they blow thier spell lists? Sure. But that's it until they can rest again. Same with invokers. If every time an invoker goes into a fight he hastes and throws 30 fireballs, he's gonna kill everything quicker than anyone else. But then he's spent.
It's about moderation, a slight, and 30s/level to the max of 20 (which is when spell progression stops) is slight, increase should help do that. Sure, a mage could become an unstoppable juggernat. But he can't do it again for a while. So a fighter, over a longer period will be a more balanced warrior.
Mages can burst power. Warriors are steady and strong all the time.
That's the difference.
It's lacking in NWN for many reasons. Layonara has improved upon the base NWN engine. Adding level increases for casters will improve it further. It may even fix it finally.
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Are wandering monster encounters in the game? if not can wandering monster encounters be placed in the game?
I ask because that would make the whole solo character business very hard for someone to pull off. If you want to take the risk of resting alone in the wilds with no one standing watch you may get your rest disturbed with no gain and find a pack of nasty things beating you up. Fighters in skivies, spell casters with no spells available etc. I always thought this could happen anyway even when your not sleeping next to a spawn point. Mabey when a character(s) rests there could be a % chance of some wandering creature stumbling on them based on some formula tied to the area they are in.
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i see what ya saying Ghost and agree wholeheartedly. BTW off topic but are you also the ghostwhowlaks on the aussie PCPP forum?
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xXDenizeNXx - 2/9/2006 6:09 AM
I have no idea how to code or program etc, so forgive me if this sounds ignorant but why not just have a simple solution.... while in Tensers or polymorhed they gain no XP. Think about it, how would it further your career as a mage to think like a troll for 2 hours?
Mages do not get lower intelligence than their base intelligence. If a wizard
has 20 in INT without buffs and equipment, the wizard will have at least 20
in INT after the transformation.
btw, goes for all abilities.
So basing a XP penalty on that reasoning would be completely wrong.
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I agree with Ghost on most points. Think something along his lines will be
the best solution.
A transmuter should be allowed to be good at what he does, like all
the other schools.
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Ghost, there is one thing, I think, missing from your comparison of the PnP mage prep issues and the NWN mage, and that's the sheer number of baddies, encounters, whatever you want to call them. In a normal PnP game, the characters normally only deal with, on average, two combat encounters (at least in my experience, and it varies on the type of situations). An average PnP games lasts 4-5 hours. In that 4 hours, the characters may traverse only a few hours in the day, or entire weeks. Time on Layo is muddled for a variety of obvious reasons.
Usually, in PnP, assuming those combate encounters occur in the same day, and are tailored to the party level, the mage has plenty of spells to handle those two encounters. Not to mention, PnP encounters have faaaar fewer enemies to face at one time (once again, speaking on the average here). NWN, on the other hand, in order to facilitate the time it takes to really develop a character, must raise the bar of the encounters, while lowering the experience. This means, A) The encounters require far more spells usage, and B) The mage has a good chance of dealing with more than two encounters between rest periods, even given they are just ten minuute spans.
As it is, if the party is small, yet being thoughtful, planning their actions and working together, I have found we run at about the two encounters per rest that PnP normally incurs. When the party gets to be more than four members, we can quickly find ourselves going after five or more encounters in one ten minute span, or having to stop and wait around until we can rest again, after which, the monsters respawn in the middle of rebuffing.
Once the encounters go beyond 2 or maybe 3, the caster is useless unless he/she can go melee. That is, their spells will be all or mostly used up by the end of the second or third encounter, either from buffing the 10 person party, or from launching massive arial assaults. This means, that either, during the rest of the encounters before he/she can rest, they simply rely on the fighters they buffed, or get in the thick of it. Right, and all this appears stupidly obvious, but here's the deal: in PnP, you don't have monster "respawn," you seldom have to deal with more than two significant fights per rest period, the number of enemies and overall strength of encounters are reduced.
By increasing the rest timer, one of two things will happen:
A) the caster becomes a "buff and follow" caster or resorts to becoming a melee caster
B) parties stop after the second encounter, find a safe place, and rest up until the casters are ready to go again. That is, fight for four minutes, then sit for anywhere from 6-16 more minutes.
What I believe you want to see, Ghost, is the latter, option B, which is so much more like PnP. However, what I believe will happen is more along the lines of option A, as that's how it is already. The ten person party will take their two mage-types, have them buff the party, then march along through ten encounters. Sure, the buffs won't last through all encounters, but with recasting, they will last through most. More importantly, the caster will be so bloody useless as anything but a buffer or melee mage unless the party is content with the mage helping with spells on the first two encounters, then just following along invisibly useless the rest of the time.
I'm sorry, Ghost, but I have to respectfully disagree that increasing the rest timer for casters is the answer. I see what you are wanting to pursue, and I just don't see that it will happen. Impatience and greed run amuck, and very few will ever just sit around and wait on the caster to recover spells, even if it means the difference between life and death. Increasing the rest timer, I believe, will do just the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. Mages will turn even more into melee characters and toss out all but those spells that help them become melee.
Oh, and yeah, this is the discussion I prviously mentioned (in my last long post in this thread) that I could go into.... I guess it was inevitable that I would.
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If they add the chance of failure to the spell and I may become a Penguin.I might have to start using the spell.
I think With Sin the only time I used Polymorph was to carry a load of Wood home or Ore.
I can see it now Sin'Dolin the great Penguin Wizard.
*laughs* Sin'dolin The wizard cow who nourishes all the Children of Hlint with Milk.
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Adding a chance to turn into a penguin or whatever doesn't make sense. The spells aren't unstable. This isn't wild magic we're dealing with. It would be like saying, fireballs are pretty strong, lets add a chance to have the fireballs come out rose petals. That kind of balancing logic doesn't really make sense. It leads to an illogical system of balance. No one wants that.
"What I believe you want to see, Ghost, is the latter, option B, which is so much more like PnP. However, what I believe will happen is more along the lines of option A, as that's how it is already. The ten person party will take their two mage-types, have them buff the party, then march along through ten encounters. Sure, the buffs won't last through all encounters, but with recasting, they will last through most. More importantly, the caster will be so bloody useless as anything but a buffer or melee mage unless the party is content with the mage helping with spells on the first two encounters, then just following along invisibly useless the rest of the time.
I'm sorry, Ghost, but I have to respectfully disagree that increasing the rest timer for casters is the answer. I see what you are wanting to pursue, and I just don't see that it will happen. Impatience and greed run amuck, and very few will ever just sit around and wait on the caster to recover spells, even if it means the difference between life and death. Increasing the rest timer, I believe, will do just the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish. Mages will turn even more into melee characters and toss out all but those spells that help them become melee."
The difference will be minutes, but what it will do is slow down the speed a mage can solo and defeat his enemies. If a party wants to wait around the extra 5-10 minutes for a high level mage to rest, that's what they are going to do. Do they need to? No.
Mages aren't a crutch. Magic isn't a crutch. There are some spells in some cases are very important, greater magic weapon for example. But for the most part, parties can survive without most spells for an encounter or two. So if they wanted to wait every time a mage blew his list, that would be a choice. Like so many other things in the game.
It's that crutch effect that Layonara should be trying to avoid. Spacing out the resting slightly will teach that to the smart player. Some may instead wait to refresh the spell lists, but many will learn to prosper without. And that's the trick of balancing in many cases. Planning for the averages. For the general not the specific.
No one makes a mage cast a particular spell. No one makes a mage memorize it. Mages cast what they feel is right when they feel it's right. The party can request spells. Spells that may help the furtherment of the party, but they don't dictate what is cast. If a mage is in a party and chooses to learn nothing but direct damage spells for that day and no buffs, that's what the mage is going to do. If the mage is going to memorize buffs, that's what the mage is going to do. It doesn't really matter for the discussion.
We're dealing with a fairly constant number of spells at each level. If you increase the duration between refreshes of that constant, you'll have simple result. Which spells the mages memorize are irrelivant to the discussion in the end. Be it 30 fireballs or 10 tensors transformations and 10 hastes and 10 whatevers. It doesn't matter.
The melee spells aren't the real issue. They never were.
It's that they can rinse and repeat so quickly in a short span of time.
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Sure, they can prepare whatever spells, but when a mage is choosing spells, the fundamental issue is the nature of the spells thesmelves and how efficent they'll be in winning a battle. So, yes, which spells a mage memorizes is relevant, and very much so.
Mages can only "rinse and repeat" with buffs. Damage spells, direct attck spells, all are used and are gone. One shot wonders. A mage that uses such spells will find themselves utterly useless to the average NWN adventurer should the rest timer be increased. This has major implications on the number of mages played, as well as on the variety of mages we'll see. The duration of buff spells and transformation spells makes their usefulness ten times that of a direct damage spell, and it will become twenty times so should the rest timer be set higher. Spell variety becomes retarded, and all mages become "cookie cutter."
10 tensers with 10 hastes are worth 300 fireballs.
-------"Mages aren't a crutch. Magic isn't a crutch. There are some spells in some cases are very important, greater magic weapon for example. But for the most part, parties can survive without most spells for an encounter or two. So if they wanted to wait every time a mage blew his list, that would be a choice. Like so many other things in the game.
It's that crutch effect that Layonara should be trying to avoid. Spacing out the resting slightly will teach that to the smart player. Some may instead wait to refresh the spell lists, but many will learn to prosper without. And that's the trick of balancing in many cases. Planning for the averages. For the general not the specific."-------
It's true, you don't always need mages along. But how rare do you want mages to be? And do you want their roles totally defined by the power of their buff spells? Bards will rule the caster class, *snickers* as they can buff so much more often than a mage or cleric, thanks to a song and dance. Mages will always multiclass, because the true power of their magic is stripped down to just the buff spells.
Again, unless you want to severely limit mages on the whole, in both number and variety, I must respectfully disagree.
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Excellent posts Ghost. When travelling with a party, you often go way beyond the rest timer between rests, but if you were soloing, you would certainly have to rest much more frequently. Mages are, if any, the class that can turn the tide of a battle. The party mage might run invisible behind the party for several encounters, and then when the party really gets in trouble, the mages quickly fires off some of his spells and saves the day. There are many ways to play a mage, but the type i most prefer is a crowd controller. If you want to be firing spells off right and left, you probably should be a sorcerer. I like the idea, and find it to be completely in the spirit of the wizard...at least my idea of a wizard.
That being said, i think the adjustment to the rest timer might help the issue, but it should be followed up by some other changes as well. Particularly making more spell progressions like stoneskin's. Makes much more sense in a world with such varying levels. As part of this, i could also see some of the damage spells getting beefed up a little to accomodate for the higher levels. I think a longer rest timer would balance this out fine, and bring something back to the high lvl mages, and invokers in particular.
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Low Magic Server + Magic Class = Powerful Class
High Magic Server + More Magic Enemies -> Balance
Fighter With Increased Magic Items + Wizard in Polymorph = Dead Wizard
Monsters Heavily Beefed with magic? Priceless
Allow the Mobs to shapeshift. ;)
Mages too well prepared?
Randomize Encounters
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Some enemies have already been known to shapeshift, you just have to know where to find them. ;)
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I’d have to agree with milton. Increasing the timer won’t really address the problem.
You will still have powerplayers that have mastered the solo art with their spells. And will have an optimal build for a few extra spellslots to allow tensers a couple more of times than average.
In party, I generally buff, and save a couple of firebrands for kicks.. they soften one or two encounters, but deplete very fast. If I couldn’t rest with the rest of the group, I’d start feeling even more useless then I already do.
A buffed wizard in NWN can be invincible (in some places). With damage reduction, various shields, concealment, elemental and spell protection. Add a little haste and invis. he can run away from most. (However a wizard who’s buffs have faded is a high candidate to be killed by the closest monster, unlike fighters.)
And my guess is this is what is being seen. Increasing the rest for wiz/sorc. to say 20min would not affect this much. The same problem would exist with a mage being more effective in melee.(in the short term..)
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I play wizard and personally wouldn’t mind Tensers removed/’nerf:ed’. But I play a wizard because of the variety it allows.. if yet another spell is reduced, you force me into the role of a buff monkey even more.
So.. er.. I agree with AR7 suggestion of making more spells progressive.. I think that was the best suggestion yet.
(It is interesting that the spell with progression is one for targets.. not solo.)
If you decide to weaken mages, perhaps some strengths can be added to make them more mage like.
Strengthen the offensive spells, weaken the self defensive.
I wish the DC for some lower spells where a little higher, so you actually had a chance of casting sleep/blindness/slow once in a while even on Dregar. It seems most monsters have higher saves then most players (could be an incorrect observation).
Perhaps introduce a few more items for pure casters like the teleport tomb.. maybe staffs that depending on your school would give a little spice. Say, 'polymorph other staff/1 charge day' for a transmuter.
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A % chance of wandering monsters interrupting sleep sounds fair to me. It would discourage a wide range of soloing characters, not just mages. At the very least, one learns to be very choosy about strategically defensible sleeping places.
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"And having said all this, I am in favor of bringing back some of the power to the mass damage spells. Fighters are supposed to be most efficient one on one, while mages are supposed to be most efficient against mass enemies. Capping the duration on things that make caster's into fighters makes it much more applicable to give them some of their mass damage back."
Cap duration for the super-buffs like Tenser's, and give back the 10d6 fireballs. It's not as if the spell Fireball is all that powerful, at high levels; even if you Maximize AND Enhance it, what monster at CR 16 has fewer than 90hp? Not many. At least, not too many that I put in the campaigns I run (PnP DM).
Some spells are simply unfit for an MMORPG setting like NWN, when you compare their usefulness in PnP and NWN. In PnP around mid-levels, you'd have your Rogue Sneak Attack, then your mage would Fireball the baddies before they ran up, and then it would be a meat grinder of fighters, clerics, and Sneak Attacks, while the mage occasionally tossed in a few offensive spells. I had never even thought of a Buff/Masher mage until I started reading this thread, which totally blew me away. I've played on some powergame servers before, as a mage (I really just wanted to throw five Magic Missiles), but kept getting slaughtered because I gamed like PnP sorcerers will. Some of the Buffs, like Tenser's (the PnP description of which can be found here: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/transformation.htm ), seem to be much more powerful in NWN than they'd be in PnP, while I've only seen three - count 'em, THREE - Fireballs ever cast; two by the same person in the same session (er... Party adventure).
I've always considered the Wizard to be one of the most easily-customizable classes, right next to Rogue, with Fighter trailing just behind. Your spell list relates to the entire character concept - A sly, charismatic Wiz with a Rogueish idea of how to kill things would likely have some Illusion, Enchantment, and Evokation spells, while a studious, paragonal Wiz would likely have a nice distribution over all the schools, with moderately few in Transmutation (if I were to build it, he'd likely have a healthy number of Divination, Evokation, and Abjuration spells).
Every build should have the same merits, if not in the same ways. Transmuters and Evokers should be the Be-All-End-All of combat mages, as solo and backup, respectively. Who doesn't remember the Evil Queen in Sleeping Beauty who cast Polymorph Self [Adult Dragon, Black]? How 'bout Dr. Jeckyll, who was admittedly an Alchemist, but who was essentially nothing more than a specialist Transmuter turning himself into a powerhouse Hyde? The archetypal Fireball-tossing mage, laying great sweeps of weaker opponents to the ground, while thier stronger fellows stood again to charge once more, only to have lightning rained down upon them moments later. The terrifying spellcaster who sends out spectres too horrible for the mind to comprehend (Phantasmal Killer)? The mage whose Avatar (Tenser's, anyone?) was more than a match for all but the strongest of warriors...
Have some archetypes, children; they're nummy.
And while there should totally be caps against abuse (duration on buffs, damage advancement on damage spells, that sort of thing), there should for no reason be a limit to the eventual effectiveness of the spells themselves. A 5-8d6 fireball for a lvl 10 Wiz doesn't seem unreasonable; it's comparable to Sneak Attack. Even a 10d6... At 5th level, when a Wizard gets his first 3rd level spell, 5d6 is pretty nice; at 10th, when it's up to 10d6, and the caster has at least 6 fireballs a day, it's still not bad, but it's not exactly something a Wizard can go out and take on equivalent CRs with. At level 11, when a Wizard can get Tenser's, the +11/+6/+1 BAB is bloody useful in a pinch, while the +4 STR, CON, DEX is only a +2 to each respective modifier, and the weapon proficiencies are only so incredible if you HAVE a weapon... In PnP, at least. In NWN, I understand you get a +2 Flaming Longsword? That's a bit nuts. Perhaps our few powergamers wouldn't be so pleased with the spell if they had to carry around thier own longsword, eh?
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Stephen_Zuckerman - 2/10/2006 5:38 PM
and give back the 10d6 fireballs.
At level 11, when a Wizard can get Tenser's, the +11/+6/+1 BAB is bloody useful in a pinch, while the +4 STR, CON, DEX is only a +2 to each respective modifier, and the weapon proficiencies are only so incredible if you HAVE a weapon... In PnP, at least. In NWN, I understand you get a +2 Flaming Longsword?
Pretty sure the fireball has been capped at 10d6 for like at least a year
(Most likely been at 10d6 since layo was created). It was still 10d6 when
I last logged on.
Tenser's blade is a +3 weapon. You got the BAB all wrong as well I believe.
The ability modifier you mentioned is probably also wrong.
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*chuckles* As far as I know, Fireball in Layo is just like in PnP. PnP fireballs only go to 10d6. It's delayed blast fireball that goes beyond 10d6, up to 20d6 (or is it d8? never can recall). However, the Tenser's in NWN is nothing like the Tenser's in PnP.
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Nope Milty, you're wrong. Delayed is only 15d6... hmm... or 15d8. Not 20dX though.
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oi, heh, then delayed blast fireball is unlike PnP here as well.