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Author Topic: Duelist  (Read 1824 times)

Chuckles_McChuck

Duelist
« on: September 14, 2016, 07:43:16 pm »
I honestly don't know if this should be in the LORE bugs forum or in this one, but I noticed 2 things while browsing the duelist class under LORE.1. The Duelist requires 5 ranks in persuade, but it is not a class skill.  This just does not make sense in an RP standpoint.  Why would you be required to learn and train in a skill to get into a certain trade or career only then to have absolutely nothing to do with that skill once you are in said trade/career.  Might I suggest that either:a. the requirement be switched to bluff which is a class skill and similar to persuade in that its a social skill; or,b. add persuade as a class skill for duelist.  If you think that makes it too many, then remove bluff, persuade makes more sense anyways. 2. This is more of a question that would lead to a suggestion based on the answer.  Does the Rangers Dual Wield count the same as the ambidexterity requirement to take the class?  Since Dual Wield is basically the same feat and then some, it definately should and would only lead to redundant feat aquisition just to take the class otherwise.
 

Acacea

1. Since perform was made a
« Reply #1 on: September 14, 2016, 08:10:08 pm »

1. Since perform was made a class skill for Duelists, I think the Persuade req was intended to be a poor-man's perform. My understanding is that it was meant to act as a substitute for the traditional requirement of perform ranks, to prevent Duelist being locked into a bard-only PrC, and that for those rare few Duelists with no rogue or bard levels at all, five ranks was not a great hardship to cross-class. This is only background as I understand it. I'm in no position to debate actual alterations (though I do think with the canny feinting and dodging, bluff is certainly meant to be in their list of class skills and not persuade, hehe). 

2. I believe it used to be the case that Dual-Wield did not satisfy the Ambidexterity prereq, making Ranger/Duelists impossible (rangers being unable to select the component feats of Dual-Wield) without adding another class. I believe this was changed somehow at some point, and a quick test level seemed to allow a Ranger/Duelist to proceed. (If LORE did not make it clear, you should know that Duelists lose their perks when fighting with more than one weapon.)

 

Chuckles_McChuck

Yeah, that could make sense
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2016, 09:11:12 pm »

Yeah, that could make sense for the first one; I would still say that persuade should still be a class skill option, but its not that important and if it helps not making it a bard exclusive class, then I can't really complain.

Hopefully that is fixed for the ranger/duelist combo and I am aware that Duelists lose thier bonus's if they use thier second hand at all.  Its too bad in my personal opinion, but in RP the duelist requiring ambidexterity can be simply explained as them being able to use their left/right arm with equal ability.  So much for rapier/stiletto or rapier/shieldbreaker.

 

Dorganath

Rangers were updated a little
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2016, 10:43:04 pm »

Rangers were updated a little while back, bringing  them a little more in line with 3.5. I do not have that list of changes handy (I think they're in an update log post somewhere), but I know it affected some of the mechanics of Rangers in terms of feats, skills and spells...or some combination thereof.

That said, as Duelist bonuses vanish with a second weapon in-hand, then there isn't really going to be a "fix" for a Ranger/Duelist combo, meaning that this won't enable you to keep Duelist bonuses while fighting two-handed...though I believe you'll keep the other benefits of Dual Weild/Ambidexterity.

 

Acacea

Dorganath wrote:That said, as
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2016, 11:03:04 pm »

Quote from: "Dorganath"&cid="2761032"

That said, as Duelist bonuses vanish with a second weapon in-hand, then there isn't really going to be a "fix" for a Ranger/Duelist combo, meaning that this won't enable you to keep Duelist bonuses while fighting two-handed...though I believe you'll keep the other benefits of Dual Weild/Ambidexterity.

By Ranger/Duelist fix, I think he meant, "hopefully Dual Wield now counts as fulfilling the Ambidexterity prereq for Duelist, since rangers are not allowed to take that feat" (because they get a better one). The other thing isn't really ranger specific and not anything broken with that particular combination... if anything Dual Wield qualifying as Ambidexterity means it's really less an investment than other classes actually taking the Ambidexterity feat, hehe!

 

Dorganath

Acacea wrote:Dorganath
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2016, 09:09:31 am »

Quote from: "Acacea"&cid="2761035"

Quote from: "Dorganath"&cid="2761032"

That said, as Duelist bonuses vanish with a second weapon in-hand, then there isn't really going to be a "fix" for a Ranger/Duelist combo, meaning that this won't enable you to keep Duelist bonuses while fighting two-handed...though I believe you'll keep the other benefits of Dual Weild/Ambidexterity.

By Ranger/Duelist fix, I think he meant, "hopefully Dual Wield now counts as fulfilling the Ambidexterity prereq for Duelist, since rangers are not allowed to take that feat" (because they get a better one). The other thing isn't really ranger specific and not anything broken with that particular combination... if anything Dual Wield qualifying as Ambidexterity means it's really less an investment than other classes actually taking the Ambidexterity feat, hehe!

I was choosing not to assume one over the other (or either!) and only address the one possible interpretation. I've found people often mean different things by "fix", which sometimes really means "changed" since there's no actual problem to "fix". Also, last night I was (mentally) unable to put in the effort to look up specific changes to the Ranger class to comment on anything further, as I am in the grips of a late-Summer virus of some sort that seems to want to make my face explode.

For what it's worth, Ambidexterity and Dual Wield are only partly related. Forgetting mechanical benefit for a moment, Dual Wield is specifically fighting with two weapons. This is a specific set of techniques that employs two active weapons at the same time.  By contrast, Ambidexterity is the ability to use one weapon in either hand with similar levels of efficacy. For the latter, I give you the "I am not left-handed" lines in the duel between Inigo Montoya and the Man-in-Black in "The Princess Bride", where both combatants (arguably Duelists...though probably more accurately "swashbucklers") start out using their left hands and switch after a time to their right hands.

While their bonuses and mechanical benefits do seem related and similar, what each of them means is actually somewhat (and importantly) different, imho.

 

Acacea

I think there is some
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2016, 12:36:59 pm »

I think there is some confusion over both the original question and my answer, so I am attempting to clarify. Apologies if it is unnecessary. 

I believe you may be confusing Dual-Wield with Two Weapon Fighting, and you are absolutely correct in that Two-Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity are totally different things, even though they are generally taken together. This is of course why Ambidexterity is required, and not Two-Weapon Fighting - being able to use either hand, not both. The question was specific to Rangers, however, because they receive the feat Dual-Wield for free, just by being rangers, that both combines the benefits of Two-Weapon Fighting and Ambidexterity (while in light armor), AND prevents them from taking either of those in the future, because they already have them... leading to threads like this one for example. 

Or for another, Rangers cannot actually learn to fight with two weapons out of light armor like everyone else, as they are neither able to take the "real" feats nor qualify for Improved Two-Weapon Fighting with their base feat.

Despite effectively having both of those feats already, they do not necessarily qualify for things requiring either, which is what prompted the question. "Does the Ranger's Ambidexterity that they effectively have in Dual-Wield but cannot take qualify as the standalone feat for prerequisite purposes?" Threads like the one linked above seem to suggest* it did not, at one point, but it seems to be doable now, just by leveling one up as a test. I know you were looking for specific changes made, and of course I can't comment on that part. 

Sorry if any of that is unnecessary, just seemed like we were talking about different things, and if it did to me it probably did to somebody else too, heh. 

((*As an additional edit, I say "seem to suggest" because of course it's entirely possible that people speaking at that time simply assumed it wouldn't work, and we had so few ranger/duelists... so on my end, of course I don't even know if there needed to be a change for it to be working now! hehe)) 

 

Dorganath

No need to clarify, but thank
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2016, 02:29:56 pm »

No need to clarify, but thank you for doing so!

I'm hoping this doesn't devolve into a long (and potentially emotion-laden) discussion about game balance. I'm really not interested in dissecting the Ranger class, why it has what it has and whether or not it's appropriate, but we can't really talk about the whole picture without at least touching briefly on it.

And before I say anything more, I have still not looked up the Ranger changes we put in a while ago, and I won't have time to do so for hours (if it happens today at all), so sprinkle a "grain of salt" on all of this. I'm discussing it in the context of understanding displayed in this thread so far.

To start, why do Rangers have Dual-Wield and not Ambidexterity + Two-weapon fighting? Well, it's one feat, making it cleaner, but also it preserves the character of the class by prohibiting heavier armors, a limitation that the individual feats do not have. Along this thread, why are they excluded from Ambi- + 2-W Fighting (Yeah, abbreviating...sue me!)? Possibly to prohibit (pure) Rangers from wearing heavy armor? To be honest, I am not privvy to these particular decisions, but it is not hard to conclude that the decision was made for balancing reasons and for preserving the feel of the class. The point is, however, this path was chosen for the Ranger for a reason, rather than just auto-granting them Ambidex + 2-W Fighting. Obviously, these sorts of limits on feats can go out the window when multi-classing is involved, but I'm not worrying about that for the moment.

Similarly, Duelists have Ambidex. as a prerequisite for a reason, one which is mostly flavor and which does not really impose any mechanical limitations or realistic benefits whatsoever.

So then why would Rangers be excluded (by consequence, not necessarily intent) from Imp. 2-W Fighting? Same reason? Lack of armor prohibitions? Breaks the "feel" and intent of the class? All of these?

These limits are typically fine for all (or most) cases, except perhaps for this one, special case. That the Duelist cannot really benefit from Ambidexterity and the prerequisite is really only there for flavor in the NWN setting muddies this question a little further. In a "house rules" PnP setting, if a GM wanted to allow Dual-Wield to serve as the Ambidex. prerequisite, I'm sure that would be fine. But NWN is a little (OK, a lot) more rigid than that. For one, feats with requirements typically require all of the prerequisite feats, not one or the other. I'm pulling on memory here, and the last time I opened the relevant 2da file(s) was probably a year or more ago, so more grains of salt here. My point is, I do not believe it's possible to have an either-or prerequisite feat on a feat (*). In other words, I don't think we can define, even if we wanted to, that Feat C requires either Feat B or Feat C. Similarly, I'm thinking the same sort of limitation is present for defining class prerequisites (*), in that Class Z requires Feat A and Feat B AND one of either Feat C or Feat D. If this is not possible under NWW without some binary hackery, then there really isn't a "fix" to this particular problem. However, if it is possible, we would have to evaluate whether or not it is appropriate to do so for reasons of game balance. In this case, it probably would not  tip things too badly, but then there's still the question of "Is it really 'broken'?"...which is going to be a matter of opinion.

Back to the Two-Weapon + Ambidex.  vs. Dual-Wield question...I still maintain they are different. I will admit, however, to conflating Dual-Wield with Two-Weapon Fighting. However!  Dual-Wield's name itself implies it is for fighting, not just being ambidextrous. Also, I would suggest Dual-Wield is not truly both put together because it does, in fact, have limitations where the two feats together do not. So in truth, a Ranger does not have both of those feats automatically, but rather has a third feat that grants the same benefits under specific circumstances. Again, I realize that the Duelist cannot really get any benefit from Ambidexterity and that feat is there mostly for those "I am not left-handed" moments of RP, but I am still personally of the belief that Dual-Wield is not the same as Ambidex. and 2-W Fighting squished together; it's more like Lesser Ambidexterity and Lesser Two-Weapon Fighting squished together (if they existed, of course), which is not quite the same thing in flavor or mechanics.

Lastly, please understand I am not trying to just say "No" here in any arbitrary way. My initial (and possibly slightly-feverish) response was intended to suggest that something that is not really "broken" might not be "fixed". And yes, there was conflation with Dual-Wield and Two-Weapon Fighting, but also I apparently left out some other words that would have been helpful to include in my response last night. Anyway, apologies for any confusion my earlier words may have brought. Hopefully I've outlined things a little more fully here.

For the record, I understand the intent behind the initial question, and I understand why one would want this. I also do not feel so strongly as to say "no, this should never happen", because in the context of a Ranger/Duelist mix, the impact would seem to be negligible, at first glance. It's a good question, but this particular issue is not necessarily one we can (or should?) change. We could have a conversation on whether or not the Ranger/Duelist split is a "good mix" from both mechanical and RP perspectives, which would be a whole other thread and which might actually play into the decisions as to whether or not to pursue a change to allow this combination to happen at all.

 

(*) If I am forgetting or missing a case where this is actually true, I'm happy to look deeper into it.

 

Acacea

Ah, so if I understand you,
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2016, 02:35:53 pm »

Ah, so if I understand you, you are specifically responding to the notion that the (probably true at this point in time) case of Rangers being allowed to take the Duelist class, even if true, is arguably not a "fix" because of the possibility that it was done deliberately and/or room for discussion on whether their combined feat should qualify to begin with, and so on. 

So sort of like - "does this qualify?" "I think it used to not qualify but now it does" "hopefully it's fixed then" "Well, I can't confirm but it's arguably not broken even if not" ?

 

Dorganath

Acacea wrote:Ah, so if I
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2016, 04:25:46 pm »

Quote from: "Acacea"&cid="2761044"

Ah, so if I understand you, you are specifically responding to the notion that the (probably true at this point in time) case of Rangers being allowed to take the Duelist class, even if true, is arguably not a "fix" because of the possibility that it was done deliberately and/or room for discussion on whether their combined feat should qualify to begin with, and so on. 

So sort of like - "does this qualify?" "I think it used to not qualify but now it does" "hopefully it's fixed then" "Well, I can't confirm but it's arguably not broken even if not" ?

This....plus injecting that while acknowledging that an apparent conflict does exist for this one particular case, it is simply a notion that the decisions made for the Ranger by itself and the decisions made for the Duelist by themselves effectively, by happenstance and probably not design, prevent such a combination by virtue of their conflicting requirements and limitations without some additional factor. That this conflict exists is not proof that it is a "bug" or that it requires change, but simply a by-product of two somewhat dissimilar things coming together that don't have any obvious way of meshing. I feel like there's a few other examples of something like this in NWN, but I'm having trouble thinking of specific ones at the moment. There's plenty on the RP side of things (Aeridinite Palemaster? Az'attan Battlerager? etc.), but the hard mechanical conflicts are a little less obvious.

I am fairly certain (and would be pretty surprised, actually) if the decisions made for the Duelist class were done with any consideration for a potential multi-class with Ranger...or any other class for that matter. Classes, prestige or otherwise, are generally designed for themselves alone and not much thought is given to multi-class synergies/limitations except where the prestige class kind of depends on or is intended to augment another class. In my opinion, the Ranger/Duelist combo probably was not even considered because the two are kind of...divergent in their flavors, but if that combination was considered, maintaining the  integrity of both classes was likely deemed more important than mechanical work-arounds that sacrifice class RP.

Like I sort of alluded to in my last post, if we were playing around a tabletop and a player wanted this class combo, I'd probably allow it, while enforcing the light armor limitation of Dual-Wield, but this would be a "house rules" extension. NWN, for all its configurability and flexibility, is pretty rigid in some places, and those places usually are where all the core mechanics reside. Alas!

So is it a "bug"? Depends on perspective. Should it be allowed? Arguments can be made for and against. Is it even possible to change it? Possibly not.

 

Acacea

Dorganath wrote:Alas!So is it
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2016, 06:18:41 pm »

Quote from: "Dorganath"&cid="2761045"
Alas!

So is it a "bug"? Depends on perspective. Should it be allowed? Arguments can be made for and against. Is it even possible to change it? Possibly not.

You crack me up, Dorg. 

In any case, unless there is something server-side that would actively force a different behavior in this combination than a test module with current haks, it either was changed (if not "fixed" because of not being a "bug") or! always worked and was just never tested, ha!

And anyway, think of the guilt of the Az'attan, though! Spend your sober hours with a non-resistance non-violence preaching martyr sacrificial mindset, but everything just goes red and you suddenly have more to atone for, further extending the cycle... *snerk* *lights a candle for the Az'attan battlerager in some parallel universe* ;)

 

Chuckles_McChuck

So by the sound of it, we
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2016, 10:01:12 pm »

So by the sound of it, we could probably argue about this for some time maybe even resulting with the consensus that it should be possible in an RP perspective, but in the end it might not even matter as it could be impossible to do based on NWN limitations.  Or that it might not be worth the effort and time in scripting and take a long time to be in effect if the effort is placed (I'm considering priorities here, such as how many players want to attempt the combination.  If it's a head ache to script and only one player wants it...).

I think then I would just like to know if it is scripted in, and if it isn't it might be easier to come up with another idea then suggest a debate on whether there should be an attempt to script it in.

 

Acacea

Heh, well, like I said in my
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2016, 10:44:51 pm »

Heh, well, like I said in my first reply, nothing prevents a ranger from taking duelist levels in a test module, so... *shrugs* I made a Ranger/Duelist just fine.