De-nerf Dev Crit thread

[jrizz]

So here we go
 
 Let me open with questions to the world developement team.
 
 Why has dev crit been left nerfed when even more mass death spells have been added and powered up?
 
 What is the difference between a mass death spell killing a group of bad guys in one round and dev crit killing a bunch of bad guys in one round?
 
 I mean a fighter still needs all the caster buffs to run into a battle so dev crit will still be tied to the spell rest cycle so why is it being treated as over powered?

[Lindel]

well, then too many fighters will be running around with it and it won't be unique anymore

[Lance Stargazer]

Better than none of them actually doing right now, don't you think?

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Every Caster Class has it's one insta kill...  And Even MONKS get a insta kill in epic levels...  Can't we fighters have one now too!

[Lynn1020]

Doesn't naming your weapon give you a chance to have an instant kill with one hit? Is that what type you are talking about?

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Naming your weapon does NOT do that...

BUT THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!

[s0ulz]

Devastating Critical isn't nerfed. It's access threshold has been raised.

However, if we are to lower the requirements back to vanilla requirements, I'd seriously considering nerfing it to increased critical damage, not instant kills. Devastating Critical in its current form would throw most spawns out of whack for that character and such power should be left to the very few who focus entirely on it, not just get it as a perk due to low requirements.

Again, comparing a fighter to a mage with spells and actually expecting both to be on par in killing power is in itself a flawed assumption. In worlds with magic, mages and other magic-wielders will always be more powerful. Tuning magic down is a better approach than making everyone a killing machine with less effort.

So either we keep Dev. Crit as it is, or lower the requirements and nerf it. Otherwise all hell breaks loose and trust me, once most fighters get a taste of Dev. Crit. it will get old very fast and get boring when mobs go down to fast as they're not currently built for Dev. Crit. That would start a whole new chain reaction for the Team to handle and it's just not worth it in my book.

[Lance Stargazer]

@Lynn. . No, what naming the weapon do, is to have a chance to add a bonus xp per kill, with the weapon, i don't know how that works but when one got the message of X has finished the job, the character gets a small bonus on xp for that kill . and yet this goes more on the topic since If you are playing a Fighther / Wizard and you do a mass kill spell you have the same chances to get the message on all the ones affected by the mass kill effect.

So... .

[willhoff]

If you look at the notes on devastating critical in nwn wiki it says that some online worlds outlaw it (probably because its overpowered and throws off the balance of the game).  I think we should be thankful that the team kept devastating crit as a epic feat and adjusted its accessibility.

As it is now I think if you plan your character out you can get devastating critical at around level 31 if your a fighter.  If you change devastating critical back to the original nwn version you could potentiallly have a 25th level fighter with devastating critical! (havent actually run the numbers)

I personally like the idea that devastating critical is almost spoke of like its a legendary power and knowone has actually seen someone with this power, but that it does exist.  I also enjoy doing physical damage more that having something die with one hit as a fighter.

I understand you want to try to get some balance back but not sure this is the route.  I personally like better items and armor.

[davidhoff]

I like the way it is now.  If you plan your character out right, you can still get it after level 30.  It should be very hard to achieve and only for a warrior who sacrafices much.

Remember that a character with this feat will be having an unlimited kill chance on every single critical hit vs monsters not-immune to critical!

If you have ever seen someone use a weapon that "kills racial group on hit", it's insane how fast groups of monsters go down.

[jrizz]

How come no one spoke up against casters getting even more mass death spells when that came up? I mean give us a break people. If Having a chance to kill a bunch of bad guys with one action is bad then it should be bad across the board!

[Pankoki]

It's not the same though. Even the most powerful of sorcerers only get a number of spells a day. Then they have to rest or use other resources. A melee character with devastating critical (especially properly built to have a lot of crits) can do this endlessly.

The fortitude save against it is 10 + 1/2 Character Level + Strength Modifier. You do the math... That's stronger than any spell out there.

You asked a question originally though and directed it at the development team, and though soulz answered it rather eloquently and with all the proper arguments that such a feat deserves, I will simply add some Layonara history.

Way back like five years ago, a bunch of us balancer folk had to look at all the epic progression because the level cap was raised from 20. We had limited resources as we pretty much always have had in here. As the epics were slowly being passed, we had to balance out an overpowered feat to fit with Layonara's power level at the time. In time, there were a whole lot more epic leveled people and so caster progression was looked at because unlike a fighter or a rogue whose damage always goes up, for casters, only very specific builds would scale upwards.

Was it the best approach to do things? Nope. I will say however that there were a lot of background projects that were planned that never took fruit because of lack of personnel and other similar issues. However, all that said, from a development standing point, Devastating Critical is still the same. Extremely overpowered.

If we would lower the requirements, once again, soulz is quite right. We would have to reduce the save, we would have to change it from a constant thing. It would be too powerful as it is.

I know its kinda hard to always have to hear the same litany. But in this case its unfortunately true. The real way to bring melee and physical damage classes up to par would be adding things like the PRC content which has over 50 feats, not to mention a bazillion new Base and Prestige Classes. However, once again... Lack of people... People focusing on the MMO... And all that.

[jrizz]

thanks pan deep down I know that dev crit is way powerful. But every day I play I watch casters take out whole groups with one or two spells while my PC gets bloody taking down one or two bad guys. I have tried to bring a number of ways to allow melee PCs to be more effetive and have as much freedom as any other class but alas they get shot down. I have looked at what the dev team did with spells to make casters more powerful. I dont know if folks knows this but many spells are more powerful on Layo then other NWN servers. Looking at this I thought at some point it would come around to be melee PCs turn to get a boost. Then came the addition of a bunch of new items and hey that was great. But following that it seemed the spawns also got a boost so it kinds balanced it out. Then came the lowering of the drops so it is now quite rare to get your hands on some of the items that melee PCs can use to get some spell effects. That and rulings like "only one flag of might per PC" took alot of wind out of the new item list.
 
 
 So where do we go from here? There is no denial that there is a huge power gap between casters and melees. And yes there should be some gap but the gap is so wide now that melees are really not needed by casters after a certian level. So what can we do to bring some fun back to high level melee PCs?

[Dorganath]

That and rulings like "only one flag of might per PC" took alot of wind out of the new item list.

Some perspective...

First, the flag of might ruling was because people were farming and stockpiling them in order to get around the 1 use/60 RL minutes limitations that are built into the items.  Had our players at the time exercised good judgment and responsibility, that rule likely would not have been put in place.

As for the rarity of the drops...they're supposed to be rare and special.  If everyone has one of everything, then they're neither.  And, at one point, the drop rates were far more permissive than they should have been due to a software glitch, and this went on for a month or two before anyone bothered to bring it up.

[jrizz]

I fully understand about the need to keep the drops rare and about the flag ruling. But in another thread about making buffs more available it was pointed out that through items many of those buff can be had. But the items are drop items and they are rare or have limits of usage on them so once again it does not really fit the bill of available.
 
 So really how can we give high level melees a bit more world?

[Lindel]

I agree with davidhoff, because, well he's probably gonna be the only one with Dev. Crit any time soon heh...for great power, you must sacrifice a lot of things and plan it out so not everyone will be able to do it. Even if our PCs are already the elite of the world, if every fighter can run around one shotting things, then it's just kinda ridiculous. 30 str to cleave things in half seems about right anyway.

I think things are fine right now between the casters vs melee. Sure mages blow stuff up but it's a magic world and mages blow stuff up in magic worlds. It's like infantry vs. tanks and artillery and planes dropping bombs...the machines win. Always.

[jrizz]

for great power, you must sacrifice a lot of things and plan it out so not everyone will be able to do it.

 
 That would be great if it were equitable. Some classes get great power even if the builds are not perfect.
 
 We really should not shoot something down just because one player took the time to do all the number crunching to dial in his PC just right so that if it does not perm by level 32 (31 if you dont take SMD) it will get dev crit.
 
 And on that note if dev crit really is too powerful then why have it at all? Since as you can see a player can get it if they build perfectly for it. Oh and it does not take much sacrifice to get there, just stay single class fighter and pick the right feats and there you have it. If you want to really power build for it then go human fighter WM (then you have increased crit range and great cleave!) but that may put you off a feat or two. The point is that right now anyone can get dev crit. So the argument about packs of fighters running around endlessly killing everything really does not hold water. Either the feat is too powerful or it is not. If you really feel it is too powerful and one player gets the feat then that one player will be too powerful. What then?

[Lindel]

Oh and it does not take much sacrifice to get there, just stay single class fighter and pick the right feats and there you have it. If you want to really power build for it then go human fighter WM (then you have increased crit range and great cleave!) but that may put you off a feat or two. The point is that right now anyone can get dev crit.

ahah! then just get it. It's fine now where it is. caster vs. melee, well, let the mages get their magey things. We can just be hardcore and be fighters and be proud about it....who cares if stuff is imba?

[jrizz]

ahah! then just get it. It's fine now where it is. caster vs. melee, well, let the mages get their magey things. We can just be hardcore and be fighters and be proud about it....who cares if stuff is imba?

 
 Because some of us have put more the three years into our PCs and the over all changes have affected us. Like when I started my PC the level cap was 20 and to get past that you had to have a ECDQ (much like todays WLDQs). Many of us did not have the time to put in to qualify for Epic so we made build choices based on that. There have been other changes to things that in years past you made build choices on. Sure if I had 32 levels to build from based on todays setting I would have dev crit for sure. But some of us are products of legacy settings.

[lonnarin]

How about if we make it an auto-feat for all former pirates named Kurn Blackwater?  I'd like to get that before 36th lvl.