Get me outta here! - Rogues

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Shiff replied? Huh, I must have my filter on that blocks his posts.
 
 

 
 
 SO MEAN!  

[miltonyorkcastle]

So, in essence, you (and possibly others) are looking for an equivalent means by which non-magical characters may "fast travel" from any location.

As Chongo pointed out, this becomes another question of how we can better "balance" the classes, and when it comes to 3rd ed. DnD and NWN, Magic rules all. If you want to be mega-powerful, turn to magic. Granted, you can be freaking awesome without it, but magic will always win in the end. And according to my understanding, that's not a dynamic we're pursuing to change (much) in this incarnation of Layo.

That said, I'd support each class having their own "fast travel" option, though discovering the IC manner of explaining the means might be a trick.

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

Can Tyra have a baby Dragon to fly her around?  No?  Oh Darn it all...  :p

[Stephen_Zuckerman]

Can Tyra have a baby Dragon to fly her around?  No?  Oh Darn it all...  :p

Play WoW and you can.

Rogues having some quick city-to-city transport in places they have acquired specific contacts would be pretty nifty, but then... Why would it be available to Rogues only? Some folks with the Rogue class are virtually paladins, while some without a single Rogue level are the sneaky, thieving, underworld-slinking dregs of society that WOULD have these kinds of contacts.

This is probably something best left for the next generation of Layonara, where a class system is no longer present, and characters are free to develop more organically, on a mechanical level.

[Hellblazer]

Might want to try World of Warcraft(tm). The rogues on that game have flash powder which does a similar thing :\\

In all seriousness, rogues can escape pretty easy as it is if they choose the right feats. remember you should always have your party to distract things while you make your escape

We are not talking about escaping a dangerous situation here, but to be able to travel distance in through rp means that is quicker than boats and portals. Much like Druids and Wizard.

For playing a Rogue/SD. I can tell you that there is no feat that will help a pure rogue escape easily unless you have boosted up the hide and ms considerably. What gives a rogue the ability to really escape with ease.. and that is still not always a guarantee of success. is If he goes with SD and gets HIPS. The use of Darkness is bugged by a long shot, as I have seen many of my foes still come to me after casting it, even if they had no ability to see through it. So to use it is at your own risk, same as using invisibility. Using range attack then going into invisibility will bring up an NWN bug where the attacker will still pursue you, most often than not. Got at least two dt's with Rain because of that one.

So, in essence, you (and possibly others) are looking for an equivalent means by which non-magical characters may "fast travel" from any location.

As Chongo pointed out, this becomes another question of how we can better "balance" the classes, and when it comes to 3rd ed. DnD and NWN, Magic rules all. If you want to be mega-powerful, turn to magic. Granted, you can be freaking awesome without it, but magic will always win in the end. And according to my understanding, that's not a dynamic we're pursuing to change (much) in this incarnation of Layo.

That said, I'd support each class having their own "fast travel" option, though discovering the IC manner of explaining the means might be a trick.

Things is, Not all magic users have fast ways of transportation. In fact only two have. Druids, with their abilities to portal through trees, and Wizard with their tome.

My example was not to get away of danger, just a humorous way of putting it.

[miltonyorkcastle]

Things is, Not all magic users have fast ways of transportation. In fact only two have. Druids, with their abilities to portal through trees, and Wizard with their tome.

Hm, yes... I guess what I was trying to say is that it's not only easier in 3rd ed. DnD to come up with magical reasoning for certain feats (like teleportation aka fast travel), but that in general magic is the only way of explaining such phenomena, and only those with access to manipulate magic can pursue such things. Just because the other magically inclined classes do not come with the teleportation perk, the door is not wholly closed to them **glances at a certain sorcerer** ... whereas it is closed to those that cannot manipulate magic.

There are a number of ways to open the metaphorical door, such as magical items that non-magic users can activate, among a host of other concepts that don't really jive with where we've capped our power level for magic gear and goods that the "general" adventuring population can get their hands on.

[Hellblazer]

I appreciate the level cap on the power of magic of Layonara and Items. But I think that not every thing has to be through the means of magic. Rogues have underground societies. Shadow dancers, their troupes or again unseen partners. Paladins.. well they could always hitch hike a ride on any war ship of a certain area, same for clerics of particular deities.

There can be a myriads of ways to go about it that doesn't require the use of magics, and that can be explain through well thought out Rp fashions. After all, maybe the magic explanation is the easiest, but it's not necessarily the most appealing.

All we have to do is use our imagination. Maybe we could all write up ideas and have a little community votes on the best ones for each class. Like this once that is done, it would give the team a head start on what and how to implement this with lore background already factored in? For this or the next layo incarnation. I think this could be a really cool little community project that could bring a lot of fun.

[lonnarin]

On teleportation: The REAL class that should feel slighted in all of this is the Sorcerer.  Wizards and Treehuggers get to poof and the guy with the magic blood of dragons has to take the bus.  If anything, somebody who cast magic without preparation should be even better at the skill, since he's walking around with a higher Blood Alnothical Content.

on Rogues: Impossible to solo with one, Impossible to Dungeon Dive without one.  SOMEBODY has to pick the locks, and if the mage was manly enough to get a real familiar, we'd need rogues way more often.  But the damage specifically, I love them being that I play a defensive fighter.  Things that take Bjorn 10 minutes to kill in a long drawn out slugfest take only about 2 minutes with Willy arching over his shoulder.  Add that to crippling strike on the flank and you have one deranged little leprechaun slicing hamstrings all over.  Now combine the rogue with Farros' songs of fear and blindness and you get the ultimate sneak attack feast.  Willy sprinting all over the place arching them stupid, while massive ogrillons plop like flies.

I do agree though rogues need some loving in the escape dept.  An alchemy recipe for BLINDING powder is not unreasonable, and would likely be dex to blink in time based rather than fort.  The stink bombs that stun themselves though... bad idea.

[twidget658]

On teleportation: The REAL class that should feel slighted in all of this is the Sorcerer. Wizards and Treehuggers get to poof and the guy with the magic blood of dragons has to take the bus. If anything, somebody who cast magic without preparation should be even better at the skill, since he's walking around with a higher Blood Alnothical Content.

 
 I always thought that it was backwards, too.

[Hellblazer]

Things that take Bjorn 10 minutes to kill in a long drawn out slugfest take only about 2 minutes with Willy arching over his shoulder.  Add that to crippling strike on the flank and you have one deranged little leprechaun slicing hamstrings all over.  Now combine the rogue with Farros' songs of fear and blindness and you get the ultimate sneak attack feast.

*Brian grins and walk away whistling innocently*

[ShiffDrgnhrt]

An alchemy recipe for BLINDING powder is not unreasonable, and would likely be dex to blink in time based rather than fort.  The stink bombs that stun themselves though... bad idea.

Stink bombs should be used in tandem with something that gives immunity to posions.  Stink Bomb stink is a poison that stuns, so yeah...

Alchemical flash powder isn't unreasonable, though what would take the place of the magnesium powder (the flash part)?  We could use some lesser used but scarce/hard to find gem dust (phenalope/feldspar/garnet) mixed with whatever is needed for making invis potions (essence of invisibility?) and a leather pouch.  OR A lump of coal, topaz dust (sulfur?) and some salt in a leather pouch (IE- Black Powder)?  I could think of a number of recipes of varying difficulty for a new sort of Grenade Weapon that gives a short duration invis to any within it's blast radius (so you could poof away your party too).

On an off Topic note...  Why Can't we craft Thunderstones?

[Weeblie]

On an off Topic note...  Why Can't we craft Thunderstones?

Because there is no such recipe available?

[miltonyorkcastle]

On teleportation: The REAL class that should feel slighted in all of this is the Sorcerer. Wizards and Treehuggers get to poof and the guy with the magic blood of dragons has to take the bus. If anything, somebody who cast magic without preparation should be even better at the skill, since he's walking around with a higher Blood Alnothical Content.

I won't get into Druids because that's a whole different "kind" of magic, but I can maybe shed some light (and maybe update LORE a bit more if there is consensus, though such has been discussed in the past) as to why Wizards get Teleportation and Sorcs don't. It boils down to the fundamental difference between the casters in a ritual casting world:

Wizards cast by ritual (spells prepared in advance); they have no inherent connection to magic (at least not by DnD standards). Sorcerers cast "on the fly" (no preparation needed); they have an inherent connection to the Al'noth, and as such use their own bodies as the "components" (which also means that casting for a sorcerer should ultimately be more taxing and dangerous as when a spell is cast ritually, the components are almost always used up, but the sorcerer doesn't want himself to be "used up" when he casts, heh; not to mention, a sorcerer could possibly have their connection to the Al'Noth stripped, while you'd have to strip a Wizard's memory for him to lose his casting ability.).

When a wizard "prepares" his/her spells, he/she is actually casting the spell. He goes through the motion of casting the spell right up to the very last component, be it a word, bit of sand, or whatever, which he saves to activate the spell at the instant he needs it.. This is where spell components come in to play. Spell components are essentially that last pieces needed to complete the ritual (or part of the last "piece," but lets keep things simple for now ). In other words, a wizard casts all his spells before he casts his spells. :p It also means that if a wizard doesn't have a spell prepared, he's out of luck... and worse, he can't really take a spell and alter it to fit the circumstance without actually preparing the altered version of the spell. Sorcerers are much more flexible in this regard... so, let's look at sorc's.

Sorcerers breath, eat, spit, sweat, and give the flu to magic. They don't need to ritually prepare a spell. They just think about it, throw out whatever final component is required for the spell, and boom, there it is. This means that a spell and all of its possible iterations are castable by a sorcerer (assuming the sorcerer can cast the spell in the first place) without having previously worked out the process needed to make the alterations work (though mechanically such alterations aren't very available IG and you need GM help to put them into practice). Now, DnD limits the number of spells a sorcerer "knows" in order to sort of demonstrate that they are savants, and while they could in fact cast anything, there is some internal ability to control the magic of each spell type and a person just plain can't have all the internal defenses to control every type of magical possibility.

Now, all that was to introduce the teleportation spell and why sorcerers (in general) can't really accomplish the feat. Like all spells, Teleportation needs some sort of focus, certain components to interact with the magic and make it work (mind you, we're still working ritual magic here; get rid of components and rituals and you don't need to worry about this mumbo-junmbo, but then "wizards" also cease to exist- everyone becomes a "sorcerer" of sorts.). A wizard can set up all the pieces of the ritual, complete the spell, and without any other energy expended on his part complete the spell. The spell doesn't draw on a wizard's person, his being, in order to complete the spell. And this is key, because teleportation magic requires extreme control over the Al'noth (so the caster doesn't find himself teleported inside of a wall), and the ritual itself takes over half a dozen hours depending on distance and how much is being sent. A sorcerer uses his person as the "components" to complete the spell, but the effort required to cast such a ritual "on the fly" is so enormous that only a handful of sorcerers have the capacity to control and energy to complete such a spell on his/her own. The sorcerer would require some other means of finishing the spell, either by magical artifact or a connection to something (or someone) else with the power to handle teleportation magic.

The Tome a wizard has IG represents a "pre-cast" or prepared teleportation spell, in much the same way that the rest of a wizard's spells are prepared up to that last component needed to complete the a ritual.

Hope that helps, and yeah, things will be different in the MMO.

DISCLAIMER: Because magic in Layo has long been in a state of flux and interpretation as we move to a whole new set-up, a GM's interpretation of how magic works on his/her quests is what you should always default to. Inconsistencies are bound to happen as not all were brought up indoctrinated with "DnD," and we are as a world and game moving away from DnD style magic. Actually, that's one of the reasons why we're moving to our own system, so we can have some measure of consistency.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Alchemical flash powder isn't unreasonable, though what would take the place of the magnesium powder (the flash part)?  We could use some lesser used but scarce/hard to find gem dust (phenalope/feldspar/garnet) mixed with whatever is needed for making invis potions (essence of invisibility?) and a leather pouch.  OR A lump of coal, topaz dust (sulfur?) and some salt in a leather pouch (IE- Black Powder)?  I could think of a number of recipes of varying difficulty for a new sort of Grenade Weapon that gives a short duration invis to any within it's blast radius (so you could poof away your party too).

Dont be stepping on no mage's toes, you know what happens when you step on a mage's toes dont you? poof! you become a gnoll!
 Magi got Invisibility 10' radius (or whatever its called in 3e) dont they?

[Makashi]

They don't. One has to be a SD to archive that feat. [LORE]http://lore.layonara.com/Hide%20in%20Plain%20Sight[/LORE]

I've also seen rogues get HiPS on other servers at level 21, i've also seen it available on assassin's at after the 9th level, I think in NWN2 (though I'm not positive) that both of these classes get it too.

[Lily]

I've also seen rogues get HiPS on other servers at level 21, i've also seen it available on assassin's at after the 9th level, I think in NWN2 (though I'm not positive) that both of these classes get it too.

Yep, it is possible if one edits the class. I was just referring to the standard NWN packages. But then of course it is a balancing issue and we already once had a topic about rangers/rogues and HiPS. But well, that's an discussion on its own.

[lonnarin]

I won't get into Druids because that's a whole different "kind" of magic, but I can maybe shed some light (and maybe update LORE a bit more if there is consensus, though such has been discussed in the past) as to why Wizards get Teleportation and Sorcs don't. It boils down to the fundamental difference between the casters in a ritual casting world:

Wizards cast by ritual (spells prepared in advance); they have no inherent connection to magic (at least not by DnD standards). Sorcerers cast "on the fly" (no preparation needed); they have an inherent connection to the Al'noth, and as such use their own bodies as the "components" (which also means that casting for a sorcerer should ultimately be more taxing and dangerous as when a spell is cast ritually, the components are almost always used up, but the sorcerer doesn't want himself to be "used up" when he casts, heh; not to mention, a sorcerer could possibly have their connection to the Al'Noth stripped, while you'd have to strip a Wizard's memory for him to lose his casting ability.).

When a wizard "prepares" his/her spells, he/she is actually casting the spell. He goes through the motion of casting the spell right up to the very last component, be it a word, bit of sand, or whatever, which he saves to activate the spell at the instant he needs it.. This is where spell components come in to play. Spell components are essentially that last pieces needed to complete the ritual (or part of the last "piece," but lets keep things simple for now ). In other words, a wizard casts all his spells before he casts his spells. :p It also means that if a wizard doesn't have a spell prepared, he's out of luck... and worse, he can't really take a spell and alter it to fit the circumstance without actually preparing the altered version of the spell. Sorcerers are much more flexible in this regard... so, let's look at sorc's.

Sorcerers breath, eat, spit, sweat, and give the flu to magic. They don't need to ritually prepare a spell. They just think about it, throw out whatever final component is required for the spell, and boom, there it is. This means that a spell and all of its possible iterations are castable by a sorcerer (assuming the sorcerer can cast the spell in the first place) without having previously worked out the process needed to make the alterations work (though mechanically such alterations aren't very available IG and you need GM help to put them into practice). Now, DnD limits the number of spells a sorcerer "knows" in order to sort of demonstrate that they are savants, and while they could in fact cast anything, there is some internal ability to control the magic of each spell type and a person just plain can't have all the internal defenses to control every type of magical possibility.

Now, all that was to introduce the teleportation spell and why sorcerers (in general) can't really accomplish the feat. Like all spells, Teleportation needs some sort of focus, certain components to interact with the magic and make it work (mind you, we're still working ritual magic here; get rid of components and rituals and you don't need to worry about this mumbo-junmbo, but then "wizards" also cease to exist- everyone becomes a "sorcerer" of sorts.). A wizard can set up all the pieces of the ritual, complete the spell, and without any other energy expended on his part complete the spell. The spell doesn't draw on a wizard's person, his being, in order to complete the spell. And this is key, because teleportation magic requires components to exist in multiple (at least two) locations. A sorcerer, then, that uses his person as the "components" to complete the spell... but the sorcerer cannot be in two places at once. This creates a significant issue with regard to completing the spell. The sorcerer would require some other means of finishing the spell, either by magical artifact or a connection to something (or someone) else with the power to handle teleportation magic.

Hope that helps, and yeah, things will be different in the MMO.

DISCLAIMER: Because magic in Layo has long been in a state of flux and interpretation as we move to a whole new set-up, a GM's interpretation of how magic works on his/her quests is what you should always default to. Inconsistencies are bound to happen as not all were brought up indoctrinated with "DnD," and we are as a world and game moving away from DnD style magic. Actually, that's one of the reasons why we're moving to our own system, so we can have some measure of consistency.

But what it really boils down to is we just didn't code it that way.  And Sorcerors are thus underbalanced to wizards who get metamagic feats AND teleport.  I wish they got access to persuade and bluff skills at least.

[geloooo]

But what it really boils down to is we just didn't code it that way.  And Sorcerors are thus underbalanced to wizards who get metamagic feats AND teleport.  I wish they got access to persuade and bluff skills at least.

Or more spell slots to demonstrate the sheer power they have

[Chongo]

Or more spell slots to demonstrate the sheer power they have

Yeah, I personally have no qualms with current balance of sorcerors vs. wizards.  *eyes his 10 thunderclaps*  Teleportation or not, I'll take the 12 level 2 slots.

Regarding HiPS on rogues and assassins in the mention of NWN 2... they also made HiPS really bloody hard to use in the way we've grown accustomed to in NWN.

As for h/ms trumping TS, I'm all for it.  In the balance sense at least.  I'm not sure how it works out for Layo/ Al'noth lore.

The reality is that if NWN was a viable focus for efforts, I'd be fighting balance issues to the death.  Not sure if my personal arguments would go anywhere, but I'd be really fighting for certain things.  Mass Kill spells pegged at 1d6 creatures, spell schools represented throughout the level ranges with mass hold 1d6, mass FTS 1d6, etc etc down the spell schools... rebalances and Layo customizations for shifted forms, h/ms trumping TS, dev crit at realistic str ranges but at a +1/2 str bonus*d6 extra damage, bloody SS reattachments (not really balance but throwing it in), Layo specific PrC rebalances so bear warriors and the like are remotely viable, evocation spell overhauls for progressive damage through to level 40, epic summons overhauled to meet magic level, progressive ranger companions to meet magic level, evasion at level 9 for rangers and HiPS at level 17, epic feats for DM/DS like in NWN 2 with double ranges for duration, strip off the double duelist INT bonus, kill 75% conceal on premo and go to 50% with 5/- DR, fix weird, remove autostun on wail, have SR/ mantles block tclap, make mass blindness collosus range, wildly extend barbarian rage durations, extend champion diety lists with variation, peg implosion back to AoE effect, heck... it'd be a full 2 page spreadsheet just for spell changes.

I mean, there are tons and tons of things I'd fight for in changes for balance issues.  There are also tons and tons of systems I'd push for.  But - resources are where they should be, and that's creating the new platform.  And while we're all angst-ridden over the many issues in NWN... it's a moot point.  All we can do is work with what we have, and focus on module changes.  Because that's what we have left available to us.  There's an update coming up soon (really big one actually) - and it addresses balance issues - but only in a manner in which I'm capable.  And that's directly through magic level and creature balance.  Beyond that we're at the end of the road.

It's easy to focus on changes that need to be made now, but my recommendation to all is to stick to the MMO forum and keep your ideas broad enough to apply to a new system.  Focus less on the detail of specific NWN issues (like a longsword which shouldn't have KD immunity or a bug with a specific spell) - and moreso on the general concept of what needs some consideration in the framework of a totally new system.

For NWN... items, creatures, and areas.  That's our range of influence for the most part.  It's mine at least.  Send me a PM, post it up in the bug forums, etc... whenever you see something that should be fixed on that end of things.  There are a lot of things that can be done on that end.  Maybe rogues deserve some sort of special item.  I dunno.  But for NWN I'd recommend framing it up in a viable concept for changes contained to the toolset and not so much on hak/2da/tlk/general script efforts.

The original post of this thread is along those lines of staying general in concept.  It tackles a broad issue with class balance in escape methods.  But I'd recommend it for the MMO forums.  If you get enough people echoing an idea over there, it may just find it's way into the MMO.  That said... I know next to nothing on the MMO development.

[Thief Of Navarre]

As Chongo said its bloody hard to use HIPS in NWN2 and 3.5E in general, you may as well find a wall, restealth and go back in... its about the same either way.

As for rogues and HIPS, I doesnt happen. Only shadowdancers, assassins and rangers get it in 3.5e rules (Not sure if the Darkwood stalker PrC gets it as well, pretty sure the ninja base class does though)