More magic unfriendly Enemies

[Zoberraz]

That's a kick in the crotch to the already weak spellcasting abilities of the ranger and the Paladin, though. Limited in-game selection and they already have a halved caster level too.

[Kaizen]

don't forget the bards!

[GodBeastX]

Could always check class for the duration. Nothing is beyond my limits of punishme--- I mean programming.

Personally I feel that less synergy in buffs is appropriate. Make people choose a buff, not stack them. If you want an hour of bull strength, you can't take an hour of bear's endurance. If you want an hour of AC, you can't take an hour of AB.

Let people mix and match buffs instead of getting the whole package. Maybe simple count the number of buffs on the target from said caster and if it hits so many it starts to replace them.

[Sir Kharn]

Along that line of thinking, reducing some hr/level to minute/level, some minute/level to rounds/level, and tossing Persistent Spell would go a long way.

+1 to you.

[Kajae]

Could maybe just limit the number of buffs on a target, period. Feasibly, there's only so much magic that can be applied to a living being before things start to get muddled.

[nezzerscape]

Hmmm where does one start…

The server is imbalanced by design…

It's low magic because of the item availability/power

Can one get stuff to make a melee toon useful at high levels?

Many ingredients for +3 and higher do not drop in loot and require DM assistance.

Not with out asking (correctly).

Solution with out nerfing or adding work to the staff’s already heavy workload…

Just remove all the melee characters and the server will be balanced. Voila!

My favorite toons a melee based… they were really fun, till they were no longer playable anymore. I tried casters and they were very playable but boring (to me). The waiting for all the buffs… OMG

There are a lot of good ideas to “balance” the server. They’re has been with all the caster vs. melee threads. If the staff is all onboard to try to balance the server that would be great but would require a fair about of work to get it right. Ultimately Saulus has the final word, but if it is really important to the players then perhaps we should state it in such a fashion as “we feel this is more important then _____”. Where _____ is the stuff the staff is working on. What’s more important to you “balancing” or a “different crafting system”? State it!

The staff wants to make the server more enjoyable to the players. They try work to on what matters most to the players (while keeping inline with Saulus’ master plan). These types of threads go on forever or get killed because it is the same stuff over and over.

If you want things changed then work together to put it on the dev team’s road map and push for it to be a priority. Once it is official, THEN put up a suggests thread.

To the staff:
Perhaps posting a road map including priority and % complete may limit these types of threads. We all know a new crafting system is coming but how far along is it? How can my new toon be tailored to use it? Perhaps a new area/section on the forum for the road map “list” and threads under each item in the “list” so that all the wonderful ideas that are presented on the topic can be found in one place.

Nez


PS limiting buffs to 3 at a time would go along way provided the environment was scaled to such (though partying would minimize the need to scale).

[Swipht]

My question to OP is 'Will the new crafting system be loose enough to allow people to actually craft, and craft equipment to make melee useful?' I've been playing Thud for a couple months, and still have yet to run into gems for enchanting his custom plate armor (Thanks Liem! Me love you long time!) I've posted on the Exigo trade board to no avail. Then there's the sockets, no where near picking up any gems for that either. Honestly I think the new crafting system would fix the melee users lack of equipment. Lord knows fighters are the most gear dependent class of all, sorry Thud you're only as good as your equipment. . .

I have to disagree with the three buff limit. Especially for lower level casters that don't have a meat shield to hide behind. There isn't always someone available to go hunting with. . . Either it be level wise, or character differences. Seriously it would wipe out a wizard. A sorcerer may have enough offensive spells to make it threw three or four fights, but a wizard would be resting every other fight. No need to nerf everything in sight to make the weak class better.

Thud had a gem back in nwn1(Yes he's a running pc I make in any dnd based game I play. I <3 Thud. . . I need a t-shirt that says that, with AWFUL good half-orcs, beating up one food stealing orphan one at a time. . . Because stealing is evil.) that would cast bulls strength once a day. Had a couple other useless spells on it that I never bothered with really. Useless to a caster, but at least that non caster would have a buff if he/she couldn't find a caster to turn them into an unstoppable force with the hour long buffing. Maybe a brooch of shielding that did once-twice a day. Few of those little things would do well to bolster the strength of pure melee classes.

An alternative to this would be to put more enchanted item drops, Thud hasn't picked up anything but vendor trash since quest rewards back in Viridale. Also loot during dm quests. . . Hate to tell you guys but you're stingy. . . I'm not saying hand out lesser holy avenger swords (Thud's intentionally drooled on it just so he could hold it when he cleaned it.) But a +2 full plate with +2 reflex save would be a good boss drop. Ring of freedom of movement. Helm with +3 will save immunity to fear. +2 shield with 3/ insert metal or alignment here. I see a lot of equipment have negatives on them. . . Great I resist this well but now I'm weak against that, so now I have to find something to counter act this and now I'm weak against something else. My grandpa suffers the same problem with medication. . .

Honestly I'd be more then willing to help create items to be implemented. Everything would of course be subject to veto.(If I found a tutorial on this tool set. . . NWN1 was SO easy, having a hard time picking this one up. But I'm willing to pitch in and learn how to at least design equipment.)

[Thief Of Navarre]

Rings that powerfull would get abused I think. imagine Stone body or tortoise shell with no movement penalty? But I see what your getting at..

Would a magic Ooze be considered high magic? Enemies that eat magic and become stronger because of it are very usefull ~ remember the Watchers keep in ToB had us all scrambling around for nonmagical weapons to fight enemies which were immune to magic. Even fire trolls would make things very difficult on the server, for how many people take acid spells to a fight?

[Lilene Jora]

Powerful random loot does exist. It is however, exceptionally rare and a total crapshoot to get. Most of the time you get useless junk like longbows with +1 ac, or melee weapons with +2 concentration and spellcraft...1 ab and 1 point of a damage bonus typically. The power level of this loot is NOT commensurate with the difficulty of the enemies needed to get said loot, usually 1-2 pieces per run of an entire encounter or dungeon. If you're exceptionally lucky, you can find a +2 item with 1d4 of something, and a decent stat bonus on it. More often, you'll get things way under level for you, considering the effort it took to get it, if the stats on the item even rolled to make sense.

On the flip side, the last thing we need is everyone with freedom of movement and mind spell immunities. Immunities are bad, bad, bad...they make CvE and CvC even worse. "Oh...everyone's immune to death, mind affecting, stun, slow, paralysis, etc. etc.? Guess every enemy and PC will just start tossing missile storms now."

Not my idea of fun.

[Thief Of Navarre]

Powerful random loot does exist. It is however, exceptionally rare and a total crapshoot to get. Most of the time you get useless junk like longbows with +1 ac, or melee weapons with +2 concentration and spellcraft...1 ab and 1 point of a damage bonus typically. The power level of this loot is NOT commensurate with the difficulty of the enemies needed to get said loot, usually 1-2 pieces per run of an entire encounter or dungeon. If you're exceptionally lucky, you can find a +2 item with 1d4 of something, and a decent stat bonus on it. More often, you'll get things way under level for you, considering the effort it took to get it, if the stats on the item even rolled to make sense.

On the flip side, the last thing we need is everyone with freedom of movement and mind spell immunities. Immunities are bad, bad, bad...they make CvE and CvC even worse. "Oh...everyone's immune to death, mind affecting, stun, slow, paralysis, etc. etc.? Guess every enemy and PC will just start tossing missile storms now."

Not my idea of fun.

Its not going to name them but I've been on a few RP servers where this has become the case - it isnt fun.

[nezzerscape]

Sigh...

I personally do not see the crafting system broke (granted crafters can be thieves). The problem there is the component availability. Anything +3 or very useful to a high level melee toon requires DM invention (as stated by several). The concept of Sundren is low magic “items”. Thank you Saulus for clarifying. Therefore unless the concept of this world has changed, perusing items will go nowhere.

If you want the field balanced work on the “Why” not the “How”!

The 3 limit buff was only a suggestion. I should have left it off my post.

[Cornuto]

Anything +3 or very useful to a high level melee toon requires DM invention

What items specifically can't you obtain?

[Lilene Jora]

I think what they're getting it, is while the gems and essences to do high level enchants "technically" exist on the loot table...the amount of time and luck it can take to get them is a major obstacle. Furthermore, since you can't convert glowing to radiant, it also makes it feel like those enchants aren't obtainable.

[BedlamX]

What items specifically can't you obtain?

The gems and essences for most higher enchantments.

Unless you are able to solo-grind the Mossdale all day (and that is a total crap-shoot as has been mentioned) or survive Ixus (probably spelled that wrong, but, unless you happen to have a certain nocturnal template of uberness, you just can't survive even with a decent party), you just don't get these. I only have one toon high enough to even think about going to Mossdale (and then only with a GOOD party) and he will never see the island due to it being near impossible, but I have seen people soloing each. They tend to be the only ones with said ingredients and most are either unapproachable or vile bloodsuckers that only the most evil would deal with.

In my stay in Sundren, I have found a total of 1 gem or item that was really useful (found a Kings Tear a while back...somewhere). That is ONE. Ursus has made numerous runs through Mossdale with groups and never found anything of value. And, due to him being a total melee build, usually come out behind on the gold front due to needing potions and/or the usual raise of a party member. (by the way...the only thing the spamming of dispel traps has done is stop a couple of soloers...and most of the groups from venturing into these places)

The lack of enchanters of higher level is also a HUGE problem with getting anything above +2 made. I know you guys want people in factions and made the faction gear better than what can easily be crafted, but with the ungodly rep points needed to get them coupled with the ungodly cost of them, all it has done is create more grinders to gain gold to buy rep points and the subsequent gear. This makes the faction good gear so unobtainable to most that they either grind like hell or just give up and hang at the fire. If you can't get the rep points (and let's face it, 20-40 every 2 hours is crap and, unless you have all day every day to sit at the computer, you are never going to get very high with them...about 20000 hours to hit the 10k rep point), factions almost become useless other than a place to get a little higher price for the crap loot you may or may not find while grinding. With this kind of limitation, enchanters are the only feasible way to get decent gear.

Bottom line is, you want to get the good gear and gold, don't make a melee only non-caster (unless you min/max it sooo bad it is just absurd). Casters get access to places no fighter can get into and survive (and a vamp caster is just a money making machine...especially with that obscenely useful teleport item they can use to get just about anywhere in the game world). So they get the good loot and the good buffs leaving the melee guys to beg for protections and gear.

Just make casters and join in the killing spree.

[nezzerscape]

What items specifically can't you obtain?

Everything that requires radiant or brilliant power, air and earth essences. One might add kings tear to the list. Other gems I have seen drop rarely (as they should). If you want a shopping cart I have it but one can look at all the recipes out there and make one for themselves.

Just some examples:
+4 armor /shield: 8K, kings tear, Brilliant Earth essence
+3 armor /shield: 4K, emerald, Radiant Earth essence
+2 pendant (natural armor): Dusk wood pendant, sapphire, Trent twigs
+3 weapon (dam/to hit): 6K Blue diamond Brilliant power essence
+4 weapon (to hit): 7K, kings tear, Brilliant Air essence
Resilient stone (+2 saves): Rogue stone, Brilliant Earth essence
….