Thayans suck. Let's unsuck them.

[The Butcher]

There is a lot of negatives about being Thayan, be it a Thayan Knight or a Red Wizard, that I never discovered them until playing. The positives are of course the RP, but a lot of that requires a DM to hold your hand, and most DMs have not read a single thing about Thay from the sourcebooks. This is a long list of complaints and suggestions, so I ask that you don't skim through it if you're going to reply.

Red Wizards

Red Wizards are forced to wear broken robes, and they are a PrC that's actually worse than its base class wizard. Look at Pyras who had to forsake Abjuration and Enchantment; no Heroism, no dispelling, no energy immunity. For what? +1 or 2 on his DC for illusion spells that most people are immune to?

Oh! And the Red Wizards, who are famed for creating powerful magical equipment to sell, actually have less crafting skills than a normal wizard. They don't even get decipher script. How does this make any sense?

The entire point of picking Red Wizard in PnP was for their circle magic capabilities, being the only organization who mastered circle magic. This does not exist in NWN2, and no compensation for this has been given.

Thayan Knights

Thayan Knights, while true to its PnP counterpart, will always suck so long as fighters suck. Lauan is the only Thayan Knight that does not suck, and that is because she was allowed to powerbuild before fighter's ability to powerbuild was nerfed, and also achieved very powerful equipment. (She still gets stomped by level 20 clerics, favored souls, druids, and wizards who have 0 equipment, so powerful is relative.)

The Thayan faction store blows for Thayan Knights, and on a lesser scale, for Red Wizards as well. The Thayan Knight high rank armor, while good, is more expensive to obtain due with the donation costs combined with the armor cost, than a better suit of armor anyone can get. Their sword selection also blows, their best sword being a blue +2 Darksteel Longsword with +2 Electrical Damage and 1 Vampiric Regen. The only red weapon is a staff, which is laughably useless for how much it costs.

Suggestions:

-Give the Red Wizard class at least the same skill selection wizards get.

-Fix the Red Wizard robes.

-Make fighters suck less, consequently making Thayan Knights suck less. Maybe give them more feat options that don't suck unlike most of the custom ones. +1 AC for 1 feat is not good. +2 or 3 AC, or 1 to 2 DR, that can be selected repeatedly to a number of times and stacks is good, especially if it's only available to 4th level fighters and up.

-Give the Thayan faction store good items while keeping in mind that armor does not need to give penalties for it to seem neat and unique to the faction. How about some faction tattoos? Or equipment that actually helps fighters level up, instead of being their end game goals they'll never achieve due to their difficult class to level?

-If fatigue isn't removed from the crafting system, then Red Wizards should only suffer from 1/2 of the fatigue normally inflicted, to represent their being master crafters.

-Diversify the crafting system's required spells so more people can get involved in it, not less. I'm screwed because my forbidden school is Conjuration, which is most of the spells required for enchanting. Also, more restrictions only allow for a monopoly and short supply of enchanted equipment, which hurts the mundane classes the most.

-Compensate Red Wizards for their lack of circle magic. Even if this is in the form of having a list of spells and feats only Red Wizards can use, or RP using, so we won't have to ask a DM to hold our hands for every Red Wizard spell cast.

[roguethree]

I actually suggested that those custom fighter feats be acquired automatically upon reaching the requisite level instead of costing a feat. Among other things.

[Seheren]

I think giving too many free feats is taking it too far, though as someone who likes to play fighters I wouldn't object. I think a few free feats and a list of other bonus feats. Or perhaps a list of possibilities that can be hosen from only at certain levels. Also as for the thayan knight I think the main problem is that there is no reason to take more then 3 levels. I don't know how that can be fixed, except adding more to the class which isn't worth it for the small number of them that will ever exist. As for red wizard changes, I think they are very much needed. They should be powerful and feared as much as an asoc, which right now are ten times better.

I am typing this from my blackberry at work.. So ignore any spelling errors.

[DM_Acorn]

Please post constructively.

I managed to get past all the negatives to your suggestions. Some of them do have merit, but it is hard to consider them with all the "this sucks that sucks etc."

Class balance is continually addressed by the staff. But, adjusting the balance between casters is low priority when compared to the inbalance between casters and non-casters.

[crazyjerren]

In terms of balance between caster/non. Just a suggestion: Look at pathfinder (and subsequently the advanced players guide to pathfinder). If it were possible to adopt those models it would be a good step towards balance (honestly, caster models could be ignored as they provide only minor benefits and its mostly the mundane classes that need the over haul). The only other suggestion I would have is maybe forgetting about the 'low magic' aspect of the server, though I feel that might me harder to push. I always felt this idea never truly helped in RP and just hurt the game in an OOC fashion. Most people play the game for an idea of high magic, fantasy fun; not their second life with spells.

[Dragor]

Suggestions:

-Give the Red Wizard class at least the same skill selection wizards get.

-Fix the Red Wizard robes.

-Make fighters suck less, consequently making Thayan Knights suck less. Maybe give them more feat options that don't suck unlike most of the custom ones. +1 AC for 1 feat is not good. +2 or 3 AC, or 1 to 2 DR, that can be selected repeatedly to a number of times and stacks is good, especially if it's only available to 4th level fighters and up.

-Give the Thayan faction store good items while keeping in mind that armor does not need to give penalties for it to seem neat and unique to the faction. How about some faction tattoos? Or equipment that actually helps fighters level up, instead of being their end game goals they'll never achieve due to their difficult class to level?

-If fatigue isn't removed from the crafting system, then Red Wizards should only suffer from 1/2 of the fatigue normally inflicted, to represent their being master crafters.

-Diversify the crafting system's required spells so more people can get involved in it, not less. I'm screwed because my forbidden school is Conjuration, which is most of the spells required for enchanting. Also, more restrictions only allow for a monopoly and short supply of enchanted equipment, which hurts the mundane classes the most.

-Compensate Red Wizards for their lack of circle magic. Even if this is in the form of having a list of spells and feats only Red Wizards can use, or RP using, so we won't have to ask a DM to hold our hands for every Red Wizard spell cast.

I'm fine with all the suggestions except the last...which I shall now refute

RWoT has rediculous DC's especially with Practice Spellcaster added onto the build which is why the second school gets dropped

The second school of magic they lose...they can keep any spells they have already learned that is in that school so if you learn Greater Heroism FIRST then yipee skipee

[Cornuto]

RWoT has rediculous DC's

Support with proof.

[Gamling]

A gnome illusionist has the same DCs as an illusionist RW. lol

[Kaizen]

I think he meant spellcasting levels, ala "Practice Spellcaster" mention.

[Hellfire]

Red Wizards are forced to wear broken robes

Saulus asked me to get this fixed.... it is now fixed and will be in game as soon as the team updates the haks.

[Gamling]

And yes, thayan knights are kind of un-fun to play, especially when DMs consider you a side-kick to the 'real heros/villains'. Makes it hard to get shit going.

[The Butcher]

Saulus asked me to get this fixed.... it is now fixed and will be in game as soon as the team updates the haks.

You and Saulus are amazing.

Please post constructively.

I managed to get past all the negatives to your suggestions. Some of them do have merit, but it is hard to consider them with all the "this sucks that sucks etc."

The beginning of my post was meant to create a foundation for the suggestions. It is like saying we need to find a cure for cancer, but without saying cancer is bad and then explaining that cancer is bad because it is killing people. I made it lengthy since a lot of people do not play Thayan Knights or Red Wizards to understand the dilemma, or how bad their faction store is otherwise.

As disheartening as it may be to hear something is bad, inadequate, or useless, I promise that I do not mean it to hurt any one of the staff's feelings when I said it. I merely mean to get the point across.

Class balance is continually addressed by the staff. But, adjusting the balance between casters is low priority when compared to the inbalance between casters and non-casters.

Fighters were recently nerfed by removing their eligibility for a PrC, and received no buff or aid. It's hard to determine what is high priority and what is not, but I feel that my suggestions have very legitimate merits, and that legitimate claims will be addressed.

RWoT has rediculous DC's especially with Practice Spellcaster added onto the build which is why the second school gets dropped

Ridiculous DCs? Most characters on the server can only fail my saving throws if they roll a 1, including level 14s, unless they are a mundane class in which case any wizard will get them unless they roll a 20 (the average level 20 mundane class has about 8 as their lowest save)

There is a reason wizards more often use Bigby's + Maximized/Empowered Issac's Greater Missile Storm, or some other spell that does not have a save, like Orb of Sound.

The second school of magic they lose...they can keep any spells they have already learned that is in that school so if you learn Greater Heroism FIRST then yipee skipee

To keep all of the spells of your second school lost, you will have to go at least 17 wizard before taking Red Wizard. The fewer amount of Red Wizard levels you have, the better (which is the problem).

[Darkened Skies]

You know better than this Butcher, starting a thread entitled "Thayans Suck" was doomed to be locked. The RW has been discussed many times before, and it's been decided time and time again that the class's power is perfectly balanced when you also take into account the massive political power than comes with the territory. We're already working our asses off to make spellcasters LESS powerful in comparison to the other classes, we're not going to indulge requests to make a caster class MORE powerful.

Justifying bitching doesn't stop it from being bitching.