The Divine Caster Issue

[Lothoir]

Ick Ick ick. Giving everyone the same immunities as a cleric isn't the right solution either, even if it's from low caster level items.

But why? Magic items are what keep fighters competitive with wizards and clerics, check the recommended loot tables from the Dungeon Master's guide. The reason we have such a huge disparity between casters and non-casters is because for all lvl 18+ cleric and wizard that can buff their gear to +4 and wade into battle without a care in the world fighters can do absolutely nothing except pray the casters will deign to bless them with a few simple wards rather than fill their slots with divine powers and battletides.

[Jhickey]

I agree, the worrior classes should have access to at the vary least +5 gear. The gear would not be game breaking. the balance is not in the classes itself its the fact that the gear a melee class can not get makes it unbalanced. Lothir said it the DMG says it all, the items help balance the classes.

[Kaeldorn]

Buffing characters by adding more feats that are more or less must-haves for combat viability actually kills all diversity. Everyone wants to be at least viable in combat situations.. but it'd be a real shame if that meant being unable to take some flavor feats that are not directly combat related to flesh out your character and individualise it.

Adding more options in character creation to boost combat competitiveness can only serve to widen the gap between the perfect build and sub-optimal characters even more. That's one of the reasons why some combat stances and actions were added, that were given to everyone for free. They help to cover that gap to a certain degree, without making the so-called perfect feat choices obsolete.


As for gear availability, that was a choice that was made by dubbing the server as low-magic. If everyone could easily get their hands on +5 gear, that'd cheapen the significance of all things magical by a lot. Finding some unnamed +3 weapon would only make you think about how much it could net you by selling it to some random NPC vendor.

I think one of the decisions that might be the root of the problem in part was to increase the level cap from 15 to 20. The only real options now seem to be toning magic down somewhat, or just stripping the low-magic idea altogether. Personally, I'd be more in favor of toning down magic.

[Lothoir]

Buffing characters by adding more feats that are more or less must-haves for combat viability actually kills all diversity. Everyone wants to be at least viable in combat situations.. but it'd be a real shame if that meant being unable to take some flavor feats that are not directly combat related to flesh out your character and individualise it.

I've never understood how you can believe so fervently that adding more options kills diversity. There are already a number of 'must have' feats, but for some reason not everyone takes them. Why? Because what you consider must-have is different than what other people consider must have. People are different, they have different playstyles and different ideas as to what is effective.

Adding more options in character creation to boost combat competitiveness can only serve to widen the gap between the perfect build and sub-optimal characters even more. That's one of the reasons why some combat stances and actions were added, that were given to everyone for free. They help to cover that gap to a certain degree, without making the so-called perfect feat choices obsolete.

There is no perfect build. Everything has a different counter. Just start watching the fight nights Philosopher has been hosting. If there was a perfect build there would be no point. Furthermore, if there is some perfect build why don't you share it with us? There are whole servers dedicated to Arena fights and while there are certainly standard archetypes everybody has their own idea as to what is best.

[Root]

Furthermore, if there is some perfect build why don't you share it with us?

Favoured Soul (20)

Hence why there are so many.

[Lothoir]

Favoured Soul (20)

Hence why there are so many.

Well, yes. But I was referring to the perfect non-divine caster build. :P

[Lilene Jora]

For one thing, having really high end gear available benefits those high end clerics and FS just as much as everyone else. Plus you've suddenly got everybody sporting two rings of resistance 5 and a cloak of fortification 5? Forget saves being meaningful for any character ever again. Casters will still win encounters because they'll still just fall back on saveless spells you still can't prevent now. Missile storms, bigby's, blinding, etherealness.

[Lothoir]

For one thing, having really high end gear available benefits those high end clerics and FS just as much as everyone else.

This is the key point, I believe. When it simply takes a spell to give yourself +5, a prebuffed +5 sword is nothing more than a free spell slot to the caster. Nothing else. And in NWN2 you can't boosts your saves past +12, which casters can already easily hit, thus rendering save resist items either useless or, as stated before, simply extra spell slots.

So no, high end gear is nothing more than a couple extra spell slots to a caster, which is useful. But to a noncaster it's the only thing they have going for them.


And about no save spells, everything you mention has a counter. For Bigby's all you need is Freedom of Movement. Something every divine caster can do. For blindness you just need remove blindness items or straight up immunity items, such as the stone body spell all cleric use. Missile storm is powerful, yes. But a simple 5/- magic resist item, like used to be sold all over, will make you immune to lesser storm, and greatly reduce your damage from greater.

[Kaeldorn]

There is no perfect build. Everything has a different counter. Just start watching the fight nights Philosopher has been hosting. If there was a perfect build there would be no point. Furthermore, if there is some perfect build why don't you share it with us? There are whole servers dedicated to Arena fights and while there are certainly standard archetypes everybody has their own idea as to what is best.

I think you misunderstood my point..

I didn't mean there was one single perfect build, but by perfect I basically meant builds that aim strictly at combat dominance. You have weapon focus, improved criticals, toughness, dodge, power attack, improved power attack, cleave, great cleave, weapon finesse, expertise, disarm, like 6 different two-weapon fighting feats, ranger favored enemy feats, paladin smiting/divine might/divine shield feats, barbarian rage improvements..

By adding a feat that basically says 'take this to be more up to par with the fighting ability of casters!' you are only giving more reason to reconsider taking that Skill Focus: Diplomacy or Maker's Aptitude, because combat viability is important for everyone due to the nature of PW servers. The more feat options there are to be more powerful in a fight, the greater the disadvantage seems when you think of picking something else to use one of your 7 (or 8) hard-earned feats on. And that, I think, is not a good thing.

[Root]

This is the key point, I believe. When it simply takes a spell to give yourself +5, a prebuffed +5 sword is nothing more than a free spell slot to the caster. Nothing else. And in NWN2 you can't boosts your saves past +12, which casters can already easily hit, thus rendering save resist items either useless or, as stated before, simply extra spell slots.

So no, high end gear is nothing more than a couple extra spell slots to a caster, which is useful. But to a noncaster it's the only thing they have going for them.


And about no save spells, everything you mention has a counter. For Bigby's all you need is Freedom of Movement. Something every divine caster can do. For blindness you just need remove blindness items or straight up immunity items, such as the stone body spell all cleric use. Missile storm is powerful, yes. But a simple 5/- magic resist item, like used to be sold all over, will make you immune to lesser storm, and greatly reduce your damage from greater.

Apart from that crafting depends on what's on a weapon.

If a weapon is base EB +5, it can't have another enchant. So since a Cleric can apply +5 EB, and +1d6 Fire damage, they can have a weapon with

+5 EB,
+1d6 Fire Damage
+1d4 Acid Damage
+ some other stuff
+ another thing

Whilst the best a fighter can get is +5 EB and +1d4 Acid and Fire.

Same with armour and such.

[Twisted-Indoctrine]

The class that takes the longest to rest, at the moment, is a pure fighter.

Fighters need to sleep?

I kid, I kid, I get what you're saying.

[Kaeldorn]

+5 EB,
+1d6 Fire Damage
+1d4 Acid Damage
+ some other stuff
+ another thing

You forgot Weapon of Impact/Keen Edge on that list, which frees up a feat slot. Spells also don't count towards the max number of elements on a weapon, so you could add +1d4 cold damage as well.

[Lilene Jora]

I may be wrong. I was under the impression that freedom did not stop the bull rush bigby spell.

As was pointed out, even if high level gear is "only" freed up spell slots for casters, it's still an advantage while other people fall short, just like now. If we changed it so that...items could have stronger properties on them for everyone...like 1d8 instead of 1d4, as was pointed out...a cleric will still have three 1d8 elemental bonuses, then tack on the brambles, GMW, and keen at no expense of slots, while the fighter has to consume slots on the base enchantments.

The same for armor. Don't need to waste a slot on the actual armor bonus? Tack on powerful elemental resistances.

As for being immune to missile storms...I don't know about most people...but I think those 5/- magic items are long gone relics that old players are fortunate to have. I'm still scared of missile storms for good reason.

[Jhickey]

As I said before the balance is already off. Attack goes up but unless you are a caster AC does not. The D&D game advances as in all forms AC needs to be included. It sucke when every fighter you see has monkey grip and a tower shield. What is the best AC a fighter can get +11 from Full plate, +1 Dex, +2 RoP, +2 natural, +2 dodge, +6 tower shield, and +6 from greater combat expertise (if they are smart) 40 AC at max- 34 for the not so smart ones. When a cleric/ favored soul with all the buffs at 16th level can attack at a +26 +21 +16 and this is leaving out some of the buffs. The dispairaty is to big between casters and non casters. I hope that makes some sense.

[Kaeldorn]

As I said on the other thread that got locked, it might help a little if Sundren gave out free +AC feats based on a character's base AB, as a custom rule to support the low magic environment.