42 réponses à ce sujet

[Alupinu]

I think there’s a quote somewhere in the DM Guide, by Gary Gygax, which says, “These are not rules but merely guide lines to be fleshed out by the DM and players as they see fit.” Not sure if this anything to do with the conversation at hand but just wanted to get my two cents in.

[kevL]

here's two more ..

from the same era, way back when, I think it was in Chivalry & Sorcery (a PnP RPG that briefly competed with DnD), it said in paraphrase "It doesn't matter if it's balanced, JUST MAKE THE RULE" and let the dice roll .. ' course that was PnP where a DM could fix snafus on the fly


edit, more easily

Modifié par kevL, 28 janvier 2011 - 03:48 .

[painofdungeoneternal]

DM's and the zero rule work in PNP a lot better, but it still applies. A player in a SP module might have to DM themselves in a new module. ( ie if you are good at the rules don't craft in the OC for example )

Balance is not really about the power level, whether you have +1 items or not. Frankly if the player has fun with a +20 sword, is challenged it can work. I once DM'd a Monty Haul character, was challenged in fact that i could not "balance" a module for a level 80+ character. It was really just an exercise, and was solved by doing the math to ensure the monsters could hit him half the time, and he could hit them half the time on average. Astronomical AC, THACO, and some pretty wicked cthulu style monsters as i adjusted the rules of D&D to fit his level. He won of course, but i can say he had a real challenge.

That being said, imbalance means you have less options. If a wizard is twice as powerful as a fighter, and there is no point of playing a fighter anymore, well that means fighters are not a viable option due to balance. You cannot measure balance, but you can measure the impact if you can keep track of the player choices. If i go on a brand new PW and count the classes in use, and notice they are 70% monks and there are 1-2 people playing wizards.

Likewise we recorded feat usage on our PW, noted some items just were not used ( heavy crossbow for example ), empowered the weapons no one used a little bit. The players now have more trouble choosing weapons because there is no longer obvious choices which are better, it's balanced in that almost all the weapons are a viable choice, and looking at the data showed all the weapons were being used much more evenly.

Saying everyone having +1 gear makes mundane gear useless and not an option, again quite true. So making sure +1 gear is not available at first level is a way to balance mundane and magical gear.

As for the original topic, i understand that there is a "trinity" module which dovetails with misery stone if you play them in sequence. Not really an answer but it would solve the problem to do that. I think the answer to this particular question is something which should be set up in the module itself, which can provide starting items and boost up the players xp so they can get started, or get some input from those who played it.

Modifié par painofdungeoneternal, 28 janvier 2011 - 04:12 .

[nicethugbert]

+c per x levels enhancement just means that the highest level enhancement you find in between levels (y-1)x and yx is +yc. It doesn't say anything about how many of these items you find or how you find them or anything else for that matter.

[kevL]

nicethugbert wrote...

It doesn't say anything about how many of these items you find or how you find them or anything else for that matter.

(emphasis) How you get them, whether you build them yourself, slay the dragon for the artifact, receive them from a long lost uncle in a mysterious rite of passage etc.

[Alupinu]

I guess just working a character up from first level through a serious of modules is out of the question? May I recommend MinD as a starter mod? That will get you to 7th lv.

[nicethugbert]

Why is it out of the question to work a character up through a series modules starting at level one?

[Alupinu]

@Ntb, Thats what I'm asking...

[The Fred]

nicethugbert wrote...
I don't remember any modules where you have to wait until level 4 for your first +1 item.

Getting +1 items at the start of the game is an idea which is anathema to me. My (never finished, never published) NWN1 game started people at ~L8 with +1 items. The NWN1 OC pretty much started you off at 3rd level, meaning you were probably ~4th level by the time you even found a +1 dagger. Equally, BG let you get a long way before finding magical weapons. The difference there was that the scale went from L1 to ~L7 and items from +1 to +3, so getting a +1 item at L2-3 was not that big a deal.

[Myounage]

Take a level or two in a melee class, ex three swashbuckler levels and a single duelist level for a wizard if it is a single player module a la OC. If it is multiplayer you do not really need to worry about that since your party will have dedicated melee.

EDIT: Remember, casters suck for those first couple levels.

Modifié par Myounage, 03 février 2011 - 09:14 .

[Haplose]

They suck much more if their spellcasting progression is delayed by 4 levels though. It can work if you're building a Gish or Trickster-type character, but you do have to realize that you will be a sub-par spellcaster for a very long time.

And why would you pick a single Duelist level?

Modifié par Haplose, 03 février 2011 - 11:36 .

[The Fred]

Duelist adds a nice AC bonus for wizards, but it's limited to only one per level. So, again, unless you're building some sort of gish build, it's probably not worth the loss of spells.

[Myounage]

Haplose wrote...

They suck much more if their spellcasting progression is delayed by 4 levels though. It can work if you're building a Gish or Trickster-type character, but you do have to realize that you will be a sub-par spellcaster for a very long time.

And why would you pick a single Duelist level?

The feat they get at first level adds their INT bonus to their AC right?

Anyway, that is negated by the combination of true strike and swashbuckler insightful strike. Early game most attacks are intended to miss. True Strike can really help to negate this as long as you already have three swashbuckler levels.

Modifié par Myounage, 05 février 2011 - 01:23 .

[kamal_]

Myounage wrote...

Haplose wrote...

They suck much more if their spellcasting progression is delayed by 4 levels though. It can work if you're building a Gish or Trickster-type character, but you do have to realize that you will be a sub-par spellcaster for a very long time.

And why would you pick a single Duelist level?

The feat they get at first level adds their INT bonus to their AC right?

To a limit of +1 per duelist level...

[Arkalezth]

It'll add an AC bonus equal to your Duelist class level (so +1 at Duelist level 1, max, even with 30 INT).

True Strike lasts 9 seconds. Insightful Strike doesn't work against crit immunes. And spells aren't "negated" by that. You don't need Swashbuckler to make a good melee mage. And you don't need Duelist to be untouchable.

Edit: Ninja'd. (I always wanted to post that emoticon).

Modifié par Arkalezth, 05 février 2011 - 01:30 .

[Myounage]

Well. Just goes to show that I am bad at Wizards. So in reality you would want to convert over to extended true strike, and take duelist levels equal to your expected final intelligence modifier. Duelist / swash do seem good for wizards specifically, as long as you can still get the ability to cast top level spells, and in the case of motb epic spells. Could be tricky in the OC though.



Other spellcasting classes will want to take other melee classes. Sorcerers / warlocks will want to take a divine melee class like Blackguard or Divine Champion for feats / SLAs that scale with charisma.

[The Fred]

The Fred wrote...
Duelist adds a nice AC bonus for wizards, but it's limited to only one per level.

At very low levels, wizard do kind of have melee a bit. However, wizards in general never need enter the fray. If you're building a melee wizard, some sort of character who can cast spells AND fight hand-to-hand (known as a "gish"), you would build differently, but to be a good wizard you hardly need any kind of melee class levels. However, taking Blackguard or Paladin as a CHA-based caster can give you saving throw bonuses and Divine Shield, taking a level of Monk as a WIS-based caster can give you extra AC (or you could do this as an arcane caster feasibly, if you had a high WIS score). You can always take a Cleric level for domain feats. You wouldn't necessarily take these classes for their combat presence, though.

[Haplose]

Myounage wrote...

Duelist / swash do seem good for wizards specifically, as long as you can still get the ability to cast top level spells, and in the case of motb epic spells. Could be tricky in the OC though.

Duelist in particular seems like way too much loss for too little gain. Other classes seem better suited for gish-type characters. Eldiritch Knights, Fighters... Pale Master works better if you are after an AC boost. Particularly with Kaedrin's class pack. But that brings even more great Gish options like Swiftblade or Bladesinger.