13 réponses à ce sujet

[Lich Larloch]

+8 enchantments seems a little crazy.

Thanks guys.

[painofdungeoneternal]

Game canon is capped at +5 weapons, +5 magical enchantment cap is matching this. Note that in the SRD it says +1 to +5 range at the top --> http://www.d20srd.or...agicWeapons.htm

Exceptions can happen, but its for things like the black razor, wand or orcus, or other ungodly thing which will draw every powerful wizard from the prime material out of hiding, plus the outer planes, and probably cthulu as well. The knight OC item ( note that i am being vague due to spoilers), is built into the story, so any exception should be only there because it's the plot of the story. But if you have something that good, the DM should make just keeping it a continuous struggle as even the gods will covet it.

Now lets get back to rule zero. This trumps the rest, however a wise person would adjust everything else to make this single facet work.

In my experience, if you up the cap on enchantments, you have to boost the same cap on casters to match. Doing that will make the two equal. Having casters a one less ( this means 5 less AC, and 1 less ab if you count all the spells they have ), will make melee types a little stronger, which is probably a good idea. My csl has this setup so you can adjust it in a preference file. If you go with a +4 cap, then +4 for both casters and melee i think should apply, so they both match. ( note that you can restrict this by capping total levels as well, low level modules won't have as much of an issue. )

A caster is not going to be useless due to a +8 cap, it's leaning against casters, but it's really impossible to make clerics not PWN everything else - even with major work to limit their ungodly ( or godly? ) power.

[Lich Larloch]

Thanks for the useful information on balance will come in handy someday if I make a module.

MOTB has +8 enchantments though and doesn't scale casters to the same extent is that correct? Do you know if the Complete Craftsman mod changes that?

Thanks again.

[I_Raps]

NWN2 is based on D&D 3.5 and NWN. Anything to do with 4th Edition is obviously irrelevant.

I don't remember 3.5 getting around to updating the Epic Level Handbook, so I'm sure that it and Hordes of the Underdark were used as the basis for MOTB. Wherein weapon and armor Enhancements up to +10 are allowed and expected - indeed, can be rolled up on random treasure tables.  They are hardly something gods go begging for. Indeed, looking at some of the monsters - Gloom (Challenge Rating 25) +10 keen dagger of human dread; Leshay (CR 28) 2 +10 keen brilliant energy bastard swords; e.g. - a mere +8 weapon would be something to tip your caddy.

Modifié par I_Raps, 21 octobre 2011 - 02:12 .

[Lich Larloch]

So MoTB has +10 weapons? So are casters underpowered in MOTB? If so is there a mod I can use to balance that.

Thanks guys.

[Dann-J]

MotB has *a* +10 'universal sword' weapon - and the PC gets it as part of the plot. I've always prefered using my own crafted weapons though.

Casters get access to special 'spells' (they're actually feats) like Hellball, Vampiric Feast, and Mass Fowl. You need a spellcraft of at least 30 to qualify for them though.

[Lich Larloch]

Thanks for answering everyone very helpful. So does anyone have an opinion on if +8-+10 weapons unbalance the game?

[painofdungeoneternal]

Balance is done by the dungeon master.

The game itself is balanced for +5 items, which includes epic gear, but the game includes many imbalanced things on purpose. This is not 4th edition, this is 3.5 edition which is not capped at a set number of levels. A good DM can exceed this, well if you just figure out the math a +40 sword can be balanced.

Basically if you want to balance casters and melee, make their caps the same. If you have one higher than the other it skews things towards the one who has the higher cap. ( and I learned this on NWN1 on a server where we managed to balance +10 items and we had characters up to level 60, it only started working when the casters +5 cap was also changed to +10, along with other things )

[Lich Larloch]

Ok, that's good and all if you have a DM in a custom module. As far as the stock OC and MOTB are those balanced? So you're saying the game is balanced for + 5 weapons and yet MOTB contains weapons that are higher than that. So MOTB is not balanced then?

I appreciate your help but your answers are a little wordy and seem to be coming from a builder or DM perspective. NW2(3.5 rules) may not have a level limit but there is only so much content in OC + MOTB. As a player do casters get shafted in the stock campaigns?

[Lich Larloch]

Double post.

Modifié par Lich Larloch, 21 octobre 2011 - 06:01 .

[Haplose]

Well the direct damage spells tend to lack the punch at epic levels. But instant death spells work just as well as ever (barring immunities). Maxing caster attribute, getting the epic DC boosts (every 3 levels past 20), taking spell school focus, maybe even Red Wizard levels (for increased epic level DC boost, as effective caster level for chosen school can reach level 34 with RW) helps maximize the chances of these spells landing....

Avasculate is simply overpowered. Epic Spell Feat Vampiric Feast is even worse, due to aoe radius and instant heal, but it's limited to 1/day. SunBurst works great against vampires (and not bad against other Undead too). Of coure Wail of Banshee is great if the enemies are not immune. If they are, there is no immunity to Flash to Stone, I think (and undead have low Fortitude saving throws due to not having the Con stat in PnP).
Between direct damage spells, Polar Ray really shines. Occasionally Disintagrate can be usefull against undead or constructs. And if you face a particularly resistant, tough enemy, the silly IGMS barrage will probably save the day.

Modifié par Haplose, 21 octobre 2011 - 08:31 .

[I_Raps]

Both OC and MOTB are balanced but a bit easy for role-playing veterans. Particularly easy if you take advantage of all the crafting options available.

As for the +8 weapons in MOTB - first, they're not really available to fighter-type PCs except for a couple oddities you can buy (when you have a LOT of money), and one that is a reward for a very tough sub-dungeon. The NPCs will not reach a level high enough to craft +8. And if your PC is a caster, you will end up able to do it (you need Caster Level 30) - but why? Does the thought of a +8 quarterstaff in the hands of wizard really thrill anyone? Meanwhile, the enemies have vast and increasing HPs and AC and with normal sub-epic death-dealing, the fights would just be a grind.

As for casters getting the shaft - there is no problem in that regard in the OC, casters do just fine. In MOTB, it's different. A lot of your spells won't work as often (targets will make their saves more and more often, and many are immune to the nastier effects like save-or-die), and the damage spells will take a decreasing percentage of your opponents HPs. The great equalizers are (1) Epic Spells such as mentioned by DannJ, (2) take feats to keep raising the saves of your spells, (3) don't stay inflexibly committed to spells that worked in the OC; read the descriptions and see if there aren't better choices, (4) one very helpful item you find very early (unless you're a kill-crazed maniac), (5) etherealism.

[Lich Larloch]

Thanks again to everyone for answering. I think between all of your different perspectives I have an idea of what to expect.

[The Fred]

Personally I'm not keen on such high levels anyway, with one of the reasons being how muddied balance becomes. +10 seems abhorent to me. That said, an increase to weapons of +1 is only +1 to attack and damage; casters can make use of defensive and ability-boosting items just as well. Obviously this is going to up the damage output of melee-types, but one would assume that casters would have other items which are similarly more powerful to compensate (it's rare that you get +10 magic longswords whilst the best skill-boosting items you can get a +3 Gloves of Concentration, for example). I've also always found casters to be a lot more versetile. Immunity items for example have far more potential to be unbalancing than super weapons, because that Fighter's extra +1 damage boost is going to be irrelevant if he gets Held, Stunned, Dazed, Charmed, Dominated, put to Sleep, Frightened or Blinded, and he could get Slowed or Confused to boot, amongst other things.

Also remember that whilst casters might have trouble keeping up with maintainable damage output if you start giving Fighters overpowered swords, they get far better defence since they can lay on Stoneskins and Elemental Immunities etc. so you can literally stand there whilst Fighters beat on you, taking no damage but killing them with your Mestil's Acid Sheath (obviously at very high levels a lot of these things will become less effective or at least need to be reviewed).