114 réponses à ce sujet

[MagicalMaster]

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

I could, but I won't.[/quote]
Why not? Trying to be self-righteous and smug?

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

And I must have missed the post where I said that trying to boost WILL was better than immunity. Words taste so much better when self fed.[/quote]
You're trying to boost Will at all and giving up far more important stats for it. The point is that, in reality, it's immunity or bust 99% of the time. Either you're immune to the effect (or are a paladin with high charisma) or you're going to failthrows constantly which are lethal (like being paralyzed for a minute).

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

It doesn't, as I usually am satisfied with LoH at start. IW comes later in the build right before meeting straw men.[/quote]
So then your odds are even WORSE at the start -- how is this an improvement?

[quote]Elhanan wrote...

Hare; meet tortoise.[/quote]
Let's say a fighter is 1% better than a cleric unbuffed and the cleric is 200% better buffed (and can stay buffed at least 90% of the time). You still going to pick the fighter?

[quote]Westan Willows wrote...

He has at lease +14 SR and still fails to resit spells. I see it in the combat log all the tine. [/quote]
Spell Resistance is often not that useful. 14 SR means an enemy caster adds 1d20 plus their level -- if they tie or exceed it, the spell hits. So if you have 14 SR and the enemy caster is level 8, their spell is going to still hit you 75% of the time (they'll only fail on a 5 or below).

[quote]Westan Willows wrote...

My fighter has a Will save of 3. His Wis is 08 and I have no will items equip. He has Luck of Heroes
and is Dwarf. I am not sure why he has will of 3 instead of 1[/quote]
2 base will. +1 from LoH, -1 from Wis. Should have 2 will -- do you have an item giving 1 will save maybe?

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Imp Disarm is nice if it works, but in many places it doesn't, or if it does, KD works just as well. I know one PW where there were KD immune mobs that were disarmable, but even on that mod, those mobs were so rare that it wasn't even worth taking just for them.[/quote]
Sure. Called Shot can still be handy though -- and you actually still don't have feats for all of these as a 20 fighter, interestingly enough.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

The saving throw feats... as I said immunity > saves and it's a better idea to stock up Clarity and Death Ward pots and pro-actively sneak up and KD casters or LOS kite them.[/quote]
Better Reflex saves still don't hurt for taking half damage on some seplls and Fort for Horrid Wilting/Ruin/a few other effects can still be nice.

But even without those feats...Human Fighter gets 19 feats.

WF/WS/IC (3)

Blind Fight/Toughness (5)

Exp/Imp Exp (7)

KD/Imp KD (9)

Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack (12)

PA/Cleave/GC (15)

So we have 4 feats to play around with (as a Human) -- which could include anything from Called Shot to Exotic Weapons to Skill Focus to Fort/Reflex saves. We don't run out of extremely useful feats until level 16 going from that above list!

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

As for Toughness... AC > HP. When you have d10 base HP it's a better idea to raise mitigation.[/quote]
It's still at least a 5% HP boost which applies to both attacks and spells and isn't negated if caught flat footed. Especially in places where healing spells are percentage based (or flat out full heal like the default Heal potion) that's quite nice.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

The Bioware OC did that! Level 3 fighting that one Half-Orc in some house. Was the first of a string of bad experiences.[/quote]
When and where? Are you talking about the level 6+ Orc Barbarian with the Scythe that you weren't supposed to find until doing two other districts and being at least level 5, likely 6+?

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Then that's not really learning how to play the class is it?[/quote]
Sure it is. Most places do not assume fighters are chain chugging Bull's Strength/Bless/Aid potions and are tuned easily enough that the benefits are not essential. In many campaigns/worlds you could go from 1 to 40 as a fighter without drinking a single non-healing potion or using a single item's "cast spell" or whatever.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

From a design standpoint, the buff potions are stupid, but I've come to understand D&D is designed from the ground up to be very reliant on magic, even as a non-magic class[/quote]
Or...you could just remove buff potions and voila, problem solved! Don't put them on merchants and don't let them be crafted.

Alternatively, do something like make all potions last 30-60 minutes or something. Honestly I think NWN would be in a better place if buffs were basically classified as either 3 minute buffs or 60 minute buffs (pick your own numbers, I'm just throwing something out there) -- stuff you're supposed to expected to cast each combat (or at least fairly often) or stuff that lasts until you rest.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

If you want to fix that, the game world has to spin the a different way, and casters need to stop getting self-cast only steroids that boost melee stats.[/quote]
It actually evens out a fair bit in epic levels if the cleric focuses on wisdom -- but if they only raise wisdom to 20 and pump strength they remain better.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Barbarian X/Fighter 1 can have Exp, Imp Exp and Heavy Armor, and that's all the tanking feats he needs.[/quote]
I'll just note the meta problems with that (since, for example, we're not allowing the fighter multiclass) and get to the main point below.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Mitigating 3 damage per hit, or 2 damage with a 10% higher HP pool at level 15 is pretty significant though. What does the average mob have at level 15? 18 Strength and a +3 Longsword for an average hit of 11.5? The Barbarian is going to last 33% longer and the DD 35% longer. I'd say that's high enough to make a difference at level 15.[/quote]
That's the same as having 2 more AC in many cases. How many times have you found a mob you couldn't survive against with 30 AC but could survive with 32 AC? Likely very, very rare. Healing is usually plentiful enuogh and things tuned loosely enough that it doesn't matter.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

I know, but the point is that you run out of stuff to take that has as big an impact as say, crit immunity and scaling AC with no cap, or 26/- DR, or +2 Crit range +1 Crit mod and so on.[/quote]
Absolutely. But again, as I've said multiple times, I'm talking about early teen characters. A fighter doesn't run out of very useful feats until level 16 as a human as seen above. I'm not saying a pure fighter isn't slightly weaker at that point. I'm saying its close enough it's perfectly acceptable.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

It's not a PW [/quote]
It will be eventually (not Siege specifically but I'm working on a PW based on that idea of scripted boss fights).

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

I have to say though, Clerics in 3E are like Ryu in Street Fighter. For one, you can't really have a party without a Cleric, unless you pick his similar but not as effective counterpart, Ken (aka Druid).[/quote]
I would disagree, entirely enviornment dependent -- especially in environments with plenty of healing. Do clerics still offer a bunch of support buffs? Sure -- but they're very rarely necessary in higher magic environments.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Case in point: I'm going to take a swipe at MM here and say in his Fire Mountain mod, he nerfed a lot of the mage debuffs, but he kept all the Cleric buffs in place and even buffed some of them, like Undeath's Eternal Foe.

Traditionally, a mage is better support because of the debuffs, but when Bigby 5 is nerfed to -4, Negative Energy Burst doesn't drain strength and the Ray debuffs haven't been fixed to be solely Ranged Touch Attack, they can't really do a lot of debuffing.[/quote]

Bigby 5 was actually nerfed to -2 (which is the equivalent of making affected enemies do 20-30% less damage) -- but all Bigbies were made AoE. I'll also point out that in Fire Mountain UEE was basically USELESS except for the buff (8 positive energy damage) -- NEP already shields just about all of it and I don't believe any mobs even used drains/death magic. Basically the cleric offered bless/aid/darkfire/stats/prayer/battletide/UEE. Mages offered Flame Weapon/more stat buffs/Imp Invis (though cleric with trickery could technically offer it) along with stronger spells and by far the best AoE.

In addition, keep in mind that bringing a second cleric offers much less -- the party already has the group buffs so all the cleric offers is their melee or spells -- and mages are better at destruction than clerics in general.

Yes, if I had a party of 2 WMs and 2 AAs then I'd prefer a cleric over a mage simply because the buffs benefit more people -- but I'd rather have a mage than a second cleric. And if I had a party of, say, a DD/Druid/Bard/Mage I'd rather add another mage than a cleric since the mage can decimate enemies more easily and the cleric physical buffs won't benefit as many people.

It's certainly not as simple as you seem to think and overall I would strongly argue mages are the most powerful single characters in Fire Mountain. Clerics were buffed (mainly UEE as a level 9 spell) because most of the "standard" cleric buffs wound up being useless.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 22 décembre 2013 - 09:06 .

[Westan Willows]

I striped him Will is 3

[MagicalMaster]

If you're a level 9 fighter now with 8 wisdom and luck of heroes then yes, your will should be three.

[Westan Willows]

So level plays a part?
Not that I exspect him to pass a will save.

Modifié par Westan Willows, 22 décembre 2013 - 07:39 .

[Empyre65]

The chart on this page shows how the saves progress, and other things about fighters.

[Squatting Monk]

Westan Willows wrote...

So level plays a part?
Not that I exspect him to pass a will save.

I actually answered this a while ago:

Squatting Monk wrote...

Your saves increase with level. Check out the chart on the wiki's article about the fighter.

At level 9, you have a +3 bonus to will saves. Add +1 for Luck of Heroes and -1 for the ability modifer for 8 WIS, and you have a net will save of +3.

Modifié par Squatting Monk, 22 décembre 2013 - 08:49 .

[Aelis Eine]

[quote]MagicalMaster wrote...
Sure. Called Shot can still be handy though -- and you actually still don't have feats for all of these as a 20 fighter, interestingly enough.[/quote]

I've played with Called Shot before, it's not bad when it works, but the -4 AB and Discipline check really limits its usefulness, to the point where if something can be Call Shotted, you probably don't need to Call Shot it anyway.

In fact, the biggest use I had for it was to get a higher score on a certain PW's melee test, which used dummies that were increasingly buffed by scripts to raise difficulty, which conveniently didn't buff their discipline. On the same PW in a practical situation, it was useless.


[quote]Better Reflex saves still don't hurt for taking half damage on some seplls and Fort for Horrid Wilting/Ruin/a few other effects can still be nice.[/quote]

Well mathematically, that's 10% chance to take 50% less damage, so that works out to 5% mitigation on a subset of spells? I suppose that's not bad, although the killers usually aren't the 20d6s but the IGMSes.

You may have a point on Horrids, although usually by the time I reach enemies that use Horrids, they're either KDable or I have access to Shadow Shield

[quote]But even without those feats...Human Fighter gets 19 feats.

WF/WS/IC (3)
Blind Fight/Toughness (5)
Exp/Imp Exp (7)
KD/Imp KD (9)
Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack (12)
PA/Cleave/GC (15)

So we have 4 feats to play around with (as a Human) -- which could include anything from Called Shot to Exotic Weapons to Skill Focus to Fort/Reflex saves. We don't run out of extremely useful feats until level 16 going from that above list![/quote]

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.


[quote]It's still at least a 5% HP boost which applies to both attacks and spells and isn't negated if caught flat footed. Especially in places where healing spells are percentage based (or flat out full heal like the default Heal potion) that's quite nice.[/quote]

That HP boost would be useful if the game had attacks that require a certain threshold, but it doesn't. High enough to survive 3 maxed GMSes is usually enough.


[quote]When and where? Are you talking about the level 6+ Orc Barbarian with the Scythe that you weren't supposed to find until doing two other districts and being at least level 5, likely 6+?[/quote]

I honestly don't remember which district it was, but I do remember reading a FAQ that said the Prison District was the easiest, so it's probably that. It was a house with only him inside if I remember correctly.


[quote]Sure it is. Most places do not assume fighters are chain chugging Bull's Strength/Bless/Aid potions and are tuned easily enough that the benefits are not essential. In many campaigns/worlds you could go from 1 to 40 as a fighter without drinking a single non-healing potion or using a single item's "cast spell" or whatever.[/quote]

Maybe so, but a class shouldn't be judged by the easiest content in the spectrum. If a mod is easy enough that I can go through it meleeing everything straight up as a Rogue without the need for traps, KD, stealth or a henchman, is that really learning to play the class? What if I do the same as a Cleric without ever using a single spell?


[quote]Or...you could just remove buff potions and voila, problem solved! Don't put them on merchants and don't let them be crafted.[/quote]

The only thing that does is tip the scales even further towards of Clerics being the best fighters.

[quote]Alternatively, do something like make all potions last 30-60 minutes or something. Honestly I think NWN would be in a better place if buffs were basically classified as either 3 minute buffs or 60 minute buffs (pick your own numbers, I'm just throwing something out there) -- stuff you're supposed to expected to cast each combat (or at least fairly often) or stuff that lasts until you rest.[/quote]

This might make more sense, although it's still kind of silly to require that everyone uses those spells, and then balance the game around that. The problem is that the very existence of Bless, Aid and stat boosts requires these workarounds, or alternatively, balancing around the +20 and +12 caps. And that's what I meant by needing the world to spin in a different way.

[quote]It actually evens out a fair bit in epic levels if the cleric focuses on wisdom -- but if they only raise wisdom to 20 and pump strength they remain better.[/quote]

There's still Zen Archery and Monk multiclass, so the Cleric maintains a very healthy AC lead for tanking even if going with Wisdom, while maintaining a competitive AB.

[quote]I'll just note the meta problems with that (since, for example, we're not allowing the fighter multiclass) and get to the main point below.[/quote]

The OP may have requested a pure class, but the statement I made, that Fighters are not a good tanking class is a different context altogether. It means a character with most of its levels in Fighter does not fulfil the Tank role in the trinity very well. And... 

[quote]That's the same as having 2 more AC in many cases. How many times have you found a mob you couldn't survive against with 30 AC but could survive with 32 AC? Likely very, very rare. Healing is usually plentiful enuogh and things tuned loosely enough that it doesn't matter.[/quote]

That really just means you're not pushing your character hard enough. The point of a tank in a trinity is to have a specialized ball of mitigation for the doggies to chow on while your specialized damage dealers turn the doggies into toasty kebabs. If the area you are in isn't posing a challenge, why not go to the next higher area for better XP and better loot?

My friend multiboxes in NWN, and his setup is a Dwarven Defender tank, a Cleric and a bunch of AAs. The DD doesn't do anything except go in first and try not to die - it's a pure Con build. With such a specialized setup, he farms in areas with higher difficulty levels than normally be farmable an average party of characters in that level range. Can a Fighter replace a DD at level 15 in that role? I think not. His squishiness will show when fighting in areas much higher than its level, and most hits will connect on a 2 or more.

[quote]Absolutely. But again, as I've said multiple times, I'm talking about early teen characters. A fighter doesn't run out of very useful feats until level 16 as a human as seen above. I'm not saying a pure fighter isn't slightly weaker at that point. I'm saying its close enough it's perfectly acceptable.[/quote]

See above.

[quote]It will be eventually (not Siege specifically but I'm working on a PW based on that idea of scripted boss fights).[/quote]

I'll look at it tonight, but at first blush there seems to be no documentation on the class changes. I know you did a ton of them so I'd like to look at that first before I try it

[quote]I would disagree, entirely enviornment dependent -- especially in environments with plenty of healing. Do clerics still offer a bunch of support buffs? Sure -- but they're very rarely necessary in higher magic environments.[/quote]

Typically, those environments are usually designed by people who don't know the engine very well That means a Cleric is still useful for Regen stacking.

[quote]Bigby 5 was actually nerfed to -2 -- but all Bigbies were made AoE. I'll also point out that in Fire Mountain UEE was basically USELESS except for the buff (8 positive energy damage) -- NEP already shields just about all of it and I don't believe any mobs even used drains/death magic. Basically the cleric offered bless/aid/darkfire/stats/prayer/battletide/UEE. Mages offered Flame Weapon/more stat buffs/Imp Invis (though cleric with trickery could technically offer it) along with stronger spells and by far the best AoE.[/quote]

First thing, other than UEE there's many other useless spells in NWN, so I don't know why you chose to buff an ability on a class that least needed a buff to a "useless" spell. I don't think you did anything to say, Power Word Kill or Elemental Swarm for example.

Second, Flame Weapon is supplanted by Darkfire - if I remember right, they don't stack in your mod. Stat buffs aren't unique to mages, Imp Invis isn't unique to mages as you note. So my claim was that Clerics stole the support crown, and you just admitted it

[quote]In addition, keep in mind that bringing a second cleric offers much less -- the party already has the group buffs so all the cleric offers is their melee or spells -- and mages are better at destruction than clerics in general.

Yes, if I had a party of 2 WMs and 2 AAs then I'd prefer a cleric over a mage simply because the buffs benefit more people -- but I'd rather have a mage than a second cleric. And if I had a party of, say, a DD/Druid/Bard/Mage I'd rather add another mage than a cleric since the mage can decimate enemies more easily and the cleric physical buffs won't benefit as many people.

It's certainly not as simple as you seem to think and overall I would strongly argue mages are the most powerful single characters in Fire Mountain. Clerics were buffed (mainly UEE as a level 9 spell) because most of the "standard" cleric buffs wound up being useless.[/quote]

To explain this in the scope of which class is better as support. You essentially admit that because you made healing freely available, you pushed mage into pure DPS territory, and then you pushed Cleric to the top of the support pyramid while maintaining competitive DPS to compensate for the loss of the healing part of the trinity.

In other words, you actually made them encroach on Bard territory, and I don't think Bards have anything resembling a +11 Damage bonus with +14 or more to self with War Domain, and that's not including Darkfire. And Bards have less HP and spells to boot.

So bringing that back to the issue at hand. On FM, in a party lacking a support character, i.e. assume There's a DD to tank and DPS is very well covered with either a bunch of WMs and AAs or Rogues or Necromancy or Evocation-specced mages. Who would you turn to for the support role? A) Str-based Monk/Cleric loaded with a ton of buffs Bard/RDD/Blackguard C) Sorcerer loaded with support spells. And the scales have been overwhelmingly tipped in favour of the Cleric.

My point was that you can't move the Cleric around from being an all-rounder to being best in one area because of how the class is designed and how the Trinity works, and that's exactly what happened - you moved it and now there's a problem.

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 22 décembre 2013 - 09:06 .

[MagicalMaster]

Aelis Eine wrote...

I'll look at it tonight, but at first blush there seems to be no documentation on the class changes. I know you did a ton of them so I'd like to look at that first before I try it

Need to get to sleep, but wanted to comment on this quickly:

First, there should be a ReadMe with the download which mentions some of the changes -- just downloaded it myself to doublecheck and it's there.

Second, there are very few class changes -- nothing on the order of Fire Mountain.  In fact, one of my goals was to change as little as possible so it's still reasonably familiar to people used to default NWN.  Just about every change is a passive benefit that you don't even need to know about explicitly (with a few exceptions, mainly for damage shields).

Third, this does indeed mean some characters and classes are far more powerful than others.  All characters still need to be able to handle and react to the abilities of the bosses, though, so this mainly just has the benefit of making the fights shorter or giving more margin of error on certain mechanics.  The PW I'm fiddling with as I finish the second half of Siege will revamp a lot of combat mechanics, but Siege specifically avoided too much change.

[Westan Willows]

Sorry Squatting Monk I missed your post. well that chart makes more sense now.

[Gregor Wyrmbane]

Aelis Eine wrote...

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.

Since we're debating this subject, I've gotta put another 2 cents in on Spring Attack.

If we're still playing SoU, the highest the PC is going to get is about level 14, isn't it? If the fighter puts cross class points in tumble he'll have 7 base ranks, and one more from a DEX score of 13. That's 8 ranks in  Tumble at a cost of 14 skill points. With his full plate and tower shield he'll have a net Tumble score of -8. Not gonna fend off many Attacks of Opportunity with a negative 8 Tumble. Spring Attack renders the fighter immune to AoO's while moving around in combat. The only reason to take Dodge and Mobility is because they are prerequisites for Spring Attack. Spring Attack is very useful for a pure fighter in full plate and carrying a tower shield, especially when he's never going to reach epic levels.

I play mostly on a server where the level cap is 20. I wouldn't make a fighter there without planning on taking Spring Attack, because it's that useful.   ;^)

*edit for spelling

Modifié par Gregor Wyrmbane, 22 décembre 2013 - 03:56 .

[Westan Willows]

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

Aelis Eine wrote...

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.

Since we're debating this subject, I've gotta put another 2 cents in on Spring Attack.

If we're still playing SoU, the highest the PC is going to get is about level 14, isn't it? If the fighter puts cross class points in tumble he'll have 7 base ranks, and one more from a DEX score of 13. That's 8 ranks in  Tumble at a cost of 14 skill points. With his full plate and tower shield he'll have a net Tumble score of -8. Not gonna fend off many Attacks of Opportunity with a negative 8 Tumble. Spring Attack renders the fighter immune to AoO's while moving around in combat. The only reason to take Dodge and Mobility is because they are prerequisites for Spring Attack. Spring Attack is very useful for a pure fighter in full plate and carrying a tower shield, especially when he's never going to reach epic levels.

I play mostly on a server where the level cap is 20. I wouldn't make a fighter there without planning on taking Spring Attack, because it's that useful.   ;^)

*edit for spelling

 Yes he cross class in Tumble. at lv 13 he would have 8 base ranks. (13+3)/2=8.
add 1 for dex and he will have 9 Tumble.
Right now he is lv 11. Tumble is at 3 because he has Chainmail +2 (armor check pemalty -5) Mirror Sheild (penalty -2) Bracers of DEX +4.
7+3-7=3. Tumble.

I will keep Spring Attack it works great.

[Aelis Eine]

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

Aelis Eine wrote...

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.

Since we're debating this subject, I've gotta put another 2 cents in on Spring Attack.

If we're still playing SoU, the highest the PC is going to get is about level 14, isn't it? If the fighter puts cross class points in tumble he'll have 7 base ranks, and one more from a DEX score of 13. That's 8 ranks in  Tumble at a cost of 14 skill points. With his full plate and tower shield he'll have a net Tumble score of -8. Not gonna fend off many Attacks of Opportunity with a negative 8 Tumble. Spring Attack renders the fighter immune to AoO's while moving around in combat. The only reason to take Dodge and Mobility is because they are prerequisites for Spring Attack. Spring Attack is very useful for a pure fighter in full plate and carrying a tower shield, especially when he's never going to reach epic levels.

I play mostly on a server where the level cap is 20. I wouldn't make a fighter there without planning on taking Spring Attack, because it's that useful.   ;^)

Even without epic levels I still don't know about that really. If I really need to make that Tumble check there's ways to do it, like have the shield on hotkey and a Boots of Tumble swap, or simply wait for something to approach, or actually multiclassing with 1 level of Rogue at 12 for a huge dump.

The main use for negating movement AoO that I see is either to be able to flank something, in which case you can get away with lower ACs, or to retain the Dodge bonus to AC, which should be low without Tumble and at lower character levels. Otherwise there's a few tricks you can do with movement AoO, like provoking AoOs from a mage or healer to disable their spellcasting for 6 seconds, or forcing an Invis/stealthed enemy to break stealth.

Modifié par Aelis Eine, 22 décembre 2013 - 08:01 .

[Shadooow]

Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

Aelis Eine wrote...

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.

Since we're debating this subject, I've gotta put another 2 cents in on Spring Attack.

If we're still playing SoU, the highest the PC is going to get is about level 14, isn't it? If the fighter puts cross class points in tumble he'll have 7 base ranks, and one more from a DEX score of 13. That's 8 ranks in  Tumble at a cost of 14 skill points. With his full plate and tower shield he'll have a net Tumble score of -8. Not gonna fend off many Attacks of Opportunity with a negative 8 Tumble. Spring Attack renders the fighter immune to AoO's while moving around in combat. The only reason to take Dodge and Mobility is because they are prerequisites for Spring Attack. Spring Attack is very useful for a pure fighter in full plate and carrying a tower shield, especially when he's never going to reach epic levels.

I play mostly on a server where the level cap is 20. I wouldn't make a fighter there without planning on taking Spring Attack, because it's that useful.   ;^)

*edit for spelling

while i cant say its not true i never used it really, one (and if you take more than you have bad tactics) AoO isnt that problematic since rarely would one hit make a difference, also AoO can be avoided by walking instead of running, and then i mostly use ranged weapon to start combat and let enemy come to me instead of opposite and it is me who take AoO

but it is true that i mostly play epic characters who just need a 40points in tumble and they dont have to worry about AoO from moving at all...

[Aelis Eine]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

while i cant say its not true i never used it really, one (and if you take more than you have bad tactics) AoO isnt that problematic since rarely would one hit make a difference, also AoO can be avoided by walking instead of running, and then i mostly use ranged weapon to start combat and let enemy come to me instead of opposite and it is me who take AoO

but it is true that i mostly play epic characters who just need a 40points in tumble and they dont have to worry about AoO from moving at all...

I knew I remember using Stealth Mode on my full plate characters way back!

[Gregor Wyrmbane]

ShaDoOoW wrote...

while i cant say its not true i never used it really, one (and if you take more than you have bad tactics) AoO isnt that problematic since rarely would one hit make a difference, also AoO can be avoided by walking instead of running, and then i mostly use ranged weapon to start combat and let enemy come to me instead of opposite and it is me who take AoO

That's fine if you're fighting only one equal or lessor opponent. But that doesn't happen very often. More often than not, you're fighting mobs when you're the tank. If you're fighting a mob, and you're having your arse handed to you, and you decide it's time to make a run for it, being immune to AoO's can mean the difference between getting away or dieing.

[MagicalMaster]

I just lost my entire post so I'm going to be relatively brief for now.  Really don't feel like typing it all out again.  I'll expand on specific points in the next reply if desired.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

I've played with Called Shot before, it's not bad when it works, but the -4 AB and Discipline check really limits its usefulness, to the point where if something can be Call Shotted, you probably don't need to Call Shot it anyway.[/quote]
Use it on low Discipline enemies immune to Knockdown.  Stacking -2 AB for Arm or -1 AC for Leg is huge.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Well mathematically, that's 10% chance to take 50% less damage, so that works out to 5% mitigation on a subset of spells? I suppose that's not bad, although the killers usually aren't the 20d6s but the IGMSes.[/quote]
Technically ranges from 5.1% reduction to 9.1% reduction depending on the relative save and DC.  Not retyping math atm.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

You may have a point on Horrids, although usually by the time I reach enemies that use Horrids, they're either KDable or I have access to Shadow Shield[/quote]
I don't think it's reasonable to assume a fighter is going to have access to Shadow Shield.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

What's Spring Attack doing there? Just cross class Tumble because it's that good. The whole Dodge line can be dropped pretty safely - mobility is only really useful to mages that don't use Defensive Casting or Improved Combat Casting, so you run out of useful feats by 12. And if you pre-plan Cleave and GC on 15 and 18, you actually run out by level 10.[/quote]
18 Armor Check Penalty for Spring Attack.  Adds more mobility without risking extra hits.  Dodge is a free AC.  Mobility gives AC when drinking a potion.  Cleave/GC you want to pick up early when they're most powerful.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

That HP boost would be useful if the game had attacks that require a certain threshold, but it doesn't. High enough to survive 3 maxed GMSes is usually enough.[/quote]
Physical attacks, other spells.  Never seen a place where enemies just spam IGMS (and/or IGMS is neutered via change or magic resist).

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

I honestly don't remember which district it was, but I do remember reading a FAQ that said the Prison District was the easiest, so it's probably that. It was a house with only him inside if I remember correctly.[/quote]
No such thing exists in the prison district.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

What if I do the same as a Cleric without ever using a single spell?[/quote]
Please don't tell me you're equating a cleric not casting a spell with a fighter not spamming short term store bought buff potions.  That's not a class feature.  Being a fighter is about learning the combat modes, using combat feats, gearing them, and understanding tactics.  Yes, a melee cleric usually has to know the above along with how to cast spells.  Clerics are more complicated.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

The only thing that does is tip the scales even further towards of Clerics being the best fighters.[/quote]
Only solo and even then a WM still trumps a cleric, AA probably does as well.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

This might make more sense, although it's still kind of silly to require that everyone uses those spells, and then balance the game around that.[/quote]
Might be a gold sink or a hoop for people to jump through to feel accomplished.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

There's still Zen Archery and Monk multiclass, so the Cleric maintains a very healthy AC lead for tanking even if going with Wisdom, while maintaining a competitive AB.[/quote]
Monk AC is broken.  We going to bring in 38 sorc/1 monk/1 paladin next for reasonable comparisons?

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Can a Fighter replace a DD at level 15 in that role? I think not. His squishiness will show when fighting in areas much higher than its level, and most hits will connect on a 2 or more.[/quote]
Yes.  Especially if the DD is taking larger hits like 20+ per hit.  At which point the DD needs to take 80%+ of his HP every 3 seconds for the fighter to not be able to survive.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Typically, those environments are usually designed by people who don't know the engine very well That means a Cleric is still useful for Regen stacking.[/quote]
Regen stacking?  10 Regens stacked is still only 10 HP per second (60 per round).  What's the point of that exactly?

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

First thing, other than UEE there's many other useless spells in NWN, so I don't know why you chose to buff an ability on a class that least needed a buff to a "useless" spell. I don't think you did anything to say, Power Word Kill or Elemental Swarm for example.[/quote]
UEE, SoV, PWK, MS, and many other level 8 and 9 spells were buffed.  I didn't touch summon creature blah spells so Ele Swarm wasn't considered either -- druids already got shapeshifting buffs and animal companion buffs.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Second, Flame Weapon is supplanted by Darkfire - if I remember right, they don't stack in your mod. Stat buffs aren't unique to mages, Imp Invis isn't unique to mages as you note. So my claim was that Clerics stole the support crown, and you just admitted it [/quote]
Mage
Stats
Weapon Buff
Imp Invis
Debuffs/Dispels
Best spell DPS
No melee presence

Cleric
Stats
Weapon Buff
Imp Invis (ONLY if Trickery)
Extra Healing
5 AB/11 damage (assuming no paladin/ranger)
Best melee presence
Moderate spell DPS

Bard
Stats
Weapon Buff
Imp Invis
8 AB/7 AC/4 damage
Decent melee presence
Bad spell DPS

Each brought their own benefits.  Bards would buff fighters/rogues the most, more than Clerics actually.  But they were weaker in combat and didn't really have any spell DPS.  And clerics were deliberately make substantially weaker in spell DPS than a mage (doubly so if they didn't pump wisdom and get spell foci).

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

So bringing that back to the issue at hand. On FM, in a party lacking a support character, i.e. assume There's a DD to tank and DPS is very well covered with either a bunch of WMs and AAs or Rogues or Necromancy or Evocation-specced mages. Who would you turn to for the support role? A) Str-based Monk/Cleric loaded with a ton of buffs Bard/RDD/Blackguard C) Sorcerer loaded with support spells. And the scales have been overwhelmingly tipped in favour of the Cleric.[/quote]
Bard if heavy with rogues and fighters. Sorcerer otherwise for more nuking.  Cleric is basically always the second best choice.

Lots of meleers?  Bard > Cleric > Mage

Lots of spellcasters?  Mage > Cleric > Bard

[quote]Gregor Wyrmbane wrote...

 The only reason to take Dodge and Mobility is because they are prerequisites for Spring Attack. Spring Attack is very useful for a pure fighter in full plate and carrying a tower shield, especially when he's never going to reach epic levels.[/quote]
Dodge is better than you think unless you're always swarmed by identical enemies with no particular threat.  Roughly 10-15% less damage taken from your target.  Mobility is nice for using potions.  Are either absolutely critical?  No, but there's reason to take them if you can.

[quote]Aelis Eine wrote...

Otherwise there's a few tricks you can do with movement AoO, like provoking AoOs from a mage or healer to disable their spellcasting for 6 seconds, or forcing an Invis/stealthed enemy to break stealth.
[/quote]
While true, that's not relevant for 99% of people.  And it's also, frankly, stupid.

[quote]ShaDoOoW wrote...

while i cant say its not true i never used it really, one (and if you take more than you have bad tactics) AoO isnt that problematic since rarely would one hit make a difference[/quote]
Think running through a crowd of enemies, not one enemy (in which case it could be quite a few hits).

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 23 décembre 2013 - 12:54 .

[Rolo Kipp]

<shuddering...>

MagicalMaster wrote...
When and where? Are you talking about the level 6+ Orc Barbarian with the Scythe that you weren't supposed to find until doing two other districts and being at least level 5, likely 6+?

Loxar in No Man's Land?
Rolo did have a particularly tough time with him, but managed. In fact, no one else caused Rolo as much problems until much later. I think it was because there was no room to open the range...
Skeaver just smiled a little grimly.
Cestus Harrumphed.

No one else fits the description, though.

<...at the memory>

[Westan Willows]

Your henchmen is in trouble but you have to take AoO's to get to him. what to do?

[Rolo Kipp]

<looks surprised...>

Run away and plot revenge, of course.




What?



No?

<...the question was even asked>

[Shadooow]

Westan Willows wrote...

Your henchmen is in trouble but you have to take AoO's to get to him. what to do?

Just go to him, one AoO doesnt kill you.
Alternatively you can use town portal, im not sure now if its available in SoU but it is in OC and HotU.

MM: As I said I dont deny the benefits, but I played many, really many characters, many of them was strenght based with no dexterity using full plate. Since I played and sometimes yet playing PWs I always saving skill points till max module level be it 30 or 40. I have never taken spting attack on these characters and never put tumble points on these characters until i took first level that had it as a class skill which was almost always around level 21 earliest. And I never had any problems with AoOs in my entire gameplay history. Yes sometimes I take one more hit at the start of the combat, but it is not that often as would one thought. Maybe its bugged, maybe its because usually my character has AC at least 15+ higher than attacker AB, but that is my experience despite what theory says.

And btw, if you have a pack of monsters why would you be running in a middle of them where they can easily surround you? Even if you dont care about surrounding (in which case you also dont care about AoO because your AC is high enough), even then I would attack the nearest monster to me, not in order to disallow others to completely surround me but because its faster.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 23 décembre 2013 - 01:43 .

[Westan Willows]

Only in the OC can you portal out of combat. In SoU ch1 you can portal but NOT when you are in combat. Same in ch2. after you get the door In HotU you can get attacked from more then one direction.

[Aelis Eine]

I usually start combat at the nearest choke point regardless

@MM:

Bioware Social awfulness strikes again. Lets email this

[Westan Willows]

Aelis Eine wrote...

I usually start combat at the nearest choke point regardless

@MM:

Bioware Social awfulness strikes again. Lets email this

Not when you are ambush. Also I ask for help in making a Fighter not a cleric or wm etc. and I don't play in PW.
I play sp
:innocent:

[Shadooow]

Westan Willows wrote...

Not when you are ambush. Also I ask for help in making a Fighter not a cleric or wm etc. and I don't play in PW.
I play sp
:innocent:

and you still need help? we thought you already get all the answers so we abused the thread for flame

btw WM is fighter

[Westan Willows]

@ShaDoOoW Have fun lol