Considering class changes for balance reasons

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               For myself, there are only a few needed changes for NWN1: Haste, Dev Crit, and offensive use of Heal/ Harm. There may be more, but these are ones I see that are critical issues. But these are not really class related; just expoits waiting to happen. IMO.

AFAIK, these were also forced upon NWN1 from 3E designs, so PnP may not always be the best source for tailoring. Food for thought....

As for classes, granting the Bard 6 Skil pts is one of the better fixes that have been addressed elsewhere. And lifting the cap from Rage would make the Barbarian more appealing, as might fixing the death penalty.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               No, it is not a change to the D&D system (not in the sense that it deviates from the PnP roots).

NWN is a change to the D&D system - trying to get it closer to the PnP roots I do not consider a change, not really.  It is more along the lines of realigning the game to be closer to the PnP ruleset.

Now, one may ask "why wasn't this done by the Devs?" sort of along the lines of what Kail is suggesting.

I disagree with Kail here vehemently.  I KNOW it is possible to translate PnP rules accurately over to a CRPG game (especially when there is a DM Client and MP Clients available ingame).  

So why wasn't it done?

Simple : zots.

Zots are imaginary units that represent time x resources.  A company only has a finite amount of zots, limited by the resources and time that is available to make the product in question.

Thus, as a game system gets more and more complicated (as D&D has), it becomes a question of more and more zot investment to accurately portray it as a CRPG model.

So what we see, is instead a set of implementations that deviate from the original PnP rules accordingly.  And what we have witnessed for the NWN example, is a huge Community effort (being that they have more zots that they can invest into the game) to bring the game closer to that which the Community wishes.

Which, of course, benefits all of us.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               As for changes to the CRPG system that is NWN as it differs from it's PnP counterpart - rest.

Resting needs to be evaluated differently.

Resting (which is really another description for recharging) in NWN is horribly broken.  In the click of a button, your <insert character here> is recharged fully in a short amount of time.

I feel that NWN handles this extremely poorly (and I think the Community thinks so as well, when one considers all the different changes that were made to Rest that exists as CC for the game).

In the vanilla NWN, there is *NO* expenditures or risk involved when you press the Rest button.  None.  In other words, you get free recharging just about when and where you wish.

It is the single most imbalancing element ingame that I am aware of.

I mean, oh yeah, you just click and rest 8 HOURS...and the whole world goes into timestop mode, waiting for you to awake.

It gets even more silly in MP - that 8 hours (or more, whatever) passes for the character in question...but doesn't for anyone else!  O_o

Talk about slipstreaming through the timestream!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               Since this topic is potentially huge, I'll just comment on one thing.

IMO, the notion of 5 or 6 + INT bonus skill points for bards would be useful. Bards are supposed to be a jack-of-all-trades class and they have a really good skill set in terms of class skills. But, when it's pretty close to mandatory to max out perform, concentration, and spellcraft (at least for actual casting bards), the 4/level comes up too short. I think more than 6 is too much because there should remain some incentive to put points into INT, and no largely skill-based class should start out being able to max every useful skill at every level.

[EDIT: I had a longer post originally, then realized I had drifted into another thread's topic.]
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MrZork, 25 septembre 2011 - 04:24 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Kail Pendragon]

               

WebShaman wrote...

I disagree with Kail here vehemently.  I KNOW it is possible to translate PnP rules accurately over to a CRPG game (especially when there is a DM Client and MP Clients available ingame).

Apart DMed closed sessions I still have to see NWN be made to play anything similar to PnP. It's probably zots, aye; it might take too much resources to set it to work so. And it's also about the main target audience which possibly wants to play something different from PnP.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_BCH]

               Regarding change #1: Barbarians

People have made a lot of good points about this, and I think I made the mistake of sounding like I think these changes are necessary, when I don't think they are necessary at all, just potentially desirable for my VPnP game.

So while I've not decided whether or not to make any changes to the Barb class, I have definitely been given a lot to think about here.

Regarding change #2: Fighters

Magical Master wrote...

2.  Giving Fighters one bonus feat every level from 10 to 20, instead of just even levels.  (So there is more of a reason to stick with Fighter instead of heading straight for Champion of Torm.)

2. That would actually encourage CoT *even more.*  Normally any combination of Fighter/CoT would give 10 feats in the epic levels (11 if you do something like an 11/9 or 13/7 split).  If you instead did Fighter 10/CoT 10 pre-epic, you'd get 15 feats in the epic levels now.  Aka, you're better off trying to use those Fighter 11-20 levels in epic levels.  If you want to encourage more fighters not using CoT, give something like a 1 damage increase every 5 levels starting at level 10.  If you want to encourage pure fighters, give something like a 2 AB/2 damage bonus starting at level 10 as long as fighter levels = character level.

This is something I never thought of, not even close, and is precisely the reason I posted this here!  Thanks to Magical Master and everyone else who commented on change #2.

I will have to give a lot more thought to it, but adding a little bonus AB, AC, and damage for characters who take a lot of levels of Fighter - especially characters who only take levels of Fighter - is really tempting to me.  I'm not keen on a bonus that vanishes suddenly if you take a level in another class, but like I said, I have a lot of thinking to do on this.

Regarding change #3: Bards

Again, lots to think about here, thanks for that.  I'm leaning now toward giving them only 6 (or possibly 7) skill points per level.

Regarding the differences between NWN and PnP D&D

I think one of the differences that struck me most strongly when I started playing NWN was not just the ease and power of resting, but the abundance of healing potions and healing kits.  We never had access to that kind of healing in tabletop D&D, at least not in the groups I was in.

But then again, we didn't take damage anywhere near as much or as often as one does in NWN, because we could easily take 15 minutes or more to micro-manage our actions each combat round.  It was a lot easier to avoid damage from many sources that way.

From my perspective at least, adding abundant healing items like that (and powerful rest mechanics) may have been something the devs had to do to balance out the "increased deadliness" of NWN combat.  At least, that's how it looks from my perspective.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Magical Master]

               

BCH wrote...

I will have to give a lot more thought to it, but adding a little bonus AB, AC, and damage for characters who take a lot of levels of Fighter - especially characters who only take levels of Fighter - is really tempting to me.  I'm not keen on a bonus that vanishes suddenly if you take a level in another class, but like I said, I have a lot of thinking to do on this.

Er, aren't the bolded parts contradictory?  On one hand, you're very tempted to give pure fighters a special bonus so they aren't as far behind...but on the other hand, you want that bonus to be available to non-pure fighters?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_BCH]

               

Magical Master wrote...

BCH wrote...

I will have to give a lot more thought to it, but adding a little bonus AB, AC, and damage for characters who take a lot of levels of Fighter - especially characters who only take levels of Fighter - is really tempting to me.  I'm not keen on a bonus that vanishes suddenly if you take a level in another class, but like I said, I have a lot of thinking to do on this.

Er, aren't the bolded parts contradictory?  On one hand, you're very tempted to give pure fighters a special bonus so they aren't as far behind...but on the other hand, you want that bonus to be available to non-pure fighters?

They absolutely are contradictory, which is one reason why I still have a lot of thinking to do on this.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               As I suggested - I wouldn't try to do changes without knowing what changes they will cause.

Otherwise, it is like trying to dam the flood by sticking your finger in the hole.  With each new hole, you find you quickly run out of fingers...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Elhanan]

               RE: Fighters - Personally, I do not believe more Feats are required for the class, as many, many designs simply take as few lvls as needed already. Instead, to encourage a majority or pure build, perhaps offering a single bonus for doing this would be easier to implement and balance with the other classes, and bonus XP for questing as a single class.

On Aenea, a pure build is called a Paragon of the class, and there is a reward at 40th for achieving this title, plus the hourly bonus XP already given for anyone remaining single or dual classed. Sunjectively, some bonuses seem better than others, but for now I am leaving the specifics for server debates. What I really like is that every class is offered something as a reward for trying a Pure class design. and the bonus XP offered for each indv character that avoids the triple class or higher designs.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

WebShaman wrote...

As I suggested - I wouldn't try to do changes without knowing what changes they will cause.

Otherwise, it is like trying to dam the flood by sticking your finger in the hole.  With each new hole, you find you quickly run out of fingers...

With this philosophy you couldnt do any change ever.

I say, ask first if noone can guess consequences/disadvantages then you are heading in right direction.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               ^ Rubbish!  

It means exactly what I posted - KNOW what the changes are going to cause in advance - otherwise, one often lands in a loop of "change this, and that alters that" sort of chaos!

And then one ends up running in circles.

Instead, a bit of thought before making changes is needed and crucial in D&D...as you found out in your Community Patch project.  There are reasons so many blasted you for this or that change, you know.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Kail Pendragon]

               Planning ahead and evaluating the consequences of the changes one wants to implement is crucial.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

WebShaman wrote...

^ Rubbish!  

It means exactly what I posted - KNOW what the changes are going to cause in advance - otherwise, one often lands in a loop of "change this, and that alters that" sort of chaos!

And then one ends up running in circles.

Instead, a bit of thought before making changes is needed and crucial in D&D...as you found out in your Community Patch project.  There are reasons so many blasted you for this or that change, you know.

Yes and I dont said you dont have to think about what you are changing either. Thought you are right with my patch that there are few peoples mad about few changes I did noone could tell any reason why those changes are wrong and I found out in practice (two PW that runs my patch) that they provide what they were meant to provide. But thats different subject, if someone wants to talk about that I will be happy to in the apropriate topic.

What Im saying is that single person can never think of everything.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 29 septembre 2011 - 07:56 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               *sigh*

I am not suggesting that one be able to think of everything - just that one should be knowledgeable enough of the D&D system (and it's NWN counterpart) to understand what reprecussions changes are likely to have.

If one goes about it blindly, one is bound to fall into the "loop of chaos".