A few questions for the experienced NWN players :)

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               First of all, the Bowman is a Base Class that specializes in using a Bow.

It doesn't have any Arcane elements to it, which of course separates it from the Arcane Archer.

It is not, however "utterly broken", or any such nonsense.  It is just a Base Class that is centered around using a Bow.  I find it to be a better Archer, because one doesn't have to be an Elf, and one doesn't have to have any Arcane elements (re: Sorc, Wiz, Bard, etc).

Yes, can give enemies True Seeing or give them high Spot/Listen.  Either will prevent HiPS spam.  Is the feat stupidly powerful versus enemies without True Seeing or high detection?  Sure.  But there are easy solutions (can even do something like give the enemy a spot/listen buff once it sees the stealther for the first time so you can sneak up on them but once you engage you can't use HiPS).

Now you are just trolling us.  You know as well as I do about the HiPS Queue tactic.  So Spot/Listen won't really help here.  It still ends up in the queue being emptied, so that the opponent just stands there, ready to be HiPSed again.  It really comes down to either giving everything perma True Sight or getting waxed.  It is something that has been discussed ad infinitum!  That, and Dev Crit, of course.

As I never said anything about balance related to anything in regards to what you mention, I'll just let your Straw Man burn.

You used to be better at these kind of debates, MM.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Pstemarie]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Vanilla behavior (lvl 40caster in calculation):

1. Magic Missile (1d4 + 1D) * 1.5
2. Bull's Strength (1d4 +1D) * 1.5
3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 + 20I) * 1.5
4. Inflicted Critical Wounds (4d8 * 1.5) + 20I
5. Bigby's Clenched Fist (1d8 * 1.5) +11D
6. Finger of Death (3d6 + 40I) * 1.5
7. Bigby's Crushing Hand (2d6 * 1.5) + 12D
8. Spell mantle (1d8 + 8D) * 1.5
9. Circle of doom (1d8 + 40I)  * 1.5 + 40I

CPP behavior based on Bioware possible intent

1. Magic Missile (1d4 * 1.5) + 1D
2. Bull's Strength  (1d4 * 1.5) + 1D
3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 * 1.5) + 20I
4. Inflicted Critical Wounds (4d8 * 1.5) + 20I
5. Bigby's Clenched Fist (1d8 * 1.5) +11D
6. Finger of Death (3d6 * 1.5) + 40I
7. Bigby's Crushing Hand (2d6 * 1.5) + 12D
8. Spell mantle (1d8 * 1.5) + 8D
9. Circle of doom (1d8 * 1.5) + 40I

DnD rules correct behavior:

1. Magic Missile (1d4 + 1D) * 1.5
2. Bull's Strength (1d4 +1D) * 1.5
3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 * 1.5) + 20I
4. Inflicted Critical Wounds (4d8 * 1.5) + 20I
5. Bigby's Clenched Fist (1d8 + 11D) * 1.5
6. Finger of Death (3d6 * 1.5) + 40I
7. Bigby's Crushing Hand (2d6 + 12D) * 1.5
8. Spell mantle (1d8 + 8D) * 1.5
9. Circle of doom (1d8 * 1.5) + 40I

You've got the calculations for DnD rules correct behavior wrong on some of those examples. The calculations, assuming a 40th level caster (per your example) should be...

3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
4. Inflict Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
6. Finger of Death (3d6 +25) * 1.5
9. Circle of Doom (1d8 +40) * 1.5

Read the FAQ. The value of the variable is what is multiplied by Empower Spell. You don't just multiply the die roll in these cases, as the value of the variable is the die roll + X amount per caster level. This is how Empower Spell works in DnD and how it should work in NWN.

This is the main reason I STOPPED using CPP - too many changes that no longer reflect the PnP rules upon which the game is based. Instead they reflect ONE person's view of how NWN should work. Granted, I could easily overwirte those changes via my module scripts, but why would I want to. Such an endeavor is a colossal waste of time for me - time that can be better spent doing other things.

You also spend a lot of time spinning hyperbole about what BioWare's intent was behind things such as the inconsistency in how Empower Spell is applied. You don't seem to consider that BioWare - or Floodgate, which also did coding for SoU, might just have gotten it wrong in some cases. To me its pretty simple - when you find a perceived error, check the original source and use that as the basis for your fix. Why try to second quess a 3rd party interpretation?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Pstemarie, 10 février 2014 - 02:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Sandrax]

               Maybe I missed it in 8 pages of a monk thread but I'm really surprised nobody seems to have mentioned the 10 attacks per round monk yet?

Its a kama monk that uses ranger.  The third class is often given a cleric to piggyback the wisdom stat and provide buffs.  A caveat is the ease it can be dispelled, which drastically drops its AB below other melees.

It has been quite popular on many arena-type servers historically.  Unfortunately, it is a "One Trick Pony" type of build, relying on the buffs and the attack swarm.  It lacks the versatility that some other builds get, often relegating it to a 2nd rate build.  Most of your 1st rates tend to take specific advantage of a particular server's balance decisions, often resulting in rage quitting when the module builder decides to make adjustments.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Sandrax wrote...


Maybe I missed it in 8 pages of a monk thread but I'm really surprised nobody seems to have mentioned the 10 attacks per round monk yet?

Unless you are doing sneak or death attack, the flurry of blows extra is more often detrimental to your attack than helpful.  Haste is already consuming a bonus attack which means the FOB extra rakes in at 5 less AB than it would otherwise.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Empyre65]

               How about Monk 7 / Fighter 6 / Cleric 27? That would be enough Cleric to be undispellable, and you would benefit from Epic Weapon Spec.

Wouldn't the second bonus attack be at -3 instead of -5 because Monk?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Pstemarie wrote...

You've got the calculations for DnD rules correct behavior wrong on some of those examples. The calculations, assuming a 40th level caster (per your example) should be...

3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
4. Inflict Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
6. Finger of Death (3d6 +25) * 1.5
9. Circle of Doom (1d8 +40) * 1.5

Read the FAQ. The value of the variable is what is multiplied by Empower Spell. You don't just multiply the die roll in these cases, as the value of the variable is the die roll + X amount per caster level. This is how Empower Spell works in DnD and how it should work in NWN.

Thank you!  Another voice of sanity!

Shadow, MAGIC MISSILE scales with caster level if you didn't notice.

The formula is ((casterlvl + 1)/2) + ((casterlvl + 1)/2)d4.  It's 1d4+1 at level 1, 2d4 + 2 at level 3, and so on.

I mean, you'd agree that a spell that does (1d6 + 1) per caster level (so 4.5 average damage) should get the full 50% bonus, right?  (1d6 + 1) * 1.5 * caster level

The whole idea is X = formula.  X is the variable that can change.  It doesn't matter if the formula is 10d6 or 2d6 + 12 or (1d6 + 1) per level or 3d6 + 2 per level, all of those have an X value that varies and thus the X value should get a 50% boost.

Pstemarie wrote...

This is the main reason I STOPPED using CPP - too many changes that no longer reflect the PnP rules upon which the game is based. Instead they reflect ONE person's view of how NWN should work. Granted, I could easily overwirte those changes via my module scripts, but why would I want to. Such an endeavor is a colossal waste of time for me - time that can be better spent doing other things.

Precisely.  Both of us would be willing to use the CPP, but not when we have to waste our time overwriting stuff Shadow changed.  It's just not worth it.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

Then you perhaps noticed that compiling scripts with NWNTX sometimes changes their behavior, throws errors etc. Builder must fix this. NWNX often totally changes game, our linux geek on Arkhalia installed nwnx_defense and this changed lot of things that wasnt even documentet anywhere - we had to modify the plugin itself to get rid of them (pickpocket DC change in particulary).

I haven't noticed anything with NWNTX, it's possible I just lucked out or something.

ShaDoOoW wrote...

No I see a strong consistency. And even if it wouldn't been consistent, and even if the adding everything into empower calculation was more consistent solution it wouldnt changed anything. I already explained why I did what I did and how is this supposed to work in DnD rules.

No, see above.

WebShaman wrote...

It is not, however "utterly broken", or any such nonsense.  It is just a Base Class that is centered around using a Bow.  I find it to be a better Archer, because one doesn't have to be an Elf, and one doesn't have to have any Arcane elements (re: Sorc, Wiz, Bard, etc).

That makes it an easier to access archer, not a better archer.  You pretty much said "Why go Arcane Archer when Bowman is better?" which absolutely implies the Bowman is more powerful.

WebShaman wrote...

Now you are just trolling us.  You know as well as I do about the HiPS Queue tactic.  So Spot/Listen won't really help here.  It still ends up in the queue being emptied, so that the opponent just stands there, ready to be HiPSed again.  It really comes down to either giving everything perma True Sight or getting waxed.  It is something that has been discussed ad infinitum!  That, and Dev Crit, of course.

Define "HiPS Queue tactic" because perhaps I don't.

I'm used to people doing something like...

1. Sneak up on opponent
2. Do opening flurry from stealth
3. Immediately click someplace else (or hit "stop attack") to clear the queue and the hit HiPS
4. This causes mob to lose track of you, usually before responding at all
5. Go back to step 2 and repeat until they're dead

And that tactic definitely doesn't work on mobs with high Listen/Spot, I went and tested it before I posted it.  They'll just ignore the fact I hit HiPS and keep attacking me.  Even fiddled with adjusting Dex and Wis scores on my character and the enemy with Debug mode for different scores of detect/stealth.

WebShaman wrote...

As I never said anything about balance related to anything in regards to what you mention, I'll just let your Straw Man burn.

Are you claiming you never said, and I quote:

"As for Mods, unbalance, yadda yadda yadda.  The ONLY place where this matters in in Multiplayer (Online)."

I took this to mean "It doesn't matter if the PRC (or anything else) unbalances a single player module or game because you can cheat anyway, it only matters in a multiplayer environment."  Did you mean something else?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par MagicalMaster, 10 février 2014 - 11:35 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Sandrax wrote...


Maybe I missed it in 8 pages of a monk thread but I'm really surprised nobody seems to have mentioned the 10 attacks per round monk yet?

Its a kama monk that uses ranger.  The third class is often given a cleric to piggyback the wisdom stat and provide buffs.  A caveat is the ease it can be dispelled, which drastically drops its AB below other melees.

It has been quite popular on many arena-type servers historically.  Unfortunately, it is a "One Trick Pony" type of build, relying on the buffs and the attack swarm.  It lacks the versatility that some other builds get, often relegating it to a 2nd rate build.  Most of your 1st rates tend to take specific advantage of a particular server's balance decisions, often resulting in rage quitting when the module builder decides to make adjustments.

Thats normal. I mean it not possible in PnP where monk attacks works differently but this is how Bioware decided the monk will work. Most arenas disabled kamas and the problem was gone . If you feel the same you can too.

One other possibility retaining kamas is to move kamas in the baseitems.2da to another position. This will disable the UBAB feature, however at the same time also weapon feats to work.
Or you can disable dualwield with kama in baseitems.2da (and it would not required hak pack).

This is problem only in certain types of environment though imo. For example on Arkhalia (high magic, epic action, lvl 40 focused) nobody uses kamas and those who do scrapped that character already... It doesnt pay off because of low critical and critical threat and a generaly bad weapon blueprints we have in out world (which is intentional).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               

That makes it an easier to access archer, not a better archer.  You pretty much said "Why go Arcane Archer when Bowman is better?" which absolutely implies the Bowman is more powerful.

Better is not equal to more powerful, though I am sure one might be able to build it so, considering it is a base class, so one could mix in other classes to make it even better (perhaps even AA...right?)

No, Better is not equal to more powerful, not always.

It is better because then I can choose what race I wish to be.  Because I don't have to have any Arcane spellcasting elements (which means using up a class slot, precious in NWN).  Etc, etc.  

That doesn't necessarily equate to more powerful.

I know that unless one has True Sight on, if one is using the HiPS exploit, that one looses targeting.  There was one PW where I used to play on where this exploit was used by m0bs in one area.  Only TS helped - no listen or spot or combo thereof helped to get around the loss of targeting.

I personally don't play HiPSers, so you would have to ask one of them about the details.  I only had to deal with this problem as a PW Staff member.

And I will say it again, for the record books - there is no cheating in a closed SP environment.  It is a given, as it is impossible to cheat on oneself by definition (the only exception being having split-personality disorder).

What I meant is that anyone can change anything in a Mod themselves, even if it is with a little override.  So though one may try to make encounters challenging, balance with vanilla NWN is a pretty difficult thing, in and of itself, due to AA and WM and HiPS (among other headaches).  I prefer challenging to the term balance, personally, unless we are talking about MP stuff.

Then it gets complicated.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Pstemarie wrote...
You've got the calculations for DnD rules correct behavior wrong on some of those examples. The calculations, assuming a 40th level caster (per your example) should be...

3. Cure Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
4. Inflict Critical Wounds (4d8 +20) * 1.5
6. Finger of Death (3d6 +25) * 1.5
9. Circle of Doom (1d8 +40) * 1.5

Read the FAQ. The value of the variable is what is multiplied by Empower Spell. You don't just multiply the die roll in these cases, as the value of the variable is the die roll + X amount per caster level. This is how Empower Spell works in DnD and how it should work in NWN.

Well, Ive read the FAQ, all five of them. There is nothing that supports your and MM's opinion on this. There are several answers that indirectly supports mine. Anyway - this was already explained and Im not going to repeat all the 8 pages of debate about it again. Some peoples simply wants to see this overpowered and thus they will see it despite the all logic in universe.

This is the main reason I STOPPED using CPP - too many changes that no longer reflect the PnP rules upon which the game is based. Instead they reflect ONE person's view of how NWN should work. Granted, I could easily overwirte those changes via my module scripts, but why would I want to. Such an endeavor is a colossal waste of time for me - time that can be better spent doing other things.

Im sorry to hear that changes like empower magic calculation forced you to uninstall patch. Its a surprise because its not even changing gameplay but if you know better there is nothing I can do.

Perhaps if you told me which changes let you to this decision it could make the CPP better. But I guess you no longer care...

You also spend a lot of time spinning hyperbole about what BioWare's intent was behind things such as the inconsistency in how Empower Spell is applied. You don't seem to consider that BioWare - or Floodgate, which also did coding for SoU, might just have gotten it wrong in some cases. To me its pretty simple - when you find a perceived error, check the original source and use that as the basis for your fix. Why try to second quess a 3rd party interpretation?

Oh yes I do. I didn't before and I was doing changes based on DnD but then dislikers like MM showed up and told me: "NWN is only based on these rules, so Bioware changed lots of things to suit better this game and that was their intend, you cannot change these things because thats how Bioware meant it to be." Aka the "Bioware's intent" argument. And they are (The Krit, Whizard) actually correct. CPP cannot change things that aren't broken to suit PnP implementation. It would seriously changed behavior of the game and caused more peoples to have a reasonable objections towards the CPP. Therefore I took a closer look to the possible intent behind a Bioware's implementation of things and took that into consideration.

Funny is that now when I does that it doesnt suit the other part of the NWN community.


Anyway, thats the whole reason why I didnt proposed my own vision of how Empower
metamagic should be calculated (based on my interpretations of DnD rules - which seems to differ from others) but Bioware's based on their function
EmpowerOrMaximize. Everyone who knows scripting can take a look on that
function (its in x0_i0_spells) and tell me what has been Bioware intent.

MagicalMaster wrote...

Shadow, MAGIC MISSILE scales with caster level if you didn't notice.

The formula is ((casterlvl + 1)/2) + ((casterlvl + 1)/2)d4.  It's 1d4+1 at level 1, 2d4 + 2 at level 3, and so on.

I
mean, you'd agree that a spell that does (1d6 + 1) per caster level (so
4.5 average damage) should get the full 50% bonus, right?  (1d6 + 1) *
1.5 * caster level

The whole idea is X = formula.  X is the
variable that can change.  It doesn't matter if the formula is 10d6 or
2d6 + 12 or (1d6 + 1) per level or 3d6 + 2 per level, all of those have
an X value that varies and thus the X value should get a 50% boost.

LOOOOL. This is all over again. You dont understand and you never will because you dont want to. Nobody disagrees that the +1 in Magic Missile shouldnt be empowered according to the DnD rules. But thats a direct bonus to the dice in order to achieve the 2-5 damage. The +X per level is something totally different and its not a variable!:alien:Its a static linear bonus actually. But given you never understand that I no longer cares. Given you have no interest in CPP anyway, and you wouldnt use it even if I changed this behavior to what you do think its correct.

The closure is that this is something that a quite large part of the DnD and NWN community sees differently. Thats why I provided solution based on Biowares latest possible intent (MaximizeOrEmpower) in a first place. If even that doesnt satisfy peoples (those who uses CPP or those who would like to use it but dont want because of this) I can change it to the logical interpretation of the DnD rules. I hope that what we can agree is that vanilla behavior in which one spell calculates this, other that and third even combines both ways to produce ultra wrong result is not optimal.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 11 février 2014 - 01:19 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               Edit: According to the PHB it multiplies everything, but according to the PHB we should be able to cast Empowered Elemental Shield for (1d6 + Casterlevel) x 1.5 reciprocal damage and Empowered Acid Sheath for almost double that per hit.

All I can say is I don't think Wizards was actually thinking ahead but dem's the roolz.

Personally, Shadoow's interpretation is more in line with how Empower should perform vis-a-vis Maximize, but I'm not Hasbro's CEO.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Aelis Eine, 11 février 2014 - 07:29 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

Aelis Eine wrote...

Edit: According to the PHB it multiplies everything, but according to the PHB we should be able to case Empowered Elemental Shield for (1d6 + Casterlevel) x 1.5 reciprocal damage and Empowered Acid Sheath for almost double that per hit.

But really, neither PHB shows an example of empower calculation with the +X/Ycaster level. Only one example is there and thats magic missile. But an Elemental shield (Fire shield) is a good example why it cant be correct. But that will never persuade disbelievers right? MM would even want to empower greater magic weapon (LINK).
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Empyre65 wrote...

Wouldn't the second bonus attack be at -3 instead of -5 because Monk?

Nope, off-hand and bonus attacks are at a -5 progression always (despite what the character sheet reports). -3 only applies to the main-hand progression. (Although since bonus attacks do not suffer the -2 penalty for dual wield it would come out at 3 less than the first main-hand attack).

In general the comparison is (assuming +40 normally for a nice number)

+38/+35/+32/+29/+26/+23/  +40  /+38/+33 without FOB and

+36/+33/+30/+27/+24/+21/  +38/+33  /+36/+31 with FOB
               
               

               

                     Modifié par WhiZard, 11 février 2014 - 04:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_rogueknight333]

               

WebShaman wrote... 
I know that unless one has True Sight on, if one is using the HiPS exploit, that one looses targeting. There was one PW where I used to play on where this exploit was used by m0bs in one area. Only TS helped - no listen or spot or combo thereof helped to get around the loss of targeting.

I personally don't play HiPSers, so you would have to ask one of them about the details. I only had to deal with this problem as a PW Staff member.

I am familiar with a phenomenon that might be what you are thinking of. If a PC is attacking and his target uses HIPS, he loses targeting (even if his Spot/Listen is high enough that he can still see the target) and has to manually click again to keep attacking. A problem for a PC who does not know this happens. since he might spend some time just standing and getting attacked before he realizes what is going on, and tedious for one who does know, since he has to keep clicking on the target over and over to keep attacking. As far as I have been able to determine (though I do not know everything) AI-controlled NPC mobs are not affected by this issue - if they can detect the PC they will keep attacking.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par rogueknight333, 11 février 2014 - 04:41 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

rogueknight333 wrote...

WebShaman wrote... 
I know that unless one has True Sight on, if one is using the HiPS exploit, that one looses targeting. There was one PW where I used to play on where this exploit was used by m0bs in one area. Only TS helped - no listen or spot or combo thereof helped to get around the loss of targeting.

I personally don't play HiPSers, so you would have to ask one of them about the details. I only had to deal with this problem as a PW Staff member.

I am familiar with a phenomenon that might be what you are thinking of. If a PC is attacking and his target uses HIPS, he loses targeting (even if his Spot/Listen is high enough that he can still see the target) and has to manually click again to keep attacking. A problem for a PC who does not know this happens. since he might spend some time just standing and getting attacked before he realizes what is going on, and tedious for one who does know, since they have to keep clicking on the target over and over to keep attacking. As far as I have been able to determine (though I do not know everything) AI-controlled NPC mobs are not affected by this issue - if they can detect the PC they will keep attacking.

Yes, this indeed often happens. A keen senses feat prevents this though (which turned the elf to be the only playable race on PvP servers where this was issue even with HIPS disabled). Problem is that the spot/listen check happens only each 6/3seconds and not continuously therefore for a second you will lose the target from vision and game will cancel the attack/spellcast action.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 11 février 2014 - 04:42 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

ShaDoOoW wrote...

But really, neither PHB shows an example of empower calculation with the +X/Ycaster level. Only one example is there and thats magic missile. But an Elemental shield (Fire shield) is a good example why it cant be correct. But that will never persuade disbelievers right? MM would even want to empower greater magic weapon (LINK).

Some more thoughts about this that could possibly change yours view:

1: A spell can be either both maximized and empowered or not affected by either. (disagrees anyone?)
2: A spell with only +X per Y caster level such as Divine Favor cannot be empowered/maximized. (disagress anyone? - PS do not get fooled by fact that this spell in example does no damage, empower spell affect even boosts and while there isn't a damaging spell like this in NWN in DnD rules there surely will be)
3. A spell that would dealt 2 damage +1 per caster level (max 10) cannot be empowered/maximized. (disagrees anyone? -> still no variable numeric effect).

Thus. When you answer on these three thoughts. Question is. If you agree with whats written above, why would be spell that dealts 1d8 damage +1point per caster level (max +5) be different?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 11 février 2014 - 07:04 .