Planning to modify RDD a bit

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

I think that removing the Dragon Abilities feat altogether (to remove hardcoded bonuses) and replacing it with "fake" Dragon Abilities that will grant such bonuses as permanent buffs (in a more customizable way than the original) would be quite practical.

 

Except unless you're using an engine hak those bonuses will count against the +12 ability cap.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

Except unless you're using an engine hak those bonuses will count against the +12 ability cap.

 

Indeed, but I had a little thought just now and was surprised to see it worked!

Namely, I thought that maybe if all of these Dragon Ability bonuses are added at once (by making it so that by the time the feat is aquired, PC has already gotten to lvl10 or higher), maybe they will also be taken away at once in case of a delevel.

 

And as far as I've checked, it works. I've changed the feat progression of RDDs so that they acquire Dragon Abilities at level 11. As expected, max bonuses were added all at once when my test character reached this RDD level. When I delevelled him, all of these bonuses were also removed at once, leaving no abilities corrupted.

 

Has it been known to work this way before? Or, perhaps, I'm missing something and this only works under some specific circumstances that can't be provided all the time (though I can't figure out what such special conditions would be)?

 

Anyone minding to test it out themselves and share their results?


I think that if it does, indeed, fix the delevelling process, then earlier "fake" version of bonuses counting against +12 ability cap is a small price to pay, especially if these are supposed to be swapped for the "true" Dragon Abilities after reaching level 10 or higher.

 

So, once again. Can anyone tell me if it truly works or it's simply some bizzare occurance on my part?

 

Edit: That's weird. I get no bugged ability scores at all, even if I delevel RDD with his normal feat progression. I do recall I had troubles with this (as I should have) earlier, but I tried it now in a lot of different ways (delevelling to lvl1, delevelling by 1lvl, delevelling to last level with ability bonuses granted, etc) and always ended with proper abilities. I guess it's not a feature of 1.71 patch, since Shadooow just said in this thread that it's not easy to fix even with NWNX. What's going on, then?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Edit: That's weird. I get no bugged ability scores at all, even if I delevel RDD with his normal feat progression. I do recall I had troubles with this (as I should have) earlier, but I tried it now in a lot of different ways (delevelling to lvl1, delevelling by 1lvl, delevelling to last level with ability bonuses granted, etc) and always ended with proper abilities. I guess it's not a feature of 1.71 patch, since Shadooow just said in this thread that it's not easy to fix even with NWNX. What's going on, then?

 

The issue was multi-classing the RDD in between the ability increases.  Awarding them all at level 10 should be a solution, however, you should check variations of multi-classing just to make sure.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

The issue was multi-classing the RDD in between the ability increases.  Awarding them all at level 10 should be a solution, however, you should check variations of multi-classing just to make sure.

Ahh, that's it. I didn't bother to check multiclassing characters when i tried to delevel them with vanilla feat progression.

But yes, I did check multiclassing characters when Dragon Abilities were awarded at level 10 and delevelling worked just fine.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

its very likely fix for the issue as most of the times this bug will happen only if you delevel more rdd levels at once

 

i dont think that anyone tried your solution yet and prooftesting is also difficult because it doesnt happen always but its very likely it will work

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

its very likely fix for the issue as most of the times this bug will happen only if you delevel more rdd levels at once

 

The problem can occur if you delevel them one level at a time.  There is, however, a way to prevent bugged scores by leveling up once in RDD whenever you lose a level of a different class (and then removing the RDD level).  This does require losing only one level at a time, but it does work.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

The problem can occur if you delevel them one level at a time.

 

Hm, are you sure it occurs in this situation only? I'm fairly certain I had corrupted ability scores when I levelled a toon up to level 40 and then returned him to lvl1 at once.

 

My memory might fail me, though.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Hm, are you sure it occurs in this situation only? I'm fairly certain I had corrupted ability scores when I levelled a toon up to level 40 and then returned him to lvl1 at once.

 

My memory might fail me, though.

 

I didn't specify in that situation only.  If a build would have corrupt scores from deleveling, then it does not matter if you delevel one level at a time or all at once.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

I didn't specify in that situation only.  If a build would have corrupt scores from deleveling, then it does not matter if you delevel one level at a time or all at once.

 

Understood.

Well, as far as I've tested, my solution works fine, no matter what classes or number of levels removed. I think this truly is a workaround.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Try leveling up to 10 RDD (or whatever level you award the dragon abilities) then take one level in bard or sorcerer.  Remove two levels then level up in RDD again.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

Try leveling up to 10 RDD (or whatever level you award the dragon abilities) then take one level in bard or sorcerer.  Remove two levels then level up in RDD again.

 

Done. I happily announce that delevelling happened properly and ability scores were correct at all times. '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

Thanks, that was the critical test (and the only one that would apply to you given that you have all abilities given at the same time).  The normal progression for dragon abilities would fail this test allowing the +4 str and +2 charisma to be taken twice.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Naeryna]

               

I hate the fact that RDD is overpowered when taking only 10 levels in this class, but rather weak if one decides to invest more levels in it, especially if one wants to reach RDD 30lvl.

 

 

That's because it's intented to be "support third class" for multiclasses bard/fighter. I think bard was never supposed to be pure class material, rather it was probably intended as second class to fighter/barbarian/cleric/whatever, then RDD was supposed to be great choice for bard/fighter, bard/barb or other kind of bard.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

That's because it's intented to be "support third class" for multiclasses bard/fighter. I think bard was never supposed to be pure class material, rather it was probably intended as second class to fighter/barbarian/cleric/whatever, then RDD was supposed to be great choice for bard/fighter, bard/barb or other kind of bard.

no you think wrong, bard is pure class "material" and has much more love in DnD than in NWN where he is greatly pruned back basically into single ability.

 

check here

 

also RDD was meant to do all these things Grani wants, check here

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               I think Naeryna's comment makes more sense when you understand that the context is NWN and not some other game like D&D, whether related or not.

That's not to say that bard can't be a solid class on its own or that it's done optimally in NWN. Other games may have a better take on any of NWN's classes. But, I don't think the evidence supports any premise that NWN is intended to be an exact replica of D&D in a PC game. Lots of changes were made from D&D to NWN and the exact intended role for the bard class in NWN's multiclass system isn't necessarily the same as it was in D&D or any of the other games in which there is a bard class.