Considering to remove CoT class - need opinions

[Legacy_Grani]

               

After analyzing all arguments for and against, I'm seriously beginning to consider removing CoT altogether from my module in the making.

 

There are several things that made me think it might be a good choice.

 

1. Virtually no difference lore-wise between paladins and CoTs - if you showed abilities of these classes to someone not familiar with NWN or D&D and asked them which one is a paladin, they'd probably have to guess. Other classes, even when similar, still have their characteristic traits that differentiate them. Shadowdancers, for example, while proficient in hiding just as rogues are, manipulate shadows to accomplish this. Fighters have versatility that Weapon Masters lack, while WMs, in turn, are focused on a single aspect of fighting, dealing high damage. Paladins and CoTs, on the other hand, have no such notable difference. As such, I can't get rid of the feeling that CoTs do not serve to fill any niche.


2. Pointlessness of taking more than 20 paladin levels - there is virtually no reason not to multiclass once you reach paladin lvl20. Even those who want to stay as "pure" paladins most often decide to multiclass with CoT, since lore-wise there's almost no difference between the two anyway. If CoTs are removed and paladins are given their Divine Wrath spanning paladin's epic levels, levelling pure paladins will be a viable option.

 

3. Sacred Defence is too good - CoTs might not be as powerful by default as Weapon Masters, but they're not far behind, and the reason for this is mainly Sacred Defence. (Of course I'm not for removing any class that is too powerful, but it's still one of the arguments I have for removal of the class.)

 

4. My module is a non-FR one - so there's no such deity as Torm here. I could, of course, rename the class to generic Divine Champion, but then there would be even fewer differences between them and paladins, see point 1. '>

 

 

So, to sum up, I'd want to remove CoTs altogether and give paladins Divine Wrath in return. In a single move (well, two moves, to be exact) I'd make high paladin levels useful, remove imbalance in the form of CoT's Sacred Defence and remove a class that basically shares the exact role of another class.


Now, since such stuff is not just a slight modification of game rules, but something bigger, I'd like to hear your opinions on that. If you're a player, would you feel limited by having CoT unavailable to you? If so, why?

If you're a builder, do you see any other complications or downsides of doing this?

Tell me whatever you think.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

I don't disagree with the flavor of some of your comments. But,

 

1a. Lorewise, your point about fighters and weapon masters applies here as well: CoTs have a versatility the Paladins lack. The primary benefits if CoT for paladins is the feat progression. There is also the advantage of a nice save bonus for paladins who are not CHA builds and the possibility of an attack buff feat that works against non-evil opponents.

 

1b. Lorewise, the role of CoTs isn't limited to a paladin add-on. CoT gives other classes a little access to some divine abilities without having to be lawful good and (even for LG toons) without having to take a feat-starved class. If the only purpose for CoTs were to provide a multiclass option for paladins, then one might simply give paladins some bonus feats and be done with it, but there are lots of non-paladin CoTs out there. Not to mention that, once again, the bonus feats are much of the draw for CoTs, particularly to non-humans (and non-half-elves) and anyone concerned about experience penalties for multiclassing with base classes.

 

2. There are a few reasons for taking paladin levels above 20. One obvious one is resistance to dispels, which can be important in any environment where enemy casters attempt to debuff buffed PCs (true on many worlds and on PWs and other modules that use Tony K's popular AI mod). The other obvious benefit is that Turn Undead will lose relative effectiveness if one quits advancing as a paladin (or cleric). Since one of the areas that paladins shine is in being able to wade into a horde of undead and blast them to smithereens, this is sort of an archetypal paladin ability. And, of course, post-level 20, paladins start getting bonus feats at a faster rate, which is significant for a class often thought of as low on feats.

 

3. I am not sure I see your point here. Sacred defense is a good feat. "Too good" is too subjective to mean much without some context. At least half of the CoT builds that I have seen only take CoT to level 10 (where the feat progression slows), for which sacred defense  gives a +5 save bonus, subject to the +20 cap. Quite nice, but hard to justify as too good in the face of other class abilities. Consider that a paladin with only a 14 CHA can buff himself to +5 or +6 saves (+3 or +4 long-term), without CHA gear, not subject to the cap. Any actual smite build will have at least +7 or +8 saves, +9 to +12 self-buffed, all uncapped and that's still without gear. Then another +2 from protection from alignment and another +2 from magic circle against alignment and we are looking in the neighborhood of a +15 save buff, only +4 subject to the cap, all before gear. Not that there is anything wrong with that, either, but I think it provides a bit more of a benchmark against which to think about whether sacred defense is too good or not.

 

4. I agree; the name is overly specific. Change it. Even in the Bioware official campaigns, which are all set in the Forgotten Realms, there is zero requirement that a CoT be a follower of Torm.

 

Anyway, it's your module, so mod it to fit your vision. My tendency is to stay away from modules that make many changes to the game that go beyond bug fixes.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

As a player i would not play such a game. Mostly because i like adding cot to my fighter character. I think melee characters lack in strength compared to casters anyway, so whatever trick i can (not literally of course, especialy online) use to make up for it, i'll use it. As a second aspect, i think anyone who thinks that cot is the first and foremost issue in balancing their module will make further bad decission, and the module is probably not worth my time even with other classes.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

If you don't like heavily modified rules, MrZork, you won't like my module whether I leave CoT in the game or not. '>

But anyway, uou make some very good points and I might reconsider removing the class altogether.

 

 

i think anyone who thinks that cot is the first and foremost issue in balancing their module will make further bad decission, and the module is probably not worth my time even with other classes.

 

Looks like you added something yourself, since I never said CoT is "the first and foremost issue in balancing".

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

I assumed, since it's the only issue you asked about, that it's probably the hardest for you to make your mind up. You present it as the issue, where you care about outside input the most. I hope the CoT issue is the most important one to you, since i think the issue that is most important to you should also be the issue where it should be most important to get feedback on.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shadooow]

               

There are other viable CoT builds, Bard CoT RDD, Druid Cot Monk, Bard CoT BG  Cleric CoT Monk etc.

 

not just Paladin+CoT

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

It's true, I suppose too many builds would be lost if I took such drastic measures.

Ok, then, I'll find some means of making CoTs stand out more.

 

Thanks.

 

Out of curiosity, however, as MrZork said he generally stays away from modules with many modifications, I'd like to know the reason for this.

Do you simply like to have everything the way you're familiar with? Or do you think any change would be a change for the worse? Do you avoid PWs for this reason, since almost every PW has its own house-rules, sometimes going as far as changing every spell in some way or even allowing only base classes and no multiclassing?

Since the subject of this thread was the last thing I had to consider as far as house rules go, I can already tell how many modifications I made in my module: 19 feats modified, 26 spells modified, 17 base weapons modified, 11 classes modified and 4 other modifications implemented.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

To be in line with vanilla D&D3 or 3.5 you could simply cap it at 5 levels and remove the alignment restriction - it's based on Divine Champion

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Grani]

               

To be in line with vanilla D&D3 or 3.5 you could simply cap it at 5 levels and remove the alignment restriction - it's based on Divine Champion

 

The problem is, I'd have to create Smite Infidel feat, since CoTs were given Smite Evil, whereas, according to vanilla rules, they should have Smite Infidel instead.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

That should be easy enough. Just make it an instant self buff like PDK's skills. Use it to create an on hit cast spell effect on the caster's weapon/glove that does the damage it's supposed to on the correct target and removes itself once it hits.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Out of curiosity, however, as MrZork said he generally stays away from modules with many modifications, I'd like to know the reason for this.

Do you simply like to have everything the way you're familiar with? Or do you think any change would be a change for the worse? Do you avoid PWs for this reason, since almost every PW has its own house-rules, sometimes going as far as changing every spell in some way or even allowing only base classes and no multiclassing?

Well, not everything has to be what I am familiar with for me to want to play it. New is fun. But, the "new" thing that I am excited about is typically a new story more than new game mechanics because, at some level, I play NWN expecting to play NWN. So, I am hesitant to invest my limited playing time into some other game that has been rebalanced according to someone else's necessarily subjective notion of what that means. That isn't to say that many people can't have gotten it better than Bioware did, but it's a risk each time. For all of its quirks, I have played NWN since 2009 and feel like I know my way around most of the pitfalls and know how to design a character I will enjoy playing. And - though perhaps this is more a quirk particular to me than to others - I like to understand what us going on behind the scenes with the game mechanics. Modules that change too much require a greater investment of time before I can know what I am doing and feel competent playing again. In that regard, playing a new module is a little like reading a new book and tweaking the rules is like tweaking the language the book is written in. I enjoy reading a new book and it doesn't bother me if there are some thees and thous in there and it adds flavor if the author has invented some new words or interesting colloquialisms for his world. But, I am mostly reading for the new story and, if every few pages I have to deal with a paragraph of Sanskrit, then I am out.

 

Obviously, not all changes are changes for the worse. For sure, I am fine with any change that is a bona fide bug fix. There are things like Evard's that sometimes don't do what they are clearly supposed to (where there is an obvious bug in the code that Bioware never would have implemented that way deliberately) and things like the UMD check that breaks scroll casting for several classes that Bioware knew about but decided was okay to ship because they were worried that a better implementation would cause lag on slower machines (probably not true then and definitely not true now). Et cetera. I am not opposed to bug fixes.

 

And, as I have stated in some other threads, there are many instances of things where a changed spell or feat can take something that pretty much no one uses (Bioware's Tenser's Transformation spell or Blinding Speed feat) and at least make it part of the mix. And, there are plenty of ideas for improvements that would suit my sensibilities quite well. As an example, it seems like Bioware never rewrote most damage spells after HotU came out so that they scale into the epic levels. Because of that, despite the fact that Fireball and Lightning Bolt are archetypal mage spells, most of my epic mages never use them and many don't even have them in their books. So, if someone wants to rewrite those scripts so that those spells are at least useful against mobs at level 30, then he isn't likely to hear too much complaining. But, here is where the water can get muddy because it's in this realm where one person's "this change makes things better" can at the same time be someone else's "this change is not an improvement, overall, and it's something new that I have to learn" or even "this change goes too far or makes things worse for the way I like to play".

 

I don't play many PWs. For one thing, aside from issues of changes, I tend to prefer low-magic environments and I am more comfortable in action settings than RP settings. So, that can already be sort of a thin slice of the pie. Then, I have to search for quite a while before I see a PW whose changes are either fairly minimal or which luckily happen to correspond to changes I think are mostly improvements. And, to be honest, there are several PWs that look very interesting but that have so many custom systems that I really feel like I ought to learn them before I start playing. Sadly for me, that often means I may never have time to try many of them out.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

There are other viable CoT builds, Bard CoT RDD, Druid Cot Monk, Bard CoT BG  Cleric CoT Monk etc.

 

Those all could be accomplished with Fighter, however, with the only cost being slightly less saving throws and possibly a 20% XP penalty.  Champion of Torm is simply like a "super fighter" at the moment that has no downside and merely gives extra benefits (up to level 10, at least).  I mean, there's literally no downside to Fighter 30/CoT 10 over Fighter 40.  Even something like Fighter 36/Rogue 4 has 16 less HP and 2 less feats (minor and irrelevant as those downsides generally are).

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

Champion of Torm is simply like a "super fighter" at the moment that has no downside and merely gives extra benefits (up to level 10, at least). 

Simply a "super fighter" with no downside? None? I am not sure how you mean that in the context of real builds.

 

Regardless, there are many, many build situations where CoT is a less viable option than fighter. Building an AA? Fighter is usually a better third class. Need Weapon Specialization and already have two class slots occupied? No way to do it without fighter. Need some extra melee presence for an assassin or blackguard for a module that enforces alignment restrictions? Forget about CoT. Putting together a open-hand monk toon on a tight feat budget? There is a good chance fighter is better than CoT.

 

BTW, nothing that I am saying here implies that CoT isn't a powerful class or that it isn't overpowered by some metric or other. And, for sure, there are many situations in which taking CoT levels instead of fighter levels is a much better choice. But, "no downside" is a very strong statement.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_WhiZard]

               

There are downsides when comparing COT to fighter.  COT does not give weapon specialization; if you combine fighter and COT to get it, you will only have one class left to multiclass.  COT gives one less feat pre-epic compared to the fighter, and is much worse at giving feats after level 10.

 

EDIT:Looks like MrZork posted this before I did.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Simply a "super fighter" with no downside? None? I am not sure how you mean that in the context of real builds.

Consider it modified to something more along the lines of "90%+ of the time it has zero downside."  Just about every class has at least SOME downside period, minor as it may be, in every situation it's used -- whether it's losing HP, saves, spell progression, bonus feats, class feats, skill points, etc.


If you already have Fighter levels then taking CoT levels over more Fighter levels is pure gain until CoT 11+ (if you don't have all class slots filled and have melee focus).

Building an AA? Fighter is usually a better third class.

Sure, though potentially at the cost of 20% XP penalty or having to go half-elf.


My AAs tend to be fighter based, though -- fighter for 6 levels, wizard for 1 level, AA the rest of the way except for 1 more fighter level for EWS in epic levels.  So CoT isn't remotely an option at that point since you can't start with it, hence I wasn't considering it.  Though if you're going Bard heavy AA I'm not sure it's even worth taking Fighter -- taking 5 levels of fighter is losing 3 AB and 3 damage, which is better than 6 damage.

Need Weapon Specialization and already have two class slots occupied? No way to do it without fighter.

"Need" is a strong word and the value of (E)WS is often severely overrated, but sure.  If you really want (E)WS and your other two classes are set in stone then you need Fighter.

Need some extra melee presence for an assassin or blackguard for a module that enforces alignment restrictions?

That's not a downside of taking CoT, that just means you can't take CoT.

Putting together a open-hand monk toon on a tight feat budget? There is a good chance fighter is better than CoT.

I'd be rather interested in seeing that monk, since it's usually dual-wielding monks that tend to be more feat starved.

And, for sure, there are many situations in which taking CoT levels instead of fighter levels is a much better choice. But, "no downside" is a very strong statement.

Indeed.  I was thinking of it from the perspective of having fighter levels already and having an open class slot (and ignoring builds that open with fighter since obviously CoT isn't a viable replacement).  So let's go with my modified statement at the start of this post if you prefer.

EDIT:Looks like MrZork posted this before I did.

He's a ninja.