Combat & PC armor class

Dorn · Post by **Dorn** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:05 am

Try that on one of BG's wyverns, and the mage will likely not spot the beast until it lands next to him, stings him with a STR poison that prevents him from escaping, then kills him.

Thats hardly a low AB mob is it:)
Besides, a wizard who walks alone at low-mid levels uninvisable through the woods around Baldurs Gate is probably stupid and needs to die...darwinism. You think with all that Int they might figure that out...unless they are daft buggers with no common sesne due to low wisdom.

Thats why when you go wryvern hunting or anywhere off the beaten track you take a thing with you...it's called a 'party'

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:47 am

Dorn wrote:Thats why when you go wryvern hunting or anywhere off the beaten track you take a thing with you...it's called a 'party'

The wyvern was just an example, any mob which spawns in stealth could be similar. Phase spiders are another example, of course. The ability for PCs to exploit the perception range of mobs, then buff the party up with spells when the mobs can't see them is hardly an argument that casters are too powerfull. Personally I give all my mobs which should KOS players long perception ranges and ranged weapons.

However, if the scout spots the enemies ahead of time, the casters buff the party and the warriors tank, well, thats called teamwork and its supposed to pwn.

JspecWip · Post by **JspecWip** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:50 am

Doesn't change the fact that Clerics/mages can buff up and pwn spwans solo where fighters/thiefs can't. Thus farming complaints should be adjusted likewise.

Side bar: For those that may know.How much exp a week would constitute to much grinding...

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:54 am

JspecWip wrote:Doesn't change the fact that Clerics/mages can buff up and pwn spwans solo where fighters/thiefs can't. Thus farming complaints should be adjusted likewise.

Yeah, but again this is a flaw of the spawn systems currently in place. They are mostly static, meaning people know where to find spawns. This means they can use up their limited-duration buffing spells when they get to the spawn location, then pwn things. If the mobs spotted them ahead of time, or if they didn't know where to find said mobs (allowing the caster to be attacked while buffing) this wouldn't be an issue. And as to what can happen when a caster begins to cast after he's already been spotted, well, remember what happened to Brennus?

That said, there is nothing scarier than a full-tank barb buffed to hell by a mage.

Overfilled Cup · Post by **Overfilled Cup** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 9:22 am

Rather than nerf all of ALFA why arent we looking at the few players that abuse the mentioned PGing strategies?

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 9:27 am

Overfilled Cup wrote:Rather than nerf all of ALFA why arent we looking at the few players that abuse the mentioned PGing strategies?

Who is talking about nerfing all of ALFA? Well, I should say I am, but the creatures along with the players. The end result would not be an overall nerf to PCs, execpt as previously noted lower levels may have an easier time and higher levels a harder one.

danielmn · Post by **danielmn** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:39 am

The adjustments should def. be made across the board as previously discussed. Please don't get all paranoid and moan about being nerfed..."oh noes, my char. will loose AC..." the point is everything will be loosing AC, as spawns will also be loosing power in the proposed discussion. To the arguements that these changes will make lower levels hard to survive, I shakes me head...Hard enough right now to survive in many places, by trading off a point or three of AC to have less powerful spawns would be a welcome change for me. I appreciate the attitude of don't fix it lessen it be broken, yup yup...but change should be embraced instead of feared and railed against. I think the proposed changes are actually decent, but I suppose we'll have to see upon implementation in NWN2. I agree with most comments on the board...I see a lot of different and valid issues being addressed. Keep up the thoughtfullness! I think Fionn's wandering spawn is a great idea if it can be implemented...gives the abuse of spellcasters running roughshod over mobs a solution. Asides...no one at all should be soloing beyond a fighter/rogue ranger class unless they're asking/begging/pleading to be a smear on the ground. Even the types that can solo should step lightly.

Personal experience on that one...dern trolls.

Back to the original post...I would wholly support many of the changes listed here...reduction of AC, random spawning, decreased mob power, traceable magick items, mundane only shops (w/out dming), DM RESPONSIBILITY to IG rewards as well as wealth standard oversight (including p-chests).

As a community we are aiming for an FR experience, not a NWN game engine experience. I believe that is the point of ALFA, right?? To imulate FR canon and standards, and then see where it takes us with excellent dm's and rp. I totally support any changes that edges the community closer to an FR experience. If I wanted uber magicks/uber AC so that permadeath not be an issue, I'd go to another server that has available uber magicks/uber ac's no permadeath at all. I prefer the ALFA experience, and I think the proposed changes would only add a greater feel for what it is to be in Faerun.

Daniel M. Noah

Overfilled Cup · Post by **Overfilled Cup** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:53 am

So your saying the rats will stop rolling 20's ?

IMO this will make clerics even more powerful as there healing will be the bar that everyone has to live by. As it is, my lvl 2 pc cannot even take on three rats without having to log for a couple days to "rest" up from the damage theve done. Now I will say Im playing at AC 17. In most DM quests Im being picked up off the "floor" itleast once because Ive been winged by some zombie something er another. Im not saying Im totally against this stuff but it is already hard to be a low level and "I" dont see where this going to benefit the low level.

I dont use a tower shield, I dont have heavy armor..My dex is above average and i own no magic. Perhaps my POV comes from already being in your suggested system and my low AC PCs always seem to struggle.

danielmn · Post by **danielmn** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:57 am

exemption: rats.

Rats will be given improved critical claw /keen claws /stoneskin pelts and will run amuck upon all the lands, spreading their cheese eating language and their whisker twitching ways....

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 11:38 am

Overfilled Cup wrote:So your saying the rats will stop rolling 20's ?

Unfortunately, the lowest amount of damage anything can do in NWN is 1. So rats will still cause 1 point of lethal damage (by the SRD, they should do 1d3 - 4, and have an AB of +0 with 1 hp). If your facing tougher rats than this, they aren't canon rats, which is where this whole idea helps.

Overfilled Cup wrote:IMO this will make clerics even more powerful as there healing will be the bar that everyone has to live by. As it is, my lvl 2 pc cannot even take on three rats without having to log for a couple days to "rest" up from the damage theve done. Now I will say Im playing at AC 17. In most DM quests Im being picked up off the "floor" itleast once because Ive been winged by some zombie something er another. Im not saying Im totally against this stuff but it is already hard to be a low level and "I" dont see where this going to benefit the low level.

Well, its pretty simple. Level 1s would probably loose between zero and one point of AC. Widespread use of canon mobs would probably mean a more significant reduction in power than one point of AC.

I dont use a tower shield, I dont have heavy armor..My dex is above average and i own no magic. Perhaps my POV comes from already being in your suggested system and my low AC PCs always seem to struggle.

Certainly could be. If your using a large shield, this proposal probably wouldn't do a thing to you, but would lower mob strength.

But don't you play on DF? Thats hardly a server where any sort of creature is at sourcebook power-levels that I've seen.

psycho_leo · Post by **psycho_leo** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:29 pm

JspecWip wrote:Doesn't change the fact that Clerics/mages can buff up and pwn spwans solo where fighters/thiefs can't. Thus farming complaints should be adjusted likewise.

I don't see your point here. Clerics and mages are supposed to buff up before fighting if they can. If they don't they are dumb. Thiefs and fighters don't have access to spells, but that doesn't stop them from having potions. I played a fighter before and I made sure he was properly equiped before going out to risk his life.

JspecWip wrote:Side bar: For those that may know.How much exp a week would constitute to much grinding...

On that... I am against a xp limit. I mean, If you play everyday and I play once a week why shouldn't I get less xp over the course of a week or month than you? I like the system Rick implemented on DF regarding that. Doesn't matter how much xp you get. After lvl 4 is one lvl/month. Period. If I get too close to lvl up before time I get a DM take off some xp from me. Happened once to me and happens to a lot of people. I've turned down XP from DMed quests. There's a big difference between playing a lot and farming.

Stormseeker · Post by **Stormseeker** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:17 pm

Yes pc's in alfa fight more...but they level less than pnp. According to the dmg pc's should lvl up after every 14 encounters.
What we have done is braught down the xp to the point of a crall. BUT we get loot closer to pnp.

Leave the AC's alone. Dm's control every piece of magical equipment...so if pc's have to much logicaly we know whom to blame.
Have a standard for every server in alfa...if dm's deviat from that standard treat them just like you would a powergamer.
As we are right now we have etremely low magic to high magic servers.
We have regular rats to diety rats.

But to nerf the pc's once again because alfa cant control its dm's....well hell thats like punishing your kid for eating sweets at school when it was the teachers that gave them the sweets. Its backwards...do i need to say it again? Maybe i should since it has been repeated for YEARS.

Players CANT create items.
Players CANT give them selves xp.
Players CANT give them selves gold.
Players CANT set the buyback of merchants.
Players CANT set the a.i.
Players CANT set loot drops.
Players CANT validate themselves on level up.

So if the player CANT do any of these things, then someone explain to this hillbilly how in the hell continueing to nerf the players is going to fix the problem?

stormseeker (24 years of dm pnp experience)

wvincenti · Post by **wvincenti** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:21 pm

psycho_leo wrote:
JspecWip wrote:Doesn't change the fact that Clerics/mages can buff up and pwn spwans solo where fighters/thiefs can't. Thus farming complaints should be adjusted likewise.
I don't see your point here. Clerics and mages are supposed to buff up before fighting if they can. If they don't they are dumb. Thiefs and fighters don't have access to spells, but that doesn't stop them from having potions. I played a fighter before and I made sure he was properly equiped before going out to risk his life.

Leo,
Properly equipped with potions requires income, and lots of it.
There are a lot of places in ALFA where income is more of an issue.
DF & TLR support that sort of an economy fairly well, TSM & SD do not.
Waterdeep? I've never RP'd a rogue in Waterdeep so I'm not quite sure where the loot is.

I suspect there is some variation among the rest of the servers, but I don't know them as well.

I'd like to see better balance if anything.

-Bill

PS. At the same time if Tumble is in the sourcebooks please leave it alone. Heck you're not going to get that 2nd point of AC from it until you're pretty high level what's the harm in that?

PSS. Where is this 45lb Tower shield idea coming from?
Did WoTC really put a ridiculous number like that on one of them in the soucebooks?

Ronan · Post by **Ronan** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 2:05 pm

Stormseeker wrote:But to nerf the pc's once again because alfa cant control its dm's....

This really isn't related to DMs. PCs can get overly-high AC (by FR's standards) without any sort of extra-ordinary DM-twinkage. They can do this because NWN offers more AC-opportunities than PnP does. Then you may say, well, why not boost all mob AB instead? Currently that is done, but not consistantly at all. The problem is one of documentation. Canon is well-documented, and to achieve consistancy we'd have to document changes and have builders follow them. Thats not so easy.

Stormseeker wrote:So if the player CANT do any of these things, then someone explain to this hillbilly how in the hell continueing to nerf the players is going to fix the problem?

Reading back over this thread, can you point out anything that would indicate to you we would be nerfing PCs? I believe we have demonstrated that this change would benifit lower levels if anything. But yes, I would like to nerf those higher-level PCs with over 40 AC and the like.

Bill, in PnP tower shields are tower shields. They are huge hunks of metal PCs can totally hide behind (and not attack) if they want. They provide 3 AC, and you take a -2 penalty to all attacks while weilding them because they are so huge.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/arm ... hieldTower

In PnP, tumble does not provide an AC bonus.

And lets not forget the two-handed weapon users. We don't see many of those in ALFA because, like archers they tend to suck (though not as badly). Inflated AC means each extra point from a shield has that much more of an advantage. I like to think of "balance" as the ideal state where as many character concepts are viable (in their own way, not necissarily combat) as possible. So any change that makes more character concepts viable is generally a good one.

Stormseeker · Post by **Stormseeker** » Thu Apr 27, 2006 2:22 pm

tower shield is 30gp, it does come in at a heavy 45 pounds. But it can give anywhere from a +2/+10 ac bonus. Infact a player can completely hide behind it and to hurt the pc you must first bust thru the shield first to hurt the player. A tower shield has a hardiness of 5(its damage reduction) and 20hp's.
Magical armor and shields cant be hurt by mundane weapons. And the magical weapon that is doing the damage must be equal to or greater than the object being hit. Doesnt meen that the player cant be hurt...just meens the armor/weapon cant be. Every + of the armor adds to its hardeness and total hp's. So a +1 tower shield is now a hardensss 6/and 21hp's. Add insult to injury the tower shield only takes 1/2 damage from ranged attacks and many spell effects. But since it is carried its ac is a flat 10 + the players dex bonus(unless he is full covered) and + any magical deflection bonuses the player may have.

So our tower shields just give +3 to ac, weigh a 1/3,offer no concealment bonus, and cost 100gp on average. Fair trade off dont you think?