Request to See Discussion of Warlock / Spirit Shaman Ban

[ElCadaver]

In this instance, will there be a process for application for character rebuilds, where there is evidence (from character design and IC), that a PC was headed for one of the afore mentioned classes?

Possibly...unless you plan on building a

Barbarian/Monk/Paladin/Assassin

I think I'll build one in Vordans Hero Creator, just to see if it is worth the hassle first.
Should have a nice feat list

[johnlewismcleod]

You are incorrigible, Cad.

We need to start a thread on "rules necessary to contain El Cadaver"

[ElCadaver]

You are incorrigible, Cad.

We need to start a thread on "rules necessary to contain El Cadaver"

I'm an enigmatic paragon to emulate. Everyone should be so free of PGing as me.

[NESchampion]

even if our curret warlocks are not horribly imballanced
(which I have no idea about)
they are no way close to how the class should be.
so until we fix it we should not make more.

Did something change between now and a year ago, or two years ago, with regards to Spirit Shaman and Warlocks? Or is it just a matter of us finally getting down the list to them?

[dirsa]

i'm with ness on this one... some explanation would go a long way to stop any ridiculous questions, as opposed to saying that it has been done so, and the reasoning is classified, will take years to get consensus to release it...

when a company suddenly passes new rule, for example that shoes are required attire as of now, it means one of two things... management is bored, or someone has been coming to work without shoes... *

*true story... i said screw it and moved to tropics....

[Rotku]

even if our curret warlocks are not horribly imballanced
(which I have no idea about)
they are no way close to how the class should be.
so until we fix it we should not make more.

Did something change between now and a year ago, or two years ago, with regards to Spirit Shaman and Warlocks? Or is it just a matter of us finally getting down the list to them?

Nothing has changed. The question was more whether something changed between the original banning made by DMA Rusty pre-Live, and the reversal of this change a few months later by LA Wynna. The answer there is, undoubtly, no.

The original list, which looked at all the classes, was compiled by Veilan and approved by Rusty and can be found here. You will note that there is some change between that list and the one I presented earlier today. I'm going to outline my reasons for those change - please note that I am not a technical expert, so will not pretend to be one. The explainations are either what has been explained to me or my understanding of them.

Before this, please be aware that, as I stated in my original post, Yellow rating is just refering to the fact that changes will be made to them. There is no plans by this Administration team to ban any of those classes. Changes range from adjusting the Domain system for Clerics to checking the auras function with Warpriests.

Cleric
Cleric was requested to be added to the list of Yellow by one Admin, sighting balance issues with the way the Domain system worked. This is something that that Admin would like to see fixed.

Red Dragon Deciple
This has been removed complete from the list (was previously listed as Red).This, also, wasat the request of one Admin. This class was the one point where this was disagreement between the Admin. Another Admin believed that banning it was in order, due to the cheese factor and the worry of class dipping. Given the disagreement, I decided that we should favour the status quo over the change (it's currently not banned), hence it is not included in the list.

Neverwinter Nine
This has been removed as the previous issue (problems with canon tie in) has been lessened with a name change. I believe it is currently listed as Protector of ______.

Shadowdancer
This has been removed form the list due to less problems with HiPS than previously envisioned.

I believe that is the main changes that we have made from the original list that was approved by Rusty. I’ll try now and address some of the concerns that have been raised over the past two pages.

In this instance, will there be a process for application for character rebuilds, where there is evidence (from character design and IC), that a PC was headed for one of the afore mentioned classes?

There will be no need for rebuilds. As I mentioned in the original thread, and above in this post, the Yellow classes will not be banned. I merely included them there as a warning that the specifics may change. You’re welcome to continue on your character course as originally planned.

If there are any changes that will be made to the requirements (which I don’t think have been discussed) there will be a chance for those people who have been planning to take hte class to rebuild. This has happened in the past whenever there have been changed made to requirements and I don’t see any reason we’d vary from that.

Fair enough. As an observation however, the grandfather clause calls into question the need for a ban on these two classes.

To put in simply (and summing up my opinion nicely) Warlocks should never have been allowed in (and to a lesser extent Spirit Shamans and Favoured Souls). However, due to a descision by a past Lead Admin they were. Banning of Warlock in particular has been discussed many times in the past year or so, however each time we have dismissed the idea as unfair – because it was seen as unfair to force the retirement of current Warlocks. This is the reason the Grandfather clause was brought in. This policy was what we agreed was the best method to put the lid on this problem until a more fine tuned fix can be implemented.

[Basilica]

(I hope you'll forgive me if this is already covered somewhere in the depths of our rule and charter handbook, which are curiously long for a gaming organization.)

Are the decisions to ban (or unban) a class being made by just one admin alone?

[Rotku]

(I hope you'll forgive me if this is already covered somewhere in the depths of our rule and charter handbook, which are curiously long for a gaming organization.)

Are the decisions to ban (or unban) a class being made by just one admin alone?

If you read the post where I announced these recent ruling, you'll see it's unanimous- all five Admin were in agreement that it was needed.

Regarding the who should/can be making the call (in a more general sense), there's no exact, clear cut ruling.

[fluffmonster]

The charter is surprisingly good at accomplishing what it was intended to.

Whether those intentions were wise is another matter entirely.

[Ronan]

Ok, so I guess I'll stop trying to get Eldritch Blast to act like a proper spell with AoOs without screwing up spell selection, and just slap a Arcane Spell Failure check on it. That patches the biggest Warlock exploit. Had admin been public with this stuff earlier, it would've saved me a few hours of testing on my painfully slow rig.

To put in simply (and summing up my opinion nicely) Warlocks should never have been allowed in (and to a lesser extent Spirit Shamans and Favoured Souls). However, due to a descision by a past Lead Admin they were.

So why keep Favored Souls? They look more powerful than Spirit Shamans, and the later's level 11 ability is obviously no issue as its easily fixable long before any shaman hits 11. Neither are well-supported by canon, but they aren't really out of place either.

What about Spirit Shamans would you like changed for the class to be allowed again? I have had nothing but positive RP with Shamans, both as a DM and player and would like to see the class stay.

Also, we have a player on BG currently looking to go Dragon Disciple (not red, I don't think, but other colors are easily addable). So we need some fore-warning here if its going to get canned.

I won't shed any tears over the loss of new Warlock PCs.

[CloudDancing]

I'd like to see SS's guiding spirit be the same class as a familiar and visible. RP wise its rather a precarious class to RP and not be seen as crazy.

[Veilan]

In this instance, will there be a process for application for character rebuilds, where there is evidence (from character design and IC), that a PC was headed for one of the afore mentioned classes?

I don't think that's unreasonable - while I'm sure planning ahead for 6-7 levels could be considered pretty cheesy or metagamey, I personally know from ALFA 1 experience how majorly it sucks to have your intended PrC pulled from under your feet.

I cannot speak for them obviously, but I'm sure your local HDM will have pity on you and might allow some modification, with DMA's approval, if your character design was invalidated by this change.

Cheers,

[MaskedIllusion]

I'd like to see SS's guiding spirit be the same class as a familiar and visible. RP wise its rather a precarious class to RP and not be seen as crazy.

Well isn't a spirit guide something that just exists within the SS? More of a link to the spirit world then an actual spirit standing there next to you going "hey what is that noise to the left and that sight to the right."? At least that always the way I have perceived it, I could be wrong.

But also on that note, is moved to a "summons" would they be able to die? And if so what happens to the free Alertness feat SS are supposed to get upon creation?

[ElCadaver]

In this instance, will there be a process for application for character rebuilds, where there is evidence (from character design and IC), that a PC was headed for one of the afore mentioned classes?

I don't think that's unreasonable - while I'm sure planning ahead for 6-7 levels could be considered pretty cheesy or metagamey, I personally know from ALFA 1 experience how majorly it sucks to have your intended PrC pulled from under your feet.

I cannot speak for them obviously, but I'm sure your local HDM will have pity on you and might allow some modification, with DMA's approval, if your character design was invalidated by this change.

Cheers,

Especially when you have been non-grinding away at it for 2+years

[Veilan]

*nods* It's not as bad as it seems anyway - there's no PrC temporarily banned, and the keystone here is temporarily. As I was made to understand, the intention of this is not "omg ban h4xx kthx" but to give a breathing space to fix and align things properly, to be able to supply the classes in a far better ALFA-suited, mechanically balanced / bug free, and FR-lore conforming way, and avoid some headaches.

Ideally, the restricted access won't last long - and the "yellow" classes are not going to be restricted for taking anyway.

Cheers,