Speeds and armor

[danielmn]

hrm?

Coming from a group that has

3 heavy armour wearing PC's.....
2 Mages with No armour....
1 skirmisher in light armour.....(read rogue)

I based that last statement. If I had not been able to retreat during my last campaign session, my PC would be dead....(granted the pc did run up by himself to face two giants that were pretty nasty, but that was IC for him to do so). Tactics are nice when you have time to plan....better yet time to drill it with the party repeatedly. But when the sudden IC alarm bells go off, if PC's don't act quickly, repercussions happen IG. Effective for when you are on the attack, not so much when you are on the defence. Now, we might end up with some heavy armour wearing PC's that do survive. And I'm certainly not a heavy wearer PC player rejecting the initiative, I'm just asking why we are choosing to place the "balance" as a negative impact on heavy armours when we could just as easily make it a positive impact on light/medium armours. BUt I guess by core rules this is how it should be done. I myself find it interesting people want to, yet again, make partial fixes to the system rather than going ahead and implementing a whole, completely balanced system that includes ALL movement rates and penalties from our core dnd 3.5 rules. Pick and choose what suits?

[Ithildur]

Dan, if we could fix things so that movement worked exactly like they should per RAW, and being flatfooted worked like pnp, and the uncanny dodge feat was actually functioning, then yes, that'd be the ideal, no doubt.

This is assuming someone can come up with a fix or we get Acadius some minions or else start paying him salary, etc.

But that's not going to happen. Barring some unexpected breakthroughs by the community in haking into the NWN2 engine or such, I don't think the above elements are going to change or improve significantly (sadly I have zero faith that OE will fix uncanny dodge).

So we're stuck with less than ideal/perfect solutions. As is, we can choose to keep things as they are indefinitely, which is the double whammy of 1. heavy armor getting significant advantages that they do not get in pnp while 2. light armor/dex types get heavily penalized by being flatfooted and losing their dex bonus in situations where it simply should not be occurring.

Or, we can brainstorm and discuss other options and possibilities that might make things at least a little less skewed than they are currently. Not perfect perhaps, maybe it'll be a little bit at a time, as it has been so far with many things. We went from nwn1 being able to strap on full plate and tower shields with absolutely no penalties other than armor check and asf, to nwn2 getting tower shields fixed (btw I don't believe anyone complained about tower shields being correctly implemented in NWN2 after years of being penalty free) and we also have a system to discourage resting in armor. Small steps, but progress nonetheless, because it's fairly obvious that the default nwn balance was off, especially for ALFA's playstyle.

I'm not someone that favors making things 'just like pnp' btw for 'just like pnp's sake.... I remember stuff like the weighted arrows idea and thought that was ridiculous. But in this case, it should be fairly clear to people who've played both heavy armor and light armor types in nwn and pnp that nwn's balance is severely skewed.

The thing about heavy armor types not being able to run.... Dan, that's just the way it is. You strap on heavy armor and you instantly have the advantage of high AC even with dex 10, being flatfooted, surprised, stunned, blinded, paralyzed, facing invisible foes, etc etc etc. Meanwhile your buddy in light armor with godlike dex is getting hit on rolls of 12 or 13 because of the way the game engine works. Your buddy in medium armor doesn't have it as good as you, but not as bad as the light armor guy. In return, your light armor buddy gets to sleep with his armor on, while you can't. You can't move as fast as he can, that's the way it's supposed to be both intuitively and per RAW; no one wearing full plate should complain that they can't run away as fast as the guy in leather. You live and surive in some situations because your heavy armor protected you; you might die in some (let's be honest here, far more commonly in ALFA it'd be the light armored guys that NEED to run for their lives, not the guys in full plate) situations because that same heavy armor is slowing you down. That's the game per RAW, and it seems quite intuitive; it also lends itself to more tactical play as velien and even you stated (btw part of tactical thinking obviously is trying to ensure the party does NOT get caught with their pants down and having contingencies when it does happen); I do not see how anyone can take issue with that.

[Blindhamsterman]

I myself find it interesting people want to, yet again, make partial fixes to the system rather than going ahead and implementing a whole, completely balanced system that includes ALL movement rates and penalties from our core dnd 3.5 rules. Pick and choose what suits?

agree here, which is why I said if was to be done, it needs to be done for all movements, and shown to work correctly before being implemented into live

[Ithildur]

I myself find it interesting people want to, yet again, make partial fixes to the system rather than going ahead and implementing a whole, completely balanced system that includes ALL movement rates and penalties from our core dnd 3.5 rules. Pick and choose what suits?

agree here, which is why I said if was to be done, it needs to be done for all movements, and shown to work correctly before being implemented into live

Maybe I'm misunderstanding... I hope I am! This looks like black and white/all or nothing thinking that does not take into consideration some realities of the game engine, and is along the lines of 'well if we're going to make things more accurate then we need to add weight to arrows!'.

You guys realize getting all movement rates and penalties to work in nwn2 100% exactly and literally like pnp, is virtually impossible, yes? You'd have to change things like movement effecting feats, spells like haste and expeditious retreat, racial movement bonus/penalties, size movement penalties, encumbrance mechanics, as well as base armor speed.

It's adding weight to arrows.

The problem, as I stated a few posts ago, is NOT that movement speed in the game isn't exactly like 3.5 RAW. The problem is armor mechanics balance, which includes among other things, lack of movement penalties pushing the already skewed balance further in favor of heavy armor. We can't fix all the elements like flatfooted mechanics that cause some of the imbalance; we CAN tweak movement speed for armor, just like we added resting in armor tweaks, and like tower shields getting fixed.

'All or nothing as the only acceptable solution' isn't helpful here.

[danielmn]

Comprehended. You work on your bits and peices and I'll get with AL to see if I can't figure out how to modify dwarven movement to where they move the same rate no matter the encumbrance until they go beyond max. weight. Pick and choose it is.

[Blindhamsterman]

if we are going to reduce movement speed for heavy armour, then it really should be a fix of speeds across the board...

if not, I'm actually going to agree with danielmn

if its purely to balance out light armour with heavy armour, lets talk about a way to improve light armour in comparison to heavy to balance things out, such as a slight AC boost for all light armour perhaps? or 1 point of DR? I'll have a think of something more appropiate.

[Ithildur]

Comprehended. You work on your bits and peices and I'll get with AL to see if I can't figure out how to modify dwarven movement to where they move the same rate no matter the encumbrance until they go beyond max. weight. Pick and choose it is.

A bit off topic, and your train of thought/tone is rather dismaying... but regardless, that sounds great Dan, if you are willing and can come up with such a solution, man, I'm all for it, really. I'm happy with any suggestions discussed here in Brainstorm forums that could potentially improve the game system/experience across the board. Dwarves getting to move like they're supposed to? That's awesome, why would I not think that's a good idea to discuss and possibly implement? Even though I do not play a dwarf, I think it would be good for ALFA, and I'm sure that's what your motivation would be as well, in the same way that I think addressing heavy armor balance issues would be good for ALFA, regardless of what armor your PC or mine wears.

Whether that should become a high priority for us (or Acadius), that's a separate but related question, same as the ideas currently being discussed.

[hollyfant]

Don't mention DR!

Veilan will be back soon enough, he'll have a heart attack.

Whenever there are Germans about, do not mention DR.

[Ithildur]

if we are going to reduce movement speed for heavy armour, then it really should be a fix of speeds across the board...

if not, I'm actually going to agree with danielmn

if its purely to balance out light armour with heavy armour, lets talk about a way to improve light armour in comparison to heavy to balance things out, such as a slight AC boost for all light armour perhaps? or 1 point of DR? I'll have a think of something more appropiate.

What's your line of reasoning here Erevain? I'm curious and a bit confused by your wording 'fix of speeds across the board' - do you mean across the board with armor, or anything and everything related to movement?

You're suggesting addressing balance by adding bonuses to light armor that are both counter intuitive (DR for leather armor?) and have no basis in RAW. Yet you reject the suggestion of tweaking armor speed (which would bring things closer to RAW) in order to address balance.... because you feel that in order to balance armor properly all the movement rules/mechanics in NWN2 need to be overhauled to match pnp exactly (which is impossible)?

Help me understand.

As far as 'picking and choosing'... unfortunately, yeah, we have to pick and choose. We do it all the time in ALFA, if you want to go there, because that's reality. ALFA prioritizes trying to make the gameplay experience much closer to pnp than the vanilla game, but let's not kid ourselves, we 'pick and choose', not because of someone's pet project or willy nilly whimsey hopefully, but after discussion and consideration, that's what happens at the end of the day, based more often than not on good reasons. We do NOT have weighted arrows. Our prices are close to, but not EXACTLY the same as pnp prices. We have many tweaks to spells to make them closer to pnp, but we had to pick and choose which ones.

This is the same thing; we're discussing/brainstorming ideas for some ways to bring better balance by 'picking and choosing' possible movement tweaks that are closer to RAW, to heavy (and possibly medium) armor.

[Blindhamsterman]

there is a presidence for DR in pnp, unearthed arcana (I happen to prefer the idea that armour gives DR more than AC, consider it this way, the reason leather armour protects is it absorbs some of the hit, but thats a different and rather pointless conversation here!) However it was a poor example! Mostly given as a quick idea on something other than speed that could be fixed.

Fixing speeds for armour alone isn't enough, currently all you're doing is applying what is as Dan has said a rather massive penalty where heavily armoured folk can never outrun anything. This would be fine, except that even lightly armoured folk cannot outrun all that much in pnp, the number of creatures that should surpass a PCs speed is huge, so for a tweek to slow down folk in heavy armour, yes I also feel speed would need to be increased on a great many critters and also decreased on a few.

Giving light armour a net +1AC over pnp would help address the flat footed 90% of the time issue would it not, slightly decreases the chance of being hit at all times, more importantly it's a simple thing to change and doesn't require a lot of our small number of tech types time. There are however other things that could likely be done to balance out heavy armours massive advantages in nwn2.

[danielmn]

Indeed, one would have to go back and check all the critters, as mentioned in my "to do" post, in order for things to be fair and even across the board. I know the new creatures I tooled up all have correct movement speeds (per classification as far as I understand it anyway...kinda hard to tell if something is moving 20 feet if you knock the standard movement to the designated "slow" classification...once again obsidian fails to give us an exact measurement and instead delivers terms that have no meaning till testing...)but as far as what is in the pallete now, I am sure a bunch are off. I'd make that one of the things required for the slower armour initiative to pass through the gates at the very least. At least that way the heavy armour population won't be the only ones that can't run away from encounters. Of coarse, you have to look at the flip side of that...you'd have a LOT more low level deaths...but it is fair... However, since the concern lies in class balance and not actual ruleset, and balancing the fighter type classes and not across the board benefit, I think the creature movement could probably be ignored as it would be too great a deficit for beginning players as running away is the best option for early pc's. On the whole, I imagine heavy armoured pc's will muddle through with little to no problems besides the occassional death.

[Ithildur]

there is a presidence for DR in pnp, unearthed arcana (I happen to prefer the idea that armour gives DR more than AC, consider it this way, the reason leather armour protects is it absorbs some of the hit, but thats a different and rather pointless conversation here!) However it was a poor example! Mostly given as a quick idea on something other than speed that could be fixed.

Fixing speeds for armour alone isn't enough, currently all you're doing is applying what is as Dan has said a rather massive penalty where heavily armoured folk can never outrun anything. This would be fine, except that even lightly armoured folk cannot outrun all that much in pnp, the number of creatures that should surpass a PCs speed is huge, so for a tweek to slow down folk in heavy armour, yes I also feel speed would need to be increased on a great many critters and also decreased on a few.

Giving light armour a net +1AC over pnp would help address the flat footed 90% of the time issue would it not, slightly decreases the chance of being hit at all times, more importantly it's a simple thing to change and doesn't require a lot of our small number of tech types time. There are however other things that could likely be done to balance out heavy armours massive advantages in nwn2.

Heh, DR vs AC, yeah let's not go there, major railroadage if we do.

The 'massive penalty' that's been suggested, correct me if I'm wrong, is actually a small movement reduction that actually would not be anywhere near the 33% movement penalty heavy armor wearers in pnp have. Heck, even if it were 33%, I don't see grounds for consider such a 'massive penalty' when no heavy armor user in pnp even gives it a second thought. Heavily armored folks are not SUPPOSED to outrun anything that has a remotely decent speed; why would/should they??

On a lighter note, see the classic examples below:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0004.html

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0092.html

As far as +1 ac solving things... someone with 20 dex in leather drops from 17 AC to 12 AC currently while flatfooted; it'd be 18 to 13 with the +1. I wouldn't call that a solution for flatfootedness at all. It doesn't get rid of the -5 drop AND it probably won't satisfy the full plate guys seeing someone in leather getting a +1 enhancement for free.

[oldgrayrogue]

J. Going through all creature blueprints, correcting the speeds of those that are at default.
K. Going through all creature blueprints, making sure the armours the creatures are wearing aren't default, but custom, to ensure that the monsters that do wear armour are also getting the speed reduction.

If something like reduced movement speed for heavy armor was implemented, the above points by Dan are a prerequisite. As are the fixes to dwarves. Otherwise, you are dooming every heavy armor user to a plodding death when those super fast mobs who should also be plodding along run them down and chew them up. Fact is, we don't play PnP here, we play on a PW. It's not turn based in the traditional sense, especially when dealing with AI, and DMs are not infallible in the monsters they throw at you being completely in line with PnP either. PnP tactics, emotes etc., are almost impossible to emulate in real time combat gameplay without a pause button.

Improving the system so that you solve the "flat footed" problem Ithildur describes above (assuming its doable) is a much better use of resources I would think. Also, as the player of a high dex PC who only ever wore light armor and was retired at Level 9 after well over a year of play (and anyone who played with Corio knows he never hesitated to jump into a fight) I don't think this imbalance for dex based builds is a big problem, stunts tactics, dissuades RP etc. (Sorry Ith)

And believe it or not, some melee built PCs do take dex over 12 because the character concept calls for an agile, quick fighter, as opposed to the player wanting to max their toon's AC.

But what's this about Uncanny Dodge being broke? Now THAT needs to be fixed (goes off to play his new Barb PC). =P

[danielmn]

I suppose the main problem I have is with the implementation on how to fix the recognized problem that things that should be working are not functioning. It just reminds me of an old boss of mine I really used to hate who always implemented negative instead of positive factors. What you're basically going to do is punish one group of people because another group isn't getting what they should have, instead of dealing directly with the have nots and giving them some sort of benefit (LIKE INCREASING THE SPEEDS OF THOSE IN MEDIUM AND LIGHT ARMOUR INSTEAD OF SLOWING DOWN THOSE IN HEAVY ARMOUR......no idea why that hasn't been a focus, it gets brushed aside it seems everytime it's mentioned, like the only solution is to slow down heavy armour wearers....). Anytime you institute change, you want that change to have as little negative impact as possible. I don't see that here...with all the talk of fairness, it just doesn't seem very fair to me.

[Ithildur]

If I understand you correctly Dan, then heavy (and medium) armor wearers currently have even a greater advantage because they can easily outrun the creatures with the corrected movement (which I presume are critters that have 20' movement in the Monster Manual, i.e. able to match heavy/medium armor wearers step for step).

I donno, but if I'm playing a character with full plate, I would fully expect that I would not be able to outrun most things. Heck, I can clank around in full plate with no scouts and spot monsters long before they can see me with the current truncated default NWN2 sightlines, and simply choose to avoid them as if I were a stealthy ninja. This was something you could not do in ALFA1 btw, which made teamwork/reliance on scouts MUCH more critical, which btw is a good thing. So I already have a HUGE boon by being able to act like a ninja in spite of my heavy metal gear, on top of all the other advantages previously listed. Heck, I would be EMBARRASSED to be able to run as fast as non armoreds when I am already stacked and tricked out with all these benefits.

[edit] I should clarify, a lot of this applies to medium armor as well, since they also are at reduced movement rate. It's just that it's much more glaring with heavy armor; at least with something like enchanted or mw breastplate your armor check penality is on par with a chain shirt and you have a decent chance to be somewhat stealthy, as well as potentially losing -3 ac to being flatfooted. So medium armor (and my character wears one) needs to be tweaked as well, just that it's not as glaringly broken as heavy armor.

OGR, the fact that someone's PC made it to lvl x doesn't change the wonkiness of how NWN handles being flatfooted. Play something like a dualist sometime and you'll realize how bad it is when your AC drops by as much as -10 to -12 in the middle of combat.