Epic Precision

[Ithildur]

That would be grand, but not something you can count on.

I don't quite understand why we're such sticklers for PnP stuff with some things, and then throw the book out the window with others.

Well, most of these ruin/deathstrike/truedeath feats/spells/items (actually all iirc) are non Core. Anytime you introduce stuff from non Core splatbooks (fully aware NWN2 ships with stuff from splatbooks, Vigor spells and more, and Core also has plenty of broken stuff) even in tabletop you have to exercise some caution because it can open a can of worms.

Not saying 'no never' certainly, just saying exercising judgement != throwing the book out.


I don't think anyone would disagree that more skillsy/rogue/bardy content would be awesome and would go a long ways to making rogues not sad. Rather bummed actually to hear this... years back I used to boast to people on other PWs that ALFA was really a good place to play skill guys because not everything was combat focused and because DMs were good about running stuff where rogues could thrive (not just traps mind, but stuff like running thieves guilds and spy networks and stealing/breaking into places, etc. Also a good party sneak was practically essential to survival at one time; lately it's largely optional).

No one forced you to throw all those golems at Hully, Xan! And he definitely had a ton of traps to feel useful about ... when he was around.

[kid]

We have Death Wards and Protection from Alignment for days.
Allowing my dude 24h protection from death and mind effects (vs certain alignments at least).
Making a Banshee (!) a walk in the park.
If that's not throwing the book out the window I don't know what is.

I don't want to not use undead. Would you really ask Xan to undo her awesome dungeon?
frankly -if- i played hully there, I would have been horribly bored during any and all fight scenes.

I love skill based play, but skill based play for rogues can easily exclude others.

Combat vs anything with sneak immune pretty much excludes rogues.
They have no business being there other than to look pretty.

Doesn't have to be all or nothing, but any of the proposals (not based on buying stuff) to me would be a good idea.

Who makes the call anyways?

[Ithildur]

Classic.

Was a good discussion until your last post made my head blow up. Uncle!

[kid]

Yes, classic, I say things, you try and insult me instead of disprove them. Roger.

[Zelknolf]

Who makes the call anyways?

Depends on which piece you want. But in practice, it's going to be the same answer regardless because of what I would want to put my signature on it.

If we're making a change in my domain (and all the stuff folk are still talking about require tech work), I would require something that the DMA and most of the HDMs agree to before agreeing to it myself. If we make a change explicitly targeting a kind of content (whether build or plots) which isn't generally understood as a bug, we should get the buyin of the people responsible for that content.

[kid]

That sounds like you're saying TA has veto power over ... well... almost everything.

[FoamBats4All]

That sounds like you're saying TA has veto power over ... well... almost everything.

Hello and welcome to ALFA.

We're volunteers. You can't force volunteers to do work they don't agree with.

[Zelknolf]

If you want to make a change to the haks or ACR, which all of these proposals would require, yes. Tech has always had effective veto power over the sort, simply by selecting which projects to work on-- the list of things that other admin have asked for is long, and developer time is finite.

If ACR changes are "everything" to you, then... thanks? I guess that means I do good work?

[kid]

That sounds like you're saying TA has veto power over ... well... almost everything.

Hello and welcome to ALFA.

We're volunteers. You can't force volunteers to do work they don't agree with.

If you want to make a change to the haks or ACR, which all of these proposals would require, yes. Tech has always had effective veto power over the sort, simply by selecting which projects to work on-- the list of things that other admin have asked for is long, and developer time is finite.

If ACR changes are "everything" to you, then... thanks? I guess that means I do good work?

Heh, I thought it was clear (as I am a relatively sane person) I did not mean someone will -make- anyone do the work, but assuming a call was made to do whatever, and assuming someone else will do the work, I don't think it's TA's job to prevent alteration based on personal play preference, right?
Merely asking, not trying to start anything... Curious to your opinion I guess?
(Didn't mean to derail but sense you mentioned that yours is the only opinion that counts in the end, I suppose I just want to know if I don't need to bother voicing mine... or reading anyone else's opinion for that matter.)

And hell yeah, you do an awesome job... Doubt anyone debates this.

And to be clear i'm not trying to start some snippy post war, I am genuinely interested how things work at the bottom line.

[Zelknolf]

I think you have the wrong mental model for how things work on the tangible "make the game work" side of things.

Version control has reduced the amount of stuff that the TA has to do to produce a release, but it hasn't eliminated it. The "effective veto" remains because a thing doesn't happen if the TA just never works on it. The TA has to go through questions like Who did the work? Does their work require extra testing? Does their work require review for self-serving 'creative interpretations'? Does the project actually account for the scope of the targeted issue? It usually takes a lot of work to turn a "finished" project into something I can actually release, and failing to account for it just obligates me to painful bug fixes shortly after the release (volunteers from outside of tech almost never provide fixes for their own screwups)-- or I could push it off by just... not releasing the dubious thing, and instead putting my attention on things where there's more consensus/ less overhead/ more familiarity/ whatevs.

I don't know how we'd respond to an actually-perfect implementation popping in out of the ether, and I'm not sure I need to know. It'd be like handling the case for if a unicorn jumps through my window and stabs my hard drive with its mighty magic horn.

[kid]

Could happen.

Anyways, thanks for taking the time to answer, I think I get where you're coming from.

[oldgrayrogue]

Yes, please make rogues more balanced and useful.

The simplest solution is for DMs to avoid villains immune to SA, or when they are used, provide rogue only content to make rogues more essential.

[Zelknolf]

Anyhow, yes-- changes like this are doable, but I won't do it without some assurance that I won't be screwing our servers. That's something our HDMs and DMA can answer; I wouldn't have enough information to say.

[Brokenbone]

Yes, please make rogues more balanced and useful.

The simplest solution is for DMs to avoid villains immune to SA, or when they are used, provide rogue only content to make rogues more essential.

Hide somewhere between 10% and 25% of a dungeon's treasure somewhere secret and rogue-y (search + trap + lock). Although I guess swiss army knife solo concepts can buff all those attributes and/or buff vs. many forms of trap damage, or to do "knock" on locks.

EDIT - I wonder if the new Random Dungeons leverage phatloot? Pepper around some waypoints and it's a good day for rogue-explorers?

[Zelknolf]

I wonder if the new Random Dungeons leverage phatloot?

Nope. Phatloot was sentenced to the gallows about a year ago; it keeps getting a stay of execution only because I haven't yet written its replacement (we caught it on years of "twinking people who are already at the cutoff"). This means that I haven't been including it in new content.

Random Dungeons will acquire boss monster loot (similar to Infestations loot, but the XP that justifies the loot will come from tracking your used consumables and RPXP -- though a perception check could easily be added to it without having to re-visit the old discussion; we established ceilings for boss loot, not floors).

Random dungeons are, however, easily the most heavily-trapped places in ALFA, if they're spawned with traps; trying to take one of CR equal to your level (or, really, even within a few points of CR) without a rogue in tow is suicide. Figure that the average trap will do about 7 points of damage per CR-- a level 6 fighter (78 hit points) with one of those rings of vigor 2/day (22 hit points) is dead on CR3 trap #5. That fighter will find trap #5 in those dungeons.