New Classes Feedback Megathread

[Gouge Away]

Favored Souls can't be healers and I'd still much rather play a healer caster or healer archer than a favored soul. Battle cleric might be another matter.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

There's also stuff like Wisdom being a more important attribute than Charisma - unless you div dip, which then means you're playing around with at level 3 levels of paladin/blackguard, which then means you have to forego a 27/3 build, which then means you're playing with a sub-par CL.

Also some of the cleric spell levels are pretty competitive, and a Favoured Soul has to make Choices where a cleric does not - 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th. Some might have obvious go-to's, but you don't get them all like a cleric does. You don't get to swap around spellbooks freely.

A good solid player might not see much downside, but for a lot of players it definitely has a higher 'skill ceiling' in grasping how you're picking your spells.

[godhand-]

Favored Souls can't be healers and I'd still much rather play a healer caster or healer archer than a favored soul. Battle cleric might be another matter.

I can't echo this sentiment enough. I played a FS to 15, and then now it sits in my vault untouched, because instead i just made another healpath. I would LOVE FS if healpath was an option, as i played it like a caster, but for healing ultimately a healpath cleric will always win out.

That being said, in the PGCC, i was able to make a "battlecleric" style favored soul which acquired similiar numbers endgame to what a battlecleric would with regards to ab & ac (mid 50's for both IIRC). The upside to FS is that once wound up (equally long wind up to get going), it would last 2x as long as a battlecleric would, the downside is you get "less uses per day" than a battlecleric....

[Draco]

My main is a favored soul and he's been 30 for a while now. Personally I love the RP, but as I continue I find one thing after another that clerics can do by default that favored souls cannot. There are plenty of items in-game that have a use restriction to cleric that adds to the cleric's repertoire. But none exist (that I've seen) for favored souls. There are a bunch of other little things that set the cleric RP apart and I accept them based on RP reasoning. No bonus language, no domains, can't consecrate altars, this can be thrown into the category of "they're innate and didn't pray/read scripture to learn said knowledge/abilities." A favored soul is just a little tankier and can react on the fly with their spells. But that's about it, even sorcerers were given brew potion for free to offset the scribe scroll feat that wizards get for free.

My favored soul is actually Constitution-based and not Charisma-based and he does surprisingly well for himself. An actual caster favored soul is severely lacking, especially with the lack of items to back them up compared to a cleric. But as I continue to RP him a lot of those differences are hindering in both RP and mechanically. I personally would love to have access to even one domain instead of two and I'd also like it to be specific to the favored soul's god. Even without changes I still love the character and the different approach to faith-based RP the class can provide.

Favored souls can so be healers, they just don't get overhealing that everyone is talking up. They don't need to slot their healing spells, they drop mass heal, heal, harm, word of faith, greater dispelling on the fly as needed for the situation. Spontaneous casting is the biggest draw to the class, but they are still lacking in the ways stated above.

[RollerToaster]

GENERAL
1: Swashbuckler
2: Swash 26 / Fighter 4 (Currently 21/2)


FUN
3: I like what Feint and Second Intention do thematically...

4: ...but its really hard to tell if they are having impact on the fight. The DC seems a little low, even with high stats in the ridculous equation that decides the DC.

Thid Intention though is just so bad. Every 5 mins you get immunity to damage and CC for 3 seconds... The CD is way to long for it to be remotely useful. The duration barely lasts long enough to protect you from a spell cast or any sustained melee attacks. The duration could do with increasing and the CD could do with being less.


COMBAT

5: Leveling has been fine, not super easy but not particularly easy.

6: Seems slightly below average against other pure melee builds. Gets wrecked by ranged or magic users.


BALANCE

7: Not really sure if gear would help them, but some gear with high parry on them would help with that part of class flavour.

8: I feel I could have made a near identical character who was a Rogue/Fighter and be far better off.

[Jagel]

Perhaps third intention could also come with a damage bonus? Maybe akin to how spirited charge works? They could probably use a bit of single target burst dmg

Alternately something tied to parry: retaining (some of) the AB bonus from parry after deactivating parry after a succesful riposte (no idea if this is feasible), being able to make a single attack per round while in parry mode, some sort of buff to feint or...

[Drowboy]

Third intention is a weird one. Used incorrectly, for sure, it's basically useless.

But with good situational awareness/game knowledge it's a pretty good moba-style ability that lets you deflect hellballs, igms', other meleers alpha strikes, etc.

[Baron Saturday]

Regarding the Loremaster Tutor ability - it might be a handy QoL buff if it also allowed the Loremaster to create phrasebooks for any language they know. Except the unteachable languages, because... yeah.

Could either just be in exchange for gold, akin to Shady Deals, or need to be targeted on a blank book/notebook if you wanted to get fancy.

[Amnesy]

GENERAL

1: Which of the new classes are you playing?

Barb(tribal path)/Shaman - caster/support style (without undead)

2: What is your intended build

Barb3/Shaman24/Bard3

FUN

3: What abilities are fun

Playing caster with tribal/guards.

4: What abilities are not fun / why?

I am having a hard time to decide how much caster is in the Shaman:
The spells at tiers 1,2,3,4 are lacking in anything really worth casting outside of the usual buffs; there are a few weird tier placements like burning hands at 2 or TS on 7 or lack of Clairaudience/clairvoyance (while class is Divination innate fluffed).
This is very visible in pre-epics, and at the point, the shaman lacks infi spells from GSF as well. Or could use a few spells moved over from other spellbooks.

COMBAT

5: How is the leveling experience on it

To epics your tribals and a summon can carry you through most pve content. Then T9/MD summons take over.
With some lore, you can cast Mage Armor and Barkskin on them, giving 30+AC early.
Stick to low AC enemies, as tribals AB is so so, and dmg wise you can't cast weapon buffs on them past lvl 6 as well as you can't add temp essences. They also just h&s, and for me, at least mummies or BG/WL summons are more useful.
Playing as a caster, after buffing the summons there is nothing much else to do. At epic you throw SoV and Heal/Harm from time to time.
You can reach 5 active summons fast with undead and later 6 with the elemental swarm; optionally +1 from animal empathy.
I have a feeling it would be better to have tribals(elemental or other instead of humanoids)/rage(elemental theme instead of physical) as a part of the shaman kit instead of the tax for barb.

Some extra spells shamans have in their spellbook are not modified (druid) as scrolls, so you can cast them from them.

Overall feel: your summons carry you over as a caster, but clerics have better buffs (not to mention healers), druids can do some pew pew themselves, wizards/sorc have infi spells.
This feels like a limited druid.

6: How has it fared in pvp (if applicable)

BALANCE

7: Are there any significant gaps that could be filled with gear? If so, what would be your suggestions for the gear?

8: Does it feel balanced compared to similar classes? If not, then what is unbalanced about it?

It definetly sits below druid/cleric when it comes to spellcasting/supporting.

[The Kriv]

I am almost to 20 on my Swashbuckler, so going to list some comments.

GENERAL
1: Which of the new classes are you playing? - Swashbuckler
2: What is your intended build - Sun Elf: Swashbuckler (30) -though toying doing with an epic Specialist dip

FUN
3: What abilities are fun - the high parry bonus is a lot of fun. The survivability vs melee (and some casters who switch to melee) is really a blast.

4: What abilities are not fun / why? Well, the Parry does have its weaknesses... casters and archers eat my lunch... I have invested in some survivability feats to increase AC, but am unable to take advantage of them. What I wish you could get on a swashbuckler was 50% concealment that bypassed the "Blind Fight" feat... the 50% concealment would be considered a 50% 'dodge' chance to just side-step an attack, instead of be concealed from it. -heck... you could even call it 'side-step'

If this "side step" were a thing... this at LEAST would give some more survivability against the high-attack flurrys that you can only parry the FIRST attack of.



COMBAT
5: How is the leveling experience on it. Tricky. you have to be mobile, and position yourself well. Using the terrain to your tactical advantage, so that you have an avaneu of escape is essential. Getting surrounded and not being able to move is a big problem when dealing with large spawn numbers. -also, see above about casters and archers eating our lunch.

6: How has it fared in pvp (if applicable) N/A ... no one has yet challenged me in PvP.. I am guessing because they see how amazing a swordsman I am, that scares them off. If that is true or not. I can't say, but I'm going with it.

BALANCE
7: Are there any significant gaps that could be filled with gear? If so, what would be your suggestions for the gear? Swash really needs Dex. It really needs STR, It really needs INT, it Kinda needs CON (for survivability) It kinda needs CHA (for true RP) but more than anything it needs better Will Save. Like other non-UMD classes, it really suffers by low wisdom/will save.

8: Does it feel balanced compared to similar classes? If not, then what is unbalanced about it? Swash to me is like a fighter-rogue, with out the dungeoneering skill-set of the rogue. One of the strengthos of the Pen&Paper class of Swashbuckler was it's ability to "charge across difficult terrain" -which the fighter could not do. -in NWN there is no 'charge' so that's a bust. Also, in D&D a Swashbuckler could swing from a rope as a 'charge' and be able to do things like leap and such (things that tie onto the Acrobatic aspects of the class)

I wish this class had a king of limited teleport ability, where you could activate it... target the ground, and *BAM* teleport to that location... the distance should be limited, like 30 FEET or something... and make it so this ability could be something that is ONLY usable in combat... so that you don't have swashbucklers using it actually like 'teleport' -the idea here being that the Swashbuckler is able to use her acrobatic ability to swiftly move through the battlefield, and get out of sticky situations (or intentionally into sticky situations if they were stout of heart enough).

This ability also I feel like should be something that a heavy investment in Swashbuckler is needed... you don't want Swash-Dips just to get this. -so maybe it's a lvl 21+ Epic Swashbuckler ability.

Those would be the things I would modify if I were a talented coder. This class is a ton of fun. I really REALLY enjoy the parry skill.

I wish I could somehow keep the attention of the foes a little better, but that's about all that really sucks. (other than the caster/archer thing mentioned above)