My character is a Gift of Magthere drow. I am aware others exist. When Vampires and Rakshasa had an across-the-board buff: Past Vampires and Rakshasa were retroactively given access to new gift to add to their disguise, or whatever it was they believed benefitted their character.
I feel like everything that made my character ECL +3 has been removed from my character without compensation or acknowledgment of those changes; and without the ability to compete in the modern meta in those areas of choice. I am using my specific character only as one example -- others exist, even as alts by people I play with.
My SR was reduced, but I was not given a gift to compensate for the change in ECL the DMs provided to Drow.
Without a greater gift -- my character is effectively down 2 Epic Feats to reach the same level as other drow; and anything that I can do in compensation can be done by those same drow characters.
Without the Fighter AC after having regeared my character is in a weird place; but a nerf was needed and I accepted and began to regear and change my class setup to meet the intended balance changesl.
After regearing AGAIN ... and commissioning another sword worth millions of gold to meet the new fighter changes; Kensai removal was announced; in a move that I generally agree is good for the game, my character must lose access to additional skills in order to pick up lore or UMD to compensate for their weakness putting additional pressure including the loss of 2 points of stacking AC -- meaning I have to find a way to alter my character gearing again.
Without a lesser gift, because of the necessity of Gift of Magthere, my character is effectively down a lesser gift that would provide her up to a +6 bonus in spot or sail in order to stay competitive with other builds. 30 hitpoints is not compensation to 70 hitpoint blasts of a warlock or melee crits -- and while this was fine before Kensai was removed.. it stops being fine when you don't have the intellect to fit the loremaster build and the change comes after you locked in and need restats just to play a new version of the same class you've always played.
I have spent hundreds of hours just since some of these changes were announced trying to compensate for them. These bonuses are NOT "small things you can plan around" because of the very nature of how bonuses stack on Arelith. They raise the UPPER LIMITS rather than diversifying what your character is capable of, and any other drow is capable of cookie-cuttering what I have planned ... and I am not.. and so I am caught in a really weird spot -- which is why I'd like my character to be standardized since I've /already/ done the grind now multiple times to keep up with changes and the "hits" just keep coming in very, very rapid succession /while/ I try to compensate to the past changes.
I think Drow in this period should have access to regifts similar to the above other races given that the reason for their denial in the past was listed as "keeping their uniqueness" -- when all uniqueness from that era has already been removed -- and I don't think this is a situation where I am the only one caught out, given the Rakshasa and Vampire gift changes.
I've heard others mention it, and I'd like to see this feature made available to other non-conforming races/species on Arelith when the staff makes large changes. I am for instance, aware of 5% Tieflings from the old days who have NO gifts and NO bloodline sitting in people's vaults -- and I don't think those people's investments in Arelith are worth less than those of some who have been compensated, where they have not.
I'd like to see a way to bring some of these older characters into regulation and up to date with modern expectations so that the only solution is not to destabilize active factions and active storylines with regards to characters who are out of regs.
Having participated in the ticket and forum request systems multiple times over my time in Arelith: This is my feedback on the way these things are handled on Arelith.
Rolling is an RP choice, designed to enhance RP -- not something that people should be forced out of in an inability to keep up when features such as -relevel exist on a continuous basis. Spending 4 epic feats to get up to standards with other non-reward characters in the same fields feels like it's stretched the Gift logic of preserving different periods /really/ far when the need to do this in order to manage in spars with peers you previously used to compete within the areas you're specialized in (like Spot, or not getting knocked down due to epic feats - or gifts WORTH multiple epic feats) has nothing to do with the RP going on -- or even the intended balance changes... this is even as benign as friends in spars; an inability to keep up with power-creep creating an inability to have fun.
But I think this is an inconsistent application of rulings -- even if you want high drow turnover; the same issue existed at the time among Rakshasa and Vampire players which is why they are number-limited and so many people get turned down for those requests; hence my - intended respectfully! - feedback on this inconsistency.. and I think that is fair.
And to me? Other people's existing, past and future investment in my character and her RP matters a lot.
For the record: I am not intending to roll my character or abandon people's existing RP regardless. I'll do as I've always done and just play the game -- but I think I've made several valid points on this topic that I would like to have examined by higher-level staff; and if the reasoning is that the tech doesn't exist-- I feel like looking into it would help Arelith in future, unforeseen circumstances that would allow PEOPLE (with time far more limited than mine) to stop making IC excuses to grind for OOC problems and get back to their rivalries, their relationships to each other, and focusing on relevant plots. I wanna stop grinding, but I also want to be able to participate in the game relevant to my current time investment rather than becoming a potentially losing investment because of stats.
Edits completed.
