Arelith

I'm still confused why we're comparing a race to a class, and only taking it off that face value.

Do vampires themselves not have classes of their own? A ton of tool kits, spells and abilities they can utilize?

I don't see people making vampire commoners.

Yes healing energy burning undead is a strong suit, but again you're still thinking of this in a setting that is perfect scenario for the cleric 100% of the time.

And you seem to constantly be comparing this to a 1v1 between a vampire and a high level cleric. No one's saying you have to roam around with a gank squad 24/7, however you really shouldn't be trying to 1v1 a cleric or paladin as a vampire.

Yeah, the cleric has strengths against a vampire. But part of the reason vampires should be afraid of priests is the turn undead. If they aren't afraid of a cleric turning them, then that does ruin the immersion end of the cleric.

I'm not saying that the 8-9 round fear should 100% stay in effect, but if a vampire is not actively afraid a cleric might turn them, then I feel like that kinda ruins -most- D&D settings not just arelith.

Vampires as a race get a bunch of positives, and entire class level kits to work with. They have some downsides, and most of those downsides revolve around "Don't take Clerics and Paladins casually or you might lose your head"

As long as you aren't around a hostile cleric or paladin you're in many ways simply better than most other races in most situations.

After more internal discussion, we've decided to change the fear to the kind that applies certain penalties instead of outright removing all player agency to the character.

The penalties won't be light and they'll apply a malus to AB, AC, Saves, Skills, and Spellcasting Failure.

The duration will be a flat 5 rounds, and the target can only be affected by the same turner once every 10 rounds.

Remove Fear will not negate or prevent this kind of Turn Undead fear.

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:19 am

After more internal discussion, we've decided to change the fear to the kind that applies certain penalties instead of outright removing all player agency to the character.

The penalties won't be light and they'll apply a malus to AB, AC, Saves, Skills, and Spellcasting Failure.

The duration will be a flat 5 rounds, and the target can only be affected by the same turner once every 10 rounds.

Remove Fear will not negate or prevent this kind of Turn Undead fear.

Excellent! Thank you for the update!

I think it might be fair to take another look at the -pray command (now that it doesn't control the character), and maybe make it so this change can't be removed with a -pray?

(also maybe reduce spell resistance as part of the penalty too, not just saves, for maybe the one or two cheeky vamp monks out there if there are any?)

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:19 am

After more internal discussion, we've decided to change the fear to the kind that applies certain penalties instead of outright removing all player agency to the character.

The penalties won't be light and they'll apply a malus to AB, AC, Saves, Skills, and Spellcasting Failure.

The duration will be a flat 5 rounds, and the target can only be affected by the same turner once every 10 rounds.

Remove Fear will not negate or prevent this kind of Turn Undead fear.

Thank you so much!!! This sounds perfect!

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:19 am

After more internal discussion, we've decided to change the fear to the kind that applies certain penalties instead of outright removing all player agency to the character.

I will simply add that if this is the standard fright aura effect then turn undead will stay a flavourful ability, while loosing applicability in a fight.

To add some context, a cleric would spend an action to have a 50% chance to inflict penalties which are removable by greater restoration and pray.

That said, if the team have moved forward with this in knowledge of the race's strength then I will respect it. You know more than me after all.

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:19 am

After more internal discussion, we've decided to change the fear to the kind that applies certain penalties instead of outright removing all player agency to the character.

The penalties won't be light and they'll apply a malus to AB, AC, Saves, Skills, and Spellcasting Failure.

The duration will be a flat 5 rounds, and the target can only be affected by the same turner once every 10 rounds.

Remove Fear will not negate or prevent this kind of Turn Undead fear.

A debuff that can be removed with Restoration? Seems like Turn Undead just became a trivial ability.

While the AB/AC/Save/Skill malus are often known to be removable by Restoration/Greater Restoration, the ones specific to Turn Undead are also tagged with "Fear", which they should not be able to be removed by restoration of any kind.

Of course, after this goes live, feel free to test it out and let us know if we missed anything. The intended clear for the Turn Undead fear should be -pray and dying for now.

I'm for this change. The penalties are far from trivial and vanilla fear was considered so debilitating it was changed for literally every other character on the server. Vampire strengths acknowledged, but as Skibbles and others pointed out, there are a host of already devastating powers in a cleric's arsenal to use against Vampires, from mass heal to sunburst. As stated previously, there is no positive energy protection potion/scroll/anything that can save you from heal the way literally any other character can save from harm, nor is there a mass harm equivalent which meaningfully heals the Vampire while withering their enemies, nor is there a death ward for sunburst.

Sun Domain still has its very powerful niche vs. undead and I really don't know any Vampire build, barbarian included, that can feel rightly confident facing one even after this change, let alone some of the new Paladin Oaths with their fully functional bless weapon.

Tl;dr - 'I win button' subbed for 'maybe the Vampire can flee' mechanic. This actually creates more RP opportunities IMO.

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 3:09 am

While the AB/AC/Save/Skill malus are often known to be removable by Restoration/Greater Restoration, the ones specific to Turn Undead are also tagged with "Fear", which they should not be able to be removed by restoration of any kind.

Of course, after this goes live, feel free to test it out and let us know if we missed anything. The intended clear for the Turn Undead fear should be -pray and dying for now.

https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Greater_restoration

Notes

The effects it can remove are limited to those removable by restoration (penalties to ability scores, armor class, attack and damage rolls, damage immunity, saving throws, spell resistance, and skills, as well as blindness, deafness, level drain, and paralysis) plus curses, diseases, poison, and slowed. It also (despite the in-game description) removes the following negative mental effects: charmed, confused, dazed, dominated, frightened, and stunned.
An undead target is not restored to full hit points.

I checked for spell changes on the wiki, but didn't see any mention of changes to the base function outside of the 240 second cooldown timers, food/rest/thirst meter resets, and curing the nightmare curse.

Presumably, if this fear effect is the same kind of unblockable/unremovable fear associated with turning, you should be good, but the testing sounds like a good idea.

I like the idea, regardless.

Kenji wrote: ↑

Mon Jan 03, 2022 3:09 am

While the AB/AC/Save/Skill malus are often known to be removable by Restoration/Greater Restoration, the ones specific to Turn Undead are also tagged with "Fear", which they should not be able to be removed by restoration of any kind.

Of course, after this goes live, feel free to test it out and let us know if we missed anything. The intended clear for the Turn Undead fear should be -pray and dying for now.

This is definitely much better And just to clarify, this change only affects PCs being turned, not NPCs, correct?