WM?

[FurnishMyFlatForCheap]

I started writing something else, but as I was thinking about how to defeat the argument I was making. Basically I just got stuck on WM. Essentially I was thinking about how to bridge the gap between melee and caster. Should breaches be much harder to attain. Why can fighter stop time and summon gate and just do all the wizardly things but also pump out just absurd critical damage without end but I just would end up back to ok what if you can’t breach biteback or premo but also can’t one round someone with 3,4,5…600 damage?! And it’s still difficult but the chasm between melee and caster becomes more narrow.

Without upending the apple cart with change this change that. Would we lose that much if WM just went away? For the record I have a WM with 4x weapon it is crazy.

Does it beat every build of all time? No of course not, but that’s mostly other martials. So you’re just pitting one fighter vrs slightly different fighter and saying this is fine.

Thoughts?

[Security_Blanket]

I don't think Weapon Master is the real problem in terms of mundies being stronger than casters, I think Loremaster is the problem.

[Kythana]

I don't think Weapon Master is the real problem in terms of mundies being stronger than casters, I think Loremaster is the problem.

Not really. It's a problem, for sure, but it's not why mundane are stronger.

It has more to do with the spellcraft change, and how any character can gear to extremely high levels of saves. This makes the traditional high casting stat DC caster not very effective.

Beyond that, Warlock exists, and is broken. Just slightly less so now after the summon nerf, but still very, very powerful. It's only really things like caster FVS, shaman, wizard, sorc being left behind. And even then, wizard and sorc have their niches.

[Security_Blanket]

There are a number of issues, and fair enough, it can't all be put on Loremaster, though it is a contributing factor. I would say the biggest problem is the difficulty class of spells not changing and all the ways you can gain saves and saves vs spells. But casters are still stuck at the limited Intelligence, Charisma, and Wisdom, it's a whole lot easier to bring all your saves up by one point than to bring your main casting stat up by two. That's not even taking into account all the immunities you can get from the casting of a couple spells from wands/scrolls/potions, so you'd have to dispel them and then deal with their high saves and pray to God you don't get slapped with a critical that'll interrupt your spellcasting.

[Anomandaris]

I don't think Weapon Master is the real problem in terms of mundies being stronger than casters, I think Loremaster is the problem.

Respectfully Loremaster is not the problem (currently playing a wizard main fwiw).

Loremaster is not required for builds to get 80 lore and 35 UMD. LM also offers CL stacking so is actually useful for some caster builds that otherwise would struggle more with a different dip.

The issue is grossly over tuned AB, Damage, Crit Ranges, Saves, and ease of access to higher tier magic (timestop, gate, Mords, Anti-magic Rods, +5 Enhancement Bonuses on weapons etc). LM is not the issue, it just is part of it. I could care less about LM enabling access to scry/ward/yoink as well.

The other big issue affecting mechanical balance is the fundamental difference between action economy of martial builds vs. casters (APR vs Spells per Round) and the relative value of said actions, as well as interruptibility due to the concentration mechanic.

Lastly the fact that casters have lower CL than mundanes is just an ongoing joke that needs to be addressed. A 27/3 Wizard should not have a lower CL on their wards than a Rogue Fighter, please remedy this already. It's not good for balance, and it's not good for setting coherence.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

kill mundanes by making the CL of consumables also apply to vs dispel CL

[Shadowy Reality]

Or switching the WM multiplier with extra AB over the levels, let them keep the increased range.

[Edens_Fall]

Is it just me, or does it sometimes feel that the loot drop rate of items used in battle by melee builds is higher than it needs to be? These include the Time Stop books, rods, and gems. Mostly the books, however.

[-XXX-]

It's not just saves. Runes allow for 4-stat gearing. This greatly increases the value of double-dipping features that now instead of a trade-off represent pure synergy.

Yes, I am talking about the good old Divine Shield/Might that in many builds represents +10 to +14 AC/dmg for a mere 3 lvl dip, which is just ridiculous.
Same could have been said about monk AC bonus before it got changed. I dunno why Div dips remain untouched TBH.

Also... delete antimagic rods. These belong in the era of artefact comedy Arelith.

[Anomandaris]

Also... delete antimagic rods. These belong in the era of artefact comedy Arelith.

Or we should add rods of Noodle Arm, which savelessly reduces AB by 40 and APR by 5….

Sounds terrible? Yep, that’s why we need to get rid of anti magic rods. Buy a guaranteed win vs a mage with 50k? #balance

[Kythana]

I dunno why Div dips remain untouched TBH.

Div dips are not good today, that's why.(With a couple of exceptions, maybe.) Too much wind up in a meta where action economy efficiency is extremely important. If you're using both might and shield, then you want to go for synergy. Beyond that, it's not worth.

[Mamma ama Warlock]

Also... delete antimagic rods. These belong in the era of artefact comedy Arelith.

Or we should add rods of Noodle Arm, which savelessly reduces AB by 40 and APR by 5….

Sounds terrible? Yep, that’s why we need to get rid of anti magic rods. Buy a guaranteed win vs a mage with 50k? #balance

No, just make the rod dispel every single magical effect and disable all magical items (all soft bonuses) carried by the user for the effect's duration. It should affect both

Also make Silence block spellcasting from wands, scrolls and tomes, making spellcasting classes with access to Silent Spell Metamagic have an effective counter to consumable spam if they chose to. Yes, absolutely a double-edged sword (as it should be), that will require extra fiddiling, but should be effective.

Powerful, ubiquitous effects should have drawbacks.

[Lord Blacktooth]

kill mundanes by making the CL of consumables also apply to vs dispel CL

[Ironsides]

kill mundanes by making the CL of consumables also apply to vs dispel CL

Honestly and unironically we should do this and I don't understand why we don't. Its the way it works everywhere else.

Especially with the recent commentary on wanting to encourage partying up for dungeons. Want buffs that can survive being dispelled? Take an actual caster.

[Anomandaris]

kill mundanes by making the CL of consumables also apply to vs dispel CL

Honestly and unironically we should do this and I don't understand why we don't. Its the way it works everywhere else.

Especially with the recent commentary on wanting to encourage partying up for dungeons. Want buffs that can survive being dispelled? Take an actual caster.

I remember long ago when combo mages reigned supreme, and it was not great for balance either. But since then a clear and consistent trend has been going on for a while to whittle away at mage power WHILE power creeping martial builds concurrently.

Haven’t heard a single good justification for why all mundanes need cl 30 or it’s a balance disaster but somehow a mage doesn’t when it’s all they have..

[Ascended Mage]

Thoughts?

This is more issue of basics NWN that not intended for balancing anything past 20th levels and from Arelith team it was mistake allow 30th level as max level. And after that there is no point turning back. I say it is mistake, because echoes of this descicision follows us from ancient days to this very moments by adding more complicated features, classes and spells to close such giant difference between big juicy numbers and million attacks vs two casts per round. It will never be resolved until some brightest minds of Arelith team will come to solution to change big part of casters classes or willing to remake whole Arelith to new level range.

[Naghast]

Imo the fact that so many balance changes had to be made specifically because of weaponmaster passives, combined with how common it is to just shove weaponmaster into every melee build (even dex), plus the previous sentiment that non-wm mundanes (so not paladins and not spellswords) are just kinda underwhelming, warrants a look into the situation as whole, and into weaponmaster specifically.

Hell, such looks into it probably happened already.

[Biolab00]

Weapon master is basically playing with RNG.
Sure you can crit VERY hard but the crit roll is based on your threat range.

Those overwhelming numbers are basically if the weapon begins with 3x and bump to 4x with weapon master.
Originally, Scythe was 4x before it was then nerfed.

So...for all 3x weapons, the maximum threat range that you can get is -
Improved Crit ( 19-20 )
Keen ( 18-20 )
Weapon Master feat ( 16-20 )

That's 20% out of 100% chance to proc a critical.
[ Your Threat Roll also need to beat the enemy AC for Crit to proc. So the actual chance is lesser than 20% )
And how frequent you proc your critical is also affected by the opposing armor class and concealment.

Fulfilling a weapon master often need you to be very feat starved which is a trade off.
You don't often find a weapon master with high AC because of that.

Sure, you may say what about Barb / fighter / WM ?
That's an old build, very very old in fact that you do not see much topic around this particular build anymore. It's not even top tier tbh.

Here's where spellswords come again... Spellswords are 100% stronger than any weaponmaster combos.
If anyone can argue my above statement...i'll be very very keen to know as well.

[Shadowy Reality]

When you have a 10-20 range and 5 attacks per round the RNG is fairly consistent.
Melee damage in Arelith is too high, it's slowly been creeping up over the years. We used to only have Masterly Damask weapons, with keened versions being relatively rare to attain. With the coming of Runes and now that every weapon type has a unique +4 weapon with keen and a few other things, the AB and damage numbers have only gone up.

The issue with WM has and always been that it amplifies the base damage, if the base damage grows due to weapons being buffed, WM will amplify that growth. It is not by chance that WM5/7 is crammed into so many different builds, it's just that good. Barbarian/WM, Swash/WM, Ranger/WM, Fighter/WM, CoT/WM, we got it all, in the past we even had Spellsword/WM, Monk/WM, we will soon likely have Harbinger/WM.

You may argue they aren't even that good compared to Spellswords - yeah, because you picked the one class everyone still agrees is still a bit over-tuned. But WMs are still very much meta. The issue WMs have that most other builds do not is that in PvP they are oppressive and not really fun to play against. You make a tiny mistake and you get punished really hard. Or you get unlucky and you get punished really hard.

Divine builds? They are hard to hit because of their AC, they hit relatively hard but you can survive quite a few hits, you can create distance, try to come back.
With WMs, against a 10-20 x3 you get crit twice in a round (which is very likely) you eat around 200-250 damage. That's probably close to 50% of most build's HP. You are against a 16-20 x4? If you get unlucky and get crit twice you are looking at 400-500 damage, which is most build's HP.

It's not fun to die instantly to anything, and that is what WMs feel like a lot of the time.

[-XXX-]

Yeah, keen's become the standard - which wasn't really the case before.
A little over a year ago, one could peddle off pure zardazik shards for 2,000,000 gold coins because a keened MD weapon was still pretty much the BiS.
Masterwork blade runes and pure zardazik shards became more common + we've received alternatives in craftable runic weapons, so here we are.

[AlonelyBard]

I think it should be said that out of all the classes, WM is one of the few that has seen effectively no changes from the original NWN class release. This means that it's not excatly a misbalance on the Devs' side of things, but in my opinion rather a problem of NWN as a whole. You don't take WM because it gives you a +1 to attack usually, or because of the max damage on hit a couple times a day.
We all know why we take WM and it's because of crits, crits are absolutely wild in NWN due to the way that ability score bonuses interact with the game as a whole.
In 3.x you'll rarely get anything higher than a non-stacking +6 ability score bonus to your STR.
For most builds this would mean a maximum STR bonus of +12 per hit with a 2h weapon. Meanwhile on Arelith(and NWN as a whole) you'll be at 26 STR by level 4, often hitting +15 STR mods for these builds which means you're looking at a +22 STR mod on 2h weapons. Suddenly a crit with a falchion turns from a +36 damage, to a +66 damage, 7 WM opens up the world of x4 crits and we all remember the smite crit builds with sycthes that could hit 1000 damage on crit.
The issue is that we have massive stat bloat, not just in Arelith but NWN as a whole; it leads to Damage, DCs, Saves, and near everything else entering absurd territory, where 60 ac and 55 ab are considered "normal"
Weapon Master is a problem that has existed throughout the entire history of NWN, and it's one of the most "hardcoded" problems ever thanks to the greater culture of Arelith and NWN as a community. I'd personally like to see WM just locked out as a class and see the rest of the martials buffed to meet some kind of standard, as it is, every single martial class has to be balanced around the possibility of WM, just like how every archery build has to be balanced around the fact that an elf could take AA with it.

[AstralUniverse]

Guys the problem is never WM. WM (and for the matter, also battle cleric) is something you balance the whole game around.

[Jencent]

Probably i avoid a huge problem just because 90% of my PC are PM, right?

[Biolab00]

I think it should be said that out of all the classes, WM is one of the few that has seen effectively no changes from the original NWN class release. This means that it's not excatly a misbalance on the Devs' side of things, but in my opinion rather a problem of NWN as a whole. You don't take WM because it gives you a +1 to attack usually, or because of the max damage on hit a couple times a day.
We all know why we take WM and it's because of crits, crits are absolutely wild in NWN due to the way that ability score bonuses interact with the game as a whole.
In 3.x you'll rarely get anything higher than a non-stacking +6 ability score bonus to your STR.
For most builds this would mean a maximum STR bonus of +12 per hit with a 2h weapon. Meanwhile on Arelith(and NWN as a whole) you'll be at 26 STR by level 4, often hitting +15 STR mods for these builds which means you're looking at a +22 STR mod on 2h weapons. Suddenly a crit with a falchion turns from a +36 damage, to a +66 damage, 7 WM opens up the world of x4 crits and we all remember the smite crit builds with sycthes that could hit 1000 damage on crit.
The issue is that we have massive stat bloat, not just in Arelith but NWN as a whole; it leads to Damage, DCs, Saves, and near everything else entering absurd territory, where 60 ac and 55 ab are considered "normal"
Weapon Master is a problem that has existed throughout the entire history of NWN, and it's one of the most "hardcoded" problems ever thanks to the greater culture of Arelith and NWN as a community. I'd personally like to see WM just locked out as a class and see the rest of the martials buffed to meet some kind of standard, as it is, every single martial class has to be balanced around the possibility of WM, just like how every archery build has to be balanced around the fact that an elf could take AA with it.

I'm an old player of NWN so i can vividly recalled that WM was never about the extra crit multiplier originally.
It's really just about the extra threat range when Devastating Critical were still a thing.
Granted, it has been removed since gazillion years ago.
Before touching WM, i would rather Spellsword gets a hard nerf. This class is more problematic than WM ever was.

[MissEvelyn]

Weapon Master is due for a rework. Tuning down the overall power, but making each Weapon of Choice come with unique abilities would be a place to start.

Either that, or pathed WMs. In this case we would welcome inspiration from all sorts of source material. 2e had so many fun Fighter kits added over the years.