Nerf Pale Master

[Jack Oat]

As far as discussion without knowing what is planned I think it is all moot. Some sort of nerf is incoming, we will see what it is and if it will make you happy.

Nothing will make me happy except the complete and total annihilation of the Pale Master class.

"PMs suk"
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[BHR55]

As far as discussion without knowing what is planned I think it is all moot. Some sort of nerf is incoming, we will see what it is and if it will make you happy.

Nothing will make me happy except the complete and total annihilation of the Pale Master class.

"PMs suk"
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Constructive.

They certainly did suck in vanilla NWN for anything besides high AC, and even then there were better options for melee.

[Kreydis]

Else I think we're just going to end up in the ditch of NO U sooner or later.

We've reached that point. I think the thread needs to be locked.

[Jack Oat]

Thread should have been locked when they said "Nerfs are coming."
Anything until then is just speculation or pointless input.

[Arienette]

Im currently lvling a caster PM. Some of these conversations have me a bit confused.

Is the concern over melee or caster PMs? Both?

On the other side of the coin i find myself on the "whole faction has to arm with gonnes" bit. That whole scenario actually led to a good bit of RP for us which i think is cool.

[BHR55]

Im currently lvling a caster PM. Some of these conversations have me a bit confused.

Is the concern over melee or caster PMs? Both?

On the other side of the coin i find myself on the "whole faction has to arm with gonnes" bit. That whole scenario actually led to a good bit of RP for us which i think is cool.

Without knowing what changes are planned, I can only speculate any changes whatever they might be would effect both.

Unless of course like a previous post suggested they are broken up into 'Paths'. Hopefully someone will reply with a hint at what is coming either way.

[Richørd]

I mean hey. We can just trash the entire conversation of "should we nerf PMs" with this.



No idea how. But someone went and did it.

[Vincent]

Probably by hiding the rest of their character sheet indicating it's a modified PC not on Arelith... as that's impossible, lol.

I would personally prefer they do not nerf the goodies pale masters are given from base NwN, and if it is felt nerfs are necessary, they are applied to the recent buffs instead. I mean, they've been like this for 16 years now. It's only with the flux of pale masters and the class tweaks that the consensus has suddenly become that they're overpowered. You sacrifice a great deal of practicality to be a "melee pale master" and if you have the smarts to bring some sort of counter for their summons, such as a scroll of undeath to death, their damage is comparable to an annoying gnat. As for caster pale masters, if I am not mistaken, they only gain half CL for all non-necromancy spells, or something along those lines. Therefore, anyone with a headband of protection, any cleric, or any drow, duergar etc should have a much easier time against them than a normal wizard.

I'm not in a handy position to test the many variables that could be a factor here, but to me it seems like there is an abundance of options for counterplay.

[Richørd]

As for caster pale masters, if I am not mistaken, they only gain half CL for all non-necromancy spells, or something along those lines. Therefore, anyone with a headband of protection, any cleric, or any drow, duergar etc should have a much easier time against them than a normal wizard.

*clears throat*

31 Jul, 2018
Undead Summoning
----------------
- Undead Summoning now has 7 Tiers.
- Tier 1 is unchanged, and applies when Undead Caster Level (UCL) is 1-4.
- Tier 2 are new summons, applying when UCL is 5-8.
- Tier 3 are the summons formerly Tier 2. They have been buffed slightly, and are summoned at UCL 9-12.
- Tier 4 are the summons formerly Tier 3. They are summoned at UCL 13-16.
- Tier 5 are new summons that are summoned at UCL 17 and above.
- Tiers 6 and 7 are summoned by the Mummy Dust Epic Feat.
- Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy now adds 1 use/day of Create Greater Undead to the Innate Ability token.
Pale Master
-----------
- Class levels now count as full caster levels for the purpose of resisting dispels.
- Class levels now count as full caster levels when casting spells of the Necromancy school.
- Deathless Master's Touch is now on a ten minute cooldown. The DC is now increased by the Pale Master's Intelligence or Charisma modifier (whichever is higher) and by Spell Foci in Necromancy, but now also respects death immunity. When used on an Undead Summon, this ability will heal that summon; this effect scales up with Pale Master class levels.
- Certain Necromancy School spells now function differently when cast by a Pale Master:
Ray of Enfeeblement scaling uncapped.
Death Armor scaling uncapped, additional damage scales at +1 per CL instead of +1 per 2 CL.
Scare HD limit removed.
Circle of Death HD limit is equal to Caster Level, if Caster Level is above 9.
Horrid Wilting will only do half damage against friendly targets.
Energy Drain and Enervate have +4 DC.
- At class level 10, the Pale Master gains Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy, so long as she already has Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy.
- At class level 13, the Pale Master gains Epic Spell: Mummy Dust so long as she has at least 20 Intelligence or Charisma.
- At class level 16, the Pale Master gains Epic Spell: Dragon Knight so long as she has at least 20 Intelligence or Charisma.

[Vincent]

Uh... yep, that's what I said, lol.

From the wiki: on top of the vanilla spell slots, each level of Pale Master adds +1 caster level for necromancy spells and every 2 levels adds +1 caster level to non-necromancy spells.

[Richørd]

Oh, right I missread what you wrote there. Anyways. It's probably about time this thread gets locked. People made their point.

[Durvayas]

As far as discussion without knowing what is planned I think it is all moot. Some sort of nerf is incoming, we will see what it is and if it will make you happy.

Nothing will make me happy except the complete and total annihilation of the Pale Master class.

"PMs suk"
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

And suddenly, everyone who clicks that link is on a government watchlist. Boi whatchu doin?

[Zed]

As a player of a "renowned" Necromancer/PM Character.

Heres my opinion.


Are PMs OP? Yes. theres no real arguement, they need a nerf.

is AC reduction going to fix it? No. Caster PMs need that AC, melee PMs definetly dont.


Summons= My opinion on this has never changed, Undead shouldnt be summoned, the spell should be changed so that the Undead use the Transmutation Focus golem creation system, just easier, and make the players of undead summoners/necromancers require to make the concious decision to create the undead and to have them follow you as henchmen.

This would require pre planning, but also allow necromancers the ability to create those armies of undead they want (Maybe max limit 6 or 8 and NO VAMPIRES - give them a new tier of a non-sentient undead)

[RedGiant]

As many others have stated on here, I have seen well-played, epic PMs with all the new bells and whistles get trashed by both melee and magic. I will say they are strong, but not nearly as OP as suggested. Also, there certainly is a trade-off to their survivability in that you simply cannot have 16lvls of PM without a serious hits to AB, DPS, or caster level. So, yes, currently you can make a meme PM designed for survivability, but this does not translate to always winning. They will inevitably be deprived of their summons when engaging a competent PvPer and forced to either rely on their wizarding tricks (which themselves will be substandard and/or DC based...and we all know how that goes) or on their (similarly) substandard sword play. In these cases, you might opine that they can simply run away. Congratulations, you've made an unkillable character in the same sense a 30th lvl meme speed monk is unkillable.

Jack's OP is brilliant on its statistical acrobatics, as usual, and its even funny, but I think it overestimates their strengths and critically underestimates all the ways there are to kill them. I would submit the primary weakness of PM is really unchanged: magic. Though, with the long reign of melee-centric build/balance theory on Arelith, I'm not sure most are even considering this...

[CosmicOrderV]

The crafting undead thing sounds like a lot of fun. Might also help solidify why necromancy is frowned upon by others, if in this circumstance the undead aren't unsummoned when disused. They instead just hostile everything around, sort of like oozes from the oozemaster. It turns the creation of undead into a fairly real threat to normal life, and all around irresponsible thing to do.

Granted, that would be extra work to script, so I understand some hesitation there. Might be easier to require some small measure of material component for casting undead summoning spells, and then have them go auto-hostile on everything nearby when dismissed. Still, discovery process of figuring out which ingredients make the strongest undead, would be really cool and immersive.

That said, for PM's specifically, just taking away some of their free feats seems like the really simple route. Simply be removing 1 free epic feat, you force them to pick between dracolich or epic mage armor. That seems like a fair trade, considering all the other buffs they'd still retain. Now you simply have to choose damage or tankiness, instead of both.

[The Rambling Midget]

The crafting undead thing sounds like a lot of fun. Might also help solidify why necromancy is frowned upon by others, if in this circumstance the undead aren't unsummoned when disused.

I like the idea of this mechanic creating master/apprentice or cult/coven RP where PMs work together to achieve their physical changes and continue to support each other in creating replacement undead.

[Zed]

Yep,

Creating undead in PnP is sooo much different than here. and it should be something that actually has people conciously making that decision. I dont believe it should take much more scripting than taking the current golem script, and adding it to undead models and doing coding magic to make it work properly.

One thing I have noticed with summoner necros in general is that either the players or the characters do not feel like its anything different than summoning a spider to their side, or a direbear.


As for the PMs, this is what I would personally suggest:

remove bard from the equation.

Make PMs hard evil requirement, and a token for neutral

PMs get AC from levels 1-8 but no more

and any PM leveled above level 14 should be considered "half undead"
Healing potions do not work, and healing spells deal 50% damage to PMs.

There is not a sufficient amount of lore behind a PM that would constitute this, but there is no sufficient amount of lore available for any PM past level 10. As far as we know, and can infer from the class that the PMs continue to expiriment on themselves past the grafting and past the crit immunity. So the Likeliest and the logical answer to the lore is that the PM begins to reside somewhere between life and death, and eventually will pass that threshold of 50% undead, into more undead than NOT undead.

I think if you added more ways to damage them thoroughly, then it would be as simple as atleast treating them as half undead. while not removing the benefits to being one.


Also make PMs a token again. Its far to ridiculous. and I love PMs

[Aelryn Bloodmoon]

Jack's OP is brilliant on its statistical acrobatics, as usual, and its even funny, but I think it overestimates their strengths and critically underestimates all the ways there are to kill them. I would submit the primary weakness of PM is really unchanged: magic. Though, with the long reign of melee-centric build/balance theory on Arelith, I'm not sure most are even considering this...

Interestingly enough, I had this exact debate with Jack, and he had numbers that made me seriously pause and re-evaluate my stance. Even with a true flame with full caster level progression, who is uniquely suited to fighting pale masters in the form of not having to conserve their damage output, the numbers are dicey at best and outside of the hellball/g.ruin volley mostly end in stalemates against chugged healing potions. The critical aspect is whether or not the true flame can slip the necessary sunbursts into his spell chains to render the vampires/other undead summons inert and potentially blind the palemaster (although a well-built and geared one is only going to fail on a 1, most likely- which was a big part of what I hadn't considered in my stance).

If he can't, he loses- the PM has enough HP to survive the initial HB/GR burst and begin healing through it. The TF can try throwing hand spells, to render the PM vulnerable, but again - those saves vs. spells.

But that just means a TF needs to grab a -guard(ing) buddy and get to work, to me.


I 100% agree with the sentiment about creating undead vs. them being summoned having an impact on how these things are viewed. Most undead in core FR material aren't summoned, they're created/animated. When the creator is done with them, they roam free unless he destroys them - and yeah, they're still life-hating/devouring undead monsters that're going to go eat someone. Destroying them is also inconvenient, because it means if you want to replace them later you need another fresh corpse to defile.

I feel animal companions and familiars could do with a similar tweak, if only so that people are more conscientious of their fixed role in their life, and their importance to the character.... but I'm digressing again, so I'm gonna go now.

[Shadowy Reality]

Creating undead sounds awesome and made me super excited for a feature that does not even exist.

I would love to have to go about the server and harvest parts from different monsters, and then assemble them into an undead, its strength being directly tied to the materials you use. Would also love that they could be destroyed and you had to create more, so it gives necromancers a reason to keep a 'stash' of undead somewhere.

[Drowble Oh Seven]

I feel like it's one of those ideas that sounds great in principle but would very quickly become an exercise in tedium and grinding. Summons are finicky and prone to dying stupid deaths because the player tool wasn't quite working, or a patching issue, or any other of a myriad of reasons, and making it a lengthy process to replace them sounds like it would very quickly wear thin. Though, if it was done, I suspect you could reuse elements of the golemcrafting system for a similar effect.

Not to say that I don't like the idea of RPing creating undead monstrosities. But you can do that already. Nothing's stopping us getting expeditions together to find bits for our latest creepifying undead horror for the fun house.

But; back on topic, in absolute agreement. PMs are a little silly, presently. I'm very glad to see them returning to being a viable wizard class, rather than the melee weirdness that's dominated for a good long while, but we might've swung a bit too hard into buff territory.

[Dagonlives]

I'm in agreement with this thread. Palemasters simply have too much defensive power for very little comparative investment.

[Vrass]

You think PMs are bad here should see them in NWN2. Far stronger and there is an epic necromancy spell you can learn called Vampiric Feast that can easily wipe out dozens of lv 30 characters and which is almost impossible to protect or save against. Oh and it ignores Deathward and any other anti-necro wards.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I'm not really going to debate numbers, since people who know them better then I do have already said a lot, but is it possible that the lack of real consequence for being a pale master is part of the problem? I mean you are partially undead, so any civilized society would immediately try and keep you out, which could be represented with how (I think) the exile system works...NPC guards spot you they try and kill you. If pcs reacted in the right way to them too, they would actually be really difficult to play and therefore not as common even if they are super powerful.



As a disclaimer, I'm a bit of a sadist when I play scary evil and would love to have these sort of challenges to deal with. Could be I'm the only one though, making this "not a suggestion because the suggestion thread is closed" moot.

[-XXX-]

The social RP consequences for PMs are fairly harsh already (especially on the surface). Add more oil to the fire and we might reach a point where PMs would actually require a BUFF in order to make them even remotely fun or playable.

[Nitro]

The social RP consequences for PMs are fairly harsh already (especially on the surface). Add more oil to the fire and we might reach a point where PMs would actually require a BUFF in order to make them even remotely fun or playable.

Honestly, I see more people angry at warlocks than I do palemasters.