Dragon Buff

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Maybe we should be doing things like tone down how high saves can be via enchanting. I understand everything has to be somewhat scaled to optomized builds, but its gotten ridiculous over the years as everyone has better saving throws than gods. In normal dnd the most youd get is a plus 5 cloak of resistance and other resistance bonuses (via items or similar spells) would not stack. I know it's not regular DnD, but the escalation has gotten a bit ridiculous if we are at a point that a non god dragon has a wing buffet that could knockdown demigods with ease just so that dragons can be great again.

[CosmicOrderV]

Could always go the 5E route. Hike up the breath weapon damage die, but nerf the wing buffet. For all creatures that use it, too.

Wyverns in a level 10 zone, who can wing buffet, can be absolutely brutal. I think the dc is only around 18, but at level 10, being poorly geared and taking wyvern poison while you cant get up off the floor is many times a death sentence.

[Subutai]

A few people have mentioned "fun", and that's what I keep coming back to. If you build and gear your character properly in order to have the absurdly high Fort necessary to resist Wing Buffet, dragons can be fun, but otherwise, it's just a lot of frustration. If you're melee and don't have the time, gold, or build ability to spec for 40+ Fort, you spend the entire fight on your back. If you're ranged, you either spend the whole fight on your back or the whole fight running around trying to avoid constant Wing Buffets as the dragon comes flying at you and taking off again when the meleers go down.

What you get to really quickly is that unless you build for it, gear for it, and know exactly what you're doing when you get there, the fight just isn't fun. It's not challenging. It's not difficult in the "It's too strong we need to run away and try again" way. It's just frustrating because you're lying there, unable to attack, unable to run, unable to do anything and as soon as you get back up, another Wing Buffet knocks you down.

Overall, the overreliance on Wing Buffet spamming just means that, for most players most of the time, they're just going to be frustrated and annoyed, rather than having fun or being challenged in an interesting way.

From another point of view, Wing Buffet doesn't make much sense physically. Dragons are huge, with huge wings, and yet the manage to rocket into the air as a free action every other turn and knock everyone down. How do they get their wings moving that fast? How do they take off so easily when they weigh like a thousand tons? It seems like it should be a full-round action, at least, and not last nearly as long as it does.

[MissEvelyn]

The problem is not a dungeon being hard, or very hard. The problem is the insane ramp up in challenge that people have no way to know about without metagaming it. If the portal was accessible before the dragon, it would go along way to make clear the dragon is not "core" content for that dungeon, but an extra.

This line of thinking could open up an option for both those who enjoy powerbuilding and those who don't care much for their builds.
Imagine if nearly every dungeon had a 'main' area with its boss and its escape route (portal or shortcut or what have you), and then there was an 'elevated' area, which was significantly more difficult than the main dungeon area. The elevated area would, of course, have its own loot and boss. Perhaps there would be subtle warnings to inform the player characters that beyond this point things get really, really tough.
These elevated areas in a dungeon would have nothing to do with writ quests, naturally.

If this became realized we could finally put to rest the age old debate of powerbuilds vs RP builds, since dungeons would be built to suit both playstyles.

EDIT: Words and typos.

[Berried]

This line of thinking could open up an option for both those who enjoy powerbuilding and those who don't care much for their builds.
Imagine if nearly every dungeon had a 'main' area with its boss and its escape route (portal or shortcut or what have you), and then there was an 'elevated' area, which was significantly more difficult than the main dungeon area. The elevated area would, of course, have its own loot and boss. Perhaps there would be subtle warnings to inform the player characters that beyond this point things get really, really tough.
These elevated areas in a dungeon would have nothing to do with writ quests, naturally.

If this became realized we could finally put to rest the age old debate of powerbuilds vs RP builds, since dungeons would be built to suit both playstyles.

EDIT: Words and typos.

Ehhhh. I don't know.

I mean, on one hand, I personally know two pals who've tried to get into Arelith. One dropped it after level 12 and the other attempted the derro tunnels once before saying 'Or we could just play a different game'. The latter is someone who has 558 games on steam (and 1,192 dlc owned), and he clearly enjoys optimizing for new game mechanics. The former is a trilingual historian fluent in both German and French, and clearly doesn't shy away from mastering new things in general.

So I don't think it's because dungeons are difficult. Honestly they're... really, really not. They just require you to know Arelith's mechanics, which involves a lot of information. Said information isn't centralized anywhere (one has to bounce between Arelith's wiki and the NWN wiki, which have 436 and 3,695 articles respectively), and said information is often wrong or outdated or inaccessibly formatted. One is also frequently forced to wonder "uhh, was that supposed to happen or is that a bug?".

I try to guide new players to the Arelith discord and the forums if they need help. First of all, I want to thank every veteran player who has ever taken the time to help new players with the game. It's one of the things that makes this community so special.

Second of all, veteran players are often wrong, have outdated information, don't understand what new players are asking, use intra-community jargon that a new player wouldn't know, make fun of new players for being new (I've heard the word 'retard' get bandied about) or turn noob questions into an opportunity to start arguing with each other about mechanics (these arguments get heated enough to reflect poorly on the community at large). That's assuming the player even gets a response to their question. I've seen new players outright ignored.

Which leaves new players to either 1. give up on arelith entirely or 2. give up on optimizing and focus on RPing. Which is, I think, where you get 'rp builds'.

I don't think the solution is to make rp build kiddie pools, I think the solution is to make resources for noobs, or even just... be less hostile if they ask things.

[Dreams]

I enjoy seeing Dragons as a very large and powerful thing that require a huge amount of strategy and numbers to bring down, and even then not have it be a guaranteed kill. DnD is all about having these creatures as the BIG BAD. Buff them more.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I enjoy seeing Dragons as a very large and powerful thing that require a huge amount of strategy and numbers to bring down, and even then not have it be a guaranteed kill. DnD is all about having these creatures as the BIG BAD. Buff them more.

Im fine with the principle, i just sincerely thinking about how if many things like enchanting plus saves on all equipment should be a thing or not. It not only makes the gap of optimise vs non optimised bigger (i dont mind A gap) but it starts to become surreal. The saving throws of gods are inflating DCs to non sensical levels.

I love the idea of a dragon being scary, just wing bufffet with a DC competing with lvl 9 spells castes by a lvl 30 wizard. And this dragon is in a writ area blocking the portal out? Relocating portal is good too but the wings might be a bit silly

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

This line of thinking could open up an option for both those who enjoy powerbuilding and those who don't care much for their builds.
Imagine if nearly every dungeon had a 'main' area with its boss and its escape route (portal or shortcut or what have you), and then there was an 'elevated' area, which was significantly more difficult than the main dungeon area. The elevated area would, of course, have its own loot and boss. Perhaps there would be subtle warnings to inform the player characters that beyond this point things get really, really tough.
These elevated areas in a dungeon would have nothing to do with writ quests, naturally.

If this became realized we could finally put to rest the age old debate of powerbuilds vs RP builds, since dungeons would be built to suit both playstyles.

EDIT: Words and typos.

Ehhhh. I don't know.

I mean, on one hand, I personally know two pals who've tried to get into Arelith. One dropped it after level 12 and the other attempted the derro tunnels once before saying 'Or we could just play a different game'. The latter is someone who has 558 games on steam (and 1,192 dlc owned), and he clearly enjoys optimizing for new game mechanics. The former is a trilingual historian fluent in both German and French, and clearly doesn't shy away from mastering new things in general.

So I don't think it's because dungeons are difficult. Honestly they're... really, really not. They just require you to know Arelith's mechanics, which involves a lot of information. Said information isn't centralized anywhere (one has to bounce between Arelith's wiki and the NWN wiki, which have 436 and 3,695 articles respectively), and said information is often wrong or outdated or inaccessibly formatted. One is also frequently forced to wonder "uhh, was that supposed to happen or is that a bug?".

I try to guide new players to the Arelith discord and the forums if they need help. First of all, I want to thank every veteran player who has ever taken the time to help new players with the game. It's one of the things that makes this community so special.

Second of all, veteran players are often wrong, have outdated information, don't understand what new players are asking, use intra-community jargon that a new player wouldn't know, make fun of new players for being new (I've heard the word 'retard' get bandied about) or turn noob questions into an opportunity to start arguing with each other about mechanics (these arguments get heated enough to reflect poorly on the community at large). That's assuming the player even gets a response to their question. I've seen new players outright ignored.

Which leaves new players to either 1. give up on arelith entirely or 2. give up on optimizing and focus on RPing. Which is, I think, where you get 'rp builds'.

I don't think the solution is to make rp build kiddie pools, I think the solution is to make resources for noobs, or even just... be less hostile if they ask things.

Thats not were RP builds come from. I have known players both on arelith and in real DnD who enjoy flawed characters and number crunching a RP game turns it too much like a normal video game for them. I couldn't even teach some of them any amount of optimization because they just will not see the game that way. Some of these guys are so extreme i feel like some in our build community would do the opposite of enjoy these players. They are really fun to play with, often embodying the opposite of pride gaming. Some wouldnt even care the dragon is impossible for them because they were not out to be a perfect character.

[Nevrus]

I played an RP build on my first character.

I think this server does a really, really decent job of punishing that. With the escalation of AC, damage, magic, and a whole bunch of mechanics that will absolutely destroy you if you stray off the beaten path, you eventually learn that the fun factor you get from engaging in mechanics outside of the norm dies once you learn you have a very, very hard time engaging with the actual standard mechanics at par for your level.

Some examples:
Persuade and Intimidate are worthless for almost everyone. Intimidate is only mildly useful if you're a terrifying rage barbarian, or going for some PRC.

Investing your level-up ability points in anything that doesn't directly increase your AB/spell save DC will brick-wall you out of most epic-level content.

Thousands of healing kits or 13 int and Improved Expertise. Choose one, any kind of melee class!

If you aren't taking skill focus and epic skill focus in Discipline you're going to die. That's two feats already spoken for.

Do you need to attack with your weapon to do anything? That's Blind Fight spoken for too!

Epic Reputation is useful for approximately two castles, and requires you to compete with sovereign nations that want them. If you take it you have wasted a feat.

You probably shouldn't bother investing even a single skill point into spot or listen, because gear for hide/move silently outcompetes spot/listen gear so much that unless you're taking a gift, SF, and ESF for them, you're not going to actually detect any sneaky petes. Your entire build would be made redundant by a level 1 wizard with a truesight pseudodragon anyway.

Certain class combinations are so powerful that they determine your character's alignment. Monk and... A whole bunch of stuff, forcing characters to be lawful or mechanically outclassed by everything.

Not all level 28 bonuses are created equal. If you're a paladin and you don't dip rogue for tumble and UMD, other paladins will look at you funny. I speak from experience on this one.

Clerics that dip paladin are better at detecting evil than paladins.


The worst part about all of these issues is that they don't present themselves immediately. The balance slowly skews as you level up until the point that you have either optimized your character as much as the most optimized character on the server, which gives you only a couple builds that you can really work with, or you just can't do content anymore.

Fighting Abazuur at like level 25 was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had on the server, because everything worked out on a razor's edge. Now I wouldn't have that experience on the character I did it on- I would have buffed everyones' weapons and wished them luck, despite playing a character that's supposed to be a melee fighter. If I had gone in I would have just died outright.

As a player I'd much rather new max-tier content be added for the most optimized and geared characters to tackle rather than taking content that used to be accessible and engaging and just... Essentially turning it off for a lot of people. These changes may make some people 'feel' better about "Oh boy that dragon is so epic!!!" but to many players that's just punishment for not following the rules, in a system that already punishes that.

At the end of the day, the people that were awesome enough to solo these dragons before... Still can, probably. The people that couldn't can't even stand in the same room now. This is not an improved experience.

[ReverentBlade]

Beautifully written post that encapsulates all my thoughts about the monster power creep and the writ nerfs. There is a vast swath of content I will never, ever see because I opt for character sheets that tell a story instead of copy a spreadsheet.

[Subutai]

Since these kinds of posts can understandably ruffle some feathers, I'll preface this by saying Irongron and the rest of the dev team really do a fantastic job, with lots of really interesting areas and ideas. I'm obviously having fun on Arelith, or I wouldn't be here, and a great deal of that is thanks to their hard work and dedication. So thank you all for that.

Now onto some less happy thoughts.

The monster power creep goes beyond just the difference between strong builds and "RP builds". PvE in Arelith very much caters to completely optimized builds, and the more the monsters are buffed, the more that's true, and I'm not sure what the goal is.

Is it to make the dungeons more challenging to veteran powerbuilders? That's an endless cycle. People who love to make optimal builds aren't the kin of people who are going to stop one day and say, "Ah, the perfect balance of difficulty and power. I shan't optimize further". They're going to continue to optimize to overcome the new obstacle. That's the whole challenge. Making a build that can overcome. Monster difficulty will always have to increase, because players interested that kind of powerbuilding will always optimize to beat them.

Is it to stop people from epic loot mining? The people interested in mining epic loot are going to do the same thing as the powerbuilders. Find the optimal epic loot mining builds and keep doing it.

I understand the desire to make dungeons fun for the "average" Arelith build, but it's a cyclical thing. The more difficult the dungeons, the more powerful the "average" build will be, and the more difficult the dungeons will need to be made. Eventually, you get to the point we're at now. On every other NWN server I played years ago, and in every pen and paper game I've played, min-maxing has been the dirtiest word. You know that someone's a horrible, inconsiderate player if they're a min-maxer, especially a min-maxer who doesn't RP their stats. But you look at Arelith, and that's the guide to go by. If you don't min-max, you're practically laughed out of the build forum. If you're concerned about RPing a character with 8 Cha and 8 Wis, people openly tell you "No one RPs their stats anyway". Where "Min-max" isn't a dirty word, but "sub-optimal" very much is.

This isn't all down to monster buffs and dungeon difficulty, obviously, but it doesn't help. There are a lot of players who aren't interested in PvP at all, and so shouldn't, hypothetically, need to worry about optimizing their builds. The more difficult monsters and dungeons become, though, the more having a non-optimal build is completely gated off. It's not just PvP non-optimal characters can't do, but large portions of the game itself.

I would personally much, much prefer using some roughly-normal, non-optimal build as the standard by which to make dungeons and monsters. Make the average dungeon doable by a fighter, rogue, and cleric, non-multiclassed, or something. If players want to make characters even less optimal than that, they'll struggle a bit. If players want to go above that and they're bored, that's their choice. If people exploit that to mine epic loot and we don't want them mining epic loot, come up with a system that prevents people from mining epic loot without shutting out non-optimal builds completely.

[CosmicOrderV]

... Stuff ...

Gotta be careful here. There's a few points you made that are false.

Skill Focus Discipline is worthless short of the PDK prestige requirements. Epic Focus is, however, right on the money.

Also, the discrepancy between detection and stealth, weighs heavily in favor of detection. Between gear, spells, and environmental penalties, hell even the gift bonuses (+6 vs +4), the detector always has advantage.

Also, class combinations being powerful, do not result in alignment restrictions. The alignment restrictions result from conceptual themes surrounding classes, and therefore disallow other classes that are conceptually opposed. Any balance that results out of this is a secondary consideration.

Things aren't always as bad as they seem.

[Ebonstar]

imo there should be varied Abazzurs since he was used in the example above.

ive seen multiple dungeons where you find varied spawns based on level

why not simply script the same thing for Dragons in general. if you are a group of level 30 min maxers which should be easy to script the spawn to give you the most deadly high dc version of dragon there is

if your a party of mixed levels with an avg of 25 you get the next dragon down the scale etc

if your someone who tries to solo the dragon or his loot, let their be a script that make him laugh at the puny mortal thinking they are smarter than the mighty so and so and he flies off with whatever would be in the chest.

oh classes that are conceptually opposed should be mechanically turned off ie Druid Monk mix and others that make no rp sense paladin rogue was mentioned above

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


in PnP noone gets to outgame the game, and in nwn there are ways to do the same thing, its just having the time and letting our teams do their thing to make it so its cool and fun for all types

I still feel that the min maxers out there still need to slow the hell down and enjoy the trip rather than the end. Cancel the grind enjoy the scenery that the teams have created. This isnt Warcraft where its a race to be the highest baddest SOB first.

my fave PnP game is the one that is still ongoing after 20 years and our two DM's have made that one hell of a journey since we are just now getting to epic levels. Why would anyone play that you ask?

Because just like Arelith, its the story that counts not the retirement end

[Peppermint]

I played an RP build on my first several characters. I play less lately; the last time I attained epic levels was maybe a year ago. Compared to the old days, though, it was one of the easiest grinds ever. Writs make leveling super fast, even if your character isn't great at combat. Lots of creatures have had obnoxious mechanics removed (e.g damage shields, excessive debuffs). You're no longer prevented from resting during solo play (remember when that was a thing?) Classes that were once suboptimal are much stronger now; summons (especially undead) trivialize a lot ofprogression content, rangers actually do damage, rogues struggle less to hit their opponents and have grenades, so on and so forth.

Some bosses, like the aforementioned dragons, have been made harder, sure. Abazuur used to spend most of his time casting Magic Missile and Flame Arrow. He doesn't do that anymore. His stats have otherwise been largely untouched. He's only as difficult as he was intended to be; he was previously handicapped by AI. Cases like these are the exception, rather than the rule.

Arelith is very, very forgiving compared to most servers. I agree that some mechanics could do to be more accessible (e.g. more in game descriptions, centralized build database for newcomers--though check the Arelith discord for the latter!), but the content is definitely not difficult. Indeed, it's far easier than it ever has been in the past.

And just because I like to argue, in response to Nevrus:

• Persuade and intimidate are also worthless in the official campaigns and on most servers. This is a problem with the base game; raising it as an Arelith-centric issue is dishonest at best.

• Building suboptimally will not brick wall you. I've played plenty of characters with several points of AC or AB short of optimal. NPCs rarely have AC values beyond the 40s; PvE was clearly designed to accommodate a variety of builds, even suboptimal ones.

• Healing potions are a fine alternative to healing kits. Not all characters need Improved Expertise to survive; Divine Bards, Shadowdancers, Monks are a few examples of archetypes that can survive without it. I do agree that Improved Expertise is stronger than it ought to be, but this is a problem with the base game, not Arelith. Arelith has not modified it at all.

• (Epic) Skill Focus Discipline is not necessary for all characters. Many strength builds forego it. Moreover, you do not need these in PvE content; not having them there is easy to work around. Were that not so, casters would all be stuck at level 3!

• Blind Fight being so good is a vanilla NwN issue. Displacement, Improved Invisibility, etc. are not Arelith inventions.

• ... Epic Reputation is, likewise, a vanilla NwN issue, and at this point I'm beginning to wonder if we're complaining about Arelith or just NwN. Arelith is, in fact, better than vanilla NwN here; at least it has castles! Vanilla NwN has nothing.

• Amplify gives you twenty points to listen! If you think your detect invest is useless, you're actually crazy. And even were the curve skewed in favor of stealthers, detection would still be useful, because it thwarts junk stealth. As for pseudodragons, they'll spot things, but they're fragile and require you to possess them to see anything. Useful for detecting spies in RP, sure, but this complaint seems out of place in a discussion about how "unforgiving" Arelith is.

• Monk is overloaded to be sure. I won't even bother trying to defend that update. But there are lots of strong builds with zero alignment restrictions: Fighter 20/Weapon Master 7/Rogue 3, Ranger 21/Fighter 3/Rogue 3, Sorcerer 27/Bard 3, Wizard 26/Bard 4, Cleric 27/Bard 3, Rogue 24/Fighter 6. I could keep going.

• Pure class bonuses are indeed "not all equal", though in vanilla NwN, all pure class builds are bad, full stop. Arelith is better than the alternative here. Are you complaining that Arelith has more build versatility than the base game?

• I'll be honest; I never paid much mind to the detect evil mechanic. It feels out of place on Arelith. If it works as you say, I agree it's silly. In my opinion, just remove it.

Look. Arelith has a lot of issues. I've definitely been very critical of it in the past; heck, ask any of the developers that previously had to work with me! But calling out a list of issues that exist in vanilla NwN strikes me as dishonest at best.

[Nevrus]

And just because I like to argue, in response to Nevrus:

• Persuade and intimidate are also worthless in the official campaigns and on most servers. This is a problem with the base game; raising it as an Arelith-centric issue is dishonest at best.

Having it occasionally be rolled in DM events would go a long way to make them satisfying. Also some optional routes in dangerous locations that require you to sweet-talk or intimidate your way through, or allow you to bypass a pickable lock by convincing an NPC, would make these feel situationally awesome, which is what they're supposed to do.

• Building suboptimally will not brick wall you. I've played plenty of characters with several points of AC or AB short of optimal. NPCs rarely have AC values beyond the 40s; PvE was clearly designed to accommodate a variety of builds, even suboptimal ones.

At the highest tiers of play it becomes far less forgiving, which is also when it's far more difficulty to course-correct.

• Healing potions are a fine alternative to healing kits. Not all characters need Improved Expertise to survive; Divine Bards, Shadowdancers, Monks are a few examples of archetypes that can survive without it. I do agree that Improved Expertise is stronger than it ought to be, but this is a problem with the base game, not Arelith. Arelith has not modified it at all.

This is a matter of tuning. When creatures have higher AB to account for the existence of this feat, your heavy armor and shield and AC items don't make the difference between getting hit 75% of the time or 25% of the time; this feat does. Also, healing kits can be used twice as often as potions and don't provoke opportunity attacks.

• (Epic) Skill Focus Discipline is not necessary for all characters. Many strength builds forego it. Moreover, you do not need these in PvE content; not having them there is easy to work around. Were that not so, casters would all be stuck at level 3!

Discipline is an extremely binary defensive system. Against enemies that don't have knockdown or disarm, it doesn't account for much. Against enemies that do, it's the difference between life and death, because if they can hit you with it, you will die. There is no spell that will prevent it, no death ward or freedom of movement or mind blank. You will be on the ground and you will die.

• Blind Fight being so good is a vanilla NwN issue. Displacement, Improved Invisibility, etc. are not Arelith inventions.

It's a choice to build creatures that so commonly have these effects. If they were less common the feat would feel less necessary.

• ... Epic Reputation is, likewise, a vanilla NwN issue, and at this point I'm beginning to wonder if we're complaining about Arelith or just NwN. Arelith is, in fact, better than vanilla NwN here; at least it has castles! Vanilla NwN has nothing.

It could still be better supported, either in RP or in various NPC conversations. It also links into persuade being useless because it isn't used in the situations that it's designed to be used in.

• Amplify gives you twenty points to listen! If you think your detect invest is useless, you're actually crazy. And even were the curve skewed in favor of stealthers, detection would still be useful, because it thwarts junk stealth. As for pseudodragons, they'll spot things, but they're fragile and require you to possess them to see anything. Useful for detecting spies in RP, sure, but this complaint seems out of place in a discussion about how "unforgiving" Arelith is.

On the stealth side:
Flexible Leather Suit: +5 H/MS
Fine Elven Boots: +5 H/MS
Camouflage: +10 H
One with the Land: +4 H/MS
Cloak of the Stalker: +5 H
Ring of Ultimate Stealth: +5 H/MS
Enchanted Ring, Gloves, Helm, Belt: +8 H/MS
Totals:
42 Hide, 32 MS

On the Detect side:
Fine Elven Boots: Listen +5
Cloak of the Sight: Spot +5
Amplify: Listen +20
Clairaudience/Clairvoyance: Spot/Listen +10
Guardsman's Armor: Listen/Spot +3
Elven Helmet: Listen/Spot +4
Rings/Belt/Glove Enchanted: +8
Total: 50 Listen, 30 Spot
Requirement to get all this: Heavy armor proficiency, elf or UMD
Potential classes that have spot/listen as skills: Barbarian (mechanically punished for wearing heavy armor, would take feats), ranger (would take some feats), Bard (Would also take feats and heavy spell failure), Rogue (I guess as a heavy dip for a fighter this could work?)
Classes on this list that primarily want wisdom: 0
Classes that use stealth that primarily want dexterity: a whooooole lot
Time someone is prepared to do sneaking when they intend to: Always
Time someone is prepared to detect when someone might be sneaking around: Not even close to always
General PVE utility for detection: Not that great
General PVE utility for stealth: A whooooole lot

I'll give you that the numbers edge out in favor of detectors if they're really trying, very specifically, to do it. But the utility of stealth feats and gifts beats out the utility of detect feats and gifts in most cases, so you're sacrificing a lot to be able to detect.

If you don't have magic effects, the totals become:
Hide/MS: 28/28
Listen/Spot: 20/20

Between the amount of dex a sneaker will have with the amount of wis a detector class will usually have, it really edges out in favor of stealth builds, but I will forfeit that the numbers aren't horrifically out of whack. Things are possible, it just requires sacrifices.

• Monk is overloaded to be sure. I won't even bother trying to defend that update. But there are lots of strong builds with zero alignment restrictions: Fighter 20/Weapon Master 7/Rogue 3, Ranger 21/Fighter 3/Rogue 3, Sorcerer 27/Bard 3, Wizard 26/Bard 4, Cleric 27/Bard 3, Rogue 24/Fighter 6. I could keep going.

If you're playing a bard or a sorceror to maximum effect you also get a whole lot out of dipping paladin levels. You can also grab Blackguard if you're evil for a similar result. Literally every class benefits massively from a 3 level rogue dip because of UMD and 6 extra AC, or just taking Discipline from it. My question is, are the possibilities of these dips taken into account when designing creatures?

• Pure class bonuses are indeed "not all equal", though in vanilla NwN, all pure class builds are bad, full stop. Arelith is better than the alternative here. Are you complaining that Arelith has more build versatility than the base game?

See previous point. Ideally the level 28 bonuses would end up more in line with each other. Paladin and Bard could really use some love in this department.

• I'll be honest; I never paid much mind to the detect evil mechanic. It feels out of place on Arelith. If it works as you say, I agree it's silly. In my opinion, just remove it.

On Arelith, detect evil will determine if there IS evil in the vicinity, but not tell you who it is. If you have SF: Div, it will reveal more information which can be used to narrow it down. Evil is detected via having all targets make a will save, with a DC of 10 + divination focus feats + wisdom. IE, a 27 cleric/3 paladin that has ESF divination is massively better at detecting evil than a 30 paladin. I think making it more level-based would make it useful. If not, just rip it out- its only utility is to troll low-level characters with bad will saves.

I do appreciate you taking the time to respond to all my points! I feel like this is mostly a healthy discussion.

[Cortex]

I'm not one to speak for the coders and scripters, but I'm confident when I say that there's a lot more important things than to enable persuade, epic reputation, etc.

[CosmicOrderV]

The detection calculation is not taking into account environmental bonuses.

"Stealth rolls are made every six seconds, but are checked more often than that because there are several situational modifiers to the rolls. (For these factors, see the listen and spot articles.) When a player character is doing the detecting, the opposed rolls (with current modifiers) are checked five times per second, while a detecting non-player character makes these checks every four seconds."

That's just silly rediculous in favor of the detector. You can have up to 35 chances in a round to detect the stealther. Insanity to think it's not in their favor.

As well, while intimidate is niche, it feela harsh to call it worthless when barbarian and knight base their dc's off intimidate ranks. Persuade is less used for sure, though has its sprinkling of uses (secret npc conversation routes, and bounties).

While class mechanics could be better balanced overall, I feel like compared to 2 years ago, things are great. Im sure with time it'll only improve.

I dont think dragon difficulty is the apex of aforementioned balance concerns. Sounds more like a convenient topic used to express loosely related concerns. Concerns to which I would just say, look at the history of the server. Things get better with time. Doesn't happen fast! But happens.

[Twily]

Also, healing kits can be used twice as often as potions and don't provoke opportunity attacks.

A bit off topic, but potions and heal kits can both be used at approximately the same speed*.
Potions provoke attack of opportunities (although only 1 per round per enemy in range in most cases).
Heal Kits make you flat footed, potentially costing 10+ AC for some characters, or as much as 20+ for a few.

Heal kits do restore significantly more HP if skill points are invested, but there are still a few cases where potions take the lead since they don't make you flat footed. That one just depends on your build. (although I'll fully admit for most builds kits are the better option)

*15 potions toke 36sec to drink, 15 bandages toke almost exactly 30 seconds.

-------------

In regards to the dragon, It is a bit on the strong side for some players to enjoy facing.
Putting the exit portal before the boss I do like the idea of though.

[Ebonstar]

they are dragons though, not kittens with wings

They are supposed to be deadly if you dont use your brain

[Disciprine Come From Within]

I don't think most of us want to see dragons less deadly. I think we just want to see them less cheap. The KD spam on Fort save has always been annoying. The longer the fight goes, the more annoying it is, and while again, you can gear for it, you're generally forced to gear for it at full optimization because even a 25% chance of KD can lead to a cheap death on your back for several rounds, and several failed saving throws that once you get locked into, you can't get out. I don't even mind it sometimes. It's just that it has a habit of firing constantly and that isn't fun.

Rather than KD spam so much, here are some things I'd like to see dragons get to keep the ferocity.

1: Some sort of AoE attack that is elementally aligned with their breath weapon. While it is neat to see the dragon use it's breath weapon every so often, in most cases with group attacks, that Dragon is only going to use it on 1-2 people at a time. An example of something I like is the cold aura on the white dragon.

2: Set the entire dungeon closer to the "lair" of the dragon and set more environmental effects and traps again suited to that element. RDI somewhat does this right

3: Allow Dragons some sort of flight attack using their breath weapon or magic. This would probably require scripting and the thoughts I have with it do get a bit "WoW like" in my head, but I think you're not going to fully show the majesty of dragons without a bit of scripting magic.

4: Create more individual personality with the dragons. We all know the NWN AI is dumb as bricks, but there might be some ways to show unique tactics that would feel right with each dragon. Including potential minion spawning.

[Subutai]

I don't think most of us want to see dragons less deadly. I think we just want to see them less cheap.

I honestly think this goes for a lot of different enemies. Dragon KD is probably the biggest offender, but there are a lot of enemies that have stun/old fear/etc., attacks that just last forever. My WM got hit with the Orc Citadel's demilich's fear spell and just stood there immobile from the beginning to the fight, to the end of the fight, to at least a minute+ after the fight. The same WM failed some save against a stun attack from the black orc chief or one of his mages while soloing, and the fight went from a breeze to slow, gradually dying over the course of several minutes as the stun just would not end.

It's not that any of those fights should be easy to win, or that it's not fair that people can't solo them. It's that stuff like constant KDs or super long immobilizing spell effects just aren't a fun challenge. In fact, they're the opposite of a challenge. Even if you gear for them, and make sure your saves are sufficient, all you need is that 5% roll sometime in the fight, and you're out for the rest of it because some spell effect won't end, or because the dragon knocks you down all the time.

It's a bit like stun locks in a lot of games. You get hit by an enemy, go into an animation, and before the animation is done, they hit you again so you're stuck in the "getting injured" animation until you die. It's not fun, it's not challenging, it's just frustrating because all the skill in the world is out the window as soon as you make one mistake, or get unlucky one time.

I'd really like to see challenging fights made more challenging, and fewer (or no) instances of absurdly long over overused immobilizing abilities. No one likes to just be stuck in one place with no ability to do anything for most of the fight.

[Cortex]

Wing buffet spam has been (or will be live version pending) tweaked.

[Subutai]

Sounds like great news! Thanks, Cortex!

[Cortex]

Thanks go to ActionReplay.

[Nevrus]

All hail Action Replay!