Divine Grace Is Too Strong

[Bunnysmack]

I know that posting this will likely see a lot of bickering, but as we now have paladins that are strong enough to star in their own 80's style action films, it's a matter that I think really should be discussed once more.

Whether it is Divine Grace or it's dark twin "Dark Blessing" the feats that essentially turn a moderate-to-hefty cha investment passively into a +8 through +15 (looking at you sorcerers/FvS) is a boost so incredibly potent that a single class feature can effectively nullify and exceed all feat investment in adding DCs to spell schools, or make barbarian terrifying rage only ever count 5% of the time.

While there are other cha-to-traits abilities in play, all of those have short duration, don't ignore pre-established caps they feed into (DS doesn't push dodge AC above 20), and require action economy to activate. They also require feat and ability score investment to even obtain.

Divine Grace and Dark Blessing, on the other hand, are available with a 1 to 3 level investment in a few different classes, and, in the case of the new paladins, are making the incredibly potent new rework into a certifiable monster.

Casters and martials will argue back and forth to the end of time about whether it's saves or DCs that need nerfing, but I'm not touching on anything OTHER than Divine Grace/Dark Blessing ("DG/DB") with this thread. CoT saves, spellcraft min-maxing, uni-save gear, Loremaster saves: all of these options and more have been used as alternative means to get bulky saves in the current game balance, but ALL of these options still feed into the cumulative +20 cap on what boosts saves beyond Ability+BaseSaves; why doesn't DG/DB?.

Nothing else in the game gives such an extreme boost to defensive stats, other than perhaps monk wisdom AC, but unlike monk wisdom there hasn't been a concerted effort to limit when/how/where this bonus can be utilized with other boosts. Respecting the +20 cap is but one way to balance DG/DB, there are likely others, and I hope people who see a similar issue with these mechanics voice such ideas here, along with starting a dialogue about the viability of adjusting how potent these two class features are.

[Zavandar]

*inhales*

it's possible to get good saves without div dips.

making div saves count as part of the 20 cap would kill pal/bg period. it would ironically make their saves worse than non-div dips.

i have made several "mundanes" that get 37 in every save.

Meanwhile, here's what happens if you nerf a standard 27/3 paladin/rogue that has 20 sc. Blue fields are part of the 20 cap. You go from this:



To this:



You could increase that will by 2 if you're also sipping owl's potions every rest.

By contrast, here are some other builds:

human summoner warlock (no dark blessing):


dwarf spellsword abj champ (human is 2 behind but it's still not bad at all):


leadership wiz/monk (sort of experimental, but the saves are ridiculous):


swash weaponmaster (low will is supplemented by slippery mind):


i can keep going, but i think the point is made.

[Dreams]

Honestly it’s fine how it is now.

[kingmaker]

*inhales*

*snip*

This is a good sum-up. Divine Grace is not a problem.

[Tarkus the dog]

*inhales*

it's possible to get good saves without div dips.

making div saves count as part of the 20 cap would kill pal/bg period. it would ironically make their saves worse than non-div dips.

i have made several "mundanes" that get 37 in every save.

Meanwhile, here's what happens if you nerf a standard 27/3 paladin/rogue that has 20 sc. Blue fields are part of the 20 cap. You go from this:



To this:



You could increase that will by 2 if you're also sipping owl's potions every rest.

By contrast, here are some other builds:

human summoner warlock (no dark blessing):


dwarf spellsword abj champ (human is 2 behind but it's still not bad at all):


leadership wiz/monk (sort of experimental, but the saves are ridiculous):


swash weaponmaster (low will is supplemented by slippery mind):


i can keep going, but i think the point is made.

Yeah but are you even paying attention to the post? Now that 27 paladin 3 rogue is strong, every other build that gets Divine Grace or Dark Blessing should have less saves.

[garrbear758]

It’s fine, as explained above.

[Snake2512]

Some classes counter others.

[mourisson1]

As long as there are DC spells that are just "you either win roll, or you are done, bye", being able to get nice saves via pala/bg on a lot of builds is nice to have.

If we've had only DC spells that are not terribly excruciating experience in the case of losing the roll for the opposing side, I'd be up for dealing with high saves, but as it is now, nah.

[AstralUniverse]

Unisave is lower value gear property than charisma. Only few divine builds who have high stats freedom on their gear will actually end up with a lot of cha AND a lot of uni, while everyone else who gear cha *instead* of Uni, will come out close to div builds in saves, as illustrated above by Zav, and was illustrated last thread by Kalopsia. div dips are fine.

[Naghast]

They're only fine because save-or-die spells are a thing.
They're extremely binary in their function - you either pass the save and essentially nothing happens, or you fail. And you're dead.
As long as these spells even exist, access to powerful save-boosting things and general ability to hit, like, 36 in every save at the ***very least*** (frankly 36 is low-ish already) is just a necessity.

[-XXX-]

A human wizard with maxed INT stat will have DC 39 on their lvl 9 spells. This slightly varies with other races, but the point is that there is no practical need to push a character's saves above 37.

So what Divine Grace/ Dark Blessing do in practice is freeing up the runic spell slot in the character's gear, allowing the character to perform better in other areas.
On it's own, this would have been fine as we do have a way to attack the CHA stat and lowering the saves of div grace/ dark blessing characters. That'd mean that the character embraces an exploitable weakness by gearing this way.
Where the design fails however, is by having this weakness protected by a Will save, so we've gone a full circle there.

They're only fine because save-or-die spells are a thing.

Honestly, I hate this logic. It's akin to saying that everyone should have AC70 because attacks are a thing.
An argument on account of instant death DC spells having a binary effect could be made, but then again the team allowed characters to gear for countering those without addressing the spells themselves in any way whatsoever, essentially throwing an entire class archetype into the trash can by rendering it's primary niche useless for PvP purposes in the process.

[Distant Relation]

Divine Grace is too strong as a dip. Far, far too strong. Look around at other servers and see that they all limit either Divine Grace itself, or Paladin multi classing overall in some way or another to curb the insane power of this ability; You'll find anything from capping Divine Grace to paladin/bg levels, or even forbidding paladin multiclassing altogether, or disabling Divine Grace if the paladin multiclasses.

But Arelith is all about the insane, ridiculous powerbuilds. Its a server about flexing on people with your max-ac, max-saves, max-hp, lore-80-timestop-casting, one-round-melee-all-destroying, full CL 30 anti-dispel warded powerbuild. This is so much the Arelith archetype that getting deleted by a cc-immune barbarian in one round is fine, but having anything more than a one in 400 chance of dying to one of the seven Weirds that a wizard can cast is *unthinkable*. And that's after he somehow dispels your CL 30 Mind Blank and CL 30 Death Ward, that you somehow cast on yourself as a martial.

Arelith's meta is what it is. It's a playground for wacky builds (of the melee kind, as Crom intended).

[-XXX-]

I don't like how div dips shoehorn the sorcerer class into a certain niche while limiting the design space around it tremendously.
Then again, I'd point at divine shield as the true offender there rather than grace/blessing.

[Sombricimos]

To all the people replying as if they didn't know what's going on, despite knowing.
Nobody said going 20 CoT is too strong or 27/3 Pal rogue is OP blablabla

Dipping 3 BG/CoT/Whatever-darkblessing-divinegrace on a sorc (for example) for a +15 unisaves (for example) is too strong.

[Drowboy]

Your aesthetic opinions aren't mathematical fact, is the thing, though. Numbers were provided that proves otherwise, repeatedly saying "Well but I feel differently" without providing comparative numbers other than what a couple servers with 12 combined players have done doesn't really say anything.

Div stuff is fine for the tradeoffs, where balance currently is, and overturning the math table for the sake of aesthetics hasn't gone well in the past.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a suggestion couched in length to disguise as feedback, no?

[Sombricimos]

Your aesthetic opinions aren't mathematical fact, is the thing, though. Numbers were provided that proves otherwise, repeatedly saying "Well but I feel differently" without providing comparative numbers other than what a couple servers with 12 combined players have done doesn't really say anything.

Div stuff is fine for the tradeoffs, where balance currently is, and overturning the math table for the sake of aesthetics hasn't gone well in the past.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but this is a suggestion couched in length to disguise as feedback, no?

"+15 unisave for a 3 lv dip" is a fact. And I'll give you another fact.
The examples provided have been cherry-picked.
Obviously as a counter argument. Each of it implies end game gear with +2 spellcraft and unisave, which implies runes and probably a bunch of other stuff and the ability to put 33 points in spellcraft, not cross-classing.. and a spell.

I'd be curious to see screenshots of the character sheets on live server of this person rather than a bunch of neatly presented numbers that are just there to prove a point.

Finally, I want to ask.

What tradeoff? What's the tradeoff for dipping 3 into either of the classes that grant DG/DB?

Here's what's the tradeoff.

By dipping 3 in a Dark blessing / Divine grace class, you loose :

- 3 CL. Oh no what a shock, most caster classes dip 3 into a Disc class anyway except for Wild mages perhaps.

And you win :
- Better hit dice on level up for 3 level. What, are we not cherry picking arguments to prove a point now?
- Dark blessing / Divine grace
- Access to Discipline
- And a bunch of inconsequential stuff like armor and weapon proficiencies, turn undead, lay on hand, remove disease, perhaps a language too and whatever else

Again. What's the tradeoff?

[mourisson1]

Obviously as a counter argument. Each of it implies end game gear with +2 spellcraft and unisave, which implies runes and probably a bunch of other stuff and the ability to put 33 points in spellcraft, not cross-classing.. and a spell.

I'm not sure using argument "it's endgame gear" and "you are using the tools provided pretty well" and "you have 33spellcraft" is a good one.

Endgame gear is not that terrible to get these days, so why should you balance non-endgame geared characters?
If someone is not using the tools provided (and mind you, scrolls are availible to more builds thanks to it being lore) and then compares the results, its also bad, you cant balance something around players/builds who are NOT using stuff provided.
And spellcraft. A lot of builds have it. So why cherrypick those that dont?

[Sombricimos]

Alright well.

I will now always consider my PC's AB as if True strike was always on from now on. After all, True strike pots are a tool at my disposal and if you're good enough/rich enough, it can be kept active permanently.

Same for AC, I will now consider my spreadsheets as if I had a shield and armor with magic vestment and a shield of faith active. Even on a 30 pure commoner

See where I'm getting at? The "just git gud" argument is not valid.


EDIT : To come back to the main subject. I don't think applying soft cap to DG/DB is the solution, but limiting bonuses according to number of levels taken in the class sure is. A +3 unisave is still solid.

[Nintendo Entertainment System]

I will now always consider my PC's AB as if True strike was always on from now on. After all, True strike pots are a tool at my disposal and if you're good enough/rich enough, it can be kept active permanently.

That's an apples and oranges comparison. True Strike is the definition of a temporary boost, requiring a mid-battle potion chug for one round of performance.

Once you've geared for saves and have your spellcraft skills, then you have those saving throws active all the time. And common spells that boost saving throws (Good Hope, Prot v. Alignment) tend to be long-term buffs that are reasonable to factor in during late-game PvE or confrontational encounters with other players.

(People do still plan for True Strike, by the way. It's not a 'this is my AB!' flex, but rather an acknowledgement that building Discipline to the high 60s is important for melee.)

Same for AC, I will now consider my spreadsheets as if I had a shield and armor with magic vestment and a shield of faith active. Even on a 30 pure commoner

Sure? If you bought shield proficiency on a commoner and have reliable sources of those buffs, have at it.

A lot of the arguments about how much saves you get off of a dip don't account for ease of gearing. CHA dip builds are almost always MAD, requiring several buffed stats if you're not completely ignoring CON. Adding Saves or +Spellcraft to the gear of those builds is quite the luxury. And going CHA feats means you have precious few feats for other things. Like, say, +Saving Throw feats.

Nerfing Divine Grace and the evil equivalent will mean that only CHA builds will have bad saves. Talk about bizarre.

[Xerah]

This has been explained really well by people (see Zav's second post in this thread).