Giant Feedback: Are you sure you want to do this?

[Scurvy Cur]

So, I think it's fairly clear at this point that the giant races are all fairly overtuned and need an adjustment. I wanted to highlight a few of the more egregious use cases, however, all of which involve DI stacking on a stone giant. For those unaware, DI stacks additively. Because of how percentage based reduction works, each percentage point of DI matters more than the last. Adding 10% DI to a 0% DI character represents an overall 11% increase in their effective survivability. Adding 10% DI to a character that has a 40% DI baseline represents a 20% increase in their survivability.

Both of these use a combination of the following items:

Dwarven Rune Wall OR Serpent's Aegis (5% universal DI)
Honor Guard Halberd (5% universal DI)
Masterly Elven Chain OR accursed chains (10% slashing, 5% piercing, 5% bludgeoning)
Addy Helm/Duergan coronet (10% bludgeoning DI)

This gives a baseline of 25% bludgeoning, 20% slashing, and 15% piercing DI to work around.

In the hands of a stone giant barbarian or hexblade, these numbers climb to 50/45/40% immunity and 55/50/45% immunity respectively.

The barbarian fairly comfortably adds 15/- DR to this, and the hexblade gets to bring the rest of the hex kit (becoming a debuff bot that effectively gets double mileage out of its HP).

In the case of the barbarian, this build will shrug off the first 28-31 points of physical damage from every hit, because damage immunity is counted first, then damage resistance (the X/- stuff barbarians get), then damage reduction (sometimes called soak, usually from things like stoneskin, which have a X/+Y notation). As a reminder, when bypassing immunities damage values round down, that is to say, if you take 10 damage with 20% immunity, 80% of the damage will get though to give an 8 damage result. If you take 10 damage with 21% immunity, 7.9 damage will get through, which the game rounds down to 7. I'm happy to unpack the math further if someone wants, but it's not too hard to determine how the first 28-31 points of damage get ignored in this case.

Note that this is just physical damage.

The barbarian will also soak 5/- of each elemental damage on top of it.

In practice, since most 1h melee classes rarely do more than 30 physical damage outside of crits and since outside of crits, 5/- soaks nearly all sources of elemental damage available in melee, this barbarian is immune to non-critical damage from 1h builds (and probably takes, at most 8-11 damage a hit from 2h builds outside of crits).

Which brings us to build number 3, which I think is probably going to be pretty unenjoyable to play, but which does one gimmicky thing very well:

16 PM/4 fighter/10 hexblade, or alternatively 15 PM/15 Hex.

While not able to shrug off the first 30ish points of every hit, it will still be able to reduce any such hit to ~6-10 damage. Since this build is crit immune, it should never take elemental damage from melee, and therefore should be able to outheal incoming damage from 4-6 melee characters for as long as its supply of heal kits holds out.

That's all from me for now, but I was frankly surprised to see these races released in current form, given Arelith's longstanding and laudable tradition of refraining from giving award races a giant mechanical advantage (see, for example: Avariel and Aasmiar, which are mostly a flavor change over the base race with only niche mechanical advantages).

[AstralUniverse]

I'd recommend to everyone to wait a while before playing any of the new giants (but most especially stone giant using EDR build) because they WILL be nerfed. I have no doubt. It might take a while maybe, but I still wouldnt take that chance with high tier award if I'm a player that cares about losing probably 10% DI on my EDR build.

[Richrd]

As a player who has never farmed awards (because frankly speaking; NWN levelgrinding is mindnumbingly boring) I am sitting at a comfortable 0 for the amount of normal, greater or major awards I have stored up.

And as I understand it there is now a cooldown on how often I could even get an award, scaling with the previous award received. And if the award I get is not high enough for one of these new races I could not even immediately grind another character up and try again since the aforementioned cooldown would lock me out of that.

And I have already been harping on and on in other threads regarding some of my opinions towards large races, in particular firbolgs. When I saw the stone giant race I basically had the same line of thought as Scurvy Cur here. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

I enjoy playing mostly only STR builds. No matter if it's rogue, SD, fighter, paladin or barbarian. I prefer big big chonky weapons with big hits. But due to the factors above I feel like I am now automatically inferior to anyone who's just done the grind or got lucky.

I don't think sending players the message of "git lucky at our lootbox system or be inherently weaker than award races" is good.

EDIT: To specify. This is the case on Arelith in particular, since none of these award races are locked behind an app or a test of any kind. This is, in my opinion, the exact reason why there have been so many firbolg PCs who were basically just humans but XXXL sized. And it will be just like that with giants too, I bet. It takes the "role playing" out of "online persistent role playing world".

[Skibbles]

This math concerns me especially since these races do not appear to be gated by DM application which, presumably, hopefully filter out broken gimmick builds by players more interested in mechanics than the roleplay theme of the race in question.

I'm reminded of that brief few months where Svirfneblins were completely broken and there was a wave of bloodthirsty murder-gnomes that didn't appear to adhere to a single shred of Svirfneblin lore or roleplay in their conquest of all things around them.

I have a feeling we're about to see the same with giants.

[Hazard]

Don't worry guys. I got this.

I'll make a giant barb! That will result in a nerf sooner rather than later.

You're welcome.

[msterswrdsmn]

Just as a rule of caution, its usually a good idea to avoid anything that gives stacking damage immunity. I've played on other servers where the devs/dms didn't realize damage immunity stacked, and were puzzled as to why they had to tune npcs up to do 100+ damage per hit on a low-magic item server. The offender in question was a spell that granted stacking damage immunity, which was very promptly removed once it was discovered.

Ways to mitigate damage is more valuable than AC, as after a certain point, being able to shrug off large amounts of damage is more valuable than cranking your AC higher. Emphasis on "after a certain point"; having super-low AC in favor of DR is usually not a good idea, given the time/stat and level investment needed to crank out DR to worthwhile levels.

Having an innate 15% physical immunity on a stone giant is HUGE. I can now afford to use subpar AC gear because I can just flat out ignore large amounts of damage. I get the idea of giant=tanky, but this probably isn't the route you want to go. I've played nwn for a while and i've -never- seen immunity stacking end well. Ever.

Scurvy did the math already, but some innate DR feats like epic DR, plus some immunity gear and a simple stoneskin wand is going to make physical damage a joke (follows the Damage Immunity>Damage Reduction+Damage Resistance calculation route). I'm not seeing any real downside to doing this either, as the single drawback to stone giants are a -4 DEX, which again, isn't a big deal once you get past the very early levels, as any DR focused build will have a healthy CON score to get the epic DR feats.

Edit
Immunity stacking aside, my impression of giants is pretty much "why?" What are we trying to add to the server by adding giants? Its like writing a story; what purpose is this serving to the theme and tone already established? A lot has been added relatively quickly, and I don't mean to be a downer when a I know a lot of time, effort and passion went into it. But...why? I keep getting a feeling we're stepping back to "Ye Olde Days" which aren't always remembered fondly. Aka: The beholder pc/the nomad dancing dragon/kobold snuggling days.

I can see giants are locked behind Major awards, but I wouldn't count on that acting as a gatekeeper, given how easy it is to level up these days. Having people explicitly make characters with the intent to roll them for a reward isn't uncommon these days, and I feel like we're taking another step back in the wrong direction in this regard as well, where more and more impressive reward-locked things are popping up. +2 in every stat with a -2 WIS penalty, free streams, physical and elemental immunity, a free racial language AND water breathing? Thats like what, +5 or +7 ELC if I tried replicating something like this with gifts on a standard race?

Is there any real reason -not- to grind trash goblins and roll them every month if i'm looking to play a "LOOK AT ME I'M SPECIAL" powerhouse? Isn't this why the dragon race was removed?

I'm very confused by the direction we're going with these updates.

[AskRyze]

I'm going to tag along with a factor that someone hasn't already said -

Let's say a player has NWN on PC and the mobile app. They have two CDkeys. That means that they can roll 2x/mo for a chance at an award. Now let's say that Beamdog puts a sale on for NWN, usually running $5/2 copies. That's now 4x/mo. The player hasn't done anything wrong, they're not using the keys to ban evade. They're just playing the game. Hell, the two keys is more than enough, I know very few people that can get a character to 27 in less than two weeks.

I know that they released all of these long-requested and likely-overtuned races at the exact time as they release the change that prevents people from just farming roll-toons, for the explicit reason that they don't want the surface flooded with half-giants. That is understandable. Anyone with any amount of determination who's willing to skip out on a starbucks coffee for one day will be able to circumvent the change.

We're gonna get flooded with tall folks and birds anyway. I can't wait to see what happens.

[Jagel]

If something is too powerful it will be toned down. If we suddenly see birds and half-giants everywhere these races can be made temporarily unavailable.

The stacking DI can quickly get out of hand. On the FL server readily available DI, dr and critical immunity made physical attacks useless and it was not fun. I’d suggest making it varying DI across the three types for anything above 5% instead of just a flat 10-15%.
Half Stone giants could be 5% bludg, 15 % slashing/piercing or whatever numbers would be more sensible.

[I am War]

I don't envy the devs having to deal with so much gaslighting and echochamber when one sentence will do:
“Stone giant's DR might be too good and should be adjusted.”

Also from what I’m reading looks like some forget it's half-giants, not full giants, that were introduced. It’s like confusing orcs and half-orcs being the playable race here

It’s not like it’s as ridiculous or shunned as half-beholders, half-drow, or half-dragons… or is it?

[Itikar]

Let's say a player has NWN on PC and the mobile app. They have two CDkeys. That means that they can roll 2x/mo for a chance at an award. Now let's say that Beamdog puts a sale on for NWN, usually running $5/2 copies. That's now 4x/mo. The player hasn't done anything wrong, they're not using the keys to ban evade. They're just playing the game. Hell, the two keys is more than enough, I know very few people that can get a character to 27 in less than two weeks.

Award roll should also require RPR 20, which would need to be obtained for every CD key. I have seen evidence, among some faction members with definitely sufficient quality of roleplay, that the DM Team and the RPR 40-50 players are, to put it mildly, "not prompt" in providing the RPR increase.

It is still a fair point, but it will require a bit more engagement on part of the player than just buying the CD keys.

[AstralUniverse]

I don't envy the devs having to deal with so much gaslighting and echochamber when one sentence will do:
“Stone giant's DR might be too good and should be adjusted.”

Also from what I’m reading looks like some forget it's half-giants, not full giants, that were introduced. It’s like confusing orcs and half-orcs being the playable race here

It’s not like it’s as ridiculous or shunned as half-beholders, half-drow, or half-dragons… or is it?

I think maybe you're a bit confused. This thread is about math and logic. No one is gaslighting here. This is not an echo chamber and when you present feedback about mechanics it is actually better to make it detailed and not one sentence that includes no real feedback. "XYZ is too good and should be adjusted" is an opinion, not feedback. When you back it with numbers who support your claims then it becomes feedback. Just for clarification.

[I am War]

Oh the original post is fine, all the information is in fact very educational and enlightening. It’s the clickbait title and the posts that come after that really became echo-y.

I sure hope the thread is truly about math and logic only. We wouldn’t be otherwise questioning why half-giants need to be introduced at all and what purpose do they serve in this setting, right?

Unless we found a way to quantize RP via statistics already

[Yvesza]

It's nice to see the math and mechanics on how the DI works and honestly I find it hard to follow the 5-15% DI these races get, they're not just -good- for martials they're arguably better than any other presented choice by a large margin. They present a bevy of mechanical issues between stacking DI to absurd values and their ability to use disarm and IKD to reach both absurd effective AB values (60+) and great knockdown chances.

Some of this was entirely possible on firbolg but the 10/- cold resistance and regen didn't come close to the offered elemental and physical resistances these half-giants have.

I love the idea behind them I just feel like the numbers are a little bit too generous when it comes to the DI & elemental DR when compared to everything else that's avaliable.

[Kenji]

Preview on coming changes (subject to change and nothing is ever set in stone ):

• Disarm goes from -6 to -4 AB, Improved Disarm goes from -4 to -2 AB, and disarm size modifier is 2 AB instead of 4 AB between size differences
• Stone half giant’s 15% phys DI will become 15% slash DI, 10% pierce DI, and 5% Bludgeon DI
• Cloud half giant’s 10% phys DI will become 10% slash/pierce DI and 5% bludgeon DI
• All half giant sizes reduced by another 10% (to make them all slightly smaller than Firbolg, which is the only true giant PC)

No plans for the stat changes yet as Drow was used as baseline for comparison.

[Scurvy Cur]

I don't envy the devs having to deal with so much gaslighting and echochamber when one sentence will do:
“Stone giant's DR might be too good and should be adjusted.”

Also from what I’m reading looks like some forget it's half-giants, not full giants, that were introduced. It’s like confusing orcs and half-orcs being the playable race here

We're 2 days in, and they're already being roleplayed as full giants. Sadly, this was a fully predictable way for the Arelith playerbase to handle things.



Re: the rest of your post:

"X might be too good and should be adjusted" or "I feel like summons are ok, because I like them" is low-value feedback. It's emotive and conclusory, rather than analytic and logical. It presents the reader a conclusion with no explanation. It does not present the reasons or the logic behind the conclusion that a thing is too good; it will not persuade anyone who doesn't already agree, and it misses the chance to communicate to the team the reasons I am concerned that they may have failed to consider something while reviewing the update.

Moreover, my point here is not that "Stone Giant DI might be too strong", my point is that it is too strong, and that I am curious whether the team was aware of what they are doing. Words have meaning, and I'm not going to prevaricate when I don't mean to. Specifically in the case of giants, and particularly that of stone giant: making a set of races that are this much stronger than other award races, even those of the same tier. As several other posters have correctly pointed out, when races (especially award races) become too strong, you simultaneously create a two-tier system of those who have the chance to be drastically stronger than anyone else and encourage people to select races for the stat block over the roleplay, which in turn causes a veritable plague of badly-roleplayed examples of that race (not a speculative thing, we've seen it every time a race is too good. See: when dragons were a selectable race with great stats and permanent true sight). Both of these are poisonous to the ethos that Arelith has always had.


A final note.

Your use of "Gaslighting" is incorrect. Gaslighting is the practice of systematically abusing someone by creating a false narrative that causes them to question whether their own memory and/or perception of fact is unreliable. None of that is going on here.

[I am War]

You’re right, I was wrong on those accounts.

[Scurvy Cur]

Preview on coming changes (subject to change and nothing is ever set in stone :

• Disarm goes from -6 to -4 AB, Improved Disarm goes from -4 to -2 AB, and disarm size modifier is 2 AB instead of 4 AB between size differences
• Stone half giant’s 15% phys DI will become 15% slash DI, 10% pierce DI, and 5% Bludgeon DI
• Cloud half giant’s 10% phys DI will become 10% slash/pierce DI and 5% bludgeon DI

No plans for the stat changes yet as Drow was used as baseline for comparison. Another thing to note is that these half giants are

All of these changes are welcome, and I'm glad to hear it. Thank you for being responsive and communicative.

I think the DI is still too large. I'd consider capping all of them out at 5%, so that they're not getting numbers that are markedly different from horc.

I'd probably also ding the 20/- elemental DR that some of them have to 10/-, since there's both that and resistance, but this is a less important point.

This will still leave giant with four favorable things going for it:

1) DI like a horc
2) Stat block like a drow
3) Bonus feat like a human
4) Size category bonuses to KD and disarm (which looks like they are being made reasonable, thanks)

And 1 drawback to offset some of the above:
5) Large Size category AB and AC penalty

If you do this, stoneboy might need an adjustment (2 con moved to 2 strength), since it will lose more than the other giant types, but even then I'm not too sure, because for things like barbarian, which on most races buys a couple points of con to qualify for EDR, you end up at the same values anyway.

[Irongron]

Your use of "Gaslighting" is incorrect. Gaslighting is the practice of systematically abusing someone by creating a false narrative that causes them to question whether their own memory and/or perception of fact is unreliable. None of that is going on here.

These feedback threads have been popping up so long now I'm no longer sure what is going on...

Jokes, and wording aside (and in fairness gaslighting isn't a topic I should joke about anyway), feedback like this isn't just useful, it's essential. Discussion, testing, feedback and updates are how Arelith is built, and rewards are not something we can easily announce in advance, though with the recent update there it will definitely be easier in future.

And a reminder - don't RP as a full giant. I was cautious about adding these races not for power, but frequency and RP, I don't want to be required to gate or remove the reward so soon.

I do understand the misgivings though, and in order to help alleviate such concerns I can now exclusively reveal that the endgame in the super-secret Arelith development roadmap is a post apocalyptic wasteland populated with competing tribes of hand-bombard wielding techno-giants, and strewn with the bones of long dead elves.

So we're very much on track.

[Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia]

baffled and disturbed by half-giants. oh, and all the rest. even with future point-buy systems in mind. unironically, really think you should treat them all like vampires with applications and quotas. absolutely wild.

love and miss you all dev team, but- someone is still pumping the brakes sometimes, right? ...right?

[Spyre]

love and miss you all dev team, but- someone is still pumping the brakes sometimes, right? ...right?

<3 Miss you too. I try to become the Mord when Mord is not available.

[Atlus]

Preview on coming changes (subject to change and nothing is ever set in stone ):

• Disarm goes from -6 to -4 AB, Improved Disarm goes from -4 to -2 AB, and disarm size modifier is 2 AB instead of 4 AB between size differences

Is that rebalancing in preparation for monkey grip I smell?

[CharmedRidge]

I think it's fair a half-giant is stronger than everyone else, they are half-giants! 15% DI vs slashing isn't even that much compared to half-orc's 5% DI. So what if scimitar is weaker vs half-giants? Should have brought a rapier or a mace haha. Other half-giants are almost as good as stone giant too! Fire giant gets +4 STR and CON plus 50% fire immunity, hello? And Cloud Giant has no negatives, what I'm getting at is that all these half-giants are really strong!

I wish Kenku and Shadovar were as strong as half-giants, why even play a Kenku? They're diet halflings. It's like half of the new award races got supervision while the other was just shoved in.

[Quidix]

1) DI like a horc
2) Stat block like a drow
3) Bonus feat like a human
4) Size category bonuses to KD and disarm (which looks like they are being made reasonable, thanks)

And 1 drawback to offset some of the above:
5) Large Size category AB and AC penalty

You've brought good points to the discussion, thank you, and I agree with simply capping physical at 5%.

Just to highlight that Minotaur basically gets 1-5) above already as its gets free WF and +6 in stats. Minotaur does have two -stats, but I'd argue that matters less as people build around the low wis and cha. That said, on stat blocks Fire, Storm and Stone may be out of line as they have +8 positive stats rather than +6.

[Hazard]

This thread is so wholesome and productive <3

[Shadowy Reality]

I am not sure comparing stats like that is the way to go, can't just say they get +8 stats so they are better than races that get less. Storms get Str/Con/Wis/Cha but is that really useful? I would argue it isn't. Specially Wisdom and Charisma at the same time isn't particularly useful. They make good Cha battleclerics, but that seems to be about about it. More important than stats is whether the stat line allows for something much stronger than other races.

You want to make a WM? You are better making a half-orc genasi as you can pump a lot more Strength than a half-giant, strangely enough.