Sail skill

[Paint]

I'm fine with not every class and/or combination of stats in the game being able to be the best sailors. Like everything in Arelith, being the best at The Thing, and getting the rewards that come along with it should come with a lot of sacrifice to power in other categories, force you into grappling with certain mechanics, and lock out other options entirely. SF and ESF Sail are sacrifice, but not on the magnitude that I'm talking about. I'm talking about abandoning builds and character concepts because they don't get you across the finish line.

In my opinion, optimal sailing builds should be so difficult to attain that they make your character worse at aspects of PVP and PVE than people who don't make those sacrifices. It should lock you out of certain class and stat combinations, etc etc. In return, you are better at The Thing than everyone else, maybe even getting to see content that most won't.

...I mean just look at optimal quarterbreaking builds. Woof.

Point is, choice should be meaningful.

Really, the only thing I can agree with is that bards being near-mandatory is boring and bad and takes away more than it adds to sailing. It's a little embarrassing that so much theorycrafting and preparation can be thrown out the window by a bard hitting One Funny Button. Eventually, everyone just starts building around the assumption of a bard. Content is built around the assumption of A Bard, etc etc.

Eventually, other builds that lean into the same niche have to be balanced around bard, because if that build that fills that niche is partied with a bard who can make them better at said niche, then they're way better at it. So they can't be balanced without factoring in bard as context. And that's pretty unhealthy. No one class should have so much sway over the whole meta that builds for other characters may become valid or invalid depending on how it(bard) is tweaked.

[Seekeepeek]

I think it's fine as it is, to be honest. I think the system's popularity speak for it self.
Action replay and the team did a very nice job with this. It have a level of complexity that make it fun and challenging, without being to complex. it hit a nice balance and it's definitely at the top 3 of add-ons/updates Arelith had in the 10 years i played.

[Subtext]

First of all, there's zero sail skill required to access the endgame dungeons that require a boat.
There's three possible dangers:
- Storms which can absolutely be evaded. Even maxed sailors do that.
- NPC boarders which you should be able to defeat if you plan to run a dungeon located in the according quadrants. If you can't do that, you will not survive the dungeon either.
- PC pirates. Which is the most tangible danger but given the PvP rules there are ways to handle that without getting sunk.

None of these things requires a single point in sail. What requires sail is ship PvP and fighting NPC vessels. None of these things is a runic dungeon.

As for bards. This might be an unpopular opinion but I think it is alright that they have this impact. A support class like that is hard to balance for an mmo-esque place like Arelith and they absolutely need a tangible identity and power to get players to play them.
I see no issues with that aside from the solo QB ability where it has already been stated that it will go away.

[The Rambling Midget]

As for bards. This might be an unpopular opinion but I think it is alright that they have this impact. A support class like that is hard to balance for an mmo-esque place like Arelith and they absolutely need a tangible identity and power to get players to play them.
I see no issues with that aside from the solo QB ability where it has already been stated that it will go away.

It's fine for them to be support, but not at all fine for them to be a necessity. There are plenty of ways Bards can be made to retain their usefulness on ships without making them a hard requirement for top level play.

Their bonuses could count only up to a cap.
Their bonuses could count only toward navigation and not combat.
Their bonuses could be applied to the ship sail score on a logarithmic scale, so that inexperienced crews gain more than experienced ones.

I'm sure there are plenty of other possibilities, but I see no reason why any one specific class should be the deciding factor in ship combat. It stifles RP diversity. No matter what the power reduction - unless Bards were to lose sail bonuses completely - Bard song will never not be an incredibly powerful boon, as far as allowing suboptimal sail builds to participate in high level content.

[msheeler]

but you can still sail everywhere even with 0 sail

What is the difference in screen time sitting on the ship if you do this with 60 sails and if you do this with 0 sails?

[-XXX-]

What is the difference in screen time sitting on the ship if you do this with 60 sails and if you do this with 0 sails?

Dunno.
All ships have different speed stats. Some ships even have a "turbo boost" ability on a cooldown.
The Sea Leopard would most likely outrun the Penny Rose regardless of the crew skill.
There are additional factors like wind direction and sail checks that can further speed the ship up or slow it down.

It's fine for them to be support, but not at all fine for them to be a necessity.

Agreed, unless the crew consists of clerics, loremasters or fathomless warlocks, bard on the deck is a mandatory requirement to engage naval endgame PvE content. That's not fun.

[TurningLeaf]

but you can still sail everywhere even with 0 sail

What is the difference in screen time sitting on the ship if you do this with 60 sails and if you do this with 0 sails?

This is precisely why I included the term "quasi locked" in my OP. Because I knew people would come with the "well technically if you want to spend 3 hrs getting there you dont need any sail" argument.

[The Rambling Midget]

This is precisely why I included the term "quasi locked" in my OP. Because I knew people would come with the "well technically if you want to spend 3 hrs getting there you dont need any sail" argument.

It's nowhere near that bad. Definitely annoying if you're on a schedule, but it's maybe one or two more "are we there yet"s to get somewhere. This is, of course, further modified by incidental weather effects, but even experienced crews can still have trouble with those.

[-XXX-]

A Voyage Sail Skill check will be done each time a ship enters a new quadrant on the map. This check is done with the total Sail rank of that ship as mentioned above.
This skill check is of varying DC depending on a number of factors such as weather and how far off from the coast of Arelith the ship is. Succeeding a Voyage Check will decrease travel time by 1 minute (1 tick), failing will add 1 tick to it. Additionally, succeeding the check will also reward Experience to players on board the Deck of that ship based on how far off that quadrant is from Arelith shores.

https://wiki.nwnarelith.com/Sailing#Sailing_Skill

[msheeler]

So this means we are talking about a two minute difference per quadrant between a crew that reliably makes these vs a crew that reliably does not?

Did I read that correctly?

[-XXX-]

I read it the same way.

It would also suggest that the travel time difference for getting from Arelith to Blackfin Rock between a 0 sail crew and a 60+ sail crew would be no more than 6 minutes.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

The way the current system is designed, Bards make the sailing system more inclusive to every class not less.


Max crew sail score = 100

You personally can have a higher score than that, and those points will average into the total crew score, but if you have a full crew of people who pass a 95 average you are the most min maxed you can be.

There is a limited amount of builds that can get there without the help of bard songs without derping the rest of their build. They include swash/loremaster, wisdom based casters (meaning 40 wisdom min), and Bards. You could also make the case that a Pure fighter or some sort of not min maxed fighter cot build could afford the feats and dip loremaster to be as good as a swash loremaster. That's it. Everyone else may as well not even bother.

What helps every class that invests in sail to hit the threshold is bard song.

Now, some of you may be thinking "but more variation in scores would be good", and in theory I agree. Unfortunately, I know what the reality will be on Arelith. One group will be all swashy loremasters or whatever, do a fair bit of dominance on the seas, and from that point forth no one will sail unless they have the min maxed crew. So now your rogue that you took sf sail and epic focus sail isn't a real sailor, because it can't keep up even though you have the best of the best in sailing gear.



This all has been explained before, so I'm a bit surprised to see the same people making the same points while completely ignoring this, but maybe people just forgot this conversation when it happened 3 months ago and every three months before that over the last two years.

But the truth is that the only way you remove bard from the equation without completely ruining the system is by rethinking it entirely. So if you got a good idea, I'm sure the right people are paying attention.

[Subtext]

If the idea truly is to make bard reliance a bit less prevalent or important, I did mention earlier in this thread that Sail could also benefit from other stats. DEX, INT, STR all make a lot of sense (in the sense of the highest applies, not all of it at once). I don't think it is strictly necessary but it would absolutely even the playing field...and wisdom already gives a lot in terms of will saves, boni for very useful skills and towards a good range of already very good classes.

Also. Keep in mind, folks...100 is the absolute maximum you can hit with your crew. It is not the bare minimum required to go sailing or even to tackle the hardest content - it is the number at which you'll absolutely dominate the sailing specific endgame.
I do think it shouldn't be a given to always hit that without much effort! Even for said endgame....having 90 is still comfortable. Having 80 is still doable!

Just for reference. You can comfortably engage vessels in the ring around Arelith with an average sail score of 20-35+ already which is achievable in so many ways even for lower levels while still offering exceptional rewards.
It can be done by a lower level crew with zero skill investment, no feats, no class bonuses, no gifts, no bards...if they only bring a full custom made sailing kit.

[-XXX-]

PvE: the PvE content has been clearly designed with sea shanties in mind. Bard exists, so the system operates under the assumption that the crew sail score will be 20 points higher. That means the entire crew better be deep sail builds or they must include a bard.
Proposed solution: delete ba~ ...sea shanties, then lower some of the DCs a bit.

PvP: "bard song is an equalizer". This applies only in the unlikely scenario where a dabbling sail crew with a bard on board meets a deep sail build crew without one, then the bard song helps bridge the crew sail score difference.
But in practice what's more likely: the "pro" sail discord clique neglecting to bring a bard or the "casual" organically assembled crew?
In this case the "equalizer" is more likely to set up a "win more" scenario than the other way around.
Should both crews bring a bard we'd be talking about a zero sum game with the deep sail crew emerging on top anyway.
Proposed solution: delete sea shanties, then look at the builds.

Builds: first off, let's stop mentioning swashbuckler here: swashbucklers only receive SF:sail and ESF:sail for free. While that's certainly nice, it's not something that any build couldn't get. That's good design right there IMO, unlike some of the other hard sail bonus perks that are exclusive to certain classes only and currently stack with everything else.

Proposed solution:
Cleric Stregth Domain (confers +3 sail) -> change to free SF:sail instead
Cleric Travel Domain (confers +3 sail) -> change to free SF:sail instead
Loremaster Secret Knowledge of Exploration (confers +6 sail) -> change to free ESF:sail instead
Fathomless Warlock (pact +3 sail, greater pact +6 sail, epic pact +9 sail) -> change to greater pact giving free SF:sail, epic pact giving free ESF:sail instead

Wisdom: currently WIS is the ultimate tiebreaker - if we take two deep sail builds, slap every concievable soft and hard skill bonus available to them, the WIS build still wins by an unfair margin.
Frankly, I never bought into the "wise man of the sea" argument - similarly valid or even better arguments could be made for any other character attribute.
Furthermore, adding just +2 sail on a character's ACTUAL gear is much more doable than having to include +1 WIS as well - that's where the need to make a brand new full sailing gear to swap around really stems from.
Finally, who likes the idea of getting caught with their pants down wearing crappy sailing gear when the githyanki/pirates board the ship?
Proposed solution: what Subtext said - make Sail work with the highest attribute available. We know it's possible (climb).

[TurningLeaf]

Literally the way the sailing system feels, is like there was a concern in development there would be too many people sailing

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Builds: first off, let's stop mentioning swashbuckler here: swashbucklers only receive SF:sail and ESF:sail for free. While that's certainly nice, it's not something that any build couldn't get. That's good design right there IMO, unlike some of the other hard sail bonus perks that are exclusive to certain classes only and currently stack with everything else.

I'll elaborate since clearly you aren't seeing it. 26 swash/4 loremaster is already a competitive build without factoring in sailing. It gives the swash access to spell craft, synergizes nicely with the 16 int requirement of loremaster, and gives the build the potential to access to stuff like timestop scrolls and the like.

The fact that it gets +27 to sail for the mere cost of one of its loremaster feats is a huge advantage over other premium builds, because they have to take away a pre epic and epic feat and get 16 int when they probably don't want it otherwise for the +12 to sail from loremaster's explorer feat.

Does that help you understand why I keep mentioning swash loremasters?

[toftdal]

Minor correction - explorer gift was nerfed to +6, but your point stands

[Rei_Jin]

The explorer gift was changed from +12 SOFT Sail score bonus, to +6 HARD Sail score bonus.

It's a huge change, and not a nerf at all, because it changes the ceiling on your Sail score.

(For those who don't know, the maximum SOFT skill bonus, to ANY skill, is +50, and a character with +2 Sail in each item slot, plus the three "Epic Sail" items (Robes, Cloak, and Amulet), gets +30 Sail from gear. Add in +20 from a Bard and you hit the +50 cap.)

[-XXX-]

I'll elaborate since clearly you aren't seeing it. 26 swash/4 loremaster is already a competitive build without factoring in sailing. It gives the swash access to spell craft, synergizes nicely with the 16 int requirement of loremaster, and gives the build the potential to access to stuff like timestop scrolls and the like.

I am seeing it; we just seem to care about different things here. I doubt that it's anybody's wish to make sail-viable builds bad at everything else.
Try to focus less on the tradeoff and pay attention to what's possible.
The sail perks you used to calculate the sail bonus would then consist of:

Gift of Sailing +6
Skill Focus +5
Epic Skill Focus +10
Loremaster Secret Knowledge of Exploration +6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
+27 hard sail

+5 Wisdom (assuming base WIS 8 +12 from maxed gear)
+33 sail ranks
+22 soft gear bonus
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
87 sail

Now, Gift of Sailing, Skill Focus and Epic Skill Focus are available to everyone, regardless of whether the build is good or bad or whatever.
Heck, you can take all that on a lvl 30 Commoner and contribute with turbo repair.

The offending perk here is the Secret Knowledge of Exploration that stacks with everything and is available only to the Loremaster. My point was that Swashbuckler on its own does not really bring anything to the table that other builds couldn't get - Swashbucklers need to multiclass into Loremaster to get the edge from the Secret Knowledge of Exploration just like everybody else. The fact that swashbuckler synergizes well with the Loremaster and would likely want to multiclass into it anyway is irrelevant.


And even then, the swash build is still quite sail-lite when compared to what's possible. If we wanted to talk about builds that allow for minimal tradeoffs to get stupendous sail stat, we've got to talk about the Cleric here:

Gift of Sailing +6
Skill Focus +5
Epic Skill Focus +10
Strength Domain +3
Travel Domain +3
-----------------------------
+27 hard sail

+14 Wisdom
+33 sail ranks
+22 soft gear bonus
-----------------------------
96 sail

^and that's just Cleric, with no multiclassing or additional build creativity needed. All the "tradeoff" they had to make there was... 2 feats.
(leaving plenty of room to still go the Loremaster or Bard/Evangelist route if they wanted to get even higher sail).

[TurningLeaf]

As a thought exercise, what if the skill was just based on hard ranks and nothing else? With sail-dependent rolls adjusted accordingly? Is everything ruined and boring? Or is there a chance it's all better and more exciting?

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

You can read it above.

I think I see where you are coming from at least now, but... Of course, the tradeoff matters. If it didn't people would be saying you could just play a rogue monk zen archer maxing out wisdom to go sailing. And while that sounds so deliciously bad I just might try it I don't think I would want to lock it into a sailing character.

The point I have been trying to make here (and in the last thread, and the thread before that) is that without bard song every point is going to matter even more individually than it does now, unless the whole thing is redesigned. And yes, I think swashy loremasters are part of that discussion still even though I didn't realize they lowered it from a free +12 on the explorer. I would have trouble deciding what to cut on a 26/4 fighter/lm even with all those feats to make room for the sailing foci (and the sf lore for loremaster), on every other build its really painful.

I know this because I have had to make the hard choices multiple times now, and sometimes my pirates haven't even had epic focus sail.

*Pause for gasps*


Bard song made sure I still mattered when I needed to though!

[dominantdrowess]

As a thought exercise, what if the skill was just based on hard ranks and nothing else? With sail-dependent rolls adjusted accordingly? Is everything ruined and boring? Or is there a chance it's all better and more exciting?

Hard only would literally break all the treasure chest gear people have invested 100s of hours in getting and sink the sail ecconomy that trades in such goods— many such characters are not captains and cannot simply recoup those losses on +5 sail amulets worth millions since they bought those amulets from people who sail.

[The Rambling Midget]

Bard song made sure I still mattered when I needed to though!

It's good that you still mattered. That's a great thing. Inclusivity is important.
It's bad that Bard was the only thing that could make you still matter.


If we want to make sail accessible to a wider range of characters, why not base sail boons on a skill set available to a wider range of classes?

Which of these makes more sense?
a) A Bard prances around a ship, singing sea shanties, and suddenly everyone becomes twice as good at navigating and handling rigging.
b) An experienced Sailor with a ton of Sail and Leadership skill actively guides a group of less experienced sailors, teaching them how to operate the ship's systems and navigate by the sun, stars, and landmarks.

Morale is important, but so are discipline, leadership, and a lot of other things. The system should reflect that.

I want to hear "A Bard would be great to have along, if we can find one. They're always helpful." instead of "Oh, we couldn't find a Bard? I guess we can try again, tomorrow."

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

It's bad that Bard was the only thing that could make you still matter.

I'm not disputing this at all, only that simply removing bard song from the equation and nothing else would not be good for the majority of sailing characters. I know rituals were supposed to be something that made bards less necessary, did that ever pan out?

[-XXX-]

Hard only would literally break all the treasure chest gear people have invested 100s of hours in getting and sink the sail ecconomy that trades in such goods— many such characters are not captains and cannot simply recoup those losses on +5 sail amulets worth millions since they bought those amulets from people who sail.

I'm not saying that TurningLeaf's idea would be the best solution here - certainly not before something's done about Secret Knowledge of Exploration, Strength/Travel domains and Fathomless pact.

However, protecting the investments of rich characters in a hyperinflated economy should be the least of our concerns. Especially when the outlook would be a more balanced and inclusive sailing system. And I'm saying that as someone with a full runic gear set optimized for sailing in my character's inventory.

The legendary sailing items aren't a good design IMO anyway - they only make already great sailors even better while everybody else sulks in the port because they couldn't get a bard.