Player Count Conclusions

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

Why do people keep talking as if Loremaster is only just QoL and cookies, it is absolutely not.

It's a problem when your mundane weapon master can just -yoink another weaponmaster into the fight with 5 levels, whereas the Epic Conjurer had to spend 21 levels and 3 feats (one of them epic) to get access to the same thing. Same with -scry which can be a really strong tool to find someone, or spy on people.

The increased scroll CL also enables a mundane weaponmaster to actually dispel with a Mord scroll. That's right, Mord scrolls are good on their own, but a mundane weaponmaster loremaster has dispel chances on top.

the ESF-equivalent feats are mostly gimmicks when it comes to the boogeyman in the room (WM/LM). this is why people (ME) do not talk about it.

yes, i agree that it is incredibly goofy and domain-pushing that (ostensibly) martials can do what casters can with what seems to be minimal investment.

the investment is not minimal (16 int and skf lore sucks for some builds) but it is really friggin' goofy for a weaponmaster to have illusion or teleport or yoink. ward i wont touch because ward is part of another much bigger, annoying fish (instant travel)
but these things are also not that oppressive. all the big WM players are not initiating fights with -yoink, they aren't using -scry either, most of them hate it. but they ARE using -ward because people will just no-RP lens.

an easy fix is gating them behind the ability to cast 9th level spells. it cuts the mundie-caster LM dips up so there's less overlap. this does totally ignore the flavor of loremaster (go read the abilities, scrying is described as "Remote Viewing") but flavor doesn't matter if a feature is a problem.

scrollcasting mordes is strong but the dispel chance is 5% vs CL 30. WM LMs do not sit in PvP and throw out numerous scrolls.

what is oppressive about loremaster is how bundled everything together is. the class should retain its features but be more compartmentalized.

eg, swash/lm/assassin should have to choose between AB,AC, -ward, lore bonus instead of getting them all neatly packaged.
if people on that build had to choose between -ward (or just outright lost ward) or the lore boost, that wouldn't be egregious.

[Peacewhisper]

Cutting the number of secrets they learn in half, removing scry as an option, and getting rid of the +10 lore bonus would be a good start. They could learn lesser secrets at levels 2 and 4, and a single greater one at 5. Loremaster would still be a great and powerful option for a dip, but wouldn't be the single greatest option to ever exist.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

Things that make Loremaster too OP are:

• GSF/ESF Abilities; Casters generally have to spend 2-3 feats and have 21+ levels in a class to get these abilities, such as -yoink or -scry or -ward, but loremaster allows you to get them with just a single class feat. This is too little investment for such game changing abilities.

• AB/AC bonuses; The AB bonus is the same you get from 7 levels of weapon master, which requires an investment of six feats. Again, loremaster allows you to circumvent feat requirements for a powerful bonus. To anyone saying +1 AB is not that strong, we had to nerf Divine Champion's AB bonus they get during Divine Wrath, and that's not even up all the time. The AC bonus on top of that is just plain overkill. Why is the scroll reading class getting bonuses in combat for swinging a halberd or a scimitar? And how does this add to RP in any way? You can't even call this an "RP cookie" it's just a flat mechanical bonus that's never brought up IC.

• Lore Bonus; If we're going to let people use lore to cast level 9 spells from scrolls, we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it. It needs to be a major investment with tradeoffs. There are +5 lore rings, and +3 lore helmets. Getting up to 50 lore is easy even without spending feats or having lore bonuses on most of your gear. Make people work for their Lore or play an actual caster if they want to cast level 9 spells.

• Refund Chance; A wizard has a limited number of spell slots. My spellsword can only cast 4-5 level 8 spells per rest and that's it. Loremasters are walking around with scrolls in stacks of 100 for Gate, Mord's, Time Stop, Word of Faith, Greater Restoration, etc. They already can cast powerful spells many more times than casters. Thanks to the refund chance they can use most of those scrolls more than once. This is really just salting the wounds of casters who are already far behind martials. "But scrolls are expensive!" That's kind of the only justification for letting martials cast level 9 spells in the first place, and we basically removed it.

• CL Bonus; Letting martials cast any spells from scrolls is overpowered enough even without this. Needs to go. Scrolls should never be as good as spells cast by a dedicated epic wizard/cleric with the right spell foci.

• Secret of Gathering; The only "RP" I've seen coming from this is groups with a designated miner circle grinding adamantine. This is just a financial incentive to take the class, and even more tempting for martials who will need to be fully decked out in adamantine.

im gonna approach these points from the perspective of the elephant in the room (WM/LM) because that is the only class-spread anyone seems to care about. i aint seeing anyone talking about BG/LM or SWASH/LM/FTR or SWASH/LM/ASSASSIN

the only major secret you will see WM/LMs consistently taking is -ward_teleport. the others are gimmicky. very gimmicky. scrying as a WM is incredibly clunky. yoink is. . . fine? i implore you to think on how yoink is used. people use yoink to take people to avernus, to the abyss, and to go sailing. "ganking," partying up, rallying - anything pertaining to PvP is going to be wisp bottles and lenses.
they "all" take -ward and the health secret.

the AC/AB bonus is literally a non-issue. WM/LM's usual AB range is about 48-50. that's what a 20/7/3 will end at with g. strength, a strength race, or some combination of the two. it gets that AB secret because otherwise it's a 3/4 BAB class that some people take pre-epic.

"we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it. "
they already do.
do the math before you state this, please. this is incredibly misleading to people who haven't taken the time to look at this stuff.
LM dip builds absolutely do gear +2 lore on every piece of gear and some still take ESKF lore.
source: my WM/LM. base 33 lore + 3 int + 5 skf + 10 eskf + 10 lm + 4 (rings) + 5 cloak + 2 boots + 2 glove + 2 necklace + 2 belt + 2 armor. hitting 80 lore without ESKF used to require lore rings and hard 5s. those are gone now.

the lore bonus is cozy, but it only cushions the pain that is gearing 80 lore.
gutting the lore bonus on LM dips is not going to change the builds that actually benefit the most from 80 lore (save for swash/lm/assassin.)

timestop defiler will not disappear.

"They already can cast powerful spells many more times than casters."
yes by sitting there enduring a full animation in which they can be crit down.

"Letting martials cast any spells from scrolls is overpowered enough even without this. Needs to go. Scrolls should never be as good as spells cast by a dedicated epic wizard/cleric with the right spell foci."
they aren't and they mechanically cannot be.
a mord's scroll is CL 17, with LM, that's CL 22.
WoF is CL 13, with LM, that's CL 18.

scrollcasting does not work in the way you are claiming at all.
sure, gutting the CL bonus might be worth it. after-all, a BG/LM actually nets +1 AC over a BG with a tumble dip. heal scroll spam, mass heal scrolls, etc, those are all rightful things to criticize, but let's not pretend that there are weaponmasters sitting there spamming mordes and stripping people's buffs.

[Peacewhisper]

do the math before you state this, please.

33 skill points
10 epic skill focus
10 lore master
10 lore rings
3 skill focus lore
3 helmet
3 intelligence (low balling this one)

Total: 72 Lore

Remaining Equipment:

necklace
boots
belt
gloves
cloak
armor
shield/off-hand
weapon

With a fox potion, you only need to slap +2 lore on 3 of these remaining pieces of gear. Without the +10 lore bonus, you'd need to lore absolutely everything including your weapon if you wanted to cast level 9 spells. You can currently do that and completely skip ESF: Lore to still reach 80. So yeah, it makes a difference.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

do the math before you state this, please.

33 skill points
10 epic skill focus
10 lore master
10 lore rings
3 skill focus lore
3 helmet
3 intelligence (low balling this one)

Total: 72 Lore

Remaining Equipment:

necklace
boots
belt
gloves
cloak
armor
shield/off-hand
weapon

With a fox potion, you only need to slap +2 lore on 3 of these remaining pieces of gear. Without the +10 lore bonus, you'd need to lore absolutely everything including your weapon if you wanted to cast level 9 spells. You can currently do that and completely skip ESF: Lore to still reach 80. So yeah, it makes a difference.

im not going to get into the weeds of this 'cause it aint productive. i never said it didnt help, i said there's still a tax.

WM/LMs used to run hard5s with the lore rings and with the lore bracers (assuming they didnt run eskf lore)
swash/lm/assassin cant fit eskf lore or even 5 levels of LM.

you, yourself, are listing ESKF lore, after saying we should force them to spend feats on it.

"we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it."

i want you to go gear up a WM/LM and hit 80 lore without taking ESKF, without masterwork runes, and without the dweomer rework, and without lore rings. it's a proper pain to fit unisaves, spellcraft, lore, umd, discipline, STR and CON.

[Peacewhisper]

im not going to get into the weeds of this 'cause it aint productive. i never said it didnt help, i said there's still a tax.

WM/LMs used to run hard5s with the lore rings and with the lore bracers (assuming they didnt run eskf lore)
swash/lm/assassin cant fit eskf lore or even 5 levels of LM.

you, yourself, are listing ESKF lore, after saying we should force them to spend feats on it.

"we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it."

i want you to go gear up a WM/LM and hit 80 lore without taking ESKF, without masterwork runes, and without the dweomer rework, and without lore rings. it's a proper pain to fit unisaves, spellcraft, lore, umd, discipline, STR and CON.

33 skill points
10 loremaster
10 lore rings
3 intelligence
3 helmet
3 skill focus lore
2 courteous magocracy
2 shield dwarf

Total: 66 Lore

Remaining Gear:

necklace (+2 lore)
boots (+2 lore)
belt (+2 lore)
gloves (+2 lore)
cloak (+2 lore)
armor (+2 lore)
shield/off-hand (+2 lore)
weapon (+2 lore)

Total: 82 Lore

Even if I wasn't being cheeky and using a shield dwarf with courteous magocracy, you could gear int instead of con and still reach 80 lore. No masterwork runes or ESF needed. I'm not going to pretend lore rings don't exist for this because they do and are stupidly easy to get, you can literally buy them from a vendor.

[trashwizard]

you could gear int instead of con and still reach 80 lore.

local weapon master dies to cantrip damage

[Peacewhisper]

you could gear int instead of con and still reach 80 lore.

local weapon master dies to cantrip damage

Understand I said this in response to an extremely specific scenario in which we aren't allowed to take epic skill focus (on a build with 18 fighter levels) or using masterwork runes (which is inconsequential since you can make tri-stat gear with greater runes just as easily). Realistically your 18 fighter/7 wm/5 loremaster is not going to have any problem picking up an epic skill focus or gearing enough con to survive a cantrip. Lets stop pretending like getting 80 lore is a near impossible task for a build that gets 10 extra feats to work with.

[Effortless Lace]

33 skill points
10 loremaster
10 lore rings
3 intelligence
3 helmet
3 skill focus lore
2 courteous magocracy
2 shield dwarf

Total: 66 Lore

Remaining Gear:

necklace (+2 lore)
boots (+2 lore)
belt (+2 lore)
gloves (+2 lore)
cloak (+2 lore)
armor (+2 lore)
shield/off-hand (+2 lore)
weapon (+2 lore)

Total: 82 Lore

your numbers are off. we'll remove racial bonuses and feats people won't take, though, and provide a minimum investment.

33 ranks;
10 loremaster class bonus
10 lore rings
5 sf: lore
3 intelligence
2 fox potion
5 cloak
= 68

if we were a dwarf, we'd get another 2 for 70, but presuming not, we need 12 more without eskf.

bracers = 7 (6 + 2int)
belt, neck, boot = 6.
= 81; 83 if dwarf.

If you go with eskf, it eases off the last stretch, but you're still dedicating most of your gear to +lore.

[Peacewhisper]

your numbers are off. we'll remove racial bonuses and feats people won't take, though, and provide a minimum investment.

33 ranks;
10 loremaster class bonus
10 lore rings
5 sf: lore
3 intelligence
2 fox potion
5 cloak
= 68

if we were a dwarf, we'd get another 2 for 70, but presuming not, we need 12 more without eskf.

bracers = 7 (6 + 2int)
belt, neck, boot = 6.
= 81; 83 if dwarf.

If you go with eskf, it eases off the last stretch, but you're still dedicating most of your gear to +lore.

You're right, I forgot that Skill Focus is buffed from vanilla, and that we have +5 lore cloaks to go with our +5 lore rings. So it's actually even easier than I thought. lol

[Security_Blanket]

You would only need the one character that can scry for a kill squad. With yoink being so common and easy to get you can yoink in someone with yoink, and so on until all the summoners are in position, everyone rest and summon one more PC each. To suggest that scry and yoink offer no advantage in PvP is lacking in imagination, those seem like pretty basic tactical tools to get a team into position. Even just for PvE, you can assemble players for a dungeon run on the fly.

[Carrion Eater]

for a build that gets 10 extra feats to work with.

Huh?



Regardless, nobody's arguing that Lore is impossible to gear, even if your math is off.

I have isolated the focus sentence of this Lore-gearing debate below.

Gearing Lore is a trade-off.

[30 RANGER FROM THE MOON]

You're right, I forgot that Skill Focus is buffed from vanilla, and that we have +5 lore cloaks to go with our +5 lore rings. So it's actually even easier than I thought. lol

"Lore Bonus; If we're going to let people use lore to cast level 9 spells from scrolls, we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it. It needs to be a major investment with tradeoffs. There are +5 lore rings, and +3 lore helmets. Getting up to 50 lore is easy even without spending feats or having lore bonuses on most of your gear. Make people work for their Lore or play an actual caster if they want to cast level 9 spells."

your original point was that they need to "dedicate to it."
he just showed you math in which 7 of your main gear slots are solely dedicated to lore.
again, as another poster just said. it isn't impossible.

it's that you made the claim "we should make them do X" - they already do X.
it's expensive. it isn't impossible, but it is annoying.

[Kythana]

It needs to be a major investment with tradeoffs.

for a build that gets 10 extra feats to work with.

These aren't extra feats, these are part of the build. Every time you drop one for easier gearing, you're losing something like:

Health, damage, discipline, ect.

If we were to take ESF: Lore for easier gearing, then you either have to drop prowess or epic will. So -1 ab, or bye bye will saves.

That is, by definition, a tradeoff.

[Peacewhisper]

Okay so after double checking my math I was off about a couple of things. Helmets just give +2 not +3. Skill Focus gives +5 on Arelith not +3 like in vanilla. After checking the wiki here is the optimal way of reaching 80 lore.

33 skill points
10 lore master
10 lore rings
10 epic skill focus lore
7 adamantine bracer of knowing
5 skill focus lore
5 witch hunter's cloak

Total: 80

You just need 2 feats, 4 gear slots, and 5 levels of lore master for this. You don't even need your full int bonus, or lore on your helmet. The rest of your gear your can put whatever on it. That's 6 gear slots free that you can just throw str/con/discipline/unisaves on and carry whatever optimized main weapon you want. So my point stands.

These aren't extra feats, these are part of the build. Every time you drop one for easier gearing, you're losing something like:

Health, damage, discipline, ect.

If we were to take ESF: Lore for easier gearing, then you either have to drop prowess or epic will. So -1 ab, or bye bye will saves.

That is, by definition, a tradeoff.

We are talking specifically about a build with 18 fighter levels which gets 10 bonus feats. Maybe for some builds it is a tradeoff, but hardly much of one in this case.

[Security_Blanket]

Okay so after double checking my math I was off about a couple of things. Helmets just give +2 not +3. Skill Focus gives +5 on Arelith not +3 like in vanilla. After checking the wiki here is the optimal way of reaching 80 lore.

33 skill points
10 lore master
10 lore rings
10 epic skill focus lore
7 adamantine bracer of knowing
5 skill focus lore
5 witch hunter's cloak

Total: 80

You forgot the bonus from Intelligence, 16+4 from a potion, there's another 5 Lore.

[Kythana]

We are talking specifically about a build with 18 fighter levels which gets 10 bonus feats. Maybe for some builds it is a tradeoff, but hardly much of one in this case.

So we've moved the goalposts from, 'not a tradeoff' to now 'hardly a tradeoff?'

This is a standard fighter/wm/lm I threw together.

If we want ESF: Lore for easier gearing, we have to give up something. Either OWC(and power attack, cleaves), meaning less damage overall, improved knockdown, or improved expertise.

I consider both of those pretty significant milestones for a WM build. And the more you drop feats that improve your actual combat capabilities to instead focus on reading scrolls easier, the less you're focusing on what actually makes a wm good.

[Peacewhisper]

You forgot the bonus from Intelligence, 16+4 from a potion, there's another 5 Lore.

I know, I honestly just stopped counting once the goal of 80 was reached. I did count the +1 int bonus from the bracers along with the skill bonus.

So we've moved the goalposts from, 'not a tradeoff' to now 'hardly a tradeoff?'

This is a standard fighter/wm/lm I threw together.

If we want ESF: Lore for easier gearing, we have to give up something. Either OWC(and power attack, cleaves), meaning less damage overall, or improved knockdown.

I consider both of those pretty significant milestones for a WM build. And the more you drop feats that improve your actual combat capabilities to instead focus on reading scrolls easier, the less you're focusing on what actually makes a wm good.

Okay I see your point now. Even so, if you count the int bonus, and use a fox potion, you just need to put lore on 3 more items. That's still a trade-off, sure, but it's not like you are getting scammed when you end up with 9th level spells, overwhelming crit, AND improved knockdown.. For what? -3 unisaves?

Edit: I don't care to go in circles arguing about this all day. So in summary, after going over the math multiple times, checking the wikis, etc. Any claims that getting 80 lore is difficult or requires a substantial investment in feats or gear have been debunked. You don't even need Masterwork Runes or Epic Skill Focus: Lore to cast 9th level spells as a fighter/wm with overwhelming crit and improved knockdown.

[Aog]

Edit: I don't care to go in circles arguing about this all day. So in summary, after going over the math multiple times, checking the wikis, etc. Any claims that getting 80 lore is difficult or requires a substantial investment in feats or gear have been debunked. You don't even need Masterwork Runes or Epic Skill Focus: Lore to cast 9th level spells as a fighter/wm with overwhelming crit and improved knockdown.

You are either arguing in bad faith or you have a very strange definition of "insubstantial". You have listed a massive amount of investment required to hit the lore point in question and seem to be attempting to gaslight people into it being no big deal. I do not understand why you're doing this.

[Kythana]

We have gone from:

Lore Bonus; If we're going to let people use lore to cast level 9 spells from scrolls, we should at least force them to put +2 lore on every single piece of gear they have and spend a couple of feats for it. It needs to be a major investment with tradeoffs. There are +5 lore rings, and +3 lore helmets. Getting up to 50 lore is easy even without spending feats or having lore bonuses on most of your gear. Make people work for their Lore or play an actual caster if they want to cast level 9 spells.

To:

I don't care to go in circles arguing about this all day. So in summary, after going over the math multiple times, checking the wikis, etc. Any claims that getting 80 lore is difficult or requires a substantial investment in feats or gear have been debunked. You don't even need Masterwork Runes or Epic Skill Focus: Lore to cast 9th level spells as a fighter/wm with overwhelming crit and improved knockdown.

Even after being shown a substantial investment in gear, IE, putting it on every piece of equipment, wearing the crappy +7 lore bracers, drinking int potion(which is vulnerable to dispels) or trading an epic feat and losing out on better things, the claim is still acting like it's some free thing that you don't even have to worry about.

Very strange.

Feel free to actually post the complete gear breakdown in the current dweomer state, where you're reaching your attribute cap + discipline, lore + saves. Because as someone who actually geared for 80 lore in 5% dweomer, I can back what was been already said. It ain't free, and requires tradeoffs.

[Seren]

33 skill points
10 lore master
10 lore rings
10 epic skill focus lore
7 adamantine bracer of knowing
5 skill focus lore
5 witch hunter's cloak

Total: 80

I'm sorry but nobody, NOBODY is running addy bracer with two lore rings as a FTR/LM/WM because you would be incapable of reaching your discipline / str/con cap with the removal of hard 5s or some really randy gear options. This argument is hyperbolic and nonsensical. Fighter/LM has really awful saves, particularly will, without the assistance of Uni Save gear.

If you use two lore rings alongside the bracer of knowing as well as the witch hunter cloak without having access to hard 5s, which have been removed long before this post, you're making an incredible sacrifice to almost every other aspect of your class. Any routine pvper will know that they need disc & saves to avoid being deleted immediately by certain things.

There is no world where someone gears what you're suggesting and actually ends up being incredibly dangerous to the point of it being gamebreaking; it just doesn't happen in the basis of reality. On paper you can make anything look oppressive, but this just ain't it.

I think it's clear that you haven't been playing the game for a long time, and that's okay, but I think that you should avoid misleading people with your disinformation as it will assist in contributing to the wrong changes, thus doing more harm to the server than actual good.

[Peacewhisper]

So what is the end-game here? To refuse to make any trade-offs in your builds and spend masterwork runes on everything, all while complaining about how expensive it is and gaslighting everyone that having access to 9th level spells is really no big deal? You can't convince me a weapon master with overwhelming critical and improved knockdown who can scry won't be dangerous because they wore the wrong bracers and only have 63 discipline instead of 72. Come on now. And lets cool it with the personal attacks. Loremaster is still getting nerfed anyways even if I used +3 in my math instead of +5.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Fighter/LM has really awful saves, particularly will, without the assistance of Uni Save gear.

Not to discredit the rest of what you are saying, there is some merit too it, but this is not correct thanks to spell craft being a class skill for loremaster and almost everything respecting spell craft saves these days. So really all your basin gear can just look something like strength/con/disc/lore/spellcraft and you don't even need runes, let alone a 5%.

[Kushion]

i took courteous magocracy on my weaponmaster it’s true.

-that aside, I have geared and t3 runed a wm/lm, in 2024, and even with having ESKF+LM every single one of my pieces have +lore.

as seren said, I had to avoid using the adamantine bracers in order to hit livable numbers of discipline and saves.

I cannot fit improved knockdown or toughness on my human wm/lm, due to taking eskf:lore. I can post my feat list if you’d like.

i will actually speak from experience with my take here, you DO need Masterwork runes. especially if, as you say, adamantine bracers are being used. these require a t3 rune, btw. so do lore rings.

Having recently made a character that uses stealth, I can say with no doubt that my wm/lm would be far more oppressive if he traded the 80 lore for hide/ms. Loremaster is a convenience class for people who want to lessen their already extremely substantive grind.

The weaponmaster attacking you out of stealth or the weaponmaster just charging you on a horse is more scary than the one reading papers, in practice.

my fault for skipping courteous magocracy, I guess

[Kythana]

So what is the end-game here? To refuse to make any trade-offs in your builds and spend masterwork runes on everything, all while complaining about how expensive it is and gaslighting everyone that having access to 9th level spells is really no big deal?

You are making trade-offs in your build, I don't know why you are refusing to listen to the 5 people now who have shown it.

And yes, having access to 9th level spells is not the gotcha you think it is.

We already have gate books. We already have mords rocks.

We already have greater mantle books. We already have premo books.

While technically we have clocks for time stop, they're not really found often enough to be reliable. It's the one thing that 80 lore really gains over UMD, since book time stop is the spellsword version. And, Is time stop good?

Sure. But it's not as OP as you would think.

Not only do we already have access to most of important 9th level spells through UMD, they're also faster since they use item action and not scroll action.

You can't convince me a weapon master with overwhelming critical and improved knockdown who can scry won't be dangerous because they wore the wrong bracers and only have 63 discipline instead of 72.

Nobody has ever said that a WM with those things is weak. But is it game defyingly broken? Hardly. A WM with stealth is arguably stronger given the defensive and offensive capabilities. A div synergy WM has way more AC and damage, and div to saves. Cav/WM charge can be really strong for alpha strikes and actually one rounding someone with ease.

And many of those builds can also get 80 lore too.

And lets cool it with the personal attacks.

It's not a personal attack. A lot of the information you have posted is either flat out wrong, or outdated. You have been corrected multiple times now. Claiming that something is strong based on incorrect conclusions is leading the conversation astray.

Loremaster is still getting nerfed anyways even if I used +3 in my math instead of +5.

Sure, Loremaster is probably getting nerfed. But many of us don't want to see the QoL components of it reduced or destroyed because it's falsely surmised to be incredibly op.