Arelith

garrbear758 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:15 pm In part 2 of the balance update, here are some things you can expect, very much subject to change.

1. Removing the 4 dodge ac from barbarian.

2. Changing pale master's crit immunity from 100% at level 10 to 5% crit immunity per pm level.

3. Something to tone down hexblades debuff burst. Solo they are mostly fine and probably just need to come down a number or two. In groups they make it very easy to just burst down a player or boss. The most likely potential changes here will be lowering their scaling to cap at 5 instead of 6, and/or changing the hex to be a "life-steal" type effect, where instead of say -4 ac to a target with hex at lvl 20, it would be -2 to the target and +2 to the hexblade.

Again, these are very subject to change so take them with a gigantic grain of salt.

Opf, rest in peace sweet Gnoll Prince.

nerf the falchion's crit range?

Arigard wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:42 pm

garrbear758 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:15 pm In part 2 of the balance update, here are some things you can expect, very much subject to change.

1. Removing the 4 dodge ac from barbarian.

2. Changing pale master's crit immunity from 100% at level 10 to 5% crit immunity per pm level.

3. Something to tone down hexblades debuff burst. Solo they are mostly fine and probably just need to come down a number or two. In groups they make it very easy to just burst down a player or boss. The most likely potential changes here will be lowering their scaling to cap at 5 instead of 6, and/or changing the hex to be a "life-steal" type effect, where instead of say -4 ac to a target with hex at lvl 20, it would be -2 to the target and +2 to the hexblade.

Again, these are very subject to change so take them with a gigantic grain of salt.

Opf, rest in peace sweet Gnoll Prince.

Seen old yeller? ; )

This is a good amount of changes, and frankly, I salute most of them with a mild degree of positivity, since they seem to be driven toward a positive balance development. It's really a lot of work, and it needs to be recognized as positive and great, to have all that effort and dedication gone into an update. Bravo!

The fishing update already got me quite excited and it seems a great enrichment of a part of the game which deeply needed it.

Now the criticism though.

Drow changes: I am glad that there is finally a mechanical penalty for staying in sunlight. I hope it can also be extended to other sun-sensitive races. Orogs should have the same penalties of drow, and duergar and other races with sunlight sensitivity should also have some kind of penalty IMHO. My view on these penalties is that they actually aid in roleplay more than arbitrary rules, because you have interest in not being caught in sunlight.

And here comes the biggest criticism of this part. What is the point of implementing such a change without changing the rules for staying in daylight for such races even one bit? I will admit I never liked these curfew rules, not because I do not see the aim of it, to make drow and company actually pop above during night-time, but because they make fun, especially when it is related to scheduling group events, a bit hard to have. I get that the design decision is different from my view and I can respect that, but at least can we have the rules loosed up a little to allow things such as running into a cave quickly or go to put money in Sencliff bank which is at mere few meters from the Sencliff underground? I don't think such small accomodations would be outrageous given that now there are finally proper mechanical penalties for such actions.

Race changes and rebalancing in general: it's all good, really, that races are more balanced is a good thing. I hope that also other races and especially planetouched, and tiefling in particular, can get such a balance pass. Because they do not seem any more balanced than minotaurs of svirfs. In fact I would argue they are much more powerful.

Pale master upcoming changes: it seems to me that removing critical immunity from pale master removes its core features. More importantly it seems the proverbial wrong solution to wrongly identified problem. Pale masters are popular because there are classes with too high damage spikes, and they are a natural, and I would add, healthy, counter to it. Fine with giving full immunity to epic pale masters but not with reducing or removing it.

That one last proposed PvP change looks to me particularly bad if read in light of this:

garrbear758 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:08 pmAs far as pvp balance being a concern. We are a server that has non-consensual pvp. That is a very important part of the server and a big contributor to our high quality of rp / storytelling. Actions should have consequences, and bad things happen to good adventurers. That part of the server is not ever going to change, and it shouldn't.

First and foremost I need to absolutely and categorically disagree with this view of the server. With all sympathy and respect what you wrote above is simply false in my experience. Non-consensual PvP in this server rarely, if ever, provided good narrative development. It simply did not. What I found non-consensual PvP generated most of the time was frankly unnecessary drama and quite a sizeable amount of grief. Nothing more, sincerely. Therefore I don't really think that the server benefits much from it, whether it will change or not. This because almost all consensual PvP systems I experienced equate denial of consent with automatic loss, and thus the narrative dynamic is absolutely unchanged, only the mechanical part is merely skipped. Therefore the non-consensual part adds very little in regards of the narrative and is in fact irrelevant. Our perspectives may definitely vary and it is fine, but I cared to stress that there are other views of this point.

edit:

3. Something to tone down hexblades debuff burst. Solo they are mostly fine and probably just need to come down a number or two. In groups they make it very easy to just burst down a player or boss. The most likely potential changes here will be lowering their scaling to cap at 5 instead of 6, and/or changing the hex to be a "life-steal" type effect, where instead of say -4 ac to a target with hex at lvl 20, it would be -2 to the target and +2 to the hexblade.

Ah, also this had slipped from me. Glad I caught it however.

Currently I am not sure nerfing Hexblade is so good. Namely because most hex penalties can be removed with a single lesser restoration. Hex is instant, so it is still an advantage in the action economy, but against a prepared opponent, well, let's just say if the main feature of a class can already be removed so easily, I don't think nerfing it on top of it is something nice, to put it mildly.

Changing it into something else, especially something actually harder to remove, like with say, a normal restoration, would probably be better IMHO.

garrbear758 wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 6:15 pm In part 2 of the balance update, here are some things you can expect, very much subject to change.

1. Removing the 4 dodge ac from barbarian.

2. Changing pale master's crit immunity from 100% at level 10 to 5% crit immunity per pm level.

3. Something to tone down hexblades debuff burst. Solo they are mostly fine and probably just need to come down a number or two. In groups they make it very easy to just burst down a player or boss. The most likely potential changes here will be lowering their scaling to cap at 5 instead of 6, and/or changing the hex to be a "life-steal" type effect, where instead of say -4 ac to a target with hex at lvl 20, it would be -2 to the target and +2 to the hexblade.

Again, these are very subject to change so take them with a gigantic grain of salt.

Overall this look about right, but why targeting 1H barbarians rather than the 1000 HP two-handers with very high damage and damage mitigation?

7. Minotaur was nerfed because it was absurdly overpowered. Award races shouldn't ever give a mechanical advantage.

What about tieflings though? Things like Half-Orc Tieflings with Bloodline of Brutality or Moon Elf tiefling monk or monk dips with Bloodline of Lethality. I might be wrong but i dont see how they are less overpowered.

SilverSnake wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:11 pm

7. Minotaur was nerfed because it was absurdly overpowered. Award races shouldn't ever give a mechanical advantage.

What about tieflings though? Things like Half-Orc Tieflings with Bloodline of Brutality or Moon Elf tiefling monk or monk dips with Bloodline of Lethality. I might be wrong but i dont see how they are less overpowered.

Tieflings have weaknesses: Banishment and Dismissal inflict a minor debuff and stun on outsiders PCs with the native subtype (tieflings, aasimars, but not imps). Dismissal applies a will-save 2 rounds stun and a saveless 1 AB, 1 AC, 1 saves penalty. Banishment doubles these numbers. The debuff lasts rounds/level.

Given the goals as laid out, this all makes sense. The one thing lurking in my mind is Arcane Archer. Well built, they can easily hit 60 ab and 60 ac. Is this also on the chopping block. That seems like the last class combo that could do this.

Aren wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:21 pm Tieflings have weaknesses: Banishment and Dismissal inflict a minor debuff and stun on outsiders PCs with the native subtype (tieflings, aasimars, but not imps). Dismissal applies a will-save 2 rounds stun and a saveless 1 AB, 1 AC, 1 saves penalty. Banishment doubles these numbers. The debuff lasts rounds/level.

This does not really seem proportioned to the advantages and flexibility provided by the bloodlines. Especially when many combinations can provide more than 1 ab/ac/save. And especially when having that stuff at hand is far from practical or common.

Add to it that those types of maluses can also often be removed with lesser restoration (I should test to be fair), and you have a rather minor inconvenience, unless the planetouched fails the save, which is probably far from frequent, given how high saves tend to be.

Aasimar and Tiefling are flexible, but compared to other races it's really not out of line (basically +2 one stat, -2 to another; remember they are ECL+1). They are common because of the flexibility both mechanically and in terms of RP. If you want to double up on primary stat, any of the Genasi will do, and if you want strong races in general go for Orog, Drow, Deep Imaskari, Duergar, Fey, Yuan-ti, Hobgoblin, Gnoll.

If PvP became consensual then this server would turn into a joke. I could run around emoting *pees on you* to a Cordor Guardsman and no one could do anything about it, including the DMs who can't be everywhere at once.

It already feels like enough of an MMO thanks to EE (sorry not sorry). Let's not go down that road.

Quidix wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:23 pm Aasimar and Tiefling are flexible, but compared to other races it's really not out of line (basically +2 one stat, -2 to another; remember they are ECL+1). They are common because of the flexibility both mechanically and in terms of RP. If you want to double up on primary stat, any of the Genasi will do, and if you want strong races in general go for Orog, Drow, Deep Imaskari, Duergar, Fey, Yuan-ti, Hobgoblin, Gnoll.

A Tiefling half-orc has +2 Str than a Minotaur, for the cost of -2 Cha and one feat. A human Tiefling is on par with Minotaur, with all the flexibility of being Human, they have an extra skill, they get to pick their bonus feat, they can pick other bloodlines for different builds. Minotaur is pingeonholed into a very particular stat line and it's done best by other award races, this seems flawed to me.

Dr. B wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:28 pm If PvP became consensual then this server would turn into a joke. I could run around emoting *pees on you* to a Cordor Guardsman and no one could do anything about it, including the DMs who can't be everywhere at once.

It already feels like enough of an MMO thanks to EE (sorry not sorry). Let's not go down that road.

This is false, as in no place with consensual PvP I saw this happening. You would simply be asked for consent to PvP, if you do not desist. Not desisting would send you right into PvP and equate to giving consent.

The matter of consent for PvP is simply not particularly /relevant/. Whether it is there or not, I /cannot/ appreciate any meaningful difference in narrative development and setting atmosphere, having personally tried both systems extensively. Because consent or lack thereof does not really factor into it, unless one makes rules for consent that go way beyond its intended aim, as in the strawman argument about MMOs you just used as example.

The non-consensual part of PvP in Arelith is simply not as relevant and meaningful as you and Garrbear, and perhaps a good number of others, seem to think. If it adds anything to the game it is not to the setting and story development. It's not even an aspect I /care/ that much about, other than pointing out how deceptively illusive it is, because it's in fact of rather little relevance in the narrative development. I guess it just provides to some more opportunity to engage in the PvP and theorycrafting mini-game, while the rest of the playerbase goes on with business as usual, i.e. acting according to the narrative, regardless if a loss happened due to PvP proper or by accepting a loss without it.

You're overlooking the strengths of many other races. I could be up for an adjustment to tiefling / aasimar, but then this should come with far-reaching adjustment to other races too: Orog (+1 armor, +4 str, +2 cha), Drow (+2 in 3 stats and 1 major gift, 32SR), Deep Imaskari (free +2 int for any non-dex build), Duergar (good stats + immunities), Fey (+4 in 2 stats), Avariel (+2 in 2 stats and two major gifts), Yuan-ti (+2 in 3 stats), Hobgoblin (+2 in 2 stats and 1 major gift), Gnoll (+2 in 2 stats and 1 major gift + 2 good feats).

Tielfings and Aasimar do have a little edge but you are spending a major award. If you lose the bloodlines what's left, the ability to have a tail or bronze skin?

I say this more as a commentary on the state of the award system than a desire to keep planar races powerful TBH.

In this post it is stated that:

7. Minotaur was nerfed because it was absurdly overpowered. Award races shouldn't ever give a mechanical advantage.

Which by the way is a design vision I find quite commendable. Such races should be played for the roleplay opportunities they provide, not because they are more powerful than vanilla races.

Itikar wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:45 pm

Dr. B wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:28 pm If PvP became consensual then this server would turn into a joke. I could run around emoting *pees on you* to a Cordor Guardsman and no one could do anything about it, including the DMs who can't be everywhere at once.

It already feels like enough of an MMO thanks to EE (sorry not sorry). Let's not go down that road.

This is false, as in no place with consensual PvP I saw this happening. You would simply be asked for consent to PvP, if you do not desist. Not desisting would send you right into PvP and equate to giving consent.

Okay. By that same token you consent to PvP (if it's within the rules of engagement) on Arelith as soon as you log on. So all PvP is consensual after all. There.

Dr. B wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:55 am Okay. By that same token you consent to PvP (if it's within the rules of engagement) on Arelith as soon as you log on. So all PvP is consensual after all. There.

What are you precisely trying to prove here? You accept the rules, and the rules include that. That does not really make the lack of PvP consent particularly important, special or interesting compared to the many other features the server has.

It is not really a particularly praiseworthy or important feature of the server. It's just there, and quite marginal. It's a zero compared to the many other more interesting, and actually relevant features the server has, such as election systems, property scarcity, economy, exploration, and other original mechanics the server has.

Pvp consent just does not have even remotely the importance you or others give to it. It just doesn't. Therefore hearing it called one of the most important driving forces behind the narrative sounds pretty much... curious, for lack of a better term. PvP has a weight to it of course, and even that not as big as some people make it, but it may vary. Whether it starts with a formal consent or not, well, it really does not matter in the end. If the server had permadeath with only one life, perhaps this would be different, but that's really not the case here.

You can just accept it's not the idol some people make of and have a good day, really. I suggest to focus on other more important features the server has, as points to focus praise and attention, personally, but to each their own I guess.

I too appreciate the words from Iron and Garr. They mean alot. Thanks guys!

Recovering from my usual rework depression, I think the only thing I'm left with salty tears about are the movement speed issues.

Monks:
The last speed nerf for monks was unpopular and this only makes it makes it...oh...about 40% worse. I've said in a previous thread my 80 year old wizard with a pocket full of haste wands was now as consistently fast as my monk. Now speed has all but been removed as a feature of the class. Can't say I'm a fan of this change.

Everyone Else:
Speed has also seemingly become a right for all classes? I suppose dexers achieve it through blinding speed (which has a hefty stat requirement + an epic feat cost). The usual high str/con warrior types now get it from sprint (which costs nothing). Rangers, at least out of combat, get it as a class feature. Barbarians get a further 'closer' boost when raging. Cavaliers get it charging and mounted. The casting classes with haste and wand access sit near the top of the heap. And then there is Warlock, which can do everything these days, so why not give them a speed feat AND infini-haste? This is a cursory post, so this is probably not even all the ways to become fast. Of all these egalitarian speed changes, I predict what it will really do is simply empower the same group of 'no-windup' closers even further, which is just another bit of evidence for Barbarian ascendancy folks worry about in this thread.

Dr. B wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:28 pm If PvP became consensual then this server would turn into a joke. I could run around emoting *pees on you* to a Cordor Guardsman and no one could do anything about it, including the DMs who can't be everywhere at once.

It already feels like enough of an MMO thanks to EE (sorry not sorry). Let's not go down that road.

I agree with you on the consensual PvP issue. DMs are here to warn or ban griefers and people who act with what they see as bad taste, but besides that if you're following the rules and playing in character you have the right to do what you want.

Some of the most exhilarating role play encounters I've seen have been paladins, lawman types and lynch mobs hunting down a killer.

Beyond that, there's a certain type of player who sees himself as the central protagonist of the server and everyone else as window dressing. He sees himself as the ultimate Gary Sue and knows his character can never be humiliated or harmed. But this is a game where we're subjected to the will and the creativity of others, and I think that's a good thing.

This is not a thread for discussion on justifying rules. Make a new one if you insist on continuing.

Shadowy Reality wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:34 pm

Quidix wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:23 pm Aasimar and Tiefling are flexible, but compared to other races it's really not out of line (basically +2 one stat, -2 to another; remember they are ECL+1). They are common because of the flexibility both mechanically and in terms of RP. If you want to double up on primary stat, any of the Genasi will do, and if you want strong races in general go for Orog, Drow, Deep Imaskari, Duergar, Fey, Yuan-ti, Hobgoblin, Gnoll.

A Tiefling half-orc has +2 Str than a Minotaur, for the cost of -2 Cha and one feat. A human Tiefling is on par with Minotaur, with all the flexibility of being Human, they have an extra skill, they get to pick their bonus feat, they can pick other bloodlines for different builds. Minotaur is pingeonholed into a very particular stat line and it's done best by other award races, this seems flawed to me.

Exactly that.

Archnon wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 9:25 pm Given the goals as laid out, this all makes sense. The one thing lurking in my mind is Arcane Archer. Well built, they can easily hit 60 ab and 60 ac. Is this also on the chopping block. That seems like the last class combo that could do this.

Also this is another point that was a bit overlooked so far. I think that the synergy between ranger and arcane archer actually ruined the prestige class, in my opinion, since it made it optimal and took away its soul, the arcane part of the class. So you got builds that were monk/ranger and arcane archer, who could not even use a rcane wand for the life of them.

I get that what is on one sheet is not precisely what one can roleplay, but the case of a racially limited prestige class this seems a step too far to me. There should actually be a way to play an arcane archer that has some arcane features, as in capable of casting spells. Something much closer to a ranged spellsword than to what it is now.

I know also that they were not mentioned in the initial balance pass, but they fall, as correctly pointed out by Archnon, in the dangerous number zone, and they seem quite an overtuned class at the moment.

So, yes, they should definitely make good company for tieflings on the chopping block, as far as I am concerned.

Dr. B wrote: Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:55 am

Itikar wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:45 pm

Dr. B wrote: Sun Nov 07, 2021 11:28 pm If PvP became consensual then this server would turn into a joke. I could run around emoting *pees on you* to a Cordor Guardsman and no one could do anything about it, including the DMs who can't be everywhere at once.

It already feels like enough of an MMO thanks to EE (sorry not sorry). Let's not go down that road.

This is false, as in no place with consensual PvP I saw this happening. You would simply be asked for consent to PvP, if you do not desist. Not desisting would send you right into PvP and equate to giving consent.

Okay. By that same token you consent to PvP (if it's within the rules of engagement) on Arelith as soon as you log on. So all PvP is consensual after all. There.

the reason I joined arelith like almost two decades ago was because it's stance of PvP. At the time it technically didnt allow "PvP" it allowed "CvC" (character versus character) a semantic that would bear no fruit getting into right now but I loved the fact that a character for the most part was free to act as a character ought to act. With exceptions to like murderhobos as those concepts just shouldnt be played to begin with as they have no story to bring to the table (and said characters were sometime permadeleted).

I was amazed/prideful/joyful that a community could be stable with a lack of murderhobos everywhere purely because everyone was here to RP and respected the rules for the most part; having no actual mechanical restriction or requirement of consent to me was an amazing draw for arelith and I like never PvP.

Uh im being told part of the changes coming is the removal of the healer path for the cleric... i would be interested in knowing why and if it will be replaced with something new in the distant future?