Arelith

Kalthariam wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 9:18 pm

I'm very firm on my stance about this. The Martials of this server have been BLEEDING into Caster Territory for Years, with every little bit of magic Mundanes just easily get access to, the less and less promenant and useful Casters become.

This is not the hill to die on.

When it comes to ESF perks, we can narrow down the list of Greater Secrets to -yoink and -scry which are pure QoL features with little to no mechanical bearing. Optimized mundane LM builds even forgo these for the AB/AC/hp granting lesser secrets precisely for that reason.

You're agonizing over "them" getting access to "your" -yoink and -scry here when "they" are actually taking +1 AB in its place anyway.

You know, i think it has merit, what Kalthariam's saying. Just, it's not that individual thing, it's all the other things martials get, and that on top.

Like-

Martials can essentially perform on top of their capability for much longer than vancian casters can. Sure, i can cast that maximized igms. Or that dc 39 weird.

Twice. I don't think a weaponmaster runs out of increased crit range and multiplier for that day after two crits do they.

I can also cast dc 38, 37 stuff, from my lvl 8 and 7 slots-
Like... Ten times collectively? Other slots are just buffs. Again, a martial doesn't run out of regular crits for that day after ten crits.

Lower level spells vs. Regular swings, etc. - you get the idea.

Well, attacks can miss- look at saves.
What about saveless damage spells- look at SR and spell mantle.

High saves are slightly debateable right now though, due to us living in limbo of no hard 5% whlist Sincra works on the rework (ily Sincra, not trying to dunk on you or insult you, you take your time to work out the kinks), but legacy characters and certain classes still get what can be easily described as untouchable saves.

And like, all those things i just described are...
Intrinsic parts of being a martial that can't be changed
And a necessity due to how frustrating fighting against instakill spells can be with actually low saves. Good lord losing in 3 seconds can be frustrating. I even found it underwhelming to win in 3 seconds due to landing a dc spell. It's also why i dislike martials who can blow you up from stealth in 0.0075 second but... That's a different cup of tea.

And on top of all that, said martials also get incredibly wide access to trinkets that provide spells that normally you'd need a mage to cast, and potentially epic spell focus cookies. Like...
Even if they're (the esf cookies) not overpowered. They're likely not overpowered. It's incredibly frustrating to see as a mage.

Why would i even need to spend an epic feat on g.ruin, when a single crit, or an epic frost trap, deals literally the same damage? Etc. Etc.

Rant end, enjoy.

I don't deny the mechanical discrepancy between (arcane) spellcasters and martial builds.

• there's the core game assymetry resulting in 4 APR vs 2 spells/round at Areltih's level range.
• there's consistent 10 years of development leaning into stat bloat (followed by +4 runic weapons with native keen).
• there's consistent 10 years of development failure to help vancian mages keep up with the above in any non-summon related way.

Sure, we can frame the issue as:

• vancian mages being relegated to the role of QoL toolbox and mass haste dispenser.
• QoL cookies native to vancian mages being handed out too liberally to other, mechanically more robust builds.

I say taking away QoL features from other builds only to make mages seem more relevant isn't the solution.
Vancian mages need a mechanical buff, not the preservation of their -scry/-yoink exclusivity.

How about separating some of the Loremaster bonus so they just don't get everything?

I would say we can split feats into two categories: secret knowledge, item/language mastery

Additionally:

• remove increased CL for scrolls
• for item mastery I would split the mastery into Wand/Scroll charge mastery (the refund) and Wand power mastery (the +CL)
• for epic spell focus bonus the loremaster is required to have Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus for the corresponding feature

This means that every level (except the 1), Loremasters can get a secret knowledge and, an item mastery or bonus language.

With these changes Loremasters don't just get everything and must pick and choose what they want to becomes good at. If you want extra CL for scrolls (to get Mord scrolls with dispel chance for example) they need to give up something else along the way.

Shadowy Reality wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2024 10:16 am

How about separating some of the Loremaster bonus so they just don't get everything?

I would say we can split feats into two categories: secret knowledge, item/language mastery

Additionally:

• remove increased CL for scrolls
• for item mastery I would split the mastery into Wand/Scroll charge mastery (the refund) and Wand power mastery (the +CL)
• for epic spell focus bonus the loremaster is required to have Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus for the corresponding feature

This means that every level (except the 1), Loremasters can get a secret knowledge and, an item mastery or bonus language.

With these changes Loremasters don't just get everything and must pick and choose what they want to becomes good at. If you want extra CL for scrolls (to get Mord scrolls with dispel chance for example) they need to give up something else along the way.

Except now you’ve gone and nerfed wizard lore master too. Which was fine and really didn’t need to lose anything.