Allow temporary use of level 1 ability score, feat and skill changes for characters affected by recent changes please.

[Aquanaut]

As the title says. Large updates to classes can leave some feeling that their class is no longer fun or viable. It would be great if DM's would allow a few days for requests from people affected to change their level 1 stats so people don't feel the need to remake their character and lose all their hard earned gear, homes and to preserve awards used.

One possible idea is give the players the power to redo their own level one stats instead of the DM's and have it as a token like a "domain token". Given out only when your class undergoes significant changes allowing people to change one time per major update.

[Paint]

As far as I understand it, redoing your level one stats is really difficult to do in NWN, and usually requires manual editing of files, which is error-prone. The last time a DM offered something like this, they burnt out on it pretty quick because of the hundreds and hundreds of requests they received.

With the last patch, at least, if anyone considers their character unplayable because of these changes, I think they might be being melodramatic, since the change was aimed towards knocking number bloat down anyways, so losing one or two funny numbers isn't going to kill you.

[Aquanaut]

True but I meant it would be nice to have as a general thing when class updates happen. If not now then down the line. If something significant happens to a class, like the eventual monk rework or when paladins had their spellcasting ability changed from wisdom to charisma as an example.

[LordofThunder]

I agree with the original post that perhaps in extraordinary situations (limiting ability feats might not be considered one) such as changing paladins spellcasting ability, maybe the staff should create extraordinary exceptions for a rebuild aimed at correcting that specific change. This would be valid especially for characters using awards.

[Iceborn]

We are considering this for outstanding changes that can fundamentally brick standard builds.
Smaller changes or anything in the epic spectrum that can be fixed with a relevel are unlikely to receive such treatment.

[Shadowy Reality]

Is this going to be done retroactively?

I sent a request for a level 1 feat feat back when the DM team was actively taking them (somewhere in 2023 iirc). I couple of months after my request was sent the team stopped offering them and my request was not honoured.

[Iceborn]

We are considering allowing lvl 1 relevels.

Last time it was done, it was an administrative nightmare for the DMs and the admins that had to sort through hundreds of requests. From what I heard - and keep in mind this happened in a time when I was absent from the server, and this all is word of mouth with no real substance, many of the requests were:
Opportunistic - from players that had no basis to get a level 1 relevel but still wanted one anyway.
Untrustworthy - from players that falsely - deliberately or not - reported their corrected lvl 1 ability scores that would result in illegal builds.
Messy - from players that only vaguely filled the forms of failed to adhere to a standardized form that was necessary to make the process as fast and painless as possible.

If we do lvl 1 relevels again, we would have to subject the DMs - which are mostly a narrative component of the team, with very little interest to play logician and internet police - to another bout of the same issues that they were dealt last time.
On that regard, I don't know if old requests would be honored. Most likely, no, as they would have to be re-reviewed anyway, since the game changed and so did the situation in which those requests were approved.
But that's just me guessing.

Much as we might be attached to our characters - and I'm guilty of playing a very old lizard - sometimes, and by design, you have to bite the bullet to carry on. Cast away your inventory, your languages, your levels, and start again, or live with the weight of knowing you are no longer optimal, or that the build that you originally intended is no longer viable, or even valid in the case of AA/Rangers.

[Darkstorn42]

Level 1 relevel formats could be solved with the new Astrolabe portal. A short description for justification. A drop down menu for race. A site based point buy system built into website so no way to lie/make mistake, and another drop down for level 1 feats.

I imagine this would not be terribly difficult, but there would still need to be a team going over the applications.

[Morto]

How far retroactive could this be?

Feels like ages since certain spellswords lost a precious 4ac.

[Dreams]

There are so many requests because characters get nuked by changes sometimes. Changes happen often. What might seem like just a small removal of 5 AB from an AA kills any caster-focused AA or removing the Great Ability feats kills a bunch of more creative builds that make use of warlock and other classes together.

Also, Major Award characters get zero recourse for big impact changes.

[Second Breakfast]

I feel like the process ought to be automated somehow. Like, you just get one free remake (getting all your XP back and everything), every three months. Six months if we think three is too generous.

That would keep it to where people aren’t just willy-nilly rebuilding their whole character from scratch into something else entirely, but also enables them to make adjustments in such a case where the devs drastically change something.

[Kushion]

Having some form of automated token system that could be distributed to chars who had their classes DRASTICALLY changed would be cool. Sure, people aren’t entitled to such things, but being given a hardline choice of “remake” feels somewhat disrespective of irl hours and time.

Particularly considering things like writ/xp stealth nerfs, it doesn’t make remaking something I’d really ever want to do.

[In Sorrow We Trust]

it'd be really hard to automate. not to mention quite a lot of work to make an automated system for it, both on the system side of things and for what pertains to mechanics

it's been considered. obviously making people go through the requests doesn't work, we already tried that, but building an automated system for this is not easy either. the level 1 tweaking system was never intended to be done without direct supervision because of all the various considerations that can't be scripted into it. so it required human eyes.

[Ork]

I think this would be a huge improvement to the overall health of the server.

[LordofThunder]

We are considering allowing lvl 1 relevels.

Last time it was done, it was an administrative nightmare for the DMs and the admins that had to sort through hundreds of requests. From what I heard - and keep in mind this happened in a time when I was absent from the server, and this all is word of mouth with no real substance, many of the requests were:
Opportunistic - from players that had no basis to get a level 1 relevel but still wanted one anyway.
Untrustworthy - from players that falsely - deliberately or not - reported their corrected lvl 1 ability scores that would result in illegal builds.
Messy - from players that only vaguely filled the forms of failed to adhere to a standardized form that was necessary to make the process as fast and painless as possible.

If we do lvl 1 relevels again, we would have to subject the DMs - which are mostly a narrative component of the team, with very little interest to play logician and internet police - to another bout of the same issues that they were dealt last time.
On that regard, I don't know if old requests would be honored. Most likely, no, as they would have to be re-reviewed anyway, since the game changed and so did the situation in which those requests were approved.
But that's just me guessing.

Much as we might be attached to our characters - and I'm guilty of playing a very old lizard - sometimes, and by design, you have to bite the bullet to carry on. Cast away your inventory, your languages, your levels, and start again, or live with the weight of knowing you are no longer optimal, or that the build that you originally intended is no longer viable, or even valid in the case of AA/Rangers.

I wouldn't mind releveling and reequiping my character affected by a "force majeure" situation where their build is unfixable and bite the bullet and start again. New RP situations, a quick visit to Skal, etc, could be interesting. However, it would not be start "again" but rather a "simple" start - no "again" attached to it - if you lose your award. That would be sad.