Stunning fist request

[Zierham]

Sure, you have to throw more feats into it than the other listed abilities (Bigby's, Stonehold, Barb Aura) but that doesnt entirely negate the point. That logic would mean that if a player gave up ALL of his feats, it would be OK if he got a skill which instantly killed everyone around him with no save or anything. I mean, he gave up ALL of his feats right? Additionally, yes, Stunning Fist is limited by its Uses Per Day, but at 3 rounds per hit, it isnt hard to stretch 13 uses into a 39 round stun (as someone else pointed out). More realistically, with the occasional save, and it missing, it'd be more like 15 rounds (just to pull a number out of my arse) but that's still a LOOOOOONG time.

On the other side of the coin, a dc 55 isnt "impossible" to save against, by any stretch of the imagination. If you have 34 fort save presently, perhaps you need to have some gear on hand that has more fort save in case you come up against a Stunner. Similarly, even a Pure Fighter with a huge AB is going to be limited to landing it in the first couple of attacks against the high kinds of ACs PVP seems to be balanced around -- Even a 65 AB will only land against 75 ac half the time... the second attack 25% of the time, and on down. Add in II or Camo and you can imagine a pure fighter blowing through 4-5 of their Stunning Fists just to land it reliably once... Suddenly, the 3 round stun just cost them a bit under half of their total Stuns. Further, PM are immune to crit, as are engaged Dwarven Defenders, Elementals (?), Constructs and Undead, and thus are (should be?) immune to this skill.

Point is, dont catastrophize the situation by forgetting the limitations of the skill (or the possibility it was sheer luck that it worked so well in that one situation), but also dont belittle Elda for pointing out something that may warrant dev. consideration.

For my part, I feel like the ability to RELIABLY stun someone for more than 5-10 rounds with no counter needs to be looked at, and should at least allow the victim to flee after say 10 rounds (even if the stun converted to a -20 to AB and inability to cast, it would still allow the victim to flee?) Whether this actually has "no counter" and can "reliably" land is another matter... one which needs to be considered by the Devs rather than those who have a Stunner or have been killed by a Stunner, as neither are precisely unbiased about it.

Also, the point about KD/ImpKD is moot, because at least you can choose to pump Discipline (and most do) to at least mostly counter the effects... it also lasts only 1 round, rather than 3, meaning the KD'er has to continue sacrificing AB on their highest AB attack to have a chance at landing it. If dragons and other gigantor shapes imbalance it by being an enormous size catagory, then that is another issue which may warrant dev. consideration. Similarly, pointing out that Assassin Paralysis is similarly a problem doesnt mean Stunning Fist is balanced, just that there may be a number of skills which should be considered.

Frankly though, the ability of one build (regardless of how specific the build has to be) to ENTIRELY nullify another player, regardless of their build, is crap. There have to be other safeguards, because "my AC is low" doesnt much matter if the low ac toon can still render their opponent entirely incapable of doing ANYTHING. I respect that "paper" beats "rock", but "paper" cant also beat "scissors" then claim that its ok because they are really good at being paper.

Edit: I cant say "butt" even when im referring to the class abbreviation. Whoops. Also, typos and grossly gramatically incorrect strings.

[SkotG]

........Lets not talk about the 4-6 vine mines you had all around the relic room (wasnt grease and creeping doom changed just because of spam like that?)

......Dont mean to be rude or hateful..I just dont understand by one person dying we have to have a thread on how it should be nerfed.
Jack

I would say that a technique used (vine mine) is one of the few left to us. Look at all the other nerfed things that have made Druids practicaly useless in most PvP as you mentioned above, is just like your stun fist.... you look for an advantage or a way to combat what is being used against you...... and to those who decried the use of creeping doom and grease and other spells leading to the nerfs..... why shouldn't Eld state her displeasure about your spam of fist?

what's good for the goose.....

[ashsagoon]

Dwarven Defenders are unsneakable when in combat (and at 30 DwD levels all the time), not immune to stunning fist. All the rest of those are though.

It's so hard to get a high stunning fist DC and a high AB and there's plenty of ways to counter it. As far as I can tell stunning fist has never been changed from Bioware's original implementation. No one else seems to have a problem overcoming stunning fisters, I don't think one person who got killed once because of it warrants any change.

I had another TSS's monk hipser attack me several times yesterday. They hips spammed and stunning fist spammed. And although they got a few "hits" on stunning fist, they never beat any of my toon's fort saves. Most of the time they missed because I build toons with over 50ac. I've seen stunning fisters from every guild and every faction. I've even been killed by them if they landed a lucky blow. Most of the time they can stun me and can't do enough damage to kill me. It's just part of the game. I'm sorry but you can't scream "nerf that" every time your toon gets killed.

Anyway, I think LinuxPup said it all (check the sig).

[Bargeld]

From both sides of the coin:

I stopped raiding RK because of dc 55 (or something) stuns from a spotter there. There are very few toons who can reliably counter that one toon alone.

I am a proud owner of an assassin with dc 49 death and 53 paralyze in the cradle room. There are a lot of sacrifices and limitations for each of these as well. In order to repeatedly paralyze, there is a LOT of corner sneaking spent, basically a cooldown based on the player's abilities. Duration of paralysis is 1rnd/ assassin lvl.

Monks can sneak too, which helps with their ab for that first strike. Once stunned, even the next attempt, 3 rnds later, will be vs a flat target, which = hit usually.

All in all, I think its a very powerful build. They exist. Some are more popular that others (cough, pally cot, cough, wiz sd, cough). It all boils down to the fact that 'rock paper scissors' is a fallacy. There are builds out there that get beat by all three and builds that can beat all 3. Aspiring to make every class and class combo equally powerful is unachievable. Getting a median that the masses enjoy is.

[Korr]

To bargeld : I believe the assassin paralyze is 1 turn/level not 1 round (1 turn = 10 rounds)

To Zierham : rock-paper-scissors analogy is actually bad, because the best strategy to use in a game like that is randomness (check game theory if you disagree) which is not the case at all in NWN. Comparing 10 epic feats for a savable attack that must first hit (at a -4 AB/damage if not monk) an opponents AC to something thats insta-kill no save is ridiculous. Not every toon gets the choice to add discipline to a good degree either, pure druids and druid/shifters cannot add more than 21 ranks in discipline.

In general : this is not the first time this has been brought up (I think the third time since I got on forums) and it hasnt been changed yet. This is also one of the few things that is properly translated from PnP to NWN. Which PnP is much more PvP balanced than NWN is.

[DM_Kim]

Just to toss my 2 cents into the mix.

More often than not, if a PC monk has dedicated themselves to be a pure stunner, they suck at doing any worth while damage, if they can damage at all. Just about all a Stunning Fist Monk is good for is that Stun and running away or holding the Stunned target long enough so others can come in for the kill.

Any monk that can do damage, may and I stress the "may", get 1 successful stun in after 10 or 15 attempts and that is if they are lucky. Stunning Fist attempts also has a cap, where the PC must go and rest once they run out.

Besides, the option is there for any character to dedicate them selves by pouring feats and abilities into Fort saves to avoid the Stun, just like a good stunner monk has, but as we all know folks won't do that, because their build would suck at everything else.

[Tru3Fals3]

From both sides of the coin:

I stopped raiding RK because of dc 55 (or something) stuns from a spotter there. There are very few toons who can reliably counter that one toon alone.

I am a proud owner of an assassin with dc 49 death and 53 paralyze in the cradle room. There are a lot of sacrifices and limitations for each of these as well. In order to repeatedly paralyze, there is a LOT of corner sneaking spent, basically a cooldown based on the player's abilities. Duration of paralysis is 1rnd/ assassin lvl.

Monks can sneak too, which helps with their ab for that first strike. Once stunned, even the next attempt, 3 rnds later, will be vs a flat target, which = hit usually.

All in all, I think its a very powerful build. They exist. Some are more popular that others (cough, pally cot, cough, wiz sd, cough). It all boils down to the fact that 'rock paper scissors' is a fallacy. There are builds out there that get beat by all three and builds that can beat all 3. Aspiring to make every class and class combo equally powerful is unachievable. Getting a median that the masses enjoy is.

i assume your talking bout Punch Drunk bargeld and i appreciate the compliment. Hes not invunerable and there are some toons that can beat him one on one, he cant spam stuns like elda suggested or he'd run out. He actually has the AB, spot, AC and damage that makes him an effective stunner but i had to sacrifice to get those things, im carefull with my stuns, they are never wasted, apart from this, do you think it was easy to design and build him Elda? You have no idea what it took, how much of a serious pain in the rear it was to level, or how difficult he is to play, just like any good toon, and just like any good toon the key was finding the perfect balance to make him effective. Like Jack brought up, his pure monk stunner has a large number of stuns but has lower ab and damage, is this not a fair trade off?? Ive stunned A LOT of people on this server and noone has ever complained like you have before, most take it with good humour and try to build a counter (ie Bargeld) which is what any good player will do, not start screaming that it should be nerfed.

ive been assassinated and paralyzed by Bargleds assassin, he has an insane dc, do you hear me complaining it should be nerfed?? hell no, where the fun in that?? he put in the work to build it, why should i take that away from him??

have you heard him complain for my stunner to be nerfed?? no, you havent.

basically, hears my point Elda, if you get stun fist nerfed when it really, really has no need to be, ill just find another way to kill you so you can complain about that too.
honestly before this thread i actually had a lot of respect for you but this has me very very annoyed, i put in the effort to make an original and unique toon and you want to nerf it just cause you have no answer for it? there is nothing unfair, unbalanced or broken about my toon.

[Cijah]

Being one of the first to create a stun fist SD "Tres Nawt" build with reasonable DC many years ago, it is true that he was one dimensional. In PVM he was not that great, but in pvp and for what i used him for (relic raiding/defending) he was awesome. Until I came upon Linuxpup's Brilhasti-ap Tarj Bard/PM build and then it was a lot of running away .. glad those Angamar Plains have nice open spaces in which a monk can stretch his legs lol!

What Tres did, as in this instance was to assist in raiding/defending through selective strikes. I would take out the most difficult or annoying build or keep them occupied long enough for others to finish the job. He had his weaknesses but in practicality the build was a one-shot wonder because that's the way I built him. Now with more knowledge I can get a DC in the low 60s but even this high I cannot stun a pm nor a shifted undead/elemental and would be hard-pressed to against blackguard or paladin-based charisma builds (their saves would give them at least 50% chance of saving).

Stun has a finite amount of uses and then the build is a punching bag unless you have added some redundancy into the build like spotting/range attack etc.


I feel the frustration in Elda's post and the urgency of posters to defend ... but NS4 is Nerfsville and not as much fun as it used to be ... it's interesting to see old Nerf Advocates now defending against further Nerfs. Perhaps for them they realise the horse has bolted.

There will be bandwagon builds and then they end up getting nerfed because a minority does not find it fun anymore when their carefully-planned or fun-build is picked apart.

Not alot of colour left in NS4 ... it's different shades of grey now.

I would like to see the flavour remain, the specialist builds with uber one shot deals, the spells which define builds of various tastes rather than watering them down so it all becomes the rock, paper scissors alluded to. Some effort was made to keep this alive with spell focuses to make dedicated spotter, shapeshifter, dispeller builds and so on.

NWN is not chess nor should it be played that way. If you walk out of the tavern know at any one time you can and will be bested - whether it's by a dark figure in the alley, the knight who stares you down in the middle of the street or the sound of incantations and cracking energy ... it's hard to be prepared for everything ... just expect to DIE and then it becomes fun!

[frogofpeace]

Ive stunned A LOT of people on this server and noone has ever complained

Well, I did post you KOS on guild boards, which I assume you saw

[MLoki]

I have built stunners and have been stunned. You CAN restun an opponent before the 3 rounds wear off leaving them permanantly flat footed. This kinda makes the pitifull AB excuse moot. The trick is still in getting that first stun in. Which is where most stunners will spam. Once the first stun lands you simply wait a couple of rounds and spam stun again until you see another "Stunning Fist Hit" at this point you assume your stun worked due to the high DC and you then continue widdling away at the target. Since most stunners don't do much damage this could take awhile and you do have a chance of running out of stunning fist before you finish off your opponent.

This can be a very effective tactic but it does have it's weaknesses and does require skill and it takes time building a stunner effectively. It can be considered overpowered if done well but just because I have a stunner doesn't mean I am going to argue that it isn't overpowered. Should something be done about it? I believe in the way NS4 works and that even a once overpowered build will eventually be built around and beaten enough times to make it useless. No build effectively stands the test of time. Some builds simply require a similiar build to counter others require something that can stand up to it. Find the answer and game on.

[Ryddwillow]

You CAN restun an opponent before the 3 rounds wear off leaving them permanantly flat footed.

The above statement is most true because I was one doing it with my monk prewipe. It seems they mostly fail the required save and they end up dead.

Builds to counter these is a Elemental form, Undead form, Pally and/or COT, Palemaster, pure fighter, and pure barbarian. The elemental form that really is any good is air and it seems that a pure druid does not benefit from this shape as would say mix in a rogue/sd/druid. Undead shape you need to obtain the best shape and it seems vampire gives you the best ac and ab, Pally/COT you get unbelievable saves and maybe mix in a little monk to go dex and obtain a good ac. Palemaster i think it is 7 levels and immune to stun. Pure fighter needs to make a good fortitude toon same as barbarian. Just a few off the top of my head. It is true that this toon or toons in question that take stunning to the extreme, loses out on other feats to build this. You must find the weakness and once you do find this weakness I guarantee this toon will not defend against you anymore.


Just some food for thought

[Tru3Fals3]

Ive stunned A LOT of people on this server and noone has ever complained

Well, I did post you KOS on guild boards, which I assume you saw

lol, that i did, which is what started my relentless frog hunt

no mercy for amphibians!!

[burrahobbit]

You guys/gals attacking elda on this forum make me a little queasy. Is this not the ideas/suggestions area of the forum?

Attack her ideas, thats fine, attack her personally, your way out of line. I dont belive she brought this up because she lost a pvp fight. She saw something that she believed to be a problem and wanted to discuss it. That doesnt mean you bring out your 1001 stories of how i stunned her and she died, now she wants it nerfed.

I'll be the first to admit that i am KING of all nerf whiners, i hate it when things get changed period (unless its in my favor....), but i never jumped on the forum to run any of you down.

[Amoenotep]

i'm going to nerf everything...that is all.