Nerfalicious

[Amoenotep]

so which is it..mages are overpowered now or rogues with crip strike?

mages have always been powerful....now they have more spells to throw at you that can't just simply be ignored

crip strike has always been nasty...now you just have to build around something that might hurt your build instead of just buffing to be immune to everything.

[VagaStorm]

so which is it..mages are overpowered now or rogues with crip strike?

mages have always been powerful....now they have more spells to throw at you that can't just simply be ignored

crip strike has always been nasty...now you just have to build around something that might hurt your build instead of just buffing to be immune to everything.

There is no building around cripling strike, faced with 2 rouges, they WILL get cripeling sneak attacks off. But evry one is vounrable to this, always has been, clerics had and still have protection from it. Diffrence is that it's a lvl 9 spell instead of a lvl 3? spell. It is a nice protection spell, it is ok that it is lvl 9.

[Lorkar]

Build a PM. They have no worries about crip strike.

[maibs]

crip strike has always been nasty...now you just have to build around something that might hurt your build instead of just buffing to be immune to everything.

that kind of attitude is wrong.
just plain wrong.
I'll make it simple

when everything can hurt you, theirs too much to build around = impossible.
when the ability to remove/be immune to temporarily or permanently is unavailable even at EPIC GODLIKE levels how is that right ?

planning your actions instead of buffing to be immune to everything, that implies having options ? I can be immune to death effects or movement impairing effects or mind spells and effects or etc etc etc, there are no options, immunities are unavailable so where's the planning ?

there's no gear with immunity to death effects etc etc so you cant say "ohh hey I'm heading past vlad the wailer better my girdle of immune to death effects on" "ohh now I'm heading past the driders better put my girdle of immunity to movement impairing effects on"

where is the planning ?

I know, I'll go buy a rod with fom....

christ it's bad enough that we have "imploders" that demand that all characters have a 43 or so fort save because it's impossible to be immune to the "death effect" of the resulting "Implosion spell" wich apparently isn't "death magic" or a "death effect" even though it's from "Death Domain" and requires a "fortitude save" to avoid the resulting instant "Death" of the target, hell even if you do have a massive fort save your dead on a roll of 1.

I dont see too many implosions in PVE though......
way I see it it's easily as bad as dev crit would be
or a dc 26 vorpal weapon

there is NO such thing as PERMANENT ability/level drain, not permanent as in the "handbook" definition, permanent as in the "FOREVER" definition
if there were I think a lot of people wouldn't play.
in pen and paper D&D though you can head to the nearest TEMPLE in the city and make a DONATION to recieve a restoration of your abilities/levels

GLORY to the temple healers !!

I'm thinking seriously about not playing for a while if I have to "burn" feats on "bonus to save vs X" to survive when surviving is so damn important since the availability of remedies to anything is minimalist.

come to think of it designing any character with that kind of defensive mindset would just nerf the offensive capabilities of it even further.
unless of course you just roll up some cheesy *I'm immune to everything* toon. (BG/paladin/COT/shifter anyone ?).
me though I like to think that NS4 doesn't ENCOURAGE that kind of play..........

[LinuxPup]

I'm thinking seriously about not playing for a while if I have to "burn" feats on "bonus to save vs X" to survive when surviving is so damn important since the availability of remedies to anything is minimalist.

You've always had to "burn" feats on improving saves unless your class has naturally high saving throws... you probably just didn't realize your builds sucked. Like I said before, I pure fighter with a will of 15-20 has never been acceptable even *with* immunity to mind effects. A low fortitude save has never been acceptable even before this change because of implosion.

[Daltian]

Why are cleric so much against nerfing nep, when uef gives same thing?

[Bargeld]

I was ready to take a break when the changleog was announced too... but i shifted that to a day of thought and planning and I turned around and made a new toon. It's already been stated that there will be continuing tweaks to this, not neccessarily the spells that were effected in changelog, but to the mobs and the spells that are being cast against you, and probably other stuff too. After discussion and thought and seeing the responses of myself and others in hindsight, I decided to shelve my reservations and just see how it goes.

It's the same DM/Devs that made the server cool for you up until this changelog, so you expect them to continue working in the direction of an enjoyable server. As players, we just need to help them, and I think the best thing we can do is play more and let them watch and test.

[MLoki]

The only real problem I see is that you are taking away abilities from casters that only mimic abilities of other classes or races. Which doesn't encourage diversity but instead encourages conformity. Now everybody will have to make characters that are either Kender, Duargar, PMs, Shifters, RDDs, or 20th level Monks. Sure you could play a Charisma based BG, Paladin or CoT to give you a chance at making your saves but these spells that gave immunities used to help overcome the shortcomings of other builds so that you could play something else. These spells also helped those players that weren't as good at making builds and allowed them to explore places they otherwise wouldn't be able to go to. Now unless your an Elite builder and conform to a specific build style this server isn't meant for you. Who wants to spend 8 feats just to have a better chance at surviving? Yes I usually throw one or two of those feats in but I also know where my weaknesses are and play around them or party with someone who can aid me. If this update stays as it is I can see the gap between the casual gamer who can't survive in planar areas and the elite crew that will exploit thier advantage over the weaker builds and turn them away from this server.

[number one bastard]

negative energy protect is worthless, yet it was hard coded into the game to work against negative drains, so why take it out of the game? makes no sense to me what so ever

[LinuxPup]

Yes I usually throw one or two of those feats in but I also know where my weaknesses are and play around them or party with someone who can aid me.

Bingo.

You don't need to spend a lot in feats to make them decent. And I sound like a broken record, but saves have *always* needed to be high... this change doesn't affect that at all. They don't need to be pally/bg/CoT high, but high enough to make it difficult to fail a save.

negative energy protect is worthless, yet it was hard coded into the game to work against negative drains, so why take it out of the game? makes no sense to me what so ever

No spell is hard-coded, and its useful vs. neg damage still (like harm). Abil/Level drain immunity is still alive and well in NS4.

[Celorn]

Hmm... looks like I'll be focusing on more paly/bg based builds, and casters/rogues, and yeah rdd, dd, pm, kender, paly, monk(20) will likely be seen a whole lot more with these changes...some classes just have NO feats to work with, and every 'save' feat you take, is weakening your damage, ab or ac ...sigh... perhaps they will adjust things if it is totally overboard.

I see one HUGE PvE issue that will come up: DWP, the mobs there are uber, I wouldn't mind seeing the Hulks severely nerfed if not removed all together, they were well beyond OP even pre-wipe, now they will be the cause of so many MORE TPK's!

[mgrjebbo]

And some noob just called me captain complainer or something like that.

This goes out to everyone in this thread that didnt say this change rocks!

*puts down his stir spoon*

[maibs]

I'm thinking seriously about not playing for a while if I have to "burn" feats on "bonus to save vs X" to survive when surviving is so damn important since the availability of remedies to anything is minimalist.

You've always had to "burn" feats on improving saves unless your class has naturally high saving throws... you probably just didn't realize your builds sucked. Like I said before, I pure fighter with a will of 15-20 has never been acceptable even *with* immunity to mind effects. A low fortitude save has never been acceptable even before this change because of implosion.

no... you see, my builds were good at doing their jobs.

they relied on the abilities of other players to support them where they were weak that could be exploited, usually by precisely the same spells that have now been nerfed.

again, I thought that relying on other characters to do their bit for the group was what party play was about.

I recall reading in the wiki
"several cleric spells have been modified to bring them more inline with the support role they are meant to be for"

and yet...... what does pretty much every monk cheese build have in it ? cleric of course.....
problem with clerics now is :

save bonuses are TOO small (+4 means very little when you are looking at dc 40+ or MORE)
save bonus = spell level or caster level/3 or4 or something useful like that since the save DC's generally scale with the CR of the mobs (and hence the CR of the caster).

the ONLY class that can achieve a +20 magical AB is the cleric ON THEMSELVES...... how is that support ?

do other support classes have similar problems (IE bards?)
dont see many pure class bards around.... wonder what magical ab they can provide for a group through buffs these days ? or ac for that matter ? they are afterall supposed to be the kings of that sort of thing...... (where clerics I always understood had buffing as secondary to healing/curing).

I'd like to see some people take up a challenge.
build a group of pure class characters (all a different core class no PrC) and see if they can survive through the mod to level 40, it should be challenging but doable right ?

hell I'll even be part of it myself if preferred.

[Shamed Monkey]

That's very, very easy. What I'm thinking about is the ridiculousness of places like DWP. It's hard, really hard. Menzoberra, whom I consider the hardest boss in DWP, has a huge DC on her Storm of Vengeance. Mindblank was pretty much required for her, and now you've just made her pretty much impossible for a DWP party to get past her. Mindblank was a *requirement* for the high level planer runs. Clarity still removing effects makes it slightly easier, but what's to stop them from failing it again? And again? And you can't get out of the storm in Menzo's room. It's too small, you can't retreat, it's undispellable, and you've got to worry about the Alhoon sucking out your brain.

[LinuxPup]

the ONLY class that can achieve a +20 magical AB is the cleric ON THEMSELVES...... how is that support ?

That's another topic.

We intend on making the NS4 mod challenging, fun, and possible. If NS4 staff has always kept an eye out for "I win" abilities, and made sure they're within reason. Read all the changelog posts, and you'll see this.

build a group of pure class characters (all a different core class no PrC) and see if they can survive through the mod to level 40, it should be challenging but doable right ?

You're aware the first character to hit 40 was pure right?

The only real problem I see is that you are taking away abilities from casters that only mimic abilities of other classes or races. Which doesn't encourage diversity but instead encourages conformity. Now everybody will have to make characters that are either Kender, Duargar, PMs, Shifters, RDDs, or 20th level Monks. Sure you could play a Charisma based BG, Paladin or CoT to give you a chance at making your saves but these spells that gave immunities used to help overcome the shortcomings of other builds so that you could play something else.

I disagree. Saves are SO easy to raise up, and caster buffs can buff them up even higher... you can get over +10 vs. mind effects from buffs alone. Immunities aren't even really necessary unless there is no save attached them (hence FoM and UEF still granting immunities). You were wrong in your prior calculation too.. do the math, and you'll see its pretty easy.