Q mentioned in his previous post:
Going over Level 40 added to this un-balance some, but mostly in regards to monsters and Bosses, not to Player vs Player. All Characters over 40 get a list of skills and feats that's well suited for the controlling class. The players choices are the deciding factor here, as it should be.
To say that Legendary levels add to the un-balance is a HUGE understatement IMO. The biggest losers here are mages. We all know that BAB and caster level do not improve from level 41 thru 60. Ok, seems fair on the surface. But melees do have ways of upping their AB by either cranking STR (includes dmg bonus) or DEX (includes AC boost) depending on the build.
For example: Let's say Krunk, a straight human barbarian hits level 60. His legendary levels give him 7 feats and 10 abilities. If it all goes into STR, he's upped his AB AND damage by +8 (not to mention improving his dev crit DC by +8). The same goes for the Gordon Lightfoot the dexer halfling: +8 AB AND AC.
Now what does Elminster the straight human wizard get by grinding out legendary levels? More DEX for AC? Ok, that helps a little. Or more CON? Yup, HP are important. OR more INT for extra spell slots? Very handy indeed. But none of those compares to the double bonus that melees get from legendary levels.
Okay, I can live with the above disparities. A level 40 mage is very tough to kill even for a level 60 melee. My biggest gripe is the fact that monks continue to gain spell resistance even though their "monk" or controlling class isn't technically increasing. Essentially, a gith monk15/cleric15/rogue10 who pumps SR with feats in epic levels can resist a 40th level mage's spells 60% of the time. By taking four more ImpSR feats in legendary, that 15th level monk will be untouchable, even by Elminster the 60th level guardian of Shadowdale. This seems ridiculous to me. We can get into more specifics, but I know you guys can all add and subtract, so here's my suggestion(s):
Option 1: Since casters cannot improve upon their casting abilities beyond 40th, then monks should not be able to improve upon their spell resistance. I.e., Imp SR should not be a selectable feat beyond 40. If you're a monk and you want high SR, you sacrifice everything in your epic levels to get it as high as you can. In this scenario, a gith monk20/cl15/SD5 with everything in ImpSR in epic would hit SR 74. Making him 90% immune to Elminster. Granted, the monk has to give up A LOT of good feats, but he can get them in legendary levels if he wants (eg, epic wpn focus, epic prow, etc.).
Option 2: Allow legendary casters to improve upon their casting abilities by selecting additional (stackable) epic spell penetrations as feats. With possible epic spell penetration feats, Elminster could up his caster roll to 40 + 1d20 + 6 (three pre-epic and epic) + 14 (seven legendary)= 61 - 80. In this case, the mighty Elminster will have a 50% chance of hitting a maxed out SR gith monk with a SR of 80 (effectively 70 after mords). Even under this circumstance, the monk is able to get there with a minimum of 15 monk levels, whereas the mage has sacrificed a lot to get a spell penetration that high.
Keep in mind that I am talking about the EXTREME case of a 40th level pure caster. Most caster/PMs have between 28-29 mage levels. With option #2 above, a wiz/pm who pumps legendary spell penetrations would still not be able to touch the 15monk. At least one of the above would allow a PC to create an Elminster-type that would have a *chance* of landing a spell.
I truly believe that one of the above options will help to balance out the parity that exists between monks and mages in the Badlands. Neither option seems like it would affect a mage's utility versus non-monks. They can already hit normal melee builds, so extra spell pen won't help them anymore there, and a mage vs. mage duel will still come down to who casts first.
There are probably other options that I have not considered, and I'd like for everyone to throw out their thoughts.
Just for the record, I am not particularly fond of either mages or monks (I prefer bard class myself), but I've played on both sides of mage/monk coin and the problems here are glaring and hopefully they can be addressed in the near future.
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Obviously, the wrench in the works here is the SR from subraces. Without subrace SR, monks can still become "untouchable" by casters, but they give up nearly everything.
For example, without subrace SR:
A build would need 36 levels of monk and spend 7 epic feats and 3 bonus monk feats to hit SR 66 (mord's will not lower this SR btw) to be immune to a 40th level mage. In this scenario, the monk has given up EVERYTHING to get that awesome SR. Even then, it's a standoff if the mage has elemental or acid sheath up.
With 5+1/lvl SR subraces, it changes everything. Now, you only need 15 levels of monk to max out SR. Granted, 10pts of it will be dispellable with mord's, but it's much easier to get to the vaunted SR of 76. Plus, there are plenty of leftover epic and legendary feats that can be spent on acid resistance, etc.
Mages have no answer to the powers that monks get in the BL. Perhaps a subrace with some additional spell penetration would be a third option in addition to the two I posted.
Again, just throwing out some ideas here folks.
a monk can buy Improved SR as a level 12 monk, as long as total levels are 21 or above. So 11 levels pre-epic. Then one monk level at 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36 and 39. So 18 levels of monk and get 7 of the 10 SR feats by level 39. That leaves 22 more levels for the rest of the build, and you can take the other 3 feats out of your 6 or 7 legendary feats.
A note on the Subrace SR. That can be reduced by spell breach and mord's, but not the base Monk SR. Cap on SR without Improved SR feats is 60. With all 10 SR feats, the cap goes up to 80 (+2 per feat).
I know this can make a Monk untouchable by pure casters, but That is kind of the point. Mages can already take out anyone without LOTS of SR, and monks are their bane. Lots of Str builds can take out Monks, but Mages are thier bane... See a pattern here? Every build should have a weakness to at least one other build. That is where play balance come in. You want something that can take out all 3 of those kinds of build? Easy... Take your Mage build and group with a Monk and Melee build, and maybe a good Healer build... Dang, that almost sounds like DnD roleplaying... =-]
Terry17 said...
I know this can make a Monk untouchable by pure casters, but That is kind of the point.
Yes, monks *can be* the bane of mages. But why should a build with 14 (minimum) monk levels be untouchable by a 60th level wizard? This is essentially what occurs in the BL- everyone with monk as a controlling class can obtain SR 76 without giving up a whole lot. I really don't think this is what 3rd edition rules or Bioware intended.
As I stated in my comment above, monks in the original game could become untouchable to casters--- they just have to sacrifice... A LOT. Subrace SR in the BL along with legendary feats make it MUCH easier to hit 76. How do casters overcome these options for monks? They simply don't. There's little incentive for mages to go beyond 40th lvl. If they're smart, they've already taken all the really good feats. It becomes a matter of cranking an ability.
To go back to my above example: you could (hypothetically) create a monk14/cleric14/rogue12 (w/ monk as the controlling class). With 3 epic ImpSR feats and 5 legendary SR feats, this monk (with only 14 levels, mind you) will be fully spell resistant at level 54. The PURE mage who's sacrificed so much to grab 40 caster levels had a 50% chance of hitting the monk14 at 40th, but the monk CONTINUES to gain power, whereas the mage does not. Regardless of what the mage selects in legendary levels, he becomes stagnant as a caster, and by 54 level he can't touch the monk.
Can't you see the problem here?
Q et al. like to talk all the time about the "Spirit of D&D" and how it should exist in the Badlands. How can anyone objectively look at this discussion and believe that this is balanced, or in the "spirit"?
Ultimately, look at my options again. I'm not asking for additional caster levels, per se, just options for them to continue to grow in terms of spell penetration. This, by no means, will suddenly allow mages to dominate every monk... hardly. In fact, all it does is give a wizard who gives up everything in legendary levels to have a snowball's chance in hell at hitting a monk with 14 base levels.
btw, I don't buy Terry's argument about str melees getting owned by mages. I seem to recall a toon by the name of Borg Master who dominated EVERYONE.
Yes, monks *can be* the bane of mages. But why should a build with 14 (minimum) monk levels be untouchable by a 60th level wizard? This is essentially what occurs in the BL- everyone with monk as a controlling class can obtain SR 76 without giving up a whole lot. I really don't think this is what 3rd edition rules or Bioware intended.
Yeah, when you put it like that, it does seem unfair.
But because mages were always overpowered with spells that could paralyse, drop you to the ground or do a very high damage enough to kill you fast without you having the chance to do anything besides running away or killing yourself on the damage shields, this particular issue was left as is.
I could change the spell casters DC. The spells are all scripted. Building a new level-checking thing to include HGLL levels in the "GetCasterLevel" function would be easy. I have done that for a thing I'm working on as it is.
So, if Wizard is your controlling class and you can now add 20 to the effective Cater Level, how will that effect the DC, Power, Duration and everything else?
The way I see it, a well built mage is currently over-powered as it is. And, what most of you don't know about the spell scripts, is almost all of them have a level 20 cap as it is. The actual DC might be "hard-coded" though.
Most of the class specific stuff reads the class level and even a PURE build gets locked down at 40. I can give away the feats that a WM gets for Weapon of Choice. I did it once as a test. DAR Subrace Engine. But, without any WM levels it was useless. The same goes for a lot of other class specific stuff like Monk Speed and Monk SR. DAR adds SR as a spell-like ability. The Monk SR is hard-coded along with the SR feats.
Mages, like Monks, can take feats after 40 to help their DC. And raising you Int, Cha, or Wis helps just as Str or Dex helps non-mages.
It is supposed to be Rock-Paper-Scissors. Monks were added to the line-up for the purpose of chasing Mages. A well built fighter can take down a mage if he gets in a few good blows before the mages can start casting. It's the element shields and epic armor/warding that are part of the un-balance.
In the old days, before these spells, a mage needed a tank to stand behind. Now, mages have become such, prissy fags, that the smallest of paper-cuts makes them cry like babies and a political movement gets started because of one sore looser.
As far as Terry and his Borg machine, I'd like to see Terry make another without re-leveling 10 times and without all the tools from the Beta Room or help from a DM. Build and play like everybody else, then we'll see how tough you are.
Q, A few points
1. This isn’t a political movement, it’s a couple of dorks who’ve taken a lot of math classes talking game mechanics. I like game mechanics. Back when I had time I liked to make my own and see how things worked in PnP.
2. Jim and I both like Badlands and appreciate the work that you put into it. We just like to talk about this sort of shit.
3. There were two different thoughts. Mine was about spell DC, Jims was about spell resistance. If I’m reading Jim correctly his point is that it takes take a comparatively small amount of scissors to beat a lot of paper.
4. Personally, I’ve always thought that your attribute bonus should add to spell penetration check. Just as a matter of philosophy. Game mechanics wise a monk build could still resist 2/3 of all spells even on a level 40 caster with a 54 in casting attribute. I’ll point out that this mage would like last for 4 rounds against a strength based basher. Less against dex crit.
5. Mages used to need tanks, but that would totally blow for single player so bioware didn’t do it that way. EMA and EW were added so that a mage would get something cool after lvl 20. (A lvl 20 mage is lightyears ahead of almost any other build. They slow way down after that.
6. Mages aren’t overpowered. IGM is. When I was talking (BSing) about DC I suggested taking that down a notch. I was thinking it might encourage a mage build that wasn’t based around IGM spamming, a lot of HP and mestils. Would see some other spells used.
7. Even with the above HP + High AB + KD let’s barbarians make it a fair fight.
8. It’s not possible for mages to raise their DC high enough to be useful in PVP. The most you’ll get is 47, and that’s if you put everything into your casting attribute. (Start with a base score of 22, take all 10 epic attribute feats and all 3 spell focuses and rdd levels.) The LOWEST you can get a save with full gear is 35. And that’s assuming you start with dex, wis, or con of 8. That’s a 35% chance of making that save. You can get it up to 75% with a skill dump in spellcraft and all the way to 85 if you don't start with a stat of 8.
People do what works. Most mages builds in BL use IGM and damage shields most of the time, they’ll throw the level 6 bigby at a dexer but other than that it’s IGM and mestils. That’s because it’s what works well. Sure you can use firebrand. But in most of the BL it’ll be less effective than IGM. So, high caster attributes don’t give you very much. It doesn’t help the spells that work well. So it’s not an effective thing to do. How often do you see a build with more than 15 levels of cleric? The extra levels don’t get you much. There aren’t a lot of good lvl 9 spells and they extra caster levels won’t do much for you. Same with Epic level monks. You only get a little speed so what’s the point? Better to take another class, like cleric or SD.
HGLL gives you feats, attributes, Hit points, and skill points. So classes that get the most from those things will get the most from HGLL. This means feat staved builds, builds based on classes with discipline and tumble, and builds that get the most from their stats. So dev crit bard builds will do really well. Caster builds just get more HP. The other stuff isn’t much use for them.
Again, I'm not trying to mess with you or badger you into a change. I just like talking about this stuff.
Also, while we’re on the subject I hate EW. The concept is fine but I think that it’s both abused and unnecessary. It’s abused by PM builds (Got some of those myself btw) and it’s unnecessary because it’s a patch. Epic mages needed more damage reduction so instead of going back and fixing premonition they pasted on a new ‘epic spell’ Why didn’t they just have premonition keep increasing with caster level?
There is a lot to mull over, most good stuff too. I don't claim I understand all of it, some of the DC stuff really confuses that crap out of me. I bought all the DND manuals (that was a small fortune, can't find any quest to get em for free), and it's not explained in a way that I can follow it well.
I agree that the epic spells are all a big joke. The only thing I ever hurt with Hell Ball is killing my own party, leaving all the monsters alive to gang up on me.
The first time I earned Epic Warding, it lasted as long as it took me to kill one bear, so I changed EW and EMA. I lengthened the duration to use the combined class levels. Wiz + Sorc + Bard + PM + RDD. I think I also let it auto use Extend Spell. I also added Shield AC to EMA. I personally don't see why PM should get Epic Spells, PM is not a true spellcastor any more than COT is.
How is it that other servers have dis-abled PM from choosing Epic Spells in the feat list at level up? What mechanics did they use? I can edit some of the 2da files on the server, but in my tests, without the same edit on the client side, it does not work. Did I do it wrong?
Arcane Archer and bows. It is Bows and Arrows. You need to figure in the element upgrades added to the arrows. The combined Bow/Arrow set is almost the same count as one sword.
I suppose I could help offset the expense of "level-up" by adding the long-asked-for "bow of unlimited ammo". That bow is intended for Henchmen and NPCs that can't replace used arrows. The part players don't understand is even more important. You can't use just any arrow. You can only use the self-generated arrows the bow makes. These arrows only have have one element property of 1d6. At some point, it becomes a worthless trinket. Would be a nice low-level quest though.
Q, I’ll email you my DC spreadsheet when I get home and can dig it up. I might update it for SR as well. Mages do just fine atm, but it would be cool to see spells other than IGM be useful, as well as seeing builds have to worry about saving throws. Maybe I’ll do a blog post on it.
Until then
DC = 10 + level of the spell + the attribute modifier + Feats
You can take spell focus feats to give you +2 to a school of magic. If you take 3 feats you get up to + 6. So your max DC is 48 for a ninth level spell, and a 54 attribute. Caster level doesn’t play any part. A 30th level caster and a 40th level caster will have the same DC If they have the same attributes and feats. (A dev critter with a 54 strength will have DC of 62)
Most instant kill spells give a fort save, or that the target fail both a reflex save and a will save. Also many of the spells can be countered. Weird doesn’t work if the target has true seeing. One of Bigby’s doesn’t work if they have freedom of movement. etc.
Another thing to keep in mind is that no mage build is going get all three feats in every school, it’s not possible. And the spells are split up so that no one school is dominant. Necromancy spells usually require a fort save. Illusion usually require a wisdom save, and evocation spells usually require a reflex save.
The lowest save a lvl 40 build can get on BL is a 35, and that takes trying.
Every 5 levels of spell craft gives you a +1 to saving throws against spells.
I think I will do a blog post on this. I’ll put up some different scenarios. Saving throws should be something you can fail, but won’t fail every single time.
Spell resistance is different, it’s defeated by caster level + feats + 1D20. In that one attributes don’t matter.
Either way, please take my remarks in the appropriate way: The drunken ramblings of an enormous dork who really digs the work you do. (I just might have time to play tonight.)
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