Something needs to be said about the missing scroll shop in Newport. Quite simply, it needs to be fixed and brought back.
While many different classes can augment their abilities through the use of scrolls, mainly through buffing, Wizards rely upon them for their very existence. Without a way for Wizards to find or purchase scrolls and spell-books, there is no way for them to learn new spells. There is currently no consistent method for Wizards to find upper-level spell scrolls, and without the ability to purchase them they are limited to learning 2 spells per Wizard level. While this might not seem to be extremely restricting to someone who has limited experience playing a Wizard, I can assure you that trying to level up a Wizard is difficult enough without being limited to such a small selection of spells.
To put it in perspective, Wizards are balanced against Sorcerers in that they have the ability to learn new spells from spell scrolls while Sorcerers cannot. Sorcerers are limited to learning only a handful of spells per level, but have the ability to cast those spells more often than Wizards. Taking away the ability of the Wizard class to learn new spells through the use of spell scrolls effectively turns them into Sorcerers that cannot cast as many spells per day.
I do not know what happened to the scroll shop, or why it is still disabled, but I believe it would be a safe guess from my experience with Q that it has something to do with attempting to restrict the use of scrolls in non-spellcasting classes. If that is the case, then a different approach needs to be taken. Taking away all of the scrolls simply to lessen their impact on the game is “Throwing the baby out with the bath-water”, to use an old phrase. It has the effect of making the Wizard class, one of the most difficult classes to level up and play well, extremely unattractive and unappealing to those trying to make new characters.
I won’t say that Wizards are un-playable without the scroll shop, but that observation is not far from the truth.
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Also, I don't know if this was on purpose, but there's also no place to buy a newport stone?
Oh and, there's no monk shop in NP either.
I love what i have seen of the new areas, and applaud the work done by the Builders (Deimonos & Quildurn etc ).
I just wish to add to this thread that "Bracers" are not available in Dozo / Crystal City / Newport and i don't hold out much hope of getting any in Underdark either.
The ability for the Armourer to craft your Bracers may or may not need fixing too.
I need to explore more, especially as Sheelo Castle has crafting available now too.
Getting back to the main thread, I am happy to scribe scrolls for wizards if they provide me with blank scrolls, i have all useful ones and i think i have a full set above level 6 scrolls, many that were never available in the shops:)
All the Best .......Blade
Hi -
Lets not forget to thank Darian for all his play-testing of the new areas and monsters with many different build types.
I did put the new arcane library in Newport with this last update.
I added new rooms in the Newport Temple. The monk shop is through a door. There is a new Divine Library in another door.
The missing bracers is an oversight on my part. It will get fixed. The missing port stones was another oversight - I blame lack of sleep - I did do a quick fix on the missing port stones....I trust Darian reset the server for me.
Castle Sheelo does have a level 22 melee shop now. He can upgrade melee weapons so you can get the expected Big Guy Stuff. A Great Axe is going to need an even stronger crafting shop to get it's full power. It will need a level 24 or 25 shop.
The armor upgade will only do AC+6 to medium and heavy armor, shields and helms. And only if you have natural str 25 and 10 levels in a true melee class. And you MUST be wearing the armor while you craft the shield and helm.
Please keep in mind that this is a melee shop to help AC starved fighters.
Q
Sweet, great to know the Scroll Shop is back in. I'm really impressed with the new areas and I'm looking forward to exploring them more fully.
I'm not sure yet what my thoughts are on the armor upgrades for Str based Melee builds...I'm guessing my opinion will probably be directly influenced by which side of the Melee/Str Build's blade I'm on :)
The new armor shop for melees is a good idea, but I'm not really sure it solves the problem for low-AC melees. With the exception of helms and for melees without heavy armor proficiency, the new shop doesn't really help. This is because you can already obtain +6 Dragon Armor and a +6 shield pales in comparison to the Dev Shell. So unless my math is off, there's no advantage to the new shop. And I'm fine with that, since melees are dev critters and are really the only ones who can effectively level to the max without major help. So leaving them with their major weaknesses (low SR and low AC) is fine with me.
Dont forget the sharkskin boots too, those are also +6.
I'm not sure if amulets are able to be upgraged to +6 at the new shop, that would be helpful, I need to check it out.
So basically amulets and helmets are the only things you should really need +6 on.
I havent used the new shop yet, but I know that one advantage Crafted equipment has over the Boss Drops is the ability to customize them the way you want them. What I mean is being able to put +6 AC AND the ability bonuses you want, regen, ect. I usually do not use the Gold Dragon Armour on my builds for that exact reason, I dont want to give up the ability bonuses I have on my crafted armor. So while you might not be able to get a better AC with the new items, you could probably still come out ahead in the long run.
Jim brought up a good point; is it a good thing to give the Str based Melee builds more AC? While it might make PK and leveling them up a little easier, a well built Str build typically has very little problem with leveling to begin with. The only real challenge is when they get to Trogs, and an extra 5 AC isnt going to make a huge difference there anyway.
Just a thought. I'm honestly not sure how much, if at all, adding more AC to those builds will affect game balance, but the primary advantage the Dex builds have over the Str builds is higher AC. The Str builds are already capable of getting higher AB and dealing alot more damage, not to mention the ability to Dev Crit, so adding more AC to them might not be a good thing.
Just something to consider :)
The Gold Dragon Armor is not usable by neutral alignments, only good or evil. The +6 melee shop can be considered a stepping stone until you get better boss drops.
But I too usually skip the boss drops and use upgradeable equipment.
With the shift in weapon damage, the extra AC may not be such a good thing now. When I started the +6 shop, it did seem like a valid solution to a balance issue.
Q
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