too much magic? lexicon

[seethings]

Sorry i know the thread got closed. Well it was way off topic.

But i missed out on my twenty cents worth.

I personally find the magic much higher than i orgianlly hoped when i started playing Das. I mean to many casetrs, to many potions, to many wands, to many charms, and the quests creatures are high in magic use. The argumant is never gogin to end if its a debate about lowering ONE of these components. This is essentially a NWN2/DnD mechanics discusssion.

The most straight forward discusiion, is wether ALL magical aspects can be lowered some way - across the board. Ultimately this would be up to the world designers. They are creative and experienced and capable of implementing this. What they want to hear is just if we feel it is necessary. I do feel when i started playing last year the world was about right. Now that there is more money in the econmy due to player accumulation, new quests and so on... the 'feel' of the place has definately shifted towrds heavier magic. And most definately wands.

I never used to witness chars wanding up stoneskin, mage armour and so forth on a regular basis and now i do. My own main char carries over 6 wands... although i choose to spend my money on grease/stinking cloud/contagion... usually only to cast in RP situations, not on dungeoans... as my char is a stinking disease ridden char. Wands are everywhere, but no more so than the shops charms etc that the DM's intend.

I think the best solution would be to say magic has a drain on a persons constitution. In the same way as encumberance works for weight. So for each spell cast, each item worn or carried... there is a tolerance. The more you use, the quicker you tire and need rest.
Second, all magic and non magic items have hit points. Eventually items break, or lose there magic 'lustre'. Thus my fighter might leave his sword 'sting' sheathed a lot of the time and fight with a cheap old garden tool he brought along from the shire.

oooops So yes thats meddling with the mecanics... so below is a simple SMALL way to make DASARIA less magic in a SIMPLE way.


In this respect... and from a RP enjoyment point of view, I think there is a simple start. Calling any + item a magic item is a POOR use of language. A sword +3 may not be magic at all, but rather a sword made by a master craftsperson, or with well smelted steel (toledo steel etc). If a script could be written so that these items abilitys are listed as 'master' (+3)... 'novice' (+1).. they are not magic... but 1d6 fire damage IS a magic sword. Whilst this is semantics, it would contribute to a less magic flavoured world from a RP point of view.

As for AC items, well i think more could be made of the various classes. A 'natural armour bonus to me is a fine material, not a glowing thing a mage has baked. ANd so on. I think each class could have an affinity with a ac type... eg rogues might understand deflection, a way of utilising the deflection capability of the bracers, a druid - natural bonus. Because a particular ac class already doesnt stack... then you would only have one slot with a natural armour bonus item..... the other types you could not use. There are plenty of other bounus that are less stackable than AC, like str +1, so your slots would get used.

FINALLY

{{ language note: wouldnt it be nice if 'died' was dropped from the lexicon. The Nwn2 manual suggest that most 'deaths' are not deaths. You have been knocked unconcious etc. Conceptually this makes more sense than constant reincarnation. To the DM's if you have read this far.. i think a player should get one 'free' KO, respawning in dungeon... then next time they die... spawn in the Caer graveyard.}}


ok so it was 85cents

[Jehannum]

On a personal note (that means non-official), I like things to be very low magic. I like my games hard as hell and I like it when a +1 longsword is a prize. In the original pen and paper campaign of Dasaria, we indeed started with no metal weapons or armor. The idea was that the metal was being used up by the military and that the common person could not afford such luxuries.

We tried having low magic in the last campaign but it was battle with the playerbase from day 1 and as I said, it presented balance issues relating to the nwn engine and game mechanic as a whole. Our goal was mid-magic overall, and more importantly than that- to have control over every item that goes into circulation from the loot pool. That idea sounds so simple, but in the last game- it wasnt as easy as it sounds. We do have that control this time around.

When I am getting out of these discussions is that wands are too available. I think that this issue is going to be discussed and we will see what some good options are.

[The Explorer]

I have used wands as my fighter and my sneaky char, I would much prefer they didn't have to use them and even better if they couldn't use wands making it only possible to have such buffs when cast upon them by a caster.
I tried getting one of my chars which I refuse to use wands on upto Auckland mill with another char of equal lvl, my char "died" 16 times and his cpmanion who was a weaker fighter type build but used wands "died" only once.

IMO as the current game content is there is nowhere a non magically buffed fighter type can go unless I have missed an area but I highly doubt that.

It's one of many reasons I currently love playing my pirate and getting into No weapon brawls after some usually amusing Rp = no buffs, no weapons, who gets knocked on their postirior and no death and if seen by a fleet member some following Rp amusement although haven't found a monk they can beat yet.

I also play a rather well known mage and don't want the magic lvl to be lowered it would be swell if when the high lvl areas there would be a couple added for fighter types which would need to take a caster if they really wanted to get all them buffs or even better make it/them a totally spell free dungeon. I gather most of you have seen Lord of the Rings, I don't remember seeing any of the main fighters/warriors in that cast stoneskin or Improved Mage Armour on themselves even.

[coruscadragon]

*kicks seethings into the game*

Personally i think that there are also too many wands in circulation... some of my characters use wands, but it make sense because of who they are, both as a character and as a class. The problem of how to balance wands without crippling them is a problem i realize. There are several ideas i have been bouncing around in my head, and i don't know how viable they are, but i figure i may as well put them out there for consideration:

1) Wands should require a UMD check. According to the PHB, using a wand that you would not normaly be able to use requires a UMD check vs DC 20. While this is easy for some, there would always be at least a slight chance of failure, and if there was a way to implement this in Dasaria, it could keep people from dropping a few points into UMD just to use their favorite wand.

2) Wands backfire on failure. The above change would simply mean some lost time and lost charges, but if it was possible to make wands backfire on a failed UMD check, that might add to the risk factor; the PHB recommends 2d6 magic damage, in addition to the normal hazards of a miscast spell... i don't know if it's possible to script such mishaps into a wand, but perhaps at least some kind of magical damage could be done on failure.

3)Wands cost XP. In PnP, wands (and scrolls for that matter) cost a certain amount of XP to make. While many players seem to have accumulated masses of wealth, and the cost of wands is not as prohibitive as it would seem to most, an XP cost might make them a little less of something that you can just pop off a few of with little worry.

4)This is probably the hardest to implement, and for all i know, might make wands more prevalent, but it has struck me that it would be nice if the system for crafting wands was a little more similar to that in PnP, ie, you could choose the equivalent caster level of the the wand on creation (maximum of your own caster level). This would mean that in order to make good wands, one would not simply be able to powerlevel a crafting alt to lvl 7 and suddenly have access to wands with ECL (equivalent caster levels) of 15. Since the cost of the wand would scale with the ECL, high-quality wands would cost a lot more.

5) Another small idea that popped into my head on the subject of crafting wands while writing this, is that perhaps there could be different qualities of "blank" wands. This could affect crafting in various ways:
There could be four different grades of wand, in increasing degrees of rarity, the lowest would be able to hold spells of up to 1st level, the next higher grade could hold spells up to 2nd, and so on, with the rarest being able to hold spells up to 4th lvl.
A variation of this would be that the various grades of wands would each hold more charges than the last, thus the rarer blank wands would hold more spells (while the crafting cost for each would remain the same, possibly). Alternatively, or perhaps concurrently, spells could be made to use up a number of charges equal to their level. Another way would be to, instead of having different quality "blank" wands, have wand crafting require certain other material components, such as gems, that would have varying rarities. The quality of the gems used would affect the quality of the wand (ie, number of charges, or level of spell held). An extension to this would be that the material components would have to be specially prepared, thus components such as "fine diamond dust" would require a successful alchemy check on the raw material before they could be created. This would further enhance their rarity, and reward players that like to play crafter-type characters. this has gone on quite long enough, i suppose, and i apologize for its rambling, disorganized manner (ADHD strikes again), but i hope some of these ideas may be found of merit, and as a parting thought i'd like to add that perhaps the quality of the materials going into a wands creation (and perhaps the crafter's skill, requiring a spellcraft check or similar?) could also regulate variables such as ECL and... DC(?!), in such a system...

[Edit: also the bone wands should probably be removed from the vendors ]

[Maevan2]

I gather most of you have seen Lord of the Rings, I don't remember seeing any of the main fighters/warriors in that cast stoneskin or Improved Mage Armour on themselves even.

That is something that comes to my mind quite often. Even Gandalf didn't buff himself before he entered a battle.

I think many PWs get one thing wrong and Dasaria is no exception: there are many ways of making a area difficult. One is them to make the enemies more difficult. Another one is to add more enemies. For some reasons i don't fully understand usually only the first one is chosen.

I my opinion fighters should be responsible for mowing down the hords of minions while mages shoudl spare their powers either for the bosses or times whenthe fighter's brute force is not enough. I understand that casters don't want to wait and just stand around till they meet the boss after at one of my chars is a cleric). But the main problem is that the fact that fighters might not be as powerfull but can fight forever is not utilized. Instead they have to face a few tough enemies that are to powerfull to be handled by plain steel. But on the other hand the number of the enemies is so limited that the casters don't run out of spells so they can unleash their full powers all the time

There is a reason why there is cleave, greater cleave and whirlwind attack...


... or area spells

[Jehannum]

I would much prefer they didn't have to use them

I would assert that they dont, because we test the areas using spell based party buffs from caster classes. We do not test with wands...

Wands I think do help when you cannot get a full and balanced party together- which is sometimes a problem, but they are not required to be successful in this campaign unless you are a lazy player.

It is not necessarily a bad thing to have things in the campaign that can help bridge the gap when a full and balanced party is not available.

Again- I dont believe for a second that wands are necessary to go through Dasarian content.

It is not that case that we made a developmental decision to increase the difficulty when wands were brought into play. How do you think all of the other players hit the level cap prior to wands being in circulation?

[The Explorer]

I wouldn't call myself a lazy player and as far as I know back when I started playing Das the content was easier as well as drinking those potions of moderate cure. Most that reached the lvl cap were casters and warlocks, my warrior got to his level because I would always get a party together to adventure and learn/practice Rp as it was all new to me, I kept getting mass parties together (mainly with the same player base because we were all around alot then although quite a few have left Das now) to do the Orc's quest coz I still think the end of it is amazing. I see Das as a mostly multiplayer game (one of the reasons I like it here), I don't like having to solo but know all to well RL and timezones make it tough and all the dispells in some areas make them a pretty much certain death areas unless you are invisible or have a partie.

E.g. killing bandits yesturday, 4 bandits around one of my chars, my char had snail shell charm, potion of barskin, potion of bulls strength and a ghostbane charm on; got completely dispelled by the first two arrows to hit them then were Crited against by the other two bandits = 2 second fight "dead".

[blackheart]

I would ask that you don't mess with wands.

If you're going to ban wands, why not ban scrolls? Much more powerful scrolls can made than any wand. For that matter, ban casters all together because they are 50 times more uber than a fighter with a +1 sword, or level-cap them at 12 (being sarcastic, don't do that please).

AFAIK I have one of the only Clerics and the only Druid that makes them and I have given them to maybe 4 characters (other than my own) in the game. It was a significant gimp to invest in these feats for such feat-starved characters.

Anyway, there is no epidemic of wands -- a reminder that a simple stat want like Owl's wisdom costs around 25,000 to manufacture.

[broncoblitz]

Oh come on Jeh, we all know when you Dm's test new content you do it with your dm avatars and think "That wasn't that hard. The players should have no problem with this."

But to not use wands?

I CONSIDER THAT IDIOTIC BEHAVIOR!

[Eowade]

Both my rogue and my bard use them but not as many as some think and they both have high UMD. I do keep a mage armor and death ward wand on my bard. My rogue uses mage armor and deathward as well and she keeps an invis wand handy for when HIPS does not seem to work. I really hate failing a save and dropping from full health to dead it just saps the fun out of a place for me and the mage armor only brings them up to the level of other characters considering neither has an abundance of hit points and some things could kill them in two hits I thought avoiding being hit was my best bet although they still get smacked a good one here and there especially my rogue. I see a couple people use allot of wands but not many and its usually mage armor I see used and thats it the rest is charms. Maybe I am not paying enough attention to how others are playing though.

[blackheart]

Also I might add that despite the noise being made by a few opinionated and very vocal people, the community has much higher priorities than gimping wands in order to satisfy the desires of a few people.

[Stormknife]

What Black said.

[coruscadragon]

...or level-cap them at 12 (being sarcastic, don't do that please).

this may seem ridiculous, but that actually seems like a viable option to keep things "low magic" to me... maybe lvl 13, actually, so they could get up to lvl 7 spells at least...

[Rob]

Is there too much treasure dropping? Wands cost loads of gold to make. The average wand costs 13,895 gold. If there are too many wands, then there is too much gold. Maybe it's time to trim the drops again.

[The Explorer]

Lol yes Blackheart that is very true the priorities should stay as they are as most of the community myself included are drooling for it.

Please forget about the wand issue as not even close to a priority.