Dasaria II - A NWN2 Roleplay and Story-driven Persistent World

I guess to an extent it depends on how focused the world is with PvP - I know that Das1 had it's times when it went very PvP but in fairness it did at least have some semblance of a story.. as a few DM’s may have pointed out from time to time NWN was never built for PvP and Dasaria is a RP server which has PvP enabled to maximise the potential of the roleplay.. on that basis I don’t have much of a problem with Mage’s being able to kill anyone..

I played a mage for a while and even at level 13 he could whoop backside.. so instead of killing people I would cast fog spells etc and then taunt them (yes it was an evil mage…) maybe cast a grasping hand and laugh at them – reduce them to low hits but drew short of killing them – this more often than not ended with whoever had been taunted running back into the village rounding a few people up and laughing as I was killed in a few seconds by an angry mob.

So.. I’ll always respect those mages that are role played well.. and who good/neutral or evil find interesting and unusual ways to kill my characters rather than TS/IGMS maxed!! Whooo! Seen it.. been there.. bored… you have twice the spells of any other casting class.. be creative and use them… you might die a bit more often but you’ll get a lot more respect for the people you do kill.

Wizards/Sorcs are going to be powerful, like they've always been. At their maximum level they'll be able to take out most classes without too much trouble. That is just the way it's going to be.

Loki has a very valid point. It's important to make sure the people you're playing with are having fun, and are not being slain over and over again in a PVP encounter. Mixing it up with different spells, or different strategies, can make an encounter with a wizard challenging and entertaining. Whenever Shand and Dur attacked the village we tried to mix it up a bit, and keep it relatively interesting (while still providing a lethal challenge).

So in part, the player behind the spellcaster can have a huge impact on the enjoyability of interacting with their character. I am sure, though, that NWN2 will be slightly different than what we're use to. I have a feeling Wizards and Sorcs will be a little easier to take down this time around.

With that said, my first class will not be a wizard. I'll save that for later.

My well-mannered (I hope) reply:

Disintigrate and Issac's Greater are both level 6 spells.

Your level 9 spells are such: Bigbys Crushing Hand, Dominate Monster, Energy Drain, Etherealness, Gate, Greater Spell Mantle, Mass Hold Monster, Meteor Swarm (Creature, Location, Self), Mordenkainens Disjunction, Power Word Kill, Shades (Cone of Cold, Fireball, Stoneskin, Summon Shadow - targeting caster, creature, ground - and Wall of Fire), Shapechange (Fire Giant, Frost Giant, Horned Devil, Iron Golem, Nightwalker), Summon Creature IX, Wail of the Banshee and Weird.

The level 9 spells above have TARGETTING on some of them, hence eliminating spells that simply exist but are never used. This is a good thing IMHO. This allows Meteor Swarm to be used on a single target.

As I said before, Shades has been moved up. It was listed with IGMS before, as a level 6 spell. I only hope this will mean more power behind those spells, as that was a spell I took with Heaven, and I rather liked it. Saved me two spell slots (Cone of Cold and Fireball in one spell, you can't argue with that really). Though, if I was a really cold woman, I'd make a wizard and take every single 9th level spell (we do have scrolls, remember).. and use Energy Drain as a primary spell, but I'm not thankfully for everyone.

There are worse, more unbalancing spells than IGMS and Disintigrate. Perhaps they both do have saves this time, if not I know they can definitely be inserted by our lovely, talented DM staff. Even more unbalancing, on that level, if you wanted to argue, would be the Bigby's spells. I think they should be deleted from the spell lists. You have Hold Monster, you have Hold Person (at least in NWN1), why do you need god knows how many Bigby's spells too? (And nearly every mage in Dasaria except mine took these spells, no matter if you were a sorcerer or a wizard..)

Disintergrate will be the Elf and Rogue killer, 40D6 at level 20 with a fort save for 5D6. IGMS will be better against hordes of enemies who you want some assured damage against or who are too spread out for fireballs to be effective against.

I'll say it one more time. Mages have to rest sometime. The very first time that my rogue is killed by a mage using a Bigby's/Disintigrate combo, that mage is dead upon resting because I'll click on the hide button, then on the attack button once I'm behind you. Some of these spells are just setting the entire server up for major imbalance. I refuse to waste a feat just on improving my fortitude, or get less skill points because I had to drain INT to put in my CON.

Heh thats all well and good as long as there isn't the permaSeeInvis (or whatever that annoyin spell was) going on.

The spell you're looking for is True Seeing. Also unbalanced. I don't care who you are, but you shouldn't be able to see a rogue hiding, when they are undoubtedly some of the best, if not the best at it. (discounting monks)

Knockdown + Silence == a lot of dead mages.

That's absolutely true.

I still maintain, though, I shouldn't have to take knockdown as a rogue, waste a feat, simply to kill a mage in PvP.

All in favor of removing a clerics ability to cast spell mantles?

*raises hand* Clerics have way too many defensive spells as it is, getting this one doesn't make sense to me either.

Know how to use them in a way that it won't ruin other players fun

And that's really what I'm getting at. If you Bigby's my mage or rogue or fighter, whatever the profession is it doesn't matter in the case of this spell.. really, that eliminates anything I could possibly do. Hold spells had a save at least. The same goes for IGMS, Disintigrate, etc. That's the reason I never used Wail in PvP.

And arguments for making the big hitting spells even more potent (Weapon focus for ranged touch spells, or even something like improved crit...) I think are just rather amusing.

Actually, for the record, in Complete Arcane, Warlocks under 3.5 are able to get bonuses by taking Weapon Focus feats for ranged OR touch, there's one for each.. as well as by taking Point Blank Shot. Not sure if this will hold true in NWN2 or not.

Important question here does disintegrate destroy equipment? (as in is there anything in the script to suggest it does?)

I'd also like an official answer on that. If the answer is yes, I say jerk the spell out totally.

-K

Important question here does disintegrate destroy equipment? (as in is there anything in the script to suggest it does?)

No, disintegrate does not destroy equipment.

Vahene wrote:Mages have to rest sometime. The very first time that my rogue is killed by a mage using a Bigby's/Disintigrate combo, that mage is dead upon resting because I'll click on the hide button, then on the attack button once I'm behind you.

And you'll find the mage how? Because what a smart mage will do when it's time to rest is cast invisibility, cast haste or expeditious retreat, run 2 or 3 zones away, THEN rest. Unless you're a ranger, you're not going to find them. And even if you are, the odds that you can make contact before they're done resting are pretty slim.

"Kill the mage while he's resting" is great if you know where he's resting. But odds are VERY good that you won't.

All in favor of removing a clerics ability to cast spell mantles?

Against. I can't think of any reason why this would be a problem. The classes it affects the most are also the classes that are best equipped to blow the thing away.

Actually, for the record, in Complete Arcane, Warlocks under 3.5 are able to get bonuses by taking Weapon Focus feats for ranged OR touch, there's one for each.. as well as by taking Point Blank Shot. Not sure if this will hold true in NWN2 or not.

So are wizards/sorcerers according to the PHB. It's not a good guideline.

there is also the hour between attacks in pvp remember, you can't go back and grief em no matter how much they deserve it. You have to sit and wait, and wait and wait, by peribo's (damned little munchkin), hope a redboot doesn't randomly see you and bring everyone on you, then wait some more until you spot them, then hope they aren't wearing that true seeing thing, then maybe slap em, then run like hell cos the boots are after ya, ooo and so are all the knights.
ha.
Reading that back it sounds a bit jaded or sarcy - its not meant to, I prefectly enjoyed myself and knew what the score was when I went into the areas I'm talking about.

muletang wrote:there is also the hour between attacks in pvp remember, you can't go back and grief em no matter how much they deserve it. You have to sit and wait, and wait and wait, by peribo's (damned little munchkin), hope a redboot doesn't randomly see you and bring everyone on you, then wait some more until you spot them, then hope they aren't wearing that true seeing thing, then maybe slap em, then run like hell cos the boots are after ya, ooo and so are all the knights.
ha.
Reading that back it sounds a bit jaded or sarcy - its not meant to, I prefectly enjoyed myself and knew what the score was when I went into the areas I'm talking about.

That sounds like experience talking.

Personally, I prefer to RP out hostility without coming to blows, but that's probably the pacifist in me carrying over to the characters I play. So when I say I'd sneak you if you unfairly targetted me that way, well, you'd have to really piss me off, which to date, only 2 people have done in Das1, neither of them post on the boards.. (the show up, kill, logout type)

In NWN2, I wouldn't make a very scary bad person, I don't think. Takes two to tango in that respect... and only if you're willing to let something bad happen to you. (Go Michelle on that front by the way.. poisoning Isis was one of the most complicated, scary and wonderous things I ever had my sorceress do, but it wouldn't have worked without consent.)

To me, yes, its scary to see Kell or Maelstrom come into town and just knowing without even seeing them do it, they can tear you apart, and just about every guard in the vacinity. Its even scarier to me the player though to know that someone right beside me is an evil maniac from the boards, and wonder what the heck they're going to do. I personally think its more frightening to see the Hannibal Lector type. You're around them every day, yet, you don't know what they are. That's sorta why Detect Evil ruins things in that respect.

With an hour between attacks, yes, it does depend on several things, but it is a possible option. Mages ARE NOT invulnerable.

-K

I know there's a link over in the character builds thread to this general site, but the short spell descriptions are up here:

Brace for impact!

You know what, normally, I'd try and defend IGMS... but I can't... I just can't:

Sorc/Wiz Spell List wrote:Isaac’s Greater Missile Storm (V): One missile (3d6 damage)/level randomly hits enemies.

Unless they made it so that only 3-4 missiles can hit any one target, I concede this spell is now completely overpowered. If this is right (I hope not) this spells can now deal 360 damage on a maximized IGMS...

That is just wrong.

What in the nine hells are they thinking?!

Rob said that must be typo as in the script in the toolset it's still 2d6. Aslong as it has it's target 10 missle or even 5 missle restriction it'll be all sweet.

I'd personally prefer it to be a max of 5 missiles per target.

I reckon the major point going around is the fact that some spells you have a chance to resist/save against and whereas others you have zero chance and nothing can be done. The latter have been dubbed "I win" spells. Death magic doesn't bother me at all as I get a chance to save against it (even if those chances are quite slim at times).

What is rediculous is that some spells have changed the way people play their castors. No skill nor tactics required. "Look, I can 1 shot stuff!" is lame and we all know it. Where has skill gone? Whatever happened to exploring our spellbooks and experimenting with all sorts of spells? (Sorcs obviously not included, no offense) The fact of the matter is that playing a castor requires no real life intelligence anymore. Guess what, it's still a game folks and if you're too stupid to learn how to play with skill and tactics then either you had better get used to sucking and losing all the time or maybe that class (or even the game) isn't for you.

Spells like Time Stop (not in! ), Acid Sheathe (also not in! ), IGMS and so on have been dumbing down the mage populating into retarded one shot losers. But there are still survivors who practice using a mage skillfully and to those people I salute you (don't ever change) and hope to soon be one of you.

Dwarf Wizards are the absolute coolest

But as some spells have been omitted and others changed (haste and IGMS being the major ones), I have high hopes for NWN2.

Cheers folks!

Can someone compare Firebrand for me? The Manual description says: "balls of flame (1/level) explode for 1d6 fire damage/level each." There was a cap of 15d6 before.. now this gets it to.. with a level 20 character.. to 20, right?

-K

Don't know, the short descriptions there don't give the maximum caps for spells like fireball (which I would lay money down that it caps at 10d6 damage), so until we can see more detail descriptions, we can't really judge things.

As to the IGMS, I hope that's a typo.

Question for folks? Why does everyone then seemed annoyed at Disintergrate? It has both an attack roll (meaning potential miss) and a Fortitude Save to greatly reduce damage. Isn't that exactly what you want from powerful mage spells?

Firebrand still has the 15d6 cap. Here's the code it anyone is interested...

So if I'm reading this right, the code for IGMS first has an animation command or attack type, the in the second section it says how many dice per hit (2), the maximium number of effects (20) and then the name?

That first section... if I'm reading it right declares that the first number is the number of d6, the second number is the cap, and the final thing there (int nMaxHits = 10) means that no more than 10 missiles can hit a single target?

Hrm... if that's the case, then I think we don't have to worry. Though I wouldn't be adverse to dropping the max number of missiles to hit a target from 10 to 5, that's still 10d6 damage on a single target. I think the missile storm spells should be more of AoE esq spell than a single target doom spell.