Come on meathead, get a grip!

We started discussing this in Dranz's palemaster topic, but rather than hijack it, I'll bring it all into this new topic.

If you read my post, you should know where I'm at, but if not, I'll give you a review of it.
In normal NWN, low level warrior classes reign over low level caster classes. Around the same level that casters get a fireballs and hammer of the gods, the balance is about even. This is about level 6, 7, 8... not all that far really. At level ten or so, even with nice magic items with all those tasty immunities, casters begin to take control of warriors. At level 20, warriors can win about a quarter of the time against a caster one on one. At higher levels, it gets even further away, but the warriors also now have epic feats and powerful magic items to fall back on. So while it's an uphill climb, the warrior still stands a chance, even a tiny one. In fact, with the proper combination of items, the warriors can give themselves a reasonable chance of winning. It's tough, but it's not hopeless and futile.

On Argentum, however, this gets torn down. There's no items to assist the fighters past damage resistance. There's no immunities, little items with high level spell resistance, rare items that give magic damage resistance, and almost none that give bonus feats. Even scroll usage have been nerfed for us UMD users, so now instead of guaranteeing a scroll goes off if you have enough ranks, you have a fair chance of failure at any level. So no more stocking up on scrolls of mantle and silence to go mage hunting, that's not a reliable tactic anymore. In fact, that's one of the only tactics, aside from magic items and a stunning attack. And if that caster you're fighting with low magic items is a palemaster, you're screwed. Since you're not only fighting someone immune to stuns, crits, sneaks, and poisons, but they also have an instant death attack at melee range.

So, I'm here to beg, please, prostrate, grovel, cry, and submit myself to the mercy of the court. I'd like to have the warrior classes be powered up a little bit more to help offset the low magic rule of the server. By warrior classes, I mean fighters, barbarians, paladins, and few prestige classes that are warrior related, like dwarven defender and weapon master. Also, maybe we can power down casters a bit with more restrictions at the same time. Even doing both, don't worry mage users, it's not making them equal in power by any measure.

There's several ways I suggest we can achieve this.
1) The fighter get a +1 enchantment bonus when they equip a melee weapon. If the weapon is already enchanted, the +1 is added in on top. As a level 9 fighter, this ability was of great help at lower levels, but now, that +1 isn't cutting it anymore. I suggest the fighter's bonus upgrade at certain levels, so maybe a weapon gains +2... and then keen on top of that... and then maybe a few nice things at epic levels like on hit fear or wounding. Nothing over the top, but an epic fighter should be able to pick up a normal weapon and do things with it other fighters could never do, other than hit someone with it more often.

2) Built in henchman for warriors. Maybe warrior classes attract henchman since their skill and prowess is impressive. A leader of men and armies, gained with power. A man of the people, instead of a loner mage. Working like the leadership feat, now it's no longer a one on one battle, it's a two on one, or three on one. And those henchmen don't have to be other warriors, they can be anyone who finds the PC impressive.

3) Warrior only items. Powerful items with class restrictions, so only a few specific classes can use them. Cloaks of immunity, rings of SR, the axe of mage slaying with on hit disjunction, a unique powered item that creates a wild magic field on command, or constantly. Maybe an item like in the HotU module that disables all magic and magic items in the area for a minute or so. Real mage wreckers, giving them a reason to fear non casters of any level, instead of sweeping them all under the rug with the movement of a pinky, including the epic warriors.

4) Have high level spells drain the HTF meter. You're reshaping matter and the weave to your own likings, you're stopping time, you're summoning dragons... shouldn't that be a little taxing on your body and mind? Instead of being able to launch out missile storms like a machine gun, let's have those most likely low CON caster suffer bodily. It's easily refilled, but at least we can prevent rapid discharge of high level spells without the caster worrying about dropping dead right there from their own fatigue.

5) Maybe a new twist to the resting system, where after resting it takes an additional in-game few hours to get back the spells, instead of running up to a room, napping for a minute, then running back down reloaded and ready. It took eight hours of sleep in the manual, but I'd be happy with two hours of delay.

6) Allow the Champion of Torm class. Yes, I know there's a topic on this already, but it's a great warrior class as it is. Yes, the name says Torm, but all you have to do is change the name of the class to Divine Champion, have the warrior forced to take a god to take levels in the class, and BAM! It's all good, baby. The bonuses are generic enough that it'll fit most any god, with the exception of smite evil.

4) Have high level spells drain the HTF meter. You're reshaping matter and the weave to your own likings, you're stopping time, you're summoning dragons... shouldn't that be a little taxing on your body and mind? Instead of being able to launch out missile storms like a machine gun, let's have those most likely low CON caster suffer bodily. It's easily refilled, but at least we can prevent rapid discharge of high level spells without the caster worrying about dropping dead right there from their own fatigue.

5) Maybe a new twist to the resting system, where after resting it takes an additional in-game few hours to get back the spells, instead of running up to a room, napping for a minute, then running back down reloaded and ready. It took eight hours of sleep in the manual, but I'd be happy with two hours of delay.

On number four I have a counteridea: High level spells require mental concentration. Not physical strength. So it makes no sense. But if you do anything, then add a forth bar and give us mana potions to refill it. Then casters can cast indefinatly but has to pause to drink mana potions. But you make the mana potions dispel every beneficial effect on the caster in turn and damage them so they don't use it in combat. I saw this on another server and liked it alot. The bar should regen through sleep/meditation too though so the mage doesn't have to hurt themselves to regain it. This would be like the coolest thing ever but would require a lot of balancing I guess.. But the max size of the bar could be based on caster levels, so that casters multiclassing alot don't get the full benefits from the base stat on number of spell-slots for example. It would make straight casters better.

On number 5: Please don't make resting a weakness ontop of having to wait to be able to rest which is a weakness for all casters already. That weakness fighters don't have, by the way...

In closing I definatly agree to make fighter-classes better so they can hold their own, but lets focus on adding to the tools that they have and new tools to add to their arsenal, rather than making casters a crappier class. The easiest class to play on the server and in the game overall are the fighter-classes. In PVE fighters are top of the line as per normal. In pvp they will most oftenly lose though. But they still have dev crit and knockdown, and a few has taunt. All excellent tools to fight casters.

As long as we can make this bar regen equal to Concentration, with a DC of 5 (dice will roll, less than 5 will have no recharge, sucess will cause the roll to be restored, so a roll of 45 will cause 45 points to be restored

The third bar is fatigue, right? Shouldn't that count both body and mental fatigue? I think having high level spells (7th, 8th, 9th, epic) drain the fatigue bar is pretty reasonable. Having a sorcerer collapse into that nap animation after unleashing a hellball when he was already pretty wore out is entirely plausible.

However, a mana bar wouldn't be terrible either. Divine casters might be an exception, since they have their DF bar to worry over. It would be like a DF bar for arcane casters.

And Eve is using the counterargument that since fighters can swing a sword all day, that equals out since mages can only cast so many times before needing to rest. That's a weak argument to stand on, and I'll tell you why:

1)Those mages aren't just throwing one or two different spells around, they often have a diverse range of different abilities in those spells. That can attack with fire, or ice, or acid, or buff, or heal, or charm, or summon. VARIETY is the key. Sure a fighter can swing away all day, but if for some reason that's not working, they don't have too much in the way of Plan B. Casters have Plan J, in case all the other plans before that don't work.

2) Even as far as level 10 or so, that spellbook has quite a number of spells in it, made even worse that the caster will probably only need maybe two or three spells in one battle, since one fireball can make an army into a barbecue. So even as low as pre-epic levels, mages should have no problems running out of spells for enough battles to reach a place to rest. The only time this is a huge issue for mages is levels 1 - 8 or so, and since the server allows you to start at level 4, that's not a great window for weakness.

3) Swinging a sword is often a single target attack. In fact, it can only -be- a single target attack. Unless that sword has an on hit AoE spell. Even melee feats like cleave and circle kick only give additional attacks to one other target. Sure that fighter can swing all day, but if there's a lot of enemies, he might not live all day to do that since he's not dealing out enough damage fast enough. Mages pull out any number of spells: Horrid Wilting, Ice Storm, Balagarn's Iron Horn, Stinking cloud, Everard's Black Tentacles, Missile Storm, Wall of Fire... I could go on, but most of those are crowd control spells under 5th spell level. When you get above that, crowds have nothing on mages, but they're still a challenge for fighters. It seems warriors aren't as PvE as you thought, eh? It surprised me too.

4) This is a special one just for Argentum, sort of. Mages can walk around butt naked and still be a force to be reckoned with. Warriors can't do that (Unless they're monks, but that's another rant). If that sword they can swing around all day is a +7 lichbane cold burst dragonslayer with coffee maker attachment, then yeah it's good (not great, but good). When it's a +2 longsword with 1d4 electrical damage, it's a LOT less impressive. Argentum has a low level magic item policy, and I assume that is to ensure players keep from becoming demi-gods, or becoming too powerful. The problem with that is, having low level items and rare high level items restrains ONLY warrior classes from becoming demi-gods. Mages could give a darn if there's items or not, they wreck house regardless. Add in the fact that items can break, and that the item HP system is faulty to a point where a sword with 2000 hp left could shatter in the next strike, and any magic hoarde the warrior can scrap together is temporary at best.

Finally, Dev crit is not useful on this server against arcane casters as you claim. How many epic level casters do not have ten palemaster levels or have an undead subtype for that wonderful Immunity to Critical ability? I bet you could count them on ONE HAND. I mean if I meet an epic arcane caster for the first time, I automatically assume they have ten levels of palemaster, or are a vampire/lich, and I'm right 89% of the time. And don't get me started on taunt, with the wonderful ability on this server to make your own items to boost AC to 60's, 70's, and even 80's (!), you can't sit there and tell me taunt is going to do much. Plus, let me remind everyone one more time that wands can be crafted with divine spells on them by non divine casters, so it's such an uphill battle that it's practically vertical at this point for warriors.

I think weakening mages a little isn't as big of a request as it seems. In fact, I think it's quite reasonable given the mountain of evidence I bring to the table here.

I completely agree that there is a big imbalance between casters and non-casters.

On that note I think you forgot to point out that the only ones able to make high level damage resistance and damage-dealing items are mages, so while they are stronger in a general sense due to nwn mechanics they also get the ability to walk around with awesome equipment that warriors don't have access to (unless they have a friend who is an enchanter).

However,
On the undead: They don't get critical immunity. And Dev crit goes through lycon regen.
On the epic arcanists. The only ones I've seen around are Teb, Bah, Zaiah, Sthuyzi, Sinistra, that RDD one CJ used to play and Tony. Two of those have 10 palemaster levels. o.O But Teb and Zaiah are still around more frequently.

Now to my critique part: With your suggestion Low level mages who needs to rest often to regain spells would be very boring to play. Once they have rested they wouldn't be able to cast anything. On top of that a mage needs to pick a few levels of a rugged class to be able to rest anywhere. A high level mage has a lot of spells already so they can finish their foes easily with the spells they have then go back and rest or rp. So the system you are suggesting would only worsen it even more for the low levels of making a caster and wouldn't really hamper the strong mages that much. I did hear that "wearing" buffs makes you exhaust fatigue faster though. o.o

Ontop of that resting isn't depending on how tired you are but how long time its been since your last rest, so if a mage drains fatigue with spells to the point that they will die from exhaustion then they might still have to wait to be able to rest - and end up dead because they drained too much but they can't rest cuz the 3 hours arn't up yet. And finally, considering how much our rp got disrupted last night from the htf draining so fast, I am a bit surprised you'd like it to drain even faster. o.O

And Eve is using the counterargument that since fighters can swing a sword all day, that equals out since mages can only cast so many times before needing to rest. That's a weak argument to stand on, and I'll tell you why:

Its not a counter-argument. I'm just pointing out that the fatigue meter draining faster for mages accessing arcane energies isn't that realistic when you see these sweaty brutes going at it with huge twohanded swords, dodging, feinting, dashing, cleaving their foes, decapitating from left to right and lifting heavy shields that actually weigh 50 pounds. o.O

I'm thinking that casting magic spells would require a whole lot of concentration and would likely exhaust the caster mentally, but even a very fit athlete can't run the 100 metre olympics for an hour straight. o.O

And don't get me started on taunt, with the wonderful ability on this server to make your own items to boost AC to 60's, 70's, and even 80's (!), you can't sit there and tell me taunt is going to do much. Plus, let me remind everyone one more time that wands can be crafted with divine spells on them by non divine casters, so it's such an uphill battle that it's practically vertical at this point for warriors.

While you forgot mentioning Knockdown there's still items in the game with knockdown immunity so a mage could get that aswell to counter another of the fighters mage-killing abilities. But taunt also gives 30% spell failure to the mage so thats definatly a force to be reckoned with.

On AC: The sheer amount of Ioun stones you would need to make those items makes it virtually impossible. Also its super-hard to make anything with more than +4 or +5 ac with Ioun stones since each stone adds a dc of 10 to the roll (base roll is likely already around 50). The way Zaiah got her ac so high is not through items so much but rather nwn mechanics. With regular unenchanted equipment her ac would still be 70 buffed. <.< The items only adds a bit of stats to that to make it slightly higher. Zaiah's build is just crazy. Sowwy about that... Promise to not make any more builds like hers.

In closing, I'd like to point out that I would like nothing but to help in making the server more balanced. I'm not trying to counter-argument on that. I just think there might be better ways to achieve it (and likely a lot more easily scripted ways). I already had a bunch of suggestions in nerfing some imbalanced spells like bigby hands, Isacs missile storm and similar. Though I think its a bit too easy to come by immunity to death magic (at most it should be like a dm reward item), so that would be a buff to all those necromancers out there.

The GM's already have a whole lot on their plates so I don't see any major changes/nerfs/buffs coming very soon but maybe we players could do something to help tip the balance?

We could start a guild that focuse on disrupting the evil magics of the infernalist warlocks. It could have items with silence on it, dispel-swords, silence-swords, Taunt-boosting equipment and similar. In fact, having a good aligned wizard enchanter join the guild and make such items would tip the balance quite a bit. I do have a build for a wizard thought out. She would have 120 in craft skills by level 40. It'd be a bother to get her there and a bother even to divide my time so much, seeing how many chars I already have but I'd be willing to do it if someone took care of shaping everything else about the guild. I wouldn't mind designing the area, though.

Meep. Sorry for the long post. o.o

Undead don't get crit immunity? That seems strange to me, all undead are immune to critical hits in the core rules. Was that removed to help balance the undead acquired template? I think there could be better ways to handle that though, and with the addition that sunlight utterly devastates vampires and can't be cheaply prevented with items anymore (I hope), that's quite a drawback right there. Liches don't have to fear much though, but then again, they never did. And I haven't seen a PC lich character yet, so they don't count. But if that's true, do palemasters still get crit immunity? I mean if vampires don't, then they shouldn't, since a palemaster is only quasi-undead. (Yes, I just made that term up, and it fits)

Secondly, your critique is wasted Evey. Non-warrior type classes, when the server goes out of beta, won't get XP from monster kills anymore. (At least that's how it was when I last checked, if that's changed ignore the rest of this paragraph) Arcane casters will have no use for resting all the time, since they'll be spending all day reading books, enchanting items, and sipping tea instead of casting magic missile. Going by that, it would actually be a good thing for the casters, since it would discourage low level casters from adventuring until they can hold their own. Yes, they'll be incredibly weak for a short while, but you're also incredibly safe when your idea of going out to get XP is going to the college and then to a light brunch at the Justice. Going by that system, it actually would be punishing the advanced casters more since the lower level ones almost never have to cast a spell at all, unless a rat attacks. Divine casters eventually would gain XP by praying and tithing and what have you. (Again, last I heard, this is a beta after all, nothing is set in stone)

Thank you though Evey, for correcting me on my missing point. Since casters have an easier time enchanting things, they actually get some powerful magic items anyway! Boo!

Using a bit of a history lesson, it's fully possible for real life people to battle all day. We see a tiny bit of this today, with professional athletes in wrestling, football, basketball, boxing, and what have you. Those guys train their bodies to go for hours with little breaks. Now compared to the warriors of the past, like knights and vikings, those guys are wimps. Back in the day, those warriors battled from first light to noon, took a break to have lunch and take a leak, then went right back into battle until the sun went down and no one could see anything. They literally swung a sword around all day, sometimes for days on end. And this was after marching miles and miles just to GET to the battlefield. Back then, those guys were anaerobic, cardio machines. So it's not unrealistic for a warrior PC character, who even at level one is more gifted that the average commoner, to swing a sword around all day. (Unless you do something dumb and give that character low STR and CON, but then it makes sense since they're in the wrong profession) You must remember that 50 pounds to us is not that bad for someone who's stronger than a bull, and fighting for hours and hours is nothing to those who have the same bodily fortitude as a tree. Our PCs are above normal people, but even if they weren't, swinging a sword all day with little rest isn't implausible if you're properly trained and in shape.

I wasn't trying to target Zaiah directly, I was stating that with the combination of enchanting powerful items casters can easily do, plus the buffing spells, means a caster's AC is really quite high no matter what. Without powerful items that raise AB available to warriors, they can't keep up. And the 30% spell failure from taunt is less than grand. It's a 3 in 10 chance that a spell will fizzle. Not a whole lot, now maybe if it was 60%, I can see it being as great a threat as you made it out to be.

Have you come by a lot of immunity to death magic items Eve? Kross hasn't seen one. You probably see them in areas where enemies are 30+ levels right? I think it makes sense when they're in places like that since only the powerful player characters see those places. However, if they're part of random treasure.... yeah, that might be too much.

And I'm liking the idea of an anti magic guild. A bunch of wizard slayers together as one would definitely help balance things. But it can't just be half arsed. Maybe it can have it's own shop that sells powerful anti magic items that can only be accessed by members. Maybe the HQ place is a permanent wild magic area. Maybe we could even have members, regardless of class, gain SR innately like a monk due to a ritual for initiation. Like an acquired template. Sure, there's drawbacks like you can't cast any spells no matter what class you are, even from scrolls. No being friends with mages, clerics might be tolerated though. You'd probably still need magic items, unless we really deck out the template with lots of bonuses. If we do, then no wearing magic items. Sort of like the Wizard Slayer class of Baldur's Gate 2. Yes, I'm liking this idea. Let's see if we can expand upon it and get some more suggestions for helping the meatheads out. Since when Eve agrees with me on something, you know it's gotta be looked at.

Khaos1987 wrote:
Have you come by a lot of immunity to death magic items Eve? Kross hasn't seen one. You probably see them in areas where enemies are 30+ levels right? I think it makes sense when they're in places like that since only the powerful player characters see those places. However, if they're part of random treasure.... yeah, that might be too much.

Go out and explore, Krossy.

Undead don't get crit immunity?

Undead do, pc subrace vampires don't at character creation. The system is unique to AR. Vampires -should- follow their own rules; they arn't the same types of undead as skeletons and zombies, or even liches. These are creatures that gain a semblance of life when they feed on the blood of the living. I'm a vampire-nerd and I love that the simple generic dnd system isn't implemented here. Considering that lycanthropes also are uniquely implemented, you should have gotten the idea already that not everything is DnD authentic in AR. This is a great thing, imo; dnd is quite generic in its design and this is a fresh breeze (albeit glitchy sometimes). ^^

I... can't explore. It's the server itself, it's huge! It's so big it's intimidating. If I get lost, chances are I'll spend a few hours wandering aimlessly. Can I teleport back to the mercenary guild? Sure... at a cost of some of my XP. Do I have a Gandholm or whatever wand? Yes... but there's no telling when it's going to explode in Kross' face (again), and even if I made it to upworld, there's no labels, so I have no idea which portal leads where.

The server is just too darn big to explore without a guide. I mean we all only have so much time dedicated to being on the server, we don't want to waste it mindlessly trekking from area to area of uncharted territory. Especially since this is a beta, and most of those areas aren't fleshed out yet. Add in that several areas share the same name, and getting lost isn't hard. If you're out there and run out of food or logs to make fire, uh oh. Besides, the one time I explored on my own, I got trapped in two fey maze areas. Maybe that gave me a bad impression, since I had to kill myself to get out of them. (Thank god for respawning at the docks)

But that's not what this thread is about. It's about thinking up ways to give balance back to the server. Or at least tilt it a bit more in the warrior's favor. Is there no one else that's got an opinion here? Come on.... Raggy? I know you get bored around here sometimes, brainstorm with us here. I want Oda to read this topic and be like "Wow, look at that... Maybe we should get on that". Feel the energy people, you can help me and Eve make a difference here, don't let it go to waste! You might be the one playing a warrior next...

I can't really offer any suggestions right now personally, but I do agree warriors have it hard. I also encourage anyone to help brainstorm this, I'm going to try to come up with some ideas myself as well, but I can't promise much for now.

I would have disagreed more normally with what Kross said about not much in the way of magic items being available but it seems that many of the chests that offer som high level loot have been downgraded lately. Also many of the freakishly high-level equipped npc's seem to have either entirely lost their inventory upon death or had them very much downgraded.

How about making some feat or other that any melee-char can get, like , stack up spell failure on mages? Like a on-hit property that adds say 10% spell failure per consequtive strike? And silence-items that would work like throwing an acid bomb or smoke-bomb but with an area of silence instead? Dispel on hit properties would also be helpful. On the pve stuff though... The level of difficulty of AR - mob-wise, pretty much requires low magic on items, so in that regard the downgrade of the chests and npc-drops is good. It just also upsets the caster/fighter balance.

Making more high level stuff while giving back some item freedom might work? You could maybe set up level restrictions on items? That'd help alot for balancing pve and you would not have to make the neat loot disappear. Could even add more neat loot.

If I'm not too n00b to comment on this, it's a problem with every server I've been on that tries the "low magic" vibe. When you take away magic items, you power up the casters. About the only way I know of to combat this is spell components. Don't throw the rocks at me! *ducks* But seriously, it can be done. Just for example anything 6th level and under uses a generic "Component's Bag" with a set number of charges. After that, the powerful spells get a bit harder to find components for. So, say your fireball isn't really pointing and saying "Fuego!" it's more akin to reaching into your bag, grabbing the chicken feathers ground up and mixed with jalapenos, throwing that dust where you want it to go, and then shouting "Fuego!" If you want a hellball, or IGMS, or Greater Sanctuary or whatever, you have to actually collect the components. And maybe they're things that melee character's can give, even if only in RP. Like, for IGMS, a wizard needs the hair of a sword swinging champion. Or something. It's easy to do that sort of stuff in PnP, not so easy in a PW, but still a suggestion. Maybe not a good suggestion, but a suggestion nonetheless.

I personally like the idea of components, after all, some of the spell descriptions actually say "material component"
Some of our custom spells do need a material like, Tony's favorite, Force Cage.
No real thoughts from me yet, I'm tired and not feeling well. I'll try again tomorrow.

It could be good and it could be bad... It'd be hard to balance it in any case. Make some components easy to find and some hard, some only made by fighter-classes/divine-classes... Might be fun if its not too difficult to find the stuff...

I like what I'm seeing here everyone! Keep them coming! Even if you don't have a suggestion, like Dranz just show up and say that you agree with us on this. The more people that we can get to say "Hey, that's what I think too!" the better chance we have at getting things done. So you don't need to post a suggestion, but if you agree, please support our idea! You'll be doing a lot more than you think, I promise.

I'm liking the idea of Eve's about cumulative spell failure, but instead on making a new feat, can we add it as a unique onhit power? Like the fighter +1 bonus? It's not outrageous to think a seasoned warrior would target the hands or jaw of a caster to prevent spellcasting. It's certain not a difficult thing to implement, since it's little more than a copy/paste - modify script job for Eri, and we like making her life easier. (Or at least I hope so, stacking spell failure would be the tricky part, I assume)

I also think we could build upon the component idea. You say other servers have this system in place? Maybe the script is already made up on NVault.com. Of course, as Eve said, most components shouldn't be difficult to find/buy. Just the ones for spells that are extremely powerful. That being said, I think wands would be a giant loophole in this system. I mean why look for the components to a horrid wilting spell when you have wand that shoots it for free three times a day? I saw a -timestop- wand the other day. TIMESTOP WAND. I'm going to pause a moment and let that sink in.

...

...

...

Thought about that? It's more cheesy than a mousetrap. Loaded with cheese. And the mousetrap itself is made out of cheese. And the mouse that gets caught in it is also made out of cheese. The component system won't work well enough with wands being freely made like that. So if we want to explore the component system, I say we also add in to that some kind of wand crafting control. Scrolls are fine since you can only use them once, potions are fine since you can use them only once, wands can be "per day" items.

Let's hear some more. Opinions, comments, questions, concerns, support?

I think Tony might have made that wand

Trying to take credit for Zaiah's work?

Shame on both of you! SHAAAAAME.

For continuity, I'd also like to hear specifically what classes are warrior type. My list is:

Barbarian: I don't think you can argue against it.
Fighter: See above.
Monk: This one is arguable. It is a melee class, but it's designed to work without items. But even then they only end up a little more powerful than the other melee classes.
Paladin: Basically a barbarian that has access to a small amount of divine spells. Those divine spells aren't too much of a boon altogether, but the innate bonuses are nice.
Ranger: Basically a paladin, only replacing those nice abilities with crappy ones.
Blackguard: An evil paladin class.
Champion of Torm: A mix of fighter and paladin, mostly fighter.
Dwarven Defender: A barbarian-like class, twisted a bit.
Red Dragon Disciple: Yes, it's only available to sorcerer and bard classes, but it's arguably the best warrior class in the game. However, I'd consider leaving it out simply because strengthening it further would be like adding salt to the ocean, too much.
Weapon Master: Obviously a warrior class.

Some of those are no brainers, some make you stop and think. Agree or disagree with my list? Why?

eve_of_disaster wrote:Trying to take credit for Zaiah's work?

Heh trust me, I had quite some fun with wand making. At one point I had a wand with Time Stop, Acid Sheathe, Death Armor, Haste, Rez, GreaterRestore, Bless, and dominate Person. All t/day. But then I tried to add Flesh to Stone, and I didn't know they made it to destroy wands with more than 1 , so it poofed.

It's interesting to come into a server and see this age-old debate has begun here.

Rather than 'nerfing' one set of classes to make another stronger, why not improve the one that is perceived as a weak link? Low magic servers always have the 'mages are too tough' argument. So give fighters/barbarians a bit of a buff. Give barbarians totems that make them do different things when raging perhaps. Different animal spirits they can summon to lend a hand. Maybe at epic levels they get the 'summon horde' ability (brings back memories, eh?) from a horn. Give fighters a buff when they drink ale, and certainly a whetstone to use to polish a certain weapon with a scaling buff x/day.

LordSurge wrote:It's interesting to come into a server and see this age-old debate has begun here.

Rather than 'nerfing' one set of classes to make another stronger, why not improve the one that is perceived as a weak link? Low magic servers always have the 'mages are too tough' argument. So give fighters/barbarians a bit of a buff. Give barbarians totems that make them do different things when raging perhaps. Different animal spirits they can summon to lend a hand. Maybe at epic levels they get the 'summon horde' ability (brings back memories, eh?) from a horn. Give fighters a buff when they drink ale, and certainly a whetstone to use to polish a certain weapon with a scaling buff x/day.

Thing is that all classes already have specific thingies made for them on this server. Scripts allow rangers to track people, find food in the wilderness, make fire without umm flames, for example. They don't have things that make them on par with casters in a pvp-sense, just more things to make the class unique and realistic... I'd like to see things that could contribute to balance, without having to nerf things.

eve_of_disaster wrote:Thing is that all classes already have specific thingies made for them on this server. Scripts allow rangers to track people, find food in the wilderness, make fire without umm flames, for example. They don't have things that make them on par with casters in a pvp-sense, just more things to make the class unique and realistic... I'd like to see things that could contribute to balance, without having to nerf things.

I agree, once the 'nerf' train gets rolling it never stops. Well, the arguing never does. Hence my (random) suggestions:

LordSurge wrote: So give fighters/barbarians a bit of a buff. Give barbarians totems that make them do different things when raging perhaps. Different animal spirits they can summon to lend a hand. Maybe at epic levels they get the 'summon horde' ability (brings back memories, eh?) from a horn. Give fighters a buff when they drink ale, and certainly a whetstone to use to polish a certain weapon with a scaling buff x/day.

Serge, those are some new, unique, innovative ideas (At least around here). Could we get some discussion on them, people? I'm all for making barbarians more druid-like. Don't give them spells or shapeshifting, but maybe a few nature type perks, like maybe poison resistance like the assassin class currently gets.

Also, Serge brings up another good point. If this discussion happens on most low level magic item servers, it's a legitimate weakness that we can help Oda address. Can we snoop around other servers, and see what they did to help the problems of balance? I'm fairly new to server vault servers, so I don't have as much experience dealing with SV issues like this. But I'm sure some of you can root through the past and bring up some good ideas.

Oh! There's a server called the Twisted Woods, and they have a "Spirit Weapon" system in place. It's where you get a weapon that actually grows as you grow. At first all you can do is morph it into whatever melee weapon you want, but as you go up in levels, it gains bonuses depending on what classes you are. (At least I -think- that was how it worked, it's been about three years...) Also, defeating certain boss enemies like a balor would give it fire damage, or a green dragon would give it acid damage, or a troll chief would give it regeneration. Like it's absorbing the traits of powerful beings it slays. I have a copy of those scripts, but I'd need permission from the author before I share them. And I don't want to ask unless this sounds like something we could groove to. Not like Eri couldn't do this in her sleep, but it's nice to make her job easier, since she's working so hard for us.

I've played on a sever where any level 10 character is a big thing, and if you find a +1 weapon your the luckiest one around. Not that I'm suggesting this, I'm just giving one example of a low-magic server... I think it was City of Arabel or something. Things may have changed in the two years, or perhaps I never really scratched the surface.

Ragdoll_Knight wrote:I've played on a sever where any level 10 character is a big thing, and if you find a +1 weapon your the luckiest one around. Not that I'm suggesting this, I'm just giving one example of a low-magic server... I think it was City of Arabel or something. Things may have changed in the two years, or perhaps I never really scratched the surface.

But thats an entire different thing. Personally I dislike those servers a whole lot. I'm not sure I'd really stick around here if it turned out like that.