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Post by MightyKhan on Oct 8, 2010 12:32:42 GMT
To avoid inventory clutter, perhaps each type of gadget can be attached to a Master Gadget token?
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Post by phalthallus on Oct 8, 2010 13:51:56 GMT
I like this iteration a lot. Some of the additions really give it a neat flavor. As to some of your questions: - spell hacks would be nice, for the gear-boosting effects (goggles, armors, etc). This keeps inventory down for those items. - I think the Gravimetric Reconfigurator should stay on the ground, rather than mobile with the character. This gives more tactics to pulling things to certain places, and works in conjunction with the Herald of Storms quasi. - For DC's, I think dex or int, whichever is higher, makes sense for the most part. - For number of uses, I think basing it off of Shifters makes sense. That is, it's an Essence Pool, and when you rest, you receive a total number of EP equal to your GI level. - Heavy Armor prof for the suit sounds good to me. Perhaps throw in a Craft Armor requirement as well I like a few of Dod's ideas as well. The "Tar Ball" for the spell Slow especially sounds neat. The disarmer is an interesting idea too, but steps on the toes WM's and Shifters (to a lesser extent) quite a bit, IMHO. The Crumble-like effect on golems makes sense too, since gnomes are better at tearing things apart than putting them together sometimes. I like a lot of the other ideas, but think again that they step on the toes of too many other classes (breach bullets are Slingers, UUU spider is like the new Storm Sprite for Heralds of Storms, etc). Another thing I thought might be nice would be a pierce-lowering effect, that made the GI's bolts (and other piercing weapon users) do more damage. Maybe that's too powerful, though, and should be made up for by the bolt that does extra piercing damage, so it only helps the GI. I'll try to think about some builds, to see what I think about the requirements, later.
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Post by dodrudon on Oct 8, 2010 21:50:50 GMT
I wanted disarming since I've yet to see anyone disarm. I tried it a few times on Balors last time in the Abyss, but wasn't able to land ANYthing, so I swapped to doing something useful instead (although that might've been the time I was wearing +2 Wis instead of +12). Breach bolts I see as more of a convenience, since it duplicates two effects you can already get: Mord scrolls (which cast at character level) and BC. Also, I totally forgot about the Storm Sprite, good point. Maybe replace that with a totem with the same effect (though I'd like to see more golems, maybe an Earth golem that smashes the ground to KD wherever it runs).
I like the concepts for goggles, great flavor. But as mentioned before, why would anyone ever play a rogue after this? Maybe disable sneak damage for GIs?
Forgot to mention: allow GIs to grab OC/DC feats for xbows using Dex instead of Str score.
And "emitter" as a device type name is a billion times better than "totem"...
I'd argue that Bard Curse/normal Song should be available to both paths to ease up on party formation, and still allow you to go pure Rogue or Wizard. Right now the only Bard replacement is Shifter (and most don't get the beneficial Bard song), PMs (not many around now), and SD (but only single target). (Also Warchanters, but almost none of those anywhere.)
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 9, 2010 4:27:43 GMT
I like the concepts for goggles, great flavor. But as mentioned before, why would anyone ever play a rogue after this? Maybe disable sneak damage for GIs? This was the first thought I had along those lines as well - and is also a reason I'm not so sure we need to allow room for tier 1 splashing pre-epic. Unfortunate, because splashing allows build diversity, but if they don't lose ab, they're hardly losing anything at all - skill points, arguably, so we'll have to see how builds pan out, but if they go the int route that's unlikely to be an issue for them either. Funky
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Post by ilovedietpepsi on Oct 9, 2010 4:42:29 GMT
Random ideas:
1. Any placables should have 2 modes, one auto-mode, you can leave it there and it will do its work. one manned mode, that requires the GI to man the placeable (such as a cannon), the GI wont be able to do anything else (but can freely leave the manned mode). Placeables in the manned mode does significantly more (2x + damage, fire more frequently or added effects).
2. Cannisters ideas : Anti-magic bomb. medium size radius blast center from the point of impact, creates a persisting smoke in the AOE which last for 1 round per 10 levels of GI, anyone caught within the fog are stripped of all buff and reduce SR by x amount, and suffer 1% spell failure per GI level.
3. Tools creation: for most of the tools creation, we can limit the power the same way for shifter. that is, they can do alot of things but can only do 1 thing at a time with a time-cost to switch role. We can apply similar rules for tool creation: It takes 1-2 rounds to create a tool, and you can only have 1 tool in inventory at a time. each of the "tools" have only limited use (similar to EP of shifter), so every few rounds you will have to recreate the tool. (which cost time). if you want to do something else, there is also the cost.
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Post by phalthallus on Oct 9, 2010 15:32:09 GMT
I think to keep a difference between this and "tank" Rogues, you could put more emphasis on intelligence, rather than dexterity. I realize we want to allow both "paths" (Dex and Int), but that's one way to definitely keep tank Rogues worthy of a slot in a party. Maybe base the "essence points" off of the intelligence modifier, and/or maybe the DC's for the abilities that require more Wizard levels. And/Or maybe make the aura of the emitters based on Int. That makes this quasi push Int higher than most Rogues normally would, which lowers their AB even more. Essentially you're trading in damage for crowd control/Bard-like abilities. Parties that need tanks/damage will still take the "tank" Rogue, while a party full of tanks would prefer the Gnomish Inventor.
There's always the option (though it's less pleasant or pretty) to make it so the class can't open locks and disable traps as well. There have been numerous complaints about loot Liches and loot Mages stepping on the toes of Rogues; this quasi only makes that worse. Perhaps cap those abilities at (GI level x 2) OL/DT (maxing out at 120). They could still get some traps/chests, but not all.
Or, maybe require all of the cannisters/bolts/things to require Heavy Xbow. That's not a Rogue weapon, and will result in a loss of AB (Opportunist), and the crit multiplier/threat range (Crippling Strike). The Opportunist loss itself is approximately -5 to AB over a Rogue that utilizes small weapons, which would hurt pretty badly. The requirement of 10 Wizard levels also means losing out on a good chunk of the benefit of Skill Mastery; their skill pens would be reduced to 2/3, instead of 1/3 (level 31 Rogue), or no pens (pure). They also lose out on Slippery Mind (of questionable quality), and of course being able to sneak most anything in the game (namely bosses).
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Post by Lythe Featherblade on Oct 9, 2010 16:40:33 GMT
crossbow add-ons with on-hit specs? Magnetogravic rumblethumper - short term bludgeoning vulnerability infliction (so needs to keep firing at mob to keep it up) Nanoparticle Black Hole generator - short term piercing vulnerability infliction monostatic plate repulsor - short term slashing vulnerability infliction
grappling hook and portable anchor - can be fired at mobs and pulls them back to you (full round action, effect like a reverse shadowstep), mobs knocked down for 1 round, possibly a size limit (no pitfiends or boss mobs). Still would be handy to fish annoying mobs (healers, aartagliths etc) out of a crowd. Would need some way of targeting so you could use right click and radial menu to fish out of a crowd, and could have a small radius around target with a small % chance of getting a neighbouring mob instead if it is in that radius (with accuracy adjusted by class levels perhaps). Maybe also be used to pull in loot (remains, not unpopped loot, from mobs spawning on cliffs/pillars that are unreachable for looting).
alternate option for a grappling hook is to be usable on a party member's body, and get them out of a bad location before rezzing them
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 9, 2010 17:46:06 GMT
Maybe base the "essence points" off of the intelligence modifier, and/or maybe the DC's for the abilities that require more Wizard levels. And/Or maybe make the aura of the emitters based on Int. That makes this quasi push Int higher than most Rogues normally would, which lowers their AB even more. ... Or, maybe require all of the cannisters/bolts/things to require Heavy Xbow. That's not a Rogue weapon, and will result in a loss of AB (Opportunist), and the crit multiplier/threat range (Crippling Strike). The Opportunist loss itself is approximately -5 to AB over a Rogue that utilizes small weapons, which would hurt pretty badly. The requirement of 10 Wizard levels also means losing out on a good chunk of the benefit of Skill Mastery; their skill pens would be reduced to 2/3, instead of 1/3 (level 31 Rogue), or no pens (pure). They also lose out on Slippery Mind (of questionable quality), and of course being able to sneak most anything in the game (namely bosses). The issue I have with ideas that take away from ab, is that they make the rogue-dominant route for this quasi pretty weak. I think removing sneak feats is definitely one way to go that would leave the class able to hit. Still, though, if we're reducing damage, that makes the damage-adder bolts worth less, meaning they should probably be left out of the quasi. We could still have the canisters attach to them, if we want to keep the xbow relevant (I definitely do, and requiring a hit would help do that, though it makes ab losses hurt all the more). There's also the issue of the purpose of the rapid loader, if we do drop ab (or sneak, really, both hurt DPS). Maybe it could allow a canister as a rapid action, allowing 2 canisters per round? I spose, in the end analysis, we don't really want this quasi too melee-powerful, as it's shaping up to have a lot of other cool functionality. More musings as they come... Funky
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Post by MightyKhan on Oct 9, 2010 21:16:16 GMT
why not have them use INT for AB instead of dex? the diversity can come from choosing between rogue and wizard, not dex and int... grant both types equal AB with INT, but different types of gadgets they will be able to deal damage, but not tank, much like other casters
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Post by dodrudon on Oct 9, 2010 21:23:53 GMT
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Bards don't consider Shifters as stepping on their toes. If the only reason you want a rogue is for OL/DT, then something's wrong with the Rogue class, not that multiple builds have the ability to OL/DT.
So we have a couple types of gadgets the GI gets: - bolts (based on AB) - emitters (based on DC (offensive ones) or lvl (defensive)) - armor/goggles (based on lvl) - cannon (based on AB, maybe DC too) - gadgets, like canisters/grenades or grappling chain (Based on DC) - golem (based on lvl)
What if... Rogues get Armor/Goggles. Wizard gets Golems. Dex gets Bolts. Int gets Gadgets/Canisters/Grenades (and spells?). Everyone gets Emitters and Cannons. (no AB based on Int, and Dex doesn't get mod bonus to damage)
Dex cannon ammo would shoot bolt-like ammo, requiring AB based on your own AB, with on-hit effects like lowering vulnerabilities, or doing a KD check based on your Dex. Int cannon ammo would shoot canister type stuff, like flashbangs or other special effects, with DCs based on Int.
Rogue+Dex :: can tank (with Point Blank Shot) with good bonuses from armor and goggle enhancements, good AB with bolts and support from cannon allows good damage output as well Rogue + Int :: what bonus do armors/goggles provide that aren't defensive? Maybe aura-based offensive effects (but that requires melee range)? Gadgets and canisters for special effects, mostly disabling and debuffing. Wizard + Dex :: golem as a protector as you launch bolts from afar, since you're squishier without armor enhancements. Between the golem and the cannon you do pretty good damage, and you can even buff a little or provide dispelling duties with Mind Blank and Remove Curse, and some other stuff. Wizard + Int :: stand by your cannon and throw out canisters and spells while your golem holds the front line. Disabler like Rogue+Int, but you get the bonus of having a few DC-based spells to use.
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Post by phalthallus on Oct 10, 2010 18:33:23 GMT
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Bards don't consider Shifters as stepping on their toes. If the only reason you want a rogue is for OL/DT, then something's wrong with the Rogue class, not that multiple builds have the ability to OL/DT. Duh. People have said that for a LONG time now, but nothing solid has been suggested or decided upon to make it better. Your analogy is not a good one either; Shifter songs are worse than a Bard's, and they have no equivelant to Bard epics. Aside from "they can both sing", there's very little comparison. The devs in general have been unhappy about the loot characters stepping on the toes of Rogues for some time, but haven't put the time in to think of an elegant way to change it. That, plus you'd have a lot of torked-off players. Picking locks/disabling traps (and sneak attacking, to a much lesser extent) has ALWAYS been the draw of Rogue builds in NWN (and D&D in general, from what I understand), even in the campaign. On Higher Ground, due to the Elven ability to max skills a control class normally couldn't, it gave one of the primary purposes of a single class to essentially ANY class. We've seen roguish AA's, mages, PM's, Rangers, and Assassins, to mention only the majority (I've even drawn up a Loot Shifter build, for the fun of it). How do you think Assassins would feel if Shifters' Drow form had the exact same DC/ability as them? Or if Wizards/Clerics/Druids/Sorcs/Bards had the same DC/SP on Necro spells as PM's? A Weapon Master's schtick is stupid high AB, and because of it, the ability to disarm; how would they feel if every class could obtain the same AB? Or what if every class could deal selected, focused, high damage like AA's? Anyway, I understand the concern with losing AB on the Rogue side. I'm not really sure what the best way is to balance this vs "regular" Rogues. Rogues in general have fallen out of vogue for quite some time. Only recently have we started to see a few more, basically built around the Monk variant for more attacks (and more sneak damage), and even then, you don't see a lot. The Elven Able Learner ability made Rogues in general less necessary/useful; so how you keep more people from building a GI over a Rogue is very tough. I think the idea of losing the Sneak feats is a good idea; like you said Funky, let them still hit, but do less DPS. Then enable the different canisters and bolts to do some more damage/cool ability stuff. Giving up DPS in favor of getting some really cool abilities seems like a fair trade-off to me. I would consider rearranging things a bit from your last layout. I would move all "cloud" type effects to bombs or grenades, and make the canister's work off of bolts, and more about the target you're hitting. So change the conceal gas, acid cloud, web, grease, and stonehold to bombs/grenades, keeping tasha's and flashbang on canisters, and move the implode, tclap, and stoning to canisters. I'd also create a "slow" canister, per the spell. Those make the bolts more target-centric, and make grenade effects more consistent. I even wonder about separating out the AC and Save drop from the Curse Song grenade, to make corrosive bolts that lower AC, and keep the save-dropping as a grenade/bomb. The Thumpers kind of steal some of the Divine Slingers thunder (what little they have, currently), if they KD. Do we have the ability to kickback, like in Diablo? Pushing a creature back repeatedly could be fun in some cases. The level breakdown for each ability seems more geared towards Wiz-heavy builds. A 24 Wiz/16 Rogue gets you a lot. A 20/20 build still gets quite a bit. But when you start going with less than 20 Wiz, you start to lose out on a whole lot of stuff. I'm not sure if that's good or bad, just something I noticed. I think if you redo the canisters/bombs like I described above, you might end up with something like this: Canisters (thrown or attached to bolt) - ignore SR 12R corrosive acid: lowers target AC (character level - 5 curse song equivelant) 16R laughing gas: tasha's spell 16R flashbang: daze/deafen 18R quickrete: Single-target Stoning 20R molasses (for lack of a better term): single-target slow 22R clapper: tclap 24R Dimensional Spindler - implosion Bolts 20R Thumpers (kd onhit? extra bludg) 20R Shatterbolts (added pierce) 20R Slicers (expand on entry for extra slashing) 24R? Grappling Chain (pulls enemy to you if size small on hit and failed reflex) Emitters (1 up at a time) 10W -Paramagic Resonator - lowers SR in an AoE (changed from 20) 16W -Gravimetric Reconfigurator - levitation in an AoE 24W -Kineto-Inertial Stabiliser - kd immunity in a small AoE, slows Bombs (thrown) - Ignore SR 12W/14W/16W/18W? dissonant waveform generator: curse song (saves only, clvl - 5) 12W/14W/16W/18W? biometric pattern re-enforcer: bard song (ac and saves only, clvl - 5) 16W conceal gas: conceals EVERYTHING in cloud, including enemies (useful bc ranged) 16W toxic gas: acid cloud spell 16W tesla ball: big elec damage (think scint sphere) 20W chain net: web effect 20W grease: grease effect 20W sovereign glue: immobilizes (stonehold) 20W Transdimensional Vacuole Tap - sucks all enemies in colossal radius to target point, bludgeoning damage to them, increases with number of enemies sucked 22W Sonic Waveform Reiterator: earthquake with reflex vs kd 24W Chronoton disruptor: takes a small group out of sync for a short period, rendernig them unable to move, but unable to be effected by anything Portable Cannon 24W spawn in place so long as no one in part in combat, and not within about 10.0 of any creature, shoots fireball or buckshot if fire healers present In my humble opinion, that makes some more sense, with the Wiz vs Rogue breakdown, and gives more usefulness to different build layouts. I changed the SR-dropping emitter from 20 Wiz to 10, and changed all canisters that were moved down to bombs from Rogue to Wizard req's.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 10, 2010 18:54:12 GMT
I think you're looking at this the wrong way. Bards don't consider Shifters as stepping on their toes. If the only reason you want a rogue is for OL/DT, then something's wrong with the Rogue class, not that multiple builds have the ability to OL/DT. Duh. People have said that for a LONG time now, but nothing solid has been suggested or decided upon to make it better. Your analogy is not a good one either; Shifter songs are worse than a Bard's, and they have no equivelant to Bard epics. Aside from "they can both sing", there's very little comparison. The devs in general have been unhappy about the loot characters stepping on the toes of Rogues for some time, but haven't put the time in to think of an elegant way to change it. That, plus you'd have a lot of torked-off players. Picking locks/disabling traps (and sneak attacking, to a much lesser extent) has ALWAYS been the draw of Rogue builds in NWN (and D&D in general, from what I understand), even in the campaign. On Higher Ground, due to the Elven ability to max skills a control class normally couldn't, it gave one of the primary purposes of a single class to essentially ANY class. We've seen roguish AA's, mages, PM's, Rangers, and Assassins, to mention only the majority (I've even drawn up a Loot Shifter build, for the fun of it). How do you think Assassins would feel if Shifters' Drow form had the exact same DC/ability as them? Or if Wizards/Clerics/Druids/Sorcs/Bards had the same DC/SP on Necro spells as PM's? A Weapon Master's schtick is stupid high AB, and because of it, the ability to disarm; how would they feel if every class could obtain the same AB? Or what if every class could deal selected, focused, high damage like AA's? What I was going to say, said better. I'm convinced. I'll whip out another iteration after today's update. Hopefully stripping sneak feats doesn't make the engine go boom fall down. Agreed. Slow is kind of a boogeyman, because of our custom stuff to adjust move speeds. I winced when I put it up for consideration, and only did so to offset the niceness of kd-prevention. Still regretting it. Yup, agreed. I considered doing this, actually, but passed, for the same reason I agreed with the kd-immunity radius gadget - for them to be viable bard-lites, they'll need more than we've given other bard-lites in the past (since those haven't really taken). Splitting those into separate items would make them twice as costly to use, which I guestimated to be too steep. I tend to agree, but I think we're gonna lose the bolts entirely, moving away from weap-based damage, and make the speedloader allow a fast-use canister instead. This is why I rejected the notion of giving GIs silence, too - I'm thinking about restoring it to slingers - it's VERY nice for dealing with casters, though. I'm going to do breakdowns for all even-level totals so we can make adjustments, after the next iteration. Thanks, Funky
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Post by shade23x on Oct 10, 2010 19:15:31 GMT
I suggest the following: "Get Off Me!" field generator, dealing KB to enemies crazy enough to approach the mad genius. "Grenade" Launcher: Special Crossbows that are Inventor only, do small radius blasts dealing additional damage on top of crossbow damage, or they fire a selected "bomb" along with the crossbow. Like the slinger, using commands to swap what they're firing Unstable Chaotic Cube of Distortion and Stuff: Couple possible things happen upon using, and uses up -something- as a consumable. - Has a chance of making the party effected as if Immuted, after which they take some odd amount of damage.. or the inventor does. - Has a chance of instant killing a number of mobs around the inventor, with a save of course. Or maybe an ability check - Has a chance of Limbo'ing the Inventor with no death. Cube of Ignorant Transportation: - Has a small chance of sending the inventor to town - Has a chance of porting the Inventor to the Party Leader, much like a SoS, Inventor only item, uses up some consumable. (Maybe consumable's can require parts, which are bought at a Inventor shop, then make checks to build them?) My thoughts! I'd love to play one, if it was actually a character who can do -something-, unlike the theurge, which seems to not do much of anything.. (my opinion, never seen many of them around killing stuffs! >_>)
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Post by dodrudon on Oct 10, 2010 22:52:02 GMT
Regarding the analogy, the "stepping on toes" of Shifters and Bards I mentioned was only regarding Curse Song. While I agree with a lot of what you've said, I also want to point out that Rogues have no Bard epic equivalents, as in an "irreplaceable" super-useful ability no other classes get (if we ignore the unplayed Warchanters). (On a sidenote, Shifters get Disarm vs Reflex, which can be just as effective as a WM's.) Sneak attack is great, but it's just DPS, and DPS comes from a million sources. So, yes, people have been saying a long time Rogues are boring, but the "why would I want a rogue over a GI?" issue probably can't be answered satisfactorily until Rogues are given attractive abilities (depending on how the GI turns out, anyways).
That said, it sounds like a GI is geared more towards disabling, debuffing, party support, etc, moreso than damage (which would be a good differentiator from Slingers and AAs), which would be one reason to go Rogue over GI (for DPS). Or, put the DPS stuff more under the Wizard path (though LBAB is gonna hurt, maybe edit Tenser's Trans to give bonus to Wiz CC GIs?, and put the ability stuff more under the Rogue path.
Another gadget idea: Adamantium Shackles - single target, prevents a mob from doing a Wing Gust
Also instead of the Deconstruction thingy (Crumble on Constructs), which replicates too many abilities already existing (Crumble, Stone Shatter, Implosion, Disint), maybe change it to remove KB from a target creature, which allow DPS to focus down Constructs and Fumes.
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Post by simpetar on Oct 11, 2010 12:31:31 GMT
Target Dummy
Sets a target dummy on the ground, attracting or distracting monsters' attention. The dummy has (mysterious factor) hit points and lasts 10 rounds; after the duration expires or it is destroyed, the dummy disappears. GI can set more of them at once as he/she advances in levels up to 3 (?) dummies at once.
simpetar
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