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Post by Raj on Feb 10, 2014 22:53:10 GMT
Some problems with that list: 1) it's huge 2) if you give them just ONE conj spell it means nothing because nobody is wasting 4-5 feats on a tank who needs to bump str for a single spell, it's the problem they have nowadays with energy drain tbh (that, and I think necromancy is already a very present school, don't want to step too much on pm shoes). mord/breach spells don't need to be class spells to work fine (ye, my bad in initial post as well) basically the more recent buff spells (endure, retreat, displace, EI), the dispels, and the thematic spells (rebuke and pwk make lot of sense) are my 'votes' (the typical self-buff tank gets a aoe CC along with single target CC bigbies, then you can make some slighty more caster oriented ones with extra foci finally worth it, caster CC needs another carrot but that's a start)
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 10, 2014 23:06:59 GMT
Most of those aren't what I would consider thematic, but may very well be suitable regardless. Something else to consider is that BKs are also likely getting some of the BG perks, like puchaseable Venom Immunity feat and reusable poisons. I'm a little leery of doing too much more for them at the same time. What I would consider strongly thematic: Ray of Enfeeblement Blindness/Deafness Hold Person (debatable, but I would swear I remember old school antipaladins getting this, circa Curse of the Azure Bonds) Enervation Fear Cloudkill (debatable) Feeblemind Circle of Death Eyebite Rebuke Antipathy Horrids (highly debatable)
I don't really see the dispel/breach line as being very BK, but they do sound vaguely antipaladin, if you want to point me at some source mats.
One serious concern - I don't want to tread on PMs too much. That cuts against some of the thematic ones I note above, and might cut in favor of some of the breach/dispel capability you suggest. I'm curious as to how much players think adding a dispel component would help them in playability - I like to avoid one-trick-ponyism, so it's not out of the question.
I'm curious as to how players see BK's defensively as compared to a) meleers in general and b) Blackguards in particular. I'm pretty wary of giving them concealment or other defensive spells on top of what they've got at present.
Thanks, Funky
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Post by Raj on Feb 10, 2014 23:13:07 GMT
I'm curious as to how players see BK's defensively as compared to a) meleers in general and b) Blackguards in particular. I'm pretty wary of giving them concealment or other defensive spells on top of what they've got at present. Thanks, Funky Fair point, I was adding EI mostly to give a incentive to go abj focused (banish makes lot of sense but investing in the school just for that is something not even true casters do). Why you consider cod thematic and pwk not? Again, I left out necro spells cuz of pms/necromages, and because of their synergy with divination.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 10, 2014 23:23:49 GMT
I guess PWK IS thematic...I think I dinged it just because of the concern with PM overlap. Consider it added to the thematic list, with that caveat.
Funky
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Post by condude on Feb 11, 2014 0:24:40 GMT
BKs can't cast their spells with much of an added benefit, unlike PMs, which get a massive boost to their DC. I would say that giving BKs PM spells isn't treading on PM toes, at least, not as much as letting pure sorcs have them
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Post by Raj on Feb 11, 2014 0:51:16 GMT
Pwk is divination, considering they already have pw:stun and premonition it might give a hint to invest 4 feats in divination to have good soak + something useful to cast. PMs bonus DC does nothing to pwk, unlike spell penetration that BK badly lack (-4 compared to standard sorc when you consider viable level 80 builds, PL really made gap wider). Feeblemind is the only other offensive divination spell, useless atm but who knows, and makes sense.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 4:00:15 GMT
Some problems with that list: 1) it's huge 2) if you give them just ONE conj spell it means nothing because nobody is wasting 4-5 feats on a tank who needs to bump str for a single spell, it's the problem they have nowadays with energy drain tbh (that, and I think necromancy is already a very present school, don't want to step too much on pm shoes). The fact that it was huge was intentional. I would much prefer to have a large list and have it cut down to something more manageable than to start with a shorter list and have very few spells added. I just figured I'd include anything that could possibly work and let the powers-that-be shortern the list from there. As far as BK defensiveness goes, I would rank them as above average, both compared to meleers in general and BGs. To my mind, BKs are something akin to arcane Battlecleric variants, that give up a considerable amount of defense relative to BCs, to gain the use of offensive spells. They don't get the ridiculous soak from Gate, or the ridiculous miscellaneous immunities from Aura vs. Alignment, but they do get some nifty offensive spells. They do not, unlike BCs, get epics though. But compared to most meleers, they're tankier than average. And they're definitely more tanky than your average BG. Though they do get shorter durations on crit immune, lower dice on weapon buffs, and lower CL on key other spells.
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Post by Raj on Feb 11, 2014 8:17:58 GMT
Tbh I rate them lil lower than average tank on defence as well, the fact there're two BKs in the endgame (your and Salek's) that I know about should mean something, or we all blind. I like the quasi concept but you're not seeing me playing one I simply don't see all this defence, because they have to go pure str route with some cha/wis investment, hence dex is low by design; they lack innate immunities, ac is typical str one, and must wear some spellslot gear over immunities. For a newbie they're hard to manage even if they provide high innate SH, EB immunities and Premo, because they're buffs dependant and don't have augury; for a older player the strength of EB is debateable considering the randomized gear available, and in the current state you're not seeing people take Div foci for premo alone because they starve for feats and it means give up dev crit route or 4 gr str feats, a choice hard to justify. BGs lack innate defence as well but can gear tankier and have better ab, on a 6/5/29 koly fighter/wm splash build you reach high enough ab to use expertise effectively and divine shield means you can go 2hander with some success as well; bg cania plate means something as well, gm3 plate for BKs has slots but ac is lower and no big imms. I saw some good hybrid dex builds in endgame (rogue/monk) in past and they were sturdy flankers, such option isn't available to BKs. I think your perception of defence is heavily gear biased but on paper BKs are offence based (with lower ab, sneaks and divine might boost but more attacks compared to BGs, and some spells we're debating about), their defence boils down to two buff spells and 0 conceal (displacement lasts too short, I'd welcome a buff duration just to avoid pester casters but 50-55% is available to everybody in game). A CoT has great undispellable immunities, a monk has immunities and concealment, a paladin huge buffs, a barbarian soak... who do you rank lower than BG/BK as far as defence goes exactly? Proly just str assassins? Bad geared guys don't apply. Edit: not saying they need more defence, but their offence should be worth the tradeoff.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 14:40:42 GMT
There's more that just a couple, Sabregirl's and Mish's (both demigods) come to mind. That being said, you're probably right on most of those points. I generally find my BK defensive enough (though the addition of BG poison immunity will help tremendously since I opted for STR arti), but I've also currently designed my BK to be a bit more on the buff-tank side (not really using any spell slot items other than BG currently) until there's more incentive to invest in the caster side of BKs. From my own experience, my BK didn't die for the first 3 layers of Hell, and, if I recall correctly, had the least incoming damage, 91% dodge rate on average, while generally staying in top 4 for kills and top 2 for damage. That being said, once he ventured into deeper hells, things got a lot more difficult and I found him to be considerably less tanky. So probably not quite as defensive as I first anticipated.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 11, 2014 17:11:58 GMT
Edit: not saying they need more defence, but their offence should be worth the tradeoff. This. For increased defenses, I might still consider displacement as a nod to its semi-thematic nature, but probably not anything else (bear in mind they may be getting the opportunity to take Venom Immunity, per another recent suggestion thread). That said, what do you all think of the following list?: Ray of Enfeeblement Blindness/Deafness Hold Person Enervation Fear Cloudkill Feeblemind Circle of Death Eyebite Rebuke Antipathy Horrids PWK I'm especially curious as to people's thoughts on how it effects incentives to take spell foci, as per Raj's point on PWK above. Usefulness of a given spell is a relevant consideration, but do bear in mind that, with every area, we strive to make more spells useful. Funky
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 17:30:29 GMT
I think with those additions, I would probably consider making an Enchantment/Divination focused Bane Knight, which I think would actually be quite fun. I do still think that BKs need some help fitting all those stinking feats though. My earlier suggestion about giving additional foci based on what foci they have taken prior to Bane Knight status helps facilitate that. Though, of course, it's not strictly necessary. If I wasn't of the "I-gotta-have-it-all" mentality, I could modify the current build to drop the Dev Crit line and pick up spell foci, but I really would prefer not to do that. The point is, after all, to make them a bit more offensive, as Raj said. But the spell list looks pretty good.
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Post by Raj on Feb 11, 2014 18:18:13 GMT
That said, what do you all think of the following list?: Funky Quite cool actually, they still lack uber dc/sp (well obviously, not pms, they bash stuff too) so I'd be reluctant to invest too much in necro, but I suppose they can get the job done with eyebite+drain (or cowardly cast on already crippled enemies, fits their style ) . Div/Ench is the obvious selfbuff+tank melee option if you give up dev crit or some gr str, else you'd better take just one focus and/or leave evo at epic to use bigbies on a more classic approach. I If I wasn't of the "I-gotta-have-it-all" mentality I think the CC Sorc one can focus in more schools and acts as a weak armored mage, but then they are really low offence, considering BKs are already 5-6 DC and 4 SP under a mage, even less if you lose the +4 str from BG CC. That's pretty huge, so any spell-related boost should be kept for CC Sorc ones only.
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Post by chirality on Feb 12, 2014 1:37:11 GMT
Cloudkill will do something special for BKs..or what? Otherwise it seems pointless (or does it have some use in Limbo I guess?)
If cod is possibility (ehh) then what if sorc cc got cod and/or horrids?
How bout some interesting "class onhit" ability similar to pal breach (yes I know, poor BGs, that's fine they have their own threads too)? Some debilitating effect? What about something like big vamp regen?
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 12, 2014 3:38:17 GMT
There's no need for a on-hit Breach effect since BKs have access to the hellstore poisons, one of which is a on-hit Breach effect akin to Holy Sword. As far as debilitating effects go, they have access to the other poisons as well. Vampiric regen would unfortunately step on the toes of Lash of Hatred making that class feature a bit less special in my opinion. That being said, I would love to see some other kind of on-hit effect separate from these and unique to Bane Knights, but I'm not quite sure what that would look like (I did suggest something akin to Bigby effects on-hit earlier, but that somewhat steps on Slinger toes and I don't believe it's gonna happen anyway).
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Post by chirality on Feb 12, 2014 4:30:06 GMT
Er, yeah I meant "similar in concept: specialty magic spell that improves melee weapon" like holy sword, not anything such as a breach effect (BG comment was only to say: why offer BK special "holy sword" when even BG doesn't have it). the vamp regen was just offhand idea, i agree with everything you say (basically what i meant, I just worded it poorly) i suppose vamp regen is lasher niche but at the same time i always kind of viewed that as moderately or mainly fluff, i guess i was thinking something along the lines of: aoe vamp touch has proven to be pretty popular for a lot of people (i guess), thematically it's a cool idea imo, maybe rather than some low-but-relentless vamp regen such as lashers and some weapons provide, instead a more burst type effect, maybe short period of "powered up" state after casting the spell (true strike style) with some heavy vamp regen i guess is what i was thinking... for the "special weapon buff" question: to me it seems like "mage knight" archetypes often have some powerful spell buffs to make their weapon better, classic D&D/d20 theory doesn't work well for BK's favor in HG since (as per rants) --a tank who can buff himself isn't only a) not unique --but also b) tanks must have buffs from someone else anyway if not their own ...in antiquated thought, a character like a BK is a fearsome sorcerer warrior that can give his weapons *gasp* extra damage dice and keen etc, but in HG this is hardly worth batting an eye over; sure it seems more of a "quantity > quality" goal with many buffs + tensers as the crown, but still hg tends to reward specialization. BK gets for sure "moderate" collection, including tensers, slightly-weaker BG crit imm/cold weap, + various either standard/mediocre/or slightly-subpar mage buffs. But some other hybrid quasis have far tastier and more "pricey" tools for both offense: staffy (extreme mage knight weaponmaster) blackstaff, BFM/SDM has better energy buff, lasher foebane, BC IoF, heck even barb has uber thundering rage; (and defense; again staffy conceal or BC gate+others is extreme example but still). BK surely has nice list of self buffs but --offense-wise these buffs aren't exactly amazingly impressive for even any tank (without assumption of extreme lack of heplful party/set drops) --they lack anything truly exciting; and as pointed out in the past, if you want to talk about micro'ing a ton of awesome defensive buffs, BC is quite by far the champion vs. BK who admittedly has some nice defensive buffs to stay alive but it just comes off as 2nd class at best and kind of desperate at worst (so i think nail was hit on the head earlier in thread: not saying defense should be improved necessarily but offense should at least be legit tradeoff, and (wishfully) multiple viable zones across the tanky<-->sorcy spectrum) vamp regen i mainly thought of out of selfishness since "lifesteal" is one of my favorite dynamics of many games that is completely lacking in HG; vanilla vamp regen is a sweet mechanic but it's obscurely rare and even rarer to be of noticeably significant amount--i'd love to see some application for a "legit" higher-value or even %-based vamp regen thing and BK seemed like a good fit edit: as for other possibilities maybe feeblemind, ray of enfeeblement, ? enervate? wrack? aoe vamp touch? obviously some indicators such as "% chance to occur" or "doesn't stack with itself" would apply if/when needed, but something nifty and flavorful could be a boon for BK maybe...i'm just thinking some more "exotic" debilitations and those based on BK-ish spells...ray of enfeeblement could be cool since that actually has viable use on some later-game mobs even? feeblemind would be nice obviously but could be brokenly bad or good. i'd dream of BK evolving past association/addiction with bigby's hands, and become a more fully-realized "sorcerous blackguard" in its own right; it's been discussed before but the era is long-past of hands being "required" or even mainly desired for lots of mobs; the mechanics are boring and difficult to scale or explore with; evo is otherwise useless school for them (and evo is incidentally the quite opposite of all other BK aspects except hands that alone is lame) as far as i can tell "bane" knight and the "green hands" spells had an obvious connection in early days? and as it happened back then grabs and crushes and forceful "hands of bane" enjoyed a lot more respectability...and by no means do i say bigby's spells are not used nowadays, but meh...it's not that cool...and vile damage improvement was unnoticed/useless, yet how much more dmg could it be boosted and not risk being too strong (plus i can't imagine "vile" being a weak type for many EEs mobs) anyway, i've always felt like this was an unhealthy obsession and it seems limiting for brainstorming concepts/balances, and overall just kind of a dead end...it's fair enough to say "BKs get X evo ranks for casting bigbys" but the fallback association with the bigbys for new class/subrace/item specials is boring
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