LL Affects on Blackguard/Bane Knight

[muttonhead]

If your control class is blackguard, do LL's gained increase the effectivenes of feats such as greater smite (up to the 40 lev max limitation)? I assuming they do since the info on blackguard class modifications indicates that it is possible to have 40 levels of blackguard for the purposes of damage calculation. This of course would be impossible without LL's unless ability and subrace modifiers counted towards fullfilling prestige class requirements, which I don't think they do.

Will the new premonition spell modification become more effective with blackguard control class LL's gained (again with the 40 lev max limitation) by a Bane Knight? I assume that if the spell functioned as other caster spells, LL's would not increase the spell's effectiveness, just not sure how the mod works in this special case. I've never played a blackguard before so I'm not sure how it works, but I suspect it would work the same for bulls strength as it does for premonition cast by a blackguard/bane knight.

[FunkySwerve]

Moved this since it has nothing to do with the core LL system (our class mods are totally independant from the leveler). I'll respond a bit later on when I have more time, though you can find the answers in the Customizations board above.
Funky

[FunkySwerve]

If your control class is blackguard, do LL's gained increase the effectivenes of feats such as greater smite (up to the 40 lev max limitation)?

No.

I assuming they do since the info on blackguard class modifications indicates that it is possible to have 40 levels of blackguard for the purposes of damage calculation. This of course would be impossible without LL's unless ability and subrace modifiers counted towards fullfilling prestige class requirements, which I don't think they do.

They do NOT indicate that anywhere. They assume the max BG level of 30, as you can see, for instance, in the bestow curse progression. Subrace alterations DO count towards fulfilling prestige requirements, which is one of the neat things about the subrace system, and why, for instance, wraith is such a popular subrace. They do NOT however, allow a character to take more than 10 levels of a prestige class pre-epic (standard Bioware limit). No feat / class abilities currently scale beyond level 40, but that will be changing very soon. Smiting is getting a makeover, as well.

Will the new premonition spell modification become more effective with blackguard control class LL's gained (again with the 40 lev max limitation) by a Bane Knight?

Yes.

I assume that if the spell functioned as other caster spells, LL's would not increase the spell's effectiveness, just not sure how the mod works in this special case.

The spell DOES function as other caster spells, and LL's DO increase its effectiveness, just as they do for all other spells. This was the first aspect of our core Legendary Level system that we expanded on, and feats and other character abilities will follow shortly. You can see just how spells are affected by picking up any of the spell books in the item shop, but in short, legendary levels increase casterlevels, penetration, damage, and other effects.

I've never played a blackguard before so I'm not sure how it works, but I suspect it would work the same for bulls strength as it does for premonition cast by a blackguard/bane knight.

What 'it' are you referring to?

Funky

[muttonhead]

funkyswerve said:

If your control class is blackguard, do LL's gained increase the effectivenes of feats such as greater smite (up to the 40 lev max limitation)?

No.

Thanks much.

I assuming they do since the info on blackguard class modifications indicates that it is possible to have 40 levels of blackguard for the purposes of damage calculation.

They do NOT indicate that anywhere. They assume the max BG level of 30, as you can see, for instance, in the bestow curse progression.

The book in the item shop seems to indicate differently. For example, the book describing blackguard modifications available in the item shop gives the same (440 was it?) max smite (feat, not spell) damage capability for 40 levels of "blackguard/CoT/pally". Alignment restrictions make it impractical to be both a blackguard and a pally, or a blackguard and a cot. So my assumption was that they were referring to 40 levels of blackguard which it appeared to me you could only achieve with LL's. It does appear as though this book was hastily thrown together with unecessary info on pallys and cots included; this info confuses with the blackguard info. It's probably in error, I was just trying to verify.

Subrace alterations DO count towards fulfilling prestige requirements, which is one of the neat things about the subrace system, and why, for instance, wraith is such a popular subrace. They do NOT however, allow a character to take more than 10 levels of a prestige class pre-epic (standard Bioware limit). No feat / class abilities currently scale beyond level 40, but that will be changing very soon. Smiting is getting a makeover, as well.

Oooh, all this is very interesting. Would it be asking too much for you to tell wether or not you're planning on bolstering or nerfing smite?

Will the new premonition spell modification become more effective with blackguard control class LL's gained (again with the 40 lev max limitation) by a Bane Knight?

Yes.

Thanks again.

I assume that if the spell functioned as other caster spells, LL's would not increase the spell's effectiveness, just not sure how the mod works in this special case.

The spell DOES function as other caster spells, and LL's DO increase its effectiveness, just as they do for all other spells. This was the first aspect of our core Legendary Level system that we expanded on, and feats and other character abilities will follow shortly. You can see just how spells are affected by picking up any of the spell books in the item shop, but in short, legendary levels increase casterlevels, penetration, damage, and other effects.

Yes of of course, sorry, I guess I was in a pre-LL spell scaling mindset.

I've never played a blackguard before so I'm not sure how it works, but I suspect it would work the same for bulls strength as it does for premonition cast by a blackguard/bane knight.

What 'it' are you referring to?

Scaling spell effectiveness with caster level, but I see that both spells have been scaled to level 60. So there would be a differentnce 'cause caster levels are considered differently for both of those spells. Actually you've answered all of my questions most graciously. Thank you for your attention.

In conclusion, just to verify: feats will soon be scaled from 40 to 60, which means the max possible levels applicable to blackguard smites will be 50. And, will you be keeping the same formula for damage calculation simply allowing for more LL smite feats and character levels, or will you be boosting or nerfing smiting all?

Thanks for your answers.

[FunkySwerve]

muttonhead said:

The book in the item shop seems to indicate differently. For example, the book describing blackguard modifications available in the item shop gives the same (440 was it?) max smite (feat, not spell) damage capability for 40 levels of "blackguard/CoT/pally". Alignment restrictions make it impractical to be both a blackguard and a pally, or a blackguard and a cot. So my assumption was that they were referring to 40 levels of blackguard which it appeared to me you could only achieve with LL's. It does appear as though this book was hastily thrown together with unecessary info on pallys and cots included; this info confuses with the blackguard info. It's probably in error, I was just trying to verify.

You'll save alot of time if you start with the assumption that the books in HG are accurate, because they are, minus a typo here and there (and they get fixed as found). In this case, your misconception involves alignment. You can change it with relative ease on this server. We do that to expand build options, because this is an action server with only enough RP touches to maintain suspension of disbelief (most of the time, anyway), and not an RP server. You could theoretically have 60 levels, by starting with pally levels.
Funky

[muttonhead]

I was thinking that nwn was based on the AD&D rules which state that you lose your pally or blackguard abilities if your alignment changed. I realize now that that AD&D rule did not translate into nwn. With that misconception cleared up, the book makes alot more sense now.

BTW, I noticed that you modded smiting by inserting a timer with a glow effect. I really like the glow effect. Do you suppose something similar might be done for the respawn timer? I was thinking about slowly varying the colors as the timer reaches 0. This would help characters know how long they need to stay alive in order to to avoid early respawning. It would also help rezzer's determine who they need to rez first. Also, are you planning on scaling GS past 40 levels?

[FunkySwerve]

GS already does scale past 40 - its feat based.
Funky