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Post by Balduvard on Oct 4, 2006 8:05:19 GMT
I use death arrow all the time when possible...and feel that for balance's sake it should be left as is. Those who focus in AA will have a very powerful death arrow (much akin to those who focus in mage for wail), while those who do not shouldn't expect to get as great of performance about it. To maintain the unlimited status of the arrow by making in single shot unlimited inbetween the 4 minute bursts would be far too powerful as the AA gains more levels the DC to resist would greatly increase the chance of success to levels not originally intended for something that was meant to be of unlimited use. Bottom line, the death arrow was made to be in four minute bursts in the endgame for game balance, and the DC will most likely be kept where it is now as to not upset the mage's superior Wail DCs. If you want something that is guaranteed to kill each time (maybe), build a mage. There are plenty of other abilities that more than offset the minor annoyances you may experience with death arrow. And to echo Funky in an earlier post (I view making the death arrow unlimited between bursts as a bonus): AAs are definitely not getting any more bonuses in the near future. Funky
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Post by chainlink on Oct 4, 2006 11:10:02 GMT
Don't forget you also have hail, imbue and seeker arrows which are all unlimited (when you hit the required levels) and very effective when used properly, multiple imbued fire arrows absolutely slaughter Ssiths and you won't see a mage casting unlimited fireballs. Don't forget you're not a one trick pony AA have some of the best offence and are near the top of the defence (if you build them correctly).
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Post by zerragon on Oct 4, 2006 14:07:05 GMT
Yes, I am completely aware of my other arrow abilities and i use them alot, and I think AA rocks on HG !. Ive never said otherwise, and I enjoy alot playing mine.
I just mentioned the wail arrow, and my first impression with it was a negative one because I had more use of the death arrow before it became a wail arrow.
Clearly you have thought alot about balancing the classes, so I will play my aa to 60 and test the wail arrow some more before attempting to discuss this further.
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Post by Yomi on Oct 4, 2006 23:40:07 GMT
Beating a dead drider, but having played a couple AAs (both with 29 levels of AA), the wail arrow isn't super powerful when you first get it, but it gets very effective with levels. I think the progression is comparable to the shifter abilities such as stoning, or even SR for any caster: every level you get more and effective. This is different than DC for mage wails which is tied to the stat modifier so doesn't go up linearly.
Let's look at the best case non-PM caster -- a pure illithid wiz / raksasha sorc. Most people don't do pure casters so wouldn't be quite this high. I'll also assume you took all 10 great stat feats pre-epic, and your first two LL feats are leg spell pen and leg necro focus. At level 40 you would have a 22+10+10+12=54 primary stat after equipment. At level 60 you'd have 54+10=64, bumped to 66 using a stat artifact used at level 55.
Compare to an AA with 29 pre-epic AA levels. This is not the most one could do (30), but quite common for a standard AA build using the HG rules. The AA doesn't have to take 4 feats on spell penetration, nor 4 feats on necro focus, nor are his DCs tied to whether he spent 10 feats on the primary stat.
Level 40: mage SP 46. AA SP 49. mage DC FoD 45 Wail DC 47. AA DC 44.
Level 45 (unlimited regular death arrows): mage SP 53. AA SP 54. mage DC FoD 48 Wail DC 50. AA DC 49.
Wow, the AA has better spell penetration than a pure secret-subrace caster who took all the feats. The DC's are comparable to FoD and are unlimited. Seems like a raw deal for the caster if this was all you're comparing.
Level 46 (wail death arrows every 4 minutes): mage SP 54. AA SP 55. mage DC FoD 48 Wail DC 50. AA DC 40.
Spell Pentration still looks great, but the DC is much lower. A 40 DC is indeed not terribly good, but it does go up linearly with levels (try stoning stuff in the desert as a level 40 shifter and see how effective you are, then watch level 60's turn the place into a statuary). If you don't like the discontinuity, then it seems to me that in fact the pre-wail death arrow should have its DC reduced, not the wail arrow increased.
At level 56, the AA (29 pre-epic) has a wail DC of 50, which is enough to have a very noticible effect. The SP is 65 which also is very respectable. Yes, our pure wizard has a better DC at 54, but he has used his INT artifact at this point. At level 60 the wizard has gained only 1 DC for 55, while the AA kept gaining each level and ends at 54.
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Post by doomsdaybringer on Oct 12, 2006 23:58:52 GMT
hi... this is not wholely a suggest since there something i am not yet sure about. i am planing to build a sd as my next character. and i notice how to get the top custom pet for most class require 50lvl of them no matter if they are basic class or prestige classes. so...is this desgin as class balance? since both ranger and druid get top summon at lvl 50 while sd, bg and pm need to have also 50lvl to get top summon( which is 60LL). this doesnt really look balance to me. my suggestion is that would u lower lvl require for sd, bd and pm to 25 or 20?
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Post by Master Jaxx on Oct 16, 2006 11:58:17 GMT
Been doing some thinking lately about Monks and their ac bonus +1/5 levels pre- LL's.
For most of my monk builds I've been able to squeeze in about 14 or 16 base wisdom. I've made 2 with Fallen Angel subby and have started out with 20 base wis. With +12 bonus that'd get us 26 +8(14 base wis), 28 +9 (16 base wis) and 32 +11 (20 base wis).
Then taking a level 30 monk that would give us +6 ac bonus per the every 5 lvls in monk and then depending on base wis would get us either +8, +9 or +11 wis ac bonus. Thus, +14, +15 or + 17 ac depending on build and X amount of monk lvls. Then if you take less than 30 lvls you lose out on 1 or 2 ac depending on if you go 20 or 25 lvls of monk. Then that further reduces the missing shield ac bonus.
My point being this, that monks lose out on the shield ac bonus that most other dexers get as well as any str build. Not to mention some of the rather nice bonuses that come on many high end shields (preservation, Penative, valiants honor etc).
I do realise that unarmed monks in particular can use torches in a shield slot. Basically attaining a 10/ reduction with some of the decent torches out there but imo they miss out on a lot of the gear combos out there for their melee counterparts( the rare shields out there that give %25 immune to elements for example).
I suggest scaling the natural ac increase +1 every 5 lvls for monks in LL's. A net increase of +4 ac at 60th, for the monk class.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 16, 2006 17:17:07 GMT
Been doing some thinking lately about Monks and their ac bonus +1/5 levels pre- LL's. For most of my monk builds I've been able to squeeze in about 14 or 16 base wisdom. I've made 2 with Fallen Angel subby and have started out with 20 base wis. With +12 bonus that'd get us 26 +8(14 base wis), 28 +9 (16 base wis) and 32 +11 (20 base wis). Then taking a level 30 monk that would give us +6 ac bonus per the every 5 lvls in monk and then depending on base wis would get us either +8, +9 or +11 wis ac bonus. Thus, +14, +15 or + 17 ac depending on build and X amount of monk lvls. Then if you take less than 30 lvls you lose out on 1 or 2 ac depending on if you go 20 or 25 lvls of monk. Then that further reduces the missing shield ac bonus. My point being this, that monks lose out on the shield ac bonus that most other dexers get as well as any str build. Not to mention some of the rather nice bonuses that come on many high end shields (preservation, Penative, valiants honor etc). I do realise that unarmed monks in particular can use torches in a shield slot. Basically attaining a 10/ reduction with some of the decent torches out there but imo they miss out on a lot of the gear combos out there for their melee counterparts( the rare shields out there that give %25 immune to elements for example). I suggest scaling the natural ac increase +1 every 5 lvls for monks in LL's. A net increase of +4 ac at 60th, for the monk class. Can't be done, and ac is about the last thing I would boost on a monk in any event. Funky
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Post by Master Jaxx on Oct 16, 2006 21:21:42 GMT
Well, how about giving them something that can compensate for lack of immunities that a lot of the ur and rare shields provide. It's just they miss out on a lot because they can't use a shield and going unarmed in particular doesn't give any advantages other than not being disarmed.
As it stands going unarmed has no advantage or perk. Damage is in the gutter. The 1d20 is great in a low magic world but here it's basically like using a Great Sword. . . losing the use of a shield is a huge disadvantage.
Any way of adding some random torches a la rare shields? It would be nice to see %25 immune to cold/elec, %25 acid/fire and then %25 sonic on a set of rare torches. I guess my thoughts on the ac increase would be a way to compensate for this loss.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 17, 2006 1:45:28 GMT
Yup, you can look for some random torches of that nature, they're already planned for the hells. ;D Funky
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Post by lusitania on Oct 18, 2006 21:00:15 GMT
Would it be possible to let assassins who can dev crit automatically succeed when they roll a 20 on the fortitude check (if the target isn't immune to criticals)? It wouldn't really happen that often with all the other things you need to do to even get to the fort check, and higher level assassins are probably going to succeed on a 20 anyway, so I don't think it would change the balance much for higher levels. Basically, I'm just saying it would be nice to let assassins level 40-50 occasionally get to see some results for something they've been working towards for the last 40 levels. Seeing nothing but that "devestating critical failed" message is kind of demoralizing. On a related topic, I don't know if this is possible, but it would be nice if successful devastating criticals were visually indicated beyond the "devastating critical" floating message. Maybe the white smoke effect you get when something fails the save vs. a wail.
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Post by gruntgruntson on Oct 18, 2006 23:03:09 GMT
Would it be possible to let assassins who can dev crit automatically succeed when they roll a 20 on the fortitude check (if the target isn't immune to criticals)? It wouldn't really happen that often with all the other things you need to do to even get to the fort check, and higher level assassins are probably going to succeed on a 20 anyway, so I don't think it would change the balance much for higher levels. Basically, I'm just saying it would be nice to let assassins level 40-50 occasionally get to see some results for something they've been working towards for the last 40 levels. Seeing nothing but that "devestating critical failed" message is kind of demoralizing. On a related topic, I don't know if this is possible, but it would be nice if successful devastating criticals were visually indicated beyond the "devastating critical" floating message. Maybe the white smoke effect you get when something fails the save vs. a wail. I'd like to secnd this idea. Both the slight increase to effectiveness (Auto-fail on bad roll, like other saves) and the visual effect, as it is not always easy to see the Dev Crit messake in amongst the Sneak Attack and Save vs Dev Crit mesages, especially with other peoples effects going off. It takes quite an effort to gain Dev Crit, and a fair number of opponents are immune (including all bosses?). It would be nice to see it working in the lvl 40-50 range. On a related note, I don't see the dev-crit fort save showing up in the combat log. Is it possible to add this? Or would it just clog up the log more?
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Post by FunkySwerve on Oct 19, 2006 0:28:21 GMT
Fort check already autofails on 1. Funky
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Post by lusitania on Oct 20, 2006 1:05:49 GMT
After some testing, I have come to the conclusion that it does work, but the floating "devestating critical" message and the entry in the combat log do not occur if you succeeded because they rolled a 1. Hence my belief that it wasn't actually working- until I actually started making the rolls fairly, I'd always see failure messages but never success.
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Post by irongolem on Oct 25, 2006 23:20:31 GMT
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Post by sabregirl on Dec 10, 2006 22:44:40 GMT
Along the same lines as the ranger *spell* suggestion, was wondering if rangers could get a legendary stat increase of +1 wisdom for every 5 LL in the ranger control class. this would do two things - improving the ranger's typically abysmal will save a bit and give a +2 to dualing AC (assuming the ranger had at least one level of monk).
-S
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