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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 10, 2016 4:05:16 GMT
The following suggested subrace edits and additions come from a variety of Slack conversations and forum discussions. Posting here for further discussion for possible approval: From Slack convo: "Buomman" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Cleric - STR +6, DEX +4, WIS +4, INT +2, Listen +10 - Free Feats: WF/GWF/EWF: Sling, SF/ESF: Listen, Divine Might, WS, EWS: sling, - Other: Fast, QLSA: Listen, +1d8 to all damage types on divine bullets. "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II - Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation "Tanarukk" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Barbarian - STR +6, CON +4, INT +4 - Free Feats: ESF: Intimidate/Taunt, Terrifying Rage, Thundering Rage, Mighty Rage, Alertness - Other: SR 15 + 1 per lvl (including paragon levels) OR 50% fire immunity. "Rhek" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Monk - STR +6, DEX +4, WIS +4 - Free Feats: Epic Prowess - Other: +5% Empty Body conceal, when first Weapon Focus feat taken in Unarmed, Goad, Kama, quarterstaff or Nunchuku, character gets GWF, EWF, WS, EWS in that weapon Further subraces edits, which were discussed with general approval, that weren't already included above: "Half-Dogai" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Fighter, Barbarian / BC: Assassin - STR +8, DEX +2, CON +2, WIS -2, INT +4, Hide +8, Move Silently +8 - Free Feats: Bullheaded, Snakeblood, Armor Skin, Great Strength I, Great Strength II - Other: +1 die to Caustic Weapon "Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorcerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8 - Free Feats (Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Free Feats (Male): Armor Proficiency (Heavy), Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl - The biggest issue here was the lack of viability for BG splash Sorc PM. Consensus was that opting for allowing Sorc PMs with this subrace to just be armored PMs was an sufficient fix. *"Favored of Gruumsh" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Monk - STR +4, DEX +4, CON +2, INT +2, WIS +2 - Free Feats: Power Attack, Great Cleave, WF/GWF: Quarterstaff, Great Strength I, Epic Prowess - Other: +5% Empty Body conceal *NB: The suggestion above for Rhek was by Sabregirl and involved simply combining Rhek and Favored of Gruumsh. **"Tanarukk" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Barbarian - STR +6, CON +4, INT +4 - Free Feats: ESF: Intimidate/Taunt, Terrifying Rage, Thundering Rage, Mighty Rage, Alertness - Other: Thundering Rage grants +6 fire dice if their weapon has fire (doesn't stack with flame weapon/darkfire) **EDIT: The reason Tanarukk is listed twice is because there are two different suggestions, one which was from Slack and one which was from forum discussion here (Warning: lots of text). Suggestion for new subrace, link to discussion here: Gnome "Half-Shiradi" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FCs: Bard, Paladin - +8 STR, +6 CHA, free feats: Armor Skin, Divine Might, Divine Shield, Epic Prowess, Extra Smiting, Mounted Combat - Other: Levitation Please discuss.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 10, 2016 4:19:03 GMT
One more addition to the list since I think this also needs to be addressed:
"Favored of Primus" / "Favored of Gond" (alt) (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Rogue, Wizard - DEX +6, CON +2, INT +6 - Free Feats: Great Dexterity I/II, Extend Spell, WF: Heavy Crossbow, Epic Prowess, ESF: Craft Armor/Weapon - Other: Fast
Should be changed rather simply to:
"Favored of Primus" / "Favored of Gond" (alt) (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Rogue, Wizard - DEX +8, CON +2, INT +4 - Free Feats: Great Dexterity I/II, Extend Spell, WF: Heavy Crossbow, Epic Prowess, ESF: Craft Armor/Weapon - Other: Fast
Rationale: The current sub used for GIs is Half-Fiend - the current formulation of Favored of Primus doesn't provided any DEX bonus over that race. +2 DEX means 1 more AB/AC/Handbomb DC.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 10, 2016 4:22:11 GMT
For reference, here are the above subraces in their current formulations:
"Buomman" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Cleric - STR +6, DEX +2, WIS +4, INT +2, Listen +10 - Free Feats: WF/GWF/EWF: Sling, SF/ESF: Listen - Other: Fast, QLSA: Listen
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, CON +1, INT +2, CHA +5, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Empower Spell, Great Strength I, Mounted Combat - Other: Immunity to all Bigby spells, Survival: Levitation
"Rhek" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Monk - STR +4, DEX +4, CON +2, WIS +4, INT +2 - Free Feats: Epic Prowess - Other: Soak +20/10, when first Weapon Focus feat taken in Unarmed, Goad, Kama, or Nunchuku, character gets GWF, EWF, WS, EWS in that weapon
"Tanarukk" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Barbarian - STR +6, CON +4, INT +4 - Free Feats: ESF: Intimidate/Taunt, Terrifying Rage, Thundering Rage, Mighty Rage, Alertness - Other: Thundering Rage grants +3 fire dice if their weapon has fire (doesn't stack with flame weapon/darkfire)
"Favored of Gruumsh" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Monk - STR +6, DEX +2, CON +2, WIS +4 - Free Feats: WF/GWF: Quarter Staff, Armor Skin, Epic Prowess - Other: +5% Empty Body conceal
"Half-Dogai" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Fighter, Barbarian / BC: Assassin - STR +8, DEX -2, CON +2, INT +4, Hide +8, Move Silently +8 - Free Feats: WP: Exotic, Armor proficiency Heavy/Medium, ESF: Discipline/Parry, Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded - Other: +1 die to Caustic Weapon
"Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8, Hide +5 - Free Feats (Male and Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 10, 2016 19:41:50 GMT
Bump. Anybody have any thoughts....?
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Post by desocupado on Mar 10, 2016 20:11:10 GMT
Those suggestions really seem to address underwhelming racial features. I didn't like 2: Fallen is a work around class features that aren't working so well (Multiple spell focus school dependency) Tanarukk's SR is absurd (Fire immunity would be an ok improvement tough)
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Post by simpetar on Mar 11, 2016 13:34:39 GMT
- Other: SR 15 + 1 per lvl (including paragon levels) OR 50% fire immunity. 15 + 1 per level (not incl. PLs) is mediocre, 15 + 1 per level including PLs is waaaaay over the top. Suggestion: 20 + 1 per level is meaningful and not terribly OP as special XR feature (on par with pure monk). The other suggestion, 6 dice of fire damage looks little high, should probably be 5 dice. That way it will be on par with other XR subs, like +1 on Half-Dogai or Half-Sword Archon. "Buomman" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Cleric - STR +6, DEX +4, WIS +4, INT +2, Listen +10 - Free Feats: WF/GWF/EWF: Sling, SF/ESF: Listen, Divine Might, WS, EWS: sling, - Other: Fast, QLSA: Listen, +1d8 to all damage types on divine bullets. SF/ESF Listen on a quasi that aims for 19+ base wisdom by default, is an overkill. Alternatives could be IC: Sling or Extend Spell as pre-epic feats, and Armor Skin or Epic Prowess as epic feats. +1d8 to Divine Bullets seems rather weak (4.5 damage on average), but it comes from the nature of the quasi itself.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Mar 11, 2016 15:09:02 GMT
On most of these I can't tell what the suggested edit is. Don't expect me to hunt down current statting to compare, or to weave between posts. Highlight the change and explain why.
Favored of Primus is the closest to a good example, though it's very light on discussion. I'm not prepared to upset statting the team spent an ungodly amount of time discussing without a thorough examination of the alternatives. You say Half-Fiend is the current alternative because Dex, reslting in identical handbomb GCs. Where are the H-F stats? In what other ways do they differ?
With respect to Shiradi, in poli's thread, I don't see much discussion at all on the forums, but it was likely cut in discussion as being highly duplicative due to niche build status. One of the considerations we look at is overall sub spread as compared to build distribution on the servers. We don't want 9 kinds of paladin to 2 sorc and 2 wiz, by way of example (those numbers are completely made up). Again, discussion of alternatives is needed.
Funky
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 11, 2016 15:59:46 GMT
I'll start with the most problematic one: "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, CON +1, INT +2, CHA +5, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Empower Spell, Great Strength I, Mounted Combat - Other: Immunity to all Bigby spells, Survival: Levitation "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat - Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation The special was mostly an attempt to find something useful, since even though Bigby immunity is "useful" there are a number of items that provide it (and this one had the benefit of making it easier for BKs to go dual-focus). The more important changes were in the statting and feats. Switch Con bonus to Wis bonus since BK is extremely strapped for stats and even though Con is universally useful, a BK, unlike virtually every other class, has 3 caster stats (STR, WIS, CHA) and Wis was absent from the prior formulation. Great Strength II needed to be added because Pharlan had it and without getting both feats, there was only a net gain of +1 STR over the BUR race, which really didn't equate to an upgrade. Extend spell is simply far more useful (Empower probably would have seen very little use), so that was the rationale behind that change. Lastly just left Mounted Combat in since you fuss at me whenever I try to take it out of any subrace.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 11, 2016 23:00:37 GMT
With respect to Shiradi, in poli's thread, I don't see much discussion at all on the forums, but it was likely cut in discussion as being highly duplicative due to niche build status. One of the considerations we look at is overall sub spread as compared to build distribution on the servers. We don't want 9 kinds of paladin to 2 sorc and 2 wiz, by way of example (those numbers are completely made up). Again, discussion of alternatives is needed. Fair points. This post by Xiayu is an excellent summary of 'viable builds' for the current endgame. Note that both 2H Paladin/Blackguard and Paladin Smiter are on the (relatively short) list of 'Damage' builds. Brief recap: 1) 2H is ideal for any endgame melee-damage toon, but comes at the cost of AC/defense. Divine Shield provides some measure of Shield AC, so a toon with high Charisma can afford to go 2H more easily due to less of an AC sacrifice. 2) Rapier Wit allows toons with high Charisma to maintain high AB, as long as they use Rapier. Using a small-sized toon is the *only* way to get 1) and 2) together (ie: 2H Rapier), usually at the cost of maxing-out Listen and a small defensive deficit. It's a concept that works on any tank with high enough Charisma, with Smiters being the most obvious choice, though Paladins tend to be the strongest Smiters. For these reasons, I see 'small-sized Divine tank' as catering to a set of highly viable endgame builds (though partially pigeon-holed towards Paladins due to inherent strength), as opposed to a true niche. Having said that, I can indeed see the direction of the 'don't want 9 kinds of paladin to 2 sorc and 2 wiz' thought. Personally, I feel the two main BUR -> XR Divine Tank races (Pharlan -> Solarborn, Half-Eladrin -> Half-Shiradi) will see a lot of use (more than half the XR races which cover the true niche classes), and that it's reasonable to have both in the game. After all, endgame builds will get used in endgame areas.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 12, 2016 1:06:44 GMT
Sorry for the double post, but was looking further into the XR races and noticed that: 1) *All* Divine tank races are Half-Elf base. 2) There is already a slated 'large Smiter' race, Ibixian (confirmed to have made the cut in your other post).
Large Smiters have absolutely nothing notable about them, which is why they aren't played. Ibixian in particular is ~worthless due to the -4 Dexterity penalty and only +2 Charisma (the primary stat for Smiters). In fact, the BUR Half-Cloud Giant (the 'base race' here) appears to be even better than Ibixian due to a smaller Dexterity penalty and higher Charisma.
Keeping in mind the goal to match subrace spread to build distribution, I would be strongly in favour of just deleting Ibixian and replacing it with Half-Shiradi.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Mar 12, 2016 18:07:02 GMT
*snip* Having said that, I can indeed see the direction of the 'don't want 9 kinds of paladin to 2 sorc and 2 wiz' thought. Personally, I feel the two main BUR -> XR Divine Tank races (Pharlan -> Solarborn, Half-Eladrin -> Half-Shiradi) will see a lot of use (more than half the XR races which cover the true niche classes), and that it's reasonable to have both in the game. After all, endgame builds will get used in endgame areas. Ok, so, definitely a need for a sub. Beyond that, you raised as many questions as you answered. What is their 'main' status based on (see quote)? Something that is likely to change, or no? Be advised that tweaks for dexers are under discussion but on hold. Casters were not the only ones impacted by release of paragon levels without matching areas, and not just by lack of set loot items. Increase in defense without matching offense makes higher-damage less tanky builds more desirable, for example. I hope you realize that 'endgame builds will get used in endgame areas' is a tautology. Ideally, all sound builds will be endgame-playable. There are a lot of balancing considerations underlying that, a lot of moving parts. Bonus points if your reaction to that is 'ideally = in the long run, and in the long-run, we're all dead'. You still need to discuss alternatives, and explain your thinking on the dex bonus/malus. I'm still not seeing any comparisons here. What does a small divine tank gain or lose by this sub as compared to their other subrace options? Does adding this sub obviate other subs? Do other subs obviate it (I think you have answered that last one with a 'no', by the way - my goal here is to get you to think like a dev so you can set forth the facts I need)? As to deleting the Ibixian, no. I'm not going to toss dev work out the window which has seen much more time spent on it than your off-the-cuff remark. If you think the sub is lacking, explain, and we can edit if need be. Bottom line, people: a ton of thought has gone into these XR subs. However, NONE have seen playtest. SOME are without doubt flawed. Whether or not those flaws are intrinsic or based on conditions likely to change, however, is a question that always needs to be addressed. If your gut reaction to that statement is 'but it should be playable NOW', you are probably not going to be able to understand why I shoot down a decent subset of your suggestions. NOW is a point at which we are about to make a series of edits based on two years of playtest, and at which players are about to be exposed to the first of an entirely new tier of difficulty in areas, which is pretty mild compared to what will follow. That means that players have already seen a large percentage of the power increase they will net from paragon levels (loot aside), without much increase in difficulty. That asynchrony has necessarily resulted in some balance distortions which will require further playtest to unveil completely. So, does that mean I won't make edits? No. It does mean that you will have to set out in pretty great detail any suggestion that you make, especially with regard to subraces. If, like some players, you think XYZ is completely obvious because you have two years of play experience since the last update of any kind, you may well be missing the forest for the trees. Having a very good bead on current balance ("A") does NOT equate to having a very good bead on balancing decisions ("D"), though the two are certainly not mutually exclusive. While D requires A, it also requires an in-depth understanding of game design generally ("B") and an in-depth understanding of HG under the hood ("C"). I have B and C, as does acaos, but we look to you for A in order to reach D. Many of you have some degree of B as well, which is very helpful, but no one here is ideally situated to make these decisions without input from others. It's important to understand when making suggestions. If you aren't willing to spell things out that painstakingly, that's fine. We can evaluate after a couple of paragon areas, when things will be a little less muddled. If you are, great. It's not a personal failing of any kind, just a judgment of yours about how much you want a particular edit. I apologize if it's frustrating. Coming back full circle: you have convinced me of the rationale for including Shiradi. Now I need to know if it is balanced as proposed, which requires a fairly detailed analysis of alterntive subs. The dearth of forum discussion makes that impossible to tell. If in that analysis, you focus on the problems you see with Ibixian, in addition to the others, we may be able to edit it as well. Thanks, Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Mar 12, 2016 19:25:35 GMT
I'll start with the most problematic one: "Fallen" *snip* Why is it the most problematic? What are the alternatives? That special is essentially just two more feats, which is a lot. Where would that leave the choices between subs then? Funky
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 12, 2016 21:06:20 GMT
I guess the reason I find it the most problematic is for a number a reasons:
1) BK needs help to begin with and this subrace doesn't do it any favors because it doesn't even address the 3 main caster stats that the quasi has to, by definition, have at least minimum benchmarks for: STR (need as much as possible), WIS (need at least 14) and CHA (need at least 19).
2) +1 CON - which is simply a joke. It's useless. It provides absolutely nothing - in fact, it hurts any build it's attached to. Why? Because you can't afford to start with more than 11 or so CON to begin with, due to the aforementioned requirements of the quasi, and you certainly can't use precious ability score bonuses later in the build to offset it being odd. Furthermore, at character creation, having to start that low means you HAVE to make one of your other stats odd. Which one will it be? CHA? That's a no-go because the quasi doesn't provide +6 CHA, so you can't get to the 19 that you need. Dex? Why bother? 1 more Dex isn't going to provide a worthwhile benefit and you're not going to get another +1 mod so it's not going to provide any extra AC. STR? Maybe. It would be the most likely candidate, if you started at 17 (which would cost 13 points), but the question is, will that provide enough STR, or conversely, will it leave enough points to dip into the other stats that you need to boost?
3) +2 INT - yeah, sure, any build wants INT, but this is a build that already has a lot of requirements, and you already get +1 skill point from Half-elf. In reality, this one isn't as big of a deal as the others because you're probably gonna be trading it for WIS anyway. ie. if you go 10 base INT and let this boost you to 12, you're gonna go +14 WIS, and conversely if it had +2 WIS, you would go 12 INT/12 WIS and let the race boost you to the required 14 WIS. So this one at least is one of those 6 and one-half dozen situations (which is why the +2 INT stayed in the final version).
4) Feats - this subrace loses an absolutely precious epic feat vs. the BUR subrace you would be using (Pharlan gets Great Strength I & II). Not only that, but it gets a heck of a lot less feats than some other subraces to begin with. Cf. Half-Ogre Mage, which gets 7 feats, granted 6 of them are pre-epic, but Fallen only gets 5, 4 of which are pre-epic and one of which is pure filler for the sake of PDK splash (and as you've stated in past posts, should be viewed purely as a free feats, not taking away from the other feats the subrace gets). So really Fallen only gets 4 feats - and Empower really isn't that useful, usable only really for empowered Vampiric Touch and Spell Mantles.
So that's largely the mindset I operated under when looking to edit the subrace, addressing those concerns while providing a special that was specific to the build, while not being of much use to other Divine tanks (why would they waste a feat on SF: Enchantment (the only real focus they're gonna pursue) when they can just eat the book and be done with it?). Yes, the stat spread became homogeneous with Half-Excruciarch and Solarborn, but that's because it's a great stat spread. If you wanted to distinguish it more from Solarborn and Half-Excruciarch, you could change it to STR +8, WIS +2, CHA +4, which would be a lot of stats (same total, but no other subrace gets a +8 and a total of 14, except Phoelarch which gets +16 but only because of Gnome's inherent -2 STR), sure, but BK needs a TON of STR and currently, even with Pharlan you can't get enough STR to fully make use of their quasi specials (namely, 1/4 STR mod spell penetration and 9/10 STR mod to DC), so most people just end up eating a Epic Spell penetration book.
That being said, I'm not certain that the formulation I've come up with is perfect, but the original formulation just doesn't work. I would rather use Pharlan, or just use one of the other divine tank subraces.
Heck, I'd even be happy with the following:
"Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +8, CHA +5, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II, Mounted Combat - Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation
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Post by Raj on Mar 12, 2016 22:39:04 GMT
You're not really helping a underused quasi by providing the needed balance only through a XR race I'm afraid Empower and Bigby Imm on the original Fallen, along CON, are very weak for BK builds anyway. Way too similar. --- This one is cool with the emphasis of STR focus, but I'd simply add GSF:Ench, keeping it simple (no need to script around the feat choice? ) and it'd fit most bk builds with the cool Antipathy/Rebuke added among the gmw and other stuff while at same time not being used as a cheap way to get feats on some melee dms/bfm build (selecting evo feats, reading spell pen tome) who already have their XR. +13 stats, 4 pre epic and 2 epic feats, levitation, is in line with XR tier. So many divine tank ones anyway...
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Post by Twilight Semner on Mar 12, 2016 23:51:08 GMT
Well yeah I suppose that makes sense... any idea for a special though? Slight increase to Bigby vile damage since that's a class feature? Or something that's more pure flavor?
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