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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 4, 2020 23:31:19 GMT
Work is progressing apace on Mechanus - should have a spells list in a week or less.
In the meantime, two questions:
1. To what extend does ranger taking Plant Favored Enemy in HGLL work, if at all? 2. What are the rough cutoffs for turner destruction and turning?
Thanks, Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 4, 2020 23:53:42 GMT
Got question #1 answered. Now just need two.
Funky
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Post by simpetar on Apr 5, 2020 7:55:50 GMT
Maximum TR on monsters that turners can handle (that is, fishing for 8s on a d8):
Outsiders: 88 TR to stun / 78 TR to destroy Vermin (or Plants with Vestments of the Gardenborn): 73 TR to stun / 63 TR to destroy Undead: 78 TR to stun / 68 TR to destroy Elementals: 73 TR to stun / 63 TR to destroy
Constructs don't quite work the way others do (and turning them has been generally considered buggy/strange for years), is there a special reason?
One of the biggest hurdles with turning is that TR skyrockets with paragon iterations and there is no way whatsoever to lower it, or increase TP. The ego (Godswrath) only increases the total TR that can be turned, i.e. number of enemies you can stun / destroy at once. Luckily turners have other spells to be useful, both offensive and supportive. Their main stat is charisma however, so their spell slots are VERY limited. For instance, playing a turner in Zio is especially painful with close to 0 turnable targets and running out of spells 2-3x faster than everybody else.
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Post by chirality on Apr 5, 2020 10:16:06 GMT
The maximum TR is based on Turner Level and domains: - Undead: TL + 1 per 2 LL with Sun domain: 70 - Vermin: TL + 1 per 4 LL with Plant domain: 65 - Elemental: TL + 1 per 4 LL with any elemental domain: 65 - Outsider: TL + 1 per LL with Good/Evil domain: 80 This assuming Planar Turning and pure cleric. If you wouldn't mind, could you take the time to clarify a couple questions regarding the turning system? (1) Is it possible to insert a kb check before constructs take damage? In other words, could Destruction domain intelligently avoid damaging donthit constructs? (2) Is it possible to have constructs "moved up" in priority so that they would always be turned first?
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 5, 2020 13:08:33 GMT
The maximum TR is based on Turner Level and domains: - Undead: TL + 1 per 2 LL with Sun domain: 70 - Vermin: TL + 1 per 4 LL with Plant domain: 65 - Elemental: TL + 1 per 4 LL with any elemental domain: 65 - Outsider: TL + 1 per LL with Good/Evil domain: 80 This assuming Planar Turning and pure cleric. If you wouldn't mind, could you take the time to clarify a couple questions regarding the turning system? (1) Is it possible to insert a kb check before constructs take damage? In other words, could Destruction domain intelligently avoid damaging donthit constructs? (2) Is it possible to have constructs "moved up" in priority so that they would always be turned first? #1 would be easy to do. #2 is possible but would require a rewrite of the turning system, which we don't have the zots for at present. Funky
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Post by Paradoom on Apr 5, 2020 13:50:51 GMT
Isn´t turning constructs been changed completly? As far as I remember you cannot turn any construct as long as there is any other kind of creature on the map. One of the reasons I simply didnt even take the needed Domain and simply ignored Constructs alltogether.
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Post by simpetar on Apr 5, 2020 14:30:57 GMT
Isn´t turning constructs been changed completly? As far as I remember you cannot turn any construct as long as there is any other kind of creature on the map. One of the reasons I simply didnt even take the needed Domain and simply ignored Constructs alltogether. It has always been that way. Ironically, constructs of all kinds are usually high priority to be removed, and turning leaves them for last. There were 2 "recent" changes: First came with the abyss and hell rebalancing (that gave monsters immunities to poison, disint, drown etc.) - some monsters had their TR lowered. You can now destroy enemies like normal amnizu or conrnugon, which used to be impossible. Second change was indirect, but all the more devastating. It came when enemy strength started to be calculated from demi count AND party level above 60. Even "average" groups now get lot more paragons and turners cannot do anything about them.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 5, 2020 17:39:16 GMT
Can someone with experience elaborate on the effect paragons have on turning? I know it adds 4 per paragon level, and paragon levels go up to 3, so the TR increase is potentially 12.
As a corollary to that, is there a way to scale that differently that won't break older areas?
As another corollary, what if some class or classes had an ability that could drop TR, selectively or in an AoE?
Thoughts welcome. Mechanus is taking a while to stat because it's attempting to address a lot of balance issues in novel ways, without breaking the old. My hope is that turners will be relevant again, and I'm deliberately statting a number of creatures with nasty abilities that will be turnable and/or insta-able, to try to bring back that satisfying mass-carnage old-Hells feel without turning everything into a breeze. Tricky.
Funky
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Post by simpetar on Apr 5, 2020 18:52:18 GMT
The formula is simple: you roll your TP + d8 vs. enemy TR. If you match or exceed, the enemy will be stunned (turned). When the target is stunned, you can expend more uses to try to destroy them, but you need to exceed their TR by 10 or more to even force them to make a will save. Your TP is static and it has clearly defined cap for each racial group (80 outsiders, 65 elementals and vermin, 70 undead). When you face paragons, they gradually become immune to the stun and also destruction.
example: Pure turner (TP 80 for outsiders) vs. Pit Fiend (TR 84) needs to roll 4+ on d8 to stun the PF. Pure turner (TP 80...) vs. p1 Aspirant (TR 84 + 4 = 88) needs to roll 8 on d8 to stun. Pure turner is completely screwed by a p2+ Aspirant. note that PFs aren't the ones with highest TR out there, they are just iconic hell monsters
One thing to consider is that the turn check rolls d8, instead of the typical d20. The increase of +4 TR per paragon level equals to -50% chance of success. For comparison, SR also increases by +4, but you roll with a d20, so each paragon level gives only -20% chance of success. Suggestion: have paragon TR increased only by 2 per level, for a more reasonable match.
For future areas, I could imagine high trouble monsters with low TR. They should spawn in couples with a booster monster that has huge aura (amorphion / planetar size) increasing TR of everything nearby by absurd amounts. Once these boosters are down, you can start turning the troublemakers.
EDIT: another idea:
When a CC cleric, paladin or blackguard (no quasi) with at least 36 base charisma uses Persuade on a monster to drop SR, their TR will be lowered by the same amount. - single target, swift action, need to be in melee reach and not guaranteed success, in fact it is very difficult to land Persuade on higher paragons too
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Post by chirality on Apr 5, 2020 19:21:38 GMT
Isn´t turning constructs been changed completly? As far as I remember you cannot turn any construct as long as there is any other kind of creature on the map. One of the reasons I simply didnt even take the needed Domain and simply ignored Constructs alltogether. yeah it's why i asked the question dog
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Post by chirality on Apr 5, 2020 19:38:44 GMT
If you wouldn't mind, could you take the time to clarify a couple questions regarding the turning system? (1) Is it possible to insert a kb check before constructs take damage? In other words, could Destruction domain intelligently avoid damaging donthit constructs? (2) Is it possible to have constructs "moved up" in priority so that they would always be turned first? #1 would be easy to do. #2 is possible but would require a rewrite of the turning system, which we don't have the zots for at present. Funky #2 is what I figured, I think I had asked Acaos in the past and that was the answer. The system currently is broken in a few very meaningful ways (can elaborate, but you probably already know the construct issue from 1000 threads and this one now), but in my opinion what's far worse than construct lameness is the fact that turnable, but not destroyable, monsters continue soaking TL until they are removed by other means. This is very unsatisfactory because a) having a pit fiend "turned" is really not useful anyway, b) you're constantly operating at reduced capacity in many spawns on many runs. I will readily admit that the "recent" buff that allows turners to destroy cornies and amnizu, was a huge help in this regard, but unfortunately the fact that un-destroyables have the potential to hurt or even cripple your ability to perform as an instakiller. If there was a way to "toggle" turning so that it ignored certain TRs completely. Anyway, #1 would be really cool. It would overnight change the "turner construct meta" , also known as big pile of doodoo. #2 isn't a huge deal, but turners essentially will be worse and worse the more they are surrounded by mobs that they can turn but can't kill. In some ways that does helps promote the partyplay class-synergy aspect of the game, teamwork, etc...like before you'd be begging the <literally any other class> to hurry kill the corny or amni or whatever, but ultimately turners have to be treated fairly delicately in terms of balance, even at this mega-power-creep stage. I think most people would probably run a 1-fishing GI ploder these days than a turner, which is a testament imo to the slightly broken system that makes most high-level players look at it as a novelty more than a serious tool in the meta.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 5, 2020 19:45:17 GMT
For future areas, I could imagine high trouble monsters with low TR. They should spawn in couples with a booster monster that has huge aura (amorphion / planetar size) increasing TR of everything nearby by absurd amounts. Once these boosters are down, you can start turning the troublemakers. EDIT: another idea: When a CC cleric, paladin or blackguard (no quasi) with at least 36 base charisma uses Persuade on a monster to drop SR, their TR will be lowered by the same amount. - single target, swift action, need to be in melee reach and not guaranteed success, in fact it is very difficult to land Persuade on higher paragons too I'm doing the first already, though there's only one blocker slated thus far. The second is very intriguing - curious to hear thoughts of others. Your TR rebalancing suggestion looks reasonable based on the numbers. I'll run it by the Team. Thanks! Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 5, 2020 19:46:35 GMT
Isn´t turning constructs been changed completly? As far as I remember you cannot turn any construct as long as there is any other kind of creature on the map. One of the reasons I simply didnt even take the needed Domain and simply ignored Constructs alltogether. yeah it's why i asked the question dog I may have missed something in my original answer, then, since I have totally forgotten about that edit. Still, looking through the code, I'm not seeing an easy way to do it short of recode. Funky
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Post by simpetar on Apr 5, 2020 23:56:40 GMT
New idea for giving turners some excitement: Introduce enemy shapeshifters! Their base form may be irrelevant, human, gnome, anything non-turnable, but they change shapes at random or in response to what PCs do. For instance, they will change into Leonals (outsider) to counter bard curse with Leonal song, or change into Risen Lord (undead) when the bard player turns DoD off and makes squishy casters vulnerable to scythe crits. Clever parties may learn to bait these triggers and allow the turner to dispose of an enemy shifter. They should also use other non-turnable forms, like dragon or wildshape, to force the turner to react quickly. It probably goes without saying, these would be high priority targets, due to the incredibly wide arsenal of special attacks. A variant of this may be enemy druids who shift into elementals. Credit for this idea goes to the Zhentarim Brewmaster - he will happily destroy your shifter friend who unknowingly wanders into Brewmaster's room in Banshee form
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Post by chainlink on Apr 6, 2020 6:12:21 GMT
For future areas, I could imagine high trouble monsters with low TR. They should spawn in couples with a booster monster that has huge aura (amorphion / planetar size) increasing TR of everything nearby by absurd amounts. Once these boosters are down, you can start turning the troublemakers. EDIT: another idea: When a CC cleric, paladin or blackguard (no quasi) with at least 36 base charisma uses Persuade on a monster to drop SR, their TR will be lowered by the same amount. - single target, swift action, need to be in melee reach and not guaranteed success, in fact it is very difficult to land Persuade on higher paragons too I'm doing the first already, though there's only one blocker slated thus far. The second is very intriguing - curious to hear thoughts of others. Your TR rebalancing suggestion looks reasonable based on the numbers. I'll run it by the Team. Thanks! Funky More Orthon type creatures.................................noooooo make them go away!
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