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Post by magecat on Apr 6, 2020 12:14:13 GMT
Possible thoughts on reducing the TR as a player effect (quick because I have to get ready for an "in office" day):
Rework Shadowdancer curse to provide a level scaling ability to reduce TR. Since this is a targeted ability, it could be made powerful but limited due to the inherent cool down. This also gives more value to SDs.
Place an !opt switch for Turners to use the Divine Inspiration as a TR reduction. Again, this is limited because you now have to balance against how much capability you have and it is not needed in every case.
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Post by woqued on Apr 6, 2020 12:30:15 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 Single target TR dropping is a solution such as the persuade quickaction one - perhaps with a paragon spell ability for AoE - preferably one that only works if you have 36+ Cha. Take example: Seren also lowers TR by a modest amount or applies the new Persuade suggested by Simp if the clerics Cha>Wis. You could also play with breakpoints where many normal mobs are turnable no matter what, paragon 1s are turnable with a high tier spell aoe TR drop ability, and paragon 2 requires persuade, and paragon 3 needs the aoe variant AND persuade - but then it is best to keep in mind that persuade is hard to land on high paragons as well - and scaling the TRs accordingly to follow somesuch pattern like that. This would highly reward teamplay and knowledge and prioritizing landing the (whatever high tier spell) + Persuade on a scary to enable the party and Turner. Mechanus statting taking a while is a good thing, I reckon. I hope you will keep the idea at heart that things should be dangerous, not meatwalls for an engaging experience. Best case scenario: party (or some of them) dies unless the whole party as a unit reacts swiftly, but the things that do the killing of the party are easily KILLED if the party makes the right decisions in an orderly fashion - preferably by several classes. Keynote about them not only being easily CC'd - limbo 2 taught us that. CC and wait 10 minutes while CC'd target dies, snooze. I really like the idea where monsters get incredibly scary only after a couple turns of existence - giving players time to react, but THERE IS A NEED TO REACT. Excitement! .. And makes it harder to just throw melee bots at. The cold elementals in Limbo 2 were a great attempt at this - but they were arguably doing it in a little bit too gnarly way. I think they were almost too nerfed by an abjuration mord dealing with them - but they were way too annoying of a monster to have no counterplay to. Other really cool mobs are Dustman Necromancers (deal with them or get polar ray'd to enter the next realm as a statue), Artaagliths (deal or get swarmed), the Gaping Maw screams (prevents mindless damage aoe spam, though neutered by 50% kb resistant XR weapon 2h tanks ), Dybbuks (kill or risk rolling a 1 and exiting the zone to Limbo, though I prefer the danger being something other than a 1 roll - high quantities of exo/eso/phys dmg feels better to die to and harder to be immune to via a single "mandatory immunity"), Beholder Mages in Beholders, the various casters in GM2 that force you to deal with them else they spam high quantities of exotic damage and become a menace - Mariliths, Balors and Magebanes forcing immediate tank action... Ahh, so many fancy monsters in the game. I know it's tricky. Godspeed.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2020 12:58:43 GMT
Saying that very specifically built and geared tanks neuter things when a lot of time, effort and resources were put in to realize that.
I think every area of the module should afford players the flexibility to choose whether they want to be a tank centric or caster or combination party and any of those three options feel good.
This doesn’t have to be true on release. It may take grinding tons of XR gear and randomized items and books, and possibly consumables that drop which facilitate the bashing of things, or items which mitigate KB, or whatever.
On the flip, I wouldn’t be opposed to Mechanus dropping items to assist in limbo, keeping thematically with the niche and targeted ideology mentioned in previous threads to boost casters power there via augs or viable and useful drops.
Every area set, again, potentially not on release, should allow any three of these paths. This facilitates the choice we so desperately seek to give players and that should remain.
For everyone’s thoughts on tanks, you can do the entire module with tanks if you wanted, throw on casters for support and you’re off. That’s a good feeling. Let’s keep that balance up too.
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Post by chirality on Apr 6, 2020 13:37:25 GMT
Possible thoughts on reducing the TR as a player effect (quick because I have to get ready for an "in office" day): Rework Shadowdancer curse to provide a level scaling ability to reduce TR. Since this is a targeted ability, it could be made powerful but limited due to the inherent cool down. This also gives more value to SDs. wth is it with shadowdancers lately i swear...more buffs? let's give em out to the needy GI bomb: Exo-Planar Post-Facto Prognosticative Perturbator Utilizing eXtremely raRe minerals found only on Faerun, in combination with a strange device assembled with the help of Zerial, the GI is able to create a resonant frequency that magnifies the natural anchoring presence of powerful entities native to the Material Plane, and destabilizes the traction that extraplanar creatures hold in the area. Within the area of effect, Turn Resistances are decreased by <tbd> and all saving throws against banishment or dismissal are reduced by <tbd>. The penalties persist for the duration of each creature's tenure on the Material Plane, as applicable. edit: ok now i thought of how that wording doesn't make sense for adventurers actually being the outsiders on other planes. well, ok, immo+ PCs are already the epitome of power, they are the scions of Faerun and as such are proxies of the Material Plane itself; when they confront foes on their own home planes, the only way I can reason banishment etc works is a combination of the PCs kind of anchored to the material plane so deeply that they recreate it as they go on other planes, exactly how a demon lord manifests chaos and evil simply by existing; presence alone slowly, not to mention force of will, reforms the material plane into a chunk of the abyss around him, if he were truly called to the material plane in full presence--and, if he were to despoil the "home base temple" and desecrate an adventurer's remains on the material plane, it's pmuch classictrope to have that basically be true destruction in the same way (kill the demon lord to release the soul and allow ressurection etc). anyway, yeah....nerd out Place an !opt switch for Turners to use the Divine Inspiration as a TR reduction. Again, this is limited because you now have to balance against how much capability you have and it is not needed in every case. This would be like letting sorcs use an !opt to channel extra spell slots to make their DC and SP better, sounds OP oh wait but seriously, no that's op, imagine letting bards !opt to use bardsong to buff their own song level?
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Post by Paradoom on Apr 6, 2020 14:57:25 GMT
Well going for GI: TR reductione could also be worked into the SR lowering emitter. That would give it a unique boost and actually worthwhile using, while a turner is around. (+1 for team play)
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Post by magecat on Apr 6, 2020 19:07:27 GMT
Possible thoughts on reducing the TR as a player effect (quick because I have to get ready for an "in office" day): Rework Shadowdancer curse to provide a level scaling ability to reduce TR. Since this is a targeted ability, it could be made powerful but limited due to the inherent cool down. This also gives more value to SDs. wth is it with shadowdancers lately i swear...more buffs? let's give em out to the needy Given that I am just trying to get back into the game after a long hiatus, I cannot speak to the SD buffs comment, but what I was thinking of, in general terms, was that this would be interactive w/o putting additional capability on the big four. It was the suggestion of synergy, not the specific, that I was trying to convey. Place an !opt switch for Turners to use the Divine Inspiration as a TR reduction. Again, this is limited because you now have to balance against how much capability you have and it is not needed in every case. This would be like letting sorcs use an !opt to channel extra spell slots to make their DC and SP better, sounds OP oh wait but seriously, no that's op, imagine letting bards !opt to use bardsong to buff their own song level? I think the more accurate comparison here is a Druid benefiting from Nature's Balance, especially since this would be a lot more consumable in function than a self buff such as Bard Song, although that is still not an accurate comparison since the whole party's casters benefit from NB.
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Post by dopplegang on Apr 6, 2020 19:19:23 GMT
This would be a great opportunity to make PDK worth something wouldn't it? The class is charisma based, as much as that is really the reason they cannot be fitted into any build, give it a single target TR reduction skill based on a minimum charisma, improvable with a gear item to a medium aoe TR reduction. Or a TR drop aura, or a TR drop pulse ability, or a persuade based TR drop, any of those are good options.
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Post by chirality on Apr 6, 2020 21:40:43 GMT
actually, yes, but the problem is other classes at least are technically played. PDK literally isn't even on the map. buffing it like this would be a thing, sure, but it wouldn't do anything at all for balance rn. this should prolly try to stay ontopic @ buffing turners, not other classes, as much as possible. I think GI was honorable mention for me because it's bottom of the "played" barrel....pdk just doesn't exist, and giving an ability like this to PDK out of the blue with no other buff or context wouldn't really promote diversity.
i would also say assassins, staffmasters, slingers, and/or lifethreaders would be suitable candidates for this. reasoning for both applies as above; at least they're in the running unlike PDK rn. these classes need more buffs for the people that already play them. classes that aren't played at all (staff monk, PDK) are literally so broken that they need a radical overhaul in some way. Staff users are almost as broken but, for staffies PL+XR remains a temptation for people--and they still are just as strong as staffies ever were, before original 2h% patch, as a reminder--and staffmonks are monks which similarly is a very strong powercreep class, regardless of the meta. I expect staff-ers to be fine again after another update dealing with tank meta, but I don't see those other classes getting much help from a new 2h% tweak or whatever else comes down the pipe for stafftanks.
Assassin angle would be like a UMDish, rogue-ish type thing--combining some arcane knowledge, some MI6 gadgetry, some special extraplanar bounty hunter tips--I don't want to say poison because poisons have been continually buffed over the years and imo now it's just a deadend, let's move on
Staffy is already a wizard so it makes perfect sense, and to boot Abj is a classic staffy specialization (great flavor as well as meta), so it's very reasonable to picture a staffy that, after having done 15 trips around the outer planes kicking ass, has learned to apply a different type of effect thru blackstaff or whatever whatever, that penalizes TRs or blah blah
Threader also would be extremely natural to fit into the theme, as would slinger...this doesn't need much explanation (using threading, using bullets, to either buff the turner or debuff the mobs)
tldr sure, but pdk needs so much of a ground-up rehaul that it would be really hard to balance a very nichey new buff for them rn. i would also be very afraid of something that makes them suddenly "needed" in a new run, as part of a brilliant synergistic turner balance package, without being fully brought up to operational status in the first place.
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Post by chirality on Apr 6, 2020 22:03:37 GMT
I think the more accurate comparison here is a Druid benefiting from Nature's Balance, especially since this would be a lot more consumable in function than a self buff such as Bard Song, although that is still not an accurate comparison since the whole party's casters benefit from NB. i was going to ignore this but then i remembered funky's here, can't take any chances, this is what got us to where we are in the first place No, I believe the comparison I made was pretty accurate. I appreciate your helpful nature, but given that your logic train kind of sputters to a halt at the end, it almost looks like you're just arguing to be argumentative.
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Post by desocupado on Apr 6, 2020 23:31:12 GMT
Couldn't curse song reduce turning resistance?
Unname and antipathy could have that TR drop effect.
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Post by magecat on Apr 7, 2020 2:38:50 GMT
I think the more accurate comparison here is a Druid benefiting from Nature's Balance, especially since this would be a lot more consumable in function than a self buff such as Bard Song, although that is still not an accurate comparison since the whole party's casters benefit from NB. i was going to ignore this but then i remembered funky's here, can't take any chances, this is what got us to where we are in the first place No, I believe the comparison I made was pretty accurate. If you want to focus the Turn Rating reduction in Gnomish Inventors or Arcane Archers or Accursed Pariahs, instead of Shadowdancers, I am not objectionable. I suggested SD because their Curse is aimed instead of radius, meaning one target per use. My point for that was that having the capability vested in something other than the ABCD crowd would be a value add to other classes. I suggested the Divine Inspiration as an alternate possibility because it would take three actions, it would require decision making on whether it was worth using, and that, since it dips into the same charge bank as Turning itself, it would be self limiting. Regarding your self buff argument, with the !opt, it would be adding a separated de-buff, meaning that the duration would be the remaining life of the affected monster, usually measured, at most, in minutes for things that don't insta. The Turner gets no direct benefit, only the indirect one applied to its opponent. I appreciate your helpful nature, but given that your logic train kind of sputters to a halt at the end, it almost looks like you're just arguing to be argumentative. Funny that, given that I am the only one of the two of us actually pushing a position instead of a personal attack. I try to avoid flame wars on this forum, since being too successful usually gets me reprimanded, but damning with faint praise, appeal to authority(self), ad hominem, and bulverism all come to mind in the one sentence. Congratulations, though, you've succeeded in something I personally despise, which is forcing me to defend my position so as not to leave your toxicity last standing on the field.
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Post by simpetar on Apr 7, 2020 4:50:23 GMT
Couldn't curse song reduce turning resistance? You might just as well drop every existing TR baseline. Uncursed enemy means that the bard is REALLY bad their job. Sure, there are exceptions, like Phanes (self restore), Confessors (mass restore) and mobs that use Joyful Noise to remove curse, but these mostly serve to keep the bard busy. Long ago, curse song lowered SR (and bard song gave damage reduction), but these features were removed for a good reason. Curse song dropping TR would fall into the same category.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2020 16:58:31 GMT
Well going for GI: TR reductione could also be worked into the SR lowering emitter. That would give it a unique boost and actually worthwhile using, while a turner is around. (+1 for team play) I like this as well as the SD and pally ideas. Was also thinking a GI bomb could add divine spellfail as a part of cutting creatures off from their divine protection. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2020 17:03:13 GMT
Couldn't curse song reduce turning resistance? Unname and antipathy could have that TR drop effect. It could, and a bard song rework IS in the cards. But I would rather use this ability to promote more under/un-played classes. Maybe dex bards, but cha would make more sense, and the song reworks and Mechanus statting are already working to shift that balance. Not ruling it out, but would likely only do this as a last resort, if we can't find other good options, which seems unlikely. Funky
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Post by FunkySwerve on Apr 10, 2020 17:04:20 GMT
Couldn't curse song reduce turning resistance? You might just as well drop every existing TR baseline. Uncursed enemy means that the bard is REALLY bad their job. Sure, there are exceptions, like Phanes (self restore), Confessors (mass restore) and mobs that use Joyful Noise to remove curse, but these mostly serve to keep the bard busy. Long ago, curse song lowered SR (and bard song gave damage reduction), but these features were removed for a good reason. Curse song dropping TR would fall into the same category. Agreed, though I think we are also talking about dropping the effective baseline by reducing paragon scaling, so... Funky
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