Suggestions for Class Balancing, Spells, Etc

[Nox]

Prehaps you could tweek the rangers favored enemy bonus. If runs off a formula (i suspect so) then a change of RL/5 to RL/4 would give them a small and helpfull boost ending with a +10 bonus at lvl 40 Rng rather than +8 of course a Rl/3 woul bump it to +13 at 40 but thats a little much.

i don't suppose there is a way to add in a bonus shifter feat for shifters who take all the shapes?

Something like you must have a base wisdom of 37 and outsider, undead, construct, and dragon form to take this feat. that would limit the feat to people who where both 39 and devoted to the shifter ideals due to the fact that they only have 14 feats (assuming a 28+shifter/5 druid/(5-7)x) post 20 and 13 of them would be devoted to shapes and great wisdom.

[Teek]

Pots,

Rangers get all the dual weilding feats for free. All of them. At lvl 9 they get impvd 2 wep fight'n. You must wear light armor in order for them to function properly.

[POTS]

But if you dont want to take your build to lvl 9 ranger, the twf and ambi that you get at lvl1 as "dual wield" don't seem to be "real". They are some wierd combo.

For example if you take ranger lvl 1 and then switch to fighter and you want twf and ambi you kind of have to take them as new feats to get improved twf later (if you dont plan to take any additional ranger lvls).

I tried a build with that scenario and it seems to be the case. Let me know if i have been wrong all this time.

[FunkySwerve]

Ok, I've been away from the boards for a few weeks while finishing finals, so I'm gonna take these in reverse chronological order, post by post.

POTS - the ranger feats ARE different than the regular feats, thus the level 1 ranger feat doesnt meet te prerequisites for the later feats. This is because they can only use them while wearinng light armor or below, and the regular feats are not limited in this fashion. Changing this would require a 2da edit and therefore a hak as far as I know, so it's a nogo - we don't use haks so players can log in without downloading anything but CEP. On a brighter note, I'll be putting a new ranger secret in soon.

Funky

[FunkySwerve]

Nox (and Bakchuda, from a ways back)
Casters can actually get up to 45 dc, not 39. I'll see if I can scale shifter dcs up to 40 or so, they are pretty useless atm.
Heres a list of changes for class balancing I have planned at the moment:

Class changes:
Shadowdancer - shadow evade boosted, custom summon
Ranger - increase favored enemy bonus, gear
Shifter - scale dc
PM - scrolls made available available, become a lich (new appearance, abilities)
Barbarian - change mighty rage (the shapeshift thing works, but doesn't allow use of 2 large weapons as hoped)

Best,
Funky

[ocath]

I have mentioned this in game, but perhaps mentioning it here will be good too.

I noticed that the arcane archer abilities are pretty much useless. The abilities in particular are Hail of arrows and arrow of death. Both of these are gained at higher levels, but really do no real damage when used. Can this be changed?

I do appreciate the extras that have been added for this class such as the quivers and some of the bows so kudos there.

[FunkySwerve]

I'll see what I can do with the AA abilities, though it may be a bit, I'm still toying around with some other class changes.

Funky

[Nox]

Is there anyway to get shifter levels to count as caster levels for druid spells? Something like the pale masters 1/2 caster deal. That would allow shifter druids to get some buffs they badly need before going into a shifted form of course even though they can get the bonus spells from items when they shift the spells are whiped by the unequiping and merging effect so it would only be usefull pre shift.

on another note is there a shifter or pale master secret yet?

And is there a way to make a box that only pale masters can open so we can drop scrolls in. For example if you drop in a magic missle scroll (6exp and 150 gold) you get the (6exp and 150 gold) back, however if you remove a scroll you lose 150 gold. That way pale masters can help each other out by swapping spell scrolls even if we aren't on at the same time.

Oh and pale master summons is a little sub par (similar to the shadowdancers shadow) but we have spells to make up for it so i don't know how thats going to change.

[FunkySwerve]

There are big plans for PMs - theyre gonna be able to become liches. That will entail a new appearance, new abilities, and so on. As to the scroll issue, the problem is not making a container that only PMs can open, it is making the scrolls no-drop, so they cant be transferred to other characters. Im working on a different option right now, more to come.
As to secrets, look on the class info board in the docks, it lists all the current secrets.
Funky

[Nox]

Is there anyway to up the wand and potion level limits? Right now players have no reason to craft potions or wands since they are easily purchasable. however if the potion limit was raised from 3 to 6 then players could begin crafting heal pots and the vendors could have them removed so that the economy becomes more player based.

Similarly with the wands a jump from 4 to 8 would make them worth while (and expensive to make) while leacing the upper 9th levels only avalible to true casters.

However a way to vendor these items and a reward/reason to do so would have to be made. Prehaps a vendor that stores items similar to the bank chest that only buys crafted potions, wands, and scrolls and sells them as well. However flags the items as stolen so they cant be resold. Prehaps the vendor could give the seller of the crafted potions/wands/scroll a return on the gold and/or exp spent to make (say 75%) and sell the wands/potions/scrolls for 150% of thier crafted cost to make.

Thus the craft feats would become more and more viable for the magic wielding classes like druids/bards/sorcs/wizards/clerics and become an integral part of the economy.

Probably not a viable thing to do but i like the idea ::shrugs::


::edit::

prehaps just modifying a copy of the bank box and placing it in a shop so that it gives 75% exp and gold value of the items placed in (crafted only) and takes gold and or exp away when someone removes something. probably just gold though. taking exp could get nasty with errors and characters becoming illegal.

[FunkySwerve]

Yes, it is possible to do that, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. Despite what you think, there are a number of useful potions and such that are craftable and not sold in stores. Also, there are a number of spells I definitely dont want to be craftable, like mass heal and heal. That kills level 6-8 spells. You're gonna have to sell me on the rest. I don't see this stimulating a player economy much either, since I expect anyone who wanted a substanial number of crafted items would make a crafter character.
Best,
Funky

[Nox]

I don't suppose its possible to get the pale master summons to have a level equal to thier pale master level. It feels a little silly to summon a level 4 fighter zombie at level 12

[FunkySwerve]

I'm still planning major upgrades for PMs, they got delayed a bit by the issues with barbarian shapestrong rage. Those issues are fixed, so I'll be adding the new PM stuff ASAP>

Funky

[Nox]

Thats cool.

I tend to focus on whatever character i'm useing the most and with nox still stuck sangs currently my most used.

A big problem with pm's i've noticed is that thier spells damage does not really increase with level. And with the summons being unable to pick up the slack its often better to scribe a scroll and take advantage of its fixed caster level to provide you with a stronger spell than you could normally cast.

Admitedly for a caster the pale master has some serious hp and resilience however its really hard to feel usefull when your mostly a buff machine. But i'm sure that will all change in one way or another. Keep up the good work

[boxfox]

Shifter-specific items. Every...or nearly...class has items made just for them in mind...but so far shifters don't...granted I've never had a char over lvl 29 (Jaeme Fawkes) and this is the only POA server I've ever played...so if there are some huge epic items for shifters than sorry to waste ur time...but I've not even heard of one.
Don't get me wrong...you guys are my heroes...when DS goes down (like now) it hurts, cuz I utterly REFUSE to play anywhere else. In my opinion you ALL should have been on the original NWN design team. Anyway off topic
You've made all of these amazing changes to balance out the shifter, and it's helped a lot. But (and maybe it's just cuz I suck, who knows) I still find that they don't hold a candle in the wind to my wizard, sorc, AA, or even my lvl 8 cleric ...
The base of my idea was for items that specifically gave bonuses that would help after you shifted. Especially into early forms...which would help for those of us trying to reach our later forms...just my 2 cents.
And I just gotta give some more props to Funky...cuz if it weren't for him I would have quit HG months ago...you're the best, Uber!!!