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treant
Jan 28, 2007 20:26:59 GMT
Post by setekhi on Jan 28, 2007 20:26:59 GMT
It's sort of silly to base your comparison on a straight caster since the druid caster build of choice is splashed with monk and paladin. The cheese was indeed assumed. I suppose I should be more specific. +1 to saves, as opposed to +120 HP. So your reflex is what, 54 now? Someone said they would prefer Thri-kreen to Treant. That's why I brought it up. If you didn't have any of these UR races in this theoretical situation it would be a non issue anyways. I assumed the option of armor. Oversight on my part, I haven't gotten a druid here past level 7. But I don't see how Armor Skin is a "lost" feat, since you haven't lost it, as in fact you have it, considering FA doesn't get ANY relevant feats. I would rather take, say, Epic Toughness with that spare feat, than not have the option of even a tertiary feat choice at all. It may look ugly on your character sheet, but it's more functional, and deceptive because you now have it instead of the alternative - having nothing. The better choice might be Lightning Reflexes with that feat. I don't know how much reflex matters until you're getting within a few points of the standard anyways. I mean everything matters, but at this point we're juggling a number of separate points and taking some for granted (like some options as putting points in dex because you can get a high con score anyways, and other systemic judgments) so let's move on for now. And here we come back to my point. These downsides you're pointing out in this particular section aren't about functionality. And these have been all that have been debated until this point. And the "only" positives include better ability scores and a net immunity bonus. My point was regarding the efficiency of killing things and moving on so you don't get overwhelmed in the first place. But any kind of tactical points can get murky since you have to take a lot for granted, and I don't have experience playing a druid here, so I dunno. Sitting here, this almost moot since, for example, I hear the bar for reflex saves in the Hells is 63, and with the numbers I've seen there just don't seem to be a way to get there with a druid to begin with. Except for with Dragon Shape, but then since you're changing forms, speed of your original form shouldn't be an issue from what's been explained here. And your dex wouldn't matter then either. But your con in fact would, and so would bonus feats, and skill bonuses, and also I presume scripted immunities. In any case, my point was that all I've been seeing here are numbers, besides some people that seem to be ignoring some important ones. And then some accusations of idiocy/insanity for noticing them, when the argument thus far was largely regarding aesthetics.
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treant
Jan 28, 2007 20:42:14 GMT
Post by cathedralmaster on Jan 28, 2007 20:42:14 GMT
But I don't see how Armor Skin is a "lost" feat, since you haven't lost it, as in fact you have it, considering FA doesn't get ANY relevant feats. With Treant, you've gained nothing as the -4 to dex (which FA doesn't have) and +2 to AC balance each other out, and in fact you get worse reflex saves. Since you already have the armor skin feat for treant, the end result is only that you've lost the possibility of taking a feat that with other races would net you +2 to AC.
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treant
Jan 28, 2007 20:49:26 GMT
Post by setekhi on Jan 28, 2007 20:49:26 GMT
If you felt like it you could take the points in con and throw them to dex and use that feat for Great Dex, and at worst, you would break even. 14 Con in the original FA build turns to 11 con, 8 dex turns to 11 dex, +1 from the spare feat, and in the end you have a treant with 14 con 8 dex, same as FA. Edit - Edited post to reply to edited post.
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treant
Jan 28, 2007 20:53:17 GMT
Post by cathedralmaster on Jan 28, 2007 20:53:17 GMT
Edit - Edited post to reply to edited post. Took me a bit to hit what I was aiming at.
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treant
Jan 31, 2007 1:04:10 GMT
Post by setekhi on Jan 31, 2007 1:04:10 GMT
I thought about this, and decided some of this could be clarified. To further compare the choice of Fallen Angel to Treant, I'll start with ability scores.
An ability array I could settle on for a treant druid (post character creation) is as follows. (I think I might use a different one but this works best for comparative purposes.)
10 10 16 22 8 14
8 int is different from the druid builds I've seen people talk about, but I decided to optimize the scores by eleminating tertiary skills, and kept in mind some points here, so I'll go with this to further this discussion (so long as we're debating optimization). Even with an int penalty because you're a human druid you're still maxing out Concentration, Discipline, Animal Empathy and Tumble, which is pretty much all that's needed as far as I know.
With Fallen Angel, because you have to spend those extra points to get up to 16 con, even with the slight total comparative ability bonus (+1), while you can achieve the same scores (with the exception of 9 strength), your scores are no better. If you don't mind losing 2 con, you can get both better dex and charisma by 2 points, but I noticed the builds everyone (including Cath) listed on the druid thread had a base 8 dex and 8 charisma so apparently these aren't priorities anyway.
If you do go that route with Fallen Angel, you'll end up with +1 AC and +1 reflex over Treant, but you're 60 hp lower. Also, treant gets a bonus feat, and a net +25% immunity bonus. This also overlooks the fact that with treant, you can push the ability scores to favor con. You could end up with 18 Con if you didn't mind 8 Dex and 12 Cha, or 10 dex 10 cha. (Or move the points from cha in both examples to int if you felt like it I guess.)
If speed is that important in the hells in any case, I wonder if it wouldn't be profitable for druids to start taking the third monk level for the Freedom of Movement business. (Also it raises your saves by +2 by taking a monk level pre-epic.) If so, Fallen Angel would be quite fast. Treant would be quite a bit slower than Fallen Angel, but I suspect you would still be faster than the rest of your party, which I imagine would be enough to outrun mobs. (Also as I observed in the test chamber you would look very silly, which may be a benefit if one can appreciate that sort of thing.)
With all that said, even if Fallen Angel is proven to be the clearly preferable strategic choice over Treant (which I'm rather doubting at this point), I would at least be content that the decision made was informed and not based on inane ranting about aesthetics.
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treant
Feb 1, 2007 19:15:47 GMT
Post by cathedralmaster on Feb 1, 2007 19:15:47 GMT
If you don't mind losing 2 con, you can get both better dex and charisma by 2 points, but I noticed the builds everyone (including Cath) listed on the druid thread had a base 8 dex and 8 charisma so apparently these aren't priorities anyway. The build I have listed on that thread has a charisma of 12 since a paladin's charisma bonus is added to saves. That would mean 56 instead of 58 levels of druid which imo would be a bad move. Size is not simple an aesthetic choice - treants' size means you need to way of the willow to pass through the doorways in Razs, Drow, probably Ssithraks, and Illithids. Your large size means you'd have a hard time maneuvering in the desert, not only on the stairs (they can shoot you even when you stand at the bottom of the steps I hear meaning you can't mass the deverials) but when trying to get in the middle of spawns to eq. Beholders would be an absolute nightmare (I doubt you could even do it). You probably wouldn't be able to pass by the mobs in dustbone meaning you would be stuck at the entrance with the bots. And in Dis at least, you would be significantly handicapped in where you could move whenever there were monsters present. If it was simply that it looked ugly, then you might have a point about aesthetics. Large size and slow speed are way more debilitating than you might think. You hardly ever see Treants in the LLs and you'd have a hard time getting a UR for the books - that is not a matter of luck.
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treant
Feb 4, 2007 4:18:40 GMT
Post by setekhi on Feb 4, 2007 4:18:40 GMT
Okay, if you get hit by devariels under that ledge, that would indeed be significant. It's just that until now, the debate I'd seen was composed entirely of "I like them" vs insults. It seems kind of silly that the subrace ends up being inherently impractical just because there was only one model in the CEP and it was like 20 feet tall. But whatever.
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treant
Mar 14, 2007 15:57:10 GMT
Post by setekhi on Mar 14, 2007 15:57:10 GMT
I looked in the CEP, and there are two models that would seem to be practical alternatives to the treant model for the subrace. 1360 Elemental_Earth_L 1369 Elemental_Mineral_L Those should be what I'm thinking of. There's also some earthy-skinned giants but that's stretching it a bit. In any case it seems to me that if the UR druid subrace that already exists isn't being used and people who have Treant may actually choose to use Kenku now, and not just because they're cool, a new alternate appearance or two may be in order. I don't know for a fact that those models' speeds aren't slow but none of the other elementals seem to be. Also, they're apparently quite a bit shorter than the Half-Fiend Dragon model that RDDs use so there should be no problems there, and they do look kinda cool, so long as you keep in mind there's no real functional way to really use a treant here. On a side note, if you logged in with the elemental model, then switched to the treant model without relogging, would your speed be normal or slow? That would mean you could use the treant model when you felt like it and keep up with the team.
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treant
Mar 15, 2007 15:02:35 GMT
Post by alandrian on Mar 15, 2007 15:02:35 GMT
The huge size is a big disadvantage not just in Rhaz. Thids are a pain too what i experienced with my shifter. Even in outdoor areas it is a problem because you cant just step over the small rocks placed everywhere. You will see that you have to run around them with a bulky race. I think the nwn engine is just not made for large and bulky races anyway. Houses are comparale small compared to the outdoor areas. You cant jump. And every little placable is an opstacle in your way. A bit offtopic: the camera suck compared to other computer rpgs too . And its even more annoying with large races where the camera is places higher. Underwater areas like ssith are a pain with that.
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