Hells and Death Magic

[archmage]

Ok let me preface this by saying I absolutely love the Hells.

I have a constructive criticism to make regarding the 9 hells and clerics and mages in particular. I feel (dons flameproof suit to protect himself from the holy rollers) that the emphasis on implosions have given clerics the former panache of the mage, Death Magic. At this point, mages with necro focus are really unable to wail almost anything, aside from the occasional critter whom i wont mention specifically. Because the untankable critters like machines and fumes are implode only, that leaves the mages out of that as well. It would be nice to see some non-implodeable, non tankable critters in addition to the fumes and machines, or maybe, and i say this hesitantly, swap some foes death immunity for implosion immunity. I'm not really sure what the answer here would be. I will say though, I am truly concerned for PM's in the hells now as it is, since they currently wont be able to do very much to be a productive member of any hells run. I do know there are some wailable creatures, but with a few exceptions (names left out to prevent upper layer spoilers) they really arent much of a threat. When was the last time you attacked an imp before everything else on the screen was dead?

Please chime in with your thoughts on this topic.

[dodrudon]

Power to the wailers!!!

It would also be nice to see some creatures with low hp, but high immunities all around, so PWK is useful.

[sabregirl]

As a cleric player I have to say I agree to an extent, rather tricky to give more power to death magic without taking it from clerics. But currently with so many creatures being immune to death magic there's little a mage with high DC, and most especially a pale master can do to contribute.

One thing to take into consideration is the different ranges on implode versus wail/wierd. Being that some monsters are of a type you don't even want to get close to, to kill them (again not going into specifics) perhaps we could have more of these or types of these. Or as was suggested some monsters made specifically for mages/PMs to kill, perhaps we just need a few more monster types. In any case I'm in agreement I think it is something that needs addressed.

-S

[Ironfang]

I want to see things as evenly spread out as possible too but just want to mention as I now see Sabre mentioned above. Implosion's area of effect is much smaller than wail making it harder to target multiple creatures, especially in chaotic / tight spaces where you more often that not target a single creature and your AoE does not even extend to an adjacent one.

I am all for letting other casters get some fun and glory too, I just don't want to see the Cleric nerfed. We have a hard enough time staying alive with low AC and no conceal or DR. (Sorry don't want to make this a Cleric thread).

Also remember that if things are made wailable they will probably have their FORT save adjusted higher to account for PM's higher DC, pushing them out of Implode range, except on 1's.

[archmage]

I am not advocating the nerfing of clerics here at all. Yes implosion AoE is much smaller then wail, but honestly, it doesnt really make much difference. you still have to get closer. I am also quite aware of cleric's defensive challenge in the hells. But to have a cleric having 4 times as many kills as the next best in party in the hells is kinda over the top i think, especially when mages are basically reduced to crowd control and meteors and ice storms, while packing leg focus necro in their backpocket.

[cathedralmaster]

I'd like to suggest tying this into the lack of negative weak monsters. Perhaps changing some of the death magic immune to implode immune while at the same time giving them a weakness to inflicts would help give death magic more of a purpose while at the same time not nerfing clerics? Negative weak monsters would also do a fair bit in helping make palemasters more useful.

[sabregirl]

Lack of negative weak or even damageable monsters also hurts the PMs, making them unable to utilize vampiric touch effectively or FoDs except for a very few monsters which usually go down rather quickly anyway. This is generally true of most of the non-death immune creatures, they simply don't pose much of a threat, usually not being crit immune enabling the fighters take them out rather quickly. Perhaps some of the creatures that are already weak to death magic/negative energy could be beefed up a bit so they present more of a threat. Another method of attack could be a few weirdable creatures that are bigsby immune, again throwing the ball in the corner of the PMs and weird focused mages.

-S

[maudlin27]

Having been on a bit of a hiatus recently with HG (I typically can only commit to 1/2 an hour-1 hour of play which obviously isn't that well suited to doing runs!) I wasn't certain if I should comment as well, but then most of my time before i went was spent with my PM, so here goes!
My own experience of for example the pyramid was very positive for my PM - it seemed that some of the key enemies (namely the heartseeker scarabs) inflicted terror upon almost everyone due to how lethal they were, yet they also happened to be one of the few enemies my pm could kill effectively and quickly. It meant my PM was able to carve out a niche role in parties of killing off the deadliest enemies quickly, as well as also being of some use against the other enemies (undeath to death after a curse would occassionaly work on the wraiths, while some of the elementals could have their str reduced with neg energy burst). Meanwhile he would be near-useless against other enemies, ensuring heavy reliance on an effective party.
Perhaps something similar could be done with parts of the hells (assuming it isn't already)? That is, have very powerful enemies that will normally strike fear into people (well, moreso than the noraml enemies), but which a pm has a much better chance of killing - for example enemies without death immunity could have their saves at such a point where a maxed out DC cleric would still only be able to kill the creature if it rolled a 1, while a maxed-DC PM would have a DC a few points higher, so would have much better odds of their death magic working (although still low enough to ensure they weren't too good). Other tough enemies could have less of a resistance/immunity to negative damage, and/or be able to be level/ability drained. Of course having not been to the hells this is only conjecture based on what other people have noted about it, and based on my pre-hells experience of the pyramids with my PM.

[velikibaatezu]

First of all i'm not sure what of this can be done but
Could pms cause neg dmg vulnerabilty(maybe 60%) using lifeblight, and with succesfull death touch attack, to mobs not immune to critical strike.
Their negative dmg burst should maybe ignore spell resistance,
they need something to compose for bigbys(unlikely they beat sr with those) so could their fear be changed to cause mass paralyzation(can keep old effect if this cant be done) and ignore mind spells immunity but respect crit immunity.I think this wouldnt be to strong due to lvl of that spell and fact its a will save.Finger of death could maybe also cause some paralyzation to those that fail save and are not crit immune , aswell to ignore death magic immunity for paralyzation.I still think magic dmg aint hitting much so some change to horrids for lvl 50 pms maybe aswell to be considered, either to add some side effect or to change dmg somewhat, maybe to make it like prismatic spray at some point with neg,magic or positive random dmg,personaly i think some side effect on horrid would be better call but cant think of any right now.Also could PWKand PWS hp limit be raised for pale masters, with hell spawns that got few k hps pwk as is cant hit much.

[FunkySwerve]

Some interesting ideas. Not sure what you mean by this though:

velikibaatezu said:

they need something to compose for bigbys(unlikely they beat sr with those) so could their fear be changed to cause mass paralyzation(can keep old effect if this cant be done) and ignore mind spells immunity but respect crit immunity.

If you are suggesting pms should have a level-effective bigby equivalent, it isn't going to happen. Most adjustments to the class will probably be made in the hells, rather than making a class that is extremely powerful outside of the hells even more so.

Funky

[velikibaatezu]

Yes i see problem of those changes outside hells, anyway i dont think paraylzation idea can ever be equivalent to bigby, because of a fort/will save check, bigby will hit 99% of time
while they would have to fail a lvl 4 spell will save for mass paralyze and a lvl 7 spell for single target paraylze.Maybe if its possible those affect only outsiders , would limit use outside hells.