4 new suggestions

[badluck]

since the damage of mages is so high in the hells i would like to see the physical damage for melee char increased, based on that we can barely get in the 100's per hit as the mages are doing close to 300 or 1000 per spell. any phy damage inc would be nice and a help

2. i think its kinda sexist that only female armor is out there when will there be a male only armor? hmmmm

3.also would like to see at least a ur race for each race as gnome has none

4.and bard to encourage caster build's maybe give them some lvl 9 spells when reaching certain lvl requirements as well as what ever you dms can muster up and the capabilities to use the epic books.

[chainlink]

Barely get in the 100's? You're not doing it right then, my RDD Dragon's Sting can put out 300+ per hit on crittable mobs (and watch the mages run like scared babies from some of the nastier ones). Now if you're talking dexers thats more likely correct but then dexers have a big advantage in the 'Not getting hit department' so there has to be a trade-off.

[archmage]

Also, before you make recommendations based on mage's damage in the hells, venture past Avernus. Things change rapidly. Avernus is less like the Hells and more akin to the illithids imho.

[ekstroem]

badluck said:

since the damage of mages is so high in the hells i would like to see the physical damage for melee char increased, based on that we can barely get in the 100's per hit as the mages are doing close to 300 or 1000 per spell. any phy damage inc would be nice and a help

From my experience the hells are perhaps the most well-balanced areas in Higher Ground, and melee toons are essential to complete most of the areas. STR and DEX tanks don't just keep mobs away from nuking casters - they do quite a bit of the killing themselves. In quite a few areas, the role of arcane casters is often "crowd control": grabbing mobs and not so much blasting away.
In my eyes the, the "best" thing about the hells is the fact that you need a diverse group covering most classes to have a smooth run.

Cheers,

Claus

[badluck]

no im doing close to 400 on crits thats not too bad but just the normal based hits, i guess maybe the tanks are ok, i just guess the disadvantage of a melee is really at when you dont hit 20 monsters doing 300 damage each.

but are the other suggestions at least a good idea

[hiryuu]

Yeah, sucks being a melee tank. Of course, not folding in half when something hits you is kind of nice.

[Dannecrot]

1. I don't know why you even mention hells as it seems your question is a much broader topic regarding caster/melee balancing. On one hand, yes mages can do a lot of damage to a lot of creatures, on the other hand mages have to rest/buff/decide which spells to use and can't stand in the front line. (especially in hells people are finding a lot more uses for tanks and personally I think that except for bigbys/epic wall - which are really great don't get me wrong - mages don't particularly shine in hell) You want tanks to be able to stand in the front line, never need to rest and do as much damage as a mage? what would you need mages for then?
You were with me on that (what turned out to be) 3 person DB run right? without you (the tank) to protect me (the mage) and without Atomic (the bard) to curse song, I wouldn't have managed to cast without them killing me, that's good group dynamics we had going there - I think that run in itself answers questions 1&4.
- if you think that on the caster/melee scale there's an obvious tip toward casters then simply make only casters!

2. Is this a joke? if not, then make your next character a female caster so you can laugh at all the deprived men.

3. First of all, there are many UR subraces which are not restricted to any race so Gnome can be used with them. Second you didn't mention Half-orc too. (if you look at the subrace board Half-orc and Gnome have in total less then about a third of anyone else's over-all subraces) I think that restricting a subrace is a limiting factor (which the DMs take into account when creating them - hence a lot of BURs are not race restricted while there are no "any race" non-secret subraces) and because it's a limiting factor I think the DMs are hesitant to restrict UR subraces to not so popular races. (just a guess here)

4. I think you can find HERE that epic spells may be considered, and regarding 9th level spells, there is something close to that in-game already. Although frankly I've only seen one of these items once, ever.