The Big List Of Spells

[Wyvern]

Everyone should remember that NWN and NWN2 are not an implementation of the D&D 3.0 and 3.5 rulesets respectively. They are videogames based (loosely for the most part) off of those rulesets. Nothing more. The comparison of the two is tenuous given the two mediums that both are played under. Making comparisons is an endless discussion because there are just so many variations/omissions etc. Also, as is the same in P&P, the books do state that any or all of the rules can be changed in any campaign a DM decides to run. NWN is no different. And Bioware and Obsidian have chosen to do this where they saw it was appropriate. The rule books are nothing more than a guideline. If I want a spell called the "Pally Whacker" that can hit any Paladin for 1000 damage and can be cast as a free action, I could have it, either in a table top campaign, or in one that is driven by the NWN engine (as long as I took the time to script said spell.)

[Grayle]

As with any 'house rules', Dasaria will have to discover aspects that are under or over-powered in the field. Magic-use, it's frequency and potency, always seems at the center of this debate.

This campaign has always tried to reach that ideal balance for it's players and that always disappoints some while rewarding others. I trust the Staff to do what's best for the campaign, especially taking player input for what it's worth: Opinion.

Whether old school or new school, everyone's opinion matters. What's most important is that the campaign's integrity be maintained, not to be made ridiculous by a single spell or feat that makes one class overbearingly powerful at the expense of community enjoyment.

Just, please...no Fly spell.

[Stormknife]

Then again, the NWN2 folks might have done the same thing as NWN and just made all touch spells hit, removed the critical chance... which I hope they didn't because I like both having the chance to miss and the chance to crit.

Bioware only removed the ranged touch attack rolls. Melee touch attacks (e.g. Vampiric Touch, Slay Living, and Lay on Hands vs. Undead) still got the attack rolls and the chance to hit, miss, or crit.

Personally, I'm hoping for and looking forward to the inevitable maximized disintegrate crit.

Looking over some of the lists in more detail now...hmmm. Rangers get invisibility purge. Between that and Track, they may very well be the class best suited for hunter-killer duty.

[Jay Four]

And draw the icon. Drawing icons is the hard part heh.

Caster classes have always been stronger for short periods of time. Disintigrate is as good an example as any, it does 40d6, which is pretty rough for a melee.

It (usually) balances out on the whole but it causes a lot of problems in PvP. Most online games use a mana system for exactly this reason, and they still have issues.

There is no simple fix, and thats the truth. I know I've beat this drum before, but if you had a situation where a caster and a melee go head to head and it is basically even - why would you want the class with use limits given that he is no stronger than a class with all unlimited uses?

There are a few possibilities, including making HP a very scarce resource - so that a martial classes' HP becomes a use limit of it's own. That would mean basically making healing potions vert scarce and scaling the monsters down a notch or two so you didn't need the potions quite as bad. It would fix every class except cleric and druid, which would become vastly stronger. So is that any better? I don't think so.

You could add components, and that makes the caster work a little harder but it wouldn't stop the complaining.

Another is to create anti-magic zones - I think you may see a few, but it's very special purpose all told, and doesn't do much for PvP. No caster will go there, so all it does is restrict content to 1/2 the players.

You could create items with resistances, but make it so getting good resists means sacrificing huge amounts of fighting ability, which has a lot going for it but requires extreme dicipline by the DMs and builders - dicipline which we lack, to be perfectly honest about it. The thing would collapse after a few events with custom gear, or a few months down the road as new gear entered.

You could give the casters a wand of unlimited low level spells, like magic missle or something(giving them higher "normal" DPS) and then take some of the power off their high end - trying to even it out a bit and bringing their 1v1 odds into line with a melee. The easy way to do that would be draconian resting requirements, but you could also go through every spell in the game and adjust them by hand.

You could give the fighters a "I win" item of their own. Something like a grenade of antii-magic or what not. I don't know how that would be any better or show more skill, but if the item was fairly rare it might be workable. It would at least keep the arrogance down to a acceptable level :)

Anyway, I don't really think it is that broken. I like it, but that may be my caster bias. My own feel was that resting was too frequent in Das1, but I am sympathetic to the people who want to cast all the time and consider waiting around too much boring (personally I feel people like that should play a non-use-limit class, but thats neither here nor there).

[Loki]

For all those people worried about getting their butts whooped by a mage:

[Vahene]

Well, I'm playing a rogue.. so its not a huge situation for me if a mage wants to pick a fight. You have to rest sometime.

-K

[muletang]

Heh thats all well and good as long as there isn't the permaSeeInvis (or whatever that annoyin spell was) going on.

[Peregrinus]

Anyway, I don't really think it is that broken. I like it, but that may be my caster bias. My own feel was that resting was too frequent in Das1, but I am sympathetic to the people who want to cast all the time and consider waiting around too much boring (personally I feel people like that should play a non-use-limit class, but thats neither here nor there).

I basically agree with everything J4 said, including the caster bias thing. Ironically, I actually managed to whip the resting problem casters have in Dasaria 1 through four things, in order of their importance:
1. Being a Sorcerer
2. Having a casting stat of 34
3. Picking various metamagic feats that allowed me to cast important spells as +1, +2, and +3 their normal spell level. (IE. IGMS as a 9th, an 8th, a 7th and a 6th level spell.)
4. Knowing when to use what spells and when to not use spells.

Doing those things, I often was still ready for more fights when the fighters and rogues were asking for rest.

Still, I think the most memorable fights I've had as Falson are ones that drained him of spells, down to the last magic missile and ray of frost. Events and battles like that were rare on Dasaria (Falson had more spells than Maelstrom per day ), but when they came, they really left an impression on me.

Of course, being able to conserve spells and such involves playing with other people and cooperation with said people. If you're used to playing the lone-magus, then its an entirely different ballgame.

[Kell]

I basically agree with everything J4 said, including the caster bias thing. Ironically, I actually managed to whip the resting problem casters have in Dasaria 1 through four things, in order of their importance:
1. Being a Sorcerer
2. Having a casting stat of 34
3. Picking various metamagic feats that allowed me to cast important spells as +1, +2, and +3 their normal spell level. (IE. IGMS as a 9th, an 8th, a 7th and a 6th level spell.)
4. Knowing when to use what spells and when to not use spells.

Doing those things, I often was still ready for more fights when the fighters and rogues were asking for rest.

Still, I think the most memorable fights I've had as Falson are ones that drained him of spells, down to the last magic missile and ray of frost. Events and battles like that were rare on Dasaria (Falson had more spells than Maelstrom per day ), but when they came, they really left an impression on me.

Of course, being able to conserve spells and such involves playing with other people and cooperation with said people. If you're used to playing the lone-magus, then its an entirely different ballgame.

"I, Kell Dy'ner, am KNOWN for being a Lone Magus. As -a- Wizard and not -a- spellslinger, I have nothing to count on but my own ability to foresee and predict the future!

Of course, like any other drow... I cannot.

Therefore, I simply dare to say; a mage is by -far- a more complicated class then would be a hothead of a sorcerer. I claim my studies of Celadrith for many, many a year, might I say -centuries- as example; she's ruined many of my pyama's by setting them afire in a wild, wild fury. Whereas I rely on my noble studies and maintaining what I have achieved so far, a sorcerer may alter at will and at lust, drawing the energy from wherever it is they draw it from.

Do not say, Young Sorcerer, that you have been ready for a battle for you do not know what it is to be ready for a battle before you face it -alone-.
When you were out of spells, I was out of chances.

However. I believe this wasn't the topic of the situation, I hope I have thrown you off at this point to the point where you are wondering; what on earth is he talking about?

Do understand that you are only as strong as the next person... It is the connections you lay and the webs you weave that make you stronger then anyone else."

[Peregrinus]

Master Kell, despite being an accursed enemy of Dasaria and I, Falson Almaran a defender of the land, I believe that I'll honor your remarks with a responce.

First, I would say that you and I are in complete agreement, no matter how strong one grows in the arcane arts, there is far greater strength in the bond between mortals than the weave of the arcane.

Further, I would venture to say you are right, as you are a wizard who has the option to completely tailor their magic to any given circumstance; I would hardly know the same meaning of "prepared" as you. However, if anything in those circumstances goes wrong, if any of your carefully laid plans is defeated, then you are without recourse, while I will still have options.

With that said, we should return to the topic at hand, and leave this discussion of the relative merits of sorcerers and wizards to another time, as I am sure we are both more interested in the changes to the weave than our relative strengths.

((Sorry, couldn't resist responding IC. )

[lankycheese]

Good old neutral Jay Four.

Seriously though we can't preach balance yet as we havn't seen the true state of things in NWN2. It's going to be a lot different with not being able to stack ability and attack bonuses and all that. Less spells, less DC, less saves, less AC, less AB etc. Especially if there are some half decent magic items around!

I sense one of the scariest classes will be that Str/Con based fighter with a perma haste item that has enough hit points to shrug off a disintergrate/IGMS/whatever and can bridge that gap fast to pummel anything he sees!

Overall I think PvP balances out when there is more of it. In a PvP area/time when lots of it is going on anything can happen. There are more suprises more ambushes, more group tactics and finesse coming into it then in random duels in the pits. I could never ever beat a fully a buffed mage in a 1 on 1 duel but out in Dasaria things happen a little different sometimes and I believe there will be much less "I Win" happening. I for one will be really focusing on team PvP to really wreck up everywhere I go! Me and Jim have been brainstorming many a tactic of how our characters will work together in tandem.

That's really the main point people are getting at here, we don't want that "I Win" button, not for any class. It just makes the game less fun, I call it balanceing but people misinterpret and think I want a straight reckless fighter to be able to 1 shot a mage, that's not skill either. Being owned by a better player is one thing but beating an old horse, 1 button doesn't make you better. Falson beat me by kiting with haste and flame arrow in a duel, that was him being a better player that day, and with some more practice I could do better in that situation, but no matter how hard I practice there ain't no way I'll beat a time stop then IGMS with my class.(Note I realise that spell combo won't be in NWN2 I'm just drawing an example of an I Win button/combo which is something we don't want for any classes.)

I enjoy the scissor paper rock system of PvP in RPGs and that's how most of them work, but I like it much more when paper can still beat scissors if he attacks from a certain angle and with a bit of luck. ^^

[broncoblitz]

Knockdown + Silence == a lot of dead mages.

[lankycheese]

Not only did Paladins not have silence but it didn't work properlly in Das.

[broncoblitz]

who said anything about paladins?

[lankycheese]

I got pallies on the brain.

Let's hope silence doesn't get lagged to hell though in the next module.