Spell Adjustments

[Nodata]

Several spells have been adjusted to fit the server's targeted atmosphere more appropriately:

• Darkfire: Functions as normal but duration is now in rounds.
  
• Magic Vestment, Greater Magic Weapon: Maiximum bonus is now +3 and durstion is now in rounds.
  
• Magic Weapon: Functions as normal. Duration is in rounds.
  
• True Seeing: This spell has had it's duration lowered to rounds rather than turns. Also, it has been adjusted to not allow the caster to automaticaly see stealthed creatures. Instead, the caster gets a +15 bonus to spot.
  
• Invisibility and Improved Invisibilty have had their durations reduced to rounds rather than turns. However, the concealment bonus from Improved Invisibility will last in turns.
  
• Divine Power has been removed.
  

The minimum duration for each spell is 30 seconds. These changes have been implemented to put fighting classes and casting classes on a more equal ground on this low magic server.

[unholywinter]

well shit, i level up and am like hooray i can turn my mace into a flaming mace. nope, grrrr i am not happy, not one bit.

[Pyrog33k]

I think these changes need to be thought over a bit more. Invis sounds like a good idea but with those of us that dont wear armor stoneskin helps out alot. Plus magic weapon should be move to rounds instead of turns since I should only be cast right before a fight. Like real wizards conserving thier spells until most needed like those would be. Just my humble opinion. Please think it over.

[Nodata]

I'll be taking a look at further changes to these spells.

[Goat]

Ok, everyone, here's the deal, as I've seen it.

There's a huge gap in power between self-buffing melee clerics, and other melee classes, making the game, effectively, impossible to balance. Self buffing clerics are powerful enough to make most fight trivial, while other classes can easily die. So, altering encounters isn't possible.

This changes are overkill, but from what I've seen, it's a quick, dirty, TEMPORARY patch, while nodata tries to figure out how to balance spells.

There's a lot of ideas floating around, including nerfing or re-purposing spells and reintroducing them, or basically turning them into entirely new spells, like party-wide buffs or short term buffs.

That said, this is pretty frustrating for me, playing an assassin. Invisibility is a high level assassin spell, and improved invisibility is nearly a capstone ability. The assassin spell list is extremely limited, and uses per day is capped at ONE. Now, two of my more powerful abilities, which I have to put in up to 9 assassin levels to even access, may last for one encounter once per day. And I haven't exactly seen a horde of assassins exploiting the dreaded invisibility spell once per day as it is.

There's a lot of ways that this all can be handled, and I've offered to help with the scripting before, that offer stands. But, yeesh, Nodata: Fill the masses in! People tend to take things better if they have a strong idea of what's going on.

[Goat]

Though, Divine Power is still in, soooooooooo

I don't know.

[Goat]

If you're going to nerf anything:

Divine Power: Currently gives an attack bonus SUPERIOR to fighters. Extended, this can last quite a while, and be cast multiple times, my goodness. As is, is probably a 9th level spell. If any spell needs to be outright kicked out, it's this one.

As for the spells you've hit so far:

Invisibility: Capped at 5 turns. This won't effect potions, which last 3 turns. It prevents people from walking around invisible all day. Basically good for emergencies. It's not like invisibility is cheap enough to realistically use it every attack in a fight anyway. I mean, if you want to blow 1,000 gold a fight, have at it.

Improved Invisibility: Capped at 10 turns. Alternatively, capped at 5 turns, except the awesome assassin class, who get normal progression. You know, as an incentive to play assassins, instead of taking away a lot of their power.

True Seeing: 1 turn every 3 or 4 levels. You can use it when there's a lot of darkness/invisibility being thrown around, but not constantly.

Stoneskin and greater stoneskin: No change by wizards and sorcs, since I haven't seen too many melee wizards on the server yet, I assume it's not a problem. They'll either cast stoneskin on others (party interdependence), or on themselves as a last resort. Wizards usually have low ACs, they'll be hit plenty, don't worry. At most, make it, like, 10/+1 and 15/+3.

Clerics who cast stoneskin give the party (not single target) 5/- damage resistance for a round a level.

Magic weapon: Does anyone actually use magic weapon beyond, like, level 5? Is this really a problem?

Greater Magic Weapon: Make it a Bard only spell. Gives party (not a single target) +1/+2/+3 enhancement weapons for 1 round/level. Bards could give a party of fighters the ability to get through stoneskin.

Magic Vestment: Make it a Bard only spell. Give party (not single target) +1/+2/+3 to AC for one round/level.

Darkfire: Clerics give 1d4 fire damage to entire party for a round/level. Bards give 1d4/1d6/1d8/1d10 fire damage to party at bard level 5/10/15/20.

[Nodata]

Some of these sound like good changes. I'll look them over.

[Nodata]

Changes made, see original post.

[unholywinter]

As for using an assassin as a argument that they are not powerful enough, this is stupid. Since when are assassins front line fighters? You owned me with your traps, and I honestly thing classes are meant to be played in their own style.

And why do you want to shift spells over to bard only or bard party spells? Could it be that you run with a bard? So then they gain a spell to help yourself out?

A self buffing melee character, is worthless without the buffs, play like your character would, would an assassin go toe to toe with a fully buffed frontline fighter? No, they would wait patiently, set your traps, and catch them blindly and own them.

Also going from hour/level to rounds/level is a huge huge gigantic nerf, at least go to turns from levels, and if still a whine inducing problem then reduce it further.

I am all for balancing issues out, but seriously using an example that honestly has no weight in water is not a reason to complain and want things changed.

[Nodata]

The duration changes were really a matter of scale. The decrease in durations more accurately reflects the essence of the low magic world. Buffs, both defensive and offensive, are now more geared towards combat tactics, rather than wake up, buff for the day, run across the world.

[unholywinter]

Or how about, not changing any spell, but make it so that to cast any spell the cleric has to use a holy symbol. Rp it is sound, because clerics are divine powered casters, so using a symbol of their chosen deity makes sense.

This also balances out fighting, because if you come to a fully buffed sparkling character you know you are in for a fight, but if you come on them or wait for them to start buffing, then the fight is fair, cause you will hit them constantly with no shield cause they know without buffs they will die.

[Nodata]

Removed stoneskin changes. Spell functions normally now.

[Goat]

Jul 30, 2011 9:20:00 GMT -5 unholywinter said:

*stuff*

The original issue that sparked this was that self buffing clerics were so superior to any other melee option that, because of the low magic nature of the server, made encounters impossible to balance. Clerics were able to single handedly fight multiple encounters with ease, while other people would require groups to even have a chance.

My argument about assassins was that, essentially, in an attempt to balance clerics, Nodata had also placed a significant nerf on high level assassin abilities. Seeing as his main issue was the nondetection aspect of the spell, he changed improved invisibility to continue the concealment bonus, which works for me.

Assassins are not front line fighters. Without spending tremendous resources, Drax can't fight a single encounter alone. While a self buffing cleric can fight 10 encounters, alone, Drax needs to spend between 30 and 50% of his daily resources to fight a single encounter. That's a fairly large difference in power. Further, sneak attack doesn't work on anything that's crit or sneak attack immune. Drax is extremely powerful... under very specific circumstances. I could kill a self buffing cleric if the cleric was unbuffed... which I've seen exactly once since this server began. Cleric buffs lasted so long that they were effectively never unbuffed.

I brought up the idea of changing some spells into bard spells because, from what I've seen, bard is used for two things: Red Dragon Disciple, and Arcane Archer. Party wide buff spells fit very in line with the theme of bards, so I thought it was appropriate.