Items that need improvement or nerfing

I'll start off with
Templars Ammy
No critical immunity,
Remove +20 soak 50 damage,
and if a templar can still tank and kill in D16 remove few points of AC.
Templars don't get any message when a thief steals and XP loss anymore.

Blessed Set
No critical Immunity- this allows any character to tank too well as he takes not so much damage combining with a good resists gear. [I use this on all of my dex based chars and i can tank even with 81-84AC(that's the max AC you can get with any dex based build not including angel's buff, bard song, or imp. expertise) while str based characters get that same amount of AC, it goes up to 88AC for them)]

Rusty and Pally set Armor
EDIT: doesn't require any changes. It's good as it is, just what makes it overpowered with a templar is that ammy.

Wizard and Sorcerer's Staff gained through collecting orbs
Either No critical Immunity- as he can easily Bigby any monster and attack them from range, so they don't hit him.
Adding Time Stop Immunity- how can there be a wizard/sorcerer that have mastered all elements and know how to stop time be not immune to it.

Chunk of meteorite
No, it shouldn't work on casters as why should a caster OSHA out if you come after caster to kill him or the other way around... casters are pretty much useless against other players already as we can get all elemental immunity except if you're divine caster (Druid or Cleric). I also think that pretty much everyone has to use str/dex/wis/int/cha/con pots to reach +12 bonus from Items/spells... and anyone picking on other players especially on casters and dex based chars comes with chunk of meteorite, he/she greatly decreases that AC and AB. There's many more factors that make it overpowered.

Elixir of Death
Stacks of 10 available from the grocery merchant- Expensive... well fine but make it in stocks of 10 because it would be really annoying to buy them 1 at a time(buying 10potions costs 40% more than restoration pots).

Ammunition
why 2d8 not 2d12 like on all other weapons?? If i remember correctly Arcane Archer does less damage than a melee build. I deleted my AA as he was practically useless unless. (If wis based you have no AC and anything hits you)

Stealing/Player Killing
right now it doesn't benefit doing to do so as there's no way to escape prison.
why do they get chaotic and evil alignment points. It should just be Evil.

Shadowdancer's Set
It's really weak, I am better off with other items as i get way more AC and i would be better off going Good alignment and still steal and just use books of hope.

There's a certain way to get damage resists on certain weapons and i wont say how to get it as of i don't know if DM made it intentionally or not.

So basically remove all critical immunity bonuses from items, and leave it for palemaster and shapeshifter only.
If others have something they think should be nerfed or improved, go ahead and post it.

What does the Elixer of Death do anyway? With a name like that, I'm scared to see what it does.

The Elixer of Death is a healing pot for Pale Masters. It costs 10x the cost of a healing pot (ouch). It's the only way for them to heal themselves other than casting harm.

Sets are hard enough to achieve, don't you think? I wouldn't mind seeing a partial set bonus. Those sets and items are the premium ones on the server. They also fail to guarantee survival in hell.

GammaGm wrote:

Sets are hard enough to achieve, don't you think? I wouldn't mind seeing a partial set bonus. Those sets and items are the premium ones on the server. They also fail to guarantee survival in hell.

they do pretty much if you carefully look at all these +50 damage resists on sets(blunt, piercing, slashing) i still keep thinking if taking off 5AC wouldn't be too much, and i think it might be an issue because even if you have 90AC you still get hit pretty much all the time, but if you add improved expertise to it you really have no problem with it. But as i said and i think that these sets aren't an issue really. The problem is that if you add templar to it, you can pretty much solo Hell. That's the reason i mentioned taking critical immunity from all items and also removing +20 soak 50 dmg off templars ammy... without it Templars will still have advantage over other classes, and at the same time it would make it harder for templars to solo where they take more physical dmg and are targets to critical hits.
I have given an example of myself that crit immunity is really really helpful, even for dex based characters makes you tank much better. These that understand how huge of difference it makes will understand that this is way too overpowered.. If you want crit immunity, make palemaster or shapeshifter... DM has been working on making PMs stronger, even added elixir of death(even through you can only buy single potion)

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werehound wrote:

I am firmly against critical immunity being removed from spell caster staves, it's too crucial wiht caster low HP. However, I see what GP is saying about timestop immunity. I propose an item that you can collect in D16, much like the timestop clock, that will make you immune to time stop.

hmm you may be right about not removing critical immunity from staves... d16mobs already do high dmg, add critical to it and you have one hit K.O.
so than have another orb in Dragon Lands that would grant wizard/sorcerer timestop immunity. There still has to be something done with templars.

im aginst removeing immun crit from anything we need that. it would make the server way harder and i think the set bonus could be rased stat wise and i would oalso like to find set items easyer ppl like me who dont get to play vary much have a vary hard time geting them but debuffing items would be to harsh to the ppl who are on the server

Vorbags wrote:

im aginst removeing immun crit from anything we need that. it would make the server way harder and i think the set bonus could be rased stat wise and i would oalso like to find set items easyer ppl like me who dont get to play vary much have a vary hard time geting them but debuffing items would be to harsh to the ppl who are on the server

Most of the dungeons is easy enough. You can get throughout up to d12 wearing noob set, or no items at all. While d13-16 is gradually harder, but just getting few resistance items is enough to get passed them up to Deep Dark(D15)... That's where you have to start playing around with gear and getting best items with resists found in D9-14 and than there's no way you won't survive Deep Dark. So i already explained why nerf things and i don't think there's a need for me to repeat myself.

I STILL STAND WITH MY ARGUMENT

Re: Crit immunity:

I am personally against any item that grants critical immunity. Even for casters. Caster are supposed to have low hp, deal with it. That's why you get epic warding. And it's also why you should play with a PARTY of people, and let the tanks deal with getting hit, and accept the fact that you are squishy. And that gets me to my next point...

Re: Party play:

I think the whole failure that is causing all these issues is the fact that party play is essentially discouraged with the way the server is set up, due to reasons already mentioned. When there's no party play, people feel the need to be able to do EVERYTHING to be successful, and in fact it may become a requirement that you're able to do so to be successful in dungeons. Of course it's sometimes hard to find a party, and there should be areas where it's possible to play solo as a variety of player types, but the most challenging (and fun!) adventures can be in groups.

In well designed mods I've played (all of which encourage party play), there are clear expectations for characters that fulfill well-defined roles, and it benefits the balance of the server. For example:

Tanks: you can have high ac, high hp, good saves, and maybe some nice damage reduction and/or crit immunity (from PM or Shifter shapes). You might not be great at killing things, but that's not what you're made for, leave that to the paladin/RDDs or whoever. Monsters might not hurt these tanks much, but these tanks in return don't hurt them much either.

Damagers: you can have great AB and damage, and possibly great crits and/or sneak attacks. However you probably have not the greatest AC and are not crit immune. You may have made sacrifices to HP and/or DR in favor of AB and/or damage.

Support: you can heal and buff your teammates, be it with cleric/druid spells or bard song/buffs. You can also debuff enemies (ie bard curse song), and selectively take out or weaken key enemies more easily than others (ie with implosion, silence, or taunt). You may be a little squishy but you're not on the front line, and you can do damage if threatened. You might attack with ranged weapons while not healing/supporting your teammates. You also may be great at disabling traps and/or picking locks to help the party out.

Caster: you excel at DPS or insta-killing specific enemies, but you're squishy and should stay off the front line. You have warding and defensive shields for short term survival, but you need to let the tanks/damagers stay on the front line. You can disable enemies and debuff them, making them easier targets for the other classes.

Successful builds are those that do well in multiple categories or supremely well in a single category, but in well-designed balanced worlds, no single character can ever be great at every facet, and no single character type can kill every single enemy as easily as others.

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The problems with this mod as I see it is that it badly breaks many of these facets of gameplay.

Casters: Due to dev crit being enabled, basically every high level enemy has fortitude saves that make any fort based spell useless (btw, the maximum useful DC that a player caster can have is DC 45, so it's somewhat ridiculous seeing enemies with ref/fort/will saves of 63 or something). Combine that with enemies with improved evasion, and casters basically are forced to use IGMS or other no-save spells as a result (icestorm). In a party play server (without stupid dev crit), some enemies can have reasonable saves that allow casters to insta-kill with some success, or deal out nice DPS with nukes. Also, on a server where spells hurt teammates, you can't use those spells without potentially killing your teammates, so what's the point?

Support: with +10 (or supposedly +15) AC and enchantment gear, basically unlimited healing potions, all kinds of immunities on items, who do you really need to support? As a bard, who really needs your +3 to damage from bard song when they have a weapon that adds 2d8 +15 + 15d8 damage already? You can curse song enemies to lower their AC by 5, that's cool, but lowering their saves by 2 or 3 is pointless when they have saves 20 points over the max DC a player can achieve Who needs +5 dodge ac from bard song if you have divine shield that lasts for hours, haste, boots with +6 dodge, and can just ask an NPC to make up the rest of the bonus anyway? You can buff people with spells, but they could also just go drink potions and stack them until they max every stat, it just costs a little extra cash. The only reason to support someone as a healer now is that they can keep fighting while you heal them, but when the mod spawns 2 times the enemies just because you're in a party, you've already made it twice as hard on yourself. You can do what seems to be the standard, just play together but not in a party (lame), but as a support character you wont get xp for kills.

Tank: with crit immunity on items, and 50/- resistance gear at higher levels, I bet that 4/- damage reduction from 20 barb levels seems easy to live without. Improved evasion? Why take 10 levels of rogue or 9 of monk when you can get it on an item? Pale masters... you're just making it expensive to heal yourself, the NPCs will hate you, and you'll be turned as undead... all for crit immunity which someone else can get on an item.

Damage: Why go for sneak attacks if everything is immune? Anyway, if you're not in a party, you're not flanking things anyway, so why bother? Sure you could be a shadowdancer and hide in plain sight, but any good DM will give most enemies True Seeing so players can't run just run by every monster up to the boss and farm the boss. Oh and before you get all excited about +4 damage from epic specialization, most enemies have physical damage immunity/resistance and your physical damage will be negated anyway, so might as well be like everyone else and make a paladin or cleric and get lots of divine might and divine favor that can't be resisted (divine favor / battletide / divine might damage *cannot* be resisted, even if the enemy has 100/- magic and divine resistance). Oh and don't forget about the weapons that give you +90 damage on hit, so what's +4 damage anyway. Playing a Ranger? I bet that +5 to damage on *some* enemies is looking pretty pathetic now... If you're wielding +20 weapons, who cares if you can cast prayer for +1 ab/damage. Also who cares if you get dispelled a little?


On most servers out there, a pure Paladin/Fighter build would be a joke. The 4 ac you lose by not taking a class with tumble would normally be important, as would the evasion you're probably picking up as well. The strength and AC you lose by not being an RDD would be important, or the survivability from PM would mean something. You can self buff a little, but not very well in terms of AC, you don't have keen edge, flame weapon, etc. You can't self heal like a cleric can. The only reason it works here is the insane gear you get by going that route. When there's gear that makes up for pretty much everything that different classes can give you, all you do to design characters is look at your available gear and decide which classes to level up so you can use the sweet gear. When you can easily hit the +20 cap to AB, it makes no difference whether or not you can self-buff a little (ie divine favor or bard song), and if you have a party member that can help you get that extra advantage (ie bard song +2).

There are some REALLY COOL FEATURES TO THIS MOD, don't get me wrong!!!!! The attempt to buff Barbarians, the enhanced spells, all the VERY cool dungeons, and the crafting ideas are really cool!!! But there's a whole art to character design, and with all the uber gear floating around, it's pretty much a lost art.

It's only uber gear at uber character levels. I personally think the items are pretty weak until you get to D15 and D16. Character bonuses make a difference at the lower levels.

Unfortunately, NWN really doesn't have an effective character progression system (IMO) after level 20. Yes, they added levels after 20 and created epic classes, but spells are pretty much capped at 20. Levels greater than 40? Not supported.

I do agree the monsters have a lot of immunities at higher levels. That's corresponds to much greater character immunities/abilities. That does affect caster usefulness, and it's something I need to work a lot more to balance.

Sarah the DM wrote:

It's only uber gear at uber character levels. I personally think the items are pretty weak until you get to D15 and D16. Those character do bonuses make a difference at the lower levels.

Unfortunately, NWN really doesn't have an effective character progression system (IMO) after level 20. Yes, they added levels after 20 and created epic classes, but spells are pretty much capped at 20. Levels greater than 40? Not supported.

I do agree the monsters have a lot of immunities at higher levels. That's corresponds to much greater character immunities/abilities. That does affect caster usefulness, and it's something I need to work a lot more to balance.

I can imagine its a lot of work to balance everything, but right now its imbalanced. Even through items aren't as good as the legendary ones, you can get throughout from d1 to d13 with a noob set or just plain armor and shield. So even if there is no great gear for lower lvls, we are able to get passed all these dungeons easiely. To have a chance in D15/D16 we gotta stop and start farming for sets to have any chance there, but the items than are overpowered. If you are a templar there's no need for you to worry about tanking as u have that ammy, so all you have to care about now is getting right elemental resists.

ADDED: i changed my first post and made few adjustments.

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I suppose there's a place for solo play, and should be. It's not always realistic to be able to play in a group with other players at the same level. And I agree, the PvP rules make it more difficult, and also I agree that some people don't really know what to do in parties.

However I do think there's still a role for party play, especially for more challenging quests, and the rewards (both in-game and for the player) can be greater.