changes.....

sarah just wondering if yer goal is to make it imposible to survive.... not critisism just wondering wat yer vision is.

I agree with Pugz. It's almost impossible to survive even D13 or D14 without an uber-build. I've almost stopped playing as I can never seem to build a toon that can solo these areas or beyond.

I returned to the original KT concept, which is to keep feats, skills, and spells effective. I'm still in the process of reducing monster ability scores to reasonable levels. There will also be a some monsters that will be virtually unbeatable unless you discover a way to gain an advantage over them. I also want more randomness in the monster spawns. The same creature may be easy one time and more difficult the next.

There should always be a risk of dying, but the penalties for dying are much lower than before. In other words, death is expected and unavoidable in some circumstances. However, in a resurrection and respawn world, death is not a catastrophe.

If there are particular monsters that you think are unbalanced, please post info on them here. I can't play test and program at the same time. Even if I play test, I don't have the time to try a variety of character builds. I need constructive feedback, so that I can target the problem areas first. In regards to D13 and D14, what particular aspects are too difficult?

I did solo run throughout D14 with 60lvl cleric/bard/rdd and it was pretty easy. I was using +12scimitar with 22-25lvl on hit, adamant armor(12ac), Drow shield, green belt, elder dragon boots, and blessed set. That let me reach 80ac and 66ab. The only damage reduction i had was 30cold(drow shield), 30 acid(blessed helm), and 15slashing and 10piercing(blessed set cape). SO i was pretty much down on the resistances.

I haven't died a single time. Trogloglytes were giving me hard time because i had to heal few times during a fight. I probably would have really hard time taking on 2 trogloglytes or even surviving fighting 2 of them. But than again, we players have an advantage over the monsters. We are capable of using our brain and thinking. where monsters are limited to do what they were programmed. That's why we don't charge in and take on 2monsters you know you can't tank. Also, in boss room, if a player is running around, its given they'll die, because vampire queens are fearsome backup for nosferatsu. That's why you just wait untill nosferatsu gets to you, don't move an inch, and fight him there.

A lot of the players die because they heal when they have 1/10 health left. you play the char, you know how much beating you can take. Calculate that and heal when you should so you won't die... I heal when i have 1/3 health left if monsters deal decent damage to me. Yes, if i would be tanking 2 toad demons, i would have to heal at 1/2 health, it all depends on the situation. But we players are capable of judging the situation in which we are in.


What's so hard about d13?? pirate clerics?? go to djinn and buy yourself ring of implosion immunity... Kama champions kill you?? they usually do magic damage, so get ring of magic resists from djinn, kama monsters deal slashing damage only... pirates deal slashing, unless they wield rapiers, get some piercing resistance gear. I personally don't have a problem with anything except pirate clerics because of implosion and i usually fail saves, depends what i am playing. I don't use ring of implosion immunity. Kamas die really fast, but they hit switfly, pirates hit for less, but they can take more damage in exchange.

thanks sarah for that reply i think it helped not just me but every one else see things from yer point of view. yes change takes time and we should all be patient. as for d13... its not to bad.. i personally love the kama camellions area to lvl in. the only thing i think r semi overpowering is the pirate captians but that is too be exspected after all the got to be captians... ive voiced my thoughts on d14 already. about that one vampire having dev crit. im gunna build up a new toon to test out d 14 in gear that a pre d14 key holder can use.. seems like all the testing has been done in d15 and 16 drops and wpns. and from there i will give u my constructive critism. o yea in d13 them damn dispell happy mages lol... grrrr

I apologize for the confusion caused by changes. It seems that all changes end up upsetting someone. When I log on and see players memorizing, storing, and using the same spell over and over in the same areas, I assume the spell is unbalanced.

For example, people were upset when I made it so that uber characters, ones who could run D16, couldn't farm D12. In D12, those uber characters weren't taking any risks, but they wanted to be able to loot. Fair enough.

So I change the loot restrictions so that D16 powered characters can loot D12. This creates new issues because the uber characters start camping areas I designed for characters who are equipped with D12 items.

D12 monsters are not designed to resist D16 powered characters, so the D12 monsters die easily. Then I notice players casting Undeath to Death over and over, destroying the D12 undead in mass groups. Granted, that's a great technique for farming lots of loot, but again, there's no real effort involved for the players and no real risk to them from it.

My goal has always been the same: to make modules that are always challenging but not impossible, to reward appropriately based on the risks taken. That is a very difficult goal to achieve.

So, yeah, I do alter things when I think they are getting unbalanced and that ends up upsetting the players who rely on those particular spells or techniques. On the other hand, I'm also always working to make things more balanced the other way. For example, I spend more time working to make weak spells useful than I do on making the overused spells weaker.

Changes do shift the ground under players who are used to playing a certain way, and I admit I'm not always the best at communicating these changes (to a certain extent, I prefer players find out and adjust on their own as that is more interesting than simply knowing the mechanics behind everything). The alternative is to just stop working on the module. It's playable as it is.

Sarah the DM wrote:

D12 monsters are not designed to resist D16 powered characters, so the D12 monsters die easily. Then I notice players casting Undeath to Death over and over, destroying the D12 undead in mass groups. Granted, that's a great technique for farming lots of loot, but again, there's no real effort involved for the players and no real risk to them from it.

I assume you are talking about my wizard Mana. You're a bit wrong on this one. Yes, it is an effective way of farming for items but there's not much to farm in d12 anyways. I was leveling in d12 crypts with Josh from 35 to 60. undead to undead was that effective only because i choose epic spell focus: necromancy which gives me 6 saves to DC. with 40lvl i hit max DC.it didn't increase past 40 even by 1 save DC which i wasn't unhappy because i thought casters were powerful past 40. Damage isn't the only power source of casters, its spell saves DC as well. Even when i took spell school necromancy i still had problems destroying the undead. Insane zombies and Town Guards had like 60% chance to be destroyed. While evil dead, deadite, and skeleton lords had no more than 20% to fail saves. Me and Josh were spawning max spawns possible for a reason. It was so that i wouldn't have to waste undead to undead on one or 2 town guards or insane zombies, because it is more effective to kill single ones with flame arrow. Even with max spawns, we were gathering together monsters so that i could destroy as much as possible with a single spell. This saved us time and i could walk around longer with no need to rest. Once again, this was possible only because i focused in spell school: Necromancy which gives me spell save DC of 6. that's a lot. I hope you understand now. I wasn't farming. Everyone that knows, uses that place to lvl up because its fast and easy to kill insane zombies and town guards even with melee's.

we def dont want to see u stop working on the mod. alot of us have enjoyed yer servers for many years. and i know id like to see where and wat u have in store for this one. when i created this subject i didnt mean to piss u off or n e thing of that nature. u have created a world that i play to get out of the real world. and i do enjoy it. keep up the good/hard work

I don't remember who was farming the Necropolis crypt, but a lot of players do it (including myself). I don't have anything against farming. There's nothing in the rules against it either. Some areas were specifically designed so that players could spawn more monsters. It only makes sense that one would try to gather as many as possible. Again, I have no problem with any of that.

I'm concerned with techniques that give an unusually high success rates. Instantly killing 2/3 of your foes falls into that. My rule of thumb for those types of spells is more on the order of 1 out of 4.

Bottom line: if you're gaining loot, the combat should be an appropriate challenge for the loot gained. If it's not, then I need to modify the area and/or spell to make it more balanced.

Yes I have played there many times but NOT for the loot, I play there to level my characters, I don't care if there is loot there or not.

I also played your servers because I enjoy your work and the people I have called my in game family, and to get away from the everyday hassles, out of all the servers out there we all come to kt cause we like and enjoy it.

God Bless you all. cya around!

hey sarah so on that note .... loot reflects the fight..... does that mean cure modeate wounds shouldnt drop in d16?

Let me clear something for you because you seem not to understand why i was able to destroy undead efficiently.

I could only do that with undead to undead for these reasons:
- Spell Focus: Necromancy (+2 Spell Save DC)
- Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy (+4 Spell Save DC)
- Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy (+6 Spell Save DC)
- Spell Penetration (+2 bonus to caster level checks to beat a creature's spell resistance)
- Greater Spell Penetration (+4 bonus to caster level checks to beat a creature's spell resistance)
- Epic Spell Penetration (+6 bonus to caster level checks to beat a creature's spell resistance)

This is what you call making a use of feats, skills. Because i choose to focus in Necromancy, my undead to undead has +6 DC higher than any other caster with this specific spell. My Maximized, Empowered and regular Undead to Undead with Epic Spell Focus: Necromancy have 43DC while any other caster that didn't focus in necromancy would have 37DC. Insane Zombie has 31 will saves, Town Guard has 36 will saves. You can see the difference in a chance to have a successful roll focusing in spells school or not. Therefore I don't want to be told its not right. I DID Take the necessary feats, so I am making a use of it. Its like wf, ewf and prowess, why not nerf everything else because they have higher ab. increase everythings AC so that you have 50% chance or less to hit them in combat. Melee characters outdamage casters, thats a joke. They don't have to repair their weapon, don't have a limit to how many times they can hit with a weapon in a day.

Anyways, that's the only place worth using undead to undead because any other undeads have too high Saves to even try doing that.

I did go to the crypts and tried undead to undead to check my DC and undeads spell saves and i noticed another thing. If a monster beats casters DC that spell doesn't work on them anymore. Sorry to say that but I am not playing my mage anymore untill this and bigby's issue is fixed. With the things that are this way I might as well go fight monsters with my staff with 2 attacks per round and try killing them off.

About Knockdown. I am against giving casters KD immunity just because they die if somebody gets close to a caster and KD the caster. Casters are supposed to stay in the backline, but if something can get close to them than that's their weak point.

Thank You for Your time.

i agree except for kd - example deadites ranged att kd . . . your dead lol.

El Gabardine wrote:

i agree except for kd - example deadites ranged att kd . . . your dead lol.

Seconded, and adding the vampiric bats from d12 with ranged touch atck
KD vs. spell casters esp. or any class w/o discipline as a class skill,
max ranks of 21-34 if you dump feats into it, the skill not is high enough to
stand up to it (quite literally). Pray for concealment to work, because if that bolt hits, it's game over.

Bigby bats before they can bolt kd you. Vampire bats have very low health anyways. empowered issac almost kills them, i think it could even kill them so that's not an issue. Deadites would be a problem but 2 empowered ball lightning kill it.
Since no character can have kd immunity, I am against making an exception just because casters are easily KD. Any Non str based have issues with getting KD because everything's Ab is insanely high that that 43 discipline is not even nearly enough.

Not asking for immunity, just a fighting (literally!) chance for dex based toons .

Not very monsters even have knockdown any more. I'd say about 10%. Bigby's is very useful against tiny creatures like bats. Monster ability scores are much lower (maximum only about 10 points higher than maximum achievable by players).

As for dex-based characters not having a chance, I don't understand the issue. Dex-based characters can get their AC as high as the strength-based characters, the strength bonus to damage is not a significant percent of total damage at higher levels (due to the custom KT weapon system), and dexterity based characters can get the feat that makes first hit an automatic miss (forget the name right now).

Dex based characters need to use the weapons that are valid for weapon finesse: short swords, rapiers, maces, etc. Most weapons don't work with weapon finesse to my knowledge.

Sarah the DM wrote:

As for dex-based characters not having a chance, I don't understand the issue. Dex-based characters can get their AC as high as the strength-based characters,

That there's the issue. DEX based characters, by definition, are supposed to have more AC than STR-based characters. IN fact, heavy armors should make a character easier to hit, just absorb more damage when it happens. As it is, Most Dexterity focused characters have "close-to" the same AC as a fighter character, but not quite... the +15 AC from Full plates (+8 AC base, +23 total, +1 DEX Bonus) is about equal to a character with 42 dexterity, the maximum bonus achievable is a player intends to get Epic Dodge (Automatic miss IF the FIRST attack of a round HITS, does nothing if it isnt the first attack of a round, doesnt apply to touch attacks, bolt effects, spells, etc -- requires base 30 dex, base 30 tumble, and some pre-epic feats). A Strenght based characters doesn't have to waste feats raising their AC to get it that high, whereas a dex-based character does.

Also, Dexterity AC is null/void if the character is flatfooted while being attacked, extra AC from armor is NOT (save dodge).

As it is, Being dexterity based is a waste of time.... It's hard to get your AC comparable to STR chars, you waste feats just making dexterity work for your AB, you lose feats to raise your defense, costing your yet more AB/AC (as is the case with Epic Dodge), your AB is lower (dex characters generally have a 3/4 AB modifier compared to 1/1 for most str-based classes, meaning 1 less attack and a natural loss of 5 AB). THe Damage modifer from a Strength Character is indeed noticible, Consider a strength character that has a strenght modifier of 18 (max without RDD, easy to get and conserve feats), that's +18 Damage each hit, and 36,54,64,80 damage on a critical (depending on the weapon).
Dex based characters have, at most, a +8 modifier (with +6 from items), and their weapons crit range tops at x3 (with WM), meaning MUCH less damage.

A dexterity based character has less AB than a strength-based character, and if they choose to use feats to raise the AB to a comparable level, they lose a butt-load of AC.

There's nothing to balance dexers from tanks.


As a mention to the KD Topic:

A caster with 480 (Completely and fully buffed, toughness and 12 CON) life gets hit by a KD bolt in D15 that does 168 damage, more on a critical, and then is KDed for 3 rounds is dead. Every time. Buffs don't matter.

A dexer has even less of a chance. 520-600 HP (buffed, 12-16 CON or 10-14 CON with toughness), gets hit by a KD bolt in D15 that does 168 damage and then is KDed for 3 rounds is dead due to the fact that their buffs don't exist, save some conceal from imp-invis items.

A Strength character that has a high discipline by definition (43+STR mod + skill foci) is bound to succeed in that KD check 99% of the time, if not 100% (touch attacks ignore the +20, +1 rules).

I'm dropping the maximum armor AC to +10 (some exceptions for vs. racial bonuses greater than that). This should help make dexterity-based characters more viable. The +15 armors (Rusty and Set of Faith) were drivers for higher monster to hit bonuses. With those +15 armors reduced to +10, the monster ability scores can be tweaked more (maybe even to the point where they miss occasionally).

I haven't yet programmed the change to apply to armor retroactively. I'll take a look at that so that new players, who cannot find the +15 versions, will have equal footing with the old timers. However, I also tweaked the new versions so that the lower AC is somewhat compensated for by better properties in other areas. The real challenge will be to fix the Set of Faith since I want to increase its set bonus DR but don't want better DR combined with the existing +15 AC bonus (set bonus changes apply retroactively).

I am working on a pure cleric and found some weaknesses of the class relative to the others. The cleric class should be able to melee and cast. But the gears a cleric can use don't have enough AC and damage reduction for protection, which forces the cleric to rely more heavily on summons than mages. At least mages can melee passively with acid sheath because they have the protection of epic warding and epic mage armor. Cleric does not have the luxury because his aura vs alignment is not yet scaled to level 60, and he doesn't have spells and gears for damage reduction a mage has. To make cleric more like a class being able to melee and cast, some cleric spells may need to be scaled to the max level of 60. For example:

Divine favor (scale AB and magic damage)
Aura vs alignment (scale damage)
Magic vestment (scale AC)
Implosion (scale DC)

Another aching thing of making cleric is that the class is short of spells/day throughout the leveling process until reaching 60 when he can use the uber set. As a casting class, it will be nice to have clerics do a staff quest like mages. It will solve the spell/day problem and add fun to the leveling.

Other cleric spells come to mind for melee (to ameliorate the poor item selection and to enhance the importance of cleric buffs)
Shield of faith (scale to 60)
Bark skin (scale to 60. Technically a druid spell, but a cleric can take it with the selection of the right domain)

I don't see anything wrong with implosion. It looks like it scales the DC based on caster level.

Shield of Faith was capped at a maximum bonus of +5. That limit is removed. Be aware that any changes will also affect the enemy clerics!

Thanks Sarah for the reply. It appears the implosion spell is only scaled to level 40. So after level 40 the DC of the spell is the same.