On Mental Attacks vs Incapacitation

[Balkoth]

Woo-hoo! You're all asleep so I have hours to fill this in with the proper text! Organizational stuff!

[Balkoth]

Except apparently I can't edit the previous post at all. Joy. I think this has been noted several times by more than just myself -- is there a reason that's disabled?

Last quote from Tara in the main thread:

From what i understand from severel of your posts one thing that truly vexes you are the mental attackforms of some mobs. More particularly the Fear and the Paralysation. WHereas I can apreciate the frustration I should clarify a few things and then explain why this will not change.

Firest and foremost the forge ( from level 10+ ) can give you immunity to fear and immunity to paralysation. Both attackforms can over time be totally "dealth with" for all classes.

Secondly and more importantly these attackforms are there for a very vital reason. Melee characters excells versus melee monsters and are weak against mental ones. Now we try to amke something lethal and feared for all classes and I find it a very lacking server if we dont try to challenge the melee where they are weakest. Imagine the chorus of complaints should casters start to argue for the blatant unfairness of how easy all the monsters kill them, compared to the melee classes once they get within combat range...

Another thing is various casters have various spells against these types of attack and if they are not ingame we would indeed indirectly "nerf" all casterclasses, more than they allready are considered our monsterbase's overall immunities or resists to both mental and death magics.

As for mindeffecting the lowlevel chests scattered all over the server have "Potions of Mental Fortress" which offers mindeffecting FAR longer than your clarity potions. ALso the spell clarity have had its duration doubled so even semicasters like bards can actually extend it and have it function for a fair amount of time.

All in all these attack types are easely dealth with for a minor diverse Group, someone spending time on forging items ( must be level 10+ admitably ) and in severel cases from "farming" the ancient treasure chests all over the server.

So let's break this down into at least two parts.

Melee vs Casters
One of the ideas you focused on was the idea that melee should be stronger against some monsters (and weak to others) whereas casters are strong against other monsters (while weak to still others). Or, in other words, a fighter has more problems with the Demonic Beguiler (uses many mental attacks) while the mage has more problems with the Demonic Shock Trooper (very strong physically).

I don't object to this general idea...but I also haven't seen it implemented successfully on most PWs. In fact, on most servers mages encourage monsters to melee them since they'll reflect 3 x level + 8 right back from Elemental Shield and Mestil's Acid Sheath (plus possibly more from Death Armor). At level 15, that means anyone hitting you (even for 1 damage) is taking 43 damage in return. And Clerics get the same AC a Fighter will (technically more, at least for a while, due to Shield of Faith and Magic Vestment).

But let's assume that in fact has been done and casters are suckers in melee (...even though they could also just go Autostill Spell in that case). Great. That brings us to...

Mental vs Incapacitation
Most "mental" attacks in NWN have two primary flaws.

1. their binary state
2. their duration

1. it doesn't matter if you fail by 1 or fail by 20, you're still fully affected. Is that different from failing a reflex throw? Yes, both because you can get more HP to counter it and because you're making a lot of throws. Even if you fail a reflex saving throw, you only take twice as much damage. But failing even a *single* will saving throw in these cases is a death sentence. But it doesn't have to be that way.

Look at Slow as an excellent example. If you fail a Will saving throw and get slowed...you suffer a major combat penalty but can still try to react. Compare that to failing a Will saving throw vs stun/paralysis/confusion where you lose all control of your character.

Or Daze as another example. You can't fight (literally) but you can still try retreat/heal/etc.

Imagine if Fear instead gave a penalty of 3 AB, 3 AC, 25% spell failure, and 50% more damage taken. If you get feared, then you have a major combat penalty. It's harder for you to hit stuff, easier for you to get hit, fail some of the spells you try to cast, and take more damage from all attacks. But you don't run around like a chicken with your head cut off unable to do anything.

And, of course, the people with protection against fear (and other mind spells) *DON'T* suffer these penalties. They're substantially more effective in combat in those cases. They're better than the melee types.

But it's not binary on/off switch.

2. the funny thing is, even seeing the dragon and running in fear for 6-12 seconds isn't the end of the world. Once you recover control, you can either flee or try to approach the dragon again (and thus save against fear again). The problem is when you're running around like an idiot for two minutes (which is what a level 20+ Dragon will do). Or paralyzed/confused for over a minute. Or stunned for over a minute. Fail a single throw and you're out of the fight.

Fail a Hold Person spell and get Paralyzed for a few rounds? Fine. Fail a Hold Person spell and get Paralyzed for a few minutes? Not fine.

But beyond those two points, we haven't even discussed things like non-"you lose complete control of your character" attacks. Imagine Ithilid Mind Blasts that do more damage if you fail a Will Saving throw (or a Beholder Ray or many other things). Or apply affects like decreased movement speed/stat penalties/damage vulnerabilities. There's many options.

I just would prefer something that's not "Yeah, you need to get complete immunity to these attacks and then you can ignore them forever."

Sources of Said Immunity
Chests are not a good source. This is for several reasons.

1, there's no guarantee you can even open the chests. More on this in the chests thread.

2, you don't find enough of them. At a minimum you'd need to not only find a chest, but find a chest that happens to have one of those potions every nine minutes. And unlike the mobs the chests seem to take a lot longer than 10 minutes to respawn so you can't even effectively "farm" them.

3, these chests don't seem to be in many zones. Which means if you need mind spell immunity that you have to go back to lower level zones in order to find those potions in order to go to the level appropriate zones. Now maybe I'm just missing a bunch, but I'm not sure I've found more than like...two...chests past level 10.

Regarding the forge, well, that's (literally) somewhat of a subject for another thread.

[tarashon]

Howdy Balkoth

Well I personally think you come up with either way more interesting points in this thread or I have just missed this "side of the story" when reading your previous ones.

What I basically get from this one is a tweaking of the "mind attacks" and more diversity in them. Well excellent idea !

I am not totally sure how to go about it but i reckon downding duration on various spells could be an option.

Here are some suggestions of mine of spell effects. See if you can find any spells that does this or can be tweaked to do this or similar. Or feel free to come up with suggestions of your own.

* Fear - 1d4+1 rounds.

* Slow - 1d4 + 1 rounds.

* Warrior's Bane - 1d4 +1 rounds - 6 STR, -6 DEX, -5 AB , -10 fysical damage - Mind save. All mind affecting counters.

* Mage's bane - Spellfailure 50%. Fortude save, freedom of movement counters.

Is there BTW a spell that removes SUMMONS but not FAMILIARS/COMPANIONS ? if not perhaps we should implement one since they gametechnicaly and classballance vice differ and I would like to treat them accordingly if we are goign to rethink lots of the mobs' special attacks/spells...

Many of these things might allready be there with ranged attacks, poisons, whatever. I just dont know it at this time.


If you can come up with suggestions in the line of these things I'm all giddy and GTG on implementing it

The overall concept of using characters weak sides but without insta- ( might be slow but certain ) killing them I can totally agree with. It also has the clear upside that if a characters sees 20 of these mobs he/she might know that they resist often and the debuffs/curses/whatevers doesnt last long but with that amount they will likely spell certain death jsut the same - Thus numbesr become more scaleables than luck/unluck with the dices. Good point !

/tara

[Balkoth]

I have just missed this "side of the story" when reading your previous ones.

I got the hunch that perhaps I wasn't explaining myself that well when you seemed be under the impression I was saying "ME SUPERIOR MELEE WARRIOR! ME SMASH EVERYTHING! ME WANT BE STRONG AGAINST EVERYTHING!"

What I basically get from this one is a tweaking of the "mind attacks" and more diversity in them. Well excellent idea !

Exactly. I'll think about the stuff you mentioned and post in a few days with ideas/analysis.

[tarashon]

Well Balkoth, you are'nt all wrong in your asumptions of how I, to some extend, interpreted your post regarding this particular isue.

Over the years ( back when the server ran before ) I have had an unbelieveable amount of suggestions, messages, complaints etc etc basically all boiled down to the fact that this or that person wanted their particular class/build to be "UBA PWN flying unicorn blabla"

So yes; I am usually quite wary when it comes to complaints or suggestions to either empower a given class or remove given obstacles - Occupational hazard of sorts I suppose

Besides when I myself am purely player on some server in whatever game I myself am focused on the strenght and weaknesses of my class so I can apreciate the feeling that leads to these "less than objectively ballanced" suggestions at times. Besides I am not allknowing myself so I too struggle with finding some sort of ballance with the classes etc.

Regardless I'll be lookign forward to your sugegstions on this matter. Just be sure to describe in minute details how the individual powers are supposed to Work etc.

/tara

[Balkoth]

Haven't forgotten this, just what I say will greatly depend on the outcome of discussions in other threads.

[tarashon]

I have a vague hunch the whole forge debate might be one of those threads

/tara