Shattered Kingdoms

quick and easy fixes to several trash classes to get them from dumpster status to competitive

general changes
- dulrik already made a good start w/ haste and speed not stacking
- prone does not reset stance
- willpower saving throw vs aura of negation (not needed but this is for vocal complainers like edoras and whinedric)

swash
- hedgehog stance now increases armor instead of removing attacks/increasing parry and riposte chance (giving the equivalent of tanso steel or thereabouts)
- heckle/taunt combined into one skill that uses the lag/delay of heckle. taunt no longer prevents retreat, fleeing, or recalling. (taunt component is anti-caster reducing int and the heckle component is anti-melee reducing accuracy)

scout
- gain retreat
- skins come with one resist type (fort, will, or reflex) and the amt is based on level of the skin (starting at 1 and going as high as 3 for god-like quality skins)

warlock
- cast time of magma spray reduced by 50% (cuz bypassing mp ended the game like darknublet predicted)
- cast time of cone of cold reduced by 33%

Gonna move this to Gameplay.

I like everything about this post 100%.

Magma needs to ignore racial magic damage resistance, which would fit with it ignoring mp...

Also less NPCs need to be immune to warlock damage.

Elementals mirror the attributes of their summoner, why not also mimic their saves too.

ignoring all mp would be consistent, but the real issue with the spell is the cast time. back in the day, it used to be a little over a round cast time and warlocks were actually scary. now it's over 2 rounds cause people like darknublet swore up and down that warlocks would dominate the game if it bypassed mp.



not sure they need that. would like to see the summon timer go away. just limit them to one elemental at a time, but if it dies or gets dispelled - they can summon another immediately. the cast time on the spells is prohibitively long so there is no real way to "game" the system.

this is a good thread.

This is a good thread, but I think it's worth pointing out that most DnD systems wind up being unbalanced. If all classes did the same thing, there wouldn't be any meaningful difference. As long as they do different things, some of those things will be better than others.

Defense (tanks, healers) is always going to be more useful than offense. A party can't live without a tank, a healer, enchants, and will function a lot better with consumables- scrolls, potions, herbs, ammo, etc. A relatively short list of classes dominate these functions.

Warlocks, MR barbs, necros and rogues are all 'bad' because they are damage classes. Pretty much every class has some way to do damage, even those that also offer essential services such as tanking, healing, enchanting and consumable production. I think all of these classes can solo PK, but they have trouble 'fitting in' to a group because they don't really support the group in any way- they just blast the enemy.

There's nothing -wrong- with blaster classes, but they need a tank/healer with enchants and consumables to hold up a wall in front of them so that they can blast over it if they want to function in groups.

Swashies just suck because Dulrik hates them. They are a one trick pony, and I see no reason why they are better at their one trick than mercs or barbs, who also get other tricks, like polearm, retreat and bow.

Paladin and hellion suck because they are identity crisis hybrids. There are two ways of looking at a paladin or hellion.

1. A merc with no bash, no trip, no specialize, no eparry, no 4th attack, no bow, no retreat, no rallying cry, a smaller hp pool and less physical stats due to competition from mental stats.

2. A priest with no heal, no resurrection, no consecrate, no gate, and weaker mental stats due to competition from physical stats- OR, a necromancer with no finger of death, no sleep, no create / control undead, and weaker mental status due to competition from their physical status.

However you cut it, that's not that attractive. So, what do they offer? Bolt of glory, which wrecks necromancers and hellions- both B classes- and evil priests and deep-elves, which is good, but I'd still rather be a merc or a priest. Hellfire, which wrecks centaurs and elves, both B races. Cleave, which is pretty good, but I'd still rather be a merc or a necro.

If you want these classes to be good, they need more useful 'unique' abilities to make them more than just castrated merc+priest/necro sandwiches.

A perfect version of balance in a game is rock, paper, scissors. Where one has a obvious advantage over another in a certain case and disadvantage in another. Problem is we have more then 3 classes and some of these scissors are built like rocks. basically sucking at both.

The presence of 'rocks, paper, scissors' dynamics are big parts of why elf, deep-elf, half-elf, sprite, centaur, hellion and necromancer are mostly avoided by vet players.

I think deep-elf is the only remarkable exception to this, and that's because some people are willing to put up with so many weaknesses to have 25 int. Syn doesn't seem to think it's worth it for a sorceror.

All good race/class combinations involve not having a glaring weakness that will be exploited over and over again.