This isn't exactly a new server, ya know? We've been collecting rules for a while now. If something hasn't been written into the formal rules by now, then it's not a rule. If/when it becomes a rule, it will be announced and written.
_________________ Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026 Character Portraits!
Wish i could find where it was written.. is it on the description for the item? Maybe it was just a DM ruling at one point in another question thread. Alas as i recall it was, if you use your Flight/Shadow jump to get to an unreachable place to PvP others or exploit monsters, you will get it taken away. Same rule went for placeables too, like barricades and tents and stuff.. use an item that can't be bashed, to block a path, or to exploit the AI, and you can expect to have it taken away. All seems like common sense stuff to me, you can still be cheap with flight/shadow jump, make the other guy walk a loooong way around. Just no unreachable spots..
This isn't exactly a new server, ya know? We've been collecting rules for a while now. If something hasn't been written into the formal rules by now, then it's not a rule. If/when it becomes a rule, it will be announced and written.
No such thing as unwritten rules. That neglected topic in IA is specifically for codifying these supposed rules into writing. If something gets asked there and not updated into R&L or the in-game journal (or whatever third place there might be), it hasn't been decided yet. DM rulings in miscellaneous forum topics don't really count as authoritative in the long term, either. A rule must be something that any new player can find and point to given ten minutes of looking.
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On Joon, Kjetta wrote:
The guy that probably has sexual fantasies about masturbation. I mean, Iron, you're a bookworm nerd that even in your wildest escapism fantasies flee to the internet to play the role of another bookworm nerd? Come on!
If it's legal to get up to places (and now thanks for flight and SJ being feats, impossible to go through walls) it should be legal to attack from them.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
Last edited by Kamina on Sun, Jan 19 2014, 12:53 PM, edited 1 time in total.
It says in both the forum Shadowjump lore and in the book in-game.
I'm all for people getting Shadowjump stripped for doing either of those two things, as you can not physically perform these actions and definitely your tutor needs to say this.
Flying, however, I believe should not be taken away as it's using, you know, your wings.
o.o
Alright, I don't play a shadowdancer, but that is... well... I just didn't knew that part.
Ignore that, I mistook CAN instead of CAN'T, they are legally allowed to get airborne from the Jump.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
The fact the paragraph started with "can -not-" made me assume it was still saying you can't do pitfall or cliff-climbing jumps. Guess I've been holding back all this time!
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
It's not. You can go above, fine, just not to attack players/monsters. It is an exploit, as they have no means to get back at you (which they may well reasonably be able to) and will likely see it's removal (unless our rule on its changed) - as we have done, in the past.
_________________ Signature by Maryn! <3 I am also seen as DM Snuffles.
Yeah I thought about the argument of "well your ranged damage will be shit anyway and the opponent can just run off" except not everyone has shitty ranged damage, especially considering the number of save-or-suck arrows available. The advantage of shooting someone unable to shoot you, even temporary, can make a huge difference in a fight since you can just relocate again and continue.
SDs and wingers get the cool stuff with the proviso that it isn't used to affect PvP greatly - it helps that they're both useless for melee because as a full-round action it leaves you parked there while the enemy gets their turn.
If that's a rule, I've broken it several times. If I had been stripped of the shadowjump feat for breaking a rule that I had no way of knowing about, I'd have been seriously pissed off.
Rules need to be posted.
_________________ Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026 Character Portraits!
It's not. You can go above, fine, just not to attack players/monsters. It is an exploit, as they have no means to get back at you (which they may well reasonably be able to) and will likely see it's removal (unless our rule on its changed) - as we have done, in the past.
Can this be posted as a rule someplace? Or, could it be potentially revised?
I would argue that it is not an exploit, as this is an ability legitimately gained through RP. It could certainly be used to kill off mobs without the melee mobs getting back at you, but this would only work for 1 spawn each jump, since you'd have to get down to spawn more mobs. You could do it 4 times in a rest, 10 times for greater jump, which makes it seem like it couldn't actually be used to that much of an advantage in PvE. In PvP, of course it would be an advantage, but the opponent could just get out of line of sight and they're safe.
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Last edited by Gobbledygook on Sun, Jan 19 2014, 13:23 PM, edited 1 time in total.
How is it a bad rule? You are allowed to go 'up above' fine in normal circumstances. But if you're using it to mitigate /any/ chance of being in danger when whatever could.. crawl/dig/latch up or is unable to fire/spell back due to Line of Sight issues... then I'm sorry, its an exploit.
_________________ Signature by Maryn! <3 I am also seen as DM Snuffles.
Because the jumper would never be in no danger. Anyone who the jumper could shoot at could pull their own bow and shoot right back. Line of sight goes both ways, either both parties have it or neither one does.
_________________ Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026 Character Portraits!
And I would argue that, if the flyer/jumper can simply walk back to leave line of sight, the one being attacked can move toward the cliff to leave theirs.
However, this doesn't bode well for characters who do not possess ranged weaponry.
Personally, I'd say it's only "abused" when the character is using it to grief players without legitimate reason. If there's PvP, there's no holding back.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
but the opponent could just get out of line of sight and they're safe.
The ability to unassailably cover an area may not mean much when the objective is just "kill the other guy" but it's a massive tactical advantage in a wide variety of situations - people forget how complicated combat gets when it's more than a 1v1. The fight is basically over and even if the opponent is able to flee, the mover can freely give chase and harry ad nauseum. Realistically, the defender should have some recourse to pursue but the limitations of the module prevent it.
If you want to escape PvP that way, no one's stopping you. Legit. But shooting from that point becomes a problem. Well, you can either argue that shooting back is plain imba (as I do) or that shooting back is pointless (in which case it's a waste of everyone's time, so why is it so important to have the right anyway?), I don't really see a middleground.
Liz wrote:
Because the jumper would never be in no danger. Anyone who the jumper could shoot at could pull their own bow and shoot right back. Line of sight goes both ways, either both parties have it or neither one does.
No one is balancing for situations where the jumper is stupid enough to shoot at a superior ranged attacker. Being able to force the combat to take place at range entirely is a tremendous tactical advantage (especially since, because of the way the mechanics work, there is a significant number of PCs who cannot adequately function at range, period)
You need to weigh the slight mechanical advantage (which requires heavy investment in sub-optimal classes, mind you, or a request) against the immersion-breaker of not making use of the one obvious IC advantage (high ground/strategic positioning) that the abilities can give you. The abilities are already subject to complex rules just barely justifed with made-up lore (oh you can't fly over a fence because you don't see your landing spot!). They're straining our suspension of disbelief as is. Any restriction and additional rule that isn't absolutely necessary to keep the game fair and fun is prima facie bad and to be avoided. The more we can strip unneeded etiquettes, the better. We're all quite tangled in the mess that is Amian rules and regulations, and it gets worse by the year. This is a bad trend. We should strive in the opposite direction.
If what you can do in a few rounds without retaliation is the key issue here, we need to realize it also applies to jumping up and down accessible areas that you need to take the long way around to get to. If I can jump up a cliff in the Crags and shower you with arrows, and the issue is that a round or two of not getting out of range/into range can be decisive, it does not matter that they can walk to the other end of the area and take the slope up when you can just rinse and repeat.
Rigela: If one isn't in the line of sight of the other, can the other still see the one? Is it actually possible to stand on a cliff and target legitimately with your attacks, and not be visible to the victim? That's a bit of a problem, I suppose, but not much of a one. Nobody can reasonably dig their way into a hill in the few rounds that is PvP here, and if they think they are capable of climbing, they should get a widget for it.
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On Joon, Kjetta wrote:
The guy that probably has sexual fantasies about masturbation. I mean, Iron, you're a bookworm nerd that even in your wildest escapism fantasies flee to the internet to play the role of another bookworm nerd? Come on!
Unfortunately, many of the tile sets do not work like that, Liz, or you can just 'step back' before they respond and harass. There are some where you can 'abuse' the mechanic of being either hard to target/or NWN's silly path finding will screw you over. Plus, monsters are likely to just run head first into the bottom of the cliff to try and climb up with their face.
If you are just accessing area's someone has to 'run around' to get too, that's fine however! It's just for area's where the monsters/PC's physically can't get to you
Yes, the one being attacked could flee, but putting yourself in a situation where the other person has pretty much no way to get back at you, is just bad.
_________________ Signature by Maryn! <3 I am also seen as DM Snuffles.
I'm against OOC rules that make zero sense IC. If you can jump or fly out of reach, then you sure as hell will be able to fire arrows at whoever is stubborn or dumb enough to remain in range. If these 'teleportation' abilities had infinite uses, then I might consider it more of an issue. I hate to sound banal, but this is a roleplaying server, guys. You're supposed to roll with the punches IC instead of going [OOC] YOU CAN'T DO THAT!...
What doesn't make IC sense is that a PC with thirty levels of experience who faces deadly traps and fierce monsters on a regular basis is stymied by about ten foot of solid rock because the system doesn't include anything concrete on jumping, climbing and ballistics. That spellcasters consistently fail to learn or memorize "Dimension Door" with the knowledge that they may face SDs/flyers without y-axis limitations and that such a spell may prove to be tactically essential in such circumstances.
If you want to make it entirely fair, non-SDs/flyers should totally get access to all of those things.
If it's against monsters, there's only a very limited amount of times you can do this, and you'd have to go back down to spawn the next group anyway. It's not worth the time to do it, and even if it was, it would be the same outcome as if the character had killed them anyway, just less risk. Line of sight can be broken around corners in the same way as it can be up on a hill.
Against players, there are many counters to this. You could throw a grenade-like weapon, use a spell which targets the ground at the top of the hill, use a ranged weapon, take cover to break line of sight, or flee.
Other abilities of characters only have one counter, for example a barbarian's terrifying rage. Mindblank, or be set to feared status by an incredibly large DC. The easy explanation for this is 'everyone can use a Mindblank potion'. Well, everyone can find a counter to Shadowjump too.
Monsters are just pretty likely to try to faceclimb cliffs whether there's a ramp up or not. NWN is just stupid that way.
So, let me ask this, then, since this has happened to me in the past as well: if my SD jumps up a cliff to get away from a fight, but the person I'm running from pulls a bow or a spell and keeps the PvP going, am I a rulebreaker if I fight back from up there? If yes, then this rule is basically the worst rule ever.
_________________ Winner of Amia's "Most Ethical Time Traveler" award 2026 Character Portraits!
Hang about before people get peeved - isn't a hemp rope an auto-cliff jump for any sod? And if it's 'down' only - can't you add a grappling hook to the module?
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Man, this account is over 10 years old. Where do I get my old man beard?
It also has height restriction and will not work well against a jumperflyer who's on a cliff across an impassable area, unless you make Grappling Hooks do what jumping/flying does, making those skills defunct and the server more like a Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time speedrun.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Location: Down South and Bent Edge
What really should happen is that Shadow Jumping, now that it's a feat, and still a round action I believe (?), could be interrupted by taking damage, a straight up concentration check if you will. If that occurred I wouldn't care if you jumped up onto a ledge to fling arrows at me because I'd at least have some method of preventing you from actually doing so (unless you were a Bard/AA/SD then I'd probably cry because you'd kill me).
I don't really know though, for all I know it is interrupted by taking damage, I've never really played an SD after all.
_________________ I play: Gage le Gris Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor
I'd only be fine with the above if it happened to Flying as well.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
Joined: 04 Sep 2007 Location: Down South and Bent Edge
It's the same principle, you need to concentrate to get aerial, if someone hits you for 130 damage critical whilst you are preparing to get aerial I somehow doubt you are going to do so.
_________________ I play: Gage le Gris Socially and recently politically Inept Knight of Xymor
How does one "learn" how to fly if their PC is something that should already know? Adapt the RP to "learn to fly in strong wind" or "navigate the island" or something like that? Some races and creatures are kind of implied flying, like Avariels and shifter forms.
What really should happen is that Shadow Jumping, now that it's a feat, and still a round action I believe (?), could be interrupted by taking damage, a straight up concentration check if you will. If that occurred I wouldn't care if you jumped up onto a ledge to fling arrows at me because I'd at least have some method of preventing you from actually doing so (unless you were a Bard/AA/SD then I'd probably cry because you'd kill me).
I don't really know though, for all I know it is interrupted by taking damage, I've never really played an SD after all.
This wouldn't be appropriate for Shadowjump, because Shadowjump is a supernatural ability.
Pardon me, but flight as it stands sucks in PvP. There's no denying this. The animation just takes far too bloody long to trigger, and forces you go to flatfooted, and furthermore it's a full round action, so...
If you are mid-combat; you have to wait for a new round to -try- to fly away, and end up flatfooted for from 3 to 9 seconds. I've died more than just a couple of times in that period of time. If you are trying to get to combat; you have to wait for another round to attack your target - another 6 seconds you could be flatfooted just staring at your opponent. You can even die mid-flight, and there's a bug in which your character never reaches your other side. You literally end up nowhere and need to relog to fix this.
Seriously. The only reason for which I asked this...
Ice wrote:
Small question: Modifying the Flight feat would require a HAK update?
... was because I can think in a few little adjustments we could make to it.
Joined: 20 Apr 2008 Location: The downeaster "Alexa"
A concentration check would be fine on either, but Flight is and should be kept a little different from Shadow Jump.
Instead of a set limit of 5 per day, I would rather see Flight become infinite, but with a cooldown like DD breath. Constitution would lower the cooldown the same way, as higher Con would equate to being able to recover faster.
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You think Magic is your ally... but you merely adopted the Art. He was born in it. Molded by it. Sometimes, an angel is simply a devil with better intentions.
How would one make a character that used an Atlatl? Darts in nwn are nowhere near good enough damage wise to showcase this neat thing!
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The Peacock wrote:
[GreatPigeon] is better than me.
Uncle-Opustus wrote:
Just before I fall asleep, I like to pretend it's just a public feat so Pigeon can succeed in politics and save the world from poverty... with his unicorn and shining armour and Excalibur.
1) What happens if I attempt to add a mythalled power to an in-mod item that obviously exceeds the powers I could mythal myself? Example: if I tried to mythal +2 Strength to a Cloak of Fortification +4
2) Can the mythal system be used to change stats on an in-mod item that exceeds the number of powers the forge would allow me to create? Example: let's say I find a suit of Full Plate +4 with +2 Str & regen +1 (Phoenix Plate?) & I want to change the +2 STR to +2 WIS
I assume these types of things would need to be DC items & it's a given that some in-mod items will be more powerful than what players can create...but it doesn't hurt to ask
1) What happens if I attempt to add a mythalled power to an in-mod item that obviously exceeds the powers I could mythal myself? Example: if I tried to mythal +2 Strength to a Cloak of Fortification +4
2) Can the mythal system be used to change stats on an in-mod item that exceeds the number of powers the forge would allow me to create? Example: let's say I find a suit of Full Plate +4 with +2 Str & regen +1 (Phoenix Plate?) & I want to change the +2 STR to +2 WIS
I assume these types of things would need to be DC items & it's a given that some in-mod items will be more powerful than what players can create...but it doesn't hurt to ask
1) It tells you that you cant 2) you cannot exceed the power, even if the item already does.
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The Peacock wrote:
[GreatPigeon] is better than me.
Uncle-Opustus wrote:
Just before I fall asleep, I like to pretend it's just a public feat so Pigeon can succeed in politics and save the world from poverty... with his unicorn and shining armour and Excalibur.
Do shfiters have to return to their normal form before assuming another? Or can you go from wyrmling to drider and stuff? I don't see why not, just wondering if there's an official 'thing' about it.
Secondary question: Does MG work with shifters? Can you MG to use 2H and shield, then shift and have it all merge?
_________________ Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play: Salema Nefahri::A penny for your thots Zrae'a'stra'fryn::That which nightmares are made of Khasir::From the East a storm is coming
Due to the nature of MG, -I don't think- it is possible, since you are mechanically polymorphing inside a form twice, like going inception on shifting. EDIT: Misread! What you said should be possible, mechanically wise, maybe.
Do shfiters have to return to their normal form before assuming another? Or can you go from wyrmling to drider and stuff? I don't see why not, just wondering if there's an official 'thing' about it.
Secondary question: Does MG work with shifters? Can you MG to use 2H and shield, then shift and have it all merge?
First question: IC you can go straight from one form to the other, without reverting to original form. Mechanically you can't, so if you're trying to remain anonymous whilst changing shapes then using Thousand Faces is a good idea to mask your original form with some other one.
Monkey Grip works. Would transfer across the same way, because it all gets based on what is currently in slots.
Nifty! I don't really care about masking identity so far, I just like to RP a fluid movement from one form to another unless I'm going back to human on purpose. So that's good to know :3
_________________ Whomst've'll'd'mn't I play: Salema Nefahri::A penny for your thots Zrae'a'stra'fryn::That which nightmares are made of Khasir::From the East a storm is coming
Does casting Light on a PC constitute an hostile action? Is an unasked for buff, in general, a potentially hostile if you haven't been warned previously?
I think the former does because it inhibits certain abilities for certain classes and I don't think it's straightforward to get rid of it.
In the case of the latter those spells are marked as harmless so strictly speaking it's not hostile, but since PCs can take offence at anything they want it could result in a warning or pre-PvP (as in it can constitute grounds for acceptable PvP BUT they are still required to give you an out).
When playing a sneaker, it's entirely viable to allow the casting of light to be a hostile action, as having light cast on you gives you a penalty when in stealth mode.
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"Operating in the border between light and darkness, shadowdancers are nimble artists of deception. They are mysterious and unknown, never completely trusted but always inducing wonder when met"
When playing a sneaker, it's entirely viable to allow the casting of light to be a hostile action, as having light cast on you gives you a penalty when in stealth mode.
So casting light on an SD gives them legal grounds to retaliate, yes?
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We've been collecting rules for a while now. If something hasn't been written into the formal rules by now, then it's not a rule. If/when it becomes a rule, it will be announced and written.
