AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

It may simply be how a game based off of D&D works, but it's always felt to me like playing a melee PC is pretty flat and straight forward. Not even in a linear warriors, quadratic wizards way. Most of what you do as a melee-based character is click on a target and wait. Or chug a potion, click, and maybe spam KD for 6 seconds. Sneaks cornersneak and HiPS, dashing in and out of battle and picking off the weakest targets, casters are by and large making choices by the round, queuing what action they take next based on how the fight goes. And the cheese Fighter stands alone.

In addition, what you do get to choose as a melee-based PC seems either either meaningless or already determined by statistics. What version of pointy stick do you want to swing at your enemies? The only thing that matters is damage and crits. A polearm's range means nothing over a dagger. The fact that you're attacking a group of closely bunched enemies with a spear rather than a greatsword means nothing, because you only harm one target at a time as a melee PC. You are, in effect, nothing but a stat check. A running background equation to determine if what you're pointed at dies and when, based on AC, AB, Damage, and crits.

What can we do to make playing in melee more interesting and interactive? What sort of things would you feel would make for better gameplay when it comes to playing a character that uses melee? I would have put this in Improving Amia, but at this stage it's more about figuring out what could be done--if anything deserves being done--than putting out hard numbers. And this is not about recreating the Unreal Engine in NWN or turning us into a character action game, but doing real things that can make the game more dynamic and enjoyable for people other than nerds Casters and perverts Sneaks.

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For me, the issue is two pronged. Firstly, melee combat is static, even compared to P&P. There are many maneuvers and special attacks you can do in P&P on the fly. They're not just feats, they're available for everyone(though as they are usually based off of Attack Bonus, they obviously favor melee PCs). I feel that's an important distinction to make because while we do having things like Called Shot and Disarm in NWN, they're feats and not everyone has the space to take them. It's why I've gone on and on like a broken record about possibly using the Player Tools for such maneuvers. Being able to do more than stare at the screen and wait for when to drink a Heal potion would greatly increase my enjoyment of playing a melee PC.

Secondly, weapons don't seem to mean much beyond their damage stats. Yeah, maybe a few mobs have resistance to a certain physical damage(and there doesn't seem to be a cohesive narrative around what types and why), but weapon-switching isn't really feasible in NWN. As a meleer, you're going for Dev Crit, the cherry on top of the random stat-check that is your PC. That means you're only going to be at your best while using one weapon type. Really, it makes no sense to switch to another weapon and lose, what, up to 4 AB and 4 Damage and a chance to Dev Crit. You just have to slog through, adding even more to the frustration that is clicking and waiting while mofos are doing sick back flips and summoning demons behind you.

I'm not sure this issue can be solved as easily as the first. Even P&P does a poor job of representing what a weapon is capable of, if you ask your local SCA nut. Off the top of my head, something like collateral damage comes to mind. You can take a greatsword and swing it in the middle of an overflowing swarm of zombies and still only manage to hit one of those suckers at a time. Lolwut? Cleave and Great Cleave aren't good representations of this because they only apply when you kill a target. Honestly, I'd love to look at adding some sort of splash damage to certain weapons. Like certain slashing and long-handled weapons roll attacks against the two nearest targets for partial damage, and certain stabbing weapons roll against targets behind the first. Not only would this mean meleers finally can do something when it comes to AoE damage, but where you attack and from what position becomes important too.

persistent aoe damage would be busted on a WM or basically any high end damage. wizards run out of resources, a WM doesn't. I don't want aoe 200+ dmg crits off greatswords 5x a round.

this also requires scripting and balance work on a magnitude level that makes it prohibitive to ever accomplish. It's a pipe dream.

See, you say that, but the same was said about basically every large undertaking on Amia. In the end, it got done. Maybe not quickly or all at once, but it did. I don't get the point of constantly only popping in to say that things are impossible. Or to find the one extreme in any proposition that should make it impossible. You're a great devil's advocate, man, but I'd really like to see some ideas come out of this thread. "Pipe dream" or not, let's at least see what the discussion brings before writing it off, because it might bring us to another idea that is workable.

That said, I'll take your point at its face. What would you say is possible, though? The ideas I put forward were just that, ideas; I'm not particularly attached to any of them more than I am the end goal. That goal is what I stated in the first part, to make the game more interactive and enjoyable for melee PCs.

I've been on quite a few servers over time and seen some pretty interesting things done.

Some servers, in an attempt to get closer to pnp rules give every PC "feats" which are just free maneuvers in pnp. No matter if you're a wizard, you get KD, disarm and called shot right off the bat at level 1 because they're actually things everyone can do and attempt.

Other servers implemented "Weapon Styles" from some splat books, which are basically feats that let you do things if your weapons were the types prescribed. An example I remember using was if you dual-wielded maces, when you landed a crit, you got another attack. Another one was when using a halberd you got some dodge AC and other things. Another had a knockdown proc when you confirmed a crit while dual-wielding a light hammer/handaxe combo. It was a good way to encourage weapon diversity use.

The final approach I've seen is basically an "Epic Weapon" approach where each weapon type had an endgame representation to achieve. The server that did that made real nice weapons of each type you had to quest for. To keep weapon balance the mechanically "nice" weapons like rapiers and scimitars were nice, but rather bland while things like daggers and heavy flails had more or better powers.

Just some ideas.

I would be OK with it being on a restricted level, not just on a persistent level. Like Ki strike being an AoE cleave thing would be OK. Dirty Fighting being an AoE thing would be OK because you have less attacks, so it's like a slightly different Whirlwind.

Weapon Style would be neat to do, but again, it's a lot of work. All these big projects got done eventually because we still had dedicated people to do the work at some point. We no longer have that. If sheeler, suney, or maverick don't script it, we have nothing.

Melee RP can be interesting in the heat of heavy combat, too. Someone has to protect the ones who are more susceptible to damage, and the good melee fighter will have an eye on them to lend a hand, if they are rushed by an enemy. It's not just point and click for the front-liners, especially in DM events where there are lots more to deal with, that is, if you don't want your party wiped out (though if the DM *cough*Tarnus*cough* wants your party wiped out, it's gonna happen). I'm just saying it doesn't have to be boring point and click; if you want your character to be alert and useful, pointing and clicking isn't the way to do that.

TormakSaber wrote:

I would be OK with it being on a restricted level, not just on a persistent level. Like Ki strike being an AoE cleave thing would be OK. Dirty Fighting being an AoE thing would be OK because you have less attacks, so it's like a slightly different Whirlwind.

Ki Attack doing AoE damage actually makes a lot of sense, if we imagine it as a technique building upon WM's required feat Whirlwind Attack. You've got a set number of uses for it, it's not unlimited. It doesn't address the issue for other melee PCs, but that idea in itself may be workable.

I wouldn't rule out persistent, however. You somehow jumped to the image of a Greatsword user doling out full 200+ crit splash damage 5x a round, when I made a point of saying "partial" splash damage a little later on. I was thinking anywhere between 10%-20% depending on weapon type. I hesitated to put hard numbers on that though, because the second I do the nightmare scenario for those numbers get cooked up, rather than us actually having a discussion about the idea itself and figuring out what numbers make it work later.

And Kudark, I wasn't saying that there is no RP to be had in being a meleer. I'm saying compared to other playstyles, it's relatively flat. It's not that you don't have a place in battle or that you can't chose to be here or there in the fight, it's that once you're there it's mainly a waiting game. Switching targets isn't that intensive and in anything other than a DM event, AI is stupid(or meta-gamingly smart because of the detect AC function some have).

@MightNMagic, if you have any links to these servers, I'd love to see them. Those sound like some very interesting ideas.

Dark Immolation wrote:

@MightNMagic, if you have any links to these servers, I'd love to see them. Those sound like some very interesting ideas.

Ravenloft: PotM is one server, that one gave you the feats you could do in PnP for free without needing feats.

One of the Nordock servers had epic weapons/quests. (I think it was Lala land, but my memory might be wrong).

And I'm not 100% sure which server it was that had the weapon styles coded in, my memory wants to say Trials of Newcastle, but it was over 10 years ago now, I think...

I love the idea, but I know it would mean coding.

I've thought something should be done with Dirty Fighting for ages, and a weapon style would be awesome. Something like adding benefits to different types of weapons to represent their PnP counterparts. Perhaps:
Polearms (+X dodge bonus to allies within 10 feet, +X dodge bonus to PC on escaping AoO's),
Non-Polearm Two-Handers (automatic splash damage against grouped enemies on successful hit of target)
One-Handers (+1 or 2 ab for each attack sacrificed)

Just thoughts, you could run the gamut of doing things like skill bonuses (tumble on rogue weapons, intimidate on axes, etc), or granting DR for using dirty fighting (while you are under the effects of dirty fighting, you gain X/X DR for every attack sacrificed (or probably more fairly stated, every 5 bab over 5).

MightNMagic wrote:

Dark Immolation wrote:

@MightNMagic, if you have any links to these servers, I'd love to see them. Those sound like some very interesting ideas.

Ravenloft: PotM is one server, that one gave you the feats you could do in PnP for free without needing feats.

One of the Nordock servers had epic weapons/quests. (I think it was Lala land, but my memory might be wrong).

And I'm not 100% sure which server it was that had the weapon styles coded in, my memory wants to say Trials of Newcastle, but it was over 10 years ago now, I think...

Pretty sure Ravenloft has a thing where if you invest in parry and use a one handed weapon without a shield it gives you an AC bonus similar to tumble just for having the ranks in parry. Never actually tried it on the character I made there because he was a ranged fighter but I did find the concept somewhat interesting.

As a player who played a lot on POTM before I got in a fallout with its owner....I believe parry there gave +1 AC For every five ranks in parry. If I am not misstaken I think it was added with a shield to but im not sure. Either way even on shield bearers I was told to raise it. So might been a lower bonus or similar with a shield cause from a perspective of reality, you can still parry with the blade.

I'll also say the weapon reach/weight not really impacting performance always bothered me but I imagine any fix to that would take a long time and just feel awkward. It does lead to some annoying RP where because of mechanics I've encountered characters who genuinely believe a shortsword or scimitar is a superior weapon in any situation against any type of foe using any type of weapon which is blatantly untrue.

Also, I'm not hugely game-mechanic inclined but it always seemed to me that crossbows are crap compared to bows, which is again a thing where in reality that's situational, there are definitely situations where a crossbow completely outperforms a bow but I've never really seen anybody that goes ranged choose the crossbow.

That is because mechanically, crossbow is ugly. In NWN a short or longbow out performs it simply based on feats. Consider that you also cannot be an Arcane Archer with a Xbow either. Scimitar and Rapier are chosen merely based on critical threat range. Short sword, because it's piercing and rogues don't need to take an additional feat to use them. More people would use a longsword if the critical threat was higher, more would use a bastard sword or katana if it didn't cost an extra feat. Weight and impact is already factored into base damage, AoE is represented by cleave or whirlwind attack. I'm not sure what could really be done about reach as now you are messing with hitboxes.

Either way, I have to agree with Tormak here. If a scythe WM that routinely crit for above 300 starts doing steady AoE damage, you haven't broken the meta, you have broken the entire game. There would be no incentive to play anything else. The immediate fix would be to give the enemies more hp...which would make most other classes worthless. So. You then bump the damage output of every spell, summon and weapon in the module to keep up with a monkey gripped,300 Dmg spamming murder wagon.
I will agree that seeing rapiers and scimitars gets old.

thunderbrush wrote:

That is because mechanically, crossbow is ugly. In NWN a short or longbow out performs it simply based on feats. Consider that you also cannot be an Arcane Archer with a Xbow either. Scimitar and Rapier are chosen merely based on critical threat range. Short sword, because it's piercing and rogues don't need to take an additional feat to use them. More people would use a longsword if the critical threat was higher, more would use a bastard sword or katana if it didn't cost an extra feat. Weight and impact is already factored into base damage, AoE is represented by cleave or whirlwind attack. I'm not sure what could really be done about reach as now you are messing with hitboxes.

Either way, I have to agree with Tormak here. If a scythe WM that routinely crit for above 300 starts doing steady AoE damage, you haven't broken the meta, you have broken the entire game. There would be no incentive to play anything else. The immediate fix would be to give the enemies more hp...which would make most other classes worthless. So. You then bump the damage output of every spell, summon and weapon in the module to keep up with a monkey gripped,300 Dmg spamming murder wagon.
I will agree that seeing rapiers and scimitars gets old.

I like using odd or less commonly used weapons myself, just for the flavor of it. My main character uses a katana and one of my random alts uses a bastard sword, for instance. I did try to make a crossbow-focused character way back when but never levelled him far before I forgot about him in favor of events going on involving another character.

But yeah, I understand there's no real way to fix it, I also understand WHY people use the weapons they use its just the fact that those weapons are the way they are in the game makes people develop real life misconceptions of the weapons.

Scythes...scythes in NwN piss me off because there is a huge immersion breaking (for me) disconnect in the efficacy of scythes in game and the efficacy of actual scythes in combat.

i'd use a crossbow if AA could use it, and I didn't have to waste ever-precious feat-slots on rapid reload.

really the rapid reload is what kills it. feats are pretty important, and needing to drop a feat for flavor that's worse then the base version makes it an even less attractive option.

thunderbrush wrote:

Either way, I have to agree with Tormak here. If a scythe WM that routinely crit for above 300 starts doing steady AoE damage, you haven't broken the meta, you have broken the entire game. There would be no incentive to play anything else. The immediate fix would be to give the enemies more hp...which would make most other classes worthless. So. You then bump the damage output of every spell, summon and weapon in the module to keep up with a monkey gripped,300 Dmg spamming murder wagon.

I'd like to point out again that I was saying partial damage... against like 2 enemies. A Scythes 300 damage critical at 10-20% would do 30-60 damage to those nearest the target, provided the pc also beats their AC. Let's see, 300/4 to estimate a regular hit, x .10 to .20 would be 7.5-15 damage to two targets. About enough to beat Dr and cancel regeneration at endgame.

The idea may not work for any number of given reasons. But I'd appreciate if the concept wasn't talked about as some hyperbole it was never suggested as in the first place.

In regards to scythe efficacy in game vs real life... the phb tells you the hand form to cast burning hands, try comparing burning hands in game to IRL. This is why scythes don't bother me. They have a long history in fiction and that is where the rule of cool comes in.

As for melee combat being boring: I like to RP and type things out while I let the equations run. I have even found people like it and then they join in. Describing my character dodging or slicing the tendon of a trolls leg as I knock it down then jabbing my flaming blade into it's head to finish it off. (How I explain the sneak attack). I dunno I find ways to make it fun.

Well damn D.I. Sorry if I ran away with what you were trying to get at. What you are suggesting would require rewriting hard code, otherwise this wouldn't be a terrible idea. I'm not the most say at this and often have to resort to looking at data changes in a hex editor to find what I'm looking for..and then Google like a mad man until I find out what I am doing. That being said I will graciously not say it is impossible, just go out on a limb and say difficult. Unless there is a way to add AoE slash/blunt/pierce effects on the toolset. Which I don't think there is.

It's actually not that involved; you can hook the onattack event really pretty easily, and re-write it for cleave to work and use the damage types set as constants here, but there is already a cleave talent, and a great cleave one, so this is whole thing is kind of re-writing what cleave actually does in 3.5 or something. Either way, it seems like a buff out of thin air at first glance .. and one valid thing you wrote, it's re-writing core game mechanics.

As it stands, and has for as long as I've played (8+ years), melee does more dps than casters in the long run/and short run if you're good. This damage can be sustained infinitely without resting. This includes AOE, when you consider how they can basically 2-3 shot epic mobs and chain cleave.

Keep in mind that just because you're wildly swinging a weapon, doesn't mean you hit one harder than the others. And that certainly would hamper your defenses. What you are describing already exists in the monk/WM classes anyways.

Try as I might, every thought I have seems to lead down the path of making different choices more viable, and not making a basket of choices available for the melee character, which is what I think the original intent was... to sort of come up with a basket of options any melee character might employ in a given situation.

Random thoughts -

Perhaps exaggerating resistances for some critters might force other options to be considered? For example - Skeletons are 95% immune to pierce and slash.

I have some sort of thought that smaller weapons might be faster and yield more ARP than larger weapons. For example maybe daggers and small hammers get +1 APR while scythes get -1 APR?

I've always wished that the initiative rolls made a larger difference than they do, I'm not sure how to implement a change to that which makes a difference though.

we already have a system in place to do this it's just only used on two weapons.

daggers have more 'bonus' damage on epic daggers.

so do dire flails.

both these items would be bottom tier if not for the fact they got more damage in epic.

so if you want people to use less desirable weapons, give them more bonus damage in epic to make up for their shortcomings.

unlike all the other proposed changes this could be accomplished by just changing the stats on the drop item, then offering a free adjustment to the weapon of anyone who can verify they are actually already using something like a warforged light hammer as a main weapon.

edit; also why the heck would you want to give a scythe -1 apr??? scythes are trash along with all 2 handers.

Of course more choices would always be good, but yeah while we have a fair pinch of those, we don't really have many fancy baskets, i think is the thing

Maybe we could figure out something that'd make the combat not point-and-click-and-wait, you know? NWN combat is kinda dull being turn based, after all.

I like how you're thinking with the APR thing, but the numbers being as they are, there's a few weapons (small ones among them) that are good to work with, and a lot that aren't. Giving those niche weapons some buffs is gonna be more flavor options, but not more baskets.

How NWN melee looks like rn, is 95% preparation and 5% execution. You click on your target and wait for the result, hoping your build, gear and hastily prepared buffs are gonna beat the numbers behind your current foe. A fight always boils down to AB/DMG vs AC as constants, and HP as your currency, and only the occasional exploit in the form of your special move can change the tide. Problem is they are almost always the case of rock/paper/scissors lethal, roll or die, and that is not a dynamic.

And what we all would probably like, is if combat had some actual interactive depth to it. For example, consider how different combat would be if most warriors on the server had a working Parry skill (which is very defensive), and perhaps a good counter to that would be a Bluff-based combat mode - let's say much fewer APR but much higher chance to beat the Parry. Now consider if there were several more options available, that could actually emulate a melee by introducing some changes to the dynamic and flow of the battle (ie. the rate at which combatants lose HP).

And imagine if, suddenly, you'd shift the numbers to like 75% preparation, 25% execution - meaning you'd actually need to switch stances and modes, mixing in your "special move" in there somewhere, in reaction to what your opponent is doing.

I think those are the baskets we're looking for

EDIT: Scythes -and- Quarterstaves are not trash sir, heresy i say

I feel like that aspect is taken away as soon as requests come in. A dagger won't (as far as I know) get more damage onto it, just because it is a dagger. As far as I've noticed, only two cases are special: 1. Large weapons, 2. Gloves. Otherwise, as far as I've seen and heard, there is no distinction between weapons. Would I like it if I got free damage on my daggers? Yeah. But then how much damage is the difference between d4 and d6 worth?

I think the changes Hodie Mihi suggest might be fun, but would be so script intensive, and I'm not sure if even then, it would be good in game. The game is soo old...

I think we had closer to your 75/25 before, and that ended up being too problematic for the casual players. At 25% effort vs prep, anyone who is not a gamer is going to get crushed like a fly by the first person who is.

If you consider vanilla dev crit, gsanc, bigby, trage, timestop, fear, hips spam, highAB-AA, etc, like 2008 balance, it was extremely skill based and almost any class except pure fighter really had a chance if they min-maxed their builds. It's just that because a lot of the playerbase is not focusing on cheap tactics, and playing perfectly, it is not representative of any RP, or even fun for many people to do things this way. It took me a while to figure it out, I admit, I loved the balance back then, but looking back, it was way too involved for most people, and clashed with the RP climate.

Looking back, while I would happily mage duel anyone for 6 hours a day, and teach people how to PvP, it didn't really make anyone have fun when they got into it with my character and then had no chance, nor did it really make sense in the context of the RP. In this game having a high skill cap while maintaining an RP focus just alienates players and makes people feel cheated.

I can agree wit that, those combinations like the haste + counters Pell + bigby always felt like cheats

I disagree Raven. While those "epic moves" certainly were very strong, they're the kind of dynamic that rewarded skilled gamers and not casual gamers. They're not here anymore and i'm not advocating bringing back anything of the sort.

If you'd have combat that allowed you for a "phase one: defense", i'm sure casual players would quickly catch up and would even feel less intimidated by PvP, if they had more time to plan for the fight as it develops, observe what their opponent is doing etc.

Right now, even tho i'm not a casual player, pvp scares me because my personality dictates i'm never as ready as i could be. Meaning, the anxiety is real, and if i miscalculated/misjudged/misused my build and pursued some dream pvp scenario, suddenly within a round i'm forced to yield as i watch my HP go in two swings ("oh ok, so having to buff for 4 rounds to even get started is a no-no"), or just lose a roll ("ok so that's the scissors to my paper, should've planned for better X").

My point is, deceptively for a game that is turn-based, casual players still usually die in an instant. If everyone had simpler tools like Parry that can for a few rounds delay you being inevitably smashed into the ground by Maximized Penetrating Critical Rage or w/e, casual players would at least have a moment to figure out a few moves.

Erm, not sure what you're disagreeing with - I think you may have misinterpreted what I have written, because I was not advocating bringing any of that back, in fact justifying it's removal in place of an easier and more representative / RP balance system which helps players in turn, hopefully feel less intimidated by said system, as like you described, you have a few rounds to figure it out, it's not just bam game over, outplayed. If you still feel it's that way, that's a valid opinion; all I'm trying to say is that it was much more than way before, and it's slowly being changed to fit more with RP & DnD and not just clever use of 2001 NWN exploitative mechanics and game knowledge and competitive powerplay..

Oh my bad, was just too hasty with my reply.

So this is what i'm getting at, two sentences and two disagreements from me.

RaveN wrote:

I think we had closer to your 75/25 before, and that ended up being too problematic for the casual players. At 25% effort vs prep, anyone who is not a gamer is going to get crushed like a fly by the first person who is.

First, what we had before was a string of broken mechanics -not- limited to melee, and those are besides the point. But generally the strongest ones required more preparation (knowledge of) than execution anyway (e.g. in what order to cast Haste, TS, Max Tentacles, BBoD and Bigby). Broken Dev Crit or Terrifying Rage didn't really require execution, they were just there. So casual players didn't have more dynamic interactive melee, just more broken stuff to learn how to use or be beat by it.

Second, there's no difference for skilled players of where the prep/exec balance lies, because they will always be on top. The whole point i'm making is giving the more casual players a chance to -maayybe- win a fight by not being 1-shot, even if their builds and knowledge are sub-par but at least they have some melee tech to soften the gap. And i mean, 75/25 vs 95/5 isn't even balance yet, it's just a little closer.

Last edited by RaveN on Thu, Apr 13 2017, 19:42 PM, edited 1 time in total.

Well, unless you're playing chess or a mirror game, true balance is always going to be impossible. Even games that spend billions of dollars a year spend 60%+ of their development cycle optimizing balance. If people can recognize that we went from 25% effort in a clunky game to 5%, then that means that hopefully sometimes the more skilled player can still lose, in your example. And also.. it means that's pretty dang good. We don't have the resources that blizzard, or valve have, to come out with vast game-changing patch notes every other month.

RaveN wrote:

I think we had closer to your 75/25 before, and that ended up being too problematic for the casual players. At 25% effort vs prep, anyone who is not a gamer is going to get crushed like a fly by the first person who is.

If you consider vanilla dev crit, gsanc, bigby, trage, timestop, fear, hips spam, highAB-AA, etc, like 2008 balance, it was extremely skill based and almost any class except pure fighter really had a chance if they min-maxed their builds. It's just that because a lot of the playerbase is not focusing on cheap tactics, and playing perfectly, it is not representative of any RP, or even fun for many people to do things this way. It took me a while to figure it out, I admit, I loved the balance back then, but looking back, it was way too involved for most people, and clashed with the RP climate.

Looking back, while I would happily mage duel anyone for 6 hours a day, and teach people how to PvP, it didn't really make anyone have fun when they got into it with my character and then had no chance, nor did it really make sense in the context of the RP. In this game having a high skill cap while maintaining an RP focus just alienates players and makes people feel cheated.

*Obligatory mage tears*

Pssh, it was always counter-able by potion of reality anyways. Not my fault nobody knew how to use them correctly. :roll:

RaveN wrote:

Pssh, it was always counter-able by potion of reality anyways. Not my fault nobody knew how to use them correctly. :roll:

+9999999999999999999

RaveN wrote:

I think we had closer to your 75/25 before, and that ended up being too problematic for the casual players. At 25% effort vs prep, anyone who is not a gamer is going to get crushed like a fly by the first person who is.

If you consider vanilla dev crit, gsanc, bigby, trage, timestop, fear, hips spam, highAB-AA, etc, like 2008 balance, it was extremely skill based and almost any class except pure fighter really had a chance if they min-maxed their builds. It's just that because a lot of the playerbase is not focusing on cheap tactics, and playing perfectly, it is not representative of any RP, or even fun for many people to do things this way. It took me a while to figure it out, I admit, I loved the balance back then, but looking back, it was way too involved for most people, and clashed with the RP climate.

Looking back, while I would happily mage duel anyone for 6 hours a day, and teach people how to PvP, it didn't really make anyone have fun when they got into it with my character and then had no chance, nor did it really make sense in the context of the RP. In this game having a high skill cap while maintaining an RP focus just alienates players and makes people feel cheated.

The other thing is that people just got better at the game since 2008, that's 10 years of community knowledge learning the ins and outs of a system.

Attempts at closing the 'skill gap' via mechanical changes will likely just push those of us that build further ahead as we gain artificial boosts.

msheeler wrote:

I've always wished that the initiative rolls made a larger difference than they do, I'm not sure how to implement a change to that which makes a difference though.

It's a small change at present(until the stat plays more of a role like you've said), but relating to this, polearms, longer weapons getting a boost to Initiative would make sense. That would at least give some semblance that range is indeed a thing in-universe. Unless you're ridiculously quick(Dex-Based), yes, the dude with the spear is likely going to make contact with you before you touch him with your dagger.

Mihi has the bulk of what I was getting at, in terms of interactivity. It's cool some people use the un-eventfulness of melee combat as a chance to RP out actions. That's cool. But that's essentially saying "it's a feature, not a bug." It's more of a gameplay thing than a matter of there being nothing to do. Switching targets, looking after your friends if an enemy runs past you is innate to all forms of play, so it can't be said that's the special flavor of melee. And even if it is, that's baseline interaction comepared to everything else.

Quote:

Attempts at closing the 'skill gap' via mechanical changes will likely just push those of us that build further ahead as we gain artificial boosts.

For me, it's not about closing any skill gap. There will always be differences in skill, anyone that's pushed away by the idea that there are people more skilled than you has little luck in a 15 year old game. By that same token... NWN is kind of stupid easy compared newer games released. Not that that in itself is a bad thing, but I don't find there to be need for concern there. Unless it's someone's grandpa coming off of playing Atari, the general gaming populace is more educated and flexible than even 10 years ago. Even then, we pride ourselves on being an RP server. The mechanics should be fun, but more importantly supportive of RP and the physical reality of the game-world. Which is what this thread is about.

The best case scenario for any changes we make is what's happened with the spell changes. Old players have come back to check them out and dust off old characters. People becoming re-interested in the game has always seemed more likely to me than counting on changes to grab new players. And I say that as someone currently coaching 3 friends through the original NWN campaign, in hopes of them getting here one day.

No it's pretty hard. Compare to something like Diablo 3 where getting a 'new build' is just clicking a few buttons and there are a plethora of guides to reference.

NWN doesn't have that, at all. I mean, hell, our sidebar doesn't even list the correct stats for classes or spells or gods.

Maybe we play different games. *shrug* Difficulty is a subjective comparison in any case, but when I think of difficulty I think of overlapping systems and stats. NWN has hardly any synergy between stats and tropes. Make one stat as high as you can. Get as much AC as you can. Do that one thing really well. Congrats, a winnar is you. An exaggeration perhaps, but as Mifi was saying, execution isn't as much a part of the game, while any game I consider actually difficult these days is difficult because it requires more execution.

Also, we kind of have a whole forum dedicated to builds that anyone can drop into an pick out. Even so, I'd say your build is less important on Amia than it is in Diablo, where fighting is basically all you're doing. Not unimportant, but not as important. Bad build in Diablo means you don't/can't progress. Bad build in Amia... well, the point isn't necessarily to progress to max levels(heresy!), you can always tag along with a party(especially now with level range revamped), and you can always hang around Bendir Dale waiting for the next DM event like even roid-injected powerbuilds end up doing. xD

Dark Immolation wrote:

The best case scenario for any changes we make is what's happened with the spell changes.

I'm all for a "making useless feats better” effort that could offer different avenues of combat style.

Some that come to mind are:

Parry
Imported initiative
Dirty Fighting

msheeler wrote:

Parry
Imported initiative
Dirty Fighting

Imported Initiative is incredibly underused!

Dirty Fighting:
Always thought it would be cool if there were a reverse Power Attack feat, where it lowers your dmg but increase your attack bonus. It doesn't have to be the same ratio (-5 / +5), but the concept itself is neat. While it wouldn't really "fit" with the idea behind dirty fighting, it isn't like dirty fighting's current effect fits either in my opinion. Called Shot does a better job at dirty fighting than dirty fighting does... (creating an alternate Called Shot is also an option, with different hit targets and effects)

Improved Initiative:
Winning initiative could give a bonus to the first attack's damage when you have that feat.. not sure I'd still take it though. Automatically winning initiative could be an option as well, but does it really make a big difference?

Improved Parry:
The problem with parry is that flurries of attacks will pass through. If it didn't, parry would be beyond godlike and downright destroy the game (it's murderous in low level settings). Making it so that it can deflect all attacks is thus not an option. Without too much thinking into this balance-wise, I'd say that making it so that every 5 rank of parry gives +1 to deflection AC to a maximum of 5 would make -Parry- a good skill to get. From there, Improved Parry could then add a further +1 (for a total of +6) if you have 30. You would then need to invest 1 feat + 30 skill points to free up a slot of mythal (+5 AC deflection) and gain a further +1 to AC. That'd be worth considering as a big investment, without breaking the game (I think) as deflection AC is already tied to arguably the best item on the server (cloak of forti +5).
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With that out of the way, I'd like to say to reply to this thread in particular that I disagree with the premise that melee builds are boring. Personally, I find caster-heavy classes to be frustrating to play, annoying, too powerful, and not enjoyable.

I think there is far more to melee fighters than just "click and win". There is a lot of positioning to do, you don't have AOE that destroys everything (sometimes instant kill them with outrageous DC) so you need to select which targets to take out first, you can and should bring ranged weapons to try and lure npcs to you to take out first, you need to learn about using cover (walls, rocks, etc..) otherwise you get overwhelmed and you don't have +one million spells protecting you from damage and status effect. Moreover, as someone already mentioned, the "Dance of Death" of nwn leaves you time to type what you want to emote - and while it is possible to do so with spell casting (to an extend), I find it far more interesting to emote banter, fighting styles and flashy moves than "waves my hand and goes scary boom boom explosion bang pow pow".

I know other people will see this differently, but that's why this game's great.

Well, first off, I just remembered the tourney Farija was in. The rounds whithout time stop... Well, those were fun. Running in and out of Darkness for free HiPS was pretty fun.

The thing about +AB -DMG is that a sneak attacker would kill both for and with that. It would give them more hits on KD, which gives them free damage. So, it would essentially be +AB +DMG.

Initiative... Well, I think this thing is funny. I've seen people claim that it is important for sneaks, as it can matter whether you get sneaks off or not. But, I've never felt the importance of it.

Quote:

Always thought it would be cool if there were a reverse Power Attack feat, where it lowers your dmg but increase your attack bonu

AB is more improtant than damage - this would be the most powerful feat in the game, more powerful than Epic dodge and it would be mandatory for every right click build in the entire game to take it.

Combine that with sheelers suggestion to give daggers one apr and you got yourself a sick build in the works.

Parry - There have been probably half a dozen topics on this. From a faux-tumble to "blocking", to everything else. The best I could come up with last time was something that takes over when not using a shield(two-handers, shield-less builds), and would give them shield AC vs last attacker and maybe some mild concealment. If the AC is only against one target at a time, it means you can still be a decent duelist as someone without a shield, but you don't take the place of a tank, who's going to be able to wade into the midst of battle. The concealment would be a small perk, given that it's something melee folk can't normally get on their own. The AC would go by ranks of 10 and would include item bonuses. If you could spare even a small amount of skill points or slots on your equipment, it would immediately be worth it, and items like Epic Swordsplay Gloves become valuable. Don't have epic discipline gloves? Here, +3 AC in your next boss fight. Happy trails, Highlander.

The hinge of this idea, however, is how much it effects dex-builds that already don't wear armor or use a shield. While leather-wearing duelist-fighter archetype needs the help, +14 Dex cloth sneak probably does not. Nor do monk-samurais need to become the new powerbuilding fad(although they certainly should be a more playable trope afterwards, however).

Initiative - I had played around with the idea of some sort of Iaijutsu related feat or bonus. The idea being your first attack against a target would apply some function of your Initiative to the Damage roll. The incentive would be to make both Initiative feats and going something other than Full Plate as a meleer more appealing. It too hinges on how much of a straight buff certain dex builds would get out of it, however. It would, perhaps, need to be limited by your Strength Mod. Mr. McSoldier who goes out of his way for some extra Dex is rewarded, while Supersneak with max Dex, but 10 Str doesn't get much of anything.

Dirty Fighting - It's a combat mode that is completely pointless on its own. It's something we can remake from the ground up and no one would miss the original. IMO, there's nothing you can do to make a single attack per round worth it. Sacrificing a single attack per round for added effect or damage might be possible, but even that seems a bit necessary in that you already have Power Attack and can spam KD every attack per round at a -4 attack bonus. Knocking an enemy prone is a great added effect already, so it's hard to think of a status effect Dirty fighting could do that is comparable to "spam" mode.

It is also a feat. And like I said, while boosting melee feats is certainly a good part of this, unless you're heavy on the Fighter side, you're already pretty tight for feats. That's why I look to passive and persistent things so there isn't added strain on them, or like on the servers MightnMagic presented, reworking them and giving them to people by default.

I'm aware not everyone finds melee combat in NWN lackluster, or at least, many people like how plain it is either for ease or for emoting things. That's understandable and I'm not trying to call anyone out for liking it as is. But I see it similar to what we did for say, reflex-based Evocation spells and boosts for non igms/icestorm/timestop/bigby spells. If you're enjoying the simplicity of it, I don't think that ever goes away after some changes to how melee works, whatever they end up being. I certainly don't think it is anyone's intent to punish you for not playing interactively, nor should anyone expect us to be playing like a 2000 version of For Honor. But, I firmly believe there is a way to give added interaction between weapons/physical abilities to those that want them as well. And when the dust settles, "click-and-wait" will still be there, just like "hide-behind-summon-and-igms" is still there for mages. There will, however, hopefully be viable and rewarding alternatives to both.

Related to the discussion, this goes back to the "mini-tower" thread. My conclusion was: if we are not allowing people to cosmetically make Tower Shields as Small Shields(a valid ruling in itself), there should at least to some more perks to -not- using a Tower Shield. Meaning, if we are not allowing someone to make a small shield that mechanically function 100% like a Tower Shield because it "cheapens" the idea of a Tower Shield or is "too strong" for a Small Shield, there needs to be more perks for using a Large or Small one.

-ASF is pretty easy to acquire in requests. Even so, it is not hard to have a shield quickslotted and simply ignore the Armor Check Penalties whenever you want to(Stealth Mode, disarming traps, casting, etc). The shield slot is simply a free boost spot for most builds. There's never a time when you wouldn't want to have it filled and by extension, there's never a time when you should fill it with Small Shield over a Tower Shield, if you could, unless it had better stats. But as we saw with the mini-tower, even mechanically making the Small Shield equal to a Tower does not fly. Thus, Small and Large Shields need to have something that makes them attractive.

How do we do that? I believe the idea with the lower lootbins was that Larger Shields are sometimes more diverse than Tower Shields that you find, but that doesn't stand for epic loot(Elemental Shields are all the same). As well, in DC requests, the last frontier when it comes to stats on an item, I can't recall ever seeing someone get something on a Large or Small Shield that wouldn't have worked on a Tower too. I can only think of a few times people didn't want a Tower Shield in the first place. If they're not going to have additional slots and you can't boost the AC to make them equal to Towers, and all the already small penalties for using a Tower are easily ignored through -ASF or quickslotting, how do we give a place to Small and Large Shields?

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

Always thought it would be cool if there were a reverse Power Attack feat, where it lowers your dmg but increase your attack bonu

AB is more improtant than damage - this would be the most powerful feat in the game, more powerful than Epic dodge and it would be mandatory for every right click build in the entire game to take it.

Don't want to derail the thread, but I just want to reply directly to this. I 100% agree that AB is more important than damage - AB is pretty much the single most important stat in the game when it comes to melee characters (even more than AC). That is why I mentioned that if such a feat were made, that it shouldn't be a direct ratio to how power attack works (doesn't need to be -5 / +5). It would need to be balanced differently.

If, for example, Dirty Fighting became a fighting mode that gave +2 to AB at the cost of 5-6 dmg (just throwing numbers out without actual thinking / testing), I believe the feat could find its own use without being mandatory on all characters or build.

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As for the discussion on shields.. I think this needs a separate thread, and because Saya is probably one of the only 3 or 4 characters that went for a small shield over a tower or medium shield, I probably shouldn't be too involved with the thread for the sake of having an unbiased discussion. My solution was harmless and simple (the mini-tower), but it was apparently not liked because of principle.

+2 AB for -5 damage would still be mandatory on every single right click build, that's how important AB is.

we take epic feats for +1.

TormakSaber wrote:

+2 AB for -5 damage would still be mandatory on every single right click build, that's how important AB is.

we take epic feats for +1.

yeah. pretty much.

Just wondering, since you are playing devil's advocate Tormak and Commie, what might you suggested for Dirty Fighting, Improved Initiative, or Parry?

Dirty Fighting makes me think off tossing sand in someone's eyes, so what about a one round blind?

Parry... I was always for a fighter tumble substitute that does not stack with tumble. Sorta eliminates the need to multi-class and tumble dump.

Improved Initiative... Some of the ideas tossed out so far sounded interesting, but it seems they all revolve around some sort of +AB, which seems like it might be mechanically unbalancing.

Parry is both offensive and defensive if you think about it. Parrying a blow prevents it from hitting you but it also leaves the attacker open for Riposte. You could provide a Riposte Attack and/or Damage bonus. It other words it could allow you to more reliably hit something on Riposte that is difficult to hit straight up.

TormakSaber wrote:

+2 AB for -5 damage would still be mandatory on every single right click build, that's how important AB is.

we take epic feats for +1.

Weapon Focus:
We take Weapon Focus as a non-epic feat for a +1 to attack bonus, which comes without any sort of penalty other than taking 1 feat. On one side you have a non-epic feat that gives +1, on the other you have one that gives +2 and inflicts 5 or 6 dmg penalty on you. Balance? For 1 more AB, you'd be sacrificing 5 or 6 dmg on every single melee character you build? Personally, I wouldn't.

Weapon Specialization + Epic Weapon Spec:
People multiclass into fighter to get weapon spec and epic weapon spec. which totals to a +6 to dmg. You're saying this non-epic feat would be so mandatory to get that you'd sacrifice your fighter levels and two feats just to benefit from a +2 to AB on every single melee character you build? Personally, I wouldn't.

If some builds benefit from a +2 to AB at the cost of 1 feat and 5-6 to dmg, that simply means the feat would now be useful and worth taking to some - which is what we're after here I believe? You could even put requirements on the feat to further limit its use if you really need to.

msheeler wrote:

Dirty Fighting makes me think off tossing sand in someone's eyes, so what about a one round blind?

Inflicting blind would be even stronger than gaining a +2 to AB (like, much stronger ^^). "Sap" is a feat that was pretty much removed from the Default Nwn because that kind of incapacitating is just too powerful. Blind is one of the strongest status effect you can inflict, in my opinion, and thus dirty fighting would -now- become the strongest and most mandatory feat to get ^^

There are several things / ideas that can be tied to "Dirty Fighting", like passively increasing the cap of AC you can remove with Taunt, removing one attack per round instead of limiting you to one attack per round, making it so you also gain bonus attack rolls (but are still limited to one attack per round), making it so that you can ignore damage resist (but still one attack per round), etc.

I am not sure how 1 round of blindness is any worse than 1 round of laying prone that KD does.

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