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So there's this rumor floating around that Monk/Shifters are about to get some form of power reduction.

I have to admit, I've never played one, I've never fought one, I think I may once have fought beside one.

My question is, why? It's only sin is a high AC. There are far more common, and more broken builds out there, and (I have to say it) shadow dancer, which you can throw as many 'rp' restrictions on it as you'd like is still completely immune to physical damage due to HiPS.

I suppose if this is stage one of a grand rebalancing I understand it, I'm all for trimming down the broken builds.

Of course, the rumor could just be false. They do have a tendency to be that.

Gradea wrote:

So there's this rumor floating around that Monk/Shifters are about to get some form of power reduction.

I have to admit, I've never played one, I've never fought one, I think I may once have fought beside one.

My question is, why? It's only sin is a high AC. There are far more common, and more broken builds out there, and (I have to say it) shadow dancer, which you can throw as many 'rp' restrictions on it as you'd like is still completely immune to physical damage due to HiPS.

I suppose if this is stage one of a grand rebalancing I understand it, I'm all for trimming down the broken builds.

Of course, the rumor could just be false. They do have a tendency to be that.

Rumour's true, but you haven't got the full story.

All that's happening to them, is shapeshifted monks lose their Wis AC. That being a removal of the way overpowered 'Free AC'.

After that, Shifters will be beefed a bit, since we no longer have to worry about beefing Shifter/Monks in the process.

Btw. Skewed Polls are a good laugh, but never effective for actually getting something done. We tend to ignore those that have a clear bias towards a specific answer.

I think the idea was to make all the shifters forms better so they don't become useless.

If they do that without nerfing Wis AC from monk-shifters, they become all the more powerful. So it's a give and take, take away the monk AC in exchange for better forms.

If they do it right, the outcome could be better than the current state of things: 70-81 AC forms comprised of dragons & flayers, and the other route of going pure DR with risen & constructs. No room for other forms.

they better not go risenlord and let me see them IC or I'll crush them with my wallet

but yeah I was talking about the forms today, well harpy for the most part, level 3 shifter nets you harpy form with 18str and 18dex and captivating song that does a bucket load of crap, and at shifter level 11 you get epic harpy thats 20str and 20con(not dex anymore) and captivating song thats still useless

so for 8 more levels in shifter your harpy form becomes epic, and epic for a shifter means 2 more str

the shifter fix will be very nice, our epic forms will be better and our epic feat form might reach the level epic.

The pole was intended to be more funny then functional.

ticket wrote:

and the other route of going pure DR with risen & constructs. No room for other forms.

:?: Constructs??? please...
Risen and Epic gargoyle is where it's at...
Constructs are absolutely useless. Especially if you take into account that they require 27WIS.

:arrow:

Btw, I voted "no", and for all I care monk+druid/shifter doesn't need to get altered.

:idea:

Personally I would just make a "books of transformation" similar to the "book of transmutation" which cannot be activated if you have a monk level and which would provide new/updated shapes for shifters. That way, shifters get a bonus, monk-cheesers can take an RP'd rebuild (which I would so decline if i was a DM :twisted:

j/k but it should be better then *:cry: they get better now :cry:

*) and no complaints get made by people who suddenly "cannot RP their character anymore due to the sudden change so plz gimme full rebuild so i can ditch the monk in my build" :roll:

Pages would exist per wildshape level and per epic feat (or possibly epic shape) and would be (DM)-quest (like current bonus shapes) or loot-based.

I would also love to see a "shifters weaponry" page in there, which alters the weapons the armed forms use: just 1-3 extra choices / shape. Some examples:
Minotaur: big ass club with extra piercing damage (spikes on it)
Drow: choice between longsword (current), shortsword or dagger (typical drow weapons and good for finesse dex based shifters), crossbow (drow typic and good for zen-archer/dexxer-shifts)
...
A dual weapon somewhere would be great as well, making that one joke-shield useful (the one with dual wield/ ambidex)

:!:

But as said, that's my idea, and how I would alter things.
I'm happy with any boost the shifters get... now I just need a home-internet connection again (unfortunately, non of the neighbours in my current nor my new flat have unsecured wireless

) so I can play Iwijongwe a bit...

'Bad' Changes: Monk AC is going from shifted forms.
'Good' Changes: Forms are getting stronger.

These changes have been in the works a long time (as long as I've been playing, if not longer IIRC).

I'd take a SD any day over a Monk Dragon shifter.

Your facts are skewered if you think SD's are immune to physical damage. They are not.

Many things are wrong with shifter/monk. Number one being they don't really exist in FR lore. Except that one god.

The Monk AC bonus doesn't just apply to the dragonshaper-builds.

There are several additional powerbuilds which I'd rather not mention, should anyone get the idea of actually making them, which "exploit" the monk AC bonus by just taking the three levels.

A druid / monk can easily get 82+ AC with dragonshape. Combined with more or less immunity to KD, sneak attacks and one elemental damage type.

Not to mention the TS and yada yada yada.

Mr Mago wrote:

Not to mention the TS and yada yada yada.

Bioware TS if I recall it correctly.

If Shadowdancers are supposedly immune to physical damage due to HIPS, that goes double for Monk Shifters.

to be trueful.. I only ever thought three shifter monks..

#1. Keri took out in a round of combat of hitting the thing (back then it was crit+crit means you hit anyways)

#2 died to a hilarious implosion at Keri's hands

#3 Not even mari could hit the damn thing fully buffed. (me thinks this one actually had an idea on what they were doing)

The point isn't that we really care how much AC a Druid/shifter/monk has, or whether or not that's a good build. It's nice, but, meh.

The point is that taking shifter in any number of levels without taking monk is to resign a character to mediocrity and a virtual death sentence in Party PvM and PvP, respectively.

We want to change that outlook. We wanted to improve the shifter class to add value to all the forms and give them level-appropriate statistics (AB, AC, defenses). But any AC improvements to the forms in general would stack Monk AC.

It was a choice between "Do nothing to improve the Shifter Forms" or "Disallow Monk AC when Polymorphed".

We think that for a shifter, monk should be optional, not mandatory. Monk will still give a Shifter some great benefits (Free Evasion, Monk Speed, Unarmed Attack Bonus, for example), but requiring it for the class to be anything other than sub-par is tragic.

As an Aside, making the new forms is taking quite a while because we've got a lot of neat ideas that we're balancing numbers for. We're thinking of expanding the number roles a shifter can play in a party by giving them multiple spell-like abilities, and diverse statistics. For example, there might be multiple modified forms that would play the role of party healing, ranged DPS, and so on...

I'm honestly excited to consider making a shifter once this is all done with.

But still no clue on when we can popp the champagne and celebrate the usefullness of our non-monk shifters?

Aim for christmas day. Seeing a shifter that doesnt suck would make christmas magical for me...just like when I was young

Do keep in mind that there are alternate forms for going all the way up to 17 shifter. And shifters should get benifits for going all the way to 20 shifter, I believe.

QPR wrote:

But still no clue on when we can popp the champagne and celebrate the usefullness of our non-monk shifters?

not yet, but from the sounds of what they are trying to do, it could take abit to plan out,balance and add.

the reason is, right now a shifter is just a real bad fighter class, but they making it be more like a spell book, your forms are your spells and you have all kinds of spells offensive, defensive and support.

also thinking of it as a spell book, I think after they fix it up no we wont be the end all 9th level spells(because were not the pureclass) but maybe 7 or 8th, but knowing the forms,your gear, the monsters and your party will make the diffrence on if your going to be functioning at 4th level spell or a 8th

Dwagin wrote:

Do keep in mind that there are alternate forms for going all the way up to 17 shifter. And shifters should get benifits for going all the way to 20 shifter, I believe.

the skills our forms have now have a DC based of shifter levels, I'm sure all the new forms and skills will work the same so shifter levels will effect the forms more because more forms will have skills.

corypx wrote:

right now a shifter is just a real bad fighter class

Mind it will never be a fighter.

Shifter changes got backburnered because I was frontlining them, but my computer's exploded.

Done when it's done, but I promise it will be awesome!

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

TormakSaber wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

Breath bro. We still love you.

camthrax wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

Breath bro. We still love you.

we do appreciate everything you and the rest of the dev and dm team do for us, thank you for trying so hard to give us an awesome place to enjoy.

camthrax wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

Breath bro. We still love you.

Aye, these things take time.

TormakSaber wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

I just wanna sex you up. You're so hot when you get annoyed.

Dakotaen wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

I'm sorry I'm not overhauling an entire class from scratch, balancing forms, stats, weapons, AC, saves, abilities, for the Amian standard, and the only help coming from Uberuce and Leggomi Eggolas, fast enough for you. Believe it or not, I am also a DM and I also have other things to do like working and currently buying a new computer.

I just wanna sex you up. You're so hot when you get annoyed.

On that note, I think I have to close this thread on one of the most disturbing off-topic posts I have ever seen.

A rumor about shifters

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