Removal of +20 AB Crafting/better pvp balance.

[Omnifarious]

Killing high end bosses just isn't worth it when you can get better stuff from crafting.

[driller]

High end bosses have a chance to drop forge stones, they will also drops ones you cannot get from normal mobs.

[Jake_Master]

There is always a build that can be created to destroy another build... PvP is not perfect or balanced, nor should it be. Different builds give different advantages and disadvantages, PvP has never been an issue on BSK, if you feel slighted by loosing or feeling an imbalance in PvP, simply build something else don’t try and change what’s been in place and worked for well over a decade

[Yunim]

Some of you actually think this is a high magic server?? That's unbelievable to me considering there's a ring that gives immunity to all magic missles + 100% electrical immunity. On top of that you can easily find gear to be completely immune to acid sheath, ice storm, fire spells, or any other elemental dmg attack. All of that and i still haven't even mentioned Immunity to mind spells, death magic, freedom, paraylze, knockdown (to stop T-clap). If you think that just because bigbys and timestop work that its a high magic server then you're sadly mistaken.

"High/medium/low magic server" refers to the level of enchantments found on items, not how well mages do on the server. Those item properties you list are exactly what makes BSK a high magic server. In general, clerics and mages are amazing in PvP on low level servers but are merely good on high magic servers.

You can literally make a level 39 rogue 1 sd on here with like 70 ab which is not really balanced considering rogues already have tons of things they can do that make up for having lower BAB.

This build is also hard countered by anything with 10 Pale Master levels. Even a Rog33/Figh6/SD1 will struggle to kill a well built and equipped PM build without resorting to scroll spamming. The True Seeing nerf means that rogues are actually viable in PvP, but that doesn't automatically make them unbalanced just because they can hit consistent sneak attacks here.

As for WM builds and AA builds which already have naturally high AB but no AB buffs gives them a supreme advantage over lower BAB builds that are supposed to use buffs to increase AB. Why even make lower BAB builds that have buffs when you get an automatic +20 AB. Also, Flying Rodent said Paladin is good for the BAB which is true in a sense but it's not better than using a ranger with bane of enemies. My argument still stands if you look above.

There is far, far more to PvP than just AB and AC. You might have to adapt to the server in order to make a successful PvP build, but that doesn't mean that +20 AB weapons are unbalancing. Bard/BG/RDD and Bard/BG/PM are two examples of mediocre AB builds which benefit massively from the +20 AB weapons, especially since both are able to debuff their opponents in order to further increase their offensive capabilities.

This whole thread has reminded me of a dev from a previous server I used to play on. Whenever somebody suggested a change to any classes or factions, he would almost always reply with some variant of "stop complaining, build better". That seems to be applicable to this case.

[The Flying Rodent]

"flying rodent" if you read my original post I already covered your entire argument here lol.

Well isn't this a lazy cop-out of a statement to avoid addressing anything specific.

Let's go through more of what you have recently said then.

"High-Magic" is a term people use to refer to the "item power level" of a server. It's generally easy to find items that cover the list of immunities you listed, and there are +20 AB items as well. Contrast this with a server that has no immunity items and the highest AB weapon is +5. In this context, I would consider Blackstone pretty "High-Magic", and a +5 no Immunity item environment “low magic”.

Item levels on NWN servers span a large spectrum, from +3 everything to +20 everything, and as a consequence different types of characters excel (or don’t excel) on different servers. That's just how the game is. It sounds like you're used to playing in +4/+5 environments with no immunity items because you feel that "that's how the game is meant to be played" and if that's the case, fair enough.

However, this argument doesn't mean the item dynamic on Blackstone should change because you don't like it, and it certainly doesn't mean that Sorcerers are weak. Sorcerers have plenty of options besides the standard death magic, IGMS and bigby hands, and it is not possible for a character to obtain items that make one "completely immune to acid sheath, ice storm, fire spells, or any other elemental dmg attack" . They still work fine too, in PvM and PvP.

Your argument regarding Paladin and +20 AB weapons seems to be 'but Ranger is better'. A nice observation, yes, but this doesn't mean things should suddenly be reverted because you like Paladins more. Again, different item level = different builds excel. In addition, if you were to make a high level Rogue as a PvP build, anything with 10 PM would nullify it. IMO you'd be better off going [gasp] Dex Ranger if you were to make a PvP HIPS build, because you can deal more base physical damage and not be entirely reliant on sneak attack.

I'm going to assume that you haven't watched a PvP duel by your bludgeoning resistance item comment. I can assure you that PM's get smacked around quite a bit by high-end bludgeoning weapons here by characters that can hit them consistently. The most recent PVP tournament demonstrated that.

As for your consistent non-chalant dismissal of the AB/AC curve situation: Let's do some number crunching shall we.

Let's consider a Bard 5 / PM 25 / RDD 10 build [ergo a defensive melee build] and give it Improved Expertise, Epic DR and Devastating Critical because why not [all possible, I can post a build plan if you don't believe it but that's a post in itself]. Its' AC with +6 equipment and +7 tower shield [what's available here] is going to be:

12 [base + armour skin] + 9 [full plate and dex, 21] + 10 [+7 tower, 31] + 18 [nat/ac/defl, 49] + 8 [tumble, 57] + 4 [rdd, 61] + 14 [PM, 75] + 15 [Dodge, 4 haste 6 boots 5 EMA] = 90 AC that cannot be dispelled, 95 AC with more dodge from scrolls, 105 with Improved Expertise.

Now compare this to what AB a particular build would get with +7 weapons. Even a Half Orc Paladin 29 Sorc 1 RDD 10 with 56 strength and True Strike, which is a pretty offensive build by any server's standards, can only get 30 [base] + 23[str] + 4[wf + prowess] + 7 [weapon] = 64 AB without buffing, 72 AB with bless/aid/prayer/div favour, and 77 AB with true strike [hitting the +20 AB cap, which TBH makes the +7 argument irrelevant, but hey, context].

So: 72-77 AB vs 90-105 AC in a typical offensive vs defensive strength build duel with +6/+7 equipment [not to mention the defensive build will have about 500 base HP, Critical Hit immunity and Epic DR III on top of its' silly AC]. As alluded to already, AB and AC aren't everything in PVP, but here are the numbers put side by side for comparison. This suggests that the AB/AC curves are out of sync in NWN, which is what driller alluded to right at the start.

You only have 1 item in NWN that boosts AB, but you have several that boost AC. The result is that the highest possible AC is typically a lot higher than the highest possible AB, and this becomes exacerbated as AB/AC items increase in sync with each other [1 category of AB vs 5 categories of AC]. Having +20 AB weapons alongside +6 AC gear helps to even this up, but even this measure doesn't totally get there.

Anyway: The consensus here is that PVP balance is fine, and after playing here for a few months and learning the quirks of building within this item environment, I’m inclined to agree. May I suggest reading what's been written here carefully, consider that you might need to do some working out and character creating to adapt to the environment here, and play on the server a bit more ... before jumping to conclusions about what needs to be changed.

[The Flying Rodent]

I've also noticed that the best normal drop you can get for a weapon is +10 enhancement if you fight that boss at great chasm. That boss basically drops a useless weapon and has like 2 million hp to deal with. It took me 30-45 minutes of spamming creeping doom and rakshasah ice storm to kill it. Drop wasn't worth the time it took to kill the boss.

That boss dies a lot quicker if you’re in a party with lots of melee builds with high DPS, and on average drops quite a bit of decent loot, certainly enough to motivate players to hunt it down.

Typically on NWN PvM servers, melee builds fare better against ultra high HP bosses than casters do. They don’t have to rest to recharge a finite amount of spells, and can usually pump out single-target damage faster than casters can (excluding perhaps stacked AoE spells like Blade Barrier or Creeping Doom, which can be nullified quite easily by physical damage resistance or DR). This has been my experience playing on a number of PvM servers, and Blackstone is no exception.

Specifically, I could agree that Druids might need a bit more love on Blackstone. They have a lot of spells that rely on DC’s and crowd control, which can’t do much against high save opponents with immunities . In addition, shifters can’t heal themselves in shape easily, 1 rolls aren’t auto fails, and EE took away metamagic from shapes (so no more maxed ice storm for Rak shifters). So Shifters are arguably at a disadvantage as well.

Unfortunately it’s hard to do anything to Druids without benefiting Caster Clerics at the same time (which fare quite well on Blackstone), and I’m pretty sure the metamagic fix is hard coded.

Some ways to help out druids and shifters could be something like: Dragon Shape could receive some Regen, Rak Shape Ice Storm Damage could be increased , and some of the Druid specific spells (like Bombardment) could have their Damage caps increased? [I have no idea how feasible any of these are as I haven't mucked around in the toolset much]