Trolls

[twin_snakes]

OMG!!!!!!!! NOTTINGHAM WTF??????? Ok seriously. Everything on this server feels so hardcore hard. Now the only saving grace any of us had gets nerfed!!!!! Holy heck this sucks. NOttingham man, you here for the players of the makers? Seriously what were you smoking when you thought up of that lovely idea. Great work champ!

[Caesius]

I do not like the change to the town portal books. I would like them put back the way they had been. If this cannot happen then I would like to suggest more gold in drops to make up for the increased long term costs of adventuring. Back on topic. Maybe trolls can be the ones to drop more gold. They aren't much good for anything else.

[Nottingham]

I have been playing NWN now for a long time, as have some of you, I am sure, and having to travel by land back to town in order to sell items and restock arrows has been kind of standard. Any working portal system is a blessing; the magic is powerful and should be expensive. And we still have the more expensive option and the fixed portals.

In terms of hard core, 50xp per monster kill is considered a good place to roam on some servers, where the xp drops quickly after the monsters get too easy. The time in-between rests time could be increased as well. We still have it fairly good.

Gold drops should increase—I am with you on this point—especially because the monsters are so hard at higher levels, at least, when playing solo. When you are high enough level to kill more than a have dozen at a time before resting or running off, they are at a point where they drop nothing. No, some of the monsters are too hard. Perhaps their attack bonus is too high. I suspect driller will see this and balance things out.

This issue could also be balanced by both lowering the attack bonus of the monsters and dividing the xp in a party evenly, but somehow making it so that pets and summoned creatures do not count against you. If two druids were in a two-member party, but each druid had a pet and a summoned creature, the xp would still only be divided by 2 and not by 6—that would be very nice. If you killed six monsters solo before having to go rest, that would be about the same as killing twelve in a two-member party before having to go rest—the xp earned would balance out. At present, when I am in a party, I feel like I am somehow cheating with the xp not being divided up. This seems fair, especially if the monsters are made a little weaker.

I was on a server years ago where there was an automatic random 1d8 gp gain for every monster killed that could realistically be expected to have gold on them. If you were in a party, this gold was divided evenly—minus the pets again—with everyone at least getting 1gp. This would be a nice addition, and the amount of gold could increase or decrease depending on the monster level. The money would slowly add up.

If I were for the makers and not for the players then I would suggest things like making Gank’s Spear non-equitable and not allowing xp to be earnable after a level has been reached in an effort to prevent some players from playing a low level character for two or three weeks and then suddenly showing up with a character in the mid-teens or something. But give me a warning, for a few of my characters are currently holding Gank’s Spear.

Or, can both be done at once, seeing both perspectives—players and DM. I want this gaming world to both be balanced and have integrity. And when I see a high level character, I want to think to myself, wow, that is a worthy player, not a player that has earned level 2 or 3 100 times and is now at level 17.

[driller]

The XP function must be bugged because you should not get XP if you have reached your level.
I will look into this. The mobs are a little hard now, but this should even out once players accumulate imbuing stones and start pumpin out +5 items.

Thanks,
-driller

I have been playing NWN now for a long time, as have some of you, I am sure, and having to travel by land back to town in order to sell items and restock arrows has been kind of standard. Any working portal system is a blessing; the magic is powerful and should be expensive. And we still have the more expensive option and the fixed portals.

In terms of hard core, 50xp per monster kill is considered a good place to roam on some servers, where the xp drops quickly after the monsters get too easy. The time in-between rests time could be increased as well. We still have it fairly good.

Gold drops should increase—I am with you on this point—especially because the monsters are so hard at higher levels, at least, when playing solo. When you are high enough level to kill more than a have dozen at a time before resting or running off, they are at a point where they drop nothing. No, some of the monsters are too hard. Perhaps their attack bonus is too high. I suspect driller will see this and balance things out.

This issue could also be balanced by both lowering the attack bonus of the monsters and dividing the xp in a party evenly, but somehow making it so that pets and summoned creatures do not count against you. If two druids were in a two-member party, but each druid had a pet and a summoned creature, the xp would still only be divided by 2 and not by 6—that would be very nice. If you killed six monsters solo before having to go rest, that would be about the same as killing twelve in a two-member party before having to go rest—the xp earned would balance out. At present, when I am in a party, I feel like I am somehow cheating with the xp not being divided up. This seems fair, especially if the monsters are made a little weaker.

I was on a server years ago where there was an automatic random 1d8 gp gain for every monster killed that could realistically be expected to have gold on them. If you were in a party, this gold was divided evenly—minus the pets again—with everyone at least getting 1gp. This would be a nice addition, and the amount of gold could increase or decrease depending on the monster level. The money would slowly add up.

If I were for the makers and not for the players then I would suggest things like making Gank’s Spear non-equitable and not allowing xp to be earnable after a level has been reached in an effort to prevent some players from playing a low level character for two or three weeks and then suddenly showing up with a character in the mid-teens or something. But give me a warning, for a few of my characters are currently holding Gank’s Spear.

Or, can both be done at once, seeing both perspectives—players and DM. I want this gaming world to both be balanced and have integrity. And when I see a high level character, I want to think to myself, wow, that is a worthy player, not a player that has earned level 2 or 3 100 times and is now at level 17.

[twin_snakes]

I guess no one is actually seeing the point here. There are barley any players because of how hardcore things already are. You will most likely lose myself and Caesius as a result. That might not mean much but both of us were old school bsk1 players and played on the server a LONG time. We also have supported bsk the whole time. This is like a slap in the face.

All of these nerfs sound like nerfs on rp servers. If that is what the vision of bsk then I am all for it provided the server itself actually reflect that image. Let me give some examples. Every rp server I have ever been on has more items available on the server than there is currently here. Every rp server has crafting components etc available for crafting (wands, scrolls, potions, armor and shields etc..), why is there none here? Every rp server I have been on also has a layout that actually fits and makes sense. When you transition from area to area if you actually map it out as I have tried none of it makes sense (for example the southern exit of the frozen forest you appear on the south end of the new map, not the north like you should). Why are the dragon kin resistant to fire but not susceptible to ice? Monsters on the server do not make much sense. How do minotaurs have will saves of 20? That's not default. The server here seems to be stacked against the players. Back in the day bsk1 it was great (i'm talking 1.5 - 2 years after it started). Not everyone exploited the heck out of it but HECK the ones that exploited never hung out with the rp'ers cus they never got along. Who cares what they did. If there is to much pk'ing going on then maybe the server needs to be policed.

I really do not get where this huge fear of what players might do came from. Did someone get physically hurt outside of this virtual world? Was someone's feeling sorely hurt? What was it?

[twin_snakes]

Also rp servers have dm's that are on and have events.

[Nottingham]

This is still a beta server of sorts. Driller is still actively tweaking his world, and we all seeing the subtle changes. He has been doing this server running thing for a while. He reads the forum and he considers. Sometimes he likes the ideas suggested and sometimes he does not; he seems to act accordingly. Threats to leave are a form of emotional blackmail; he will lose face if he makes any changes because of such statements.

I am curious about what you are considering to be “nerfs” and what you are considering to be D&D rules.

Having an understanding of what type of world this is will be good for everyone. It dictates character builds and what to spend gold on, etc. All we can know about that is what we experience in the world and what we read here. BK2 is not BK. BK2 today is not even the BK2 from a year ago. I bet it is still being worked out inside Driller’s mind. What did not work in BK and in the 1st and 2nd installment of BK2 must be on his mind, and I am talking about what “he” did not think worked, not what the players liked or disliked.

But during this beta period, I suspect we have more of a voice than we realize. Because our numbers are small, we are the beta testers. If we back up our arguments with rational thoughts and use evidence to support our points, we will all have a better chance of getting what we all want: a fun world to play on. But what is fun for some is not fun for others; thus, we have our debates. And what is fun over the course of two weeks or two months is not the same as what is fun over the course of two years. A world must have vision and scope.

And in my opinion, no DMs are far better than bad DMs.

No events are far better than cheesy ones.

[driller]

No one is slapping anyone in the face. Half of this rant should be in the bug section and the other half is because I took the +5 from helms and shields. Calm down.

Like I have said before, nothing is set in stone.
Make your suggestion on how you want things, let us all debate the merits of it and make changes based on the outcome.

If you want +5 AC on helms and shields explain why.
I think it makes the character's AC to high and takes away the challenge.

-driller

I guess no one is actually seeing the point here. There are barley any players because of how hardcore things already are. You will most likely lose myself and Caesius as a result. That might not mean much but both of us were old school bsk1 players and played on the server a LONG time. We also have supported bsk the whole time. This is like a slap in the face.

All of these nerfs sound like nerfs on rp servers. If that is what the vision of bsk then I am all for it provided the server itself actually reflect that image. Let me give some examples. Every rp server I have ever been on has more items available on the server than there is currently here. Every rp server has crafting components etc available for crafting (wands, scrolls, potions, armor and shields etc..), why is there none here? Every rp server I have been on also has a layout that actually fits and makes sense. When you transition from area to area if you actually map it out as I have tried none of it makes sense (for example the southern exit of the frozen forest you appear on the south end of the new map, not the north like you should). Why are the dragon kin resistant to fire but not susceptible to ice? Monsters on the server do not make much sense. How do minotaurs have will saves of 20? That's not default. The server here seems to be stacked against the players. Back in the day bsk1 it was great (i'm talking 1.5 - 2 years after it started). Not everyone exploited the heck out of it but HECK the ones that exploited never hung out with the rp'ers cus they never got along. Who cares what they did. If there is to much pk'ing going on then maybe the server needs to be policed.

I really do not get where this huge fear of what players might do came from. Did someone get physically hurt outside of this virtual world? Was someone's feeling sorely hurt? What was it?

[Caesius]

I think that because we are already limited to only 1 property per item we are already making a trade off. If we add AC, we can't add a bonus to saves. We can't add damage reduction. We can't add a myriad of things that allowed players in BSK1 to have their cake and eat it too in the form of multiple property items. I think the problem regarding AC and challenge lies with the fact that a majority of the monsters on the server do their damage by making regular melee attack rolls.

The AC bonus from a helmet is a deflection bonus. That means that this is one of the few types of AC still counted when an enemy uses a ranged touch attack. Ranged touch attacks ignore armor, shield and natural ac. People who get flanked and don't have uncanny dodge lose their dex bonuses to ac. Mages can throw spells that completely bypass AC. AC isn't the equalizer like it used to be in the days of 5 and 6 property items. Why? Because when you choose to become harder to hit with a sword, you become easier to hit with a spell. Some people like to specialize and are prepared to accept the price that has to be paid for it by being very weak in other areas. Also keep in mind, when you use feats like expertise and items like tower shields, your attack bonus suffers which prolongs a fight giving monsters time to do more damage. And we all know how monsters love to go after easy targets like ranged attackers before they die while the tank of the party is chasing behind being ignored.

I guess if I come across as upset it's only because AC to helms and shields stack the same as they always have NWN1 and so these results were not a surprise. When I finally get these forged items I waited so long for then lose half of these items in less than a day. Less than a day of testing to even see if this AC was too much, I can't help but feel discouraged.

My suggestion in regards to dealing with AC specialized characters is this: Make monsters that can hurt in other ways than merely swinging a weapon. A fighter with a king sized AC could get decimated with a finger of death, an implosion spell or a dominate person spell.

That's why I think AC on shields and helms is balanced and should be allowed.

Back on topic, I think it would be cool if they dropped something like troll meat which might work like a lesser vigor potion for those who consume it. It would be a treasure unique to the troll lair that might attract a few more visitors.

[twin_snakes]

Nottingham, I was not trying to "threaten to leave" to get something out of the server. While it may be fun to consider someone guilty before they are proven innocent I prefer to try and listen to the entire context of what is being said. The point I have been trying to get across is that the player count is where it is because of how little this server has to offer.

There is no doubt that nwn1 allowed players to power game. Nwn1 was geared towards solo play, it was designed to be more powerful. But I think that the experiences some encountered with nwn1 has scared some and made them think that nwn2 would be no different. However nwn2 was designed almost completely different. Its vision changed. Nwn1 was designed to be a video game. Pnp rules were left in the wind. Now when nwn2 came along the newly formed team decided to bring the game back closer to its roots. They designed it to be way more close to the pnp rules of 3.5. I have played 3.5 pnp quite a bit and it is VERY balanced. Nwn2 I find is also very balanced. So I guess I don't see the need to be so limiting with a game that was designed to be far more balanced.

The other things that has gotten to myself and Caes is that we are asked to make suggestions. So we make suggestions and have been for a while but there has not been much response to them. Or as in the case with the last day or so we have made suggestions and just been told no but asked to keep making suggestions. It really feels like we have no voice sometimes. Then we see other players that flip flop on things they say for example nottingham saying we should be thankful for the portal system then he goes off and says that should also be nerfed. Why must a book only have 10 charges? I suggest just raising the price of the book to something along the lines of 5k and leave it with unlimited charges. That would make much more sense to me.

I would actually really suggest putting the game at default. Set the game to the settings that it was designed for then see what problems occur. Flesh out more areas, make them actually connect properly if you were to make a large map. Diversify the monsters (bsk has an mo of being high ab low ac server), put different types of monsters out there. If you did that then more classes would be playable.

The biggest suggestion I could make would be for driller to go play on other servers. Talk to their makes, their players, their community. See what problems others have encountered. See what the general standard is amongst servers. I would suggest logging onto the servers Dragoncoast.org and Elements of Aesyr. Please let me know if these suggestions to much to ask for, if so I will try to make other ones.

[StarChild]

As originally stated here the trolls are two hard. And you cant say things will balance out once we start pumping out +5 items. because you're taking the +5 items away. I admit we WERE at a semi decent base point for BSK to grow but now we have gone far below ground zero. BSK has lessened. I'll keep playing here until I find it too hard to take it anymore. Almost there. I would hate to see Caes and Twin go. Honestly I know if they go then a couple other major players will follow

*Looks at Gibbs through the corner of his eye*

I guess you can turn BSK into a game board and have a few friends play an event every once and while. Thats what a lot of other 0/16 servers do. Groups of friends meet there about once a week and play. As far as an actual persistent world.... I doubt that would happen if things remain the same.

[driller]

Please stop the melodrama. Go back and re-read what I said. Your missing a *whole* lot.

-driller

As originally stated here the trolls are two hard. And you cant say things will balance out once we start pumping out +5 items. because you're taking the +5 items away. I admit we WERE at a semi decent base point for BSK to grow but now we have gone far below ground zero. BSK has lessened. I'll keep playing here until I find it too hard to take it anymore. Almost there. I would hate to see Caes and Twin go. Honestly I know if they go then a couple other major players will follow

*Looks at Gibbs through the corner of his eye*

I guess you can turn BSK into a game board and have a few friends play an event every once and while. Thats what a lot of other 0/16 servers do. Groups of friends meet there about once a week and play. As far as an actual persistent world.... I doubt that would happen if things remain the same.

[StarChild]

alright. melodrama done. I was left on vacation with the fam for one day then saw all these posts about nerfing when I got back. Of course I'm gonna trip out a little. I'm done now.

[twin_snakes]

I asked a question in my post and it seems it was ignored completely. We have been asked to make suggestions, I have made some and now they aren't even acknowledged?

[driller]

Luceran made the same suggestions about the portal book as Nottingham did, which I agreed with .
As I explained in another post. The cost is about half of BSK1's portal scrolls.

-driller

I asked a question in my post and it seems it was ignored completely. We have been asked to make suggestions, I have made some and now they aren't even acknowledged?