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General Discussion / Re: Theme song.

« on: January 30, 2019, 12:40:31 am »

Corven,

This is just the song that always comes into my head when playing him - it might or might not reflect what goes on in the birdbrain's head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZNpV_Ryads

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 07:38:13 am »

Anything added on, in terms of stat malus, insanity checks, or other effects are still not going to really effect the character, ICly.

They'll come off as yet another annoyance to the player, so the intended effect won't have the result that's being looked for, and we're back at square one.

That's why I'm suggesting we change the terminology, and make it hard and fast that /death/ is permanent, but the usual effects of being down for an event, or messing up in a dungeon are /not/ death.

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 05:19:22 am »

People treat, IG, death as a minor annoyance, the current death penalty doesn't change that - making it worse won't change that, and making it easier won't change that. When it comes to Roleplay it needs to be instead on the onus of people playing to show the results of coming from near death. Or - change it so no one actually "dies" unless they're perma'd, and instead are considered to be at the brink of death, or downed, or whatever terminology you use.

Death isn't scary right now because you can get back up, its just annoying, from a purely OOC perspective, that a player's time was wasted.

Now out of curiosity here.  What would you feel would make death more terrifying?  we want people to fear death to a certain point. so how far should we go? (in a hypothetical discussion here) because for now there is no plan to change the death penalty.  this does not mean we wont. we are always open to suggestions and ideas.

So would you fear death more if we made the XP loss greater? 
What about if we made it perma death unless you got a rez from a cleric (npc or pc)?
What if we took away the death penalty all together?

this is what I think would make death more meaningful.

The option I would suggest is: Make standard 'death' in the system instead be treated as 'near-death'. Death is /death/, i.e. you are Perma'd. People don't come back from the dead, Resurrect, Raise, etc. are when the person still is still technically 'alive', but comatose etc.

Now, when you're dead, you're dead. Death is scary, and we still have the system where characters can 'respawn'. You're not jaunting over to Purgatory, hanging out there, and then coming back with "whelp, I saw the Fugue again".

Mechanically, nothing will change how death is perceived. It's going to be interesting to some, enraging to others, an annoyance etc.

If it's changed so the standard PC death is 'near-death' you remove a cleric's ability (or plot, or NPC etc.) from actually bringing the dead back. So when you /die/, you die.

For a Mechanical change? I'm still proposing that XP loss can't cause you to drop a level - loosing XP is something that can be overcome without a significant loss in character ability - loosing an entire level adds on the issues of now being weaker than you were before, and noticing a very significant loss in your character's capacity to actually function. That form of lost progress is something that causes a lot of the heartache on the server, particularly for the higher levels when you can loose a month plus of progress, /and/ a level, in one bad outing.

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 02:11:12 am »

As far as I'm aware, the issue of the death penalty isn't that it costs 6k to loose only 5% of your total XP, its that, post 15, that XP is significantly harder to get - thus its a matter of time, in real life, being gobbled up for a mechanical reason.

This is why people find it frustrating, or why people lash out - or otherwise get discouraged to play. It also doesn't enhance the roleplay aspect of the sever.

People treat, IG, death as a minor annoyance, the current death penalty doesn't change that - making it worse won't change that, and making it easier won't change that. When it comes to Roleplay it needs to be instead on the onus of people playing to show the results of coming from near death. Or - change it so no one actually "dies" unless they're perma'd, and instead are considered to be at the brink of death, or downed, or whatever terminology you use.

Death isn't scary right now because you can get back up, its just annoying, from a purely OOC perspective, that a player's time was wasted.

right now, a level 15 character will, at the minimum, loose 5,250 XP upon death, and a resurrection.

that means a character needs to amass 110,250 XP to be safe at level 15? Except, not, because 5,513 XP is now lost on death, so you really need closer to 5,700 to be "safe" from loosing you level, in the best of circumstances. This is actually 38% of the character's current XP towards their level.

Now you get 5,700 XP to be safe, either from ticks, or DM events. if the average tick is roughly 15, per 30 minutes or so, that's 190 hours of time to amass that amount from XP ticks alone. I don't know the actual time for each tick, I'm currently estimating.

Level 16, your minimum XP to not loose a level is approximately 6,500 XP, or 40% of your total XP towards your next level. Once again now your ability to get this "buffer" is reliant on ticks, or DM events, or two quests, if I recall right, that give XP for these characters. I'd ask what is the average XP a DM event will give - to the people that survived. If its 3k, you need to survive two events to be 'safe',

I'm suggesting that someone can't loose a level - you do that, and progress can be lost, but nothing that causes you're character to actually regress in their abilities as a person. lets say like, 30% of the XP needed to make it to your next level, not reducing your XP to the threshold that delevels you, as an example. then 20% for Raise, and 10% for resurrect.

If we're going to talk numbers, lets look at the numbers that effect the character directly when it comes to death, which is XP, and by extension, time.

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: December 02, 2018, 12:40:40 am »

I'm here for the RP that I'm able to have here, and the fact that the Neverwinter Nights engine allows for Netheril to exist in the first place.

This is firstmost a Roleplay server, I would ask that we focus on enhancing the actual ability and possibility of roleplaying.

Right now, the death system is "aw shit, I died - anyone have gold for a Resurrect? I'll refund you." From Purgatory. Then people get up, and go on their way, with less XP - a mechanical aspect.

NwN is not an MMO in the traditional sense, and because of the freedom allowing for everything from Netheril to a Bleach server.

And I would argue Netheril's death system is not the reason I'm here - none of Netheril's mechanics are why I'm here.

The way that the Man-in-the-mist came off, intentional or not, was very insulting. By claiming that this conversation was "over people's head" that insulated that anyone currently disagreeing, or offering input, is not intelligent enough to contribute to the conversation.

"What you are asking for is what is practiced on many popular MMOs. World of Warcraft is actually free to play now from what I hear, as are many others.

But you're not there, even though these games have better graphics, crafting systems, and player count.

You're here. "

This - is gas lighting. Trying to shift the blame onto me, and make me feel 'bad' for offering advice, this sort of language is intended to shut down thought, and to make it so people conform with what the poster has said, otherwise they can just 'leave', because obviously its their fault.

I want to talk about the death system, and my suggestions on how to improve it. That shouldn't be met with "you're not smart enough, go play on WoW." As a result.

"Because this game we play offers something different; consequences. Actual tangible ones. If everyone can hit level 20 easier than they do now the accomplishment means nothing. The struggle is what brings the reward. This is what makes the stories we tell feel tangible. Without risk we are just a bunch of nerds behind screens talking at each other."

This is another misnomer, and putting words in my mouth, in everyone's mouth. I don't play here because my actions have consequence, I do because this server allows me to, collaboratively, tell a story with other players and DM's in order to explore the thoughts, feeling, and actions of a character. That has nothing to do with the death penalty, nothing to do with mechanics, and claiming that I play here because of both are false.

Please, I'm asking that this get back on track - and instead we talk about the actual forum topic of the Death Penalty. Without the unneeded obfuscation. I still haven't heard a reason as to "why" my suggestion is apparently invalid - besides me not being smart enough to suggest one in the first place.

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General Discussion / Re: Death penalties

« on: November 30, 2018, 04:03:23 am »

One of the things I've noticed is that the death penalty is very, very hard to overcome - particularly as a higher level character.

The thought of loosing months of progress from a lag-spike, a dumb move, or just bad luck could really drive many people up the wall.

This might be mitigated if there was a way to return the XP loss in a reasonable way. You died and get raised? 10% XP gone, but...maybe 5% of that XP is stored as a sort of "pool" that doubles the amount of XP ticks you get. Yeah - it still sucks, but now its not as much of a loss.

Resurrection is made to 2.5% of the XP recoverable, or maybe even 3%, with a total of your 5% XP lost, that would also be a reasonable option?

Last, I could see making Death be more harsh, but not drop levels? Maybe death of a level 16 character causes them to loose up to 50% of the total XP to make the next level, but never drop back down to 15.

Losing XP sucks, loosing levels sucks way, way worse. I think having ways to mitigate the loss of levels, the real progress people see, would make it less painful.

In my examples, I used 15+ just because that's where death hurts the worst, I would propose the changes I suggested be applied to all levels.

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Feedback and Bugs / Re: Evard's Black Tenticles Bug

« on: November 24, 2018, 11:42:47 pm »

posting another screenshot, can this be rectified please? I went from full health to dead in no time flat - this spell shouldn't do 11 attacks in one round against a character.



It dealt 72 damage in 1 round, that's an instant kill on a level 4 spell.

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Feedback and Bugs / Re: Evard's Black Tenticles Bug

« on: November 24, 2018, 12:31:38 am »

That would be a good idea - making it so that it is impossible for a downed character to be "damaged" by any other means as opposed to bleedout

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Feedback and Bugs / Re: The Spell Nerf/Buff please thread

« on: November 24, 2018, 12:30:55 am »

Spell Name: Evard's Black Tentacles
Nerf or Buff: Nerf
Why it needs to be Nerfed: Evard's tentacles are an AoE spell with no SR, a fort-save vs. Paralysis, and 1d4 tentacles + 1 / caster level (maximum 20) tentacles, that do  1d6+4 points bludgeoning damage each. That is a potential total of 20d6+80 damage against a character at level 16.

To compare with Greater Missile Swarm (which a level 1 spell now blocks), it can do a maximum of 40d6 damage. This was already nerfed due to its ability to do such drastic damage, and doesn't do a fort-save paralysis effect, or last multiple rounds.

Evards also lasts a total of 1 round per 2 levels. Since its level four, it can be extended, empowered, and maximized, extended would give 15 rounds for a max (soft capped) mage with an average of roughly 16 to 19 tentacles, each doing up to 10 damage. Empowered would average 12, with 15 as its maximum damage per hit instead for roughly 7 rounds (once again, from 16 to 19 tentacles, so potentially up to 295 damage, a round)

Maximize would allow for 19 Tentacles, all doing 10 damage a round, for 7 rounds.

The spell can also be stacked ontop of itself, causing massive increases in effect, and also ignores NPC's, and friendly targets (i.e. the caster).

Proposed change: Remove the paralysis effect, change it to an entangle effect, or reduce the movement of characters within the field, have only 1 tentacle attack a character per round. They're grappling, it shouldn't be actually possible for 11 10 foot long tentacles to all grapple 1 character. The spell is intended in PnP do cover an entire field, and have 1 tentacle grappling per enemy inside.

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Feedback and Bugs / Evard's Black Tenticles Bug

« on: November 24, 2018, 12:06:36 am »

Evard's black tentacles continues to do damage after a player is downed, causing an immediate kill of particularly lower level, or lower HP characters. Screen shot attached showing the entire damage in 1 round received from the spell.



this is not a constant effect, but it does happen, and causes an immediate death for the character in question.

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General Discussion / Re: Improved Expertise

« on: November 09, 2018, 02:48:20 am »

I gave this suggestion in Discord, posting in here so it isn't lost.

A possible solution, instead of going into the coding to cause it to cancel during a spell action (which might have more variables, and could get wonky), would be causing a caster's spell failure (both arcane and divine) to be at 100% while in Expertise mode. This would solve the problem.

Fighters don't care, so having it just apply whenever expertise is on would stop casters, but have no impact on fighters.

The only issue I could see is, if a mage still has expertise for some reason (such as a hybrid melee/caster) and toggles it on and off, if there might be the possibility of that 100% spell failure not going away.