The Underdark, and past player comments

[shorn]

I feel this is a very important topic to bring up, with the new patch coming out, and player expectations of it, namely in regards to the Underdark.

A great many of you, former DM's and DM's included, have mentioned that leveling in the Underdark is very difficult, and I agree with that. However, balancing monsters in the underdark is not, in my opinion, the best solution.

The reason for this, and for the original difficulty itself, is how our server scripts treat ECL races in regards to CR and XP. Our server uses your total experience points versus the monster CR to determine xp given.

Lets use a drow, for example, to illustrate the problems with this.
A drow, at level 1, with 0 xp is considered a level 1 character. However, in the process of leveling to 2, he will pass both 1000, and 3000 xp, counting as both a level 2 and a level 3 character, all without gaining any power. In order to balance this, mobs must be altered to give a decent enough xp output to match the lack of power on the character itself.

Unfortunately, the very nature of this balancing act means that any other ECL race greater than +2 will still face the abstract decrease of xp without increase in skill that the drow faced, and anything less will experience an increase in xp that isnt found on the surface.

While some might believe this is the price you pay for being an ECL, thats not precisely true. The price paid for being an ECL is the extra XP, which added up in total will equal the +level value past 30 o the ECL. That was what was intended by the creators of ECL races, I believe, but perhaps might not be in keeping with what our builders and admins see for them, and thats fine, just as long as we know precisely how it effects the players attempting to play these characters.

I feel that with additional penalties on ECL, beyond the normal scope of the game mechanics will encourage the power levelers and powerbuilders who never stop grinding and never get up to continue, while the players who wish a unique vantage point of rp beyond the normal scope of characters will be discouraged and give up...


Anyways, thats my 2 cents in bringing up an issue Ive heard some people commenting on, I hope I didnt make anyone think I was faulting them, and I hope I didnt screw something up in what I typed above, but let me know if I did

[maximvs]

Indeed, it is painfull to lvl up, because if you re not a fighter with a tower shield and weapon expertise or a svifnelbein, you ll end up killing bats for 6 xp a kill to lvl up, even around lvl 3-4-5.

One solution would be to hunt down all svifnelbeins, put them in a crematorium and roast them to death, and after all this, remove the BaB of all monsters in the underdark by 4 points.

But the other solution is to... RP! that s right! RP XP! it gives almost as much xp than hunting monsters, when you re in the underdark. And it is ironic, because most people that makes a drow, or expecially a svif, wants the spell resist and the dodge ac.

That s right, the solution is RP. In the underdark. How ironic. Muhahahaha.

[adzling]

it is true, when you have svirfs with +5AC at level 1 it's hard to balance creatures properly.

as i said before the svirf race needs to be rebalanced for an ecl 2 race, my suggestion:
make the ac dodge bonus only effective against giants (same as surface gnomes)
make the +2 universal saves only effective against illusion magic (they are illusion specialists)
remove the idiotic +1 to hit for being tiny

[shorn]

Adzling, I like you, but Im going to have to call you out on this.

+1 for size is inherent in the race. You want them to lose the +1, fine, then let us use larger weapons, carry more, and use tower sheilds....its part of the ruleset, not the race.

I agree with the removal of the +4 dodge bonus, myself. I could see a smaller amount making sense, but +4 is overkill any way you look at it.

I dont see the logic in making the saves +2 versus illusion. By that logic, Elves should get enchantment focus illusion.

Anyways, that aside, captain bias, enough of the svirfneblin bashing. We get that you dont approve of them. Thankfully, we dont require other players approval to play what we ish. This topic has nothing to do with specific races, but rather the ECL that is attached to them.

On another side note, I challenge you to find a player who plays drow regularly. Once youve done that, ask them what in gods name they expect to talk with at any length with an inferior race such as the svirfneblin.


Back on topic please.
And please, someone post something helpful.

[adzling]

well my comments were on topic i felt.

here's the crux of it as i see it:

1). restrict ecl races to +2 max. this will allow the devs to manage balance easier and reduces the xp issue.
2). by editing the svirf profile to make it an ecl+2 race (possibilities are numerous see above) it would reduce the number of cheese-master who take the race purely for the cheese-sauce.

As far as rping with svirfs my only toon is a drow and i am happy to RP with svirfs provided they act appropriate to their race for the most part.
The ones that i am frequently encountering (rubo, penelope and azrael spring to mind) seem to making an honest attempt at playing shy, retiring, sly (and sometimes principled dammit!) svirf's which is great.
Even if my drow IC expresses disdain for them as a race I am happy to sit and chat all day with them as long as they don't act like uber-warrior-deathkillers....

[shorn]

Yes, thats true, but the aforementioned comment was focused on RP as a method of leveling...that kind of conversation really just isnt possible, save by a svirfneblin acting as an equal.

That would be akin to a billionaire spending hours in conversation with his butler.

[adzling]

haha i see what you're saying but hey i wouldn't mind!
and i would also say that while my toon is currently pretty racist towards svirfs (amongst others) his demeanor could change over time if he has good reason to change.
his current disdain comes from his lolthian upbringing and while he will probably never become "good" he may develop respect for and see the utility in developing relations with svirf's.

[shoujo]

I don't necessarily think a penalty (not necessarily the current one in place) is unwarranted. In PnP, there's the XP penalty that comes with the ECL like you said, but there's also the penalty of having to fight the same stuff the rest of the party is fighting and doing so with less levels (i.e. three 3rd level PCs and one level 1 + 2 ECL PC vs one ogre). In PWs though, ECL PCs generally have the luxury of being able to pick and choose their fights. So instead of having to fight an ogre at level 1 + 2, the ECL PC can fight an ogre at 3 + 2 effectively negating one of the penalties of being an ECL race.

That said, if the goal is to discourage PGers from playing powerful races an XP penalty early on isn't the solution because that just means more grinding like Shorn said. For a PGer, power at max level is weighted a lot more heavily than power at level 1 so if you want to discourage PGers from taking ECL races, shifting the penalty towards the end with a level cap of max level - ECL would work a lot better. It works on PvP servers, I imagine it'll work here too.

Then again I'm more in favor of just making all races the same ECL...

[shorn]

Thats very true, but with the setup we currently have, choosing to fight that same ogre at 3+2 wont give enough experience to really do much at all.

[Zealote]

I vote for a Deep Gnome hunt.
Fine sport for drows and bored surfacers.
Advice: Its a dangerous sport though. ;D
J/K, im bored and cant play, so im spaming...

[DM kelsfar]

I think the built in game race make up is what it is and I agree most with whats said about changing it and some things I don't agree on as well and I also wish I had a million gold to blow on Halfling strip clubs and paying off my debts to the Flaming Fist K.G.B. as well as donating to the church of Bane my weekly 10% gross income as well as casting cone of cold out my arse while duel wielding 2 great axes all while hiding in plain site. I also wish I could knock up Mystra so I could have lots of little arse spitting cone of cold duel weilding great axe hiding in plain site little bastards of Mask running around claiming they are all each AO. I also wish I was as talented as Elminster to carve my own spells out of the weave so I can re define the spell Detect alignment so that it works as detect PC that is a IRL guy RPing as a female and vice versa. I wish as well that I could come up with a cure for PVP griping cancer!!! I wish to see on the server the Time of Troubles reoccur except that all the DM's fall to Faerun (Baldurs gate) and all the PC's get to slay them to take there place as that respected Diety and also allowing Raenir to become Cyric the Mad! (suiting; just a joke bud) I wish to see that the in game SHOUT channel was used only twice a day to announce happy hour and last call!!! I wish that the goblin sappers were re-named Taliban Goblins and that President elect Neverwinterloveknight aka Bane aka Obama would solve these issues with promises of a stimulus bill that will get Baldurs Gate's economy going again cause folks my level 16 fighter has been unemployed for 5 months now and waiting in line at the unemployment line at the Church of Tyr for meager coin, is well, AO aweful! ( No offense to any that I named in here and as well as DM's, love you guys! but this was just a post to make some laughs no harm!!!)