Veteran PnP DnD player has questions.

[Gygaxis]

This game is different from 3.5 in many ways, but after searching the ddowiki, I haven't really received concise answers. Beyond the obvious differences, there are systems "tacked on" to the core d20 mechanism, where you roll a d20, add modifiers, and test against a result.

Can anyone offer me a short list of the differences between ddo and pnp 3.5? Just assume I know all of the rules from 3.5, have read the player's handbook I and II, dungeons masters guide, the monster manuals, and probably 3 dozen other non-core books. I just want a list of differences / additions.


It would probably be a good idea to separate topics into unique threads, but this is my first and probably my last thread, so I have one more question that isn't related to the one above, directed at veteran ddo players:

Do you think it is "worth it" to run a enchantment based wizard? The school of enchantment has to be my favorite-- charm, dominate, hold, and the power words. Right now I'm pushing through instances I rightfully shouldn't be able to push through by charming individuals in groups and watching the group eat itself alive. Once I get mass charm, I intend to just charm the whole group, cast invisibility on myself, then go in and manually "cancel charm" on one at a time (that hopefully won't cancel my invisibility, since it isn't an offensive action).

It is worth it right now, but what about later? How many "mind altering effect immune" monsters are there in the later progressions of the game. I can still use charm monster or dominate monster on non-humanoid intelligent creatures, but how many are actually "immune" to "mind altering effects" (like oozes for example). In other words, how many of them just don't have brains? It won't be worth it if a sizable portion of the quests later on involve dealing with elementals, constructs, and so forth.

[Lanhelin]

Do you think it is "worth it" to run a enchantment based wizard?

Yes, but you might face some problems completing a few quests if you try them alone/with a Hireling on Heroic Elite difficulty, because most Bosses are immune to your main spells like charm/dominate/hold and a few of them are able to selfheal too. While in most cases this is not a problem due to enough charmable adds, there are a few situations where a dominated minion won't follow like in the quest "Hiding in Plain Sight". You'll need additional Goldseal Hirelings or wield a twohanded Greataxe or complete these quests in a group (and keep always slotted some damage spells without saves like Firewall). Besides these cases the enchantment focused Wizard is very powerful and can turn nearly all fights from impossible to easy going. Btw you can also charm Oozes with the spell called "Ooze Puppet". But your available spellslots will be limited to 5/Spell Level. Additionally you can use Scrolls or Wands or Spell like Abilities (SLA's) when you choose one of the Wizard's prestige enhancements Pale Master or Archmage.

If you are new to the dungeons I'd recommend to create a multiclass Wiz with two Levels of Rogue to be able to search/find and disable traps and get the free feat Evasion. Because Trap damage is the only lethal damage especially on Elite difficulty which really is a problem at least as long as you do not know where the traps are located and how to pass them without taking damage/getting killed.

[Gygaxis]

Yes, but you might face some problems completing a few quests if you try them alone/with a Hireling on Heroic Elite difficulty, because most Bosses are immune to your main spells like charm/dominate/hold and a few of them are able to selfheal too.


I wonder if Mord's Disjunction will remove the immunity...

It will if the immunity derives from a spell, or from an enchanted piece of equipment. If it is a racial supernatural effect then it won't of course.


Sigh. In PnP when I run into problems facing bosses that are immune to mind altering effects, I would transmute them into a harmless critter using baleful polymorph, causing it to lose every one of its special abilities. Then I'd follow up with the standard combination of mindfog + dominate.


We don't have a baleful polymorph in ddo though. What a shame.

[unbongwah]

Can anyone offer me a short list of the differences between ddo and pnp 3.5?
FYI, Turbine changed a lot of things when MotU / U14 came out last summer; so be wary of any advice you see that's more than a year old. Off the top of my head, the major differences I can think of:

The d20 system is largely intact - i.e., roll a die, add a bunch of modifiers, if it exceeds the DC target you succeed - except when it comes to AC / to-hit. This was radically altered last year; rather than being a linear scale, it now uses this formula (http://ddowiki.com/page/Armor_Class). The goal was to make it easier for most characters to achieve at least some degree of protection from AC; but the downside is reaching a 95% miss chance (which some AC-based tank builds used to have) is virtually impossible now. Fortunately, there are other forms of physical protection than just AC...
To whit, Turbine also introduced two new defense mechanics last year: Dodge (http://ddowiki.com/page/Dodge_bonus) and PRR (http://ddowiki.com/page/PRR). Dodge bonus used to be an AC bonus, now it's a static miss chance independent of other miss chances (which inc. AC, concealment, and incorporeal bonuses); while PRR reduces the amount of physical dmg you take per hit.
The two major changes to the magic system vs. PnP are (A) it's based on spell points (SPs) rather than limited-uses-per-rest (using metamagics increases the SP cost of spells) and (B) Spellpower (http://ddowiki.com/page/Spell_power) boosts their output.
Heroic levels (lvl 1-20) are class-based; every time you level, you talk to the class trainer you want to level up in, up to a max of 3 different classes per character. There's no MCing XP penalties or racial favored classes or anything like that; but PnP alignment restrictions still apply (i.e., pallies must be LG, barbs & bards must be non-lawful, etc.).
In addition to stats, skills, feats, etc. you're familiar with, DDO also has Enhancements (http://ddowiki.com/page/Enhancements), which are racial and class abilities you can spend Action Points (APs) on. You earn 4 APs per heroic level, up to 80 max at lvl 20; you stop earning APs in epic levels (see below). Prestige Enhancements (PrEs) are analogous to prestige classes (PrCs) from PnP; rather than taking levels in a PrC, instead you spend APs to add a PrE to your build, presuming you meet all the pre-reqs. NOTE: Turbine is working on a pretty major revamp to the Enhancement system (currently in closed beta on the test server, Lamannia (https://www.ddo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/9-Lamannia-Server)); you can read about the alpha here (http://ddowiki.com/page/In_development/Enhancements). So presuming it isn't delayed (again), we're all gonna need to rebalance our builds in a couple of weeks.
Epic levels (21+) are classless; they provide the same generic bonuses to all characters. Turbine introduced Epic Destinies (http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Destinies) last year, which is where the real performance boost to epic chars comes from. [Note: EDs aren't free for anyone, not even subscribers; you either buy them separately or bundled w/MotU.]
There are a lot of bonuses in DDO which don't exist in PnP - not without a lot of house-ruling, anyway: both permanent bonuses like tomes (http://ddowiki.com/page/Tomes) and temporary ones like guild airship buffs (http://ddowiki.com/page/Guild_Airships#Airship_Amenities) or from gear. In particular, you'll find a lot of char builds depend on stat tomes to meet certain feat pre-reqs.


Do you think it is "worth it" to run a enchantment based wizard?
Enchantment-focused? Sure: it's not always optimal, but it can be a lot of fun. Enchantment-only? No. As stated, most bosses are immune to all CC effects: not just Hold/Charm, but also Web, Grease, etc. For them, you need good old-fashioned DPS to take them down.

Fortunately, a good Enchanter is most of the way to being a good Necromancer as well, since you have to invest in Spell Pen for both schools; the combination of CC, instakills, and DPS makes for a pretty effective build in virtually all content.

[Gygaxis]

snip

Thankyou for that very complete response!

Now I have a list of pointers to differences that I can research at my leisure. Although, as you pointed out, alot will change in a month because of the Enhancement rework.

[Lanhelin]

Just to add: Darkfang Hunters (http://ddowiki.com/page/Darkfang_Hunter) are immune to charm/dominate too (which makes the Hiding in Plain Sight quest mentioned above even tougher for an enchantment focused Wizard). I do not really know why, because other types of spiders are charmable. Fortunately all of them have very low will savings, which makes them susceptible to Sonic Blast's daze effect.

[Rakuda13]

My advice to you is just make a character,fix it on its second life. You will learn things that you can use on its second life and use turbine points to buy more packs if you are F2P.

[Anarkius]

Take 90% of what you know from PnP, feed it to a paper shredder, now take it and ball it up, now throw it into the fireplace when lit :D

Ok, now that you have removed all of that information from possibly biasing your decision making process in game, you can begin by min/maxing the character class you want to play.

From there it's all downhill (from PnP anyway) ...

[OwenMay]

I dont think there are many non boss mobs that can not be charmed/dominated.
You need different spells for different types though. As a Wiz you can learn all except those for animal types. If it has an animals head and walks on more than 2 feet its usually limited to charm animal and not a valid target for any wiz charm.
Charm/Dominate Monster has the most possible targets.
Immune popping up dosent usually mean immune to charms, just immune to the type of charm spell you were using.
If you pair it with necromancy/charm undead etc. type of spells and get a high spell penetration as well it is viable even in later levels to play a wiz as you want to.

Later on there are some quest with high saves where its very hard to land any charm type (or anything with a difficulty check really) spells, especially in group, sadly I dont know how to identify those up front, seems pretty random.
Heroic Elite and Epic Hard is what iam referring to, higher and lower I dont really know, lower it would work better obviously.

At level 11 you can use +2DC rings, those cant be found at that level as much as I know, you would need 50 cannith crafting to make them yourself BTC, or find someone with a higher crafting skill to make them for you unbound. Id recommend to get those as well as taking the feats and wiz enhancements as well as maxing INT for your spells to work semi reliable on Elite at higher levels and to get at least some of those if you want to play on Hard.
Spell penetration will be needed for some mobs as well, if you are an elf that is quite easy to boost with elven arcanum.