First Look: U43 Pale Master

Like some others have stated, the prospect of positive healing for PM is alluring, but should there not be more drawbacks to it? Why not offer an enhancement in the tree that allows for positive energy vulnerability at the cost of some fortification and and negative vulnerability. OR, better yet, why not start the forms off with partial vulnerability to both positive and negative healing and 50% fortification plus immunity to poison effects (not dmg). THEN bump up the necrotic touch to T2 (or remove completely) and put an enhancement in it's place that gives you increased vulnerability to negative energy and decreased vulnerability to positive energy. 3 ranks for (65/80/100%) vulnerability to negative and racial increase to fortification and (35/20/0%) vulnerability to positive. Rank 1 gives immunity to disease, paralysis, and poison dmg; rank 2 gives immunity to most death effects (the ones that can't affect undead), fatigue, and energy draining effects; rank 3 gives immunity to stuns, dazes, and mind affecting spells (altogether what undead form gives now).

Alternatively this can be done in the cores, further emphasizing the idea that you are indoctrinating yourself into undeath while also providing more build options and a more give and take approach to the benefits that undead shrouds provide.

Keep in mind that while Warforged characters also start with 50% vulnerability to positive as well as imunity to energy drain, fatigue, and poison dmg, they lack the immunity to stuns, dazes, and mind affects. They also lack immunity to most necromancy spells. These are huge bonuses that should be accounted for when giving PM healing.

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Originally Posted by Cadveen

Harm is also the only way to remove stat dmg from palemasters so the circle of hatred/malevolence are awesome items

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I'm pretty sure the restoration spells remove stat dmg for undead characters as well.

So if undead are being able to be affected by positive healing, what effect does this have on the cursed blade of jack jibbers? does it remove the damage over time and give 50% healing from positive as well, or does it remain unchanged?

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Originally Posted by Kermon

So if undead are being able to be affected by positive healing, what effect does this have on the cursed blade of jack jibbers? does it remove the damage over time and give 50% healing from positive as well, or does it remain unchanged?

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If it's is related to PM abilitiess, I think DOT will be removed, you will receive 50% Positive Healing, but you will still be dead after 60 seconds. Or they leave this ability unchanged. In any case, this should not be a priority for the Devas.

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Originally Posted by Lynnabel

Jumping in super quick to let you guys know, we've successfully removed the facing-requirements of Harm. Hope to see you guys on the upcoming preview to check the new tree out! :)

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YES, finally! ^^

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Originally Posted by Requiro

In any case, this should not be a priority for the Devas.

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Typo? or WAI?

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Originally Posted by Kermon

So if undead are being able to be affected by positive healing, what effect does this have on the cursed blade of jack jibbers? does it remove the damage over time and give 50% healing from positive as well, or does it remain unchanged?

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+1 excellent point for the Devs to work on

Pale masters are alive but have an undead shroud which can be toggled.
That is part of the justification of positive healing with a penalty.


Jibbers could be considered a completely different state of being?
The player actually died and has been raised as an undead?
It will be interesting to hear the Devs philosophy on the subject since the pale master raise as an undead is having its penalty removed?
Given the power of jibbers already, improving thus will be a tricky subject...

Jibbers could be considered a separate form as death is certain, while the pale master raise undead could be prolonged indefinitely with help.


My opinion is that the devs could leave jibbers as is and I would be fine with thus.
Or if they allowed positive energy but kept the dot that would be fine.
Or if they allowed positive energy but removed the dot that would be fine.

Negative healing came before DDO fell into the hands of SSG, however negative healing tech is still a rather curious tech to the development team (Not as much as runearm tech though in which SSG understands so little of that it would be impossible for them to allow half elf Dilettante for Artificer to grant runearm proficiency) to me this would appear to be indicative of programming tech development in the same sense that cloak tech was used in the development of tails for the Tieflings in which I called about a week after the cloaks were announced for DDO.

So I would guess that we are either going to eventually get a sort of "Infected" universal enhancement tree that would turn us into something undead, or the Sorcerer Iconic will indeed be an undead type as some rumors floating around and a snarky remark made on Lamannia has indicated as likely. Sure it would make sense seemingly that Sorcerers have all the spells essential for a Pale master's self heals (not to mention simply every spell that a Wizard has as well) despite some of said spells being useless without an undead form (Since Sorcerers have no undead form), this likeliness increases even further when SSG would hear people complain about their healing availability in reaper mode while other players simply despise the idea of an undead race as I've suggested in the past for the Ravenloft expansion. Tinkering with the negative healing tech to allow for positive healing makes quite a bit of sense for this purpose and for the purpose of making different loot more useful for different builds (Looking at you Sharn Armors). Then again the newest class they are to release may even be vampire in which honestly I don't really want to see represented as a class unless it would be free to play as a vampire iconic would be interesting to say the least, think Legacy Of Kain series!

Further speculation regarding iconics would reveal that based on popular opinions of the player base as well as D&D lore, the Iconic barbarian is in fact most likely to be a Duergar Battlerager.

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Originally Posted by Silverleafeon

Pale masters are alive but have an undead shroud which can be toggled.
That is part of the justification of positive healing with a penalty.

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Debunked with PM WF inability to Repair.

The only justification is QoL as noted by Devs in two separate responses. And is mostly a QoL improvement for healers.

Want to make sure it is crystal clear, this divorcing from common sense is only justified by QoL with no Theme/Lore support. (Unless your Blade, if that's your go to for lore. ugh.)

There is still time Devs, just don't do it. You fixed Harm for the healer classes and let that be enough, don't muck up the PM's uniqueness.

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Originally Posted by Varr

Debunked with PM WF inability to Repair.

The only justification is QoL as noted by Devs in two separate responses. And is mostly a QoL improvement for healers.

Want to make sure it is crystal clear, this divorcing from common sense is only justified by QoL with no Theme/Lore support. (Unless your Blade, I suppose if that's your go to for lore. ugh.)

There is still time Devs, just don't do it. You fixed Harm for the healer classes, don't muck up the PM's uniqueness.

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Yes Devs! Please don’t do it! I’m a sad sad panda about being under an undead shroud and being able to receive an emergency heal from the 90% of players who don’t have Harm (or it slotted). Let me argue about why I’m right! Wah! I hate things that promote grouping together and being friendly to those who want to play with the new undead shrouds!

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Originally Posted by Varr

Debunked with WF inability to Repair.

The only justification is QoL as noted by Devs in two separate responses. And is mostly a QoL improvement for healers.

Want to make sure it is crystal clear, this divorcing from common sense is only justified by QoL with no Theme/Lore support. (Unless your Blade, I suppose. ugh.)

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Inb4 I'm not disagreeing with you.

The justification for it may be QoL, but there's obviously balance concerns in there as well (else why not just have full healing for all races and forms; healers would love that). My problem is that there isn't an equal drawback to the benefits. Undead will no longer be able to crumble. They're getting 50% positive vulnerability. Unless I'm mistaken, they're keeping all of their immunities. They're getting enhancements that reduce and/or completely negate dmg that they are weak against. About the only thing that actually changed in the negative sense is the incorporeality, and largely due to comparisons with different forms in the tree, not because of how it fares against the other classes, etc. in general. I've heard comparisons to Warforged, but let's think about it. WF have no immunities to negative dmg or death effects by virtue of their race. They have virtually no immunity to CC (yes, I know they can't be held, but that's about it). But for 6 points and 3 lvls in this one class, you could essentially be immune to basically everything except straight up dmg, which everyone is susceptible to (obviously). There used to be huge drawbacks with the huge penalties you got (they're still here ofc, but soon to go away). You used to automatically die if you went incapped. You used to not get healing from most classes and had to rely on yourself. PM that went into form knew the risks. Anyone that remains in the shrouded forms in a given difficulty with a healer in the group (any healer, not just Clr) is either comfortable in their ability to handle their toon when **** hits the fan or believes the benefits still outweigh the drawbacks and are willing to take that risk. I've even read some people on this very topic talking about how they drop forms at a certain difficulty (think someone said r7 or something?). There's not much reason to make this particular play style much easier, and believe me, a 50% vulnerability to positive on top of those immunities is a HUGE bonus. Much like playing stealth or CC or any other role (even healing), we have to learn by trial and error and find ways to improve, not jump for joy when changes made to a class transcends power creep and becomes power leaps. That's really the only way that people are going surmount these obstacles with satisfaction.

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Originally Posted by Havocthedemon

Yes Devs! Please don’t do it! I’m a sad sad panda about being under an undead shroud and being able to receive an emergency heal from the 90% of players who don’t have Harm (or it slotted). Let me argue about why I’m right! Wah! I hate things that promote grouping together and being friendly to those who want to play with the new undead shrouds!

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Your post total is up to 4, I'm assuming in all 3 of your previous posts you argue about why you were wrong?
For the simple, lets break this down.

In most all content a group of 1-6 players get together and truck the content with no deaths and almost no healing. Just run it over heard of buffalo style.

Occasionally, 1-6 players get together and push their capabilities and its a little slower run, with some healing, and even some deaths. Havent seen a permadeath post in a long long time. This change is great for permadeath parties.

For everyone else, one extra death of the careless PM is of no consequence and eliminating that one extra death every 15th run of difficult content/level is not worth the sacrifice of theme.

Spoken as a long time Melee/DC casting PM. New PMs, eat the learning curve, it is tasty and worth it. You come out the back side truly bestial.

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Originally Posted by Varr

Your post total is up to 4, I'm assuming in all 3 of your previous posts you argue about why you we wrong?
For the simple, lets break this down.

In most all content a group of 1-6 players get together and truck the content with no deaths and almost no healing. Just run it over heard of buffalo style.

Occasionally, 1-6 players get together and push their capabilities and its a little slower run, with some healing, and even some deaths. Havent seen a permadeath post in a long long time. This change is great for permadeath parties.

For everyone else, one extra death of the careless PM is of no consequence and eliminating that one extra death every 15th run of difficult content/level is not worth the sacrifice of theme.

Spoken as a long time PM. New PMs, eat the learning curve, it is tasty and worth it. You come out the back side truly bestial.

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You see, this isn’t even about some play style difference. Nothing is changing about how you play your PM. I’ve been playing since 09, so don’t think I don’t know how to play a caster are 100+ lives on my main alone. The “sacrifice of the theme” is not your call, bc you refuse to believe that it fits under YOUR definition of PM. Which isn’t the reality giving how it’s changing, but you can argue perception vs reality all you want. It’s happening and they’ve already said the lore is a bit of grey area (it’s dungeons and dragons for Christ sake) and offered that explanation.

Refusing that explanation is your right but also your problem. Don’t play one. And calling out the number of my posts is laughable, since it looks like you edit every single one of your 2,146 posts. But, thanks for voicing your opinion! I feel people forget that these are forums for doing just that, these are not presidential campaigns where we yell “make monkchers great again!” and expect our opinions to actually carry any weight.

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Originally Posted by Havocthedemon

You see, this isn’t even about some play style difference. Nothing is changing about how you play your PM. I’ve been playing since 09, so don’t think I don’t know how to play a caster are 100+ lives on my main alone. The “sacrifice of the theme” is not your call, bc you refuse to believe that it fits under YOUR definition of PM. Which isn’t the reality giving how it’s changing, but you can argue perception vs reality all you want. It’s happening and they’ve already said the lore is a bit of grey area (it’s dungeons and dragons for Christ sake) and offered that explanation.

Refusing that explanation is your right but also your problem. Don’t play one. And calling out the number of my posts is laughable, since it looks like you edit every single one of your 2,146 posts. But, thanks for voicing your opinion! I feel people forget that these are forums for doing just that, these are not presidential campaigns where we yell “make monkchers great again!” and expect our opinions to actually carry any weight.

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Correct, it is not my call...…….it's my call out.
My definition of a PM has been reinforced by DDO's past 6-8? years of PM implementation. I edit so I can get my phrasing and statements exact with my intentions. Helps me state my case more succinctly. You should do more edits.

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Originally Posted by Varr

For everyone else, one extra death of the careless PM is of no consequence and eliminating that one extra death every 15th run of difficult content/level is not worth the sacrifice of theme.

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If your argument is basically "dont bother improving healing because healing isnt necessary anymore", then you're on pretty weak ground.

The standard shouldnt be healing for those who dont need it, it should be how balanced is healing when you actually need to heal.

Also, "theme" is a highly subjective and vague metric. Can you demonstrate how your gameplay experience is going to be negatively impacted if you can get healed 50% pos? Because you can point out clear and specific issues with preventing PMs from being healed in a party.

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Originally Posted by Havocthedemon

You see, this isn’t even about some play style difference. Nothing is changing about how you play your PM. I’ve been playing since 09, so don’t think I don’t know how to play a caster are 100+ lives on my main alone. The “sacrifice of the theme” is not your call, bc you refuse to believe that it fits under YOUR definition of PM. Which isn’t the reality giving how it’s changing, but you can argue perception vs reality all you want. It’s happening and they’ve already said the lore is a bit of grey area (it’s dungeons and dragons for Christ sake) and offered that explanation.

Refusing that explanation is your right but also your problem. Don’t play one. And calling out the number of my posts is laughable, since it looks like you edit every single one of your 2,146 posts. But, thanks for voicing your opinion! I feel people forget that these are forums for doing just that, these are not presidential campaigns where we yell “make monkchers great again!” and expect our opinions to actually carry any weight.

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In all honesty, theme is different from lore. I mean, there are plenty of aspects of the game that deviate from lore and yet are internally consistent within their own concepts (theme). The Devs still haven't actually explicitly stated what the theme is. There is only speculation and assumptions. Are we supposed to be dead? Are we supposed to be kinda alive? Are we supposed to be necromancers? There hasn't actually been talk about what the tree intends to do, only what the changes are supposed to solve for the game overall (i.e. the difficulty of healing characters that normally can't be healed with positive energy). I'm not even entirely sure the tree is actually good or appropriate (or thematic), because the concept of what a Pale Master is supposed to be has neither been addressed nor defined.

I'd also like to point out that playing for years doesn't necessarily mean you're good (and trust me, I've been playing with people for years who I would say could play a lot better if they put their mind to it). I'm not saying you aren't good of course, just pointing out that correlation does not imply causation.

In addition, there still hasn't been a response to the concerns of the benefits vs drawbacks equilibrium. What has the PM actually lost as a result of receiving vulnerability to positive energy?

I never looked at palemasters as completely undead but those giving up part of their life for their powers. So lore is not broken based on my research...Palemasters are not necessarily undead, but partly undead.


From Grimlore's Grimoire
The Pale Master is in intelligence-based caster obsessed with the dark arts. They specialize in spells and incantations that allow them to harness the very life-force that flows through all creatures. Where a life-force is not present, they are able to instill a mimicry of foul life, rising these dead creatures from their once peaceful earthen resting places. All of the old 3.5e hallmarks are present: undead graft, summoning an undead servant and necromancy specialization. To obtain these gifts, the Pale Master forgoes study in the other arcane disciplines (drastically reducing their spell list in favor of undead gifts). The Pale Master is a complete D&D 5e class with three fully detailed archetypes, called requiems, that will give players unique options when creating and playing their characters. The archetypes are: Requiem of the Ash, Requiem of the Frigid, Requiem of the Haunt, and Requiem of the Torpor.

From Arelith Wikia
Basically, the pale master is a necromancer that gives parts of their living body up for undead augmentations. For example, the natural AC bonus that the class gets is thier skin turning hard and bony. As they gain levels, they look more and more like the undead that they control. In Tome and Blood actually said that at level 10, most onlookers confuse the Pale Master for an undead.

- Palemaster isn't simply mastery of the undead, it is breaking the bounds between life and death, it's in a sense, a loss of vitality, not related to the desire to control and create undeath necromancers have.
- The Palemaster is also striving to serve the existance he previously knew in reshaping his body as he sees fit, to resemble undeath (The undead graft, and the vital changes necessary for the immunities that he gains). Likewise, these changes increase his link to the undeath. Whereas a necromancer would force undeath to do his bidding through spells and the like, a Palemaster differs by being able to use his growing link with the undead to coax them into doing what he wishes. Breaking the boundaries that people usually think exist between undeath and life.

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Originally Posted by droid327

If your argument is basically "dont bother improving healing because healing isnt necessary anymore", then you're on pretty weak ground.

The standard shouldnt be healing for those who dont need it, it should be how balanced is healing when you actually need to heal.

Also, "theme" is a highly subjective and vague metric. Can you demonstrate how your gameplay experience is going to be negatively impacted if you can get healed 50% pos? Because you can point out clear and specific issues with preventing PMs from being healed in a party.

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Then this must not be my argument, since I don't stand on weak ground. Reread my post for the heart of it. Theme/Lore its not that subjective. Gary and a few friends created D&D long ago. That set the core of the game we play today. It evolved, and PM is part of that result as was instituted. We then reinforced that with years and year of PM play. Now 50% positive healing is added for QoL and is simply non sensible. Which is great for some. I'm no longer even fighting its implementation really. Just continuing to heard the for arguments into their correct vertical. QoL and nothing more.

There have been a dozen posts already about PM takebacks to balance this. In 9 months, I'll not be looking forward to course corrections on the PM side to further facilitate this silly add on that shouldn't be in the first place. If the nerfs don't occur, or they are only on the positive healing side, goodie indeed.

I'm just waiting for the Hand and Eye of Vecna to added in with a 2-set bonus of giving the wearer negative healing without need to be a pale master... =)

My question is what argument is against in the least requiring some sort of basic (even minimal) tradeoff for a PM to be able to receive positive healing? Could be a single feat, small number of action points, etc.. Sure, this would require a bit more thought/work form the devs but in the least this seems like a small compromise.

There has been a few mentions, including from a dev, something to the effect that “the drawbacks don’t outweigh the benefits.”. However, reading through this thread it is clear that the community is very much divided on the issue and it is clear that some folks put much more weight on, for example, a certain amount of thematic coherence while others see the potential benefits to group play as carrying a lot of weight. So, deciding whether or not the drawbacks outweigh the benefits is clearly highly subjective on this issue since folks are coming to this from very different and even contradictory viewpoints. To simply state that the “drawbacks don’t outweigh the benefits” then is being very uncharitable to the other side.

As mentioned in my previous post I have played a pale master (Sun Elf Baelnorn) for many years and enjoy it very much. Personally I don’t want to be forced to have to receive positive healing since being healed as a PM by both positive and negative makes no sense to me. Personally I would not play DDO if it were not for a certain amount of coherence in terms of lore, number/class dynamics. I play all levels of content but mostly higher reaper at cap and don’t have a single complaint about survivability. The PM immunities are very strong imo in terms of survivability. I also very much enjoy group play with unique roles which for me has always been the funnest. I have heard healers repeatedly say the facing requirement for Harm was annoying so it is great that will be fixed.

Personally I feel this possible change to PM healing, as compared to all the other real alternatives, is not a good one for the game. Nevertheless, as mentioned in my previous post, folks are coming to this from a variety of different perspectives and backgrounds.

So, again, if those who want this change see it as “overwhelmingly positive” then surely they should be fine with some sort of basic even minimal trade-off. If this is viewed as such a positive game changer then requiring a single feat or merely a few actions points (or whatever) should be a non-issue comparative to the benefits for them.

What is the argument against something like this as compared to forcing all PM’s (including all those who actually have been enjoying running PM’s for years and view this as entirely anti-thematic to pale master builds) to receive 50% positive healing?