Human Versatility: Casters? Take a Hike!

[Dingo123]

The new Human Versatility HEAVILY favors Melee and Skill based builds. In fact, most of the human attributes favor physical combatants over casters.

However, the degree to which Human Versatility does it is just astounding.

Human Versatility provides FIVE DIFFERENT types of bonuses, and not ONE specifically benefits Casters.

The New Human Versatility provides bonuses to Weapon Accuracy, Weapon Damage, Saves, Skills, And AC.

A fighter will be able to potentially make use of four out of five of those. A Rogue could arguably make good use of ALL of them. A Caster? The Saves boost? Maybe.

Yes, I'm certain bards and clerics could get some milage out of the skills/ac perhaps... but Wizards and Sorcs are left completely in the cold.


Instead of providing a boost to weapon accuracy, allow Casters to increase the DC of their spells for the set duration of the time. Or, allow there to be a Spell percentage Discount during the casting time (i.e. 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%).

[jaitee]

or they can un nerf it, and return it back to the way it use to be where it was actully useful

[Dingo123]

They really should make Human Vers. in some form or another the absolute should have for Humans... because that's the essence of what it is.

Example: Melees get Human Versatility: Defense... Which gives a percentile decrease to damage taken, and a static increase to saves and AC for 20 seconds. Such as 10%(+2), 15%(+3), 20%(+4), 25%(+5), make the Human Versatility Skills boost be permanent like it once was, and do a similar thing for Casters that grants a Percentile SP Discount and DC/Caster Level boost, and finally for offensively minded human physical combatants... same scheme but with attack and damage, and the percentile being an attack haste boost. So a barbarian with Human Versatility: Offense would gain +5 to attack and damage, and a 25% alacrity bonus.


Now, the argument against these is that they would be VERY powerful..

And I won't disagree, they would be.

But consider what humans get in comparison to Dwarves, for example... or Drow? Or even Elves? Or Warforged?

Each of these races gets very substantial PERMANENT boosts. Think of all the benefits a Drow Rogue recieves from their enhancements... or a Dwarven Fighter... and these are on 24/7... they aren't 20 second cool downs from a finite grouping.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

They really should make Human Vers. in some form or another the absolute should have for Humans... because that's the essence of what it is.

Example: Melees get Human Versatility: Defense... Which gives a percentile decrease to damage taken, and a static increase to saves and AC for 20 seconds. Such as 10%(+2), 15%(+3), 20%(+4), 25%(+5), make the Human Versatility Skills boost be permanent like it once was, and do a similar thing for Casters that grants a Percentile SP Discount and DC/Caster Level boost, and finally for offensively minded human physical combatants... same scheme but with attack and damage, and the percentile being an attack haste boost. So a barbarian with Human Versatility: Offense would gain +5 to attack and damage, and a 25% alacrity bonus.


Now, the argument against these is that they would be VERY powerful..

And I won't disagree, they would be.

But consider what humans get in comparison to Dwarves, for example... or Drow? Or even Elves? Or Warforged?

Each of these races gets very substantial PERMANENT boosts. Think of all the benefits a Drow Rogue recieves from their enhancements... or a Dwarven Fighter... and these are on 24/7... they aren't 20 second cool downs from a finite grouping.

An interesting opinion. I'm not sure whether I agree or disagree, but the idea that Human Versatility should be overpowered (or, at least, powerful enough that it is a must-have) is something I hadn't thought about before.

Master Kadish

[Dingo123]

Well, the very concept of human is their "Any". They should be able to tap into that extremely potent flexibility at times.

Further, consider the nature of dwarven axe mastery... The developers can't tell us, with a straight face... that +5 damage with every weapon for 20 seconds is somehow comparable to +3 damage to a set of weapons all the time.

[jaitee]

honestly who actully picks up the enchancements for HV, its very useless, every race has benefits, as a friend once told me,

why do you like humans soo much? they dont even get anything useful in the race, you are better off with other races

1 extra feat is decent, but look at all the other classes with all those extra enchancements, dex boosts, immunity, AC/+to hit on axes, +2 cha +2 int

and humans get a 20 second HV...

owell, not like caring is gunna change much

[Dingo123]

honestly who actully picks up the enchancements for HV, its very useless, every race has benefits, as a friend once told me,

why do you like humans soo much? they dont even get anything useful in the race, you are better off with other races

1 extra feat is decent, but look at all the other classes with all those extra enchancements, dex boosts, immunity, AC/+to hit on axes, +2 cha +2 int

and humans get a 20 second HV...

owell, not like caring is gunna change much

See, and that's the point. Humans are gimped by comparison and the Devs should be made aware of it. The Human Enhancement list is pretty fuggin paltry by Comparison.

[BlueLightBandit]

owell, not like caring is gunna change much

Exactly.

[Ziggy]

honestly who actully picks up the enchancements for HV, its very useless, every race has benefits, as a friend once told me,

why do you like humans soo much? they dont even get anything useful in the race, you are better off with other races

1 extra feat is decent, but look at all the other classes with all those extra enchancements, dex boosts, immunity, AC/+to hit on axes, +2 cha +2 int

and humans get a 20 second HV...

owell, not like caring is gunna change much

I picked it up for my MC'er.

I am playing a human rogue/paladin. I picked up HV for 1 specific reason. Its based on full levels not my rogue levels.
Ive got dex bonuses from my rogue levels, and im fine without the extra int or cha.
SO im not immune to everything, and i dont use axes.

[Tavok]

The new Human Versatility HEAVILY favors Melee and Skill based builds. In fact, most of the human attributes favor physical combatants over casters.

However, the degree to which Human Versatility does it is just astounding.

Human Versatility provides FIVE DIFFERENT types of bonuses, and not ONE specifically benefits Casters.

The New Human Versatility provides bonuses to Weapon Accuracy, Weapon Damage, Saves, Skills, And AC.

A fighter will be able to potentially make use of four out of five of those. A Rogue could arguably make good use of ALL of them. A Caster? The Saves boost? Maybe.

Yes, I'm certain bards and clerics could get some milage out of the skills/ac perhaps... but Wizards and Sorcs are left completely in the cold.


Instead of providing a boost to weapon accuracy, allow Casters to increase the DC of their spells for the set duration of the time. Or, allow there to be a Spell percentage Discount during the casting time (i.e. 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%).

Many casters utilize UMD, which is skill based.

[Dingo123]

That argument is kind of backwards... of all the casters... only ONE has UMD. So to say that it's "balanced" because many Sorcs and some Wizards make use of a single particular skill (that they don't even have on their classlist) is backwards.

Any Paladin could use the same argument... in fact, any FIGHTER could.

So no, that argument doesn't fly.

[SneakThief]

That argument is kind of backwards... of all the casters... only ONE has UMD. So to say that it's "balanced" because many Sorcs and some Wizards make use of a single particular skill (that they don't even have on their classlist) is backwards.

Any Paladin could use the same argument... in fact, any FIGHTER could.

So no, that argument doesn't fly.

Skills my casters use regularly:
UMD
Diplomacy
Haggle
Jump
Tumble
Concentration
Balance

A bump to any one of those is nice, expecially a stackable bump.

I personally also would use the AC, and as you said saves.
Plenty of clerics and bards actually fight, and every little bit of boost makes a difference.

Yeah ... most Wiz/Sorc are going to be using 2/5 of them, but thats hardly nothing.

[Dingo123]

Skills my casters use regularly:
UMD
Diplomacy
Haggle
Jump
Tumble
Concentration
Balance

A bump to any one of those is nice, expecially a stackable bump.

I personally also would use the AC, and as you said saves.
Plenty of clerics and bards actually fight, and every little bit of boost makes a difference.

Yeah ... most Wiz/Sorc are going to be using 2/5 of them, but thats hardly nothing.

But again, and look at it... which of these is made to benefit the human caster?

I mean you're listing cross class skills for god sake, things that are secondary in purpose.

If you walked into a group and were like Hey guys, I know I'm level 6 but I never bothered to put any points into my relevant stat... but I've got a great tumble! you'd be thrown out of the team.

Further, benefits to skills benefit everyone else, if not more so, than they do Casters.

Finally,I've never said get rid of the skill based enhancement, I recognize that many builds depend on it.

What I DID say is take away one of the TWO fighter centric enhancements (accuracy AND damage? While casters get nothing?) and turn it into a Caster centric HV enhancement.

[Hvymetal]

But again, and look at it... which of these is made to benefit the human caster?

I mean you're listing cross class skills for god sake, things that are secondary in purpose.

If you walked into a group and were like Hey guys, I know I'm level 6 but I never bothered to put any points into my relevant stat... but I've got a great tumble! you'd be thrown out of the team.

Further, benefits to skills benefit everyone else, if not more so, than they do Casters.

Finally,I've never said get rid of the skill based enhancement, I recognize that many builds depend on it.

What I DID say is take away one of the TWO fighter centric enhancements (accuracy AND damage? While casters get nothing?) and turn it into a Caster centric HV enhancement.

Just curious, do you feel that your human caster cannot function right now as things are? Why do you feel that human casters need a human-centric enhancement?

[GeneralDiomedes]

Many casters utilize UMD, which is skill based.

Yep, that is what my Human Sorcerer uses it for. I can imagine Bards taking advantage of it as well.

[Souless]

The whole purpose the Dev's nerfed the HV was because of the "batman" build which utilized scrolls for increased ppl performance and *would you believe, VERSITILITY*

Now there is a new mage build with 2 levels of fighter to do an end run around the HV nerf...better yet if the build utilizes a race not nerfed (dwarf or WF) they become potent fighter casters.

So my point is HV should be un-nerfed and maybe increased in power to just bring in line with the power of the other races. Currenetly, I haven't rolled another human anything (I use elfs or dwarfs now) because the human race is SEVERLY gimped.

Here is my suggestion for all the humans out there (reroll lol) or : Devs should allow HV to be VERSITAL...let casters gain some DC to some (not all) of their spells, let fighters gain some ac or + damage AND give back the permenant skill bonus. At present I'm lucky (with all the timers in place) to get 3 scrolls off while boosting...and as we all know when you need to roll even moderately say an 8...you will be lucky to get 1 spell to fire.

The Bytcher~

[GeneralDiomedes]

The whole purpose the Dev's nerfed the HV was because of the "batman" build which utilized scrolls for increased ppl performance and *would you believe, VERSITILITY*

Wrong. They nerfed it because Human Rogues could get a much higher Disable Device score than every other race.

[muffinlad]

Simply returning HV to +1 per 7 levels (or so), making it top out at +3 at level 15, and returning it to the way it used to work would have been more balancing and less programmer intensive.

[Dariun]

Wrong. They nerfed it because Human Rogues could get a much higher Disable Device score than every other race.

lol, no.

It was UMD and batman builds.





Edit: to clarify, yes Humans could get +4 DD v. Drow, but no one cared. It was the UMD and Batman builds that got people upset.

[MtnLion]

Wrong. They nerfed it because Human Rogues could get a much higher Disable Device score than every other race.

In light of the Cabal for One trap (on elite) I wouldn't call a couple of points "Much" higher.

Where I felt it most was on my multi-classed's UMD, not so much on DD, or even Search.

Take note, my MC was built to use a specific skill, as any class can be, including casters.