Weekly Development Activities 3/31/2008

[Wizzly_Bear]

Weekly Development Activities

This week's edition of the WDA is extra-meaty-tasty-crispy, because there will be no WDA next week. Enjoy!
The following are items which are in development or QA testing for release in Module 7.

• NEW Paladin Redemption I
  
  • Cost: 4 Action Points
  • Prereq: Level 9 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands I, 28 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion II, Paladin Heal II
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to raise the dead, returning your target to life at 10% health.
• NEW Paladin Redemption II
  
  • Cost: 2 Action Points
  • Prereq: Level 14 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands II, Paladin Redemption I, 50 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion III, Paladin Heal III
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to resurrect the dead, returning your target to life at 50% health.
• NEW Paladin Redemption III (Not yet available)
  
  • Cost: 2 Action Points
  • Prereq: Level 19 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands III, Paladin Redemption II, 70 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion IV, Paladin Heal IV
  • Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to true resurrect the dead, returning your target to life at 100% health.

why are pallies being granted the ability to raise dead?

[Saaluta]

[U][B]Weekly Development Activities

1.[*]NEW A new item honoring Gary Gygax, has been added to the Delera's end reward list. "Voice of the Master" grants +5% XP to dungeon completion, and "Good Luck +1" to skill checks and saves.

2.[*]NEW Players above the quest level limit for slayer, explorer, and rare encounter quests can now advance these quests to completion, but will be receive reduced XP (XP Gained = XP For Goal / (Levels Over Cap + 1)). Any other players present in the area who are not above the quest level limit will not have their quests advanced. No change has been made for groups of players who are all within the min-max level range for an area. The spammy text alerts warning players their quest is not advancing have been replaced with static informational alerts.

as for part one, I will be running Delera's again just to get this item on all my characers. And for part 2, now those of us with OCD can finally check off all those empty boxes

Thanks, Saal

[captain1z]

Lotta good stuff coming for palis ......... leaves me wondering if all those crit enhancements stack...... the wording leaves me a bit puzzled.


The instant death assassin attack was written alost word for word from an idea I put in the suggestion box on how to make the enhancement better. Although in my version there was no save ...... it was a percentage rolled on every attack, equal to your total rogue levels, while the enhancement was active. sounds good with the fortitude save as it stands now....... finally an assassin can kill stuff.

Paladins get a big raise.

- and I dont see why not, in a game when you can die 100 times a day, why shouldnt paladins get the ability to raise people. Having another class that can reliably raise is a good thing.

In PNP death is a big deal, in DDO..... not so much.


Its a good thing for everyone...... why?

- It saves up to 4 rez scrolls per paladin in every quest that someone dies and puts some money back in the clerics/bards/ insert UMD builds pockets.

- Every "self sufficient" group with a dragonmarked halfling, ranger splash wanding fighters, spell casting rangers and bards can now take a pali along, if they want someone who can raise, but dont want to foot the bill for scrolls or chance the scroll failure.

- Parties can now stop waiting for clerics like hitch hikers waiting for yellow cabs in the desert and instead can spread the clerical duties throughout the entire group................ and do it cheaply..... without spending tons of plat



From an RP perspective, as palis are closer to divine than any other class, save the cleric; it is not impossible that one who devotes himself to the cause of raising the dead and spends his time in training/prayer/meditations , why shouldnt he be rewarded for his efforts if his faith is Lawful and his intentions good.

[SteeleTrueheart]

NEW Paladin Redemption III (Not yet available)
Cost: 2 Action Points
Prereq: Level 19 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands III, Paladin Redemption II, 70 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion IV, Paladin Heal IV
Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to true resurrect the dead, returning your target to life at 100% health.

The problem I see with this:
Paladin and Barbarian are together and Barbarian is taking a lot of damage.... Paladin thinks to himself should I heal him with LoH for 200-300hp so he can keep going or should I wait till he dies and use that LoH to raise him and heal him 600hp? Hmm tough choice. Even then it is tough cos my LoH are precious and I dont want people to expect me to be a pseudo cleric.

Just a tad

Seriously though I bring it up a lot because:

-It's very easy to add
-Is pnp compliant (gasp) and still useful over time.
-Addresses lack of good high level spells, a reason to take more pally levels.
-Is true to the pally spirit, gaining power from divine sources.
-doesn't suck
-wouldn't be subject to a mysterious nerf request from WOTC
-Even in conjunction with Silverbeard and Righteous Aura and even Divine Might, it isn't overpowered like BBN Crit Rage 2 or even as powerful as Ranger Tempest and Ram's Might.

Pretty Please with Shugar on top? Righteous Fury (even without Silverbeard and Divine Might) Palies would have been happy if you had just put in this 1 spell. This one spell and the enhancement changes you have done = NIIICE!

[Solmage]

PLEASE do this for Half-plate as well! PLEASE

Honestly, rather than better options for half-plate, I'd like to see the useless armors being marginalized making their chance to drop almost non-existent. (Or if someone can come up with a really creative way to make them compete favorably with the 'real' armors, that'd be nice too)

But right now, you have to just sigh and shake your head when you pull a mithril half-plate, or banded mail, or some other gimp armor that could have been an uber set if only it had been a chain shirt, breastplate or platemail.

[gpk]

Pretty Please with Shugar on top? Righteous Fury (even without Silverbeard and Divine Might) Palies would have been happy if you had just put in this 1 spell. This one spell and the enhancement changes you have done = NIIICE!

Truthfully I can't think of one reason why there shouldn't be Silverbeard, Righteous Fury and Divine Might (at +cha mod duration), the stuff announced to date is at best fluff and meaningless overrall.

Compare that to Crit Rage 2 (oh right we're not supposed to), a Temptest Ranger w/ Ram's might or the proposed Assasin 2 Insta-kill effect (mind boggling), or a rog w/ Assasin 2 and Radiance2 weap.

Honestly if no quality spells or divine feats are to be added just do away with the smite per day limit altogether, it still wouldn't be as powerful (or overpowered) as the stuff listed above.

I really just don't understand whats going on with the devs vis-a-vis the pally class; the fact that there is no WDA next week kinda implies there is no more info to come either.

[Geonis]

[*]UPDATED Paladin Bulwark of Good IV:

• Cost: 4 Action Points
• Prereqs: Level 15 Paladin, Paladin Bulwark of Good III, 52 action points spent.
• Benefit: Your aura of good provides an additional +4 Armor Class bonus.

This only makes up for the nerf made a year ago.

[*]UPDATED Paladin Divine Sacrifice I

• Prereq: Paladin level 5, Paladin Extra Smiting I, 15 Action Points spent
• Cost: 1 Action Point
• Benefit: Giving up some of your life force to win the battle, you empower your next blow against your foe. This attack deals an additional 5d6 Good damage to evil opponents and increases the critical multiplier of your weapon by 1, but costs you 10 hp and 1 sp, whether or not the attack is successful.". (6 second cooldown.)

Great, so we clarified that this ability will waste HP and SP every time you miss (which will be often), made it a little harder to get (minimum level 5 instead of 4), and basically wasted tons of Dev time in a worthless and insulting enhancement. This needs to be dropped from the game period, since you guys are not willing to actually make it useful.

[*]NEW Paladin Exalted Smite I:

• Cost: 1 Action Point
• Prereq: Level 6 Paladin, Paladin Divine Sacrifice I, 19 Action Points Spent
• Benefit: Using this attack, you call on the paladin's ability to strike down evil creatures, gaining twice your Charisma bonus to your attack roll, a damage bonus based on your paladin level, and +1 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier. (6 second cool-down, uses smites per day, replaces Smite Evil.)

[*]NEW Paladin Exalted Smite II:

• Cost: 2 Action Points
• Prereq: Level 10 Paladin, Paladin Exalted Smite I, Paladin Extra Smite III, 34 Action Points Spent
• Benefit: Using this attack, you call on the paladin's ability to strike down evil creatures, gaining twice your Charisma bonus to your attack roll, a damage bonus based on your paladin level, and +1 to your weapon's critical threat range and damage multiplier.

[*]NEW Paladin Exalted Smite III:

• Cost: 3 Action Points
• Prereq: Level 14 Paladin, Paladin Exalted Smite II, Paladin Extra Smite IV, 49 Action Points Spent
• Benefit: Using this attack, you call on the paladin's ability to strike down evil creatures, gaining twice your Charisma bonus to your attack roll, a damage bonus based on your paladin level, and +1 to your weapon's critical threat range and +2 to your weapon's critical damage multiplier.

Again, is this some sort of stealth way to stop (intelligent) people playing Paladins?

I can do the math quite quickly, this is a lowering of a Paladin's DPS in disguise. With the prerequisite of coming to a complete stop before activating a Smite, it will definitely lower overall DPS, while flashing big shiny numbers for those to stupid to do the math. This is even with the 4th tier enhancement.

[*]NEW Paladin Redemption I

• Cost: 4 Action Points
• Prereq: Level 9 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands I, 28 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion II, Paladin Heal II
• Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to raise the dead, returning your target to life at 10% health.

[*]NEW Paladin Redemption II

• Cost: 2 Action Points
• Prereq: Level 14 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands II, Paladin Redemption I, 50 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion III, Paladin Heal III
• Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to resurrect the dead, returning your target to life at 50% health.

[*]NEW Paladin Redemption III (Not yet available)

• Cost: 2 Action Points
• Prereq: Level 19 Paladin, Paladin Extra Lay on Hands III, Paladin Redemption II, 70 Action Points Spent, Any one of: Paladin Devotion IV, Paladin Heal IV
• Benefit: You can activate this ability and expend one use of Lay on Hands to true resurrect the dead, returning your target to life at 100% health.

Why are you guys even thinking of adding the raise capability to Pallys?

No one asked for anything like this.

You are basically dodging the point made by the community, that Paladins are worthless combatants in the current end game. How does adding a made up raise ability help in combat?



I would say, given current announcements, that MOD 7 is quickly becoming the "Rogue Love/End of Pally" MOD.

Highly disappointing.


How about you guys add in the spells Pallies are missing, change Smite to a cooldown timer rather than times/day, the Smite enhancements could lower the cooldown, and get rid of Divine Sacrifice (no one uses it in PnP, why the hell would we use it here?).

[Venar]

Dont sweat it, its not like paladins have extra AP to put into the pre-reqs anyways.

[Hakushi]

• NEW Players above the quest level limit for slayer, explorer, and rare encounter quests can now advance these quests to completion, but will be receive reduced XP (XP Gained = XP For Goal / (Levels Over Cap + 1)). Any other players present in the area who are not above the quest level limit will not have their quests advanced. No change has been made for groups of players who are all within the min-max level range for an area. The spammy text alerts warning players their quest is not advancing have been replaced with static informational alerts.

About time, awesome change, very close if not the same as I proposed. This made my day, thank you so much devs for this great change. Now Raika will be able to visit all these areas, boycott is over.

[Angelus_dead]

Why are you guys even thinking of adding the raise capability to Pallys?

No one asked for anything like this.

Some people somewhat asked, indirectly.

You see, there was a lot of complaint that there's little reason to stay paladin past level 11 or 12. Some paladin-defenders claimed that paladins help the party because they have better healing abilities than other melees.

But of course that is false, a pal12/rog2/X2 mix is a much better healer than a pal16, because his UMD ranks allow him to do things like Raise Dead scrolls. So maybe the devs decided to address that by giving paladins a way to raise a few teammates at low level without splashing rogue.

[JD2134]

WHat about the horns that drop in the Shroud raid that are useless except to try and sell and hope someone buys them??????????

[Geonis]

Some people somewhat asked, indirectly.

You see, there was a lot of complaint that there's little reason to stay paladin past level 11 or 12. Some paladin-defenders claimed that paladins help the party because they have better healing abilities than other melees.

But of course that is false, a pal12/rog2/X2 mix is a much better healer than a pal16, because his UMD ranks allow him to do things like Raise Dead scrolls. So maybe the devs decided to address that by giving paladins a way to raise a few teammates at low level without splashing rogue.

I understand what they're trying to do, but 4AP enhancements aren't real useful when they can be replaced by an item or some inventive character planning. (Edit) Even when my Pally has 8 spare APs sitting around. Also, the most important level of this is available at 9. Again, no reason to go above level 11. (Unless your point is to build a gimp character.)

Looks like it's time to delete my Pally and roll a Halfling Rogue.

[Zack77]

Exalted smite and Paladin Redemption FTW!! FINALLY, my PURE paladin has hope!

[gpk]

Exalted smite and Paladin Redemption FTW!! FINALLY, my PURE paladin has hope!

Really? Explain how those are good.
Start with Exalted Smite.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

The problem I see with this:
Paladin and Barbarian are together and Barbarian is taking a lot of damage.... Paladin thinks to himself should I heal him with LoH for 200-300hp so he can keep going or should I wait till he dies and use that LoH to raise him and heal him 600hp? Hmm tough choice. Even then it is tough cos my LoH are precious and I dont want people to expect me to be a pseudo cleric.

That would be a silly pali. Clerics could make the same argument.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

WHat about the horns that drop in the Shroud raid that are useless except to try and sell and hope someone buys them??????????

They have already said they will be useful in a future mod.

Oh, and if you think they have no value and you are still selling them to ppl who don't know better instead of vendoring them, whats that say about you?

[Elsiah]

Now if there was just a reason for having stayed pure 16th lvl fighter...

yeah, i often wish about being able to hit harder, do more damage...but i like my role, rezzing folks and healing them (oddly...fighters much of the time) and generally being the last defense against a party wipe.

[Mhykke]

I'm not a fan of having any kind of pally "love" tied to smite evil, or other clicky attacks. It's just too few per encounter to rely on.

Looking like the devs have turned paladin "love" into paladin "don't call us, we'll call you."

yeah, i often wish about being able to hit harder, do more damage...but i like my role, rezzing folks and healing them (oddly...fighters much of the time) and generally being the last defense against a party wipe.

If a paladin's "role" is rezzing and healing, then paladins will always be considered 2nd class. Clerics are much better, MUCH better at this "role", than paladins. Why would anyone take a paladin in their group if that's the "role" they were looking to fill? Why not just a 2nd cleric? A paladin is a holy warrior. Not a holy "i'll stand around and toss some spot heals around and hope you guys kill stuff, b/c if I'm left alone w/ any mob, i'm dead" stiff.

And as to being the last line of defense against a party wipe, pretty much any class can be the equivalent. Any other class can just go into a corner, hit sneak, and do nothing during a fight, and they'll draw just slightly less aggro than a paladin. Usually paladins aren't the 1st to die b/c they're not considered the biggest threat by a mob.

[MysticTheurge]

Can you guys make Paladin Devotion affect the amount of healing from a Lay on Hands?

Or maybe even make it do double duty for healing spells and healing wands.

I've been seeing some complaints about it as a pre-req for the raise enhancements to the effect of "Most paladins don't use cure spells" which seems fair. Adding one or both of the above effects would probably make a Paladin's Devotion enhancements useful.

[Cowdenicus]

Can you guys make Paladin Devotion affect the amount of healing from a Lay on Hands?

Or maybe even make it do double duty for healing spells and healing wands.

I've been seeing some complaints about it as a pre-req for the raise enhancements to the effect of "Most paladins don't use cure spells" which seems fair. Adding one or both of the above effects would probably make a Paladin's Devotion enhancements useful.

Wait so clerics devotion cannot affect wands or scrolls but you want pallies to? Are you kidding me?