Request: Bow Strength as a feat

[HumanJHawkins]

Buffing monsters is the worst way to fix this. The problem is that the monsters get buffed to balance out the insane 70AC and anyone with a once great 55AC is dead meat!

Seriously... was this a joke?

I didn't say irresponsibly boosting the "to hit" of monsters was the best way to balance this. I said "buffing" the monsters is the best way. "Buffing" can happen in many different ways.

Here are some things I would consider to fix some of these imbalances:

1) Greensteel weapons are overpowered, especially the mineral II and the Lightning ones.

SOLUTION: The next end boss is immune to acid and lightning. He has regen that is slowed 25% for 6 seconds whenever he is hit by fire. Another 25% for cold, and another 25% for good. Plus, he's Chaotic Neutral. So Holy doesn't work. You want Axiomatic or one of the less popular greensteel builds for this one.

2) Wounding of Puncturing is too good relative to other weapons, so people who have it are overpowered. And, monsters have insanely high HP to balance out previous character buffs.

SOLUTION: Give a few new monsters deathward and reasonable (lower) hit points. But also give them 100% Fort and 30 point resist to fire and cold. Let them randomly cast other elemental resist and protection. Then use those monsters liberally in the next few quests.

3) AC is nearly meaningless in several important places because the monster's "to hit" is so high.

SOLUTION: Give players a way to get higher ACs a lot easier than it is now.

(Oh wait... they just did this with the Monk.)

4) Giving players the higher AC made them too uber.

SOLUTION: Give some new monsters or end bosses maladroit of bone breaking. But make the monsters relatively weak, but put them in large packs. There is a 20 on every die, so a large pack means hits will get through. This will take down the dex and could also disable two-weapon feats on the people most in need of "nerfing"

Of course, deathward would protect from this and is very common. So make a couple of named bosses in the new quests have an improved version of this that penetrates deathward. Or, add casters or beholders to the mix so deathward will occasionally get debuffed.

I'm not saying all of the above are great ideas. But they are just the first thoughts that come after spending only seconds thinking about this. Clearly a design team at Turbine should be able to think of 50 other ways to balance this without nerfing monks.

[Tanka]

2) Wounding of Puncturing is too good relative to other weapons, so people who have it are overpowered. And, monsters have insanely high HP to balance out previous character buffs.
SOLUTION: Give a few new monsters deathward and reasonable (lower) hit points. But also give them 100% Fort and 30 point resist to fire and cold. Let them randomly cast other elemental resist and protection. Then use those monsters liberally in the next few quests.

IIRC, the next raid will feature more undead. If not the next, then the one after that (featuring a dracolich, actually, and more undead giants). W/P will be incredibly useless there.

One mistake most DMs make is giving players hyped up toys and then making those toys useless against their next baddie. Turbine should avoid making that mistake. They can make them less effective, but to make them totally ineffective would be more than a slap in the face.

[Turial]

I didn't say irresponsibly boosting the "to hit" of monsters was the best way to balance this. I said "buffing" the monsters is the best way. "Buffing" can happen in many different ways.

Here are some things I would consider to fix some of these imbalances:

1) Greensteel weapons are overpowered, especially the mineral II and the Lightning ones.

SOLUTION: The next end boss is immune to acid and lightning. He has regen that is slowed 25% for 6 seconds whenever he is hit by fire. Another 25% for cold, and another 25% for good. Plus, he's Chaotic Neutral. So Holy doesn't work. You want Axiomatic or one of the less popular greensteel builds for this one. Sounds similar to the hydra boss players have been hoping to see some day.

2) Wounding of Puncturing is too good relative to other weapons, so people who have it are overpowered. And, monsters have insanely high HP to balance out previous character buffs.

SOLUTION: Give a few new monsters deathward and reasonable (lower) hit points. But also give them 100% Fort and 30 point resist to fire and cold. Let them randomly cast other elemental resist and protection. Then use those monsters liberally in the next few quests. Puncturing and wounding go off even if a target has 100% fort and pretty sure deathward does not prevent con death. A_D has proposed a system in the past similar to something where mobs get % resistance to critical procs. That would slow and reduce the power of WOP.

3) AC is nearly meaningless in several important places because the monster's "to hit" is so high.

SOLUTION: Give players a way to get higher ACs a lot easier than it is now.

(Oh wait... they just did this with the Monk.) Actually they need to standardize AC so most characters are falling within a 30 point spread, vs the 60 point spread where only 20 points less then the max is even worth while to have, and give mobs increasing attack bonuses like we have with lower starting to-hit values. That way mobs are only likely to hit high ac characters with the last two hits while lower AC characters, within the spread, have a chance of being missed on the first two.

4) Giving players the higher AC made them too uber.

SOLUTION: Give some new monsters or end bosses maladroit of bone breaking. But make the monsters relatively weak, but put them in large packs. There is a 20 on every die, so a large pack means hits will get through. This will take down the dex and could also disable two-weapon feats on the people most in need of "nerfing" I would be in favor of giving boss and mini boss mobs access to either the prefix or suffix stat damaging weapons but not both together. The people you think are most in need of nerfing do not have to meet the min-recs for the two weapon fighting lines and so far no amount of stat damage turns off feats unless that stat damage kills you which would be similar to turning the feat off in an odd way.

Of course, deathward would protect from this and is very common. So make a couple of named bosses in the new quests have an improved version of this that penetrates deathward. Or, add casters or beholders to the mix so deathward will occasionally get debuffed.

I'm not saying all of the above are great ideas. But they are just the first thoughts that come after spending only seconds thinking about this. Clearly a design team at Turbine should be able to think of 50 other ways to balance this without nerfing monks.

In red.

[Turial]

IIRC, the next raid will feature more undead. If not the next, then the one after that (featuring a dracolich, actually, and more undead giants). W/P will be incredibly useless there.

One mistake most DMs make is giving players hyped up toys and then making those toys useless against their next baddie. Turbine should avoid making that mistake. They can make them less effective, but to make them totally ineffective would be more than a slap in the face.

Similar to how nothing from the shroud does extra damage to the hound you mean?

[Borror0]

The next end boss is immune to acid and lightning. He has regen that is slowed 25% for 6 seconds whenever he is hit by fire. Another 25% for cold, and another 25% for good. Plus, he's Chaotic Neutral. So Holy doesn't work. You want Axiomatic or one of the less popular greensteel builds for this one.

You think that this would upset less people?!

But also give them 100% Fort [...]

I'm sure rogue would enjoy. Agreed on the lower HPs though.

(Oh wait... they just did this with the Monk.)

Yes... rather than debuffing mobs. Really "clever". Sorry, that wasn't their intent.

Give some new monsters or end bosses maladroit of bone breaking. But make the monsters relatively weak, but put them in large packs. There is a 20 on every die, so a large pack means hits will get through. This will take down the dex and could also disable two-weapon feats on the people most in need of "nerfing".

Oh, right because giving dex-damage is the way to nerf those with high Dex...

Listen, by playing too much with the metagame they're just going to create more problems. Solve the ones you have already, don't ignore them. Sorry but nerfing is the way to go sometimes. I dislike it the same way as you do, but you can't build an house on rotten foundations.

By fixing the structure with duck tape, you're doing yourself a disfavour because it is going to break and it will be UGLY!

[EKKM]

Here's the problem with nerfing:

I have an AC build. I have one more level to take. If I evaluate it and see that taking one level of monk is the best way to improve the goal of that character, then I probably will.

If Turbine then nerfed it to uselessness without giving me some way to undo my choice of a monk level, I will be really ****ed. I'm not one to throw around the "I'll quit the game" thing lightly, but it really might push me over the edge.

.

I dont mean to jump on the Hawkins bashing wagon as you had a lot of good points. Using my proposal to cap the WIS AC bonus to monk level means that, on average, an end game character will lose 4-5 AC (using the +6 average bonus referred to above). They will still have +1 or 2 to AC, the improved monk saves, still have evasion (on 2 lvl splash) and still have access to the stances. The nerf would not render the splash useless it would, in most cases only remove 4 ac from the character. I personally dont think that is worth packing up and leaving over. Thise that only took 1 level of monk could add another at the level cap raise to pick up evasion, still making the splash worthwhile.

That, combined with increasing the ability of S&B fighters and pallys to acheive a higher AC will go a long way towards balancing the classes.

[MrCow]

SOLUTION: Give some new monsters or end bosses maladroit of bone breaking. But make the monsters relatively weak, but put them in large packs. There is a 20 on every die, so a large pack means hits will get through. This will take down the dex and could also disable two-weapon feats on the people most in need of "nerfing"

Of course, deathward would protect from this and is very common.

Death Ward doesn't protect against stat damage. It protects against "negative energy effects" (which shadows use to deal STR damage). Kai-Teng, for instance, can do plenty of stat damage to people with Death Ward on if you need some proof.

Also, feats can't be "disabled" from stat damage in DDO. Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Resiliance, they all remain usable even after your stat drops below the prerequisite point.

Lastly, a monster doing DEX damage will probably have a far greater impact on low DEX builds than high DEX builds. The low DEX builds get hit easier and are more prone to becoming helpless from 0 DEX.

[Turial]

Death Ward doesn't protect against stat damage. It protects against "negative energy effects" (which shadows use to deal STR damage). ....

And even then its not the complete protection it used to be.

[redoubt]

I appologize if my comparison using monk AC has caused this side track to the thread.

Even so, "logic", such as that being used by J needs to be put in check. I am sorry, but I have to agree with the many who have posted here to point out flaws in your suggestion and say that most of them would be bad for the game. (This applies to the sidetrack about AC and buffing the mobs, not bow str.)

[GlassCannon]

All the enhancement lines of said Halfling Subrace MUST pertain to hurling Kittens.

That's right, cute cuddly fuzzy mewing kittens.

For that, said subrace will need Bow Strength applied to the Kitten Hurling.

Can I has a Halfpart Kitty Flinging feats pleeez?