Some suggestions on balancing ...

[gaki]

1. Sleet Storm - even if you MAKE your save, you lose 90% of your visibility, 90% of your mobility and you slide in a random direction? Perhaps that should be the effect if you FAIL your save.

2. Red Named Foes - make the permanent immunities dispellable or perhaps come up with a collection of packages for immunities that the red name foes get randomly. I play a Necromancer and I become a pylon whenever we encounter a red-named foe because, no matter how low or high their CR is, they ALL have permanent Death Ward.

3. Wizards - clerics get the same SP, can wear armour, get all their spells automatically (no costly inscription materials), get more hp, can swap their spells at inns, and cast their spells just as fast. In other words, they have all the flexibility of a wizard, but without any of their drawbacks. Why would anyone play a wizard? My suggestions would be to drastically cut down on the cost of inscription materials, speed up their casting time to be midway between a cleric and a sorcerer and do the same with their SP - put them midway between a cleric and sorcerer.

4. Give schools of magic that don't typically have damage an enhancement stream to add to DC, perhaps just up to +2 or so, and with a high cost. Mob's saving throws get pretty darn ridiculous sometimes and casters who focus on spells with saves (enchanters, necromancers, illusionists, etc.) can rapidly find a large portion of their spell selection useless because no matter how high they tweak their DC, it just isn't high enough for their lower-level spells to even have a chance of affecting certain mobs.

[Lee4416]

1. Sleet Storm - even if you MAKE your save, you lose 90% of your visibility, 90% of your mobility and you slide in a random direction? Perhaps that should be the effect if you FAIL your save.

agreed

2. Red Named Foes - make the permanent immunities dispellable or perhaps come up with a collection of packages for immunities that the red name foes get randomly. I play a Necromancer and I become a pylon whenever we encounter a red-named foe because, no matter how low or high their CR is, they ALL have permanent Death Ward.

welcome to the world of specialist spell casting... it is unfortunate, but that is how Turbine decided to balance the game about 18-22 months ago...

3. Wizards - clerics get the same SP, can wear armour, get all their spells automatically (no costly inscription materials), get more hp, can swap their spells at inns, and cast their spells just as fast. In other words, they have all the flexibility of a wizard, but without any of their drawbacks. Why would anyone play a wizard? My suggestions would be to drastically cut down on the cost of inscription materials, speed up their casting time to be midway between a cleric and a sorcerer and do the same with their SP - put them midway between a cleric and sorcerer.

wizard and clerics - apples n oranges - they are not the same, you can't compare these classes

4. Give schools of magic that don't typically have damage an enhancement stream to add to DC, perhaps just up to +2 or so, and with a high cost. Mob's saving throws get pretty darn ridiculous sometimes and casters who focus on spells with saves (enchanters, necromancers, illusionists, etc.) can rapidly find a large portion of their spell selection useless because no matter how high they tweak their DC, it just isn't high enough for their lower-level spells to even have a chance of affecting certain mobs.

this I agree with

[esoitl]

1. Disagree. The save is vs. the knockdown effect, you're still in a blizzard no matter what and therefore your movement/visibility should be efected by it. Freedom of Movement will negate the movement bonus but it would be nice to have a spell to negate the visibility effect... otherwise there is nothing *wrong* with the spell as it's implemented.

2. Disagree. What would become of this game if we could Finger of Death all four named monsters running through part 2 and 5 of the Shroud? They have that status for a reason and removing it makes no sense at all. A random draw of buffs? *sigh* They get what they get for a reason and most of them can be found in a Monster Manual, they give them certain others to prevent AI eploits with area of effect spells and certainly adds some needed challenges to the game. I'd suggest looking through your spells again and choosing more wisely maybe? I have an Enchanter(Sorceror) who does fine at red named bosses...

3. Disagree. Divine vs. Arcane - not even an argument. Wizards can learn every arcane spell in the game, get multiple free meta-magics, and can memorize more spells than a Sorceror. Their versatility more than makes up for their shortcomings.

4. Slightly agree. They would have to implement an arcane speciality IMO for this to work. If you could designate your caster to be a specialist: enchanter, then yes it makes sense. Otherwise no - but then with this you have to implement the fact that a specialist cannot cast spells of the opposite school and with a limited selection compared to pen and paper play, you'd be cutting out a lot of the available spells to choose from. I don't see people cutting the selection by 1/3 for a few points of DC so it may never get used.....

[Gtar]

1. Disagree. The save is vs. the knockdown effect, you're still in a blizzard no matter what and therefore your movement/visibility should be efected by it. Freedom of Movement will negate the movement bonus but it would be nice to have a spell to negate the visibility effect... otherwise there is nothing *wrong* with the spell as it's implemented.

2. Disagree. What would become of this game if we could Finger of Death all four named monsters running through part 2 and 5 of the Shroud? They have that status for a reason and removing it makes no sense at all. A random draw of buffs? *sigh* They get what they get for a reason and most of them can be found in a Monster Manual, they give them certain others to prevent AI eploits with area of effect spells and certainly adds some needed challenges to the game. I'd suggest looking through your spells again and choosing more wisely maybe? I have an Enchanter(Sorceror) who does fine at red named bosses...

3. Disagree. Divine vs. Arcane - not even an argument. Wizards can learn every arcane spell in the game, get multiple free meta-magics, and can memorize more spells than a Sorceror. Their versatility more than makes up for their shortcomings.

4. Slightly agree. They would have to implement an arcane speciality IMO for this to work. If you could designate your caster to be a specialist: enchanter, then yes it makes sense. Otherwise no - but then with this you have to implement the fact that a specialist cannot cast spells of the opposite school and with a limited selection compared to pen and paper play, you'd be cutting out a lot of the available spells to choose from. I don't see people cutting the selection by 1/3 for a few points of DC so it may never get used.....

I agree with all of this.

Imagine if we could walk up and Vorpal Velah or any raid boss. BANG!!! A 20 right off the bat. Doesn't exactly do much for the challenge does it?

[Jay203]

I agree with all of this.

Imagine if we could walk up and Vorpal Velah or any raid boss. BANG!!! A 20 right off the bat. Doesn't exactly do much for the challenge does it?

but you know you want to

[Ralmeth]

I agree with all of this.

Imagine if we could walk up and Vorpal Velah or any raid boss. BANG!!! A 20 right off the bat. Doesn't exactly do much for the challenge does it?

It's because there are vorpals, finger of death and other ways to instantly kill a mob that the developers have to give the red named these immunities. If the power of our characters were scaled way back so that we didn't have vorpals, finger of death, etc then they would not need to put these immunities on the mobs. This all came about because of the monty haul nature of DDO. Personally, I would prefer to play a much scaled back campaign...I learned from many years in PnP that these things unbalance the game, but DDO is what it is. So I wouldn't expect the developers to change this.

[Aranticus]

1. Sleet Storm - even if you MAKE your save, you lose 90% of your visibility, 90% of your mobility and you slide in a random direction? Perhaps that should be the effect if you FAIL your save.

and? no one will use this since it affects us as well!

2. Red Named Foes - make the permanent immunities dispellable or perhaps come up with a collection of packages for immunities that the red name foes get randomly. I play a Necromancer and I become a pylon whenever we encounter a red-named foe because, no matter how low or high their CR is, they ALL have permanent Death Ward.

dun need a fod to kill a boss... no fun and oh..... undead bosses.... yuck

3. Wizards - clerics get the same SP, can wear armour, get all their spells automatically (no costly inscription materials), get more hp, can swap their spells at inns, and cast their spells just as fast. In other words, they have all the flexibility of a wizard, but without any of their drawbacks. Why would anyone play a wizard? My suggestions would be to drastically cut down on the cost of inscription materials, speed up their casting time to be midway between a cleric and a sorcerer and do the same with their SP - put them midway between a cleric and sorcerer.

my wiz wear armor too.... esp when you are an elf/drow and have asf reducing enhancements. btw clerics have 1 spell per level fixed for them, get more grief, higher expenses, etc

4. Give schools of magic that don't typically have damage an enhancement stream to add to DC, perhaps just up to +2 or so, and with a high cost. Mob's saving throws get pretty darn ridiculous sometimes and casters who focus on spells with saves (enchanters, necromancers, illusionists, etc.) can rapidly find a large portion of their spell selection useless because no matter how high they tweak their DC, it just isn't high enough for their lower-level spells to even have a chance of affecting certain mobs.

if you are going to pk a cleric mob, you're not going to make it. play smarter, learn their weaknesses and target them on their soft spots. this is why ddo is smarter than wow

[Impaqt]

1. Sleet Storm - even if you MAKE your save, you lose 90% of your visibility, 90% of your mobility and you slide in a random direction? Perhaps that should be the effect if you FAIL your save.

2. Red Named Foes - make the permanent immunities dispellable or perhaps come up with a collection of packages for immunities that the red name foes get randomly. I play a Necromancer and I become a pylon whenever we encounter a red-named foe because, no matter how low or high their CR is, they ALL have permanent Death Ward.

3. Wizards - clerics get the same SP, can wear armour, get all their spells automatically (no costly inscription materials), get more hp, can swap their spells at inns, and cast their spells just as fast. In other words, they have all the flexibility of a wizard, but without any of their drawbacks. Why would anyone play a wizard? My suggestions would be to drastically cut down on the cost of inscription materials, speed up their casting time to be midway between a cleric and a sorcerer and do the same with their SP - put them midway between a cleric and sorcerer.

4. Give schools of magic that don't typically have damage an enhancement stream to add to DC, perhaps just up to +2 or so, and with a high cost. Mob's saving throws get pretty darn ridiculous sometimes and casters who focus on spells with saves (enchanters, necromancers, illusionists, etc.) can rapidly find a large portion of their spell selection useless because no matter how high they tweak their DC, it just isn't high enough for their lower-level spells to even have a chance of affecting certain mobs.

1: Freedom of Movement FTW. and the Visual Obstructin is nowhere near 90%.
2: Theres not enough Necro spells to NOT carry a few Damage spells. Adapt and change with the quests you run.
3: Wizards are Arcane, and Clerics are Divine. There is no comparison here. The classes are pretty darn faithful to PnP as it stands. TTHose extra 4 Meta Magic feats for FREE are pretty nice if you as me.
4: We have that... Its called Heighten Spell.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

1. Sleet Storm - even if you MAKE your save, you lose 90% of your visibility, 90% of your mobility and you slide in a random direction? Perhaps that should be the effect if you FAIL your save. Sorry, this makes sense to me as is. You are in a storm, you just saved from the knock down.

2. Red Named Foes - make the permanent immunities dispellable or perhaps come up with a collection of packages for immunities that the red name foes get randomly. I play a Necromancer and I become a pylon whenever we encounter a red-named foe because, no matter how low or high their CR is, they ALL have permanent Death Ward.Agreed. It's just bad DMing

3. Wizards - clerics get the same SP, can wear armour, get all their spells automatically (no costly inscription materials), get more hp, can swap their spells at inns, and cast their spells just as fast. In other words, they have all the flexibility of a wizard, but without any of their drawbacks. Why would anyone play a wizard? My suggestions would be to drastically cut down on the cost of inscription materials, speed up their casting time to be midway between a cleric and a sorcerer and do the same with their SP - put them midway between a cleric and sorcerer.No, that makes no sense. The current system matches up with D&D rules fairly well for wizards and clerics. If anything, clerics could use a boost.

4. Give schools of magic that don't typically have damage an enhancement stream to add to DC, perhaps just up to +2 or so, and with a high cost. Mob's saving throws get pretty darn ridiculous sometimes and casters who focus on spells with saves (enchanters, necromancers, illusionists, etc.) can rapidly find a large portion of their spell selection useless because no matter how high they tweak their DC, it just isn't high enough for their lower-level spells to even have a chance of affecting certain mobs.Highten works wonders.

[gaki]

1. Sleet Storm - PnP effect is to reduce visibility to zero and to cut movement in 1/2 with a made save. Think DDO's movement penalty is 1/2 your movement? I can run, with Haste on, and if I'm running against the randomly chosen slide direction, I'll barely move. I HAVE to turn to move in the direction of the slide to move at even 1/10th my movement, let alone 1/2.

Just make it the book value and be done with it.

2. Not all Red-Named foes are in the Shroud. There are red named CR3 Kobold Shamans in the harbour, too, and they have Death Ward just like the big CR20 demons and devils that you could conceivably argue should have it. When the link between believability and a mechanic gets broken, that's basically just lazy programming. How about a compromise with Death Block instead of Death Ward? At least then Enervation and Blindness would work without opening up the instant kills with FoD.

3. Wizards are more flexible? In the PnP game, definitely. On DDO? LOL.

Count the Arcane spells for Wizards in the PHB and then count them on DDO - there is a huge drop. Do the same thing with clerics and the drop is considerably smaller. I'll use 7th level spells as an example:

a) Clerics - 11 in PHB, 10 on DDO. All ten given upon attaining this caster level.

b) Wizards - 35 in PHB, 13 on DDO. One given at level up, the rest must be inscribed. Inscription costs in PHB are 700gp per spell. Inscription costs in DDO are 5-6000 gp per spell, plus the cost of the scroll. For those keeping count, that's up to 75 000gp a wizard has to drop to even get all the spells at 7th level. When he's done dropping the coin, he's got three measly more spells than a cleric to choose from.

To recap, the number of spells the wizard can choose from went DOWN considerably to more or less on par with the Cleric, the costs of adding those remaining spells to his spell book went drastically UP ... but despite two huge changes to the detriment of his flexibility, he's supposedly remained in balance. I don't buy that at all.

4. Lower spell level DCs - Yeah, Heighten works wonders, which is why I have it as a feat. It's a band aid on a broken mechanic, though (and it is broken in the PnP game, too). Think about it ... saves go up with your level. DC goes up with your stat. No matter how you slice it, your stat isn't going to go up every time you level, but at least one of your saves will. That means that as the level cap increases, spells will become less and less useful and mobs will save more and more often. You literally can't get your DC high enough, fast enough, to offset the rise in saves.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

1. Sleet Storm - PnP effect is to reduce visibility to zero and to cut movement in 1/2 with a made save. Think DDO's movement penalty is 1/2 your movement? I can run, with Haste on, and if I'm running against the randomly chosen slide direction, I'll barely move. I HAVE to turn to move in the direction of the slide to move at even 1/10th my movement, let alone 1/2.

Just make it the book value and be done with it.

True...but the DDO version actually makes more sense

3. Wizards are more flexible? In the PnP game, definitely. On DDO? LOL.

Counting spells doesn't mean anything. Most of the cleric spells are buffing, they are lucky to have 1 offensive spell per level - and being a cleric comes with more party expectations that limit you. My Wizard is far my flexible in what they can do than my Cleric.

4. Lower spell level DCs - Yeah, Heighten works wonders, which is why I have it as a feat. It's a band aid on a broken mechanic, though (and it is broken in the PnP game, too). .

It works fine as it is. Neither my sorc nor my wizard sees more saves against their spells than is reasonable.

[captain1z]

clerics only have 5 or 6 offensive spells total


- sound burst
- greater command
- blade barrier
- comet fall
- destruction
- slay living


clerics lack in nukage and must supplement their offensive ability with melee skills....... for this they need armor.

wizards have no lack of offensive spell ability and later gain spells that build up their defensive ability better than armor would be able to.

[Korvek]

clerics only have 5 or 6 offensive spells total


- sound burst
- greater command
- blade barrier
- comet fall
- destruction
- slay living

Just to be fair, you missed: Order's Wrath, Chaos Hammer, Unholy Blight, Holy Smite, Searing Light, Deific Vengeance, Nimbus of Light, and other offensive spells.

[sirgog]

clerics only have 5 or 6 offensive spells total


- sound burst
- greater command
- blade barrier
- comet fall
- destruction
- slay living


clerics lack in nukage and must supplement their offensive ability with melee skills....... for this they need armor.

wizards have no lack of offensive spell ability and later gain spells that build up their defensive ability better than armor would be able to.

Clerics have other good offensive spells that are less commonly used. Try out Symbol of Persuasion for crowd control on a battlecleric or armybuilding on an offensive caster cleric. Try out Symbol of Stunning for the Cleric's version of Discoball (which doesn't generate the same lag). And if you want to see a massacre, wander out into the Vale with Banishment loaded.

[Impaqt]

1. Sleet Storm - PnP effect is to reduce visibility to zero and to cut movement in 1/2 with a made save. Think DDO's movement penalty is 1/2 your movement? I can run, with Haste on, and if I'm running against the randomly chosen slide direction, I'll barely move. I HAVE to turn to move in the direction of the slide to move at even 1/10th my movement, let alone 1/2.

Just make it the book value and be done with it.

2. Not all Red-Named foes are in the Shroud. There are red named CR3 Kobold Shamans in the harbour, too, and they have Death Ward just like the big CR20 demons and devils that you could conceivably argue should have it. When the link between believability and a mechanic gets broken, that's basically just lazy programming. How about a compromise with Death Block instead of Death Ward? At least then Enervation and Blindness would work without opening up the instant kills with FoD.

3. Wizards are more flexible? In the PnP game, definitely. On DDO? LOL.

Count the Arcane spells for Wizards in the PHB and then count them on DDO - there is a huge drop. Do the same thing with clerics and the drop is considerably smaller. I'll use 7th level spells as an example:

a) Clerics - 11 in PHB, 10 on DDO. All ten given upon attaining this caster level.

b) Wizards - 35 in PHB, 13 on DDO. One given at level up, the rest must be inscribed. Inscription costs in PHB are 700gp per spell. Inscription costs in DDO are 5-6000 gp per spell, plus the cost of the scroll. For those keeping count, that's up to 75 000gp a wizard has to drop to even get all the spells at 7th level. When he's done dropping the coin, he's got three measly more spells than a cleric to choose from.

To recap, the number of spells the wizard can choose from went DOWN considerably to more or less on par with the Cleric, the costs of adding those remaining spells to his spell book went drastically UP ... but despite two huge changes to the detriment of his flexibility, he's supposedly remained in balance. I don't buy that at all.

4. Lower spell level DCs - Yeah, Heighten works wonders, which is why I have it as a feat. It's a band aid on a broken mechanic, though (and it is broken in the PnP game, too). Think about it ... saves go up with your level. DC goes up with your stat. No matter how you slice it, your stat isn't going to go up every time you level, but at least one of your saves will. That means that as the level cap increases, spells will become less and less useful and mobs will save more and more often. You literally can't get your DC high enough, fast enough, to offset the rise in saves.

1: Freedom of Movement..... FTW!
2: If y our having troublekilling a CR3 Red named kobald you might want to try a different class.. Your obviously doing the wizard thing wrong.
3: Please stop comparing Wizard to Clerics.... THey arent the same at all..... If you must compare, Compare them to sorcs.. Where you must choose your spells at level up or pay a ton to swap them out, then get Zero flexibility at shrines. Your Wizard also gets Damage enhancments i n any element you choose while my cleric gets ZERO enhancments for his one substantial Damage spell.. Blade barrer and ZERO enhancments for his 3 FIre based spells.... Cry me a river about your Wizard.. Sheesh.....

I'd gladdy pay a million plat on any of my clerics for 4 free metamagic feats. /Sarcasm on Its TOTALLY unfair that Wizards get Free Metas at l1,5,10,15! My Cleric gets ZERO! My Cleric is Gimped!!!!! /Sarcasm off

4: Saves actually do NOT all go up with your level at all... The absolute best progression int he game is actually every OTHER level for all three.. and thats a Monk.. Most classes are every other level for just ONE primary save and the other 2 are every 3 levels... My wizard lands spells consistantly in end game elite all the time... You have to learn what spells are effective agaisnt what mobs. There is no one magic spell anymore.. you cant just firewall your way through every quest in the game. Diversity! FTW!