Stop Dumb Changes

[Letrii]

Funny how people want to use the rules when it is to their advantage and yet ignore them when it does not.

You may want to at least familiarize yourself with the game that DDO is based off of.

When have i tried to ignore a rule from D&D? And I do know it fairly, I play in a regular 3.5 game.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

When have i tried to ignore a rule from D&D? And I do know it fairly, I play in a regular 3.5 game.

Have you ever seen a group of six 3.5 adventurers all dual wielding w/p rapiers at L14? Of course not, no 3.5 DM would be dumb enough to give them more than 1. And of course a w/p DDO rapier works BETTER than a 3.5 rapier because it doesn't follow the 3.5 rules. They made this change for a reason, a good reason, you simply can't compare it to D&D because this can't happen in D&D.

[SINIBYTE]

USED to pay attention to the kill count, cause if your wizard was killin more stuff in melee than the barbarian somethin is wrong.

Quick Xorian run last night - group was fail, I said in chat "if you want to know why this group isn't working, check the kill count", the rogue had 1 kill, the monk had 0, the barb had 1 kill, I had 9 on my sorc... Something was wrong there. It may not be accurate - but it does give you a general idea of what's going on.

[Letrii]

The existence of w/p rapiers, which I don't use, is somehow proof of me ignoring rules?

[Samadhi]

Sure, you can have a wounding of puncturing 20/x2 weapon .. still no one will want you in their group.

Trust me, I -had- wounding of puncturing rapiers/etc, and the game is a lot more fun this way, as much as I miss my 20 str bard being able to beat fighters/barbs/paladins in killcount regularly, it was stupid.

Correction - it WOULD be more fun if they rebalanced quests like reavers refuge for the change - as it is, it is only situationally more fun depending on what quest you are in.

[sephiroth1084]

yes it was vague wasnt it?
okay since i dont feel like writing something essay length, heres the most recent thing ive found out.
a few days ago i got this +1 dagger with frost and puncturing, nice (i think to myself) con damage. taking down higher hp critters should be a little easier with thier con getting cut.
then later that day i see on the forum that despite con reducing to 0 monsters will still have 80% of thier hp because of 'monster durability', the mirror for heroic durability only bigger. con reducing to 0 = death, or should...

It was that way until very recently. Know what happened?

Lets pick a monster and call him Monster A. He is an ordinary monster in a raid. he has 1500 hit points, which is not all htat many for a monster in a raid. he has a constitution score of 24.

I could take my raid loot greensteel mineral2 Khopesh, which does 40-50 damage per swing, plus 2d6 holy and 1d4 slicing and crits for 130ish 20% of the time, and hit him until he's dead


Alternately, I could wield a Wounding Rapier of Puncturing, which does 1 con damage every hit and 1d6 more on critical hits.

Which do you think kills Monster A faster? Its the rapier.

Now consider what happens when Monster A goes up to 5000 hit points on elite difficulty .... but has the same con because otherwise his fort save would be in the 80s. Now which weapon is faster?

The end result was that the only weapon wanted for a non-boss mob was a wounding of puncturing rapier, unless the mob was immune to con damage (undead/construct). It did not produce very good game play. It was changed after wounding rapiers of puncturing were 20 times more valuable than anything else in the game, and even barbarian s were built piercing-specced around rapiers because itw as better than killing things with an axe and strength.

Oh sure, let's throw the rules out the window because it trivializes content. Who really cares if it makes things easier? Personally, I play for fun not for the challenge.

Junts is right, though I was fairly certain monster HP has never been tied directly to their Con (not just a recentish change) for the reason stated.

The game isn't fun if all of the DPS abilities are trivialized and marginalized in everything but a boss fight because one type of weapon obviates the need for anything else. Barbarians were running around with toothpicks because WoPing something killed it faster than hitting it with a big sword (and raging was only used for the HP, saves and crit range bonus). Sneak Attack became fairly meaningless, as did smite evil (except for improving crit range), divine sacrifice, divine favor, bard songs, the rage spell, fighter's unique bonus feats, etc...

Not fun. Even more not fun if you didn't have one, or ideally two, of these rare items.

Eschewing PnP game rules for balance, fun and challenge in DDO is a necessary part of changing media, just like cutting material from a story is necessary when converting a book to a movie.

I'll argue about some changes that seem unnecessary, or detrimental, but monsters just cannot have HP tied directly to their Con scores in this game--either we'd kill them waaaaay too swiftly, or they would have impossibly high Fort saves, and save DCs (dragon's breath weapons tied to Con score, not sure what else is).

[Strakeln]

It was that way until very recently. Know what happened?

Lets pick a monster and call him Monster A. He is an ordinary monster in a raid. he has 1500 hit points, which is not all htat many for a monster in a raid. he has a constitution score of 24.

I could take my raid loot greensteel mineral2 Khopesh, which does 40-50 damage per swing, plus 2d6 holy and 1d4 slicing and crits for 130ish 20% of the time, and hit him until he's dead


Alternately, I could wield a Wounding Rapier of Puncturing, which does 1 con damage every hit and 1d6 more on critical hits.

Which do you think kills Monster A faster? Its the rapier.

Now consider what happens when Monster A goes up to 5000 hit points on elite difficulty .... but has the same con because otherwise his fort save would be in the 80s. Now which weapon is faster?

The end result was that the only weapon wanted for a non-boss mob was a wounding of puncturing rapier, unless the mob was immune to con damage (undead/construct). It did not produce very good game play. It was changed after wounding rapiers of puncturing were 20 times more valuable than anything else in the game, and even barbarian s were built piercing-specced around rapiers because itw as better than killing things with an axe and strength.

Call me crazy, but I feel there were at least half a dozen solutions better than this one.

For example, why not tie con score to HP? That would even out the "killing-by-DPS" with the "killing-by-stat-damage". Naturally, we already know the answer... fort saves go through the roof. But tell me... would it really be that difficult to scale down the fort save?

So say you have a mob with 4x the pnp HP equivalent. So make the con score 4x the pnp equivalent, but scale down the con bonus to fort save accordingly.

Ta-dah!

[Strakeln]

Quick Xorian run last night - group was fail, I said in chat "if you want to know why this group isn't working, check the kill count", the rogue had 1 kill, the monk had 0, the barb had 1 kill, I had 9 on my sorc... Something was wrong there. It may not be accurate - but it does give you a general idea of what's going on.

The sorc was using firewall on undead, and you're surprised to see he has all the kills?

[sephiroth1084]

Call me crazy, but I feel there were at least half a dozen solutions better than this one.

For example, why not tie con score to HP? That would even out the "killing-by-DPS" with the "killing-by-stat-damage". Naturally, we already know the answer... fort saves go through the roof. But tell me... would it really be that difficult to scale down the fort save?

So say you have a mob with 4x the pnp HP equivalent. So make the con score 4x the pnp equivalent, but scale down the con bonus to fort save accordingly.

Ta-dah!

Were you so enamored with your WoPs? I'm not thrilled with stat-damage on the whole anyway as a catch-all solution to difficult encounters.

[Arctigis]

The sorc was using firewall on undead, and you're surprised to see he has all the kills?

Indeed, I was about to add the same. If your Sorc isn't leading the kill count in there at least 10-1 then something
is wrong, not the other way around.

[Creddi]

Quick Xorian run last night - group was fail, I said in chat "if you want to know why this group isn't working, check the kill count", the rogue had 1 kill, the monk had 0, the barb had 1 kill, I had 9 on my sorc... Something was wrong there. It may not be accurate - but it does give you a general idea of what's going on.

Wall of fire would be an obvious answer. Lack of kills doesn't mean the others weren't doing damage or weren't 'holding the line' keeping things in walls or off you.

Alternatively, if you are chain nuking running around when you have agro and making them chase the monsters and you, they are doing no damage and you will fail.

Not saying that was what the issue was, just that kill count doesn't always mean what you seem to think it means.

[Strakeln]

Were you so enamored with your WoPs? I'm not thrilled with stat-damage on the whole anyway as a catch-all solution to difficult encounters.

I've never possessed a WoP rapier, and I certainly was against the way they ruled the roost. But I think I like the chosen solution even less.

[sephiroth1084]

I've never possessed a WoP rapier, and I certainly was against the way they ruled the roost. But I think I like the chosen solution even less.

Fair enough.

I imagine that, had they tied HP to Con, then adjust Fort saves independently, we would have ended up with a lot of bugged monsters, where they had way more, or way less, Fort than they should have. Maybe not, but that's my impression.

Still, I'm sure the fix that was settled upon was the easiest, as that seems to be the way things get done much of the time around here: slap a band-aid on it, hope that is good enough.

[Strakeln]

I imagine that, had they tied HP to Con, then adjust Fort saves independently, we would have ended up with a lot of bugged monsters

The bugged monsters far outnumber the non-bugged ones in this game, they'd fit in just fine

[sephiroth1084]

The bugged monsters far outnumber the non-bugged ones in this game, they'd fit in just fine

That one was almost too easy. Cheap shot! Cheap shot!

[Mani]

dont cater to all these mmo'ers coming over to ddo try to have it be the other mmo they play. this game is getting mutilated to where its going to be copy infringment to call it d&d...

It’s time to let the cat out the bag… say hello to my little friend!

[Turial]

Junts is right, though I was fairly certain monster HP has never been tied directly to their Con (not just a recentish change) for the reason stated.
.....

The HP of monsters has always been something like this: HP = HP form # of HD + Bonus hp from CON + monster bonus HP to prevent them from simply being speed bumps

[Turial]

...puncturing, nice (i think to myself) con damage. ....

Puncturing here does not work the same as it does in PNP. Our version is vastly better and it made content design difficult. This is why a change was made.

From SRD:
Rapier of Puncturing

Three times per day, this +2 wounding rapier allows the wielder to make a touch attack with the weapon that deals 1d6 points of Constitution damage by draining blood. Creatures immune to critical hits are immune to the Constitution damage dealt by this weapon.

[Thrudh]

The sorc was using firewall on undead, and you're surprised to see he has all the kills?

Plus no sneak attack for the rogue and no crits for the barbarian against undead.

[Renvar]

The real problem isn't the stat damagers, or the nerf to them. The real problem is that attack speed is so incredibly fast and to-hits and damage are so incredibly high for the PC's that the HP,Saves,Immunities, etc has to be scaled out of this world to make the game even minorly interesting.

Take a look at the Demon Queen. Know how she runs up to you and smacks the **** outta you in like 10 seconds? All you see is a flurry of red numbers (no misses) in the 30's and 40's and then you are a soulstone. Doesn't matter if you are sporting 200 hp or 500.

Well, guess what, that's what a mob sees when you come running into combat. Every buffed melee specced PC over level 12 hits with the speed and damage of Lalliat. You swing ridiculously fast, hit constantly, and hit for massive damage. you can't keep your mobs at strict PnP rules while allowing your PC to triple or quadruple the DPS possible in PnP or the game will be terrible.

Given that DDO represents the worst possible Monty Haul campaign environment (where most everyone has top of the line magic items, stacks of potions and scrolls and "unique" loot that all party members have), you have no choice but to nerf certain features or massively buff the mobs to keep the competitive balance.

It's not dumbing down for other MMO's players, it's just the nature of a perpetual environment that an MMO creates vs. the much smaller duration of a typical PnP campaign where you can't grind and re-run the same PC ad infinium and force the DM to constantly come up with new, challenging content for that twinked PC.

EDIT: This is a strictly melee look. Getting into mana pools, rest shrines in quests and unlimited mana pots and their impact on caster DPS and party healing capabilities vs. PnP and the impact that has on mob challenge is an entirely other angle. You just have to scale the challenge when you do these things and modify the rules on both sides to create balance.