Armor Up - Developer Diary #3

[Purkilius]

So, i can build a 15 palie 3 ranger 2 monk centerd full saves evasion max dps longsword or shortsword user who will have supreme dps no issue to get oc crit and so many selfheals that its sick, coupled with prr skyhigh and dodge..
IS this really what i want to do?
Yes, this is what i want to do...
Cool change, very welcomed

Thinking the same thing, cool stuff

[Alexisus]

One exception:

The holy sword spell should not stack with any T5 crit enhancement (competence bonus). Otherwise the new Fotm will be 14 or 15 Pala with 5 levels or rogue, fighter etc to take the T5 of the second class.
.

Why not make the stacking crit part of the KotC capstone, unlocked for the spell once you hit twenty. That would possibly encourage pure pally builds, or at least make the capstone worth more.

[Takllin]

So just realized that Holy Retribution recharges Smites, are you going to make it so that it has a CD and no Turn Undead use?

Paladins have limited Turn Undead, and making another key ability use them I think is poor design.

[Chai]

That's a strange wording. Virtually every undead (except 1-2 named exceptions) is evil.

It's not clear if "evil and undead creatures" means:
Things that are evil undead.
Monsters with an evil alignment, or that are undead.
Monsters which are Evil Outsider type, or undead.

Skellitons and zombies, and any other "mindless" undead are supposed to be neutral. THey are flagged evil in DDO, as holy damages them. Not sure why this is, but its likely the distinction was more needed in D&D.

[Dagolar]

of the 12 races in the game, only 3 are from Faerun and would implicitely hate undead, of the Eberron races, Bladeforged, High elves, and Drow condone Undeath, Warforged may condone undeath, if aligned with the Lord of Blades and not the Becoming God, and anyone from Karrnath treats undead as neutral

DDO only uses the Eberronean version of most classes.
In the case of paladins, this means the Lawful Good-restricted Eberron Paladin [in FR, Paladins may be of different alignments than LG].

The LG-only Eberron paladin has strict outlooks and restrictions- including a harsh outlook toward 'evil' and 'unnatural' creatures.

Unlike paladins of other settings, which tend to convey the interests of their god, whatever their alignment, Eberron paladins are 'paragons of virtue' that seek to 'cleanse evil'.

You could view them as a sort of natural response/counter-existence to the existence of evil undead, even.

Skellitons and zombies, and any other "mindless" undead are supposed to be neutral. THey are flagged evil in DDO, as holy damages them. Not sure why this is, but its likely the distinction was more needed in D&D.

Undead animated by negative energy are always treated as evil creatures.
Holy damage always works against evil creatures.

See:
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skeleton.htm
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Holy

[oradafu]

Overwhelming Critical will have no feat requirements at all. The intention is to have Paladins take Exalted Cleave (better than Cleave), Avenging Cleave (better than Great Cleave) and then they can take Overwhelming Critical if they wish.

Yes.

You won't take Cleave and Great Cleave at all, and Power Attack is completely optional. You can still get Overwhelming Critical and free up three feats.

So how does this interact with Legendary Dreadnought? Will the Exalted and Avenging Cleaves work without having the feats for things like Lay Waste and Momentous Swing? Can Paladins use those abilities without having Power Attack on (or Power Attack at all) since that was a big hang-up for that ED?

If not, is it completely asinine to require higher standards and more feats to get a few basic abilities in an ED to work than an Epic feat? Really, if this part of the game wasn't thought through with the game, I wonder what unintended changes (and possibly gamebreaking stuff) is going to happen with all these changes at once.

[toapat]

Fixed that for you.

Let me put it this way for everyone too willfully obtuse to want to actually think about what im saying:

The current design is worthless because it leads to shallow, very exploitable trees.

What should be the design is a series of incredibly deep, broad, and difficult decision where only 30% of the options at any given time can be chosen but all 100% of that is worth considering. That is not the case anywhere atm.

Umm.... Divine Retribution is a vorpal ability that requires a DC to activate, and it only activates 100% of the time if you spend a whopping 6 AP. I feel that the cost is greater than the reward. MUCH greater. Sorry if my last post on the subject was poorly worded....

Divine Retribution is a 3/3 ability. its nice for vs spellcasters but its just not worth it lets say they remove the vorpal, and just keep the debuff, the ability still needs to recharge multiple uses of smite evil to actually see use. Because paladins get recharging smite evil but not recharging turn undead.

Said something similar in the other thread - I don't particularly like, conceptually speaking, that LIGHT damage scales with melee power instead of Light or Universal spellpower. That doesn't make any sense at all in terms of what one might expect from class to class - in fact if we're adding 'power' mechanics to melee and ranged, I think I'd rather that relevant spellpower just started working on weapon effects, guards and so on in general.

2 reasons:

1: Paladin doesnt get spellpower for ****
2: its as they said, so they have more ways to balance power then they currently do.

someone with 14 paly + 3 bard

No paladin of Freedom. so no bardadins

DDO only uses the Eberronean version of most classes.
In the case of paladins, this means the Lawful Good-restricted Eberron Paladin [in FR, Paladins may be of different alignments than LG].

The LG-only Eberron paladin has strict outlooks and restrictions- including a harsh outlook toward 'evil' and 'unnatural' creatures.

Unlike paladins of other settings, which tend to convey the interests of their god, whatever their alignment, Eberron paladins are 'paragons of virtue' that seek to 'cleanse evil'.

You could view them as a sort of natural response/counter-existence to the existence of evil undead, even.

Actually, the non-LG paladins are in Unearthed Arcana, which is not a campaign linked book.

Eberron paladins are going to have significantly different outlooks then Faerun.

Also, undeath isnt inherently evil in Faerun, its inherently trying not to goto Dolurrh where your soul rots and fades away

[B0ltdrag0n]

Why not make the stacking crit part of the KotC capstone, unlocked for the spell once you hit twenty. That would possibly encourage pure pally builds, or at least make the capstone worth more.

How about we not ask him to change the only GOOD change he has announced with this update so far?

Seriously guys. The fact that it works with 2 weapons q staff or knives is hardly game breaking considering the weapons in that category

[jakeelala]

It is our current intention that Holy Weapon stacks with everything. Zeal will work as it does on live, except for the increased duration.

Sev~

Sev,

I need you to take a step back. Look at EVERY class and EVERY tree.

Now please tell me, why would ANY character, melee or ranged, not simply go 14 Paladin/6 whatever and have the absolute best version of what melee/ranged character they want? Ranger for Manyshot, Monk for Throwing or Monking, Rogue for Staffing...It's TOO powerful. And I almost never call for nerfs.

Zeal and Holy Sword MUST become Competence based like almost EVERY OTHER class/ED/Race based Critical Threat and Multiplier adjustment (Swash, Halfling, LD, Kensei, etc).

If you need help from some expert builders who can already tell wht terrible things will happen if you go through with these changes, please just let us know. There are a few of us left who will tell you the truth.

[Munkenmo]

If you need help from some expert builders who can already tell wht terrible things will happen if you go through with these changes, please just let us know. There are a few of us left who will tell you the truth.

Tossenmo toogoodtobetrue

[jakeelala]

Tossenmo toogoodtobetrue

Its literally every build that doesn't cast spells, not just throwers. It has to become Competence based.

[LeoLionxxx]

Why is it that people don't seem to like the Aura of Courage at all? It's a passive buff that is always on you, and buffs the party besides.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Sev,

I need you to take a step back. Look at EVERY class and EVERY tree.

Now please tell me, why would ANY character, melee or ranged, not simply go 14 Paladin/6 whatever and have the absolute best version of what melee/ranged character they want? Ranger for Manyshot, Monk for Throwing or Monking, Rogue for Staffing...It's TOO powerful. And I almost never call for nerfs.

Zeal and Holy Sword MUST become Competence based like almost EVERY OTHER class/ED/Race based Critical Threat and Multiplier adjustment (Swash, Halfling, LD, Kensei, etc).

If you need help from some expert builders who can already tell wht terrible things will happen if you go through with these changes, please just let us know. There are a few of us left who will tell you the truth.

You are kidding right? You have to give up so much for 14 level splashes in a tree just for +1 range and multi on a single dispellable spell, and even then it helps Rogue splashes...and that's it. Paladin literally has nothing else going for it, a truth I think will remain the same as we move forward.
Running my math on it there are only a small handful of splashes that seem to benefit, and those are tough choices where the holy sword bonuses are weight heavily with all the things you give up because of a deep splash in a class with little else going for it.

Devs have said they want tough choices. This is one, and one that brings a very tiny amount of builds into a upper 20% range of viability.

[B0ltdrag0n]

Why is it that people don't seem to like the Aura of Courage at all? It's a passive buff that is always on you, and buffs the party besides.

Because it is useless.

[Krelar]

Why is it that people don't seem to like the Aura of Courage at all? It's a passive buff that is always on you, and buffs the party besides.

Because paladin's are already immune to fear so half the bonus doesn't even do anything for them? The other half of the bonus is pretty lackluster since with their high saves enchantments aren't much of a issue either?

And then of course you can't read anyone's biography because the aura keeps jumping you back to the top every 3 seconds.

So basically it's only useful to the party, if they stay close, not the actual Paladin.

[toapat]

Because it is useless.

more accurately because the area of effect is so short that only paladins benefit from the aura, and what benefits it does give are minimal as it is. If an ally can benefit from the effects of Aura of Courage, then they are definitely out of possition

the +3 stacks with saving throws is good in DoS, its just that unlike paladin auras from WoW, which had an AoE of 60 yards, the aura of courage is 10 feet in radius, meaning it covers 1/324th of the area.

[HatsuharuZ]

Divine Retribution is a 3/3 ability. its nice for vs spellcasters but its just not worth it lets say they remove the vorpal, and just keep the debuff, the ability still needs to recharge multiple uses of smite evil to actually see use. Because paladins get recharging smite evil but not recharging turn undead.

Derp. I meant "Holy Retribution", the one in tier 5 of the KotC tree. And how is this good against casters? It does nothing to prevent spellcasting.

[ToastyFred]

Holy Sword
We wanted to discuss changes to the Holy Sword spell as part of our ongoing discussion of Paladins.

We have several goals with this spell:

~ Make Paladin spellcasting more valuable.
~ Make the spell valuable when the Paladin has high end gear.
~ Increase the effectiveness of the Paladin class.

The spell is being redesigned as follows.

Holy Sword
Evocation (Good spells)
Paladin 4
Components: Verbal, Somatic
Metamagic: Quicken
Range: Touch
Target: Self
Duration: 1 minute per caster level
Saving Throw: None
Spell Resistance: No
Cooldown: 3 seconds

Channels holy power to increase the effectiveness of your equipped weapons. Weapons you currently are wielding gain an additional +2 holy bonus to enhancement value. The spell also increases the threat range and critical weapon multiplier of these weapons by 1.

Please tell me Holy Sword won't screw up the Celestia short sword from the Caught in the Web raid like so many weapon buffing spells (many from the Artificer spell list) do.

[jakeelala]

You are kidding right? You have to give up so much for 14 level splashes in a tree just for +1 range and multi on a single dispellable spell, and even then it helps Rogue splashes...and that's it. Paladin literally has nothing else going for it, a truth I think will remain the same as we move forward.
Running my math on it there are only a small handful of splashes that seem to benefit, and those are tough choices where the holy sword bonuses are weight heavily with all the things you give up because of a deep splash in a class with little else going for it.

Devs have said they want tough choices. This is one, and one that brings a very tiny amount of builds into a upper 20% range of viability.

Every build that wants bonuses to crit threat and multi must give up a great deal. Either Tier5 Enhancements, or many levels, or both.

Are you kidding?

Fighter: 8 levels, multiple feats, Tier 5
Rogue: Tier 5, 5 Levels
SwashBuckler: Ridiculously OP, Tier 2 Core, 3 Levels. Cannot go Monk or Pally
Halfling: 16 AP, only applied to throwers
LD: Pulveriser, Headmans Chop or whatever, etc require LD destiny
Rogue/Monk for Qstaffs: Tier 5, many AP

But perhaps most importantly: NONE OF THESE STACK: they are all Competence typed bonuses. There is a reason for that. Severlin (and you) need to understand this is a mistake to make it stack with everything.

There was a dev who a few months ago said DDO was trying to move AWAY from granting stacking multiplier and threat range bonuses to damage in favor of something that smooths more gracefully.

What happened to that idea?

[toapat]

Derp. I meant "Holy Retribution", the one in tier 5 of the KotC tree. And how is this good against casters? It does nothing to prevent spellcasting.

i swore it was a fortsave, i could never get my paladin to land one with a DC 56 willsave on the fighters but vs spellcasters they only saved on a 20

basically, its the target the weak save logic.