DC casting and multiclass

[AzounIV]

I've been playing for 7 years. I've seen the game going from a single class kind of character game to one where it is possible to multiclass and I prefer the later. There is only one kind of multiclass tho that it isn't possible to do without being too lame: DC casters multiclass. Moreover, being a DC caster maxed in one class is usually not accurate most of the time if you don't have all the past live and gear to do so. In order to change that, I suggest one implementation on the casters skill trees, as a feat or as power on items: the spell save bypass.

On skill trees it could be a tier 4 or 5 skill with 3 levels each costing 2 sp points and reading as such:

tier 1: 10% chance that the the target automatically fails his save against your spell thus allowing effect or dmg fully
tier 2: 20% "
tier 3: 30%

percentile are only a suggestion, but the effect of spell bypass could help multiclass dc a bit and would still need at least 20 sp to get in one tree

A feat could be 25% fixed chance to bypass spell save and be available only with prerequisite in stats or feats

On items it could be a random % and put only on rare items and on augments

I wouldn't suggest to put spell bypass on all three (skills, feat and items) but only on one of them. The suggestion is not to give a chance to casters to become OP again, but to make available more kind of multiclassing and help with overall DC casting...

What do you think about the idea?

[Uska]

A multiclassing Caster should never ever be able to come anywhere near the casting ability of a pure Caster I don't care if you spend 10 feats

[guises]

If anything, I'd think effort should be put into encouraging pure builds rather than discouraging them further.

That said, DCs are messed up in the same way that AC used to be. I don't see why we couldn't just roll with the same solution - put it on a curve with diminishing returns, so a high DC doesn't guarantee success and a low DC isn't useless.

Your spell save bypass idea seems to parallel with armor piercing (fortification bypass) and I'm not against it, but it doesn't seem like it would be necessary if they fixed the DC problem.

[AzounIV]

A multiclassing Caster should never ever be able to come anywhere near the casting ability of a pure Caster I don't care if you spend 10 feats

And it would never come near to it with my idea...why would you focus on DC if you only have a low percentage of success? It would only help on aoe DC spell since some of the mobs would fail saves and it would help to land once in a while a dmg spell at full dmg. A pure DC caster can still land often finger of death, disintegrate and such...spells that my idea wouldn't help much to cast if you only have the chance to land it once in a while. So DC casting would still be for pure class no matter what you say, but a multiclass caster could still chose some aoe spell like hold monster mass, sleep and such and affect some of the mobs in the area. A caster having a lot of sp could still try to land some single target DC spell too, but may fail more than succeed...

As I said, my idea isn,t the percentile, it is the spell bypass....let's discuss what would be the best percentile at which it is good but non unbalancing...

[AzounIV]

If anything, I'd think effort should be put into encouraging pure builds rather than discouraging them further.

That said, DCs are messed up in the same way that AC used to be. I don't see why we couldn't just roll with the same solution - put it on a curve with diminishing returns, so a high DC doesn't guarantee success and a low DC isn't useless.

Your spell save bypass idea seems to parallel with armor piercing (fortification bypass) and I'm not against it, but it doesn't seem like it would be necessary if they fixed the DC problem.

I love mixed builds because that's what make DDO character creation such a infinite possibility. That said, I love pure build too, when it comes to DC casting or for spell casters.

I don,t think it would encourage mixed builds further, I just think it would allow more spells to multiclass casters.

Yeah, it is similar to armor piercing and I got this idea seeing DC was more and more useless as for the AC

[Uska]

And it would never come near to it with my idea...why would you focus on DC if you only have a low percentage of success? It would only help on aoe DC spell since some of the mobs would fail saves and it would help to land once in a while a dmg spell at full dmg. A pure DC caster can still land often finger of death, disintegrate and such...spells that my idea wouldn't help much to cast if you only have the chance to land it once in a while. So DC casting would still be for pure class no matter what you say, but a multiclass caster could still chose some aoe spell like hold monster mass, sleep and such and affect some of the mobs in the area. A caster having a lot of sp could still try to land some single target DC spell too, but may fail more than succeed...

As I said, my idea isn,t the percentile, it is the spell bypass....let's discuss what would be the best percentile at which it is good but non unbalancing...

You shouldnt be able to come near any part of a pure class abilites with a multiclass it makes me sad that multiclass rogues can equal or even exceed pure class ones I see to much power creep in your idea which we already have way to much of

[AzounIV]

You shouldnt be able to come near any part of a pure class abilites with a multiclass it makes me sad that multiclass rogues can equal or even exceed pure class ones I see to much power creep in your idea which we already have way to much of

Seriously? Have you read what I wrote? How would it come CLOSE to pure class and how would it even EXCEED a pure class? You didn't read the fact that it won't stack right? You didn't notice that my suggestion is about having at most 30% (and we can lower it to 20%, or 15%) of fail save which mean that if you cast a finger of death spell, you would land less than one on three (if it is 20%, one in five). That isn't close to any DC caster that land about 70% or 80% of their spell (higher with past lives and gear).

Guess you were the one whining about the armor piercing when it came out? It is about the same mate. Do you feel that armor piercing unbalance that much the game?

You can be against the suggestion because you don,t like the idea, but saying that it will make a rogue as good in DC casting as a pure wizard is to be considered irrelevant...

[AzounIV]

Moreover, my idea would beneficiate a pure class DC caster as well, giving a chance to a saved DC to be considered failed...

I don't see where is the advantage to a multiclass caster in that...

[Uska]

Moreover, my idea would beneficiate a pure class DC caster as well, giving a chance to a saved DC to be considered failed...

I don't see where is the advantage to a multiclass caster in that...

Power creep is power creep and you didnt read my rogue comment properly

[AzounIV]

Power creep is power creep and you didnt read my rogue comment properly

Bring arguments instead of saying judgment as POWER CREEP...I despised the tweak on barb and rogue for being unbalanced and I hate the warlock since it is too powerful compared to other casters. But I'm surely a powercreep...

Yes you meant rogue multiclass...but still didn't read my point.

I will not answer your next comments cause they are irrelevants...how can an intelligent being think a 30% max DC is close or better than a 100% DC??? Moreover, there is the spell pen question, which make the true class caster way better than caster that would have the power of my idea. How can you argue that my idead would make them better???

Would you prefer a 10$ over a 1000$? I guess you would think they are close and maybe the 10$ is way better than the 1000$...

[eris2323]

I don't like this idea either; if it was a feat, it would mean a character with 1 wizard level could potentially land a charm on any monster in the game, and I think that's too much power for a multi-class. If it's high up in a tree, it's slightly less overpowered, but then the 8/6/6 builds would be much more overpowered themselves.

Too much power creep.

The tradeoff in multiclassed spellcasters is that their dc's are usually lower. That's fair.

[AzounIV]

I don't like this idea either; if it was a feat, it would mean a character with 1 wizard level could potentially land a charm on any monster in the game, and I think that's too much power for a multi-class. If it's high up in a tree, it's slightly less overpowered, but then the 8/6/6 builds would be much more overpowered themselves.

Too much power creep.

The tradeoff in multiclassed spellcasters is that their dc's are usually lower. That's fair.

I disagree, but you have good arguments. I believe my initial suggestion of 30% is way too high. Would a 15% chance or 20% chance make it better? I doubt someone would make a build on that with only 1 lvl in any caster. For the 8/6/6 build it would help a bit and give more choice in the spell book, but I doubt that someone would spam DC spell that much with that build. But again, I welcome your thougths on it...

[eris2323]

I disagree, but you have good arguments. I believe my initial suggestion of 30% is way too high. Would a 15% chance or 20% chance make it better? I doubt someone would make a build on that with only 1 lvl in any caster. For the 8/6/6 build it would help a bit and give more choice in the spell book, but I doubt that someone would spam DC spell that much with that build. But again, I welcome your thougths on it...

I don't think it's appropriate at any percentage, sorry...

[AzounIV]

As Guises said, DC has to be arranged a bit. A curve in it would be great but hard to set. I tried to think about some ideas about DC and that's the one I came with. Hope others think about some ideas about DC and bring thoughts on them.

[AzounIV]

I don't think it's appropriate at any percentage, sorry...

No sorry mate, glad you shared your thought on it...

[eris2323]

As Guises said, DC has to be arranged a bit. A curve in it would be great but hard to set. I tried to think about some ideas about DC and that's the one I came with. Hope others think about some ideas about DC and bring thoughts on them.

DC casting is not inherently bad - almost all monsters have a 'weak save' - and if you use the proper spells, they're a lot easier to land.

It could maybe use some MINOR tweaking, but only at the EE level, I think - as it is, on heroic elites and anything up to and including epic hard, it's fairly easy to land spells, for a pure caster, as it should be. Multi-class characters are spread more thin, and they don't need more power by allowing them to equal the power of pure classes...

[AzounIV]

DC casting is not inherently bad - almost all monsters have a 'weak save' - and if you use the proper spells, they're a lot easier to land.

It could maybe use some MINOR tweaking, but only at the EE level, I think - as it is, on heroic elites and anything up to and including epic hard, it's fairly easy to land spells, for a pure caster, as it should be. Multi-class characters are spread more thin, and they don't need more power by allowing them to equal the power of pure classes...

True

I was thinking about some build like 18/2 or 19/1 that are good on heroic, but become lame on EE
I figured that implementation for them, and I don,t think it is overpower. A better idea could come out, but I believe that DC casters are still slightly less good on EE and against high lvl HE quest

[AzounIV]

DC casting is not inherently bad - almost all monsters have a 'weak save' - and if you use the proper spells, they're a lot easier to land.

It could maybe use some MINOR tweaking, but only at the EE level, I think - as it is, on heroic elites and anything up to and including epic hard, it's fairly easy to land spells, for a pure caster, as it should be. Multi-class characters are spread more thin, and they don't need more power by allowing them to equal the power of pure classes...

And my thoughts was to make a multiclass caster able to land SOMETIMES ( that word is important since I really mean SOMETIMES instead of NEVER) a DC spell like hold monster, charm monster, death spell and such...

I hope that suggestion may bring new ideas to people and that someday a multiclass caster will be able to choose those spell in his spellbook knowing he can cast it with a limited chance of success...

[eris2323]

And my thoughts was to make a multiclass caster able to land SOMETIMES ( that word is important since I really mean SOMETIMES instead of NEVER) a DC spell like hold monster, charm monster, death spell and such...

I hope that suggestion may bring new ideas to people and that someday a multiclass caster will be able to choose those spell in his spellbook knowing he can cast it with a limited chance of success...

An 18/2 build will lose very little DC and spell penetration - it doesn't really need any other help. And every suggestion can't be just thought about in terms of one multiclass build, it has to be thought of for all multi-class builds.

[AzounIV]

An 18/2 build will lose very little DC and spell penetration - it doesn't really need any other help. And every suggestion can't be just thought about in terms of one multiclass build, it has to be thought of for all multi-class builds.

Yeah, I first thought about it with that kind of build, but then though for build like 8/6/6 etc. That's the best I thought of for improving spell use and possibility to use different spells.

As you said, 18/2 builds are not that weak on DC, but if you go lower on your main caster, it gets bad...how can you still use some of the spell that need a DC. That's what I would like to see in DDO.

Made some DC casters with that 19/1 or 18/2 build and they could land some spells on all heroic and EN and EH, but never on EE...

And that's mainly to fix the DC on EE that I brought that up.

I found it lame that if you aren't a lvl 20 caster of one class, you have more than half of the spells availabe to your class unavailable due to DC...