First Look: U43 Pale Master

[tinyelvis]

I agree with this, but maybe for a different reason.

Pale Master and EK are niche arcane caster things. There isn't really a Wizard tree. It's two niche concepts that aren't very wizardly, at least in a Dungeons and Dragons sense. Archmage is wizardly but it's bad so it doesn't really exist.

The Pale master should stand as a special prestige type tree... similar to arcane archer with prereqs required to take. They should eliminate most all stat and focus buffs from the tree line and concentrate on making the undead character lines stand out for their special abilities (like regeneration, damage reduction, poison and disease resistance, fear invocation....).

Then stat bonuses and focus bonuses (i.e. necro focus) can be drawn from archmage line or other lines like say fighter line. Prerequisites could include ability to cast 1st level necro spells. This is more Dungeons and Dragons like. In this way, your undead form stands appart and special from your wizard, or sorcerer, or monk, or cleric lines.

[Sebastrd]

We're dropping the incorp % of Wraith form. 10% base form, 10% core 3-4-5 choice (Ghost in the Wind), 5% Ascendant Shroud for a total of 25% instead of 35% like it is on live. From our discussions and what feedback you guys have given, it is very clear that the current Incorp % as it stands on live is high enough to outweigh almost every other form's benefits, and we are going to reign that in for this update.

As written, I can see reasons to run in any of the first three forms; vampire is my personal favorite. I think it's less the case that 35% incorp is too good and more that lich is just lackluster.

Spellpower is just bad. Reaper is the meta now, and DPS casting is terrible in reaper, ergo offensive spellpower isn't a priority. Bonus melee damage, increased DCs, and incorporeal are just more useful.

[droid327]

As written, I can see reasons to run in any of the first three forms; vampire is my personal favorite. I think it's less the case that 35% incorp is too good and more that lich is just lackluster.

Spellpower is just bad. Reaper is the meta now, and DPS casting is terrible in reaper, ergo offensive spellpower isn't a priority. Bonus melee damage, increased DCs, and incorporeal are just more useful.

Why not make it Neg Crit Chance and Neg Crit Damage for Lich Form? If its meant to be a Neg nuker form - and has equivalent Necro DCs with other forms anyway - then it seems like crit is a much better way to scale it into endgame.

There's too many channels where martials get multiplicative damage, so they pull way far ahead of pure nukers the deeper into endgame you go. And then the game gets balanced around martials, and nukers get left behind. Making spell crit and especially crit damage a little bit closer to melee profiles (where you can get like 30% chance for 5x-7x damage in a fully developed build with more than +100 per hit from mainstat, deadly, etc., though you can only get like 200 MP instead of 950 spellpower) might help them scale better instead of just linear additive Spellpower stacking.

Though let me point out, dont balance AROUND Reaper. Balance around Elite, and then Reaper scales up from there accordingly. But even in Elite, you can compare martial and nuker builds and find the latter wanting.

[Xgya]

It’s apples and oranges in that regard. Warlocks only have 6 levels of arcane spells. They would never be comparable to a wizard/sorc in arcane spells. They excel in eldritch dmg, which they do in DDO as well. They also are provided other supernatural abilities provided by their demon/etc. They don’t have healing but you can generate a ton of temp hitpoints and wear armor. Finger of death and evards are different. They are wizard/sorc spells. Look in the spell compendium evards black tentacles cannot be cast by warlocks, only wizards and sorcs. Evard was a lich wizard.

Gotta correct on this one at least.
Tentacles was available and one of the best final invocations Warlocks could get in 3.5. (Though Warlocks got a better version that also froze the enemies they caught)
3.5 warlocks could also do it at will, all day. If nothing else, Warlocks were better at using Black Tentacles than Sorcerers or Wizards could be.

[Tuxedoman96]

@Devs

What is it you're trying to accomplish with the tree? You've made the goals of the changes evident, but what should the tree do conceptually? I think the lack of such an explanation makes it more difficult for players here to know whether the changes will hit the mark and also facilitates unhelpful/irrelevant suggestions (certainly most suggestions have merit, it's just a matter of if it aligns with the goals).

[Cadveen]

Gotta correct on this one at least.
Tentacles was available and one of the best final invocations Warlocks could get in 3.5. (Though Warlocks got a better version that also froze the enemies they caught)
3.5 warlocks could also do it at will, all day. If nothing else, Warlocks were better at using Black Tentacles than Sorcerers or Wizards could be.

What manual are you reading? Warlock is able to use a similar spell called Chilling Tentacles which comes with the 5th level greater invocations. It functions similar to evards but evards it is not. Either way, it seems a wiz/sorc should cast it in DDO.

Now that I am reading all of these manuals again. Add the spell “Toll the Dead”

[Saekee]

Can you add to Unholy Avatar or somewhere else that the Fists of Darkness strike creates a Negative energy healing shield on foes, like the Fists of Light? I think that would be insanely fun to cross-pollinate


Can you make it so Pale Shroud and Werewolf/bear forms can be active at the same time so that we get some kind of sick combo with appropriate visuals, maybe Werewolf Werebear

Dark Discorporation: If you are bats, maybe a buff to jump&tumble and free feather fall

[Haphazarduk]

Can you make it so Pale Shroud and Werewolf/bear forms can be active at the same time so that we get some kind of sick combo with appropriate visuals, maybe Werewolf Werebear

You beat me to it! Zombie Bear... I want this.

A couple of other thoughts. If you're struggling to balance Shroud secondary abilities you could start with only half the options at core 3 and add in more powerful ones at core 4 and 5.

Could we get some kind of speed boost through undead form? Wraith bonus sneaking speed or flat speed boost like Fast Movement in Acrobat/SB in Vampire form (pretenatural speed like Strahd Legendary Actions)

Hap

[Jerevth]

Core 2: Pale Shroud: Multiselector: All forms grant 100% critical hit resistance and allow you to be healed by Negative Energy. You take 50% healing from Positive, and double damage from Light. You are considered undead.

Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +4 Constitution, +20% damage with attacks but you attack 20% slower than normal. You gain +3 PRR, +3 MRR.
Shroud of the Vampire: While in this form, +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom. +3 Perform skill, and your melee and unarmed attacks have a chance to heal you for 1d3 Negative Energy damage per Wizard Level.
Shroud of the Wraith: While in this form, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence. Enemy attacks have a 10% chance to miss you due to incorporeality, +1 Sneak Attack Dice, and you gain Feather Falling.
Shroud of the Lich: While in this form, +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +10 Negative Amplification, +5 Negative Spell Power, and +15 Magical Resistance Rating.

What are liches renowned for? (Among other things...) Phylacteries.

Liches should have an inherent one shot Born in the Darkness moment where they are able to reform at the moment of their choosing with the following spells auto-cast; Lesser and greater death auras, haste and invisibility. Can it be encoded- I don't know, but slap a BitL affect on them with some tweaking that fits their modus operandi and put some truth to the phylactery story.

Zombies- make them stronger with each kill (brains). Although... why isn't this "Shroud of the Mummy". What kid wants to be a zombie when they grow up? Talk about setting low expectations? Parenting failure there.
I can envision it in Arts and crafts- when Gargolith makes his first phylactery, and Vlad is shaping the mind of his smitten first crush, little Timmy is eating paste and drooling, all the while muttering, "brains" to himself and giggling weirdly.

Vampires- con damage, self healing, evil laughter sound track when they go bats. I think, being the charmers that they are, Leeches should get a bonus directly to enchant DCs. Yes, they have perform and charisma but adding even +1 or 2 to the enchant school makes sense. (And create thrall as a sla?)

Wraith- sorry to see the drop in incorp... less wraithy, but the experienced PMs seem to be ok with it. Not sure I am but I'll play with it and see for myself. It was balanced before in the eyes of the devs but now, because liches need stitches, they yanked the chain on the lead deader so it wouldn't be the favorite. Give them an ability with a one minute timer to vanish and reset as an optional action (2-3 seconds to move anywhere in the area, completely unseen or at least a 3 second shadow-walk) just like all the real wraiths do. FF is a meh bonus. It's useful but in the mid to upper levels you can either suck up the couple hp damage of a fall, or you have the spell anyway.

Writing all this and it suddenly dawned on me... why is the PM just a poser? Why not start the journey to becoming actual undead? Why the "Fake-it-until- you-make-it"? Liches, vampires and wraiths all probably despise the PM because, in the grand scheme of things, they just weren't willing to take the final step for power. Sometimes having heart just isn't enough. No self respecting undead overlord should have a pulse. (let alone working internal organs.)

[Strambotica]

Quick changes round-up:
We're raising the Negative Spell Power available in the cores. Previously, with 40 points in PM, you'd end up with (40 * .75) 30 Negative and 30 Universal Spell Power, and the cores we wrote together only covered 18 of that. The Cores are being changed to provide 5 Negative and 5 Universal Spell Power each, bringing the numbers for a full tree up to the same for a 40 point investment*.

Thanks for putting the Spell Power back ^^


Even with the 50% Positive Healing, I’m still think that 'Harm' shouldn't have the 'Not Facing' thing and that we need some scrolls from this spell on vendors.
Usually on heroic have my stack of Heal Scrolls (in all classes), would be nice to have some Harm Scroll to help undead forms. Now that we can use the Heal Scrolls on them and its ok, but probably will be more time consuming than use Harm Scrolls. (Can't assure it without proof, just guessing)
So, please fix Harm spell and put the scrolls on vendors.

[Shall]

The 50% positive healing is fine with me considering the libris mortis source book that pale master lore comes from makes no mention of the prestige class getting negative energy healing and explicitly states the character is not actually undead anyway. I always thought the ddo shrouds system was more of an expansion of the pale master class feature of getting extra bonuses with the armors crafted from the remains of undead creatures from that same book. Something like the pale master wears the undead armor as a second skin and infuses it with some of their own life force to reawaken the supernatural traits of the actual undead creature and have the armor take damage instead of the wizard. With that interpretation of how they adapted the prestige class the partial positive healing makes sense with the healer restoring some sacrificed life of the pale master who the undead armor then feeds upon to indirectly and therefore less efficiently restore it.

The full damage against undead makes much less sense, and if anything I would have expected something to remove a construct's immunity to negative damage before undead with an amped up version of disrupt undead instead, but I realize that in such an undead content heavy mmorpg form has to follow function sometimes as opposed to a tabletop game where the DM can adapt things on a more case by case basis to make sure a player can still have options to participate and have fun. I do appreciate adding back the universal spell power for that reason when in quests filled with negative damage immune constructs that would have otherwise gotten more annoying.

Rationalizations aside, I like the idea someone posted earlier of adding negative spell crit chance and damage to lich form and knockdown immunity to wraith. Maybe give lich form some caster level and max caster levels too so it is the preferred nuker form, although I don't think there are that many negative energy damaging spells that would benefit at this time unless it also impacted the SLAs and non spell type specific caster level changes are probably being saved for archmage's revamp.

I can't speak for other people that play higher difficulties than I do, but I thought it would have been cool for wizards to get access to the death mark curse ability that the wight wizards in Ravenloft quests have either as a sla or an spell added to the general wizard/sorceror list. In addition to the increased negative damage, something that would counter and dispel deathward on targets to remove the negative energy damage immunity without dealing with the formula for dispel magic that doesn't seem to work too well for me, although that may just be a gearing problem on my end. Maybe added to the spell book or having the effect included as a rider on necrotic bolt when you take the necromantic focus enhancement.

[MasterKernel]

The 50% positive healing is fine with me considering the libris mortis source book that pale master lore comes from makes no mention of the prestige class getting negative energy healing and explicitly states the character is not actually undead anyway.

But you've forgotten that small fact, the prestige class described in Libris Mortis has nothing similar with the thing we have in DDO. :-D


Anyway, it's fun to see half of the crowd crying 'PM is not undead', while the other half ask about phylactery for the Lich. XD So, undead or not undead ? rofl

[karatemack]

NEW SPELL:
Finally, there will be a new Level 9 Sorcerer/Wizard Spell - "Rend the Soul":
"Twists unholy energies around a single foe, causing it significant negative damage over time. Deals 4 to 10 damage every two seconds for 10 seconds for every caster level up to 20. A successful fortitude save reduces damage by half. D&D Dice: Deals 1d6+4 negative damage per caster level, max 20d6+80, every 2 seconds for 10 seconds."

As a DOT, will this stack 3 times (hope not since it's already insane!)? So... arcanes get a spell with 20d6+80 on a single cast... all the crits from master of knowledge... meanwhile divines are still back at 3d6+60 for a fully stacked DP with no equivalent to master of knowledge? Hopefully similar levels of love for divines are in the works.

Also, a better "fix" for healing undead party members is to make harm work like heal in terms of facing the target. We can already heal our undead friends easily enough if we really want to.

[Silverleafeon]

NEW SPELL:
Finally, there will be a new Level 9 Sorcerer/Wizard Spell - "Rend the Soul":
"Twists unholy energies around a single foe, causing it significant negative damage over time. Deals 4 to 10 damage every two seconds for 10 seconds for every caster level up to 20. A successful fortitude save reduces damage by half. D&D Dice: Deals 1d6+4 negative damage per caster level, max 20d6+80, every 2 seconds for 10 seconds."

Can a pale master target themselves with this spell?

I assume since it says "foe" the answer is no?
I assume since there is no mention of stacking multiple times, it will not stack?

What happens when two or more different casters put the same spell on a (raid boss) monster?

[SocratesBastardSon]

Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +4 Constitution, +20% damage with attacks but you attack 20% slower than normal. You gain +3 PRR, +3 MRR.

No more -2 Intelligence and -4 Charisma?

Back from the dead? Zombie Shiradis will rise again!

[mauriciomaster]

missed winning finger of death as spell like

[Haphazarduk]

No more -2 Intelligence and -4 Charisma?

Back from the dead? Zombie Shiradis will rise again!

You never needed high casting stat for Pale Shiradis anyway - just the mm/cm/fm procs. Still good opportunity to get an old pun in

Hap

[Alcides]

So when will wizards(pale masters) get evards? Because they are pale masters, as per dark discorp reasoning!

I think the developers said a long time ago that wizards would not get Evards despite the fact it's a standard wizard/sorcerer spell in the 3.5 Player's Handbook.

[Saekee]

Shouldn’t Zombie shroud also give DR slashing & -10 to balance checks?

I assume all undead shrouds give immunity to disease, poisons and trog stenches

[Black_Ninja]

I have a weird build (well, less weird as time goes on) that is a Elf Wizard/Rogue/Ranger AA. I really enjoy it and am looking forward to using it with shadowdancer, but with the modifications to wraith form (availability, sneak dice, assassinate DC), as well as giving +2 Int and +2 Dex (the 2 stats I use in my build) there is really not much reason to grab shadow form. It saves me 2 points from my epic destiny tree when I can grab wraith form and Assassinate DCs for just 11 points in PM. Is there any possibilty of adding synergy to the two so that if I use shadow form while I have access to wraith that I get a mix that ends up getting more bonuses than either one alone and making the investment in both worth it? I would just love to have a reason to get the T6 ability in my ED, but with wraith's new accessibility and Assassinate DC's, I think it is going to be ore useful than shadow form.