First Look: U43 Pale Master

[slarden]

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

With motu poison and disease immunity changed. From my experience pm immunities work better than warforged/bladeforged immunities.

I don't have any stats or anything, but my experience is pm immunities work better than warforged immunities in general. What I mean is on a forged I noticed getting impacted by poison or disease a lot more than on my pm. It could be there is some other reason why but I am not seeing it. I assume all that will remain the same.

[Duhboy]

Zombie Form:
The revamp to this form gives you percentage boost to HP, percentage boost to damage, melee power, PRR, & MRR in exchange for attack speed loss which can be somewhat negated through certain means. I don't see how zombies in general are physically stronger than a vampire when vampires are known to be supernaturally strong and zombies are known to be very durable. So it would make sense to me atleast to make zombie form into more of a defensive form.

My revision: Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +2 Strength, +4 Constitution, On Critical Melee Hit: 1d6 Intelligence damage, +25 PRR & 10 MRR but you attack 15% slower than normal.
Ascendant Zombie: While in Zombie Form, 10% damage reduction. +20% Racial Bonus to maximum Hit Points.


Vampire Form:
It is nice to see this form being on par with the other forms in terms of taking incoming light damage aswell as having a percentage chance on attacks to self heal and paralyze enemies. However without clarification of the percentage chances of these procs it's hard to determine how good or how bad these will be. Aswell as having +3 to perform makes no sense whatsoever.

My revision: Shroud of the Vampire: While in this form, +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, +2 Strength. +3 to Charisma skills, and your melee and unarmed attacks do 20% more damage and have a chance to heal you for 1d3 Negative Energy damage per Wizard Level.
Ascendant Vampire: While in Vampire Form, +1 Enchantment DC. Your melee attacks have a chance to dominate your adversaries. On Hit: Target has a chance to be Paralyzed (Will save vs. DC 20 + Wizard Level + INT Mod + Enchantment Spell Bonuses). On Save: -10% Movement and Attack Speed.


Wraith Form:
I personally think incorporeality in Pale Master should be mutually exclusive to Wraith form because it's the main thing about the form and there's gear that has incorporeality on it. Currently on live in improved shroud form of Wraith you can get 30% incorporeality. Not 35% as it's description states. And not 25% as Lynnabel stated. With that said I say leave incorporeality on Wraith and change Ghost in the Wind to something else.



My revision: Shroud of the Wraith: While in this form, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence. Enemy attacks have a 20% chance to miss you due to incorporeality, +1 Sneak Attack Dice, +5 to Hide and Move Silently, Feather Falling and Ghost Touch. On Critical Melee Hit: Deals 1d6 Constitution damage.
Ascendant Wraith: While in Wraith Form, +10% Incorporeality (bringing your total to 30%), +2 Sneak Attack Dice. +3% Dodge & Dodge Cap. +10 to Hide and Move Silently (total of +15 to Hide and Move Silently).


Lich Form:
I understand taking the extra DCs from Lich form and making it accessible to every form but Lich form needs something as good to compensate that loss and an extra 10 Negative spell power and 15 MRR isn't going to do it justice.

My revision: Shroud of the Lich: While in this form, +4 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +10 Negative Amplification, +10 Universal Spell Power, +15 MRR, percentage chance to gain temporary hit points when damaged
Ascendant Lich: While in Lich Form, +10 Universal Spell Power (total +20), +5% Spell Crit Chance, +10% Spell Critical Damage, +15 Cold and Electric Resistance.

[Haphazarduk]

Personally I like the zombie form bonuses. Bonus to damage balanced by attack speed reduction feels good. Zombies hit hard but slowly. I'd actually add a small vulnerability to all of them (in addition to light damage) like vulnerability to silver or needing to be invited in to buildings...

I also like the fact that the forms are now more or less equitable - they're are different aspects of taking on the shroud of undeath - and the mix and matching will allow for more flexibility and build options. If anything I'd go a little more creativity in the type of add-ons available but I guess you cant make it a 'do anything' tree.

Hap

[janave]

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

`right?!

Undeadness

[jskinner937]

I ASSUME that when AM tree comes out, all the caster goodies will be in there. This tree just seems to be more universal about the forms and being undead (stats and survivability). Even negative spell power with the proposed adjustments is still slightly nerfed. Although the SLAs are buffed as metamagics now apply. I can see this tree really helping melee, tanking and even ranged PMs quite a bit. I even see a vistani rogue assassin necro looking pretty cool IMO. But I do not see any real help to casters other than survivability. Maybe I am missing something.

Personally I feel as though along with Negative Spell Power, Cold Spell Power should be increased as well. This goes with the theme. I understand DC casting gets OP quickly, but nuking is still very weak in this tree. Construct and undead are still going to be a problem. Maybe if PMs had another option to damage. Aside from the cold spell power, perhaps a cold SLA? or maybe a neg energy vulnerability debuff like sorcs get?

Although I would still be encouraged by the changes proposed when AM tree is finally released, provided the issues sighted above are addressed in a way that PMs still would be able to get some love from that tree without the need to spend another 40 points. A pure casting PM should be able to invest 30 in AM, in addition to 41 in PM tree and still have aceess to a secondary DC and nuking ability (spell power and SLA) the way I see it.

[lppmor]

Personally I feel as though along with Negative Spell Power, Cold Spell Power should be increased as well. This goes with the theme. I understand DC casting gets OP quickly, but nuking is still very weak in this tree. Construct and undead are still going to be a problem. Maybe if PMs had another option to damage. Aside from the cold spell power, perhaps a cold SLA? or maybe a neg energy vulnerability debuff like sorcs get?

I'd also love to see Cold spellpower on Pale Master. At least for Lich. Please !

[Cadveen]

Zombie Form:
The revamp to this form gives you percentage boost to HP, percentage boost to damage, melee power, PRR, & MRR in exchange for attack speed loss which can be somewhat negated through certain means. I don't see how zombies in general are physically stronger than a vampire when vampires are known to be supernaturally strong and zombies are known to be very durable. So it would make sense to me atleast to make zombie form into more of a defensive form.

My revision: Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +2 Strength, +4 Constitution, On Critical Melee Hit: 1d6 Intelligence damage, +25 PRR & 10 MRR but you attack 15% slower than normal.
Ascendant Zombie: While in Zombie Form, 10% damage reduction. +20% Racial Bonus to maximum Hit Points.


Vampire Form:
It is nice to see this form being on par with the other forms in terms of taking incoming light damage aswell as having a percentage chance on attacks to self heal and paralyze enemies. However without clarification of the percentage chances of these procs it's hard to determine how good or how bad these will be. Aswell as having +3 to perform makes no sense whatsoever.

My revision: Shroud of the Vampire: While in this form, +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, +2 Strength. +3 to Charisma skills, and your melee and unarmed attacks do 20% more damage and have a chance to heal you for 1d3 Negative Energy damage per Wizard Level.
Ascendant Vampire: While in Vampire Form, +1 Enchantment DC. Your melee attacks have a chance to dominate your adversaries. On Hit: Target has a chance to be Paralyzed (Will save vs. DC 20 + Wizard Level + INT Mod + Enchantment Spell Bonuses). On Save: -10% Movement and Attack Speed.


Wraith Form:
I personally think incorporeality in Pale Master should be mutually exclusive to Wraith form because it's the main thing about the form and there's gear that has incorporeality on it. Currently on live in improved shroud form of Wraith you can get 30% incorporeality. Not 35% as it's description states. And not 25% as Lynnabel stated. With that said I say leave incorporeality on Wraith and change Ghost in the Wind to something else.



My revision: Shroud of the Wraith: While in this form, +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence. Enemy attacks have a 20% chance to miss you due to incorporeality, +1 Sneak Attack Dice, +5 to Hide and Move Silently, Feather Falling and Ghost Touch. On Critical Melee Hit: Deals 1d6 Constitution damage.
Ascendant Wraith: While in Wraith Form, +10% Incorporeality (bringing your total to 30%), +2 Sneak Attack Dice. +3% Dodge & Dodge Cap. +10 to Hide and Move Silently (total of +15 to Hide and Move Silently).


Lich Form:
I understand taking the extra DCs from Lich form and making it accessible to every form but Lich form needs something as good to compensate that loss and an extra 10 Negative spell power and 15 MRR isn't going to do it justice.

My revision: Shroud of the Lich: While in this form, +4 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, +10 Negative Amplification, +10 Universal Spell Power, +15 MRR, percentage chance to gain temporary hit points when damaged
Ascendant Lich: While in Lich Form, +10 Universal Spell Power (total +20), +5% Spell Crit Chance, +10% Spell Critical Damage, +15 Cold and Electric Resistance.

I like these ideas

[Cadveen]

Next expansion: create waterdeep in forgotten realms.

It should be arcane, rogue, and bard themed.

Do a complete spell pass. Add new spells per category to where if someone wants to be an archmage abjurer then they will be very useful, etc.

Waterdeep has enough content it could be the best expansion of any game.

[Arkat]

Next expansion: create waterdeep in forgotten realms.

It should be arcane, rogue, and bard themed.

Do a complete spell pass. Add new spells per category to where if someone wants to be an archmage abjurer then they will be very useful, etc.

Waterdeep has enough content it could be the best expansion of any game.

It's also on the Sword Coast which means it's likely part of the Neverwinter online game license.

That means DDO will never take place in Waterdeep.

[Ballrus]

Zombie Form:
The revamp to this form gives you percentage boost to HP, percentage boost to damage, melee power, PRR, & MRR in exchange for attack speed loss which can be somewhat negated through certain means. I don't see how zombies in general are physically stronger than a vampire when vampires are known to be supernaturally strong and zombies are known to be very durable. So it would make sense to me atleast to make zombie form into more of a defensive form.

My revision: Shroud of the Zombie: While in this form, +2 Strength, +4 Constitution, On Critical Melee Hit: 1d6 Intelligence damage, +25 PRR & 10 MRR but you attack 15% slower than normal.
Ascendant Zombie: While in Zombie Form, 10% damage reduction. +20% Racial Bonus to maximum Hit Points.


Vampire Form:
It is nice to see this form being on par with the other forms in terms of taking incoming light damage aswell as having a percentage chance on attacks to self heal and paralyze enemies. However without clarification of the percentage chances of these procs it's hard to determine how good or how bad these will be. Aswell as having +3 to perform makes no sense whatsoever.

My revision: Shroud of the Vampire: While in this form, +2 Charisma, +2 Intelligence, +2 Strength. +3 to Charisma skills, and your melee and unarmed attacks do 20% more damage and have a chance to heal you for 1d3 Negative Energy damage per Wizard Level.
Ascendant Vampire: While in Vampire Form, +1 Enchantment DC. Your melee attacks have a chance to dominate your adversaries. On Hit: Target has a chance to be Paralyzed (Will save vs. DC 20 + Wizard Level + INT Mod + Enchantment Spell Bonuses). On Save: -10% Movement and Attack Speed.

Zombies looks good, dead meat tanks everywhere!!

As for vampire: 20% more damage, +2 str/cha/int, +3 UMD, self heal, with no trade offs? At lvl 3???

It's too much!

Make it 10%, and keep the 300% light vulnerability.

Ps. Warchanter get 6% at tier 5 (min lvl 12); Divine Crusader get 10% (crusade - tier 4, min lvl 20).

[deconedi]

Im happy with the change, but at now no answer about if is possible add FOD SLA in the tree. Some ppl posted here the same desire. Warlock have it in the tree but Pale Master (necro specialist) havent it. Devs answer pls.

[Qezuzu]

• 
  
  • Haunting in the Dark: +2 Assassinate DCs.

Would it be possible to add to or replace this ability with "your Wizard levels count as Rogue levels for the purpose of calculating Assassinate DC" or similar text?

I'm liking the idea of a rogue/wizard hybrid with spells and undead abilities on top of Assassin's playstyle, but taking any sort of splash is very painful for Assassinate DCs, especially a deep splash (6/14) you'd need to take for this ability.

The sort of build you're trying to enable here (sneaky Wraith with Assassinate) is already going to be so stretched on AP, feats, and gear as any melee/spellcaster hybrid is. I'd at least make their Assassinate DC more functional.

Vampire: While in Vampire Form, +1 Enchantment DC. Your melee attacks have a chance to dominate your adversaries. On Hit: Target has a chance to be Paralyzed (Will save vs. DC 20 + INT Mod + Enchantment Spell Bonuses). On Save: -10% Movement and Attack Speed.

What sort of proc rate is this going to have? Duration? It interests me quite a lot.

[Cadveen]

It's also on the Sword Coast which means it's likely part of the Neverwinter online game license.

That means DDO will never take place in Waterdeep.

Baldurs Gate III is coming out later this year or early next year. It will take place on the sword Coast. I imagine WOTC can allow it just as they are allowing Larian Studios to create BG3

[SisAmethyst]

You lose 1 potential DC from being in Zombie form. At the payout of 20% HP. I can get behind some form of percentage-based hp for zombie. But 20% is just too much. Tanking isn't even part of the discussion at this point.

Maybe make it x% where x is the wizard levels, so a pure wizard will get 20% or if that is too much still multiply by 0.75 for a max of 15%?

[SisAmethyst]

We are past the point that this feed back will mater, but as a Pale Master pebble in the river...………..

It is like calling night, day allowing positive healing affects do anything but damage undead.

To prevent trolling, I understand that undead can ignore positive healing......no "shots now hurt other players"

I've been a Pale Master for however long they have been out. This change is mind numbing. Rather die then have a ranger cast a cure mod wounds on me and have it be effective. This is as silly as our plat system. No, just no. Just no.

I'm actually pretty disappointed in the player base that there has been virtually no push back on this from current Pale Masters. We shouldn't want this, ugh.

Well, at the very least it should be blocked by death aura. Either the PM has death aura up and heal himself and can not be healed by positive or he can but then can not benefit from death aura. Additionally, I think it should be an option like you have it for a warforged. You can either embrace the undead form and get negative healing amp or you can get more living and get the possibility to get healed by positive.

Oh, I know it. I don't really expect anyone to agree with my points of view - let alone the Devs. When it happens - great! But, it's never something I go into anything expecting.

I do

[jskinner937]

Im happy with the change, but at now no answer about if is possible add FOD SLA in the tree. Some ppl posted here the same desire. Warlock have it in the tree but Pale Master (necro specialist) havent it. Devs answer pls.

The FoD SLA in Warlock tree only benefits from no meta cost. Base spell cost is the same. I would rather see some other SLA personally, like an alternative nuke. And besides warlock can only heighten to lvl 6 from lvl 5, whereas a PM can heighten to lvl 9, that is not quite the comparion for an SLA, considering the biggest meta cost on a Wizard is the heighten portion.

Maybe there should be a reduction in cooldown for necro spells however....say 15% or 25% in the capstone? This would offset the fact that warlock have 3-5 single target IKs that do not share a cooldown as compared to PM wizards only having access to 3. To me this is the biggest advantage Warlocks have over Wizards as far as single target IKs. Then wail would benefit as well.

[SisAmethyst]

This is an accurate portrayal…….when looking at the sides of the fence. Most all of the players that are against the healing travesty are the oldest join dates with most of the pro healing side being from 2014 and newer. I agree with your assessment.


The lion share of the invested original players are against this change, us old fuddy duddies. Reguardless, the young prevail, enjoy.

My 18/2 was Lich/Monk sun elf will soon be a 18/2 Vamp/Monk Sun Elf.

Ohhh as a PM I do love that, 50% healing on top of being able to completely self-heal, YES! As a player I always happy about free candy... like the spider queen said: "I want more..."!
But there is also that cautious schizophrenic side in me that says I totally dislike it because it plays against everything a PM and the reason to play one stands for me.
After all, did it occur to some people that there are usually trade-offs for a reason? And if it just that if you make an ability to easy/good it will lead to the point that everyone will roll the character in the exact same way?

So it is not just that it will just flat out kill lore, thematic and soul of the game (which is the very reason at least some play this game) it will remove the need of a player to make decisions that matter.

Question the other way around, what would you say if suddenly a cleric or FvS would get healed by 50% by getting cast harm on them or while standing in the death aura of a pale master? Or heck, have a regular player be healed by harm or death aura by 75%? Because it would certainly help in the gameplay of a PM despite not making any sense at all!

I don't think it is about fat old farts versus young embracing players it is just that older players may have seen a lot of changes being advertised in the past as helping new players or to increase population just to see the population drop nevertheless. After all it is an opinion that we voice and everyone no matter if old or young should voice theirs if they care about the game and other opinions shouldn't be talked down...

[Duhboy]

Zombies looks good, dead meat tanks everywhere!!

As for vampire: 20% more damage, +2 str/cha/int, +3 UMD, self heal, with no trade offs? At lvl 3???

It's too much!

Make it 10%, and keep the 300% light vulnerability.

Ps. Warchanter get 6% at tier 5 (min lvl 12); Divine Crusader get 10% (crusade - tier 4, min lvl 20).

Reason why ANY damage increase to vampire form is because the self heal is not guaranteed per melee hit.

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.

I suspect it's going to be a same percentage chance like Ravagers Blood Strength which is about 12%. If that's the case then vampire form really needs something more than what it has now.

[PublicEnemy]

Ohhh as a PM I do love that, 50% healing on top of being able to completely self-heal, YES! As a player I always happy about free candy... like the spider queen said: "I want more..."!
But there is also that cautious schizophrenic side in me that says I totally dislike it because it plays against everything a PM and the reason to play one stands for me.
After all, did it occur to some people that there are usually trade-offs for a reason? And if it just that if you make an ability to easy/good it will lead to the point that everyone will roll the character in the exact same way?

So it is not just that it will just flat out kill lore, thematic and soul of the game (which is the very reason at least some play this game) it will remove the need of a player to make decisions that matter.

Question the other way around, what would you say if suddenly a cleric or FvS would get healed by 50% by getting cast harm on them or while standing in the death aura of a pale master? Or heck, have a regular player be healed by harm or death aura by 75%? Because it would certainly help in the gameplay of a PM despite not making any sense at all!

I don't think it is about fat old farts versus young embracing players it is just that older players may have seen a lot of changes being advertised in the past as helping new players or to increase population just to see the population drop nevertheless. After all it is an opinion that we voice and everyone no matter if old or young should voice theirs if they care about the game and other opinions shouldn't be talked down...

And I still think that you, and the others, are too much afraid of / making too much noise for something that is not more than a welcome QoL to help people play together , no matter the class/race/enhancements etc...

And sure you are welcome to voice your concerns but what is not okay is to use false and very wrong arguments (like the lore), because like he said :

...and there haven't been any compelling arguments against it so far in the feedback that outweigh that positive. This isn't to say that arguments against it don't have merit; they do, and we're listening.

Also :

Nothing we can do to their potential to Negative Healing will have the same impact; as good as some of the ideas in this thread are, they would band-aid the larger problem rather than fundamentally improve party dynamics and overall survivability in a party setting (and even soloing, really).

[Varr]

The issue (my issue) is not specific lore but more general fantasy common sense, and certainly not fear.

Every system needs a set of rules, like golf. You could pick your ball up out of bunkers to speed up the pace of play and lower your score, but that would be silly as then it is no longer golf.

A fantasy game is based on believing in a set of rules. Dragons can flap their little wings hard enough to fly, you can carry 3 mill plat without a donkey train...…..those sorts of make believe rules.

However you slice it: A humanoid, that has a shroud in place, a creation of negative energy, and can then absorb negative energy and become rejuvenated and made whole should not be able to accept positive energy with like or 50% like results. The negative energy Shroud should deflect positive energy or be further damaged itself by such energy penetrating it.

The Devs are simply filling in all the bunkers, its still golf, I guess.