U45 Preview 1: Balance: Knight of the Chalice Changes

[BigSlugger]

[*]"Child of" Deity Feats (the level 3 Deity Feats) have been replaced with a single new Feat, "Child of Faith: Your connection to your Deity strengthens. You gain bonuses to Attack and Damage rolls with all Favored Weapons you wield. Simple and Martial Favored Weapons gain +2 to Attack and Damage. Exotic Favored Weapons gain +1 to Attack and Damage." Players with existing "Child of" Feats have had them replaced with this Feat. This feat is gained by the same methods and has the same prerequisites as the old "Child of" Feats.[*]"Beloved of" Deity Feats (the level 12 Deity Feats) have been replaced with a single new Feat, "Beloved of the Divine: Your connection to your Deity strengthens. You gain bonuses to Attack and Damage rolls with all Favored Weapons you wield: Simple Favored Weapons gain +3 to Attack and Damage. Martial Favored Weapons gain +2 to Attack and Damage. Exotic Favored Weapons gain +1 to Attack and Damage." Players with existing "Beloved of" Feats have had them replaced with this Feat. This feat is gained by the same methods and has the same prerequisites as the old "Beloved of" Feats.

Can we just get these simplified to +2 Attack/Damage and +3 Attack/Damage regardless of weapon class? I feel like this was implemented in an age when the devs were concerned about certain weapons overperforming and I don't see D. Waraxes or B. Swords requiring this smaller bonus. Besides, daggers are one of the better (or best) weapons in the game with the support from Vistani tree.

[Vorachtin]

Overall some pretty decent changes the charge attack suffers from the same geometric problems as dire charge where you might end up in a wall or charging a mob 2 yards of you and end up three rooms over. Nice dmg but that's it, careful you dont charge a mob and wipe trying to use avenging cleave and its 45 minute animation (hyperbole sort of).

The light damage scaling to 200% was a huge bonus the dice need to climb higher especially in the higher cores d8 or up to d-10 suggested.

Suffers with 2hf shines with swf,, that's more of thf issue than kotc

Not kotc, but divine crusader should add strike through to its epic moment in core 6.

[Arlathen]

My second sweep on the changes, I've re-included my original set of feedback and tagged the new stuff to make it easier to digest (sorry for length).

Old Bugs
- Please clarify the text of Slayer of Evil "now grants +?? To Attack Evil Creatures" - Is this just Attack or is it Damage as well? Is this supposed to be Evil Creatures in total or Evil Outsiders and Undead?
- Should Courage of Heaven bonus to Attack also be adding a Damage bonus as well?
- Please clarify the text of Champion of Good - "The bonuses granted by Courage are increased by an additional +2". Which bonuses?

New Bugs
NEW - Clarify the existence of two Smite Evils
NEW - Paladin Lay on Hands scaling has been reduced alongside the changes to Aasimar Healing Hands. Please fix.
NEW - Divine Sacrifice tooltip text isnt updated to new effects
NEW - Divine Sacrifice doesn't proc the Passion effect for temporary SP when the right enemy type is struck
NEW - Divine Sacrifice doesn't proc the Passion effect for temporary SP when the right enemy type is struck

NEW - The Champion of Good upgrade to the Aura of Courage, contributing a 3% Sacred Bonus to Damage, occasionally shows a spell-like buff icon in the middle of the screen when it refreshes.
NEW - Ascedant Training stacks of Blessed Purpose never seem to stack beyond 15 despite having the Champion of Good capstone.
- Ascendant Training is currently named Sacred Shield
- Ascendant Training has a Pre-requisite of Knight's training, but none of the other Combatant enhancements have any pre-requisites. Is this intentional?
- Knight's Training has confusing wording around the Attack and Damage bonuses to all enemies and favoured enemies - do they stack when attacking with a favoured weapon?
- Therefore, does the full line Combatant line thus grant +4/+4 Attack/Damage with non-Favoured Weapons and a stacking +6/+6 Attack/Damage with Favoured Weapons?

UPDATED - Divine Might states it is now SP based on the tooltip. In testing, it continues to consume Turn Undead charges and spell points.
- Exalted Smite does not grant the temporary Melee Power boost that is supposed to come from the rolled in Empowered Smite
- Exalted Cleave states original Rank 1 damage bonus of +1(W) when taken.
- Avenging Cleave states original Rank 1 damage bonus of +1(W) when taken.
- Censure Outsiders has no pre-requisite, and should have Censure Demons as a pre-requisite?
- Censure Demons has a pre-requisite of Divine Sacrifice

Spell Duration Bugs
NEW - Angelskin: Tooltip displays original spell duration, but on cast has a duration of 1 Minute per Paladin level.
NEW - Stalwart Pact: Tooltip displays original spell duration, but on cast has a duration of 1 Minute per Paladin level.

Further Suggested Improvements
UPDATED - Divine Might
Update Divine Might to the equivalent Cleric/FvS version and to spell points as a resource instead of Turn Undead charges.

NEW - Light Damage Cores
I think the actual dice used on the Light Damage from cores could use a little love, jumping from 100% to 200% Melee Power scaling has added approx. ~50-75 damage output to this for me, and I honestly believe this should be a better source of Paladin DPS, especially with committing more Paladin levels to obtain the damage given. A similar upgrade path to Eldritch Knight arriving at 6D12 damage would be a decent increase, even if its scaling was still limited by 200% Melee Power which I think is fair given the ability is light damage instead of elemental which is much more easily resisted through the game.

NEW - Lead the Charge
Love this ability. The only change I would make is making it a T1 ability, almost as a defining feature of a KotC Paladin that dashes around from Mob to Mob, smiting as he goes. Even at Higher levels it's nice having this when Dire Charge is on cooldown, as an interim method to move around.

NEW - Knights Command
Its a nice ability, and carrying a personal debuff to improve Holy Retribution or Dire Charge is really nice, but its a has a horrible, uninterruptible animation to it. As a suggestion, if you was to make 'Lead the Charge' a T1 ability, then move Knights Command to being a T2 Passive upgrade that procs the effect on the hit at the end? Rally could be moved up to T3 then, and possibly warrant a small buff as suggested next...

UPDATED - Rally
If its retained in its current spot, this could really use a polish and also a different typing of bonus, as the Morale bonuses don't stack with those granted from the Bless spell (which has been buffed to +5 Morale Bonus). As a suggestion for a T3 ability, make it a passive upgrade to the Bless spell adding the equivalent Morale bonus to Damage, and removing any Fear effects on casting the Bless spell.

NEW - Exalted Smite
I have concerns about this being a T3 ability, either for Melee or Ranged if I'm honest. Vigor of Life isn't a T5 ability, these two could be pushed down to T3/T4 and Exalted Smite pushed up to T5 where it belongs.

NEW - Improved Turning
Would you consider adding Mighty Turning to Improved Turning? Either as a 4th Rank to the ability or increasing Rank 3 to 2AP? Turn builds are getting better itemisation now, and are currently worthwhile in some lower difficulty Too Hot To Handle Raids, but it does grate having to multi-class in Cleric to obtain this enhancement to destroy undead you do manage to successfully turn.

UPDATED - Ascendant Training/Blessed Purpose.
I like this as a powerful but flavourful buff vs Evil Outsiders and Undead, but it could do with a little Quality of Life buff to make it more user friendly to help build stacks. Even in a Quest with fairly dense Outsider concentrations (Mad Tea Party was my testing ground), I rarely built more than 6-8 stacks of this at the appropriate times. Where I find it difficult to make a suggestion though, is that the ability is tied to proccing against various monster types, but once obtained the buff applies to all melee attacks regardless of target monster type. I'm a little out of ideas on this one, but as it is it'll be a really good buff when fighting Evil Outsider or Undead Raid Bosses!

NEW - Bless / Rally
Morale Bonus type clashes with Rally enhancement. I would suggest making Rally a passive upgrade to Bless as detailed above.

NEW - Prayer / Divine Favour / QoL Spell Duration
Luck Bonus Type clashes with Divine Favour, and its upgraded effects supersede Divine Favour with enough Paladin levels invested. Prayer now provides a really nice party buff, and between Prayer and the Champion of Good upgrade to Aura of Courage a Paladin can provide some solid offensive party benefits by including one in a group. However, Prayer and Divine Favour overlaps both in bonus type and duration, so can I suggest that Divine Favour is made to match the same amount of bonus Attack and Damage of Prayer but is increased in duration to 1 min per Paladin level, and Prayer is left as it is? Prayer can then replace Divine Favour in our short term buff cycle, and if we forget then Divine Favour is still backing us personally with the same buff.

NEW - Angel Skin
Sacred Bonus type clashes with enhancements available within Sacred Defender. Would it just worth changing this to a 'Divine' bonus instead? Also, Yes, please keep the duration at 1 minute per Paladin level.

NEW - Stalwart Pact
Sacred Bonus type clashes with bonuses to Melee Power from Celestial Champion in Divine Crusader. However, my thoughts on this is that the new Stalwart Pact is a significant Melee Power upgrade for Paladins in its own right (+20 MP for a 20 minute duration), and I think its a key part of the damage improvements available to Paladins with these changes. This spell is also an incredibly good reason to stick with Paladin levels, since you already want to slot Holy Sword and Zeal as defaults at level 14/15. Even if I was to want to run in Divine Crusader, I wouldn't change this spell, because is its effectively 'always on', lasts 20 minutes and doesn't need stacks building. And yes, please keep the duration at 1 minute per Paladin level.

Side Note: Lyn, I know you don't want to build more spells, but this deserves to be its own new spell and have its own kickass name, so those that want to still take Stalwart Pact in its original form can still do so if they wish. Name suggestions would include 'Righteous Vengeance'.

Phew, sorry it was so long, but wanted to provide as much useful and constructive feedback as possible

[Scortius]

Upping Extra Turning and Improved Turning to tiers 3 and 4 removes a synergy for paladin-splashed-clerics. Turn Undead was right on the margin of viability as it was. In tiers 3 & 4 I don't think this will work well for either pally-clerics or cleric-paladins, and without a really punchy buff I'd be surprised if turning can be viable for many pure paladins at E or R1. (Arlathen's suggestion above to add Mighty to Improved would certainly help)

The design goal of making it unavailable until paladins have the ability seem reasonable, but excludes builds that dip into this tree. Overall this seems to make a viable Turn Undead harder to reach. Extra Turning will always have uses powering other effects, but I don't see Improved getting used by many.

In the past I worked fairly hard at getting Turn Undead viable, but it works so marginally on anything I care about that I've been sliding away from it.

Maybe you're doing us a favor by yanking away a temptation, but it feels more like a fun option for some builds being taken off the table.

Overall, makes me less likely to spend points in KoTC, not more.

[Kilgrave]

Hmmm, you're right, it does. My ulterior motive for all of DDO across every axis is to encourage every player to run in Divine Crusader regardless of situation, so I'll think of something.

could you add 3 more uses of turn undead to KOTC plz as Confront Any Foe is my favorite

[MasterAO]

<snipped>

New Bugs
NEW - Clarify the existence of two Smite Evils
[

That second Smite Evil feat is the Ranged version; we'll make that clearer. We'll take a look at the rest of this, thanks for sending it our way.

Steelstar replied this to your first post in this thread.

[Bluenoser]

It's not meant to be a good choice, it's meant for feat swaps. And should say so in its tooltip.

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what will this mean in practice?
-That I can change my deity to *any* other deity, or just the list of racially-locked options, which is really short (and super build-specific) for iconics?

-After I switch, is there some way for me to use the active level 6 deity feat, like Unyielding Sovereignty, Blessing of Silvanus, etc? Or is my lvl 6 deity feat selection "used up" by the switch? If the latter, can I go to Fred to then switch it to the active lvl 6 feat? Not clear to me how these things fit together.

Second the idea that Aasimar Scourges should be able to use any of their Scourge weapons as Favoured weapons in divine classes. (Compare the lists of named Morningstars to Heavy Maces sometime to see why you'd want to be able to use a M-star on a FVS...) We know from INQ "Inquisition Style" that it's possible to code this change via the enhancement trees, and it's far more thematically-fitting on a Scourge.

[Arlathen]

Steelstar replied this to your first post in this thread.

...I've re-included my original set of feedback and tagged the new stuff to make it easier to digest...

Was trying to keep things in one post to make things simple. Evidently not.

[OmegaSword]

Are there ever going to be any updates or feats that will make Khopeshes great again?

[J-mann]

Sorry if I'm being dense, but what will this mean in practice?
-That I can change my deity to *any* other deity, or just the list of racially-locked options, which is really short (and super build-specific) for iconics?

-After I switch, is there some way for me to use the active level 6 deity feat, like Unyielding Sovereignty, Blessing of Silvanus, etc? Or is my lvl 6 deity feat selection "used up" by the switch? If the latter, can I go to Fred to then switch it to the active lvl 6 feat? Not clear to me how these things fit together.

Second the idea that Aasimar Scourges should be able to use any of their Scourge weapons as Favoured weapons in divine classes. (Compare the lists of named Morningstars to Heavy Maces sometime to see why you'd want to be able to use a M-star on a FVS...) We know from INQ "Inquisition Style" that it's possible to code this change via the enhancement trees, and it's far more thematically-fitting on a Scourge.

From my understanding you are still stuck with the stupid racial lock (which I assume is a outside limitation on ssg) but the fear seems to be for if you dont know what you want to pick at 6. At least that was my impression of it....

[Fedora1]

Are there ever going to be any updates or feats that will make Khopeshes great again?

Khopeshes are still as good as they ever were, but they are now making other things equally as good, and in a way, better. Better because Knights training (for example) makes longswords the equal of khopesh, and at the same time offers better crits for warhammers, etc. So spend 1 feat for khopesh, and you are locked into khopesh. Spend a feat for KT, and you get a handful of weapons with different damage types (bludgeon/slash) with the enhanced crits.

Additionally, there are limited named khopeshes in the game as compared to longswords.

[Lokeal_The_Flame]

Replaced With: Holy Combatant: +2 to hit and damage with Favored Weapons. Greatswords are considered as favored Weapons regardless of your religion.

Could you please add Bastard swords to this?

Greatswords and Bastard swords rather than just greatswords?

[Kilgrave]

Could you please add Bastard swords to this?

Greatswords and Bastard swords rather than just greatswords?

+1

[Khurse]

Love the new "Stalwart Pact". Would be nice to have it as a new spell, and retain use of the old version, but if you only have time to keep the new version or the old version, I vote new.

[Soleran100]

Were the KOTC cleaves +weapon damages removed compared to live? I don't recall lam showing +3 weapon damage for exalted cleave and +5 weapons damage for avenging cleave.

Also DM could use the FVS changes that applied in their warsoul tree.

[raclaw]

Any chance add repair spells to bladeforged paladin spells list??

[palladin9479]

Damage dice on the holy damage need to scale up quite a bit more, use the EK scaling if you need an example of how to do it well. This would compensate for Paladin generally suffering from melee power shortages if a good chunk of their damage came in the form of on-hit radiance damage. 7D6 is way WAY too small a number to be useful, this would be 7 * 3.5 = 24.5 damage a hit multiplied by (1.0 + 2 * (150/100)) = +98 damage per hit at level 30. Could be as high as 122.5 with 200 melee power. At 30 my melee hits would be around 500~600 with crits doing ~3500 or more. Suddenly that radiance damage is very small and can safely be ignored in the grander scheme of things.

Now lets use EK dice at 11D12 for that scenario.

11 * 6.5 = 71 * 4 = +284, that's respectful damage at 150 melee power
11 * 6.5 = 71 * 5 = +355, pretty good at 200 melee power

Neither one of those is game breaking in the slightest but can makeup for Paladins weaker damage vs the other melee jobs.

[capsela]

Upping Extra Turning and Improved Turning to tiers 3 and 4 removes a synergy for paladin-splashed-clerics. Turn Undead was right on the margin of viability as it was. In tiers 3 & 4 I don't think this will work well for either pally-clerics or cleric-paladins, and without a really punchy buff I'd be surprised if turning can be viable for many pure paladins at E or R1. (Arlathen's suggestion above to add Mighty to Improved would certainly help)

The design goal of making it unavailable until paladins have the ability seem reasonable, but excludes builds that dip into this tree. Overall this seems to make a viable Turn Undead harder to reach. Extra Turning will always have uses powering other effects, but I don't see Improved getting used by many.

In the past I worked fairly hard at getting Turn Undead viable, but it works so marginally on anything I care about that I've been sliding away from it.

Maybe you're doing us a favor by yanking away a temptation, but it feels more like a fun option for some builds being taken off the table.

Overall, makes me less likely to spend points in KoTC, not more.

Mighty turning is the only thing that makes pali fun to play, IMHO. Hitting cowering undead is a waste of time and effort. Mighty turning or you might as well not have turns at all.

So I agree with all you said.

[Will_Ferrer]

...
"Follower" Deity Feats (usually obtained with your first Divine level) now designate your Deity's weapon as a "Favored Weapon", grant proficiency with that weapon, and grant +1 to Attack with all Favored Weapons.

"Child of" Deity Feats (the level 3 Deity Feats) have been replaced with a single new Feat, "Child of Faith: Your connection to your Deity strengthens. You gain bonuses to Attack and Damage rolls with all Favored Weapons you wield. Simple and Martial Favored Weapons gain +2 to Attack and Damage. Exotic Favored Weapons gain +1 to Attack and Damage." Players with existing "Child of" Feats have had them replaced with this Feat. This feat is gained by the same methods and has the same prerequisites as the old "Child of" Feats.

"Beloved of" Deity Feats (the level 12 Deity Feats) have been replaced with a single new Feat, "Beloved of the Divine: Your connection to your Deity strengthens. You gain bonuses to Attack and Damage rolls with all Favored Weapons you wield: Simple Favored Weapons gain +3 to Attack and Damage. Martial Favored Weapons gain +2 to Attack and Damage. Exotic Favored Weapons gain +1 to Attack and Damage." Players with existing "Beloved of" Feats have had them replaced with this Feat. This feat is gained by the same methods and has the same prerequisites as the old "Beloved of" Feats.

Characters with at least 6 Divine levels can now take a new feat in place of the Active feat related to their Deity: "Search the Soul: You are seeking guidance to new paths of Faith. Passive: You gain +3 to the Concentration skill. As this Feat has no particular required Deity, while you have this feat (and assuming you meet all other requirements), you can exchange your Deity with a Feat Exchange (using normal Feat Exchange rules and costs).
...

A few questions if I may

Does this feat that we choose need to exchange for a Deity type or can it be any level 6 feat we meet the requirements for?

Is this change made so we can do something like:
use a longsword from 1-10 then feat exchange into using at war hammer? If this is the case, as long as we select this "search of the soul" we will only need a single feat exchange to change our Favored Weapon.

How will Blade Forged be able to utilize this feat?

Are there going to changes made to the Unique Active Ability level 6 feats that allow these feats to be selected by characters with different faiths?

And while your here could you please fix Silver Flame Exorcism

You are a devoted follower of the Silver Flame, and your faith has been rewarded. Activate this ability to attempt to exorcise an extraplanar creature, which is entirely consumed in holy fire on a failed Will save or savagely burned by the light of the Silver Flame. A successful Fortitude save reduces the damage to half. The Save DC for this ability is 10 + Cleric Level + Charisma Modifier. Cooldown: 10 minutes.

Even though its available to Favored Soul and Paladins, it only uses cleric levels for its DC and its "consumed in a holy fire" is laughable how about something like religious lore based DC or damage scaling for holy fire. I think this would add a nice tool for Paladins using the Knight of Chalice, especially if your going to support ranged options for the class.

[yfernbottom]

Could you please add Bastard swords to this?

Greatswords and Bastard swords rather than just greatswords?

I think it should definitely be two weapons just so Bladeforged get some benefit from it. I would prefer Greatswords and Mauls personally. But bastard swords would also make a lot of sense.