Racepatch: Latest races, starsigns, ancestries (BIG POST)

[Nuitari]

Unfortunately, it's just "theory", as the testport has been wizlocked all day and I was only able to spend about 15 seconds on it.

Race runes are far more commonly used in defensive spells than offensive ones, and offensive spells also have to contend with MR. So yeah, you're right about your opponent not being able to use them on you, but I think that not being able to use race runes is perhaps too big of a handicap.

As for not being able to turn undead players: cool, looks like cele anticipated that one.

[Celeborn]

Comments noted. Its likely we will be fixing bugs first and then review the undead/construct situation.

The testport is wizlocked when there are no caretakers around to moderate it.

[lingolas]

I agree with everything torrim says except for point 4.

In point 4 torrim writes:

Code: Select all

4. Remove automatic fortitude success from undead and constructs. Give undead or constructed mobiles high fortitude saves, and give starsigns/races/ancestries that change racial type to "undead" or "construct" a constitution or fortitude save bonus(I recommend constitution over fortitude, especially for undead)

Although not for liches, i think that constructs deserve immunity against any fortitude checks. This is to make up for the fact that constructs are unable to heal during battles. Since Liches can heal during battles, they don't deserve this bonus therefore this should be only unique to constructs.

[Jerardo]

edited

[Zidane]

I think lich are fine.

Just need a minor tweaks.

[Celeborn]

I want to give players the experience of playing a construct or a lich, without having to remove their distinction.

Since liches are physically frail but compensate that with magic and no need for an intact cardial system i've decided to change the following things:
- they keep their lack of race runes. (this is done with combat patch in mind, which will affect how race runes work).
- When they are turned in a way that would normally slay an undead, they instead loose /up to/ 50% hitpoints. if they are below 50% hitpoints to start with, they get slayed instantly. (Since turn is a once-per-hour percentage thing, this shouldn't be too overpowering).
-25 blunt resistance points (-25% blunt pre combat patch)

Constructs will receive no tweaks just yet. Repair is the most likely aspect to be tweaked, except for maybe some added hitpoints.

[Jerardo]

Without a lack of a race rune, that's a huge disadvantage in spells. Currently race runes give doubles the effect of 'fec/surp' runes, and I think in future race rune will act as 2 fecs with price with a price of 5 complexity.

Number 2 on the nerf, I think this is mostly applies to dueling, in such case, that's another overwhelming disadvantage to lich due to the popularily of cleric and paladin classes. Sure it's once for use, but the lich is already down 50% hp, and death instantly at half hp. Perhaps this should be nerfed to 25% total hp, and down to 1 hp if lich is below 25% hp.

I'm thinking these nerfs on liches will swing the population toward dragons.

[Celeborn]

With their instant fort wins, immunity to crits from all but paladins and several other immunities I think they have sufficient advantage. I agree they wont be a win-all option, but thats the tradeoff for having great advantages in other areas.

[Nuitari]

I want to give players the experience of playing a construct or a lich, without having to remove their distinction.

Since liches are physically frail but compensate that with magic and no need for an intact cardial system i've decided to change the following things:
- they keep their lack of race runes. (this is done with combat patch in mind, which will affect how race runes work).
- When they are turned in a way that would normally slay an undead, they instead loose /up to/ 50% hitpoints. if they are below 50% hitpoints to start with, they get slayed instantly. (Since turn is a once-per-hour percentage thing, this shouldn't be too overpowering).
-25 blunt resistance points (-25% blunt pre combat patch)

Constructs will receive no tweaks just yet. Repair is the most likely aspect to be tweaked, except for maybe some added hitpoints.

Liches aren't physically frail. Liches are incredibly tough; in DnD they get crazy innate defenses like bonus hitpoints, immunities, damage resistance, and damage reduction. Being tough is the Lich's trademark, and it's not only in DnD. Liches are similar in the older ADnD and most other fantasy settings. Have you ever played Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis? Liches get CRAZY defense there; a lich with a Firecrest easily gets 999 defense.

I'm not saying that Liches have to be that strong here; just letting you know how liches normally work.

I would give them a str penalty and perhaps a -10% to physical damage to simulate physical weakness(note that I said WEAKNESS, NOT frailty). To make them tough like liches are supposed to be, just give them some token bonuses like +2 con, +10 damage reduction, +5 MR, and +10 to fire resist or something.

Alternately, you could do Liches DnD style. You get awesome defensive bonuses, but little or no additional spellcasting ability(no complex bonus)

[Celeborn]

I want to give players the experience of playing a construct or a lich, without having to remove their distinction.

Since liches are physically frail but compensate that with magic and no need for an intact cardial system i've decided to change the following things:
- they keep their lack of race runes. (this is done with combat patch in mind, which will affect how race runes work).
- When they are turned in a way that would normally slay an undead, they instead loose /up to/ 50% hitpoints. if they are below 50% hitpoints to start with, they get slayed instantly. (Since turn is a once-per-hour percentage thing, this shouldn't be too overpowering).
-25 blunt resistance points (-25% blunt pre combat patch)

Constructs will receive no tweaks just yet. Repair is the most likely aspect to be tweaked, except for maybe some added hitpoints.

Liches aren't physically frail. Liches are incredibly tough; in DnD they get crazy innate defenses like bonus hitpoints, immunities, damage resistance, and damage reduction. Being tough is the Lich's trademark, and it's not only in DnD. Liches are similar in the older ADnD and most other fantasy settings. Have you ever played Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis? Liches get CRAZY defense there; a lich with a Firecrest easily gets 999 defense.

I'm not saying that Liches have to be that strong here; just letting you know how liches normally work.

I would give them a str penalty and perhaps a -10% to physical damage to simulate physical weakness(note that I said WEAKNESS, NOT frailty). To make them tough like liches are supposed to be, just give them some token bonuses like +2 con, +10 damage reduction, +5 MR, and +10 to fire resist or something.

Alternately, you could do Liches DnD style. You get awesome defensive bonuses, but little or no additional spellcasting ability(no complex bonus)

Like I said, weak bodies, reinforced by magic. its up to the players to deliver that magic. plus, -25 points is something easily overcome.

[Nuitari]

Weak = lack of strength, weak != vulnerable.

Liches may(or may not) be physically WEAK(as in, lack of physical strength), but their bodies are very, very tough, even without casting defensive spells on themselves(other than the permanent ones involved in becoming and advancing as a lich).

And I'm not talking about game balance, I'm talking about concept. If you want to give liches penalties, it's logical to make it penalties to something other than their defensive capabilities. If you really want to give them a defensive penalty, make it an AC penalty; I doubt liches are very hard to hit(they're undead AND spellcasters).

Edit: And it can be a big, scaling-with-level AC penalty, too. Perhaps a -10 to -25% penalty?

[Celeborn]

You seem to have met a lot of liches in your days.We can discuss this forever but for now liches stay as noted. You can mark it down as DL having liches with brittle bones. I have to use my time on other things, sorry.

[Nuitari]

Yup; I've played a lot of game with liches and I love them. Being immortal, incredibly tough spellcasters who are generally very evil makes them a favorite for me.

If you're going to leave them the way they are, I think you might still want to fix the automatically winning fort saves thing. If MR is being changed so it's impossible to be immune to magic; winning fort saves automatically will be a tremendous advantage because it will make you immune to Slow, which effectively gives you a huge speed bonus over your opponent in PvP.

[Jerardo]

Are all of undead's weakness going to affect vampyr too? If so, I strongly think that vampyr should be tweaked.

If not.. perhaps move "vampyr" to become a race, rather than an ancestor.

[Zidane]

here a change consruct are they're only race. what other race rune will the 'ruc' rune apply too (which other race)?

this is consider a unique rune

[Thremp]

Torrim,
You're almost completely wrong on the Lich count. In my DnD days almost all liches were evil and extremely high level mages or clerics sometimes being dual-classed. Not to mention becoming a lich gives inate -str, -con, -dex they become weaker physically but are excellent spellcasters. They can rely on spells to beef them up, but are very weak in melee.

A level 7 fighter would chew through an average level 20 lich cleric/mage if they both decided to have naked brawl to the death. It's not even comparable. The power a lich derives is from their magic (hence how they became a lich...)

Celeborn is dead on with his assessment.

[Nuitari]

Mr. Troll, you're almost completely wrong on the lich count.

Torrim,
You're almost completely wrong on the Lich count. In my DnD days almost all liches were evil and extremely high level mages or clerics sometimes being dual-classed. Not to mention becoming a lich gives inate -str, -con, -dex they become weaker physically but are excellent spellcasters. They can rely on spells to beef them up, but are very weak in melee.

A level 7 fighter would chew through an average level 20 lich cleric/mage if they both decided to have naked brawl to the death. It's not even comparable. The power a lich derives is from their magic (hence how they became a lich...)

Celeborn is dead on with his assessment.

Yes, liches are generally high-level spellcasters before becoming liches. I believe that I already mentioned that liches were spellcasters and usually evil. I also said that becoming a lich gives defensive bonuses, which it does. A character who is already a powerful spellcaster becomes a lich for defensive powers and immortality.

Table SP-12: The Lich Template Class
Lich
Class Level CR Special
1st +0 Int +2, natural armor +2, lich skills +2, damaging touch 1d6+5, paralyzing touch (1d4 rounds), resistances (cold 5, electricity 5)
2nd +1 Natural armor +3, lich skills +4, damage reduction 5/bludgeoning and magic, damaging touch (1d8+5), fear aura (10-ft. radius), fortification (light), paralyzing touch (1d4 minutes), phylactery (1st stage), resistances (cold 10, electricity 10)
3rd +2 Wis +2, natural armor +4, lich skills +6, damage reduction 10/bludgeoning and magic, fear aura (30-ft. radius), fortification (moderate), paralyzing touch (1d4 hours), phylactery (2nd stage), resistances (cold 20, electricity 20)
4th +2 Cha +2, natural armor +5, lich skills +8, damage reduction 15/bludgeoning and magic, fear aura (60-ft. radius), immunities (cold, electricity, polymorph), paralyzing touch (permanent), phylactery (3rd stage), turn resistance +4, undeath

You can view this yourself at http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20031212a

Notice that the majority of the bonuses they get are defensive in nature: cold resist, electricity resist, damage reduction, natural armor bonus, immunities, turn resistance, a phylacetery(if you don't know what that is, look it up - it's defensive), and a fear aura(it prevents things from attacking you, while causing them no damage - defensive).

Also, you still need to learn some manners. It's not very polite to say "you are wrong", especially when you are the one who is wrong; other people are entitled to their opinions/views. Next time, try presenting your opinion without belittling someone else's; you'll find it makes you a lot less unpopular!

[Thremp]

Mr. Moron,

So these alleged "benefits" that you have shown are mostly defensive in nature. I will concede that point which is obvious to all. Now the question is whether these bonii come from the magical spells you must cast upon yourself to become a lich (obviosuly) or through other physical means.

You've basically proven my point for me. These effects (resistance to magic, cold, electricity) are benefits of the magical transformation to undeath and not the physical strength of a lich. If a lich were stripped of the magical benefits of their transformation they would be weaker than they were before, but with a modicum advantage for being undead.

A further point to support this is the natural attacks of a lich being considered magical and his paralyzing touch. This implies that the liches body itself has become magical and is imbued with magical abilities.

BTW A phylactery is not "Defensive" it's a receptacle for the life force of the lich. Its a requirment to become a lich along with high level spell casting.

[Isabelle]

guys...

dungeons and dragons has it's lich, and i understand you'd like the rules to be oldschool and rules which you remember as being true for the game.

however, this is dark legacy, so it's different

i understand about people wanting it to be cool, we can work out the 'balance' of it versus other ancestries later on.

[Kelryne]

Isa...pardon me but isnt this whole testing phase happening so we can balance stuff out now and not have to go back and redo it later?

[Isabelle]

oh, perhaps i got my threads confused, i thought this was the testing for bugs topic, sometimes i get confused.

sorry

(p.s. i still don't think liches need to be copy and pasted from TSR)

[weems]

My view on the Lich:

Well first off, something like -25 blunt RP is no big deal, so thats not something that should really be spent time on.

However, a 50% damaging turn, is. It's definetly a huge drawback, and liability, for somebody a few hundred epic levels above you to be able to suck away half your life in one shot, even if it's only once per hour. After all, in places like the arena, and pvp, you do not fight constantly, rather most of the time in controlled duels or when one person takes the other off guard. It makes it a completely unattractive choice for that alone. My opinion would be 10-20% HP max. Even 30% is a lot. You said you can use magic to deliver their advantage...Very well, lets look at magic.

Race runes. You are not giving them a race rune. Currently, this would be a killer to the race, but you know this. But even if all a race rune does is act as two fec's, it still kills the race. Why? Because one extra fec from a race rune is 5 complexity. That may not seem like a lot, but it effectively makes their complexity bonus MUCH smaller, because you have to put in one more 5 complexity rune than the next guy to make your spell as powerful as his. For example, if your complexity was 120, losing 5 for an extra fec makes your complexity bonus much smaller. In fact, it would lessen your complexity by about 4%. 100 would be 5%. 80 would be 6.25%. Much more for complexities that are tertiary to you.

It doesn't really matter how you do it, two fecs in one is just an example. As long as race runes provide an extra bonus above and beyond what you can normally get in a slot, you are effectively penalizing the Lich's spellcasting ability to be lower than that of a dragon. Much lower. The only way to do it would be to make race runes useless or semi-useless (worse than that of an ultra rune). In which case a Lich could only have a useful spellcasting ability if they filled up their spells with ultra runes, trumping a race rune. But of course that's not really a viable fix, as it kind of defeats the purpose of a race rune in the first place. An easier solution would be to just let Lich's use them.


Edit: Thinking further, the other option would be to boost their spellcasting ability even higher, so that the the schools they get 14% in now would be better than the dragon's even after subtracting the lack-of-race-rune penalty. But that seems sloppy and misleading, all for the sake of not letting them have a race rune. Seems kinda trivial.

[Nuitari]

Mr. Moron,

So these alleged "benefits" that you have shown are mostly defensive in nature. I will concede that point which is obvious to all. Now the question is whether these bonii come from the magical spells you must cast upon yourself to become a lich (obviosuly) or through other physical means.

You've basically proven my point for me. These effects (resistance to magic, cold, electricity) are benefits of the magical transformation to undeath and not the physical strength of a lich. If a lich were stripped of the magical benefits of their transformation they would be weaker than they were before, but with a modicum advantage for being undead.

A further point to support this is the natural attacks of a lich being considered magical and his paralyzing touch. This implies that the liches body itself has become magical and is imbued with magical abilities.

BTW A phylactery is not "Defensive" it's a receptacle for the life force of the lich. Its a requirment to become a lich along with high level spell casting.

Please learn how to read before posting half-witted insults.

NOWHERE does it say that the lich's resistances are due to spells rather than physics. Also, NOWHERE did I say that the lich's defenses are due to physics and not spells. It is irrelevant where they come from; my point is that they are INNATE and PERMANENT. As in, a lich is tough regardless of what TEMPORARY buffs/defensive spells he has recently cast on himself.

The phylacetary prevents the lich from being truly destroyed. I'd say that's pretty darn defensive, wouldn't you?

Thank you.

Also, considering directing your future posts here; it's more suited to your level of intellect and manners:

http://4chan.org/

I'm sure you'll find lots of friends in /b/

[Celeborn]

Enough insults, try to focus on the topic without being hostile about it or this thread gets a lock.

[Zidane]

lich big time weakness on DL if you headbutt or stun a lich. there is a huge different in complexility.

And i try the troll race and think they should have better regen hp and limbs a bit more faster.


Still testing for strength and weakness for a better balance of the races.....