Class/magic feature branch

[jevansau]

With Rangers, it is not just the lowering of extra shots that makes them weaker - the removal of enchanting and branding ammunition means that useful ammo is scarce. Try the calculations with low grade ammo .
Removal of glyph also makes combat at a distance harder to maintain, but is probably fair.

[Moving Pictures]

Originally Posted by jevansau

With Rangers, it is not just the lowering of extra shots that makes them weaker - the removal of enchanting and branding ammunition means that useful ammo is scarce. Try the calculations with low grade ammo .
Removal of glyph also makes combat at a distance harder to maintain, but is probably fair.

I found the second book about six minutes after posting my last whine. Underwhelming and almost useless. Decoy doesn't work well, and the leave no tracks spell doesn't work with hounds, which is the one group of critters it should work with. It's sort of nice to heal 30 points per turn for a bit, but at this point (Dl70), 30 points per turn means I'm still using a lot of consumables. So this poor little dwarf is basically a fighter with poor melee and poor archery, 300+ spell points and nothing useful to cast with it. here are precisely zero offensive spells in the book, save for the limited critters that are susceptible to rock to mud. The spells aren't defensive (ie: resistance, shield, prot evil, resist fire/cold) and although "detect life" is nice, it scales poorly.

However, I won't just bitch. I will suggest adding a spell like "meld with rock," that allows passage through rock, with duration equal to half char level, and a crapton of damage if the spell ends and the character is still within the rock. It's a novel escape from summoners, but still susceptible to dreads, xarens, etherial hounds/etherial dragons, ghosts, master vampires.

Though that is better placed in the druid realm, I suppose. Maybe call it "etherial form", allow the above, and give rNether for the duration.

I gave up playing at CL42/DL70. If I wanted to play a weak fighter, I would have. Ranger gets a massive thumbs down.

[Pete Mack]

@voovus--
Vs Morgoth, it's around 80% for a fully buffed ranger; vs. Sauron, it's about 5% less. Even with the higher fail rate, the damage is much higher than magic devices. If the ranger is stuck with ordinary seeker ammo +15, his nominal damage is still at 3*5*45 = 645 with three shots, or 2x5*45 = 450 with 2 shots. With an 80% hit rate, That's 540 and 360 damage, respectively.

With 1.8 shots, as is current in the class/magic branch for a cl 50 ranger, damage is another 10% less at cl 50, which is to say: really pathetic without ideal equipment and ammo.

[Pete Mack]

@Moving Pictures:
Ouch. No resistance, no branding, and less than 2 shots means you're not much better than a bookless mage in regular V.

@Nick--you really need to work backwards from what an endgame character needs to do.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Moving Pictures

Decoy doesn't work well

What is wrong with it? It should be making monsters attack it instead of the player until it's destroyed, the idea being you can shoot the monster with impunity while it's going for the strawman. Probably not useful in crowds.

Originally Posted by Moving Pictures

the leave no tracks spell doesn't work with hounds, which is the one group of critters it should work with.

This one is really unfinished. It only works on scent, and mostly monsters are following sound. It is partly a first step in having different ways of dealing with different monster tracking methods, but there is more work needed (not least on the monster list).

I agree the ranger spells are underwhelming. Possibilities I'm considering for improving them include

• a spell to power up archery - something like double the bow multiplier for the next 5 shots
• positioning spells as suggested upthread (although I'm trying to get a stealthy, crafty vibe rather than magic teleporting)
• monster traps

There are also pacing and spell/book availability issues with all the classes.

[Moving Pictures]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

@Moving Pictures:
Ouch. No resistance, no branding, and less than 2 shots means you're not much better than a bookless mage in regular V.

@Nick--you really need to work backwards from what an endgame character needs to do.

I'd agree. Given where I was at, I'd have to scum for days to collect runes/healing to take down Morgy. No fun.

[Moving Pictures]

Originally Posted by Nick

What is wrong with it? It should be making monsters attack it instead of the player until it's destroyed, the idea being you can shoot the monster with impunity while it's going for the strawman. Probably not useful in crowds.

Two failures. One a test, on some energy hounds. Dropped the decoy, then left, using the no-trace. Energy hounds kept coming. Second was a real honest-to-gosh "I need this to work" evasion on a previously TO-ed Carcorath. I had ESP, and Carcorath - who moves damned fast (again, this was with the no-trace on) may have paused for one turn. May.

I'll give it a whirl down the road, but I'll poke around and try some other class. Maybe a priest. Heck, maybe an elfin mage....

[Voovus]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

@voovus--
Vs Morgoth, it's around 80% for a fully buffed ranger; vs. Sauron, it's about 5% less. Even with the higher fail rate, the damage is much higher than magic devices. If the ranger is stuck with ordinary seeker ammo +15, his nominal damage is still at 3*5*45 = 645 with three shots, or 2x5*45 = 450 with 2 shots. With an 80% hit rate, That's 540 and 360 damage, respectively.

I think part of the problem is that archers tend to save top level ammo for the final fight and use weaker stuff otherwise (with the occasional well-timed frost/fire/venom brand), while melee/caster characters use their full strength attacks all the time. I guess I'm just saying that the fight vs Morgoth is probably not the right point of comparison for the ranger class to the others if you want to gauge whether it's going to be fun to play.

[Pete Mack]

@Voovus: rangers *always* use branded ammo in the endgame in current V, so a CL 40 ranger is doing 27*3*(5+2) = 560 damage against nearly all monsters (assuming Bard and +10 branded ordinary arrows.) I did not take into account losing branding as well as an extra shot.

Losing Resistances makes it even worse; in current V it makes up for bad HP to a huge extent--as you pointed out when trying to fight Ancient Dragons. No amount of extra damage can fix this. Without that, you won't be fighting Smaug until after finishing stat gain, unless you carry resistance potions. But that is really no fun.

[Moving Pictures]

Alright, now trying out a mage (elf). Been a while since I played a pure mage ....

Initial gut feeling: I like the new spell arrangements in the first book. A decent blend of detect, and the "electric arc" as a softened lightning bolt is super handy for the early levels. I have only just hit DL4, but used arc to scum xp from some fleas. I normally equip entry-level characters with iron balls to throw at things, but already I am finding that magic is taking over, which, for a mage, is what ought to happen.