Cohen
15-03-2006, 06:57 PM
Greetings
I come from other 14 years of pen&paper RPG (not only D&D - to it's the one I played the most), and I noticed some issues which are very unbalancing.
To be honest I hope the Devs "failed" a Spot Check, because if these are intended they for sure showed (to me, at least) the lack of insight a Dev should have.
I'll show here 3 issues, for now, which are primary for the balance of the game.
1st:
Melee attacks are listed as to be always ONE.
In the Pen&Paper you get +6 / +1 BAB, and so on, til having 2-4 attacks according to your class at lvl 20.
This means Meleers are very hindranced, since nowhere it's written that they get extra attacks OR either, since it's a real time game, a bonus in the attack speed. Their BAB just raises.
But casters benefits of all their spells correctly. And we all know how much a Caster's power increase drastically with levels, outmatching meleer's one even if they've all their attacks.
Solution: Raise the Attack Speed by 50% at 2nd attack, 66% at 3rd, and 75% at 4th attack.
The attack speed isn't what it should cause, to simplify the game mechanics the BAB is kept the same (not +6 / +1 at 100% extra speed - double attacks, but +6 fixed at 50% extra speed).
2nd:
Health Point Issue (another disadvantage for Meleers).
Turbine choosed somehow to use this formula to calculate the HP when lvling up:
(DX /2) + 1
This means a Fighter gets 6 Hp (10/2 +1) per lvl after 1st, and a Mage gets 3 (4/2 +1).
Now we can see as the Fighter gets 60% of its potential, and the Mage gets 75%. The more high is your HP Die Roll, the more you've been nerfed in this game.
In addition every character gets +20 HP at start. This is a very nice thing, tbh, but it creates obvious imbalances (we can live with that, but it goes adding up).
In P&P a warrior starting will full dice has 10 + bonus HP, a mage would have 4 + bonus HP. This means the Warrior prolly has double or triple HP than a mage at start.
Adding 20 to both numbers the mage has a nice, nice boost (top of 5 lvls of HP, aside bonuses), meanwhile the fighter get the shaft (top of 2 lvls of HP, aside bonuses).
Solution: Skip on the 20 HP Bonus, which is mandatory in order to survive at low level, but raise to 75% the HP gain on lvl up. So that D4 gets 3 HP, D6 gets 4/5 (odd / even lvls), D8 gets 6 HP, D10 gets 7/8 (odd / even lvls) and D12 gets 9. Plus bonuses obviously. This will help keeping the balance of the Classes.
3rd:
Enchancements and Multiclasses...
Enhancements are something totally new, which are not in P&P.
I like them, I like this addition (perhaps a bit too powerful, but if Monsters are tuned for them, it's fine).
The problem is how they're implemented for Multiclass Characters.
Meanwhile in P&P a Multiclass is perfectly balanced and fair, here it's not compared to a single class character.
Fact is that meanwhile in P&P multiclass allows you to hibrydize yourself, widening your skill range but lowering it at same time, meanwhile keeping the same potential usefullness than a single class character, in DDO it's not the same!
Due to Enchancements, a lvl 10 Warrior is way way superior to a let's say lvl 5 Warrior and lvl 5 something else.
This is a great limit to Multiclassing. Even because high lvl enhancements are far superior than talents (let's get +3 STR for Fighter, it's a combined +3 DMG and ToHit ... like a Weapon Focus + Weapon Specialization talents!!!)
Solution:
Give to Multiclass 4 slots reserved for each class.
So a let's say 4 Ranger, 3 Cleric, 3 Fighter would have 4 of the lvl <4 Ranger enchancements, 4 of <3 Cleric ones, and 4 of <3 Fighter one -- which adding up would result in 4 <10 enhancements.
In order to keep it fair, a multiclass picking a Racial Enchancement (like Human Versatility, uses 1 slot per every class of his cause Racial ones are counted for the global lvl).
So this would result in a Fighter having +3 STR, or the 4-3-3 having +1 STR, DEX and WIS. Which is fair and balanced.
I come from other 14 years of pen&paper RPG (not only D&D - to it's the one I played the most), and I noticed some issues which are very unbalancing.
To be honest I hope the Devs "failed" a Spot Check, because if these are intended they for sure showed (to me, at least) the lack of insight a Dev should have.
I'll show here 3 issues, for now, which are primary for the balance of the game.
1st:
Melee attacks are listed as to be always ONE.
In the Pen&Paper you get +6 / +1 BAB, and so on, til having 2-4 attacks according to your class at lvl 20.
This means Meleers are very hindranced, since nowhere it's written that they get extra attacks OR either, since it's a real time game, a bonus in the attack speed. Their BAB just raises.
But casters benefits of all their spells correctly. And we all know how much a Caster's power increase drastically with levels, outmatching meleer's one even if they've all their attacks.
Solution: Raise the Attack Speed by 50% at 2nd attack, 66% at 3rd, and 75% at 4th attack.
The attack speed isn't what it should cause, to simplify the game mechanics the BAB is kept the same (not +6 / +1 at 100% extra speed - double attacks, but +6 fixed at 50% extra speed).
2nd:
Health Point Issue (another disadvantage for Meleers).
Turbine choosed somehow to use this formula to calculate the HP when lvling up:
(DX /2) + 1
This means a Fighter gets 6 Hp (10/2 +1) per lvl after 1st, and a Mage gets 3 (4/2 +1).
Now we can see as the Fighter gets 60% of its potential, and the Mage gets 75%. The more high is your HP Die Roll, the more you've been nerfed in this game.
In addition every character gets +20 HP at start. This is a very nice thing, tbh, but it creates obvious imbalances (we can live with that, but it goes adding up).
In P&P a warrior starting will full dice has 10 + bonus HP, a mage would have 4 + bonus HP. This means the Warrior prolly has double or triple HP than a mage at start.
Adding 20 to both numbers the mage has a nice, nice boost (top of 5 lvls of HP, aside bonuses), meanwhile the fighter get the shaft (top of 2 lvls of HP, aside bonuses).
Solution: Skip on the 20 HP Bonus, which is mandatory in order to survive at low level, but raise to 75% the HP gain on lvl up. So that D4 gets 3 HP, D6 gets 4/5 (odd / even lvls), D8 gets 6 HP, D10 gets 7/8 (odd / even lvls) and D12 gets 9. Plus bonuses obviously. This will help keeping the balance of the Classes.
3rd:
Enchancements and Multiclasses...
Enhancements are something totally new, which are not in P&P.
I like them, I like this addition (perhaps a bit too powerful, but if Monsters are tuned for them, it's fine).
The problem is how they're implemented for Multiclass Characters.
Meanwhile in P&P a Multiclass is perfectly balanced and fair, here it's not compared to a single class character.
Fact is that meanwhile in P&P multiclass allows you to hibrydize yourself, widening your skill range but lowering it at same time, meanwhile keeping the same potential usefullness than a single class character, in DDO it's not the same!
Due to Enchancements, a lvl 10 Warrior is way way superior to a let's say lvl 5 Warrior and lvl 5 something else.
This is a great limit to Multiclassing. Even because high lvl enhancements are far superior than talents (let's get +3 STR for Fighter, it's a combined +3 DMG and ToHit ... like a Weapon Focus + Weapon Specialization talents!!!)
Solution:
Give to Multiclass 4 slots reserved for each class.
So a let's say 4 Ranger, 3 Cleric, 3 Fighter would have 4 of the lvl <4 Ranger enchancements, 4 of <3 Cleric ones, and 4 of <3 Fighter one -- which adding up would result in 4 <10 enhancements.
In order to keep it fair, a multiclass picking a Racial Enchancement (like Human Versatility, uses 1 slot per every class of his cause Racial ones are counted for the global lvl).
So this would result in a Fighter having +3 STR, or the 4-3-3 having +1 STR, DEX and WIS. Which is fair and balanced.