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I'm intending to make a single character on Arelith, to both see what the role play is like over there now, but also to try and see if the pvp climate is different.

You see, the server's... Got some weird shit done to it. It's not like building for Amia, or vanilla NwN. Not even slightly!

- All non-armor/weapon items you equip can only be enchanted to have +1 in AC or a stat, you can't have +2.
- If an item has +1 AC and +1 to a stat, or +1 to two stats, it is considered highly enchanted. This sets the tone for how powerful gear is on Arelith.
- The best weapons are forged by master smiths. A Masterly Damask weapon has +3 AB and +6 damage as it's properties. There's nothing better in terms of damage or AB.
- The best armor/shield/helmets are made of adamantine, and I think they all provide +3 AC in addition to any base AC they may have. Non-metallic armors cannot be made out of adamantine.

So gear is completely different there, obviously. But here's the summary of the important feat changes:

- Dev crit is disabled completely.
- HiPS is no longer enabled on SD's, period. They get +1 Hide/level instead.
- Every epic spell focus has a special power associated with it; for example, Epic Spell Focus: Evocation greatly empowers Greater Ruin and Hellball. Some have interesting effects like ESF: Transmutation letting you teleport to any of the leyline points on the server (there's no portal wands in Arelith, so this is a unique ability.)
- Timestop is vanilla, and can be scribed on scrolls (and is used on scrolls by the characters who can afford the scrolls, to basically win pvp half the time), but, you can only cast one timestop every 240 seconds. Nobody can spam Timestop + IGMS, this way.
- Monk/Dragonshape is as broken as ever. Lol
- You can get "gifts" on your character, boosting any stat by +2, on character creation, in exchange for a minor ECL adjustment - but on Arelith, ECL adjustment doesn't change the level cap. A Drow can reach level 30. They just level slightly slower. You can have three of these gifts, so you can basically have +2 to three stats on creation, as if they're extra racial stat bonuses.
- For multiclassing, you have to take 3 consecutive levels of any class you take levels in. This is done to prevent "splashing", I guess. So, you can't be 29 wizard, 1 rogue. You have to be 27/3.

Those are the largest differences I can think of, from Amia/vanilla NwN.

The build I'm thinking of is simple. 27 wizard, 3 ranger (taken in epic levels), for skilldump and bonus feat. Because of the lost Wizard bonus feat, the Ranger level basically just provides a little extra HP and the skilldump. Take probably 3 epic spell foci, and several epic spells, and one Great INT for your spell DC's.

Is that a top build you guys can think of for a setting like Arelith, described as above? Casters are very powerful but the problem I see is, if an opponent has UMD and you're not already buffed, they can just drop a timestop scroll and run up and slice you up. No contest.

What do you guys think?

Last edited by Larsaan on Wed, Feb 17 2016, 12:25 PM, edited 1 time in total.

... Why on earth would anyone play a martial character on that server?

Edit: More constructively, sure that sounds plenty powerful. The alternative would probably be a Druid 27/Monk 3 with Dragonshape.

Larsaan wrote:

... Why on earth would anyone play a martial character on that server?

For the same reason people play Darksouls.
They're masochists (Like me).

Well as far as martial characters, there are a few reasons.

- Barbarian rage has been completely overhauled. I don't truly understand the new rage, but somewhere in this thread (http://forum.arelith.com/viewtopic.php? ... age#p50074) it's detailed. I don't know if it makes it better or not.

- There are "paths" for characters, that you can choose on creation, for certain classes. It replaces certain abilities in exchange for new unique abilities. For fighters and barbarians, you can be a Kensai, which is PERMANENT HASTE, but you can never use any potions/scrolls/wands/items with spells. You can never use or cast magic of any kind ever. But you ALSO get +10 discipline (on a low-gear server this is FUCKING RAD. The loss of UMD on a server where Time Stop is a scroll hurts pvp though.)

- Barbarians have a neat path where they sacrifice their rage entirely, and instead, can summon two equally-leveled Barbarian NPC's that have the same progression as the default Barbarian, but with all the TWF feats and they wield a battleaxe and handaxe. They level with your barbarian levels. You could have two level 30 barbarians with decent feats, follow you around, as a level 30 barbarian. Of course you'd have no rage and no UMD with 30 barbarian levels that way... But 27 barb/3 rogue would fix that, and you'd have a couple level 27 barbarian summons instead.

- Like I said, everything can be scribed, pretty much, and blank scrolls/wands are plentiful and cheap there. All you have to do is find a caster willing to scribe. So people often have scrolls of Time Stop, Word of Faith, GSanc, Heal (because heal potions are actually quite rare on Arelith), or more.

- Some spells have been debuffed. IGMS only launches 10 missiles at a single target at most, even if you have 20 missiles total. It still rocks, though. All the Bigby's spells have Reflex saves on Arelith, and can't be scribed (for some reason.)

- Just work under the assumption that Shifter and RDD are not allowed, and neither is Pale Master. RDD/Shifter literally are almost not allowed at all, whilst Pale Master just requires a good standing with the DM's basically, and a special request, and a DM quest, before they let you take the class. And it kinda sucks except for the AC anyway on Arelith.

The most powerful melee builds in pvp to my knowledge, are weapon masters with UMD of various level combinations, and monks with epic dodge and high AC and spell resistance. Monks are actually really good if you level them and build them properly on Arelith, because.. Well... Vanilla monk vs a slightly gimped caster or a bunch of meleers with shitty gear.

Clerics are also usually pretty good because their self-buffing makes them essentially unstoppable in melee, if they are warded for the battle. Which means, "cast Gsanc and start buffing".

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the +3 to the DC of implosion is not removed on Arelith to my knowledge. That's a prime-time Cleric spell on there. At least, it used to be. I was last active on Arelith like... 4 years ago I think. The DC might've been adjusted like on Amia.

Your build sounds solid. The server is setup to be caster heaven from the sounds of it so if you are looking to destroy everyone there you go.

Played there for too long, a long time ago. Left because it was boring and the DM team was (and still is) pretty corrupt and favortist.

The best builds to take advantage of their ruleset I ran were:
* Druid 24/monk 6
* Bard 16/BG 4/RDD 10 (divine might/shield meleer)
* Drow Bard 11/BG 4/AA 15 (again divine might/shield, but archer)

Of course, spellcaster-anything trumps meleer-anything over there since their balance is non-existent due to the lack of gear worth a squat.

Ultimately, the server is very, very boring. The areas are very, very basic and almost never change. Player initiative means almost nothing in terms of changing or affecting the world. You'll never see a DM do anything unless someone breaks one of their 1,000 unwritten rules (no DM events). There's no fun epic gear to hunt or chase. Leveling is slow and the endgame is basically a lot of sitting around because... There's no reason to do anything! No gear to hunt. No agenda to pursue! No change to work towards! Just... Zzz...

As my friend dubbed it, "it's a utopia for boring people" and that sums it up well imo.

I've never played any RP server on anything and never played NWN except for here.

I know there's apparently a 10 death per character thing and then that's it. Apparently this is offset by the fact that if you delete a level 30, a DM will roll a 1d100 and if you get the top 5%, your next character can have a tail or something. Then there's people coming to Amia saying they are shocked at the high level of DM involvement on Amia, which considering how 'little' of it people actually seem to see here (people say they have played for literal years and seen 2 events on Amia), makes me wonder how much the oft-quoted comment of 'DM's on Arelith basically tell players to go make their own fun' really says about the DM's level of involvement over there. Not to mention, isn't Arelith hak free? So isn't armor/head/character customization about 3 steps down?

I'd consider druid/monk-till-monk-AC/dragon-shape because you would end up with a disgusting amount of AC and still have like 20+ CL so all your buffs would likely be difficult to dispel, and you would have spell resistance the spell and gobs and gobs of HP. Hell, I'd do it as a drow and get un-dispellable SR, toughness and perhaps even imp toughness, and you can cast heal yourself.

If damage is really 'that low' due to all the lack of good gear, a dwarven defender rocking 30+ flat DR and a bunch of regen would also be fantastic.

I concur that I don't think Arelith is a very good server.

Regardless, I'd like to see if I can trash the people over there in pvp, coming from a more pvp-friendly environment. Compared to Arelith, Amia is a pvp utopia. Because there are usually not large consequences for death, pvp is kind of... Well, it's whatever. Which I've complained about in the past. But, honestly? It's probably helped keep the OOC drama lower than it could've been, for pvp.

On Arelith, you die for any reason, you lose exp, possibly levels if you lose enough exp, lots of gold, you can't interact with that person for 1 RL day, and they can dispose of your corpse so you can't be raised and you HAVE to respawn. You're teleported to an afterlife area when you die so you don't see what happens to your corpse, so for all you know, you could be raised in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere and tortured by Abyssal cultists for days on end.

And then there are people who have a mark of despair or mark of destiny, and they only have 10 lives.

Period.

Even if they get raised, they can only die 10 times before they are deleted from the server automatically.

As a result of this and the slow leveling, and the weird rules they have, my only real interest is to have fun with the pvp over there. I've decided a powerful build would be a Cleric 26, Ranger 4, because Harm has, apparently, been altered.

Harm on Arelith is reportedly save vs death, but on a successful save, you are reduced to 1d4 hit points.

??????

I'm going to just Gsanc and run up to people and Harm them and laugh.

Pvp should be a lot of fun over there if I can stand to get through the grind to epic levels.

I'll warn you now, you're gonna have a bad time.

It takes time and energy to level there and the server is very anti-PvP. By that, I mean once you PvP someone, expect DMs to hear complaints and once they hear enough,expect banning - even if you've memorized and followed every rule.

As I've said, it's a boring place for boring people and they aim to keep it so.

Id make a sorc. Learn the unaltered time stop.

Roll up hasted, stop time, disjoint, nuke, stop time again like you can on Amia to chain them, nuke twice more, repeat till dead. With the ability to bop ppl while they actually slly can't fight you, if you qant a pvp wrecker just do that. On Amia time stop is still insane because you can line up spells with a delay so they pop the instant ts ends and have a ts go off less than half a round later and repeat. Without that restriction I don't know how you would manage to overcome it.

So I gave it some thought and I'd go drow sorc with one Ranger and two Rogue. Disc, tumble, spot, spellcraft and umd. Rest into dex. On Amia this build would sit around sixty ac and could fight at any moment. On that place it would be even better due to less magic gear on your enemies and time stop being unerfed.

Oh I should add that as a person I think that 'go time' and mobility are pretty much the two most important things about pvp. One button then go. It's a lot harder to react when there's less to react too, and it's why my chars are built how they are. A cleric is good whule buffed but after a disjoint (which will happen while you are time stopped) you're going to be worm food.

You need to be an initiator because you need to go balls in and hard if you want to to win pvp, and scant then buff won't cut it. Sorc works because you can chain time stops and nuke while buffing but cleric can't.

A scythe wm would also be good because you could just kill anyone in one combat round on a crit. Bing bang dead.

Remember go time if you wanna be a killer. Your go time needs to be as low as possible and clerics dont do that.

Problem is you can only cast one Time Stop per 240 seconds on Arelith.

So you can't do anything you just specified

Now on Cleric, when it's go-time, I'm just gonna gsanc, haste, do some buffing, run up and harm the bitch. Save vs death, on success, they're down to 1d4 hp anyway.

MisterLich wrote:

Problem is you can only cast one Time Stop per 240 seconds on Arelith.

So you can't do anything you just specified

Now on Cleric, when it's go-time, I'm just gonna gsanc, haste, do some buffing, run up and harm the bitch. Save vs death, on success, they're down to 1d4 hp anyway.

once per 240 seconds? give em the special. max missile storm, wait a tic, hellball, ruin. should all hit the moment ts ends. death with no save.

Hellball and greater ruin both have saves outside of amia.

Akhlys wrote:

Hellball and greater ruin both have saves outside of amia.

ok then spam missile storm and horrid wiltings. who cares? result is the same.

Just as a note - let's keep the cross server banter friendly. Happy to use the forum to help people become mechanically better at the game, no matter the game they play, but let's not down on other servers for their philosophy. What works for them works for them and vice versa.

I quit. I've given up my Arelith endeavor.

When you spend hours just trying to navigate around their new starting city to do the courier quest, and then another hour mining coal so you can sell it to another player, so you can buy any armor/shield so you can go hit stuff...

And then you die on the first spawn you find outside their starting city (each monster in that spawn, when killed, gave only 20 exp btw)

Just.... No

I can't take it

I'm meant for Amia, and Amia alone <3

They can take pride in the fact that they are greifer proof.

Hey that's not fair. I really wanted to play on Arelith.

I just can't stand the place, it turns out.

This thread was a rollercoaster ride.

MightNMagic wrote:

I'll warn you now, you're gonna have a bad time.

Oh, and to the guy thinking a DwD with regen sounds fun there, they don't have regen and 2 score other things because they believe they "add to lag."

MisterLich wrote:

I quit. I've given up my Arelith endeavor.

When you spend hours just trying to navigate around their new starting city to do the courier quest, and then another hour mining coal so you can sell it to another player, so you can buy any armor/shield so you can go hit stuff...

And then you die on the first spawn you find outside their starting city (each monster in that spawn, when killed, gave only 20 exp btw)

Welcome to the Republican Party.

I am a Republican.

Why would you even bring politics into this?

MisterLich wrote:

I am a Republican.

Why would you even bring politics into this?

was a joke. you met a job creator, got a job, and then died right in front of a major urban center.

Having spent a good chunk of time on Arelith, this raw concentration of hyperbole made me giggle 'till I choked.

It's kinda funny when you get to see the perspectives servers take on one another, really. Though, I'll frankly validate that DMs don't frequent events outside their circle/fancy; and the leveling has always been historically slow unless you've a lot of nerve, grab up a buddy, and circle-power through to 30th in a bit over a month.

I'm sure you're right. I've never been there. I just know what people around here tell me.

Though a lack of regen, time stop, and a few other funky things do not sound like fun ideas to me. Not to mention the lack of Hak heads and gear and cosmetics.

AirPhforce wrote:

I'm sure you're right. I've never been there. I just know what people around here tell me.

Though a lack of regen, time stop, and a few other funky things do not sound like fun ideas to me. Not to mention the lack of Hak heads and gear and cosmetics.

Somewhat objectively speaking (with defined exceptions), Damage wins.

Not casters, necessarily; in that I would argue the balance is most assuredly present if one abandons the mindset of defense - and understands the competent nuances of effective building. Strength based characters will outshine Dex based ones that don't properly implement corner sneaks (or the recently RE-ENABLED Hide in Plain Sight (the exception being a DEX based full AB dueler - which 1v1 curb stomps an STR)), Evocation Focuses (which are necessary to buff Hellball and Greater Ruin beyond their stock game form) are considered a staple, et-cetera.

Usually, a PvP encounter will last a little over 4 minutes if it's a lot of people, and it usually is.

This said, it's important to remember a few things if anyone's intending an Arelith jaunt:
>Don't build for less than 14 CON 'period' - if you can avoid it (should be possible, given the Gift system). If you build less than 12 CON, you're directly asking to be curb stomped.
>Don't build without UMD.
>Timestop is easily surmountable by deploying a scroll of timestop at the time your opponent begins casting it/using their own. The Timestop should trigger during their timestop, bringing the technique to a standstill.
>Don't build without UMD.
>It's advised you travel with a Tank and a damage-dealer, and nothing less, in parties and to PvP; you can have more, but never less. The areas aren't solo-able by either alone.
>As twice implied above, through naming the phrase 'tanks' and mentioning exceptions, it's completely possible to defensively build for Arelith; providing the character behind it can hold their own in terms of output. Monk builds, Rogues, Melee Palemasters, and Clerics are excessively good in this regard; as is the glorious staple Cha-warrior tank.
>Barbarians are currently defensive, 1000+ HP demigods.
>Lycanthropy - a buggy system by implementation, somewhat - is a nuisance for most characters; but a monk will find themselves infinitely bettered by acquiring it in 1v1 situations, if they can handle the 40 DC will save to avoid rampaging.
>Fighter, as the OP has failed to mention, is buffed; and while the development team is currently debating a change (bad plan), it's currently possible to have AC on armor, helm, and shield - as well as an Enhancement bonus on a weapon - of a + modifier equal to the Fighter's class level/5. So a 20/7/3 Fighter/Weaponmaster/Rogue is currently capable of having +4 gear, with a Keened weapon that does +4 of an element & +d6 of another, as well as raw stat boosts on the actual armor.

Yikes. Time stop on scrolls?

Yep - and I personally argue that it's the only thing keeping Timestop in and of itself innately balanced in a realm where Timestop doesn't block damage.

To be fair, nowhere is that Fighter change listed that I could see. It's not on the wiki, the main pages, and it's not under the Updates thread on the forums. So... Not sure what the server expects of players, to know what's changed and what's not.

It's under the paths section of the mechanical changes thread.

Google FTW!

Re-reading this before I post it, I realize that a lot of it sounds salty or irate. This is mostly because I feel the majority of negative opinions expressed about the server I 'call home' are unjustified. I'm not trying to attack anyone.

Hey there. (Semi) long-time Arelith player here. I played there before I even played single player nwn. Learned to roleplay there, learned to pvp there. Let me give my thoughts. Before I start though, let me state that I'm going to be answering post-by-post, and I haven't read 'everything' in this thread yet, so if I reply to something someone has already covered, I apologize.

MisterLich wrote:

- If an item has +1 AC and +1 to a stat, or +1 to two stats, it is considered highly enchanted. This sets the tone for how powerful gear is on Arelith.

Thankfully, this is only a half truth. That would be considered highly enchanted by people whose characters aren't yet in epics. Our staple end-game items tend to have +1 to two stats, +2 to 2 skills and a +1 unisave or +2 specific save (If I'm remembering correctly. That's what I have on my current character there.) You can shuffle that around a bit, of course. And obviously, the enchantments you'd put on a wm would be completely different. Damage enhancements and maybe keen, would be nicer. Though you COULD put stats on weapons instead, if you so chose.

MisterLich wrote:

- The best weapons are forged by master smiths. A Masterly Damask weapon has +3 AB and +6 damage as it's properties. There's nothing better in terms of damage or AB.

Mostly correct. Though they can be made stronger by applying 'essences', which add elemental damage. ..Fire.. Cold.. What have you. There are also 'fighter bonuses' on the server. For every 5 levels of fighter, any weapon you have gets a +1 enhancement bonus and every armour gets +1 ac bonus. Now, granted, there aren't a lot of builds that take 20 fighter. I can personally only think of '1' that I would even consider playing. However, it allows you to use items that would otherwise seem bad due to lack of ab/damage, by adding the fighter bonus on them, and actually make them better than masterly damask. I do this on one of my characters.
You're correct on the armours, though they're obviously also subject to the fighter changes.
What this much-lower ac does on the surface is, it makes combat much faster. You don't see people sitting there fighting for long periods of time, as you do on Amia. You still get builds that DO have long fights, of course. The melee palemaster is very viable on arelith, and tends to frustrate a lot of players due to its tendency to never die against anything that can't cast.

MisterLich wrote:

- HiPS is no longer enabled on SD's, period. They get +1 Hide/level instead.

They do get it. I believe you need to take 5 levels of it though? It was recently reimplemented.

MisterLich wrote:

- Every epic spell focus has a special power associated with it; for example, Epic Spell Focus: Evocation greatly empowers Greater Ruin and Hellball. Some have interesting effects like ESF: Transmutation letting you teleport to any of the leyline points on the server (there's no portal wands in Arelith, so this is a unique ability.)
- Timestop is vanilla, and can be scribed on scrolls (and is used on scrolls by the characters who can afford the scrolls, to basically win pvp half the time), but, you can only cast one timestop every 240 seconds. Nobody can spam Timestop + IGMS, this way.
- Monk/Dragonshape is as broken as ever. Lol

To the first bit, yep. The spells you get from epic foci are by and large not all that useful in my personal opinion (Though a lot of the arelith community disagrees with me.) although they can be fun, I suppose. Particularly if you go there for rp. The two exceptions to this in my opinion are what you get from epic evocation and epic enchanting. With epic evocation, your evo combo becomes vastly stronger. Stronger than it is here on Amia. 'If' I recall correctly, the hellball by itself does more damage on average than hellball + gruin does here.
You're correct that timestop cheese is used regularly. I'm of the opinion that people who use it to win tend to be bad though. I've personally never been killed in a timestop. And I almost never use it in pvp, as I feel it's a waste of money. They're relative expensive and annoying to get, when you don't have a mage-buddy to make 'em for you.
Monk/Dragonshape is broken as hell, you're correct. However, both the people playing monk dragon shapers are bad. One of them is my friend, but they're just.. They're bad. IIRC there are only 2 of them active on the server. Want to be a diabolical badass? Know how to play properly, know how to build properly, go there and win. If you're of the opinion that all that it takes for a monk/dragonshaper to win pvp against good players is to click and watch, you'll lose. If you're good, you'll have people crying that your build is unfair. Bottle their tears and sell them for a good profit.

MisterLich wrote:

The build I'm thinking of is simple. 27 wizard, 3 ranger (taken in epic levels), for skilldump and bonus feat. Because of the lost Wizard bonus feat, the Ranger level basically just provides a little extra HP and the skilldump. Take probably 3 epic spell foci, and several epic spells, and one Great INT for your spell DC's.

Is that a top build you guys can think of for a setting like Arelith, described as above? Casters are very powerful but the problem I see is, if an opponent has UMD and you're not already buffed, they can just drop a timestop scroll and run up and slice you up. No contest.

What do you guys think?

I realize this comes off as very cocky and rude because I'm new to this server, and I do ask you guys for advice in game. But I just want to advise that Arelith is a very different sort of environment, and you're very 'likely' to have people drop out of nowhere and 'slice you up' in a timestop. Unlike on Amia, Arelithians are not required to 'give you an out'. You also don't have the huge ac advantage from gear that you have here. Judging how things will 'go down' on Arelith off of what's happened to you on Amia will lead to you having a bad time.

Larsaan wrote:

... Why on earth would anyone play a martial character on that server?

Edit: More constructively, sure that sounds plenty powerful. The alternative would probably be a Druid 27/Monk 3 with Dragonshape.

I play a martial character there. Str based. Optimized. He would suck here, but there? He completely stomps. The only 2 things I worry about fighting on him are dragon shapers and melee palemasters. Dragon shapers because.. Well, they're dragon shapers (Still beatable!) and palemasters because of their stupidly high ac (Which is normal here, and thus makes the build that I use on Arelith useless.)

MisterLich wrote:

Well as far as martial characters, there are a few reasons.

- Barbarian rage has been completely overhauled. I don't truly understand the new rage, but somewhere in this thread (http://forum.arelith.com/viewtopic.php? ... age#p50074) it's detailed. I don't know if it makes it better or not.

- There are "paths" for characters, that you can choose on creation, for certain classes. It replaces certain abilities in exchange for new unique abilities. For fighters and barbarians, you can be a Kensai, which is PERMANENT HASTE, but you can never use any potions/scrolls/wands/items with spells. You can never use or cast magic of any kind ever. But you ALSO get +10 discipline (on a low-gear server this is FUCKING RAD. The loss of UMD on a server where Time Stop is a scroll hurts pvp though.)

- Barbarians have a neat path where they sacrifice their rage entirely, and instead, can summon two equally-leveled Barbarian NPC's that have the same progression as the default Barbarian, but with all the TWF feats and they wield a battleaxe and handaxe. They level with your barbarian levels. You could have two level 30 barbarians with decent feats, follow you around, as a level 30 barbarian. Of course you'd have no rage and no UMD with 30 barbarian levels that way... But 27 barb/3 rogue would fix that, and you'd have a couple level 27 barbarian summons instead.

The short-and-short of the overhaul is basically that 1: terrifying rage now 'holds' the people who get feared by it, rather than actually fearing them. 2: The barbarian gets biteback damage. basically when you hit him, you take damage back. I fought a level 29 barbarian who had 30 damage biteback. Was nasty. I'm not sure how said biteback is calculated. There are one or two other little things added in, but nothing over the top. Barbarians are very strong against other melee'ers right now, though.

Now, Kensai. Kensai is horrible. Perma haste and +10 disc really isn't worth not being able to use ANY magic items. The reason I say that: haste potions and wands are extremely easy to come by. And +10 disc? You wont need it. If you find an enchanter (And you will. They're around.) You can add +2 disc to every item you have, sans your weapon and armour. For most people, that's enough to just never get knocked down. (Assuming you're taking epic skill focus disclipine. Which you probably should. It's a terrific feat.) Of course, kensai is awesome while LEVELLING. If you're more worried about that than how strong you are at level 30, go right ahead. But I wouldn't.

The barbarian summons come with dual weapons, and are 'default'. They also don't rage. If whoever you're fighting attacks you instead of them, you're probably going to die. Again, it's great for grinding. The moment you get to pvp though..? Mm.. You'll regret choosing that path. My biggest issue with them, I suppose, is that when I've pvp'd against them they haven't been able to hit me, even though I wasn't 'tanky' in the slightest.

MisterLich wrote:

- Like I said, everything can be scribed, pretty much, and blank scrolls/wands are plentiful and cheap there. All you have to do is find a caster willing to scribe. So people often have scrolls of Time Stop, Word of Faith, GSanc, Heal (because heal potions are actually quite rare on Arelith), or more.

GSanc cannot be scribed, actually. And thank goodness for that. The rest of it though..? Yeah, pretty much.
Heal potions are 'relatively' rare. They're rarer than on amia, since you can't buy 'em from npc's. But there's a boss (Who a high level can EASILY kill) who drops them every time. There are also a few spawns who drop 'em. HOWEVER, heal on a potion is seriously nerfed on arelith. I think it heals only like.. 250 hp? I don't even bother using it in pvp. Greater restoration scrolls are more efficient. A full heal, plus negative effects removed.

MisterLich wrote:

- Just work under the assumption that Shifter and RDD are not allowed, and neither is Pale Master. RDD/Shifter literally are almost not allowed at all, whilst Pale Master just requires a good standing with the DM's basically, and a special request, and a DM quest, before they let you take the class. And it kinda sucks except for the AC anyway on Arelith.

The most powerful melee builds in pvp to my knowledge, are weapon masters with UMD of various level combinations, and monks with epic dodge and high AC and spell resistance. Monks are actually really good if you level them and build them properly on Arelith, because.. Well... Vanilla monk vs a slightly gimped caster or a bunch of meleers with shitty gear.

Clerics are also usually pretty good because their self-buffing makes them essentially unstoppable in melee, if they are warded for the battle. Which means, "cast Gsanc and start buffing".

EDIT: I forgot to mention, the +3 to the DC of implosion is not removed on Arelith to my knowledge. That's a prime-time Cleric spell on there. At least, it used to be. I was last active on Arelith like... 4 years ago I think. The DC might've been adjusted like on Amia.

Yeah, you probably wont be getting a shifter or rdd. And you definitely would not want a shifter there. They're trash-bad. Much, MUCH nicer here. (Honestly.. I wouldn't want an rdd there either, but w/e.) As for the palemaster, naah. You're mistaken. 'Good standing with the DM's' means you need 10 rpr. You get 10 rpr by staying in character. If you're roleplaying, and not saying 'yolo' ICly, you'll get it. I got it on my first day there. After you have the 10 rpr, you send in a DM request. This is as easy as shooting a message on the DM channel saying, "Yo! I'd like to get a token to let me play a palemaster. Could I tell you my concept?" or something like that. You 'also' need the token to be an assassin. I got it pretty quickly, because I gave them a backstory, so they didn't force me to do a quest. I'm not buddies with any of the DM's, either, so it's not that. So if you feel you want to play a palemaster, you should definitely go ahead.
But I agree that they're not all that good. Pretty trashy against people that aren't wm's or rogue's.

You're correct about the weapon master being at the top of the dog pile as far as melee characters go. They can reliably take out their counterparts (Besides barbarian) as well as the caster builds. But they're also fragile, lending to a lot of people struggling to play them on Arelith. They die quickly if you're dumb. A lot of people are dumb. Sadly.
I personally think monks are weak. But that may only be because the people who have brought them against me have been bad.
Clerics are great. If you can get them unbuffed, they suck. But as a cleric, you should never fight someone if you're not buffed.
So I essentially agree with you here.

MightNMagic wrote:

Played there for too long, a long time ago. Left because it was boring and the DM team was (and still is) pretty corrupt and favortist.

The best builds to take advantage of their ruleset I ran were:
* Druid 24/monk 6
* Bard 16/BG 4/RDD 10 (divine might/shield meleer)
* Drow Bard 11/BG 4/AA 15 (again divine might/shield, but archer)

Of course, spellcaster-anything trumps meleer-anything over there since their balance is non-existent due to the lack of gear worth a squat.

Ultimately, the server is very, very boring. The areas are very, very basic and almost never change. Player initiative means almost nothing in terms of changing or affecting the world. You'll never see a DM do anything unless someone breaks one of their 1,000 unwritten rules (no DM events). There's no fun epic gear to hunt or chase. Leveling is slow and the endgame is basically a lot of sitting around because... There's no reason to do anything! No gear to hunt. No agenda to pursue! No change to work towards! Just... Zzz...

As my friend dubbed it, "it's a utopia for boring people" and that sums it up well imo.

As an arelithian, I disagree with both your statement and your meta-knowledge. None dragon shaper druids are pretty weak. UNLESS your druid/monk IS a dragon shaper. Bard BG RDD: I've never seen one, so I can't give an honest assessment. I don't think it'd be good, though. Bard/BG/AA Strong in a group fight, definitely. One on one? Weak.

Spellcaster-anything does not trump melee-anything. I can't really dispute this without actually 'showing' it. There is a server where you can instantly level a character to 30 and give them arelith-gear and pvp test. If you're interested, we could meet there I suppose? Only way I can really show that melee characters can beat casters around if the player knows what to do.

The server is basic and doesn't change often. Though a big overhaul has been happening recently. As for the DM's, depends on your timezone. A couple of them are forever pumping out quests for both low level and high level characters. Some of them are 'extremely' favoritist, sadly. And then, yes, there are the ones who sit back and watch, waiting for you to break a rule. How to avoid the last group: Don't break rules.

As for your last statement. It's extremely amusing to me (And I do not mean that snarkily). I've been struggling to get into Amia because from my perspective, all that ever happens all day is characters sit around and talk to each other. What I call "Socialite" rp. I have to be doing something.. I want to be moving a war along, or hunting down an elixer of immortality, or trying to have the leader of a city assassinated so that I might take over from his position of power. I've never sat around and talked on Arelith (Though I do know that in the 'starter city' of Cordor, people DO do that.. Hence why so few people stay there past level 6.) but those are all things I 'have' done. Whereas on Amia, I just see players either idling, or having literal picnics. There are agenda's on Arelith, there is change to work towards. The opinion that there isn't is likely from someone who is jaded because they were unable to find interesting situations to involve themself in. The very problem 'I' am experiencing here in Amia!

AirPhforce wrote:

I know there's apparently a 10 death per character thing and then that's it. Apparently this is offset by the fact that if you delete a level 30, a DM will roll a 1d100 and if you get the top 5%, your next character can have a tail or something. Then there's people coming to Amia saying they are shocked at the high level of DM involvement on Amia, which considering how 'little' of it people actually seem to see here (people say they have played for literal years and seen 2 events on Amia), makes me wonder how much the oft-quoted comment of 'DM's on Arelith basically tell players to go make their own fun' really says about the DM's level of involvement over there. Not to mention, isn't Arelith hak free? So isn't armor/head/character customization about 3 steps down?

I'd consider druid/monk-till-monk-AC/dragon-shape because you would end up with a disgusting amount of AC and still have like 20+ CL so all your buffs would likely be difficult to dispel, and you would have spell resistance the spell and gobs and gobs of HP. Hell, I'd do it as a drow and get un-dispellable SR, toughness and perhaps even imp toughness, and you can cast heal yourself.

If damage is really 'that low' due to all the lack of good gear, a dwarven defender rocking 30+ flat DR and a bunch of regen would also be fantastic.

The 10 death per character 'thing' is known as a mark of death. It's optional. You take it because it lets you get free exp every.. 3 minutes? I see no reason to take it at all. SOME people think it's good. I disagree utterly and completely. If you play arelith, don't take it. You will die more than 10 times, easily. Now as for the roll, it's level 26 that you need to hit, not 30. And a DM doesn't do it, the system does. This is because DM's were pretending to get 5's for their friends. If you get the '5%' you don't get a 'tail or something'. You get to pick.. Essentially anything you want to. Or rather, that's how it used to work. Because of the sheer amount of ridiculous stuff on the server 'from' those 5% rolls, they've taken it away. If you get it, now, you can basically just get an Aasimaar or Tiefling. In my opinion, this is bogus. But I'm not on the dev team, so I can't change that <_>

The DM's are less involved for the most part on Arelith, I have to admit that. 'Make your own fun' is a very big thing on Arelith. You as the player are expected to take over a city (This can be done without any DM intervention. It has happened many times). And when you DO start making waves yourself, the DM's start getting involved. As a small example: The faction that I am currently part of there wanted to cause a commotion in the city of Cordor. We wanted people to get angry, scared, riled up. Our solution was to cause a magical plague (In the vein on the original nwn campaign) which would rise the dead from their graves and begin an undead pandemic. After setting up said plague, we got DM's to jump in and host an event. In the end, the 'good guys' resolved the plague and cured it. But the graveyard area has been different ever since. The point here is that you ARE expected to make your own fun, but that doesn't mean the DM's wont give you a hand.
But, again, they are less 'about' than on Amia. Undoubtably.

high dr is fun. No doubt. I've only ever fought 1 dwarven defender. It lost, but it was a tough fight. I'd actually be interested in throwing up against your build if you'd like to give it a test. As I mentioned earlier, there 'is' a test server where you can go and pre-make a build to 30 and equip it with Arelith gear.

MisterLich wrote:

I concur that I don't think Arelith is a very good server.

Regardless, I'd like to see if I can trash the people over there in pvp, coming from a more pvp-friendly environment. Compared to Arelith, Amia is a pvp utopia. Because there are usually not large consequences for death, pvp is kind of... Well, it's whatever. Which I've complained about in the past. But, honestly? It's probably helped keep the OOC drama lower than it could've been, for pvp.

On Arelith, you die for any reason, you lose exp, possibly levels if you lose enough exp, lots of gold, you can't interact with that person for 1 RL day, and they can dispose of your corpse so you can't be raised and you HAVE to respawn. You're teleported to an afterlife area when you die so you don't see what happens to your corpse, so for all you know, you could be raised in a dungeon in the middle of nowhere and tortured by Abyssal cultists for days on end.

And then there are people who have a mark of despair or mark of destiny, and they only have 10 lives.

Period.

Even if they get raised, they can only die 10 times before they are deleted from the server automatically.

As a result of this and the slow leveling, and the weird rules they have, my only real interest is to have fun with the pvp over there. I've decided a powerful build would be a Cleric 26, Ranger 4, because Harm has, apparently, been altered.

Harm on Arelith is reportedly save vs death, but on a successful save, you are reduced to 1d4 hit points.

??????

I'm going to just Gsanc and run up to people and Harm them and laugh.

Pvp should be a lot of fun over there if I can stand to get through the grind to epic levels.

I disagree with you. There seems to be a very distorted view of Arelith here.
I personally like there being consequences for death. It makes people less, "OH BUT IF I DIE I'LL JUST BE BACK

" It's annoying to die there. It's a hassle. It's not a BIG hassle because you lose like.. 300 exp in epics? Can get that back with 5 minutes of work.
You can decline a raise. People are required to ask if they may raise you. If you give them permission to do so, it also makes the 1 day rule null and void. I think the reason for all that was due to a lot of players feeling they were being griefed. Due to how often there's 'war' rp on the server, lowbies tend to squished undertoe by the enemies their highbie friends are fighting. Then get attacked later so that they can be taken hostage or some such. I agree with the 24 hour rule, to an extent.

..Uh. I don't know where you heard about that change to harm, but it's incorrect. Harm has been majorly nerfed on arelith. It does about as much damage as a heal potion heals. So again, about 240.

MightNMagic wrote:

It takes time and energy to level there and the server is very anti-PvP. By that, I mean once you PvP someone, expect DMs to hear complaints and once they hear enough,expect banning - even if you've memorized and followed every rule.

People are babies there. If they lose pvp, they report. However, you wont get banned if you follow all the rules. I know this because I've been reported a LOT lately, due to developments pertaining to my character. Admittedly, I've been pulled into the DM room and been told, "Well try to be a bit nicer." but no ban.

AirPhforce wrote:

once per 240 seconds? give em the special. max missile storm, wait a tic, hellball, ruin. should all hit the moment ts ends. death with no save.

If you're against someone who's built well and knows how to play, this wont work. Again, I can't explain why not without actually 'showing' you. If you're willing to hop onto the test server and test it, I'd be game.

Right, aaaand.. I pull off at this point as it seems the OP has given up. Very sad, as I've (From my personal perspective. Not attacking Amia, I'm still trying it, after all!) found Arelith to be a more gritty, serious and more roleplay intensive server. From both the mechanical and interactive standpoint, I'd be willing to help anyone who wants to TRY Arelith out. Show you around the starter city (Which is not actually that much bigger than Amia's starter city. Keep in mind, you're just used to the one here :p). I can also get you involved in one or two very active groups, however you'd have to want to play an evil character for that. I've gravitated away from the good guys, finding them rather boring.
And again, I extend my offer of showing you why I do not agree with anyone's assessments of melee characters being weak there. Shoot me a private message (Or here, I suppose) and I'll send the IP address of the 'test' server. No one actually logs there, so we'll need to arrange a specific time. Shouldn't be too difficult though.
Can also help with builds that actually work on Arelith.

*Wanted to add one thing in about the spawn difficulty!*
You likely died to the first spawn you see because the server isn't meant to be solo'd. It CAN be solo'd by someone who is built optimally. Still painful to do so though. As a mage, you probably shouldn't be soloing at all until you get your elementals.
But yes. Group up. It is, after all, a roleplay server. Not World of Warcraft.

I read a good chunk of that, and I didn't read anything that comes off as attacking (maybe I didn't get to that part? xD) but thanks for the input. Some of the stuff (such as HiPS or the 20 RPR requirement on Pale Masters) I suppose, then, is inaccurate online, on some sources. I think it was the old homepage you guys have.

The server's definitely intricate and hard to get a good read on from the outside. I haven't played there in many years, since before I started on Amia. It appears a lot of things have changed, such as what is considered epic equipment (+1 to two stats, +2 to two skills, and +1 universal saves on gear isn't as bad as I thought.)

Thanks for your input on it! Maybe someone here will read it and go enjoy Arelith as well as Amia.

Arelith is immersive. Everyone there has an agenda. I love it and the builds are varied. I just ran into a Gnoll Weapon Master Barbarian that can consistently critical at level 12 for 50dmg. He has 200+ hit points while raging. Wow.

Let's make a build: Arelith

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