AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

TormakSaber wrote:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20.

I agree, wholeheartedly.

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Seconded.

That'd be fantastic.

Note to self (and other mods): split topic when the chaos begins. We're gonna need Disco for a while more, in decent shape.

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Yes, from what I saw, he got a HAK able to change weapons' properties. This should be possible now, no?

As for the tilesets, I will keep testing them Disco!

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Noo! *Sobs at loss of kukri*
Why does the kukri need to lose its crit range? It's only 1d4 AND requires an extra feat to use.

Yurell wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Noo! *Sobs at loss of kukri*
Why does the kukri need to lose its crit range? It's only 1d4 AND requires an extra feat to use.

Because if we do it for one of the big three, we have to do it for all, or people will just move on to the next one for the pure benifit of the critical range with dev. And as ridiculous as it looks now with every bodybuild ICly toting around a scrawny rapier, I can only imagine it would look worse with all of them whipping out kurkis.

That said, take heart. Two of the big three are still finessable, so they'll still be something for dexers to look at. And it's already balanced in that:

Scimitar:
Reqs only Martial(+1). Keenable(by spell)(+1). Doesn't work with Weapon finesse. (-1)

Rapier:
Reqs only martial or rogue(+1). Not keenable(by spell)(-1). Works with Weapon Finesse. (+1)

Kukri:
Reqs exotic(-1). Keenable(by spell)(+1). Works with Weapon Finesse.(+1)

At least that's my funky math on it. *shrug* I say go for it.

Dark Immolation wrote:

Yurell wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Noo! *Sobs at loss of kukri*
Why does the kukri need to lose its crit range? It's only 1d4 AND requires an extra feat to use.

Because if we do it for one of the big three, we have to do it for all, or people will just move on to the next one for the pure benifit of the critical range with dev.

Then is that not a problem with dev rather than the kukri? If the problem with a weapon isn't that weapons fault, but the fault of another feat, why should that other feat which isn't open to a lot of people not be changed instead? I admit I use kukris because that's my character's RP, chosen for their threat range on my dex build. And I can still see that they are relatively underpowered in terms of damage output (at least for mineself ... I can get better damage with other weapons easily).

Yurell wrote:

Dark Immolation wrote:

Yurell wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Terrible horrible idea designed to give Disco a hernia as his thread devolves into entropy:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Noo! *Sobs at loss of kukri*
Why does the kukri need to lose its crit range? It's only 1d4 AND requires an extra feat to use.

Because if we do it for one of the big three, we have to do it for all, or people will just move on to the next one for the pure benifit of the critical range with dev.

Then is that not a problem with dev rather than the kukri? If the problem with a weapon isn't that weapons fault, but the fault of another feat, why should that other feat which isn't open to a lot of people not be changed instead? I admit I use kukris because that's my character's RP, chosen for their threat range on my dex build. And I can still see that they are relatively underpowered in terms of damage output (at least for mineself ... I can get better damage with other weapons easily).

In order to not derail the topic, I politely suggest you go back reading the threads on this matter that we had going on December instead of restarting the debate here.

Both you and D.I.

The one in December didn't allow for dev crit to be changed, in my recollection ... if I'm wrong, I apologise and I'll head back there. Still, something like a minimum damage requirement for dev would help against the threat range.
Do you remember what the thread was called?

Here:

Re: Paladin and Blackguard Saves
http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43428

Overpowered skills and abilities
http://www.amiaworld.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=43435

How about fixing that daft light flail while your at it. 19/20 x2 rather than 20/20 x2. Its a Martial Weapon after all.

Weapon property fixes are as easy as editing the baseitems.2da, possibly THE easiest fix honestly. The only issue I could see is if the edit doesn't change the stats for every weapon already implemented into Amia. In which case that may make changes impossible. Also you'd have to add a new TLK entry for the weapons discription for every change, which could dramatically increase the size of the TLK file.

Now if anyone asks for feat fixes, or adding new weapons, then the answer is probably going to be a no, since bioware has locked the part of NWN needed to make those changes properly. Which means asking to change the Feat Dev Crit to use a minimum damage probably isn't going to work, as the actual mechanics of the feat itself are in that locked area. It would probably come down to scripting, and thats something to could have been done without a HAK file, which leads me to believe since it hasn't been done it's probably not going to be done.

I don't mind this (and splitted the topic), but what would be the reason to take rapier et al?

wouldn't it just make rapier into a shortsword? But bigger? (i.e. a 2-handed shortsword (stats wise) for small-sized characters)

Well, rapier is piercing, and ss not, I guess... but that's indeed what I am hinting at. I am not so sure about making stuff into copies of each other with a different look. I obviously have no clue about the actual (boring) numbers.

Last edited by AlphaWaves on Sat, Jan 16 2010, 8:53 AM, edited 1 time in total.

Dev Disco wrote:

Well, rapier is piercing, and ss not, I guess... but that's indeed what I am hinting at. I am not so sure about making stuff into copies of each other with a different look.

Short sword is piercing too. So, yea. Would seem rather pointless. (or pointy? it is piercing, after all)

Well, there we go.

Two Handed Piercing 1.5 STR Multiplier. The same reason people argue against doing anything for two handed weapons, because it has *insert Sarcasm*the all powerful*End sarcasm* 1.5 STR multiplier. Hin's can't use two handed weapons, which means they lack a large piercing weapon.

Thus, large piercing weapon.

Sure 18-20 is a little better than the others, but so is a x4 multiplier. A 19-20/x2 is better than a 20/x2 which is worse than a 20/x3. Why not make everything entirely the same? A greatsword has 2d6 damage, and a spear only 1d8, that's a world of difference. Why not make it 1d6 (20/x2) for every weapon?

Because it's boring, that's why. I say just leave it. So someone wants a big crit range and Dev Crit on top, so what? If he takes Rapier, you can always laugh at him for being a hulk with a toothpick. This is IMO the kind of nerfing that is entirely unnecessary. Just because you can, you don't have to. Quite the opposite. You should try to maintain a varied game, and nerfing always tries to make everything more alike.

Furthermore, Kukri, Rapier and Scimitar are not the only weapons being used by players. Players use all the different kinds of weapons, even crummy ones, and that alone should tell you that this nerf is not needed.

Dev Disco wrote:

Well, rapier is piercing, and ss not, I guess... but that's indeed what I am hinting at. I am not so sure about making stuff into copies of each other with a different look. I obviously have no clue about the actual (boring) numbers.

Well, I don't know if it's a bad thing really. Now people mostly just use the same few weapon models and we got a whole lot more mostly redundant weapon models in the module, for the 1% of players that is ready to sacrifice some damage to get a cool weapon to suit their character.

Put the high-crit range weapons on the same level with the poor pariah short swords, flails and such and then people can just pick the looks that suit their character without a race for the highest numbers. They can get their numbers from elsewhere, still.

xordae wrote:

Furthermore, Kukri, Rapier and Scimitar are not the only weapons being used by players. Players use all the different kinds of weapons, even crummy ones, and that alone should tell you that this nerf is not needed.

Nopes, they're not the only weapons, but characters with weapons outside the high-crit range are quite a minority. They're sometimes a vocal minority, but still a minority if you look into people's inventories...

I have to be honest. I want the change for purely selfish reasons. I simply HATE, DISPISE and am completely DISGUSTED, at the idea of a kurki, rapier or scim some how having a better chance at causing instant death of someone then a weapon I sacrafice a hell of a lot of AC for, does more damage, and is ten times the size of those other weapons. It grinds my gears on so many bloody levels, and seem's completely and utterly unfair, given the sacrafices two handed weapon adventurers have to make over those who use the "Triple Turdflingers Delight" range of weapons.

As a guy who has a two handed using character, I feel like it's really crappy.

Sounds to me like the gripe is with Dev Crit and not with weapons. Why not change Dev Crit to work differently? Independent from crit range, for example, just an added fort save vs death on a high roll, range to be determined?

I believe that is the reason for changing the weapons. Because it won't be poss-scratch that, it will never be possible, to edit dev crit properly, as that area of NWN is locked, even with HAKS. So the next best step is to hit the weapons causing the issue. If there was a possability of changing dev crit in the future, then I'd have no issue with going the route of Dev Criting over 100 damage or what not. But it's simply not going to be possible by editing any files or the feat itself.

I won't say anything about scripting, as I have no idea if it is possible there, though I doubt it would be without making the feat a widget or something. Which is something I know was suggested and the vast majority of both sides of the argument disagreed with.

I have added a fake feat for Dev Crit and HiPS. Not sure what I will do with those but it opens a road towards killing Dev Crit itself with LETO and swapping it with a scripted feat that could give you some hefty weapon buff or whatever.

TormakSaber wrote:

Change the crit range on rapiers, scimitars, and kukris to 19-20. Do nothing else.

Why? Is this another, "Everybody only uses one weapon so it must be nerfed?"

There is a reason that the rapier in particular reigned in europe before the widescale use of gunpowder. It's ability to defeat armor and inflict leathal injury. The threat range reflects the weapons ability to bypass armor or penetrate to the vital organs, something that neither a mace nor a longsword could do.

The shortsword had a much longer reign of being a leathal close combat weapon as used by both the Greeks and later the Romans to great effect. Both were leathal in the same way, penetration of the vital organs. Neither had much chance of defeating most armors of the day.

A better solution perhaps would be to alter the way DevCrit works in realation to the weapon used, instead of getting nerf happy with a disliked category of weapons. So where is the balance, other than making all the weapons more and more similar as to be generally the same except for visual purposes?

In my own PnP campaigns I don't allow total damage to be multiplied like Bioware does. Only the actual weapons damage is multiplied, so a rapier would only multiply it's 1D6 damage, then all other modifiers are added. Perhaps this would solve the problem as well? Is there a HAK that would do this?

Dev Disco wrote:

I have added a fake feat for Dev Crit and HiPS. Not sure what I will do with those but it opens a road towards killing Dev Crit itself with LETO and swapping it with a scripted feat that could give you some hefty weapon buff or whatever.

I think that's the answer to this little debate right there.

Shortsword is small, ergo, usable in off-hand (or one-handed for small stature). Rapier is finessable but medium. This would make the rapier actually worse than the short sword. Scimitar even moreso.

Let's face it, they are the two coolest swords in game!

I think it's unnecessary, and would rather modify Dev Crit so that its boons are smaller for such puny weapons.

Nekhy wrote:

xordae wrote:

Furthermore, Kukri, Rapier and Scimitar are not the only weapons being used by players. Players use all the different kinds of weapons, even crummy ones, and that alone should tell you that this nerf is not needed.

Nopes, they're not the only weapons, but characters with weapons outside the high-crit range are quite a minority. They're sometimes a vocal minority, but still a minority if you look into people's inventories...

I can state with certainty that i got lucky in getting a WF Light Flail quite early because no one uses them. Light Flails -suck-. 1d8 bludgeoning x2 versus the dual damage of the morningstar, or the uber supported undead bashing maces which are light weapons and can be dual wielded? Its literally the worst weapon in Amias module bar none. Even clubs are better supported.

I had to change to Scimitar during a rebuild to compete with other characters which meant giving up Taurs dieties favoured weapon. I should have gone longsword but aesthetically the Scimitar looks more like a Khopesh.

I'd prefer fixes to the crap weapons (Tridents, Light Flails etc) than fixing the Dev favoured weapons.

MoshingChris wrote:

I'd prefer fixes to the crap weapons (Tridents, Light Flails etc) than fixing the Dev favoured weapons.

No reason the two are mutually exclusive.

The base average damage of a kukri is 2.5.

Let's say you hit with a roll of 11, and miss at any lower. And str bonus = 0;

your average damage could be represented like this:

Roll - avg damage
1 - 0
2 - 0
3 - 0
4 - 0
5 - 0
6 - 0
7 - 0
8 - 0
9 - 0
0 - 0
11 - 2.5
12 - 2.5
13 - 2.5
14 - 2.5
15 - 2.5
16 - 2.5
17 - 2.5
18 - 5 or 2.5 (50% each way in this case)
19 - same as above
20 - same as above

11 -> 17 totals at 17.5
18 -> 20 is a little more tricky. It's (15 + 7.5) / 2 = 11.25

That's a total of 28.75. Divide by 20 for an average = 1.4375 damage per attack.

Here's the same mathematics for a longsword:

average damage = 4.5

1 -> 10 = miss.
11 -> 18 = 4.5 each. (4.5 x 8 = 36)
19 -> 20 = 9 each (9 x 2 = 18 ) on a crit, 4.5 otherwise (4.5 x 2 = 9)

Total average: [36 + (18 + 9)/2] / 20 = 2.225

A large difference compared to a kukri.

The crit range is to help compensate. If you lower the crit range, it's just a dagger for the price of a whole feat.

But damage isn't really the concern of the OP, I think. I would only assume it's because of Dev-Crit.

I hate dev crit with a passion. I've been at the gib-point of a Dev-Crit on a few occasions, but that has only made me play differently, and in a good way.

I'm reminded of the sportsman logic -vs- gamer logic.
Sportsman: Oh, you always beat me with that move with the knight combined with the flanking rook. I should stop falling for that.
Gamer: Argh you always get me with that dragonpunch-fireball combo! You should stop doing that.

I really don't think they need any change at all. And that's coming from someone who hates Dev-crit and all it stands for!

I'm against dev crit being converted into a nifty buff, as it still leaves the problem of those three swords getting it more so then other weapons which seem to make more sense, espically those that require a hefty sacrafice to use.

I'd suggest making dev crit only work if it does over a certain amount of damage on a crit, if possible. I don't think dev crit itself needs changing, just how it works. Otherwise it's those weapons that will need the changing.

Base weapon damage is balanced, I think.. its when you start adding str mods, and cleric buffs, and stuff where they really pull away..

Can you do those averages for the average amian Greater magical weapon with Imp Crit + Keen, and Imp Crit + Keen + WM crit with and see what it spits out?

+4 enhance
1d6 elemental (3 avg)
keen
+1d8 mass crits (4 avg)
Divine Might +10
Divine favor +5
Prayer +1
Battletide +2

and:
+13 str mod (For WM calculations only, removing cleric stuff)

Selvec Darkon wrote:

I'm against dev crit being converted into a nifty buff, as it still leaves the problem of those three swords getting it more so then other weapons which seem to make more sense, espically those that require a hefty sacrafice to use.

I'd suggest making dev crit only work if it does over a certain amount of damage on a crit, if possible. I don't think dev crit itself needs changing, just how it works. Otherwise it's those weapons that will need the changing.

Can't be done. You can't even detect if you made a crit.

I can understand nerfing the scim to avoid dev crits, but the problems with nerfing the rapier in particular is that you remove the possibility to make finesse fencers. The only reason for a dexer to pick the rapier is the crit range, nothing else, and on dexers, the crit range isnt exactly a problem. Taking away the 18-20 will make the rapier defacto useless as you are much better off with a shortsword which is smaller, and can thus be dualwielded.

As many others have pointed out, the problem here is rather dev-crit, not the crit range of those weapons.

Any chance of making it activate on any it that does over 'x' damage?

Not really. It's very hard to do anything with weapons beyond buffs.

Dev Crit doesn't need a change.

If anything, the 18-20 crit range weapons do. Because they're the primary offenders.

Tormak got it right in the OP.

And no offense, Disco, but the balance aspects isn't your ballpark.

Never said they were? I just said that I don't fancy one weapon becoming a copy of another one. The numbers mean nothing to me.

How about changing Rapier to d8? If you dont want it to be same as Shortsword.

Mr Mago wrote:

If anything, the 18-20 crit range weapons do. Because they're the primary offenders.

May I ask what is wrong with 18-20 weapons beyond dev crit?

-Cloak-and-Dagger- wrote:

How about changing Rapier to d8? If you dont want it to be same as Shortsword.

And scimitar?

Yurell wrote:

Mr Mago wrote:

If anything, the 18-20 crit range weapons do. Because they're the primary offenders.

May I ask what is wrong with 18-20 weapons beyond dev crit?

Thanks to Bioware dicerolls, they have a significantly higher damage output than any other weapon.

It's just not very balanced.

Always seemed silly to me that they're lower damage, but whatever.

How do the bioware dice work? What is the respective probability of the rolls?

I need someone to explain to me why a Longsword WM with a 13-20 range is dandy, but a Rapier WM with a 10-20 range is terrible and worthy of a nerf? The high rolls are the ones who hit mostly, anyways. If your opponent has decent AC you won't hit him on a 10, 11 or 12.

The only reason people complain about crit range is because of Dev Crit. In terms of damage output in general, Kukri, Rapier and Scimitar are 1d4,1d6,1d6 and they all have a x2 multiplier. That is WEAK. Balance isn't my ballpark either, but that much occured to me.

There's one thing you're really good at, Yurell, and that is to ask questions when questions don't need to be asked.

But I'll give you an answer, either way:

- Go in game, Yurell, make a WM using a rapier, and you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Seems a sensible question to me?

xordae wrote:

I need someone to explain to me why a Longsword WM with a 13-20 range is dandy, but a Rapier WM with a 10-20 range is terrible and worthy of a nerf? The high rolls are the ones who hit mostly, anyways. If your opponent has decent AC you won't hit him on a 10, 11 or 12.

The only reason people complain about crit range is because of Dev Crit. In terms of damage output in general, Kukri, Rapier and Scimitar are 1d4,1d6,1d6 and they all have a x2 multiplier. That is WEAK. Balance isn't my ballpark either, but that much occured to me.

WM easily gets 54 AB. The 10 attack roll will hit.

A WM dual-wielding kukris is just disturbing to watch. I believe one guy told me of when he got 25 crits in a row with his WM. Rapier-wielder.

The 18-20 weapons are the overall greatest damage dealers when you spread it out over several rounds.

Dev Crit is part of it, of course. More chances of an insta-kill.

The weapon base damage only really makes a difference to dex'ers and weapons with x3 base crit mod (or higher).

Decrease rapier etc crit range

Who is online