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I'm still pretty new to Amia, and I've stayed away from investing in this feat because I'm unsure on it's usefulness on Amia. Is there enough content at 27+ levels to justify the expense in feats and stats, or is it more of a PvP thing? Just curious...I don't have a character in epic levels yet, so I have plenty of time to make adjustments.

For now it's still the same as it used to be. Although I hear scary rumours about it going to get nerfed to some sissy thing with no insta death capabilities.

Time for a mole hunt.

Herra Tutteri wrote:

For now it's still the same as it used to be. Although I hear scary rumours about it going to get nerfed to some sissy thing with no insta death capabilities.

Booyah! Yeaaah! *dances merry all around*

you want my honest opinion of dev crit? I can't say it here without being bleeped.

if you lack the fort save, you die, end of story, end of duel, end of rp. boring, build for damage not dev. combined is overkill but also doable.

I also play on an action server that gives +1 threat range for Overwhelming Crit and +1 multiplier for Dev Crit, and NO insta-kill...which seems like the best option I've seen. I figured this question would spark some debate. :twisted:

The debate is unnecessary because it is being discussed behind the curtains.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

I know when a topic has been dismissed; I'm married.

*slinks off to troll the other topics*

Its been a long time coming, but I know a change is gonna come. Then I go to my brother and I say brother help me please. But he ends up knocking me back down on my knees.

You should ask such questions in the build thread.

*makes note of the use of the word troll in this thread, decides to thusly ignore the rest.*

Kettle wrote:

"Pot, thou art blackest of black, sayeth I."

Vaul Tarrith wrote:

I'm still pretty new to Amia, and I've stayed away from investing in this feat because I'm unsure on it's usefulness on Amia. Is there enough content at 27+ levels to justify the expense in feats and stats, or is it more of a PvP thing? Just curious...I don't have a character in epic levels yet, so I have plenty of time to make adjustments.

It's a good feat worth investing in. If you decide to stick around with your character even after he reaches level 30, both PvM and PvP, you'd probably better off taking the feat than not. That depends on what you're giving up though, but if you can take the feat without much trouble, I'd say go for it.

Yep in my opinion you should get it, and if its nerfed it will probably still have a use here and there.

Take feats and skills that fit your RP.

My personal opinion on Dev Crit, after having built with it and used it rather extensivey, is this: there are certain builds in which Dev Crit is great, and certain ones where forcing the feats out to get it hurt the class more than they help it.

-Fighter-heavy builds / CoT-heavy builds can typically work out getting Dev Crit without losing precious other feats.

-Blackguards and Bards are good for Dev Crit due to the nature of their abilities - Aura of Despair and Curse Song. They assist Dev Crit greatly.

-If you use a x3 or x4 weapon, you don't really need Dev Crit in my opinion.

-If you have to choose between Dev Crit and +2 AC, +1 AB, and +10 Discipline.. I'd choose the latter, personally.

It is being nerfed and it will still be useful post nerf.

Yarp. Don't sell your Fort gearset, folks.

DON'T LISTEN TO THEM! SELL YOUR FORT GEAR... NOW!

[quote="Swallow the Stars"]
-If you use a x3 or x4 weapon, you don't really need Dev Crit in my opinion. [quote]

Dev crit is good even on a x3 or x4 weapon. Big dmg or instant death. The chance of instant death is just too good to pass up, esp PVP.

Blackdragon12121 wrote:

Swallow the Stars wrote:

-If you use a x3 or x4 weapon, you don't really need Dev Crit in my opinion.

Dev crit is good even on a x3 or x4 weapon. Big dmg or instant death. The chance of instant death is just too good to pass up, esp PVP.

While you're right, having both is great, I think that Dev Crit isn't something that every strength build should have / shoot for, which has tended to be the case. Sometimes churning out consistent damage is much more effective than forcing a 1 on someone.

Ok its my fault. I shouldnt have said 'or' in that sentence. Big damage alone is great but the chance of instant death is too good to pass up.
Strength builds shoot for dev crit because quite frankly, in addition to the feat's awesome pwnage (it IS just THAT good PVM and PVP, despite what anyone says), there are no other epic feats to take really.

It's true. Dev isn't particularly necessary in PvM, but most straightforward Strength builds just don't have anything else to take. If you want to specialize in something cool, of course, you'll do just fine without it.

Go Barbarian.

Plenty of other stuff to grab that make you awesome, and you can still melee better then most meleers.

From my own personal experience, it depends on what you're hunting.

Dev crit isn't that great against other fighter builds, especially heavy ones. They tend to have high enough fort saves to the point of killing the PC with raw damage before they ever fail a fort save (depending on how much damage you do/what weapon you wield).

On the other hand, they are excellent mage killers. 50% miss chance with 30 DR suddenly doesn't feel so invincable when all they need to do his crit you....and it goes past all that. As I recall, spells like Death Ward and Shadow Shield do not protect againt Dev Crit. It gives mages, even fully buffed, a reason to stay away from the warrior types...

Jyro X wrote:

Take feats and skills that fit your RP.

This!

I enjoy dev crit on my character who's backstory and RP makes it believeable. I don't have it on every character due to their backstories and RP.

I can tell you that it can make RP after PVP a bummer, I prefer just knocking out the opponant but if they are dev critted, its rather difficult to say "Oh heres your head back, you're just knocked out. *puts head next to neck with a pat*"

Fierene Havenstar wrote:

I can tell you that it can make RP after PVP a bummer, I prefer just knocking out the opponant but if they are dev critted, its rather difficult to say "Oh heres your head back, you're just knocked out. *puts head next to neck with a pat*"

Not necessarily. If you're strong and skilled enough to kill someone with a single blow, you're probably strong and skilled enough to knock them out with a single blow. Explaining subdual Sneak Attacks, spells or arrow fire is much more awkward, I imagine.

IronAngel wrote:

Fierene Havenstar wrote:

I can tell you that it can make RP after PVP a bummer, I prefer just knocking out the opponant but if they are dev critted, its rather difficult to say "Oh heres your head back, you're just knocked out. *puts head next to neck with a pat*"

Not necessarily. If you're strong and skilled enough to kill someone with a single blow, you're probably strong and skilled enough to knock them out with a single blow. Explaining subdual Sneak Attacks, spells or arrow fire is much more awkward, I imagine.

Anyone who's seen the Green Mile has a good case in point (although Subdual sneak attacks I disagree Iron we aren't going there).

There's a sequence, where the protagonist and his crew are bringing in a new prisoner who had been pretending to be under the effects of drugs. Unfortunately, he decided to go nuts and basically it got into a melee

At one point, the prisonerh ad a guard by gunpoint, the main character and one of the more antagonistic of the story were in a standoff before a third guy shook off being stunned, took his club and hit the prisoner over the head once.

Boom! Thud. Tango Down.

I became such a happier roleplayer when I learned to blackbox the way DnD/NWN handles damage. It's never going to make sense because hitpoints and AC have almost no resemblence to the real world act of damaging a biological organism.

Engine says you're dead? You're dead. Engine says you're KO'd? You're KO'd.

Think about it less, roleplay about it more.

It's worse in PnP, when a giant's stomp does precisely 6d6 damage, reflex save for half.

But you were STEPPED ON.

Ah the joys of funny mechanics.

Snape75 wrote:

From my own personal experience, it depends on what you're hunting.

Dev crit isn't that great against other fighter builds, especially heavy ones. They tend to have high enough fort saves to the point of killing the PC with raw damage before they ever fail a fort save (depending on how much damage you do/what weapon you wield).

On the other hand, they are excellent mage killers. 50% miss chance with 30 DR suddenly doesn't feel so invincable when all they need to do his crit you....and it goes past all that. As I recall, spells like Death Ward and Shadow Shield do not protect againt Dev Crit. It gives mages, even fully buffed, a reason to stay away from the warrior types...

My lvl 26 Wizard has 38 Fort.

For those concerned about dev being nerfed into unuseability, don't worry. It'll no longer be a definite boom-you're-dead shot on a failed save, yes. But can you survive the OMGWTFBBQ amount of regular damage it'll do instead? That's the real question.

The answer is, NO. :twisted:

Lally wrote:

The answer is, NO. :twisted:

unless you have alot of heal potions

They're being looked at too, are they not?

Fierene Havenstar wrote:

I can tell you that it can make RP after PVP a bummer, I prefer just knocking out the opponant but if they are dev critted, its rather difficult to say "Oh heres your head back, you're just knocked out. *puts head next to neck with a pat*"

That!

In PvP, it's the winners choice whether they killed or only incapacitated their opponent. If the win was done via Dev Crit, then they could RP it as a very well placed blow to the head that sent the mighty {insert opponent class here} to their knees unconscious.... or it very well could have sent the opponent's head rolling down the hill like a over-ripe melon. Point being, it's the winner's choice. If your character gets smacked with a Dev Crit, wait and see what the other player decides to do. I've had some really great RP out of getting Dev'd and the winner saying that I was only KO'd.

Dev Crit falls into this lovely category that I like to call the "I don't wanna! *cry*" category. It's quite simple to build a gear set that makes Dev Crit all but useless unless the random number generator really hates you on that particular day. Yet, people don't want to give up the slots in their gear set to get their Fort that high. Maybe they want more Dex for more AC.. more Str for more AB and damage... more whatever else you want to pick. The point being that it's the Have Your Cake And Eat It Too phenomenon, which I find ridiculous, to be honest.

Enough rant, though. Back to the OP. Dev Crit is a fabulous tool, it won't work all the time in PvM, seeing as how the critters were created with Dev Crit in mind, but when it does, you'll be happy. PvP, sometimes you'll go against people with Fort gear... sometimes you won't. It's the same as PvM, if you get it.... scream with joy... but don't be surprised if you don't.

My Sovereign wrote:

Fierene Havenstar wrote:

I can tell you that it can make RP after PVP a bummer, I prefer just knocking out the opponant but if they are dev critted, its rather difficult to say "Oh heres your head back, you're just knocked out. *puts head next to neck with a pat*"

That!

Actually, not entirely true. Example. If you hit someone really hard with your fist on a particular spot near the tip of your eye, you will knock them out. It's called a flash knockout or something. It's because of a particular nerve there and blah blah. Same in boxing how if you clip the eye you can sometimes knock someone out, even though you barely touched them.

So with dev crit, I personally just say I smacked them in the head with the pommel of my blade or the shaft of the shaff, or something else really blunt and painful. It's a devestating critical right. Doesn't say the critical is death or dismembership, just that you did critical damage. So critical knockout.

The winner in PvP decides the condition but some situations don't really make sense. Really depends what weapon and what type of character does the damage.

I'd raise my eyebrows when this is RPed as some knockout or pommel hit:

*Devcrit Joe with 40STR swings his greatsword and cleaves Jerry No-Fort in half with 450 damage*

Now *Devcrit Nutkicker the Hin swings his nasty kukri and does stab stab stab* can be RPed as hitting a vital sport or whatever.

People are too afraid to hurt the other players feelings by saying "sorry, you're dead". Like Uce said, when the engine says you're dead, RP it, regardless of PvP or PvM.

MAN UP!

I like how feats like Dev Crit are argued as if they are representations of any sort of reality. Dev Crit is actually a reasonable feat to have, making it only available to high strength figthers is not.

First of all, hit points are an abstraction of a characters experience in battle, not actual physical hardiness. When you examine two fighters with the same constitution, one with 14HP, and the other with 140HP. The more skilled fighter with 140HP is not 10 times bigger than the one with 14HP, they are physically the same. It stands to reason that without other factors, the same number of whacks with a longsword will easily kill both. However, hit points represent the ability to deflect, avoid, and manage being damaged, not actually absorbing damage.

This is where WYSIWYG falls through, you see a bunch of numbers rolling up over someones head and assume they are taking damage. In an abstract mechanic like D&D and NWN, it's the roll of hit points is to represent a skilled combatant being worn down untill the killing blow can be delivered. It takes a lot less time to wear down a 1st level character than a level 30 no matter the class. In this light, one precice strike, reguardless of ones arbitrary skill and subject only to their inate physical toughness, killing instantly, is perfectly reasonable.

Why there is no equivilant avenue to dex builds and classes is strange though. It seems the Assassin should have at least a chance at something similar to Dev Crit, precision over raw power.

As for Dev Crit being able to 'knock out' a foe, it's totally reasonable. Just remember, Dev Crit doesn't do any damage at all, it just punches through all your defenses. As such it's not unreasonable to have it be the knock out blow as well in the fight.

Bravo21 wrote:

First of all, hit points are an abstraction of a characters experience in battle, not actual physical hardiness. When you examine two fighters with the same constitution, one with 14HP, and the other with 140HP. The more skilled fighter with 140HP is not 10 times bigger than the one with 14HP, they are physically the same. It stands to reason that without other factors, the same number of whacks with a longsword will easily kill both. However, hit points represent the ability to deflect, avoid, and manage being damaged, not actually absorbing damage.

XP is the abstraction of experience in battle. AC is the ability to deflect. Weapons have a certain range of damage points they make, and thats what HP is about: a measurement of how many whacks of a weapon (or a spell) you can suck up before you drop dead. HP is essentially how tough you are. There's even a feat named that way.

Thats why a dragon in PnP has something like 400 HP and the poor level 5 fighter has 60 hp. The dragon is simply tougher and can absorb more whacks of the fighters sword or whatever. 20 years ago, DnD wasn't designed for an online playing game and thats why we have that odd numbers.

Bravo21 wrote:

As for Dev Crit being able to 'knock out' a foe, it's totally reasonable. Just remember, Dev Crit doesn't do any damage at all, it just punches through all your defenses. As such it's not unreasonable to have it be the knock out blow as well in the fight.

In order to 'punch through your defenses', you have to overcome AC first. Devcrit literally is a swing so devastating, this critial hit kills you ON THE SPOT if you don't make your fort save. Another measurement of how-tough-are-you.

NWNwiki about devcrit wrote:

Specifics: Whenever scoring a critical hit with the chosen weapon, the character's target must make a fortitude save or die instantly.

Thats the mechanics behind it and they are set in stone, until the change comes in. What you make of them RP-wise, is another cup of tea.

Quote:

It seems the Assassin should have at least a chance at something similar to Dev Crit, precision over raw power.

It's called "Death Attack."

Real world example, but bear with me.

In his prime, Mike Tyson could punch hard enough to literally crush your face. That's how hard he could hit. This is not to say that he hit that hard all the time. In NWN, our characters swing as hard as they can every single time. We can't press a button and turn of Dev Crit so we only take the person down to zero HP. It would be ridiculous to think that someone would be so sloppy as to chop someone in half when they're only trying to disarm and incapacitate them. It could make for interesting RP, yes.... but saying that one should abide by the game engine in all cases with Dev Crit is rather silly.

Hendrack: Bravo's view is more viable than yours. Anyone can be killed with one thrust of a dagger or one swing of a blade. If you understood HP as pure resilience to direct hits, you couldn't reconcile this with any shred of common sense. A knife to the eye or a sword to the throat will kill you, no matter how much HP you have. This goes for dragons, too: if you damage its vital organs, like spearing their brain, they die. No matter their HP. So therefore, HP means their ability not to get hit in vital spots. Of course, when it comes to dragons they can take more hits because those hits are relatively insignifigant compared to their size. But nonetheless, two dragons of the same size and different HP (level) would die to a spear in the brain identically.

It's clear this is not what the rules say, you're right there. But it's also clear you fail if you try to RP all the mechanics.

ainjyll wrote:

Real world example, but bear with me.

In his prime, Mike Tyson could punch hard enough to literally crush your face. That's how hard he could hit. This is not to say that he hit that hard all the time. In NWN, our characters swing as hard as they can every single time. We can't press a button and turn of Dev Crit so we only take the person down to zero HP. It would be ridiculous to think that someone would be so sloppy as to chop someone in half when they're only trying to disarm and incapacitate them. It could make for interesting RP, yes.... but saying that one should abide by the game engine in all cases with Dev Crit is rather silly.

Just swap to a different weapon if you don't want to dev crit anyonre

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

It seems the Assassin should have at least a chance at something similar to Dev Crit, precision over raw power.

It's called "Death Attack."

Yes it is, however a "Death Attack" that causes paralysis is not actually death-like at all...

Bravo21 wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

It seems the Assassin should have at least a chance at something similar to Dev Crit, precision over raw power.

It's called "Death Attack."

Yes it is, however a "Death Attack" that causes paralysis is not actually death-like at all...

Landing a death attack and beating fort DC means the target is basically dead, since you can continue to rain sneaks on his paralyzed ass until the cows come home.

Instead of seeing Hp as resilence to hits, see it as the ability to withstand or get out of the way of a blow once it got past your active defense.

A dev crit is then just a lucky hit that gets you in one blow.

I find the viewpoints in this thread about HP a bit ... weird. Of course its more feasable if you interpret this or that for the sake of RP, but this is a fantasy game and logic does not apply. The best RP can come out of death situations and I am curious why it is being avoided at such great lengths on this server, for player's egos?

Bravo21 wrote:

TormakSaber wrote:

Quote:

It seems the Assassin should have at least a chance at something similar to Dev Crit, precision over raw power.

It's called "Death Attack."

Yes it is, however a "Death Attack" that causes paralysis is not actually death-like at all...

*handwave* You are aware that there's changes coming.

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