AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic

Last edited by Xanrick on Wed, Sep 29 2010, 22:59 PM, edited 2 times in total.

Well the classic bioware version didn't merge anything more than shield, helm and armor, it seems as though what items merge with what shapes was not touched (for the most part) in the shifter update.

If I recall correctly, there had been plans to allow full merging for most shapes, but some senior dev nixed the idea on the grounds of it being too large a change at once that could lead to unbalanced play. Though, to be honest, it seems unlikely to cause problems, unless you were also to permit item effects to stack. A major part of what balances shifters if their reliance on potions and other buffs to attempt to fill out their stat bonuses.

It's worth noting too that currently it seems that the vampire shape isn't merging accessories either, which is actually a downgrade from the bioware merges.
Just retested, didn't get the full merge due to empty weapon slot, so no problem here.

As for the manticore, there aren't really a lot of situations where it'll be useful. Anytime you have a party large enough to make ranged attacking more practical than melee, you'd be far better off using some form with an AoE attack, just about anything will do more damage than spamming spines.

A couple of spell abilities might flesh out the shape. My idea might be to give it spike growth, (an already sadly underused spell) which would fit the flavor pretty well, and support it in it's role as a ranged attacker, slowing incoming creatures. Note also, that it has a spell resistance check, so if you keep the caster level low, even a trivial amount of SR will keep it from being effective when spammed.

Another might be monstrous regeneration, nice little regen bonus that could be cast on party members, balanced by the fact it's duration is quite short (1 round/ 2 caster levels) and that fact it can't be stacked. These two spells would improve the manticore a bit, and make it better as a support shape.

After thinking about it for quite awhile, I've got a few other ideas to help out some under-used shapes, but I'm wondering if there are any plans to do more tweaking on shifters? Or have we worn out the devs' patience with all of our whining? I hope not, ha ha.

Xanrick wrote:

It's worth noting too that currently it seems that the vampire shape isn't merging accessories either, which is actually a downgrade from the bioware merges.

my ring merged just fine in vampire form I tested it all of 3sec ago.

did you have a open slot, like missing a shield,armor something like that when it did not merg?

Yep good call, it happened because I had a slot open, oops, just confirmed it in game. Heh, I should have remembered, I noticed other stuff wouldn't merge unless you had a weapon equipped when I was first playing around with the new merging system.

Basilisk doesnt merge rings or boots, even with a weapon equipped

As for the manticore i personally would have gone the way with dire tiger and made it a meleer. The spikes also could have been improved to give it ranged game. The medusa is already there to fit the role of range with archery back up with gaze attacks. I probably would have given the medusa's arrows a decent on hit poison too.

Making the manticore a meleer would overlap a bit with drider, though I suppose that could be the more defensive form with higher ac and SR. Though, with 30-32 ac you ain't gonna be tanking much for too long by the time you get it.

Jack O'Bannon wrote:

I really like the spectre form but i find it really disturbing that the boots, belt, gloves, cloak, ring, amulet slots do not merge here. This makes the form not nescerarily bad but you need unique equipment just for this one form, which makes it unflexible to use.

I agree. The Kobold form is, in many respects, better than it because of this.

the lack of merging to forms can be a massive turn off to using them, spectre being undead and lacking the extra 6 slots that vampire and risenlord have hurt it alot because they need to stack regen because of being unable to use heal potions.

but just the plain fact of 6 slots mean alot to anyclass so any form not merging them hurts.

as for them being done I dont think they are, I belive the Hak lets them throw feats onto forms that could not be done befor and they might do something to that effect.

Also, I just noticed something. In Vampire form, I have a +10 strength bonus. I also only have a +10 damage bonus, even though the shape gives you the Weapon Spec. Unarmed feat..

wereguy2 wrote:

Also, I just noticed something. In Vampire form, I have a +10 strength bonus. I also only have a +10 damage bonus, even though the shape gives you the Weapon Spec. Unarmed feat..

Pretty sure if it's 'weapon spec: unarmed' and not 'weapon spec: creature' then it won't work with unarmed shifter forms. Same for weapon focus: unarmed. Mysteriously imp crit unarmed does work though.

The pain of losing all the accessory slots is pretty bad, so much so I don't really bother with any of the shapes that don't merge them. Pretty much every shape ought to merge them, except for maybe the dragon.

As far as I'm concerned every shape should merge eveything, yes.

Re: Wep Spec: At the time the shapes were made, we didn't have access to the hak things. Now that we do, I'm pretty sure creature weapon feats can be added.

Isaiah wrote:

Does natural spell resistance that drow and svirfneblin get cross over into shifted forms? I'm not sure because your race changes and it's not a feat, it's a racial characteristic.

it does move over a Svirfneblin in red wyrmling form (5druid,1shifter) had 17 SR in form.

corypx wrote:

Isaiah wrote:

Does natural spell resistance that drow and svirfneblin get cross over into shifted forms? I'm not sure because your race changes and it's not a feat, it's a racial characteristic.

it does move over a Svirfneblin in red wyrmling form (5druid,1shifter) had 17 SR in form.

... What level was this shifter?

5 druid 1 shifter. LEvel 6. Please read.

Hindsight ><

So, I have a question not really about the shifter forms, but about its skillset. It has a hide skill, but no move silently. I thought hide and move silently were nessecary to the function of each other as stealth mode is a combination of either made versus spot/listen. I was just curious wether or not that is fixable for amia specifically, even though its a bioware issue.

That's rather od. I've no issue with that being fixed. It'd be a hak thing though.

So Shifter's will be able to take points in Move Silently without it being a cross-class skill?

Tat is not entirely up to me to determine.

Shifters do not normally get the skill in PnP. The idea is that they blend in with their surroundings... or something like that.

It's because Hide and Move Silently are two very different skills. Many natural animals are difficult to spot due to thier coloring or shape, yet do not move about quietly at all. Take the wild hog for example, it blends in very well and is hard to spot, but when active makes a lot of noise and can often be heard a ways off.

The shifter class is set up in a similar fashion, most animal shapes have increased hide to represent their ability to be still or camoflauge within their enviroment. And only have an increase to Move Silently to represent animals and creatures that actually can move with less noise. A shifter is not a rouge and does not nessicarily practice the art of steath, being the practice of being less noticed and actively not making noise. Which of course is the reason one might take a level of rouge, to represent actual training and theory of stealth and apply it.

My rebuttal:

Even Wizards of the Coast thought splitting hide/MS and spot/listen into two skill sets was silly and so 4e has 2 skills, not 4: Stealth, and Perception. No one takes hide without move silent.

I have a couple of shifter questions for Tormak (or another DM that would know)...

I made a shifter to specialize in the lizardman form. I noticed in the shifter spreadsheet (viewtopic.php?f=2&t=56697) that the lizardman form gets +4 wisdom, and gets spell focus: evocation. I had assumed that the DC on my hammer, for instance, would be 10 + 4 (4th level spell) + wisdom modifier + spell focuses. I guess that was wrong, it seems to be 10 + 1/2 shifter level + wisdom. However, it doesn't take into account the bonus spell focus granted by the lizard form, or the Greater Spell Focus: Evocation that i have.

I assume that the Spell Focus SHOULD add to the DC, and then logically greater and epic spell focuses should as well. So, i'm just looking for a little clarity on that... is it not working as intended, or is that a bug?

Also, with regards to the +4 wisdom, it seems to overwrite any wisdom bonuses that are merged from my equipment. For instance when i had a +2 wisdom amulet, and shifted into a lizard, i'd only get a +2 wisdom bonus for the shape. Now that i have a +4 amulet, a +1 helm, and +1 bracers, i actually get -2 to my wisdom when i shift into lizardman. I would guess that's not 'as intended' as well.

Anyways, i'm not trying to be critical, you've done a great job with the shifter forms. I'm just wondering if i can get some clarification, or potentially report some bugs here.

Thanks!!
Uber.

Wisdom is merging fine for me, I get both item and shape bonuses.
I'm getting 32 DC with Lizardfolk shape, which is right: 10 + 7 (Fire Storm) + 13 (36 Wisdom) + 2 (Focus).
Keep in mind that only one item ability bonus merges - the highest. Your +4, +1, +1 loadout only merges the +4 items and the other two are wasted, as per the Bioware merging scripts. You should be getting +8 overall there, with the pre-epic Lizardman +4.

Thanks wereguy,

One question, how many shifter levels do you have? If you have 18 or 19, then i think your DC is actually being calculated as 10 + 9 (1/2 shifter levels) + 13 (wisdom) = 32

Same number, different calculation.

In my case, my hammer has a DC of 24, which is 10 + 5 (1/2 shifter levels) + 9 wisdom. I believe it should be 27, as calculated by 10 + 4 (spell level) + 4 (focus, greater focus) + 9 wisdom

So, the difference is only going to be 3 or 4, but i think we know that can make the world of difference in terms of effectiveness.

for example when i'm epic, that firestorm would be DC 10 + 7 (spell level) + 13 wisdom + 6 (epic spell focus) = 36, but i believe the way it's being calculated will be 10 + 9 (1/2 shifter levels) + 13 wisdom = 32, the same as yours, despite me taking 3 feats which in theory should be improving that DC.

Good point. Either way, I advise against going for epic magic feats. Anyone with 25 or so SR would be more or less immune to your spells. So that's Drow, Druids, Clerics, Monks and anyone with SR gear.

TormakSaber wrote:

My rebuttal:

Even Wizards of the Coast thought splitting hide/MS and spot/listen into two skill sets was silly and so 4e has 2 skills, not 4: Stealth, and Perception. No one takes hide without move silent.

IS Amia swithing to 4e rules now? If so, I can see how that rebuttal applies...

Besides if Wizards of the Coast thought that Hide and Move Silently were not mutually exclusive and that no one would ever think of taking them seperately, then the Prerequisite for the Blackguard Prc is just a typo and should be deleted. The entire concept behind 4e was to simplify the mechanics and speed play in a similar fashion to the changes pioneered with the Saga edition of the Star Wars RPG, not because the skills were necessarily superfluous.

The pre req isn't a typo, isn't that after years of developing for 3.5 and taking into account playtesting and years of work, thy made the (correct) conclusion that separating stealth into 2 skills is dumb.

I wasn't pointing out the right or wrong of having two skills or four. just it's relevance to the issues of NWN. It is what it is. Unless Amia is changing mechanically to the 4e mechanics of having two skills representing stealth. I will agree that in abstract it is more sensible to have one all inclusive skill than several. However, it also limits variety.

For instance, I'll use the Blackguard again as the example. He's eveil and thouroughly dishonorable. He attacks from ambush. But theres a problem. He wears Heavy restrictive armor that makes a lot of noise(Huge penalty to Move Silently). So he uses camoflage(Hide skill) and carefully picks an ambush site to catch his quarry off guard. Now when the trap is sprung, if the victim is unaware that he's there(by failing a Spot check), even when they notice(By automatically succeding on the listen check when the Blackguard charges out of concealment), he can catch them flat-footed and suprised and deal out a sneak attack. All this from a character who has no ranks of Move Silently.

In any case, I'm not advocating for either option, just pointing out the aplication of exsisting mechanics and the precedent of taking certain skills in the absence of others that would seem to go hand in hand.

===> Back to shifter: Being able to shift into many different critters, I don't see why it would be limited to only knowing how to hide... In addition to that there are several forms which revolve around HIPS and skill bonuses to hide/movesilently. With the shifter only being able to take hide these forms lose their mechanical purpose without multiclassing.

It spoils the jack-of-all-trades thing the shifter had going...

also in terms of Mutli classing, I always thought it was kind of silly they could not pick weapon feats, they turn into forms with many diffrent types of weapons but cant pick weapon feats with most of them as they are stuck with druid weapon type.

alot of forms have damage reduction in thier epic or feat states ( 5+5,10+5 ) or something to that effect, now I assume were saying they make thier skin thicker so they take less damage but Familiars and Animal Companions get Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage 5/-,10/- and 15/- based off levels, so what makes our skin,scales...ect diffrent to be Reduction and them Resistance.

Baalance.
As for the weapons, I like to think that shifted weapons are, quite literally, an extension of one's body, and, as such, don't require any real aptitude.

A Shifter is never late.

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