Ok, maybe my problem here is that I'm thinking more in the P&P version than the current state in the NWN1 setting, but if you reduce the max heal to 20 caster level (max 200 HP), return the Mass Heal to level 9 and remove the Heal potions, only two classes can "abuse" of healing (Don't remember if the Druid has access to the Mass heal) , and honestly is part of their CR, don't like the PC do it? then the NPC need to do it too.

Only Mass Heal is very dangerous as can heal the full party in one single round ( 9 times per battle is overkill). However, there is the thing, if the cleric waste all his power in a single battle the next one "will" kill him (P&P with a good/maleficent DM is a guarantee). In NWN1 due the zero limitation to rest can be bypassed. So, you can make the things more harder if you begin to recreate the limitations for resting. If the restriction are good there will be a point where the player can say: I kill one horde, and return long way to rest in a safe place and then return for kill another horde and repeat process or "Lets save spells smarting". Before resting he could had use +20 heals spell, but is the benefit from chooses a cleric/druid instead warrior mix of class/Prc or a wizard with time-stop and quick meta-magic spell and is translated to "I can battle more before resting" as the wizard/sorceress is "You will die many times before your body is removed from the game".

Heal spell, yes is powerful, but is a single target, if all the PC are fighting one or more different NPC you must choose to who heal/save, and again, counterspell could be lethal. (Or a Mass Protection from positive energy spell if we want to be creative but that is a new spell to add for the NPC to uses, too much work). And for the HoTU, you only carry two hencham and yourself, if you are solo and areforced to heal +20 times, you are not killing a single soul in the process, you are just dying very slowing. If you are in group you are healing your companions is part of your CR (and you are sacrificing your offensive power by the supportive role). However if your companions are surrounded by the enemy or unable to attract everyone (by example by an A.I. in special units that ignore the henchman and focus only in the PC) then you are in the solo situation: need to heal yourself meanwhile your companions begin to die, and then you will begin the slowing process of go to Kelemvor's realm.

Yes, but... welcome to D&D 3.X. Is the eternal problem with fighter, that is why is in the lower tier. If you want to give a fighter the opportunity against PC clerics, give him weapons that can disable their most powerful characteristic (like the Silence spell on hit) . In the campaign this OK due are the drows, the elite, is normal they have different type of weapons for those scenarios.

My error, I written the acronym in spanish. Yes, is A.I.
And I reinforced my idea, improves the enemy A.I. and you are making the game more hard for everyone, give the enemy special selection of items and you are making even worse the thing.

Then fixing Knockdown is a must to do, like Resting and the heal spells.
Plus, you can remove the items giving protection against it (I don't remember classes having the immunity).

Though being honest, didn't remember you write +20. By the way, some drows/demons (or everyone) could be bringing Adamantine weapons, therefore Stoneskin and Premonition become useless as well, or the weapon can deal elemental damage that bypass said protection.
Maybe a special rogue drow with A.I. that target caster PC (or the henchamn able to cast spells) with a adamntine dagger with venom property included.

I think you are missing a possible point here: Even with the heal potion you will die if the enemy hits before you are able to drink it. When the wizard already need to drink potions, him is usually already exposed to the enemy (more in NWN1 as you play alone), at least he is correctly protected and no evil wizard breach his defenses.

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One approach if you implements restriction to the resting: If the player is taking too much time for advancing to the lowest levels in Waterdeep can be seen as giving time to the drows to make attacks. If the players return to the inn to rest many times then he find a dozen of drows ready to kill him as soon he go the caves. With this approach you are encouraged them to be rest only when is truly necessary (Though giving bag of holding early could be good for those of us who loves to pick everything in the floor).

You can too increase the time that takes to cast Heal and/or Mass heal to two rounds or maybe 3. Actually I was to suggest this with Raise Dead and Resurrection spells, in P&P they take too much time for be useful in battle. In NWN settings you can make them to need one minute (more is too boring).

This isn't a very good argument, especially at high levels.

CR is a guideline, and the formula for NPC's doesn't take into account the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various classes. Using CR as an argument in a balance discussion is strictly circular reasoning, because the CR formula presumed all classes are equally-balanced in the first place. That couldn't be further from the truth, and the core rulebook (from which the majority of NWN's content is drawn) is arguably one of the least balanced sourcebooks out there, with both some of the strongest and weakest classes ever published for the system. That inequity between the classes only grows at high levels.


The point isn't that the Cleric is "wasting" all his power in a single fight, rather that he has enough power to go all-out and still have spells remaining after five or ten encounters. A Cleric is going to have well over 50 spell slots at the 20th level, about half of those being level 5+ slots. He can practically cast spells non-stop in combat without any serious risk of running dry. Moreover, any decent Cleric will have plenty of backup plans, such as scrolls and wands that can be used in an emergency. You can argue the value of the heal spell specifically all you like, the bigger issue is that high level Clerics get a ridiculous number of very good spells.

With that said, I do tend to agree that you just aren't going to get balance between a Fighter and a Cleric. The abilities of the classes are just too far apart. That said, if MagicalMaster is looking into reducing the availability of healing then looking into those classes may be an important step.


Okay, counterspelling is just a terrible idea in general. Your team's spellcaster has to give up his turn in order for a chance to deprive an enemy spellcaster of his turn. I shouldn't need to elaborate on why this isn't advisable.

If you are going to blow a readied action to attempt to disrupt spellcasting, doing something to force a concentration check is generally a better bet. A fireball spell is a classic example; it forces an unfavorable concentration check while also dealing damage. Better chance to disrupt the enemy spellcasting, and you get a fireball off as well.

This. It is absolutely circular.

The reason I mentioned Heal specifically is because the discussion was about whether removing Heal potions would be a good idea -- but doing so without massive changes would result in a situation where, at a minimum, Clerics effectively have 20+ lives while Fighters have 1. This is our "worst case" scenario where the Cleric just auto attacks and heals himself.

Of course, like you said, it gets even worse if the Cleric uses more spells than just (Mass) Heal...

What I'm brainstorming about is the fact that I don't like situations where you basically have infinite full heals. Now, you CAN balance around that -- for example, my module Siege of the Heavens where you get a potion of infinite full healing right off the bat:

http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/siege-heavens

You're also going to need it and trying to figure out how to survive some stuff even WITH infinite full healing is part of the challenge.

But...that also means that you basically have to threaten to one-shot (or close to it) the PC or they'll never die. You need extreme spike damage to put the PC in real danger. Which is also not ideal, in my opinion, and I know that many people don't like it.

It's amazing in a party versus a single mage (as a sorcerer, at least). Even just knowing Mord's means that you can automatically nullify the first 6+ spells the enemy mage tries to cast. And if you use Greater Dispelling or are able to counter the specific spell with one of your own, so much the better.

Of course, it would also suck to have it used against you as a player -- simply not fun.

That's the thing, how do you know it's overkill? My entire point is that a Cleric could survive and win a fight where he had to heal himself to full 20+ times but a Fighter would simply die.

How exactly would you "fix" Knockdown?

I don't think you're reading it correctly. 3/+20 means that unless you have a +20 weapon (which no one will) the first 3 points will always be ignored.

Which would result in...

Stonekin: always ignore 3 damage per hit.
Greater Stonekin: always ignore 6 damage per hit.
Premonition: always ignore 10 damage per hit.

And that wouldn't stack, to be clear.


No, I specifically brought up that point when I said

"the damage isn't potentially lethal if you don't use Stoneskin"

How would you do that?

For a player to use it, is not so good, Darvin is right. But if we are speaking about HoTU, some enemies could do it.
For me the difference between a PC and (enemy) NPC, is that one can use all his abilities in one single fight. Some of the NPC casters can use counterspell as a tactic, some can be the classic guano by the morning, the mix of them in battle (maybe not in the same encounter) make the things different.

but that wil lbe with all the other classes too. Anyway, you can reduce/increase the number of enemies like do Blizzard in Diablo II.

Has been time since I tried the Knockdown in NWN1, you can remove the Discipline skill and do a adaptation from P&P (Knockdown D&D 3.0) or like a Trip attack (D&D 3.5), or see which is the problem with the standard Knocdown in NWN1.
If I remember well, in NWN1 the Knockdown uses a skill check with Discipline against your attack with -4, so basically only the meele "had" easy time spenting points in that skill (Though the default I.A. make it unnecessary in the O.C.).

Can't remember if NWN1 uses standard and full action, I think is not, so maybe, increasing to 2 rounds the prone effect (one to be fall, two for getting up), but not sure with this idea.

By the way, now I'm checking the rules, for the 3.0 edition there was a extra free attack against a prone victim of the Knockdown. I don't remember that happening in the NWN1.

And that is why I said the line about +20. Truly didn't remember it. But the modification have a problem: HoTu is a lvel 15, that is minimum 2 melee attacks from the warrior class, one thing is a barbarian with 3/-- and 15d12 of HP, and another is a guy with 3/-- or 3/+20 with 15d4. This become stoneskin useless from the beginning, Grater stone skin become a stone skin and only premonition relay relative good (if you don't change the time).

Ok, but I still read that line and figure the otherwise

The script of the spell. I remember I was able to put an action wait in the NWN1 aurora scripts, this is similar like the Truenames spells from NWN2 OC.
You can use the special script that runs before each spell to add the idle time before triggering the real spell.

I see your point. I personally uses the CR as a guideline and in lesser measurement the tier system.
But the example of the cleric with Heal spells vs the fighter, hast the same root issue that in P&P: You need to make big changes if you want to balance them. And once a new balance is made, there will be new flaws.

I still bet that making changes to the enemy I.A. can bring a type of balance, maybe numbers of enemies as does Blizzard but the XP will be a factor.

Well, a 1v4 encounter should be a total smackdown regardless of what you do.

I can get behind NPC's using suboptimal tactics, but counterspell is a very risky one, especially when just dropping a damage-dealing spell will get the same effect more reliably.

The four primary casters are by far the worst offenders: Wizard, Cleric, Druid, and Sorcerer. I think each of them will get attention in turn.

That is one of the major differences, yes.

Which...is my entire point. Nothing but Clerics/Druids would be able to win, most likely.

Again, how would you change it? That's a technical question -- the feat itself is hard coded and cannot be changed by scripting.

A Barbarian has 2/-- reduction at level 15 and the mage should have 6 reduction from Greater Stoneskin at that time. By the time he gets to 3/- reduction the mage is guaranteed to have Premonition available for 10 reduction per hit.

A brief example would be nice as I haven't anything like that before and I don't think Action Wait works the way you think it does.

The discussion started because people have complained about Potions of Heal being freely available in HotU (virtually unlimited healing). So we're talking about alternative ways to handle healing -- with the goal of not making the situation even worse.

Why should a party of four level 20 PCs automatically have a "total smackdown" versus a level 40 archmage, for example?

If you're getting that affect more reliably than we're been fighting very different enemies. Used to enemies not taking much damage from spells and/or having very high concentration.

A lot of it depends on the items available. If people are walking around with resistances to everything, immunities to everything, and +17 Flaming Vorpal Longswords then the non-casters are the ones who are the best.

Count me as surprised you didn't receive all that much feedback at GoG.

I guess the BioWare forums is the best place for this sort of thing?

That would most definitely be correct, hence why I often suggest people on this forum go to the Bioware forum. Even as inactive as the Bioware forum relatively is, it's still at least five times as active as this forum and I'd probably argue 10-20 times more active.