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General Discussion / Re: ProTips!

« on: April 09, 2018, 04:56:12 pm »

Efficient playstyles shift over time based on a "meta", like in competitive games. Strategies will come to be common place, especially for casters. Don't let those strategies dictate how to play your character, but recognize you'll have to prove your worth if you do.

Example, for a while wizards will do little but buff warriors, then clerics will be self buffing front liners, then nukes and crowd control will come into prominence. Pick a class and pick the spells you consider fun and appropriate for your character as well as efficient, not just the latter.

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General Discussion / Re: Discussion: Monster/non-standard races

« on: April 04, 2018, 07:27:09 pm »

Preferrably none offered as playable, but instead, presented in limited time capacities that are plot dependent. Magic and monsters are boring when everyone is a magical monster. Run a big kobold infiltration plot and allow kobold PCs, but limited time. Those that survive the plot are permitted to continue, but are gone when they're gone. Same for all monsters and non standard people's.

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General Discussion / Re: How should we handle applications?

« on: April 04, 2018, 07:17:57 pm »

Personally, I favor there being no "powerful" subraces at all. Since you're making your own sure race system, rebalance and redesign all of the races to be in line with what you want. I personally recommend adopting 5e.

Dwarves get +2 con.
Hill dwarves get toughness for free.
Gold dwarves get +2 strength.

So on, all races have representation in the books. And since you'd be updating to 5e races, technically all dwarves would get +2 Cha from to remove the 3rd edition negative trait, making it a flat stat like humans.

Anyway, point being, by adopting 5e races you are also balancing drow and duergar and removing their "powerfulness". Do this for all of these races, and just never, ever include powerful ones like half-dragons and lycanthropes.

If the DM team feels they want a half dragon villain, they shouldn't do applications, they should agree on a player and offer it. Same for lycanthropes. Don't allow requested on creation werewolves, instead make a plot about werewolves and offer one or two players on creation wolves (whomever is around, available, is trusted with the power, expected to be cool, and hadn't recently been honored similarly) and let them infect players.

Alternatively, I'd simply make it require 3 DMs to sign off on, with veto power on creation if it doesn't work, or if the player abuses it. Maybe don't make it an app, just a lobbying thing. Player must get sponsorship from X number of DMs. That's for blanket applications though, not just subraces. Obviously the more powerful the app, or more weird or prestigious, the fewer DMs will sponsor it, so you elininate the silly confirmation periods and slow voting process. Just present your idea to DMs until you get the appropriate number necessary to app.

Generally though, prestige classes and earn in game things should really be obvious and easily obtained if actually earned.

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General Discussion / Re: Awesome server features!

« on: April 04, 2018, 06:58:18 pm »

Impactful PCs
Forget the hall of fame, but let the players exist in the narrative even post death. Publish in game documents that reference them, include referenced to them on signs or statues. If they build a castle and then eventually their faction bites the dust, let their castle remain as a haunted dungeon, with traces of their names and deeds. So on. It shouldn't be gaudy or cheap, but those that are memorable should be kept as important to the history.

Persistent Crafting / Minions / Projects
(Assuming eventually we can animate dead players) Say you vanquish your enemy, and animate him. This triumph shouldn't end just because the server resets or you log out. Make a way to 'store' these summons. The same could apply to hirelings. Or if you're a druid and your long term project to conduct a ritual to create a treeant sidekick finally happens, this creature could simple be 'stored' and retrieved until the sad day that it died. In a similar fashion, don't cap summons at a low number. A powerful wizard with 8 monsters summoned is cool.

Hirelings
Create a pool of low power NPCs that can be paid a big fat lump sum and kept semi-permanently on the payroll by the PC until the time limit for the gold paid is up. They should fulfill really trivial purposes like torchbearing or pack hauling, bodyguarding or trap finding. Perhaps make the pool finite. Throw in twenty fleshed out hirelings all over and let the players hire them when available. Remove them from plots, add more, etc.

Custom Spells
We've all got ideas. Add new spells via haks. A lot. This to me, is the most important part of any module on NWN. The game is 15 years old, there's thousands of D&D spells, add as many as you can. For all spellcasters.

Downtime Activities
Create spawn points that the players can select by traveling to that place in game. By choosing that location/residence he is given a selection of up to 3 downtime acitivites that provide certain benefits. So, say you go to the ranger cabin, talk to the NPC to set it as your save point. He says "OK, what downtime activities will you pursue while here?" And you're given three options. 1. Hunting. 2. Studying in solitude. 3 gathering herbs. Hunting would provide you one item from a table (that table is deer antlers, rabbit fur, wolf fangs and then a chance for rarities like a griffons talons). Studying would Grant you +1 Int, +1 Wis on login until reset (basically permanent until you choose a new location or activity). 3 gathering herbs, same as hunting, you get a random herbal crafting component.. fungus, plants, berries. Certain downtime activities can be restricted to certain classes and races or even levels, to limit the accessible power. Maybe the thief hideout let's you choose "murder for hire" as a downtime activity, which requires a level in assassin. This could give you a random sum of gold like 500-1000 per reset or a rare poison. I like the idea of player characters having life beyond what happens in game.

Wondrous Item Crafting
Whether by resource collection, numerical skill development, feat selection or otherwise, players should be able to craft powerful magic items. Circlets of intelligence. Staves, Rods, Magical Armor, Druidic staves and totems. Don't limit crafting to the mundane. And ideally, combine mundane and magical crafting so that one requires the other. Balance is the hard part, figuring out how to maintain powerful loot while not overpowering crafting, as well as how to not ruin crafting by only making loot valuable.

Spell Combos / Circle Magic / Ritual Magic
In addition to new spells, a system in which two players can cast spells at the same time to create a completely new effect. They may require some kind of focus, whether an item or another player. No idea how you'd script it, but here's the idea: Wizard A casts gust of wind on taget. At the right timing window, wizard b casts lightning on the point. The two wizards are flagged as "Combined" before all of this happens, the result is a thunderstorm. Knockdown on area as well as the druid spell lightning cloud.. then again this is probably unscriptable as a combo.

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General Discussion / Re: What type of plots do you like?

« on: April 04, 2018, 06:36:45 pm »

Shades of gray political plots that force the overall playerbase to pick a side. A civil war in which neither side is the clear good guy, with plenty of room for players to project upon them and enthusiastically support.

Plots about groups of players changing some part of the landscape forever. Building a castle, destroying one, conquering the orc tribes and ruling over a large monster army until retirement, etc.

Prophetic riddles that the playerbase muses over and tries to "figure out" what is going to happen, and how to prevent, or cause it to happen.