Author Topic: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling  (Read 12095 times)

Insignia

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #75 on: July 13, 2018, 08:49:30 PM »
Hold on, I've never argued for ECL2 on Aasimar. I'm very firmly in favour of an Aasimar/Tiefling rework that makes them ECL1 but strips them of the extra Feat and Skills. If you're going to do that comparison, compare a level 19 Aasimar with a level 20 Human -- which I'm sure you'll agree is a lot more level. :P

Honestly, this was my intent on bringing this topic up as well. I just want to see them closer to what they are in PnP/on other servers. I know nothing about programming, but is this truly something that would be that difficult to achieve? It seems like we are at a point in the discussion where we should be evaluating options, perhaps someone can help me understand why this is not something that can be done?



I get where your coming from in all this, but honestly?  If those things are the most important things to the player, then they should play the race that allows for them.  If they are 'not' the most important thing, and they care more about the roleplay of the class, then that is what they'll focus on.

This is frankly a delicate balance.  Applications cant, as EO said, be artificially declined.  But the races are supposed to be very, very rare.  The gateway, it would seem, is that they are then going to be made mechanically *inferior* because if they were made mechanically superior there would be an inappropriate glut of them.  Theres no denying that.  As it is, they are instead aimed at players who dont care about what the character looks like at max level, who are the people (I assume) that play them.

I do wince at the pain levelling them must be, I really do.  But while these races might be weaker at the top end (keep in mind there is the merest handful of pcs at that top end) they 'are' stronger at the middle range, where most development happens.  A lvl 13 aasimar cleric is just flat better than a lvl 13 human cleric.  Same as a level 15 aasimar paladin and a level 15 human paladin.  They dont stay that way at the end but honestly, thats the price you pay.  If you dont want to pay it, then you go human and aim for the 20 mark rather than the midlevel mark.  You cant have your cake and eat it too, as it were.


Maybe so, but I think that there are people out there (Myself included) who didn't look into what our characters would be like in the mid-high level range. I honestly had no intention of even bringing my character this far, but now that I have, it seems more like a punishment than anything. If I had the option to take a remake as human, would I? You're damn right I would, in a heartbeat.

The notion of a race purposely being mechanically weaker to make them more rare seems like the wrong way to go about it in my opinion. Wouldn't a more strict application process (like the Hallowed Witch) be more effective? They are indeed overpowered, but also incredibly rare because you have to take things very, very seriously in order to ever be considered for approval.

Your comparison of an equivalent class level of an ECL race vs human is one that others have made already, and is simply flawed inherently. A level 13 aasimar cleric has an effective level of 15, while the human has an effective character level of 13. The Aasimar had to gain the amount of experience required for level 15 in order to achieve level 13. Furthermore he counts as a character with a class 2 levels higher to get that experience in the first place. Of course a character 2 levels higher is going to be stronger.

From my experience (I am currently a level 13 Aasimar paladin) There has been no point in the game where my human counterpart at the same effective level (2 class levels higher) wouldn't be stronger and better able to contribute to a party than my Aasimar, this gap only seems to widen at mid-high levels as classes begin to learn their strongest abilities, because for the ECL races, those abilities are much further out of reach.

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #76 on: July 16, 2018, 12:41:38 PM »
Honestly, this was my intent on bringing this topic up as well. I just want to see them closer to what they are in PnP/on other servers. I know nothing about programming, but is this truly something that would be that difficult to achieve? It seems like we are at a point in the discussion where we should be evaluating options, perhaps someone can help me understand why this is not something that can be done?

EO mentioned something about this previously on page 2 of this thread.

Adding races is fairly easy but there are some issues with it (mainly things like Favored Enemy and Race restrictions on items) and it'd require rewriting/updating many systems. We're not there yet but it's not impossible. I had considered adding Half Vistani as a new race this hak update but ran into a few hurdles so decided to scrap it for now.
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Iridni Ren

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #77 on: July 16, 2018, 01:05:44 PM »
Adding races is fairly easy but there are some issues with it (mainly things like Favored Enemy and Race restrictions on items) and it'd require rewriting/updating many systems. We're not there yet but it's not impossible. I had considered adding Half Vistani as a new race this hak update but ran into a few hurdles so decided to scrap it for now.

Aren't Half Vistani already a race?

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APorg

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #78 on: July 16, 2018, 03:49:12 PM »
Aren't Half Vistani already a race?

Like Aasimar, they're effectively a template that gets applied on top of regular humans. They also benefit from the Extra Feat and Skills of humans, when I believe that by PnP they don't.
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Insignia

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #79 on: July 22, 2018, 11:53:40 PM »
So, as this topic has been inactive almost a week, I'm guessing the tentative plan is to just leave Aasimars & Tieflings the way they are? It's pretty apparent that there is a divide between people who think they are fine as is, and those who feel they are too heavily punished. I don't think there is much that someone can do to convince me that 1 feat and 1 skill point per level is worth adding another whole ECL to a race, and maybe that feeling is reciprocated vice versa as well. I can only speak from personal experience, but I have been playing an Aasimar since around February and it's pretty brutal, especially for someone who doesn't min/max every little thing about his chars.

My suggestion remains that it should just be flat out ECL 1, regardless of if they get the extra feat and skill point or not, and when we figure out a way to remove them, then yes, let's do that. I'd love for things to be by the book when it comes to this race, but since it does not seem to be an option, the next best thing would be to do whatever would be closest to the race as possible. In this case I think having an extra skill point and one extra feat is a slight advantage when compared to the book, where as a whole level lost is a clear disadvantage. To me, when coupled with the fact that an application is required to play the race to begin with, says that it should be in favor of ECL 1.

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #80 on: July 23, 2018, 09:15:18 AM »
Those who want to play either one, go into knowingly it is going to be hard. I play a tiefling and I was warned due to other reasons that I well get the unfair life as that character.

Both subraces get more then just a feat and extra sill point. You get that by default due to having to pick human. It's your stat boost, skill increase, and resistances if you get any that give you the ecl.

Yes the ECL can be a bit hard. But that's the point of making such a character. You're making it for a story. Knowing you'll never hit 20 Sirius my tiefling has generally ruined stats save fir his cha. But his low cha fits his personality.

Those of us that pick either tiefling, Asamir, or Drow or any other ecl sub race know we're not going to have a easy time leveling. Or getting interactions with many others.

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Iridni Ren

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #81 on: July 23, 2018, 09:27:34 AM »
Both subraces get more then just a feat and extra sill point. You get that by default due to having to pick human. It's your stat boost, skill increase, and resistances if you get any that give you the ecl.

The argument is over whether the feat and skill point justify an ECL of 2 rather than 1. As I understand it, Aasimar/Tiefling in PnP have an ECL of 1, but here they have 2 because of the way the template must be overlaid over the human. Consequently, they get the extra skill point and feat for being human that they would not get in PnP.

Insignia is saying one feat and a skill point per level are not proportional to the extra ECL penalty of 2 versus 1.

I will point out that this is another way in which the ECL hurts low levels disproportionately. That is, an 18th level Aasimar/Tiefling has achieved 18 extra skill points over her PnP peer, which some might argue is worth a level. But at second level, the Aasimar/Tiefling has only 2 extra skill points.

ETA: Correction that at first level the human gets four extra because of multiplication, rather than 1.
« Last Edit: July 23, 2018, 11:04:52 AM by Iridni Ren »

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MAB77

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #82 on: July 23, 2018, 10:21:10 AM »
This debate is definitively turning in circle.

I will simply reiterate that we are willing to make planetouched ECL 1 races provided we can implement them as per the proper D&D rules.

NWN:EE is getting us closer to that, but several important issues need to be resolved first.
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APorg

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #83 on: July 23, 2018, 02:34:12 PM »
The issue with making Aasimar and Tieflings ECL 1 while keeping the bonus Feat and Skills is that this isn't a server where they should be that common; yet making them better than the PnP rules encourages that. It's not like they're a setting staple, like Half-Vistani.
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ethinos

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #84 on: July 23, 2018, 02:37:19 PM »
Not only that but they aren't subject to qualities that should specifically affect them, like being native outsiders, as NWN thinks they are regular old humans.
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bestbardna

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #85 on: July 25, 2018, 10:37:25 AM »
The aasimar on the server are more akin to the Lesser Aasimar race with a bonus feat and skill points. Might make them worth LA +1, but definitely not +2.

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Re: ECL 2 on Aasimar and Tiefling
« Reply #86 on: July 25, 2018, 07:09:47 PM »
There was so much to read and i started to feel that I have read it all before, so forgive me if I gave up on page 2 and didn't read much further.

I want to offer a suggestion to make up some difference for that 2 ECL. I play an Aasimar who is currently sitting on a shelf collecting all his level 4 dust, and I will probably play him after Lexington's closure or when I can take a break from him as my next main, just to get him off the shelf and possibly out of the rotation. Let me start by saying, Insignia, the fact that you made it to level 13 since February - (what is that, 5 months?) - is impressively fast. Maybe I do it wrong, but not a one of my characters made it that high that fast. Lex took 1 year to make it to level 10. He's a four year old character and only level 16. My fastest leveled character was Zidonne, who made it to 20 in two and a half years. My oldest character is level 14, and was made in 2011 when I first joined the server part time. My point is, you're doing good - enjoy the journey and try not to let the destination be your driving force.

As for an objective offer to this subject, I have felt that the ECL is frustrating, but it isn't as simple as reducing the ECL or adding bonus slots or feats or skills, but abillities. Teiflings get Darkness, which has combat advantages at the bare minimum of what can be achieved with it. Aasimars get...... light. A useless spell that hedge wizards and level two bards get and can use by sneezing. I see no fair advantage there and it's acutally silly. I always thought there should be something more, and perhaps the racial abilities could evolve as you level up, perhaps turning from Light, to Searing Light, to eventually Sunburst or something like that. On the other hand, teiflings too would warrant an evolution from darkness, maybe to shadow shield or shadow conjuration.

Or perhaps we can discuss a balanced evolution of the racial abilities. The point being to make that 2 ECL seem worth it. As a few people have brought up, many, many characters do not even see 20. And the ones who do are the ones focused heavily on gaining levels and power before story.
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