I decided to try and hunt some stuff in Fangorn yesterday but could not trigger the area transition (from Isenguard north). Is it broken? Or disabled deliberately? Thanks!

Dear dm's, I would like to confess a screw-up:
I was wondering around Minas Morgul, trying to find shops I may have missed for low lvl chars to buy stuff. I entered the sorcerer hall (hall of witch king, is it?) and found a nice drow altar there. It looked creepy and like something you should touch, but I just couldn't resist (why do you always have to look, Pip?).

Result: lvl drained. Ok, no worries, I have restoration spell/scrolls.. Hmm.. None seem to work.. Ok, probably when I die, it will get removed, right? So, what is the easiest way to get yourself killed when in Minas Morgul as lvl 14? Well.. I could always give one of the guards a little "pat on the shoulder"?

End result: I died, cool! I respawned, cool! Lvl drain is gone, epic! I enter town, and suddenly everyone is completely over-reacting. They keep killing me on sight. This seems harsh, because I didn't even so much as put a dent into the guard's armor, I'm sure..

TL;DR
Could someone plz reset the server so that I can freely walk in Mordor territory again? Thx!

Just a tip: i wouldn't opt for account restore. I am still happy with my choice not to do it. It makes you appreciate nice drop more. And you need to put in some work to be able to farm higher lvl areas again.

Example: nice to be high enough lvl for simple armor+5 or ring of deflection+5... But where to loot them without dying every 10mins??? Good fun solving those puzzles!

@Khaine: i did the same about 2 months ago. Started playing after years and years. I had a friend of mine also join again so we mostly play with the 2 of us. I've teamed with other players only 2 times. Other than that it was just me on the server.

However, it was still nice to explore gvm again. Some stuff changed, some stuff i just forgot. Bottom line: i'm enjoying myself.

Hi Sky, indeed there were six of us and we always enjoyed the gvm world. Currently still enjoying a vacation abroad, but will give it a go when I'm back home.

Hi all,

I played this server some 10 years back together with a lot of "Dastrion" guys (and helped _df with some scripting when he was mod maintainer). I was thinking of giving the server another try (judging from some posts on this forum I'm not the only nostalgic guy in recent history ) and maybe even convince more of the old crew to get back into the fight.

My main question is: can someone explain the rationale behind the (seemingly extensive) changes that have been done to classes/feats/spells? In short I want to be convinced to put a shitload of time into learning all new rules (and viable new builds they bring) by  heart, basically tossing out the trusty old nwn grimoire. What was bad about the old rules? What is the motivation for the changes that were made (better pvp? More diverse builds? Nerf overpowered builds?). From what I've seen the changes attempt to increase the power of classes/spells/feats that, in the "old days", were not that useful. Is this observation correct?

Thx in advance for any insight!

Btw, my first reaction was that the server now looks even "higher magic'd" than it already was. My second was "this is al really hard to script without introducing nasty bugs". But on the upside, it didn't discourage me to the point I didn't even feel like writing this post 

I agree with a change to this spell.. never took it.. and never will if it stays the way it is. And that would be a shame since it easily has one of the coolest graphics

As for barb/pm builds: just reduce the quite powerful (putting it down subtle) buff of having like 3 or 4 extra attacks.. Make it 1 or 2 depending on the effort put into getting epic rages. Since barb/pm builds wont have (long lasting) haste, they bleed a bit.

As for the bard/pm/rdd builds: they get only 4 attacks (including haste), which is a disadvantage in itself.. With the +7 armor items removed (for the most part) they may be hittable by high ab builds now, so let's see how that goes.

I'm building a bard/wm/pm now, and it does get 5 attacks instead of the 4 mentioned above.. But it does have lower hps and saves (and is not fire immune), which is a pain vs mages.

BTW: I don't choose pm for crit immune only... The ac bonuses by lvl 16 are +10, which makes a LOT less people and monsters hit you. I think, however, this is quite fair, since you have to take quite some lvls i this class to get a workable bonus to ac (eg. 4 or 6 won't help get you "the edge" everybody is looking for).

I have to say that after reading pinkpuff's post on crit/sneak immune that had to go I thought this idea to be way to rigorous. But reading your Fortification talk, parknutz, I think that would be a really cool feature! I'm no pen and paper d&d'er so I wouldn't know how Fortification really changes balance, but I would think that putting a few item types (say: only armors and shields) in the game with up to 20% Fortification, and giving lvl 10 pm 40% so that you could get 80% total... I would call that idea... ehm... Fresh!

Would still give a pm an edge in the crit immune area, but not too much.. Hell you could even give a harper scout 15% as well... just so that somebody would finally BUILD one

Think that it would be a major script task though... And i'm unsure how stressful it would be to the server.. The script that checks if somebody scores a crit would have to be expanded with extra checks and remember... it runs EVERY time a toon would score a crit according to the "old" rule set.

I do not care for sneak immunity on anything unless there is a very good reason.  Same with crit immunity. 

I hope for a mod where the bosses are built essentially like a player.  I tried to do that with the serpent and morannon bosses.  They of course are bosses and get extra HP, maybe a few bonuses on their hide to prevent them from being easily solo'd but not too much really.  Mostly I tried to include other npcs that would be able to help them and fill in their weak spots.  If I wanted them to spot people I gave them keen sense and some skills and items for it.  If I wanted them to see invis I have them abilities to do that but not just true seeing on their hide.  If they should have haste then they have pots or the ability to cast it.  Or the bard npc will cast mass haste and use song and taunt you so they can hit you without having to have enormous AB.

It is inevitable that many will just build a dragon and go annhiliate all the bosses and as much as I hate seeing that I feel better knowing that some regular builds had a chance.

Anybody had the serpent shaman nail you with holy avenger other than me?

I hate ppl sucking up to other people all the time, but.... what a good post!

Personally i don't really mind the enormous changes that have been implemented around the time of the wipe.. The point is that we need a substantial amount of time to adapt to the new environment. You can't expect people to continuously start new chars because enormous changes to classes appear every month.

Believe me: for the few players that have the time to adapt to such changes every time it may not seem like a big deal, but players that put quite some effort in thinking through their builds (like I do.. I just like doing that), and don't have a lot of time to play it is quite easy to get demotivated when you find out it is already "outdated" by the time your reach lvl 40.

23paladin/14cleric/3rogue - 69ab, 7 attacks with single weapon, 18 base cha...

I take this as example: aren't you being a bit optimistic about the 69 ab? I think there is a 20 cap that you are bound to hit somewhere.. I had a dragon before the wipe and according to the character sheet it had 71 ab? But in the end it didn't get higher than 67 or so because of the cap.. And a dragon has base str of 48 which gives you +19 that doesn't count for the +20 cap... Don't see how the build above could ever come close to 48 str/dex(finesse).

Think the cap counts for:
any str/dex related bonuses (so max +6 when having +12ability modding items) + any buffs to ab

Was just reading the forums a bit (darn.. wasting playing time yet again ) and couldn't help but think the following:

Wouldn't it be nice to just let the changes/nerfs to classes, spells, feats and what have you sink in for a while? Just see what the current changeset will bring us in the next few months before we start out on another epic "balance-the-server" quest?

I mean really: we have had so many (wonderful in my opinion) changes made to areas, items and opponents lately that I bet most people would have their hands full for quite some time!

That way the DMs can focus on DM-ing and playing for themselves for a while, and the builders will have time to perfect and finetune the area-base as it is at the moment..

Just think it wouldn't be a bad idea to review and reconcile things every now and then.. Or I could just be talking out of my a$$!

Cheers!

Hurray! Another vet back at the table! I'm starting to get my hopes back up that this place will be swarming with players again real soon!

As a sidenote I'll just point out that Huupke has convinced a mate of his to start playing GvM as well and after a couple of days he's already at lvl 14 and liking the place!

Huray, huray, we've won the day!

Not answering the questions one-by-one, but just a short synopsis of my experiences:

-I played here for a long time and had great fun, both with the world as it was presented and the players found there.
-I left because of time constraints
-I returned just before the wipe, because I just couldn't help myself 
-After the wipe it seemed nice to help the server get "back on its feet" so to speak.. In my opinion a server needs a nice supply of lvl 40s showing off nice gear and farming.. I can't explain why.. It's just a nice atmosphere. I always liked talking about the hard bosses we could go kill for those uber-items! And the 4 lvl 40s raiding a city while some of the higher lvl chars of the other side would hurry to kick us out again!
- Now I have a lvl 32 and a lvl 20 (resp. Mordor and Gondor) and I find the world MUCH harder to beat! For now I still experience this difficulty as fun.. But my lvl 40 had better whoop some serious ass once he makes final lvl  If he wont I'll probably stop playing. I'm not a lazy player (I think) but you have to be able to feel the satisfaction following your hard work instead of still getting a beating every time..

General remarks:
- I agree with Skeevy that imbalance never bothered me much. The fun of finding builds that would work with the right set of uber-items was ample compensation. And if I really was bothered with somebody pvping me I would simply log one of my own cheat-builds (I call every overpowered build a cheatbuild  , dragons, shieldmages etc) and return the favor.
- I like a lot of the changes made to certain classes, although I think some of them may be a bit over the top.. You can see which of them are over the top by looking at the builds that are currently being built. But hey! Who cares as long as I'm having fun??

Actually, if you take a look at the enormous amount of "old" builds that has been posted you'll see that even with the changes a lot of them are still very strong and effective to play.. You'll recognize them quickly: not much item dependencies (like FoN, accu etc.) means you're a go..

Personally i've started out straight after the whipe with two non-sorc, non-dragoon toons.. One is based on the always-sturdy bard-pm-rdd, but i've added some changes to it and replaced a class. The other is the dex-based pal-sorc-sd that i've posted a LONG time ago and seemed nice to make now. Only change needed was a lot more points into discipline, since there's a lot of KD in spawns nowadays, but apart from that it's unchanged and working out fine so far.

So i guess it's not greed at all from the build-builders.. It's just that if somebody is unable to take the ample amount of great templates already available and make minor adjustments to make them work in the new ruleset, then probably it doesn't matter what build they play: they'll suck at all of them 

I've heard worse ideas 

Perfect tank: yes

But if you want to have some single player fun, you might want to try the bard build instead, cause this build will hit like sh*te

If course it is a specialty build, so i understand the choices made.. But i would never get around to lvling this one, because i would have died of boredom long before ever reaching lvl 40