Legacy Characters And Server

[*zethrenx99]

All the races are being set to the 3 ECL standard for balance purposes. The OP has a point on freedom of choice. If it is a case of flavor over mechanics then we would have both options available for new players. new Races and PRC's are in general worse, actually i have yet to see one that was considered stronger than the previous and that is by design for this 3 ecl standard. more than just nymphs can hit the ridiculous in ac/ab on the older races, I in fact know of several very common legacy races that can easily hit over 80's ac 50+ ab 80+ average dmg. really the only difference now is that people can play these races and be sub-par casters (since all offensive magic outside of psions/warlocks is relatively weak with 0 ecl let alone 3).

It boils down to a built up sense of entitlement and legacy favoritism. I think people should frankly suck it up and rebuild the legacy races when new ones become stable. . . I did =/ (definitely regret some of them but its only fair).

[*Niryain]

As I remember it the only really egregious things about legacy races were the old vampire making monks really stupid due to the special form, and eladrin being able to hit the strength cap on certain builds and still be very effective. Most legacy races were indeed trash otherwise. Used for little else than the once or twice a month 'paeliryon that wanders the bazaar awkwardly for a week before realizing that playing a fat pink devil with lipstick isn't generating that much RP' experience.

I do in general agree with the thrust of your statement in terms of old guard and NWN, but there's unfortunately little to do about it given the constraints we have. DnD isn't a system like modern MMOs that can scale infinitely upward and thus every two years you can put everyone on a level playing field again (MMO expansions), there's a hard cap to power before everything about this system breaks down. The contention between old guard and new players is always events and involvement. Truth of the matter is DM staff on every NWN server was generally more active in the Before Years. Good luck accomplishing enough to become Factor of an obscure faction in the remaining lifespan of this game [1]. And such Ye Olde Event item, prestige, and RP rewards can't be MMO Catch Up Mechanic'd away.

I will argue against not at least listening to new player complaints when they come up. Every server needs a steady influx of new people to keep it afloat and interesting, and nothing scares a new player away faster than 'that's just how it is' arguments. It kept me away from NWN1 Ravenloft for five separate attempts at making it work, with full acknowledgment that my complaints were valid. Sigil gets away with this a bit more because you can be 90% as effective as an old PC mechanically in a month or so, and the racial system keeps a steady in/outflow of alts.

But hey at least we're not NWN1 and you're competing with characters that may have existed more than half your life. That's always fun.

[1] Though in a past life here I was basically offered Sign of One Factotum if I could recruit literally one more person to the faction so who knows on that.

[*Mick64]

I feel like I need to chip in here. Legacy races where phased out not because they where too powerful, but because they where too... weak. Their immense ELC gave them tons of problems and players where not satisfied with them, and so Ceremorph came up with the new system where no race would have more then +3 ELC. They where not changed to lock away power, they where changed because the community overwhelmingly asked for change. More then anyone else new players, who would see these cool high ELC races, try them, and hit a brick wall because of the ELC.

The reason that some characters still have the old races is that it's always been a policy on SCOD to, as much as possible, grandfather in things old characters have in order not to force rebuilds. It's always been a policy to try to not take things away from characters unless there is a massive power problem (Legacy vampires where such a thing, and where nerfed before being phased out) or keeping the old stuff is difficult to do from a code side. (Example, spell changes). Some of the less-old players might not even know this, but the "Legacy" races aren't even the oldest special races in the module. There are still PCs around that used the special race system from BEFORE what we call "Legacy" in which builders would custom build a race for your PC.

If you don't believe me that Legacy races are not that OP, you are free to roll one up right now. There are still quite a few races that haven't been changed over to the new system yet and you can make those. Any race with more then +3 ELC is a leftover from the old system, go roll one up. Warning : You will more likely then not hate every moment of it because leveling these things up is a nightmare, and the payoff is "Be mediocre, at best."

It's also false that the server was balanced around these races. The server was and will always be balanced around humans. In fact, most of the areas where made before these "Legacy" races even existed, and the power level available to players has only increased since then.

[*zethrenx99]

If you don't believe me that Legacy races are not that OP, you are free to roll one up right now. There are still quite a few races that haven't been changed over to the new system yet and you can make those. Any race with more then +3 ELC is a leftover from the old system, go roll one up. Warning : You will more likely then not hate every moment of it because leveling these things up is a nightmare, and the payoff is "Be mediocre, at best.

You mean aside from nymphs and all the commonly played ones what have already been redone? Sure the idea that not all of the old races are op is a fine sentiment, not many of them are played though. And how is some one suppose to compare what the strength level of a legacy race is to its new race if the new prc doesn't exist? Kind of a hard argument. What I can point to are the ones that have been done, Vampires, Lycans Winter wolf, Eladrin, half outsider, dragon. . .Those are the only ones i can speak for, and in my opinion are all relatively weaker. Again This would be weaker in combat and in rp stats but given they are not better at casting spells . Lycans I understand, Very important change so other races can be lycans, Also there is no good way of handling the attributes without using the racial template attribute bonuses which creates problems. Lycans are because of the attribute cap, plethora of bugs aside, physically weaker. Dragons i think are stronger, the have a good prc, less AC now if im not mistaken but that's okay, very fair for the class and ecl investment. Winter wolves get some neat little bonuses which i can definitely appreciate, physically weaker though (and why no more swift tracking? T_T). I mean trying to compare half outsider is a joke though, really no comparison close to strength. Vampire, similarly weaker easier to attain though with not alot of investment needed. Eladrin are pretty much the same imo.

I get the ecl +3 shift and the prc racial thing and I'm all for it, but its hard to say that the older races are in every case worse than the newer ones I think is inaccurate, At least in my cases. But that isn't even the argument. The argument is whether it is right to prohibit newer players from things available only to older players and I do not think it is, some agree some don't.

I also agree that over time the legacy races tend to phase out. What I was saying was that new players i think need some reassurance that older players ARE gravitating that way and that it isn't an issue newer players should worry about. But when the community comes in and says how much they support it overwhelmingly, how they should just suck it up or go away with rather rude remarks to not only the new player in this case but any such that may also have been reading the forum is where we have the real problem.

It's also false that the server was balanced around these races. The server was and will always be balanced around humans. In fact, most of the areas where made before these "Legacy" races even existed, and the power level available to players has only increased since then.

It was an opinion, worded poorly i'll grant you. Zones are hard. new players playing mundane races make some of them substantially harder than with non-mundane races that don't have access to natural armor advances, or DR or SR. I could go through and list all the zones and examples where a human will struggle and a pixie would not but this isn't the post for that. I'm happy to make it if you want though? ;)

[*rapsam2003]

Zones are hard. new players playing mundane races make some of them substantially harder than with non-mundane races that don't have access to natural armor advances, or DR or SR. I could go through and list all the zones and examples where a human will struggle and a pixie would not but this isn't the post for that. I'm happy to make it if you want though? ;)

lolwut

Never mind that Pixies have a +5 ECL. A Pixie, with class level 4, is counted as level 9. In other words, by the time, you take Rogue level 4 (or whatever), you're basically forced to start areas like Brux or Plane of Earth. Oh, yeah, +8 Dexterity sounds great, but anything over +3 ECL is annoying.

[*zethrenx99]

You laughing at mah pixies bro! :P

Edit: PS a pixie at lvl 4 is considred lvl 7 not 9. Ecl scales by +1 every level -1 until your ecl is met. :rolleyes:

[*Whitefly]

It's ashame that pixies and nymphs haven't been redone yet. I don't really want to make a nymph, because people look at nymph as, "Oh, you're powergaming then? Okay have fun with that", and Pixies are pretty weak, particularly if you want to make a spellcaster since spell resistance gobbles up every spell you cast. Same issue for all the high ECL casters.

As Zenthrenx said, some legacy races are really powerful, others are totally lame. It's a mixed bag, with ECLs so high that levelling was frankly depressing and that's why they're being changed over to the new system.

[*Niryain]

As an Eladrin player the new one is stronger once you get it going. Ghaele is a 8/10 caster with three domains if you start cleric that gets bonuses to strength and cha. Begs for EDM cleric, and at a low price of ECL 3. I'll take that over the ability to lift an iron golem in the bazaar casually.

[*rapsam2003]

You laughing at mah pixies bro! :P

Edit: PS a pixie at lvl 4 is considred lvl 7 not 9. Ecl scales by +1 every level -1 until your ecl is met. :rolleyes:

Not how it works in terms of experience or how it works on the server. A level 4 character with +5 ECL is considered level 9. :rolleyes:

[*Mick64]

Nymph is possibly the strongest Legacy race and is still available right now. Go play one and try leveling normally (no borrowing a golem from somebody cheese), like a new player would. You will find that it's 10x as hard as leveling a human. (Or one of the new races with PRCs) And nymphs are really strong.

If we want to compare old races vs new...

Illithid : New is much stronger
Dragons : New are much stronger
Ogre / Ogre Mage : Not sure, don't remember the old stats
Giants : New are much stronger
Troll : About even.
Lycantropes : Old where stronger pre-multiattack fix, but that was patched to hit Legacy PCs so new are stronger.
Winter Wolves : I think the old one was very slightly stronger but I'm not sure.
Devas : New are stronger.
Archons : New are much stronger
Eldarin : Old was stronger but much less diverse. No PCs with the old race still eist.
Succubus : New is much stronger
Herzou : New is stronger
Erinyes : New is stronger
Slaad : About equal in power, but new has more options.
Rakasha : New is so much better it's not even funny.
Jaan : Old was stronger
Half-Outsider : New was stronger, but not by so much with the ELC change. More versatile tough.
Myconid : New is much stronger.
Lizardfolk : New is stronger
Kaasta : Old was super OP, and stronger, but new is still really strong.
Half-Dragon : Race was stronger, but current half-dragon is about equal to old RDD.
Death Knight : New is much stronger.
Lich : About equal
Vampire : With the Dark Form removal which hit Legacy PCs, new is much stronger.


So yeah. Out of ALL the races that where changed, there's 2-3 who used to be stronger. And you have way fewer options.