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About 3.5 Ruleset

So it seems there are many players and possibly builders who wishes NWN was based on 3.5. (And they also ignore the fact that 3.5 modification already exists)

Anyway, I am now working on a kinda 3.5 ruleset modification on my own specifically for NWN-EE. But I have questions for all of you 3.5 lobbyists.

What do you consider for 3.5 ruleset specifically? I mean, the difference between what we have and 3.5 is not that enormous. So what specifically you want from 3.5 to deal with?

Imo there are some very questionable features for something like 3.5 ruleset, and I believe this is main reason we won't get this from BeamDog. Too many options on what should and shouldn't be.

So,
- correct too strong spells (divine favor, heal, mass heal, greater restoration etc.)
- correct too weak spells (earthquake etc.)
- correct all spells that differs from 3.5 SRD
- correct classes, just the weak ones or all of them?
- new spells?
- new feats?
- new prestige classes?
- PnP cleric domains? (thats quite a buff btw)
- epic spell system?
- bard songs rework?
- familiar/animal companion spell sharing?
- restrict tower shields to new feat that only fighter gets for free?
- armor movement speed penalty?
- multiclass restrictions?
- disallow skill points saving?

and there will surely be more arguable changes/fixes/features.

I have some idea of what should 3.5 look like in NWN, but I am very interested of how those of you, who wants 3.5 from BeamDog, imagine this ruleset.
RAM021SorcererV1ct0r

Comments

  • Shia_LuckShia_Luck Member Posts: 39
    Hi Shadooow :)

    I'd certainly agree with the first 2 ideas! However, I am not sure strict adherence to any DnD ruleset is totally appropiate for NWN. Dnd generally has more players in a party than NWN (outside of some PWs and PW events). SO, while I think Heal and Harm are ridiculously overpowered and 350 sounds far better, the solo player could be depending on those heal potions for having a good time. One might consider those spells doing 350 when used offensively but total HP when used for healing despite it not being in any rulebook I know?

    3. IIRC there's a good few changes in durations for spells. Some turns become rounds and vice versa. IME that's one of the things players find most difficult to learn. Changing it may not help anyone but the purists. Or change it to a simplified system? up to lvl4 buffspells at least a turn/lvl, rnd/lvl after that?

    Last: The skill point saving affects character building to such an extent that it would make some previous charcaters illegal or impossible to build.

    I suppose I am saying, if a 3.5 ruleset exists, perhaps you should consider making a fair and easily understandable one. Add things, but don't take all or most of the usefulness of other thigs away.

    Just a thought. I'm thinking about the same balancing for my module atm and it's certainly a tricky question.

    Have fun :)
    dTd
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    I don't think you're going to find people ever that specific. As you said the difference is not enormous and many of the changes were just shuffling around where the text appears in the book so that people don't miss it. Take Divine Favor for example, the limit is +6 in 3.0 and +3 in 3.5 but that's not the issue in NWN where the bonus limit is +5. The problem is that the damage bonus is untyped/magic, while in both 3.0 and 3.5 it's weapon damage, so regardless of the 3.0 and 3.5 differences in NWN it bypasses damage resistance/reduction and immunity. This theme continues for several fan favorites, where it's powerful not because of the edition change but because of the NWN implementation.

    I've also done the same for divine might and made divine shield correctly enhance a shield and remove itself from the shield on unacquire. While I've made some of the changes myself already I feel like it's a personal choice people make. Many just aren't all that concerned.

    Some specific spell changes do exist but usually for things NWN doesn't even have.

    To get people to use your package directly I think you might want to consider partnering with a module or persistent world that wants to achieve the same goals.
    dTd
  • dTddTd Member Posts: 182
    Possibly not very helpful but I've been playing nwn so long I consider them the nwn-ruleset and I like it that way and wouldn't want them changed at all.
    Nic_Mercy
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367
    Do a lot of people like the way spellcasting is in 3.x?

    The bazillion buffing spells are really tedious to recast, they make all spellcasters look like a blurry mess of overlapping effects and create all kinds of balance issues. The best thing 5e did was stopping that nonsense and introducing concentration.

    The other thing that bothers me personally in 3.x is just how much your progression, especially AC, is tied to equipment. Strip high level characters of items (a prison break or such) and they become ridiculously vulnerable. 5e also fixed that.

    I think I'd prefer 3.5 with major changes to spell lists and equipment using the design principles of 5e.
    Nostariel
  • dTddTd Member Posts: 182
    I like the spells the way they are. I might balance them depending on magic lvl for each setting but otherwise yes I prefer them as is.
  • TarotRedhandTarotRedhand Member Posts: 1,481
    I don't care either way TBH. What I do care about is backwards compatibility. There are over 3500 modules on the vault. All made with the current magic system. Surely fiddling with the magic system at this late stage in the life of the game will affect how these modules play.

    TR
    DerpCitydTd
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367
    Yeah a big change could only work on a PW basically. I'd be really interested in a PW with 5e rules though.
  • ShadowMShadowM Member Posts: 573
    I'm building my base off 3.5 rules and like it, but I not going to say it the perfect system. It has problems like every edition even 5th (I have played them all). I like 3.5 edition weapon DR system with material over 3.0 DR of +1, +2 etc.. DR system. I like some of the spell changes and feat changes, 3.0 and 3.5 kinda go off the rails into epic and does not introduce enough abilities, effects, feat that counter these things. (builders can put in there own things to counter this) These are partly why the changes in 4th and 5th edition to bring back in the high numbers and feats etc.. Most people love 3.0 and 3.5 just because the sheer number of content it has with classes, prestige classes, spells, feat etc..
    RAM021
  • AaezilAaezil Member Posts: 178
    Nwn is lightyears away from what the 3.0 books say... and whole other galaxy away from 3.5
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    5e has been discussed before but while it would not be too difficult to make a rules conversion it would take plenty of time and the result would in most cases be cutting options and character content. 5e is very rules light and relies more on the social aspects of the game and theater of mind for combat.

    NWN is a far away from what 3.0 is in it's entirety, but the difference between 3.0 and 3.5 isn't huge by any measure. Often NWN2 is praised for being closer to the rules but this isn't actually the case, it diverged even more and some of the things it did do were part of 3.0 as well and should have been in NWN.

    Options for character development is definitely one of the primary reasons 3rd edition and it's derivatives remain popular.
    DerpCitydTd
  • 1varangian1varangian Member Posts: 367
    edited November 2018
    3.5 could be great if you just fixed the biggest low points of the system.

    - over the top buffing in spellcasting, it's tedious and unbalanced
    - level 1 characters dying in one hit
    - defense attributes coming mostly from magical equipment rather than character skill level
    - unbalanced feats like ICE with -10AC
    - rigid vancian spellcasting
  • jsavingjsaving Member Posts: 1,083
    I'm not sure who the people are who'd prefer 3.5 to 3.0, but if you're excited about a 3.5e conversion, great! I'd most likely to see 3.5's revamped ranger and its improved druid spell list.
    dTd
  • ShadooowShadooow Member Posts: 402
    edited November 2018
    Well I started this 3.5 ruleset mod rework (since 3.5 ruleset already exists on vault, but there are reasons why I wanted my own), but soon got concerned about too many stuff and preferences of users.

    If this to be a public project it needs to suit as many players as possible. And no I am not going to make it all toggleable like the original 3.5 ruleset mod has. While great idea on paper, it puts too much of the decision weight on player, even I who know some stuff had problem to orientate in all those switches and options that original 3.5 ruleset mod has or it wasn't clear to me why the choices are what they are or what these choices does. So no, I wanted to set everything in stone, afterall this is not going to be a hardcoded, experienced users will be able to modify it in scripts, if they want.

    Anyway, because there are just too many possibilities I put this project down for a while untill I get better idea what exactly players wants. Prefferable those players (and builders) who are asking Beamdog for 3.5 on this forums and that there were many of them...

    @1varangian , what do you mean by "over the top buffing in spellcasting" and how do you expect me to fix tthis? Are you concerned with the ammount of buffing spells casters has and use every time they want to fight? Or you are concerned only about graphic side of this issue, ie 20+ visual buffs on players? If I understand this correctly, then you just want to limit the ammount of buffs, but I don't see that much plausible. Community patch has an option to limit damage shield spells (which is reasonable but unpopular among players), besides that I don't see any mechanisms in DnD 3.5 that would prevent this issue. Some spells have shorter duration but that won't fix it. And some spells shouldn't stack with themselves but that ain't going to fix it either imo.

    As for lv 1 characters I 100% agree with you, but this seems to be implemented properly. Again, I don't see any mechanisms in 3.5 that would prevent it, player characters have low hit points, healing spells are healing very low (cure minor wounds should heal just 1hp lol), and weapon's basedamage makes it that you can take only 2 hits if you are lucky, if not you get brought down by one chop of axe or critical hit with any weapon besides sling or unarmed. This seems to be right, as much as you or me dislike it. Personally I made some changes in my module to avoid this (using community patch weak traps instead of minor versions, adding easily accessible items with custom itemproperties like soak +1/1, resist slashing 1, or regeneration +1/5rounds) but this is just my module and the changes I did are not really possible to enforce into some random module you might want to play.

    Also what does rigid vancian spellcasting means?

    @jsaving yeah imo there are 3 classses that really needs some love and thats barbarian, ranger and druid. This is also what I started with already. Although druid was indirectly buffed a lot by my pet project community patch and if you use the merge all switch when playing him, he is really strong class. Still he deserves some direct buffs like to animal companions or spell list. Ranger is however problematic to modify. I already found out that even if you remove his duel wield feat he keeps its bonuses, also for archery style, there is not enough feats to supplement archery. Similarly, there isn't enough feats for two-weapon fighting to provide him a 3 free feats for chosen fighting style. Two at best and then he gets all there is. And both 2weapons and archery fghting is not very "moddable". To create the PnP feats that doesn't exists in NWN would require functions that NWN:EE lacks (singleplayer at least...).
  • HipsterHipster Member Posts: 39
    edited December 2018
    + correct all spells that differs from 3.5 SRD
    + new spells?
    + new feats?
    + new prestige classes?
    + epic spell system?
    + bard songs rework?
    + multiclass restrictions?
    + lift ability caps
    + paragon levels
    + capsulate xp gain inside tag achievements
    + optional subquests

    When I first contributed to the update ruleset discussion, my idea was that the "current" interpretation was purely a "port" of a PnP ruleset that had to be as true to the hasbro version as it possibly could. I still think there has to be significant change made before its final release because its just was not playable in the kind of environment that i had envisioned. Obviously for PnP players not.
    As the turn-based mechanic becomes realtime on the digital port, this ruleset was still a tad cumbersome to play. The gameplay needs to be streamlined, fast-paced, action-oriented. Spells and abilites "may" need to recharge based on some new resource (souls, obelisks, phyllies or action uses).
    Nowadays i realise that many attempts to do that horribly failed so i'd probably just stick to updatein' the lesser caveats. Most spells have e.g. the missile spell becomes useless because it doesn't gain power with spell level. Instead it gains more instances. So any monster that has a minute amount of mag damage resistance can be quite immune to it. In this case, i would add some mag damage to every instance of the missile that scales with caster level. This makes a lvl 3 spell very considerable and even deadly only if used by a high level caster. (if mm does 1..3 +1 mag, just change that to deal 1...3 +1*(casterlevel/10)).
    So most spells seem to need change in the way they scale to casterlevel. Multiclassing needs to be included in the equation, because prestige classes were not added to casterlevel like they should be. Cleric domains, etc most features were only just thought out and included as a bonus feature, never got worked out very well at all. Summons needed to be much more resilient, shapes did not live up to expectations, and lots lots more).
    My hope was that Beamdog might add an options to use an updated ruleset or select this for characters created specifically for certain modules/persistent worlds. Yet again this may be asking to much of a modding community that has "roleplay" written all over it. Roleplay persistent worlds don't really suffer from an optional powerplay or actionplay in between lines, in my opinion.

    edit: I don't mean to be grumpy. Why am i asking for improvals ? Because i love mmorpgs and NWN has the ultimate potential to be great. Like really great as hell. Best mmo ever. So thats where i want it to get headed.
    Post edited by Hipster on
  • Elvin_RathElvin_Rath Member Posts: 3
    It is a late answer, but I will also answer this, @Shadoow
    Shadooow said:

    So it seems there are many players and possibly builders who wishes NWN was based on 3.5. (And they also ignore the fact that 3.5 modification already exists)

    Anyway, I am now working on a kinda 3.5 ruleset modification on my own specifically for NWN-EE. But I have questions for all of you 3.5 lobbyists.

    What do you consider for 3.5 ruleset specifically? I mean, the difference between what we have and 3.5 is not that enormous. So what specifically you want from 3.5 to deal with?

    For me, a 3.5 modification will just modify everythin that is possible to be like in 3.5. As simple as that.

    No extra rebalancing, no anything.

    I don't even need extra levels. Epic levels are just not cool anyway, not in pnp and not in NWN.

    And the most important thing is that, no extra rebalancing. You say that there are already 3.5 modifications out there, but as far as I know they add extra rebalancing (and undocumented changes). I may be wrong here, and I would love to see a link if that's the case, haha


    Of course I understand that a lot of people want to balance things, but...Well, that's not 3.5, 3.5 is a specific ruleset.
  • Bogdanov89Bogdanov89 Member Posts: 8
    3.5 would definitely be a breath of fresh air for NWN :)
    RAM021
  • ShadooowShadooow Member Posts: 402
    I forgot about this thread.

    After realizing just about anyone has different vision on the 3.5 rules I had to abadon this project, sorry.

    If anyone is interested about 3.5 come join Arkhalia PW, however it is action (no roleplay events and majority players are not gonna play it) and lvl 40 based with lots of epic stuff.
  • Prince_RaymondPrince_Raymond Member Posts: 437
    edited March 2019
    @Shadooow Question regarding Arkhalia PW: Knowing what we know about the attack bonus miscalculation issue and how chaotic it is, have they been able to work a monk's unarmed attack progression in the 3.5 Edition rule system? In 3.5E, a monk's iterative unarmed attacks are made at a -5 penalty instead of the -3 penalty in 3.0. However, the -2 penalty from Flurry of Blows reduces over the first 9 levels of the class. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to -1, and at 9th level it disappears. When a monk reaches 11th level, her flurry of blows ability improves. In addition to the standard single extra attack she gets from Flurry of Blows, she gets a second extra attack (Greater Flurry) at her full base attack bonus. A 15th level monk using GFoB will make 5 unarmed attacks per round at a base attack bonus of +11/+11/+11/+6/+1. A pure 20th level monk will max at +15/+15/+15/+10/+5. Put a Haste item on that bad girl, and you're looking at potentially 6 unarmed attacks at +15/+15/+15/+15/+10/+5. All at 2d10 points of sweet, bludgeoning goodness. Oscar Mike Foxtrot Gulf. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.
  • ShadooowShadooow Member Posts: 402
    @Prince_Raymond monk UBAB progression is not changed on my PW, that is extremely hard thing to do and without client modifications which are not supported under NWN:EE such change, if I managed to make it, would have numerous feedback issues like incorrect AB/progression in character sheet not matching reality etc.
    Prince_Raymond
  • HipsterHipster Member Posts: 39
    I hadn't realized client changes were going to be ipossible to do. What a shame because this means my favorite persistent world will never become available on "enhanced". If ever you should check out "Higher Ground POA" which was one of the most populated worlds during the days. It features so many changes, you'll get mod coming out of your ears. Those guys are the best modders in the world and should get appointed vip status at Beamdog HQ. No joke.
    HG Forums
    Wiki
    Prince_RaymondRifleLeroy
  • sandronejmsandronejm Member Posts: 70
    There are over 3500 modules on the vault. All made with the current magic system. Surely fiddling with the magic system at this late stage in the life of the game will affect how these modules play.

    TR

    3500 modules? I want to play a module in my way but I think nobody knows how to produce them specifically. It is reserved to me to produce my own module. But my time is too expensive... It is complicated. I think I never will have it unless a miracle I believe in miracles. I need to resolve my life but the problem is when I do resolve my life probably I will not being interested in neverwinter nights I will be a business man and rich but I still love nwn I think it. I am in crisis because I have time only to keep here writing in these forums and I dont have time to play or build
  • Prince_RaymondPrince_Raymond Member Posts: 437
    edited April 2019
    Hipster wrote: »
    I hadn't realized client changes were going to be ipossible to do. What a shame because this means my favorite persistent world will never become available on "enhanced". If ever you should check out "Higher Ground POA" which was one of the most populated worlds during the days. It features so many changes, you'll get mod coming out of your ears. Those guys are the best modders in the world and should get appointed vip status at Beamdog HQ. No joke.
    HG Forums
    Wiki

    @Hipster Is there any way you can contact them? If they are that good, then they could possibly submit a resume to @Beamdog's Human Resource department and apply for a job there. To my knowledge, they are still hiring. Thank you for reading, and happy gaming to all.
    Post edited by Prince_Raymond on
  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    I'm sure everyone knows they can apply for a job but that's not the intention or even wise for most people that mod games as their hobby.

    If I recall correctly Higher Ground has known about NWN EE since November 2017 like the rest of the major servers. The same goes for other servers like Avlis & CoPaP, and Sinfar of course. Both Higher Ground and Sinfar are particularly notable for their technical achievements but I don't believe either have been tapped to help improve NWN EE.
    Prince_RaymonddTd
  • HipsterHipster Member Posts: 39
    edited April 2019
    They practically turned most of teh m,echanic inside-out. The amount of work that they put into one persistent world needs astronomical arithmetic to fathom. All of their work and the other modders' should get included in on the abox, to allow other builders to benefit from it. Just make it an optional fix so as to preserve other mods and the campaign.
    The current combat system needs to be revised and updated in order to make the game even playable any other than rp-mode.
    @Hipster Is there any way you can contact them? If they are that good, then they could possibly submit a resume to @Beamdog's Human Resource department and apply for a job there.
    @Prince_Raymond I don't really have a decent line to the devs at HG. I just think they might get into hiring modders and would like to see that Neverwinter stops idling on the "collectibles" shelf.
    Peaceful journeys !
    Post edited by Hipster on
    Prince_Raymond
  • sandronejmsandronejm Member Posts: 70
    Hipster wrote: »
    The current combat system needs to be revised and updated in order to make the game even playable any other than rp-mode.
    What do you mean with altering the current combat system? Do you mean these pws HG and Sinfar have different combat system and this is better than the default combat system and it should be applied for all servers and if I would make my own server I should include that combat system?

  • FreshLemonBunFreshLemonBun Member Posts: 909
    It's not necessarily that combat system changes are better or exclusive to just Diamond Edition. A lot of the combat related events are common NWNX features. However NWNEE doesn't support these and the version of NWNX used here doesn't support all the features made by the community.

    They were talking about making a lot of this stuff native to the server and client by default. So you wouldn't need a client extender and you wouldn't need to rely on non existent NWNX functions. The devs could alter the source code to make more things possible rather than the server and client needing to be self hacked/cracked and reverse engineered to get it working. Higher Ground for example has legendary levels much higher than 40 and systems that reflect it. Sinfar has some changes but focuses more on advanced character customization and user content creation, allowing authorized users to add new areas with new scripts and new npcs and dungeons.... while the server is still online... They both offer different things but both are quite advanced servers.

    I agree that their features should be merged into Enhanced Edition for the improved opportunities for all and until that's the case it's unlikely to see them move here.

    Other servers also have other things that aren't available. A lot have good technology to help make servers more seamless, safely sharing characters between servers in multiple host locations, cross-server chatting and player interaction.

    I'm not sure how any of that's related to the 3.5 rules but yeah there is an undiscovered and unused tool box of advanced modding for NWN Enhanced Edition that just isn't available.
    Prince_Raymondsandronejm
  • HipsterHipster Member Posts: 39
    edited April 2019
    Thanks for that :)
    The 3.5 ruleset becomes an issue when changes are made that would impede the official license by Hasbro and it may happen that they would not agree (as the rp community would object as well) if an update was made that lifted the ruleset version. If people remember, subsequent versions of Adventuring Games attempted to make more action-oriented gameplay possible and D&D4.0 catered to just that. The depth of the discussion almost came near the mark set by popular game industry standards. Of course, anyone using the toolset is free to make changes whatever way they desire. When it comes to official updates, things usually become more involved.
    https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/68851/did-anyone-manage-to-make-nwnx-work-on-ee
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