Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

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Goodman
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Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by Goodman »

This one's at least partially a complaint, but there are some genuine suggestions.

I think one of the major strengths of NWN as a game is the flexibility and build variety you can have, but everyone's running around with dual kamas. At any given raid, you can be almost assured that half of the players in the party will be running dual kamas. I understand this is inherent in NWN's core design to a degree, and gets exacerbated by the high magic setting the server is in.

But now there's a fad of transferring Bytor and Snowdog to kamas, which apparently retain their 2d10 Sonic bonus when transferred. I think that's kinda BS and defeats the purpose of Bytor and Snowdog, which is that you have to craft a build around using them, one that's probably not ideal outside of the specific instance of using the two of them at once. Doing so successfully should be rewarded by getting a lot of mileage out of them, but seeing people run around with their Monk BG builds with Bytor-Snowdog dual kamas is kind of disheartening to me.

At minimum, I would like to see unarmed strike buffed to be even mildly competitive. I think you should be able to get Demonforged gloves, which as I understand is not presently possible. I would also like to see Keen on gloves, also possibly make level restrictions more forgiving on gloves. Since unarmed strike uses gloves as weapons, you're restricted to one item whereas normally your gloves would add to your weapon(s) or your weapon and shield, but you lose out on that luxury since your gloves are your damage output so they can't really provide much utility. Hence why I think gloves should be allowed to have more enchantments on them. Possibly make new gloves with a hard class restriction to monk so that it can't be abused by other classes; I don't know if this is possible, all just suggestions.
sergeil
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by sergeil »

If dual Kamas is so great, why you don't use it?

Monk based builds allow to create toons with high characteristics and decent damage. Sure, this builds are effective and popular.
Garrett
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by Garrett »

Are you seriously complaining about this? Those two aren't all mighty and mostly fail during some boss runs either due the damage immunity or lack of AB if the kama build is used.

Not even to mention that gem of transference is equally rare as those two stock weapons. You need 2x gems and two weapons to make a transformation that you are talking about. Take in consideration that average drop chance of each item is 5%, meaning that chance to make that kind of powerful weapon is 0.25%.
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driller
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by driller »

I have had my eye on this for some time, if I had to do it over, I would only allow certain item property transfers.

It's easy to fix the Bytor/Snowdog issue. But for some of the others, it's to late to change it without causing a headache for me.

As for Monks, they are selected because of their extra attacks and you can hold two perk weapons at the same time.
This gives them a large dps advantage. I will have to reign this in a bit at some point.

I would not ruin the character's role, just tone it down some to make it slightly better(and useful) at that role instead of significantly better.
Catopillar
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by Catopillar »

Bytor/Snowdog builds can compete with monks without transferring them. I feel monks are ok but should be limited to only natural kamas, not special weapons transferred onto kamas.

Maybe making some of the unique weapons a little more powerful to make it more desirable to play non Kama builds.

Make wars GS/witch blade ignore DI like other perks. Stuff like this would really increase weapon diversity, I think.
sergeil
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by sergeil »

Well, I use longsword, what is transferred from Bytor.

In fact, there is chance to create any weapon with characteristics like Bytor, but it takes more attempts and more forge stones.

Transferring is just much easier way to receive result.

I believe, that any guild, what is able to accumulate more resources, is able to craft for it's party members weapon even better as transferred Bytor.

Transferring is way for people who are not part of guild.
Garrett
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by Garrett »

good job ruining another rarely crafted weapon set. whats next, you gonna complain that crushing blow is overpowered?
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driller
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by driller »

Ruining? That's hyperbole.
Garrett wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 2:56 pm good job ruining another rarely crafted weapon set. whats next, you gonna complain that crushing blow is overpowered?
Lomilinator
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Re: Dual Kamas are Too Dominant

Post by Lomilinator »

Ok, so I'm guilty of creating a range of dual wield kama toons. So for comparison I leveled a strength based unarmed monk (with some RDD for bonus stats) and the results are... Relatively meh... Although I do still like the character...

Why?

1. You lose two item slots, so give up at least +8 to attributes of your choice, plus whatever additional bonuses you thought you were going to add to weapons.
2. You lose perks - only perked gloves I've found are the resonance ones, and the resonance feature doesn't seem to work as described (at least doesn't after you forge anything else onto the gloves).

Note - I haven't tried using a perk stone on gloves - not sure if that would work and don't want to waste a relatively rare drop... :evil:

Also to compare, I'm leveling some dual wielding non monk, non kama fighters and their pretty fun - more versatile as you can add a shield and tank a bit, and with scimitars you get a much wider dev crit range. But they don't get monk speed, and so they feel pretty sluggish, and have less attacks each round to get their perk on.

If you wanted to level it out, you could drop the % chance of a perk happening on kama only (or raise it on all other weapons). Or make some awesome gloves with serious on hit wonderfulness that are hard wired to monk only (or only fire if you have unarmed feats - is that feasible).
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