Not sure I like the stat stacking in end game.

[mutantspicy]

What I mean is most enemies in act 3 have a ton of resistence, meaning you have to have a very high spell DC to land a spell. Like +5 to +7 on saves. I don't like it because it limits role play. What if you wanted to play with 3 feats instead of maxing out your ability score. In 5e, the intent is the 18 should be more than enough. Basically if you want to be a spell caster, you have to forget about feats, except war caster , you have to take that if you are a controller. Its very limiting in my opinion. And yeah there's items with arcane acruity, a concept that doesn't exist in D&D, I had to look up what it was. Its basically their fudge factor to attempt to rebalance this issue. It just reminds me of going backwards to 3.5e rules, there's a damn good reason WOTC got away from all the stat stacking. Its boring. You spend the whole time mining your inventory for magic items. Now we all like some level of that and maybe 5e is a bit too light in this regard. But I think they went a little overboard, and it starts to feel too much like Mathfinder at the end.

[Recjawjind]

Honestly, the gear Larian gives you is so crazy powerful, you could probably get away with 8 in your main casting stat and still have spells land *extremely* reliably. You don't really have to think much about your build, just "set it and forget it" and when you find an upgrade, swap to that.

+5-7 on saves isn't actually that much, a lotta creatures that are proficient in the saves will reach those values in low to mid level regular 5e.

The gear you are given is *so good* that it actually destroys all difficulty very very quickly. Yeah, it's still kind of stat stacking, and a bit unfortunate that the gear is that incredibly good, but it's still a fun system IMO.

I just wish there was a difficulty above tactician, where you actually have to make extremely optimized builds to even stand a chance.

[demoss]

What if you wanted to play with 3 feats? Well, I guess you're seeing what you traded off to get that. Feats shouldn't be a no-brainer.

[mutantspicy]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Honestly, the gear Larian gives you is so crazy powerful, you could probably get away with 8 in your main casting stat and still have spells land *extremely* reliably. You don't really have to think much about your build, just "set it and forget it" and when you find an upgrade, swap to that.

+5-7 on saves isn't actually that much, a lotta creatures that are proficient in the saves will reach those values in low to mid level regular 5e.

The gear you are given is *so good* that it actually destroys all difficulty very very quickly. Yeah, it's still kind of stat stacking, and a bit unfortunate that the gear is that incredibly good, but it's still a fun system IMO.

I just wish there was a difficulty above tactician, where you actually have to make extremely optimized builds to even stand a chance.

Yeah I meant +5 to 7 from items alone. That would be on top of their proficiency bonus. A base character with 20 Ability Score would have +9 and then you an item with an addtional +5. Sorry but no wizard with an 8 int is doing anything against that. And even an 18 is not enough in that scenario. You need to rely on the OP magical items this game dishes out. So I would agree game has too many game breaking magic items. But I disagree with your idea the game should be harder, no they should just get rid of all that ♥♥♥♥.

Magic items of this power should be insanely rare. And finally, why didn't they just call Arcane Acruity > Spell Penetration so at least we are familiar with what it does. Because thats what it is.

[Broan]

Originally posted by mutantspicy:

What I mean is most enemies in act 3 have a ton of resistence, meaning you have to have a very high spell DC to land a spell. Like +5 to +7 on saves. I don't like it because it limits role play. What if you wanted to play with 3 feats instead of maxing out your ability score. In 5e, the intent is the 18 should be more than enough. Basically if you want to be a spell caster, you have to forget about feats, except war caster , you have to take that if you are a controller. Its very limiting in my opinion. And yeah there's items with arcane acruity, a concept that doesn't exist in D&D, I had to look up what it was. Its basically their fudge factor to attempt to rebalance this issue. It just reminds me of going backwards to 3.5e rules, there's a damn good reason WOTC got away from all the stat stacking. Its boring. You spend the whole time mining your inventory for magic items. Now we all like some level of that and maybe 5e is a bit too light in this regard. But I think they went a little overboard, and it starts to feel too much like Mathfinder at the end.

In Act 3 there are plenty and plenty of Items you can gear up that increase your Spell DC / Spell Attack by 1 or sometimes even 2. It's super easy to Increase your chance to hit spells with them, should be no problem whatsoever with a Ability you use for spellcasting of 18. Even 16 would be totally fine most of the times. Yes, more enemies have resistances, but most of the time they also have some sort of weakness. You can get Gear that gives you a total of like +4/5 to your spell attacks or Spell DC and same with Weapons. My Dudes had like +14 to hit with Weapons and it was never a problem. You do need to think about what kind of spells / kind of damages you pack your Crew with - i will say that. But that should be common sense that you can't burst every enemy with the same stuff.

[Broan]

Originally posted by mutantspicy:

Yeah I meant +5 to 7 from items alone. That would be on top of their proficiency bonus. A base character with 20 Ability Score would have +9 and then you an item with an addtional +5. Sorry but no wizard with an 8 int is doing anything against that. And even an 18 is not enough in that scenario. You need to rely on the OP magical items this game dishes out. So I would agree game has too many game breaking magic items. But I disagree with your idea the game should be harder, no they should just get rid of all that ♥♥♥♥.

Magic items of this power should be insanely rare. And finally, why didn't they just call Arcane Acruity > Spell Penetration so at least we are familiar with what it does. Because thats what it is.

If you Dump your MAIN Attribute to an 8 (like a Wizard with Int 8) thats obviously you manipulating yourself to not be any good. You can absolutely take 3 Feats and be useful as hell. If you are not you are doing something wrong. I don't know WHAT you did, but you are doing something that holds yourself back. Never ran into any Issue like that on any of my runs. Of course it helps to boost your stats to 20. It feels good. Is it absolutely necessary - No, totally not. You will be fine with a 16 or 18 aswell.

[Recjawjind]

Originally posted by mutantspicy:

Yeah I meant +5 to 7 from items alone. That would be on top of their proficiency bonus. A base character with 20 Ability Score would have +9 and then you an item with an addtional +5. Sorry but no wizard with an 8 int is doing anything against that. And even an 18 is not enough in that scenario. You need to rely on the OP magical items this game dishes out. So I would agree game has too many game breaking magic items. But I disagree with your idea the game should be harder, no they should just get rid of all that ♥♥♥♥.

Magic items of this power should be insanely rare. And finally, why didn't they just call Arcane Acruity > Spell Penetration so at least we are familiar with what it does. Because thats what it is.

8 Main casting stat would still give you a Spellsave DC in the high 20s to low 30s if you fully optimize around it.

Of course you are gimping yourself and making major sacrifices, but the items you rely on are just so crazy stupidly powerful that 8 int wizard or 8 cha sorc etc is totally doable if you REALLY wanted to.

[ACS36]

It should really depends on what the spell does.

You want a spell that can completely trivialize an encounter? Probably a bad idea for a computer game. But makes more sense for pen and paper where a DM can be more flexible and less rigid when it comes to the experience. DM's are better at keeping things in check than a computer based environment would be.

They probably would have been better off leaving certain spells out of the game entirely rather than trying to incorporate them because now players get upset that this really powerful spell has a very low chance to hit. Honestly, I'm not sure why you'd have fun playing through the game where you can just solve every encounter with a guaranteed mechanic.

[mutantspicy]

Originally posted by Broan der Rentner:

Originally posted by mutantspicy:

What I mean is most enemies in act 3 have a ton of resistence, meaning you have to have a very high spell DC to land a spell. Like +5 to +7 on saves. I don't like it because it limits role play. What if you wanted to play with 3 feats instead of maxing out your ability score. In 5e, the intent is the 18 should be more than enough. Basically if you want to be a spell caster, you have to forget about feats, except war caster , you have to take that if you are a controller. Its very limiting in my opinion. And yeah there's items with arcane acruity, a concept that doesn't exist in D&D, I had to look up what it was. Its basically their fudge factor to attempt to rebalance this issue. It just reminds me of going backwards to 3.5e rules, there's a damn good reason WOTC got away from all the stat stacking. Its boring. You spend the whole time mining your inventory for magic items. Now we all like some level of that and maybe 5e is a bit too light in this regard. But I think they went a little overboard, and it starts to feel too much like Mathfinder at the end.

In Act 3 there are plenty and plenty of Items you can gear up that increase your Spell DC / Spell Attack by 1 or sometimes even 2. It's super easy to Increase your chance to hit spells with them, should be no problem whatsoever with a Ability you use for spellcasting of 18. Even 16 would be totally fine most of the times. Yes, more enemies have resistances, but most of the time they also have some sort of weakness. You can get Gear that gives you a total of like +4/5 to your spell attacks or Spell DC and same with Weapons. My Dudes had like +14 to hit with Weapons and it was never a problem. You do need to think about what kind of spells / kind of damages you pack your Crew with - i will say that. But that should be common sense that you can't burst every enemy with the same stuff.

I understand all of this and that's my point, its too much like 3.5e type ♥♥♥♥. It starts to become too much like, every battle becomes go back to camp, load out the perfect crew, with perfect set of tools for every battle. It breaks the immersion for me, its becomes too much like pathfinder or neverwinter nights. Give me minute while I stand around the corner, cast all my buffs, load out the perfect combination of gear, then cakewalk through the battle.

[mutantspicy]

Originally posted by Recjawjind:

Originally posted by mutantspicy:

Yeah I meant +5 to 7 from items alone. That would be on top of their proficiency bonus. A base character with 20 Ability Score would have +9 and then you an item with an addtional +5. Sorry but no wizard with an 8 int is doing anything against that. And even an 18 is not enough in that scenario. You need to rely on the OP magical items this game dishes out. So I would agree game has too many game breaking magic items. But I disagree with your idea the game should be harder, no they should just get rid of all that ♥♥♥♥.

Magic items of this power should be insanely rare. And finally, why didn't they just call Arcane Acruity > Spell Penetration so at least we are familiar with what it does. Because thats what it is.

8 Main casting stat would still give you a Spellsave DC in the high 20s to low 30s if you fully optimize around it.

Of course you are gimping yourself and making major sacrifices, but the items you rely on are just so crazy stupidly powerful that 8 int wizard or 8 cha sorc etc is totally doable if you REALLY wanted to.

I'm really curious, how you think you can get a 30 spell DC with an 8 int. Again, even if you can this is the kind of stat stacking, I'm talking about. I don't like it. It feels like going backwards.

[mutantspicy]

Originally posted by ACS36:

It should really depends on what the spell does.

Honestly, I'm not sure why you'd have fun playing through the game where you can just solve every encounter with a guaranteed mechanic.

I agree with this sentiment completely, which is my whole problem with the direction Larian went end game. It literally becomes a game of stat stacking with guaranteed outcomes at the end. Passing out potions of frost giant strength like candy. Haste allowing you double all your actions, dual wielding crossbows, dual wielding staves, having stackable spell penetration, and giving every Githyanki in +5 saving throws on their armor. All of the game balancing issue, that people who claim the game is too easy are using these exploits. The game would actually be more challenging if they just stuck with the 5e ruleset a little more.

[nopw]

I agree that the enemies are loaded with resistences. My annoyance is how often I need to check/examine an enemy.

Most enemies have a weakness or three.
Many items give useful buffs.
Not all spells use spell DC.
The best part about wizards is they have so many spells they can "prepare" for anything.
Feats vs ability score is a trade off. That seems fine.
A little cheesy but I really love how cheap respec is in this game.
There are so many powerful potions, poisons and oils you can use too.
The game has multiple powerful items that can help out.
The game constantly dangles tadpole powers in front of you.
Sometimes you just roll poorly. Such is the nature of die.

Having explored a variety of options and tried respeccing my character, reclassing and regearing for some variation (hitting max level early in final chapter sucks so I had to find my own way to add a change of pace) I think it is fine.

My 14 Wis Shadowheart had the boss in House of Hope grovelling for multiple turns while she just stood nearby letting Spirit Guardians do the work, casting warding glyph to then sleep a bunch of lesser enemies on occasion. She definitely wasn't min maxed or anything.

My main frustration is actually how poor the action economy is for my wizard. This leaves me either to multi-class or rely on haste which takes away a lot of other concentration spells for the latter... Until I brought a sorc in who would twin haste us both. Now I'm happy mostly. So I guess my final point is that you can use friends/allies to round out your weaknesses as well.

[mutantspicy]

I'm not a fan of respecing so easily, I'm not a fan retarded levels of potions and magic items in D&D, I'm not a fan of how building your character is rendered meaningless by end game.

I I love how my main complaint is I'm not a fan of the stat stacking in the end of game. And yet everyone's response just do more stat stacking, respec your character. Yeah no ♥♥♥♥. That's my point. Its dumb. I'm not saying its difficult to figure out, its just cheasy and immersion breaking. You can build a barbarian with an 8 str and a 20 chr, because who cares they hand out frost giant potions like m&ms. What was the entire point of building my character? When really every battle boils down to examine, go back to camp, grab uber item A and a speed potion for the fighter done. And the fact many battles require a spell dc of 25+ that by its nature forces you down the path of min / maxing. I wouldn't mind those kind of number in 3.5e because that game is balanced around buff spells. Look I don't mind adding a little extra sauce on 5e but they went way the ♥♥♥♥ overboard. And haste ruins everything. That needs to be dialed back. Mages aren't supposed to cast two spells per round and fighter aren't food processors. Again they went way overboard and messed up the balance of the ruleset.