What does this race need to be more viable as warriors and berserkers? We all know they make ridiculously strong blademasters, but are lackluster warriors/berserkers. The blademaster class itself is what makes them strong, as that class is very clearly broken. I have been discussing the problems the dwarf warriors and zeros face and they are:
Bash/Bodyslam vulnerabilities. Their size is huge negative for not only offense, but defense. The skills are near useless to use and can literally end their PKs before they get anything moving.
Water vulnerability. This is another devastating negative to the class. Tempest trident, blade of tears, rod of stars, and now the storm forger are all incredibly available weapons that literally WRECK dwarves/duergars. If I am going to have this large of a vuln, then I am better off going giant/ogre so I only have one thing going against me. Ogre regen easily compensates for their vuln.
Weapon selection. Not as "huge" as the other two, but still something that makes giant warriors/berserkers all that much better.
Now, they aren't all bad as a race as they do have some nice perks:
High con gives you nice hp, but not any more significant than ANY giant race. Especially ogres.
Magic resistance. A HUGE pro when you think about it, it will give any caster a hard time. Unfortunately, the race lacks the punch of the giant races to really capitalize on this benefit. Aside from that, how many melee players rely on saves anymore? Its turned into an all out hit/dam suit to overwhelm your opponent. Even IF they are a caster.
I don't know what can be done to make this issue a bit easier. How do you change a race without increasing the strength of an overpowered class option? IE: Blademasters.
Class selection changes stats slightly similar to humans? Do you make the warrior/berserker classes heavier and wider, therefore increasing the effectiveness of their bodyslam/bash while reducing the vulnerability to it? A blade master wouldn't get this as they rely on dexterity.
Reduce the water vulnerability for the race? Then blade masters and clerics will have ANOTHER bonus to them making them that much stronger. I do believe the vuln is a bit high, but like I said, how would this impact BLMs and clerics?
What about halflings as well? What can be done for them? Their magic resistance was altered because blademasters(a broken class) was way too strong. This change hinders halfling warriors even MORE now. What can be done for smaller sized warriors?
We were given a shield change. A nice little change, but again, benefits giants as they can use a two hander and a shield. Edge goes to giants. Not only that, but who really uses a shield when a staff is FAR more defensive AND offensive? Having playing several warriors, a few of them shield lore warriors(Hazkrul), I can say its not as strong as using a staff. I would carry a staff and use it if stuff became difficult or if I was taking too much damage. Why? Because its better.
Warriors are the single most played class in the game. Of them, I am speculating that ogres are the top race followed probably by fire giants or storm giants. Storm giants for crusader wannabes. If one combo is so much more popular than every other then there is a reason. And, in my opinion, the reason is because the other combos suck in comparison.
Warriors and Zerks know all water vuln weapons. Only a cabal can use the special water whips.
Warriors weapon seize will allow them to deal very well with vuln weapons. In fact it's the logical choice.
Zerks are a bit underpowered, but still a better choice than a common human.
Zerks fury can cleave burnprof weapons.
I totally agree with you that upping dwarves in any form will just spike the super powerful dwarf blademasters. Which the Storm Forger mace is meant to be a bane to as blademasters don't know maces, unlike clerics,healers,bard,warriors,zerks,thieves.
I do agree with you on Halflings. Non blademasters Halflings have it bad.
And you don't even speak of Gnome warriors
But comparing giants meeles with medium meeles, is on par with comparing elven and human mages. Some races are just better at some roles than others.
I think size needs to affect hitroll. If I am a halfing, and I am s hooting arrows at a giant, Im going to hit them. Same with weapons. A greataxe swung by a giant at a halfing, should have an increased miss chance
I think size needs to affect hitroll. If I am a halfing, and I am s hooting arrows at a giant, Im going to hit them. Same with weapons. A greataxe swung by a giant at a halfing, should have an increased miss chance
As an example, would an extra +2 to hitroll make that big a difference when hitting medium creatures? +4 to hit large?
Valid question, I have no idea.
If we're going to do something like this, then shouldn't size also affect weapon damage as a standard sized bastard sword would be a greatsword in the hands of a small character while also being a dagger in the hands of a giant? Would we cut down Mahn-Tor's Axe (as an example) to 75% damage in small hands and 150% in large hands? How far is too far in dealing with the size difference in this instance?
You literally didn't address any issue.. You just repeated information and said you disagree..
I shared my view on Dwarven meeles, and said I disagreed that they need anything more to be viable. This clearly addressing the issue.
I agree that I could have said more about Halfling and Gnomes, perhaps offering a solution. I did not, because I don't see one.
It's difficult, because as you surely know, empowering the halfling race would lead to stronger halfling blademasters.
The-nameless, it already does for Halfling. Their higher Dex, creates a better Armor Class which increases "miss" chances on the Hitroll vs AC check. It also increases their chances to evade a bash/bodyslam, at which they just slightly above a human.
Perhaps you are suggesting that Halfling should have an inherent dodge bonus, but this would also empower blademasters.
No easy way.
Unless perhaps they could go the way of Yoda, and have them as the only 25 Dex race (excluding OP drow blm), with multiple off hand bonus such as:
Natural dual wield: 103% (irrelevant after 100%)
Natural dual parry: 110% (little, dual parry is literally the worst defense in the game)
Natural riposte: 110% (guess what, riposte is just as bad but at least you can use a staff)
If we're going to do something like this, then shouldn't size also affect weapon damage as a standard sized bastard sword would be a greatsword in the hands of a small character while also being a dagger in the hands of a giant? Would we cut down Mahn-Tor's Axe (as an example) to 75% damage in small hands and 150% in large hands? How far is too far in dealing with the size difference in this instance?
And they couldn't wield polearms. Which would suck, because Halfling Halbardiers are so cute.
It's hard to respond to your post as you have covered most points, however, I think you're playing-up the downsides and downplaying the advantages. This isn't a critisism, just a different point of view of the race. I think the race is very good. Consider:
Pro's:
Magic resistance - cannot be overstated. Anyone MUST use a physical weapon or their damage is cut. All can get stone skin to help resist physical damgae too. No casters get full damage spells casting on you making life a misery for them. This gets worse when you get the 'normal' amount of saves. I have logs of my duergar warrior taking mauls and decimates constantly vs ray of truth. Hellstream is laughable (though that's not your primary concern vs an invoker but that doesn't mean some don't just cast it out of habit);
High con - dosen't mean the same gain as ogres (ogres have something special) but you should have HP close or higher than the giant races. Rage hp gain uses a formula that take con into account so a dwarf has the largest bonus in the game from this (though an ogre will still have more total hp). Duergars not so much. Either way, you'll look at 1100 - 1200hp base as a warrior, 1500- 1600hp is well within your grasp with berserk/rage. Very respectable given the magic resistance.
Drunk mini sanc - this seems to be one of those things several people 'in the know' don't want to fess up about (note: Would love clarification if it exists, ever existed and if what I say is correct). I really hate it when things like this - which are nigh on impossible to work out yourself - aren't told to players, so here is the rumor: It's the alcoholic perk innate on dwarves/duergar. Drink to just under max drink, speech slurs but no % skill loss (all other races suffer the -%skill loss to get this drunk and gain the benefit), -10% damage taken. If you didn't know, now you do. All my dwarves/duergar were perma-drunk due to this (did you really think the alcohol in the Gal Randion fountian was a coincidence?).
Some innate +% skills (eg berserk) - I'd personally like to see this expanded to headbutt - dwarves/duergar solid, stocky builds as well as their legendary stubbon and hard-headed nature has led these races to innately know how to use their heads as weapons.
Con's:
Water vuln - the couterpoint to the magic resistance. Yeah, this sucks - you take extra damage to water attacks and get -10% prof when on water. Which is where every caster in the game wants to fight you so you can't dirt kick in any case. That being said, all water weapons (including Storm Forger??) are disarmable and cleaveable. It's not like you can't make people's lives difficult to hold onto those weapons. It's not even possible to offhand the trident now vs some zerk (offhand cleave). Two tridents availabe in game, once of which I'd want in my inventory (it is a great weapon) means that you shouldn't face this weapon every battle.
Jet stream still sucks, but it is what it is. Magic resistance is a pretty major buff. This does require some setup to get max damage though.
Weapon selectiong (2h weapons in one hand) - this is not a disadavantage of the dwarf/duergar race - it is an advantage of the giant/ogre/mino races. No bueno to call it as a Con - else every non-large race has an innate 'disadvantage.' Yes the pool of weapons is somewhat smaller, however, it's possible to have good weapons in each hand.
Size - again, it's an advantage of the large races more than a disadvantage of the other races. Dwarves/duergar rate equal to a human here. You might also consider, it's far easier to take someone's flight with a haymaker and the smaller size opens up trip as a viable lagging alternative vs the larger races.
Personally, I think the race is very strong - albiet you are going to get hurt from time to time vs water. If you ever get into a PK where someone isn't hitting your vuln, you have a massive advantage. You take either normal or less (in the case of a magic damage weapon) damage each shot. Very few saves needed (considering warcry means you have perma -9 svs on top of this) to resist spells. For cabal life, the outfit command will make mages lives oh-so-difficult as you have a base lot of saves all the time.
Water damage does suck - there really is no way around that. Much like ice on fire giants - which plenty are willing to make the trade for. Quite simply, you can't ROFL-Stomp everyone all of the time. Sometimes you're going to have to fight someone who has the advantage from the outset. Generally speaking, all race/classes have some of this - if you have more offense, you have bigger foils (zerk). Lower offense means it's less foils (cleric).
Overall, I don't mind the race. I'd like to see some more +% skill innate increases to make it worthwhile (which won't give anything to blademasters), however, even without those I find dwarves/duergar are strong at lvl 50. You are going to have to be a faster chaser as lag locks via bash/slam aren't going to be as prevalent as on the ogre/giant variants of the same classes. You can prevent these happening to you with a with a shield - which is a 'pick your poison' kind of deal ie you can not take the shield blocking and be more vuln to get better offensive skills, or take the more defensive skills and give up offense. IMHO, it should come down to who you expect/want to fight most of the time vs who you expect/want your bane to be at other times.
does it need to be said? any dwarf/duergar zerk would be completely raped by the weeping wire wielding beast
Maybe. It wouldn't be an easy battle, though against that particular beast when is it ever?
The other side of that argument is that if it's going to take a specific race/class/cabal combination to give you grief, then you might have found something pretty strong to start with....
