Messages

1: I pick up a few bulky bits of loot, leaving no inventory room for my shield. Thank you, Recover Trap...
2: Before I think to organise it, i swap weapons and my shield auto-drops on the floor.
3; I pick it up and re equip it. It behaves normally.
4: 2 minutes later, if disappears off my PC's arm and vanishes out my inventory, leaving no log in the inventory.

I have now lost two +1 large shields to this bug  and am considering moving to a small shield in part to slightly reduce the chances of this happening XD

Bards can multiclass freely but if they do the effects of their perk as detailed below are disabled. Whatever song you gained remains in your songbook, however. They may still take levels in prestige classes without losing their perk.

I was building a backup PC as a bard, and noticed I didn't get a song from taking the Perk. So far I've tried it with Skald and Spellsinger on new PCs to check.  I wasn't given  a songsheet, nothing showed up in the book, and my bard song remained normal for the bonuses and VFX.

I agree that Rogues have a harder time than Druids or Rangers in getting to Ninja Level Stealth, and they're much more fragile when they do get spotted. Fewer HP, and most of the "save or get screwed" type things from monsters tend to be Fort (like Cubes and Vines) or Will. But I think the message here isn't "rogues need a stealth buff" so much as  "Maxed out stealth in any class with H/MS as a class skill should be useful".  Because if you balance monster detection scores to Rangers, you make it brutal on everyone else.  A stealth rogue isn't facing the Wisdom dependency of a Monk, or the feat/skill tax of a Bard. Extra Music and Curse song are feats that compete with Stealthy, and you need Perform and Concentration etc.

Yes, I agree that Rogues could do with more stealth so you don't need to powerbuild to survive. But they only suffer an opportunity cost for stealth when compared to Rangers or Druids. Not with Monks or Bards who don't get Stealth perks.  I think the Rogue 'Packed' perk and the Sorcerer' Tribal Shaman' one offer some good methods here. They let you add on some stuff thats normally hard to build up, but they don't let you minmax it. E.g Tribal Shaman gives lower bonuses for Small PCs. I used to happily roll around EFU on 14 DEX Rangers but wouldn't so much try a 14 Dex Rogue as I want to squeeze every bit of stealth out the PC just to get by.

I think a set of reverse Trackless Step/Natural Senses bonuses could be a strong way to go for both Bards and Rogues to represent the fact they are the "street smart" character archetypes. More Hide/Move Silent/Listen/Search  in non-wilderness areas. For monks, since you have Stances, it makes sense to put a Stelth specialism there and say it exists, so people know they can pick that for a stealth focused Monk if that's a concept they want to play.

If you wanted to strongly differentiate a Rogue/Bard stealth upgrade from Ranger and Druid camo spells, you could script something like a "/c distract" command that gives you increased Speed in Stealth Mode and a temporary Stealth bonus for 1-2 Turns on a short cooldown. Put it in at 4-5 class levels. So whereas a Ranger is good at stalking prey and a Monk might sit in Sneaky Stance, a Rogue or Bard can get in, do the thing and get out while nobody is looking in their direction. Which is what you want to get in and disable a trap, sneak past a sentry, or pick a pocket. It would give a strong opportunist feel to the classes.

[Druid:]

Apologies for length. I had further thoughts as I wanted to make a stealth bard as my next PC, and found I was very much struggling in comparison to a rogue.  And even in comparison to picking a Shadow or Tribal Shaman Sorcerer, on raw numbers.

I think it's very difficult to say "rogues suffer in comparison to other stealth classes". They are the masters of urban stealth now, because their Perks stack with Camouflage consumables and can take them higher than the Ranger's situational 4/4 bonus. And EFU:R is a much more urban environment than previous chapters. They're worse than Druids because of the lack of buffs, can be comparable to Rangers in a city unless the Ranger is L8 (And remember you keep your Rogue perk if you die but not your Ranger L2 spell slot), and miles better than the other two stealth classes.

Classes with stealth, ranked roughly by "gets the most stuff" to "gets the least stuff":
Druid:
- Free +4 H/MS in wilderness.
- Camouflage and One with the Land for 6/2 and 4/5. Cat's Grace at L3.
- Tracking and AE to avoid problems.
- Wildshape, further H/MS bonuses in wildshape.
- High conflict choice because of the prohibition on shapeshifting.

Ranger:
- Free +4 H/MS in wilderness.
- Camouflage for 6/2  at L4.
- Cat's Grace and OWTL at L8, although they need spellslot gear to stack them.
- Could also use Alter Self at L8, but that attracts IC attention and disables some of your sneaking gear. And competes with OWTL or Grace.
- Tracking and AE to avoid problems.

Rogue:
- Can pick perks for up to  +5 Hide,+ 3 Move Silent everywhere, tracking, and animals don't attack you (Thief/Lurker/Scout).   
- Or a total +6/+4 H/MS and 15% perma-conceal if you are spotted (swap Scout for Shadow).
- Apothecary perk is semi-random but surprisingly very useful to stealthers. The unstable potions are biased towards those that help the average Rogue and if you can work out a sneaking-relevant recipe you can churn it out with a more limited investment in Lore/Heal/Etc.
- Can UMD other classes' stealth gear, which sometimes helps.

Monk:
- No stealth bonuses from this class.
- I suspect there's a Monk Stance with  H/MS bonuses because that seems an obvious flavour for a Stance and every other passive EFU buff seems to have an a stealth flavoured one.

Bard:
- No perk grants H/MS.
- I recall one of the Songs gives H/MS but songs don't last long.
- May spend a limited Known Spell pick on Cat's Grace. May spend a limited spell pick on Invisibility.
- May spend a spell pick on Alter Self, but both a high-conflict choice to to the shapeshifting prohibition, and disables equipment.
- Expensive class to build for stealth because of the need to pick Bard feats to get the most out of the class.
- Can UMD other classes' stealth gear, which sometimes helps.

So given all that, unless there's no Sneaking Stance, I reckon Bard's at the bottom of the table, Druid's at the top, and Rogue's a comfortable average providing you pick the stealth route. They can certainly get the most unbuffed stealth, especially in a non-wild area.

A simple way to lift up Bard stealthing could be to put Camouflage on the Bard spell list as a L1-2 spell and/or adding a Stealth perk. In terms of Monk, if there is a Sneaking Stance, being a bit more public about it would reduce any perception Monks can't sneak.

Classes without stealth but with stealth buffs
Sorcerer:
- +5 H/MS on two perks (effectively making it into a class skill rather than giving an actual bonus)   +1H/MS from the +2 DEX if you take Shadow perk. I like how the bonus is weaker for Small PCs, to make average size stealthers equally appealing.
- Player tool for either One With the Land or Camouflage, depending on perk.
- Could spend a limited spell pick on Alter Self (which makes you a PVP target due to a common prohibition on shapeshifting).

Barbarian:
- Furor that gives a small H/MS bonus. Very short lived, only really useful to a multiclass and barely at that,

Thanks for the perspective and advice., RwG The ring-running game looks really novel, but the worry for me was "Well I'd get stuck by myself a lot or have to bail on the group".

As you say, it's a different pace, and part of the joy of EfU for me has been often just witnessing the shenanigans that go on on a well populated server. Which is why my current PC is a 0-stealth rogue in an attempt to counter my tendency to go wandering off in pursuit of interesting nonsense.

I might try recruiting a few of my tabletop or larp gaming mates onto EfU for a ring-running "campaign". Just like a regular gaming night but without the need for a guaranteed DM.

Yesterday I accidentally destroyed a masterwork healing kit by targeting it with a normal one. Because I didn't have any idea how to transfer items between kits, and made a bad guess when trying to fill it. Then my surgeon was sad.
1: Could we have a set of usage instructions in the kit description, and a warning of "If you target another kit, that kit WILL BE DESTROYED".
2: Rather than just destroying the kit, could using a kit on another kit also spawn an empty kit of the appropriate quality level? That way you can't accidentally destroy loot while trying to reload it or on a misclick. The script reads the ID of the targeted item, destroys it, applies the number of herbs to the item you used, and then spawns another replacement empty kit.
3: Alternatively, could you disable filling kits from other kits, and  add a Unique Power Self Only that spits out 10 Herbs at a time, so we can empty it the long way?

I'm enjoying Tinkering, but it does come with one huge drawback. Craft Trap is essentially an EFUSS skill that costs you real skill points.  Concentration, Spellcraft and Heal will all benefit any PC who takes them, and Lore is useful for all crafting as well. Craft Trap doesn't do anything but give you an improved Tinkering score.

Thoughts:

• Improve Craft Trap like for Parry and Tumble. For every 5 ranks in it, you gain a bonus. I suggest +1 Open Lock/Set Trap/Disable Trap (maybe also UMD?). You invest 5 points in Craft Trap and get 3 (or 4) points back across other skills. The benefit being that it raises your max skill level in those.
  
• Make Tinkering work using Set Trap or Disable Trap instead, as those skills have an actual in game use.

What puts me off is the apparent need for that organised play time and group, which I can't guarantee. Especially because if the group only has 1-2 keys for a Ring, that key holder is required to be on for you to move around in any real way.

What would make it more appealing is if there was a way to teleport to and from a spawn point in the deeper rings. So if you've set a spawn in a Ring, you can go to and from that Ring to the King's Commons, but not to anywhere else.

Speaking from my time exploring EFUA and EFU:M on Rangers, the exploring was fun but I kept longing for a Teleport wizard buddy to let me go back and enjoy the multiplayer aspects of the server, experience server events, etc.

A system to let you teleport to and from your 'base camp' would make the idea of ring running more friendly to a casual player or one without a group.

If you only implemented this after Ring 95, that would be a good way to stop it becoming "convenient fast travel to a questing area". 99-95 stays well travelled, the deeper rings become spotted with base camps. Keys remain important because you can only jump from your base camp ring to the hubs. You can't use it to "fast travel" through the rings, and you can't exploit it to go someplace your PC hasn't seen yet.

What it does let you do is head back to town and trade in strange things you found, or take part in server events.

You could use a combination of a long charge up time for the teleport, and a dose of Plane Sickness for doing it, to stop it being too convenient. It wouldn't be anything that didn't exist already for a L7 Wizard. It would mean you don't need to have a well-leveled wizard taxi service to make the most out of the concept.

The obvious one would be +2 AB vs X on more of them, so they outperform Magic Weapon. In addition, PC werecreatures have 10/+1 and 5/+2 DR, which means the normal silver knives are ironically ineffective, as their 1d4 damage bounces off that secondary DR.  For PCs or presumably bosses it is indeed better to stick magic weapon on a longsword that has enough base damage to get through the secondary DR. It's also not difficult to get daggers with +1 elemental of some sort full stop.  I like the idea that these things are holdout knives that are useless vs most stuff but a genuine threat to whatever type of thing they are made to kill. They don't need to be outrageously lethal to the given thing, they just need to be good enough to be worth drawing instead of just slapping a MW trinket on your more powerful weapon of choice.

All that said, I have a knife on my PC that has +1 vs Outsider and Elemental, which has saved me a fair number of MW charges when exploring rifts without a caster.

As a Level 8 perk, this would be hopelessly situational. If I wanted to be more effective at smashing up undead, I would simply pick Thug or Swashbuckler. Because if I hit the enemy more, I hurt it more. And with either, if I can't sneak attack, I can at least stay alive more easily to continue hitting the enemy more. Simple as that, and both of those Perks work on every single form of enemy, meaning they also make you better at throwing out Sneak Attacks. 

The reason Rogue is frustrating is because no other class gets their main ability regularly disabled by minor enemies.  Yes, Sneak Attack works against most other things. But there is no common enemy type that disables divine casting. No common enemy type that disables barbarian rage.  No common enemy type that strips Fighters of their bonus feats. If there was, I wouldn't be making this suggestion because we'd all accept there are some places where our particular current PC's class is going to have a shitty day.

The only reason this issue exists is because NWN is based on old school D&D 3.5, with all its flaws. In particular, the 3.5-derived games Pathfinder RPG and Legend RPG both let you sneak attack vs undead and constructs. Legend lets you do it vs everything, because Legend wants you to use your stuff and be challenged as to the best way to use your stuff. Immunity to Sneak attack is, in game design terms, even more OP for the monsters than giving all undead Spell Immunity to all arcane damage spells. Even a heavily-offensive focused Sorcerer will have enough spell slots to just swap their tactics to buffs and continue to be a useful caster. There's not a secondary Rogue combat ability to swap to. Which is why EFU:A and its wall-to-wall Undead featured so many Rogue multiclasses compared to pure Rogues.

As I've stated, the weapon damage type was picked as "useful and thematic". I'm not concerned about what type it is as much as I am in having a way to not lock one class out of being useful in entire sections of the server. The narrative explanation I had I mind was "smearing your weapon in holy water, garlic etc as if it were a blade venom". I picked Divine because that's what holy water causes, and that's an easily-accessible substance.  In the same way that we don't look too deeply at how the Poisoner perk lets you magically summon spider venom, in the middle of an inn that suspiciously lacks giant spiders. Or where, exactly some of these Ranger Damage Bonuses are coming from for Favoured Enemy.  , I'm going to edit the suggestion to be Physical Damage because that will remove the chance to get side tracked into lore.

Why didn't I ask for Hide? Because this is a suggestion for a combat perk for combat characters, to keep them viable in combat. I've played several Rogues who didn;t even bother with H/MS, and the Perks system really supports that sort of thug build. I'm not looking at D&D 3.5 as The One True Way. EfU caught my eye again when I saw, for example just how much work had gone in to making sorcerers a really solid alternative to Wizard, and how that led to the Sorcerer population of the server having a great and diverse sort of fun. There's been a lot done to give pure Rogues a boost, and I applaud that. But they're still incredibly reliant on Sneak Attack for all their combat power. Without that, they're just like a Bard who forgot how to do magic. Except worse because they don't get the armour feats or Taunt.

Well done. I recall a fun little moment in Ticker.
Mede: *CASTS ALL THE BUFFS AND SEE INVIS* Maybe I'm being paranoid.
Brogan: No, I don't think so. Lots of people really ARE out to get you.

I liked the character, he was a great concept of the Affably Evil trope. I mean, it's all just business, right? You win Faust Prize :P

Honestly, from having met him I figured that a sudden gank or pitched showdown with some paladins was probably the way he was going to go, on account of being a fairly terrifying master of a small devil army and having some powerful mates he hung out with. It sucks that it's frustrating, and whoever got you was basically too intimidated to give some good judgement or gloating. I hope your next PC is just as cool. You wore that metaphorical HUGE BLACK HAT with pride.

Another way of saying that is "One of the key features of the rogue class is that it's  often completely bloody useless".  Which isn't EfU's fault, but it's poor game design on D&D's behalf. Because it excludes players from the fun for an arbitrary reason, and puts an IC figleaf over it. There's absolutely no fun in encouraging players to bail on quests because they're boring for your PC specifically. It's like if Goblins ignored Armor and Shield AC "Because they're small and sneaky".  Meaning anyone relying on Heavy Armour and a shield gets trashed by them. Or if entire quests regularly ran in regions that applied a -10 Charisma penalty just to make Sorcerers and Bards lose all their spells. We're based on an old version of D&D. Modern tabletop RPGs are much better at avoiding that trap of "Can we come up with a narrative reason to say 'no' to doing your fun thing".  No other class gets so completely dicked over by common enemy types. To the point I was playing a fullplate rogue back in EFU:A because "Smashing them over the head with 18 STR and a greatsword" works on everything.

To contrast, EfU has done amazing work in making offensive spellcasters a viable and entertaining PvE build, as I recall back in the EFU and EFUA days, they didn't really count for much compared to BUFFS PLEASE HASTE PLEASE. Largely due to a lot of Spell Resistant enemies, long quests, and the lack of the current spell rebalance and bonuses to taking Spell Focus and GSF. But even then, Fireballs McFireballs the Fire Sorcerer wasn't useless, just a bit underpowered. It was still fun to blow up encounters, even if it only did half the effect you wanted (damn nightriser SR). And a wizard could always just load up on buffs instead. However Rogues are still stuck with a huge proportion of quests and areas where they, and only they, are ineffective.

I'd still be OK with this perk if it just did Bludgeoning damage, or 1d4, but I think it's important to get it into perspective. It's absolutely supposed to be powerful because for most PCs sneak attack is 3-5 times MORE powerful than the suggested idea! If +1d6 is incredible, how OP do you think five times that damage is?  I felt that a low amount of DR-piercing damage was preferable to a higher amount of physical. Because that way you aren't one-shotting things while buffed up, but you still have an appreciable amount of damage that people want in their party. Bear in mind these are draft numbers based on my gut feeling.

So yes, this perk's strong. But unlike all the others, it doesn't stack. It'll help you against the Frustrating Bastard Enemies and give people a reason to let you come along. It won't give you stacking skill bonuses to let you be even more effective against lizardfolk or random bandits.  It's not a no-brainer because  things like stacking +stealth, Use Shield,  are all really good in every single scenario. This is situationally powerful, but still nowhere near as powerful as "having Sneak Attack". And let's be fair here, the DMs could have made undead, oozes etc super rare and we'd neve be having this conversation.

The core of it is "Rogues deserve a way to remain effective damage dealers against things they can't sneak attack, just like there are ways to counter SR/DR/Concealment". Along with the fact that frustrating enemies for other classes are nowhere near as common.  I'd have suggested "letting you do part of your sneak attack damage against non sneak attackable enemies", but that sounds like a lot of coding.  On most quests, people can get away with running over or heal past traps, and there don't seem to be many locked chests, at least of high DC. The rogue's party role is as the damage dealer. At L7, with a rapier or shortbow,  I get a solid 5d6 damage per sneak attack.  Most Rogues don't have high STR, so the STR bonus from an attack isn't going to be more than 1-2. As soon as we run into oozes, I'm down to 1d6. No I don't think that brutal traps are a good way to "balance" rogues. They're easy to trigger by accident, easy to metagame, and kind of force you to go stealth rogue. They're also tactically dull, especially on chests.

Whereas Clerics get their entire list free, Bards have to pay a spell pick to take the Cure spells. With the new option to buy the Craft Potion and Craft Wand feats, taking Cure Serious at L7 is not a bad idea. I used to play a Bard wandcrafter in the Underdark and did a good trade in Arcane Cure Serious Wands to wizards. But there's enough Cure Moderate around thanks to Ash Refineries that Cure Light and Cure Moderate are a pointless choice. You simply don't have enough spell-slots or spell choices to make good use of them. Which makes me a bit sad, as "casting arcane healing spells" is a nice little quirk of the Bard that I never felt the server saw much of back in EFU:A. Mostly because given a choice between a momentary cure, or a Blur or Haste to stop the problem happening in the first place, the answer is obvious. Now there's a positivist sorcerer option, it does make me wonder if the original arcane healing caster could use a little love.

Ideas:

• Is it possible to give all Bards the appropriate levels of Cure spells automatically, like how Sorcerers get bonus spells known at 2/4/8?
• A Bard perk that grants the Healing Domain ability to auto-Empower all Cure spells.
• EfU has shown willing to drop the level of spells (Animate Dead) to make them plausible for arcane casters. Dropping Cure Moderate/Serious to L1/2 for Bards (like with Healing Domain) and maybe even putting Healing Circle in as L3 would make them potentially appealing to combat-cast. I never got why Healing Circle was such an expensive spell, even considering it can cut through Undead DR. It's the inverse of the L3 Negative Burst.

[Thug:]

I still reckon it's minor. The numbers seem impressive at first glance, but all it really does is restore a small fraction of your lost sneak attack damage against three of the most common things that deny you your main offensive ability.  Most Minor Rogue Perks are 1-2 Feats worth of stuff, and I'm seeing this as "Substitute Sneak Attack: 1d6" The elemental damage types are there both for flavour and because it also gives you a fighting chance against damage resistance. Whereas normally, Sneak Attack just delivers so much damage in one go that some of it still gets through. It's a consolation prize that doesn't make you better than anyone else, just less bad than you were. Actually, thinking about it this should also be +1d6 Acid vs Plant. They are generally Crit Immune too. Eat weedkiller, dickheads. :P

Especially for a ranged rogue or finesse rogue, these are enemy types that have just denied you about 3/4 of your firepower, and thus your main value on a quest.  Lots of classes have search, many people cross class open lock, few have the continuous brutal damage of sneak attacks. No other class loses so much of their unique selling point, so often. You can summon or buff if you're a caster and your enemies have spell resistance. You can get a weapon buff if you're a Fighter and they have physical resistance. Or take Blind Fight to help with concealment. You can't restore your ability to sneak attack against zombies.  Even though my proposed damage bonus would work when you don't qualify for a sneak attack, most of the time when you can't land a sneak attack it's because they are hitting you back. That is not a happy place for most Rogues to be, with their d6 hit die and no shield.

I thought about 1d4, but really I think the numbers should be impressive enough that it's worth bringing you along as a damage dealer. The purpose of Perks is to encourage pure rogue builds, and one of the advantages of stepping out of Rogue is that Full AB, Weapon Specialisation, Barbarian Rage, Bard Song etc aren't dependent on the target being vulnerable to crits. Yes, it makes you very good at long-ranged attacks vs these three things, but nowhere near as nasty as you'd be if you could deliver your 20-foot range sneak attacks. So I believe it's a  minor perk. That way you could stack it onto a combat perk in order to help you be less of a one trick pony, or to really lean into that Van Helsing theme.  To lower the power, the free item should probably be be 1/reset not one a rest.

Comparing it to some of the combat-focused L8 Perks.
Thug: +1AB, +2 CON, 2/- DR turns you into a pseudo-tank and lets you at least hold some ground against the unbackstabbable. And also lets you kill anything else better, because +1 AB lets you land more hits full stop, especially on your 2nd attack. +3 Taunt lets you open up defences and compensate for your moderate AB.
Swashbuckler: +1AB, +1 AC, saves, additional stacking AB and AC power for tight spots.
Both of those make you more dangerous against everything.

With regards to the hubs. I've found it odd that the only (obvious, that I know of)  door to Ring 97 is in the Ponds.  If the idea is that PC hubs are meant to attract a certain sort of PC, then putting a major highway through one hub makes it into a "travel zone" rather than a "hub". Whereas Ticker's only got one high-traffic in and out route, and the Peerage Ward has the bridge and gates before you enter the Ward itself, so there's a clear internal boundary if you're passing through. You can always see what's happening in the Ponds. I think it reduces the sense it's "Someone Else's Area and We Don't Belong Here" when there's regular, apparently unavoidable travel through it. I reckon the three-hub structure would benefit from an obvious second gate into Ring 97. Or a longer distance and clearer boundary between the path through Ring 97, and the Ponds themselves. So you literally need to go off the beaten path to find it, and can't see things from the road.

In general though, WOW this is a step up. I left just near the end of EFU:A and the super-dark feel of EFU:Revelations didn't appeal to me. But I always loved playing Rangers or Rogues and just wandering the server in search of interesting places and lore. And recruiting teams to come tackle the randoms I found. It was so much more satisfying than a clockwork quest train. So this chapter is so far massively my jam. Simple changes like the gold sacks and supply crates mean there's an incentive to take big parties and more people get to see the cool stuff. The world feels just a bit less dangerous in the local areas, enough that I don't feel like running around without maxed stealth and/or invis is painting a giant target on my PC's back. For example, the Nightrisers meant that half the time on EFU:A, even the Hub was a bit risky. And a siege mentality encourages routine and optimisation rather than flair.  The randomised quest locations mean that exploring and variety are the order of the day. It's fun! It encourages you to push more, take more risks, and not powerbuild to survive.

AND THEN THERE'S THE RUNE PILLARS. I love the rune pillars, they're the best thing for questing. Powerful enough you often can get away without a caster or pick yourself up after a monster with dispel. Unpredictable enough you can't depend on them. Surprisingly useful at the end of a quest to buff you for the trek back. Again, an incentive to take some calculated risks, let the wizards pack numerous fireballs, and generally have some fun. And on the subject of fireballs, the various spell and GSF overhauls make me keen to play a kaboom caster. I've played a few, and I like to think I did well on them. But they never seemed that impressive in earlier chapters due to a preponderance of mind-immune foes, Spell Resistance, long quests, etc. Now I'm itching to have a GSF Acid sorcerer spamming cantrips and lowering AC, or a Wizardly evoker making everything burst into flames and keep burning.

The one negative bit of feedback I have about all this wonder and variety is that it's frustrating to carry round bag after bag of herbalist reagents in the hope you'll run into a lab at a convenient time.  Especially for dangerous/interesting alchemy and herbalism, you need the convenient alignment of "A full bag, a convenient lab, and someone to buff you up and watch your back". I think the server would benefit from the lab spaces having more than one type of workbench, increasing the chances both for players to find their fun, and for different sorts of crafter to meet and cooperate or conflict.