In the (very unlikely) event that we somehow pull off both desert missions in the next session (yeah right! ![[Image: rolleye.gif]](http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/rolleye.gif)
) I thought we should begin discussing post-Ascension revision of the nudist rules.
You might want to look here for reference when I came up with these ideas.
The short version therin:
-allow any character from any campaign
-any skills elite or non
-Candy Cane weapons/shield and their equivalents
-not resolved on PvE skills or consumeables
Now at least Zed was grumbling a bit about these, so I want to provide my reasoning for coming up with these rules at the time; they might be less applicable now and we can try something different.
The situation was one where we couldn't always have our full team together. Working with only one monk for instance is absolutely crippling, and henchies just can't replace suitably thanks to their heathen clothes-wearing ways. (Alesia is probably a better monk than anyone with 2 pips...) We needed not only fresh bodies to replace nudists that had fallen by, but also to join up once the team count hit 8, and we needed guests to fill in if someone couldn't make it some night.
At the time I wasn't sure we could pull this off from just within our guild; hence I wanted to make a very simplified, bare-bones version of the rules that you could teach someone in a few bullet points. Limited character slots also make dedicated variant characters a hard bite for newcomers to swallow, hence these were opened up so that any character could participate if they play by the rules. I think most of these developments were a good thing, but the above isn't necessarily the only way KISS rules have to be done.
One thing that has kept nudist progress so slow is the various skill quests we kept doing to expand our skills. While those are about dried up after ascension, it is replaced by the much more arduous task of skill capping and accessing out-of-the-way shiverpeak outposts. I wanted our sessions to just focus on the main mission path, and leave it to members to coordinate skill aquisition on their own time. That combined with bringing in non-nudist characters who have no idea where they aquired skills, and avoid bogging down artificial determinations like "could this elite have been capped yet?" made me want to break the skill acquisition wide open.
With that in mind, at least allowing all core + prophecies skills seems like a good move. Next on the platter is whether to include the "power creep" of factions, nightfall, and their associated classes. The core/proph is another restriction, however minor, that can be an obstacle to guests. You can conveniently sort your skill list by campaign, but then the attributes are a jumbled mess so it's slightly more difficult to deal with. Also I figured some people might want to bring in a nude dervish, ritualist, etc. This opens up many powerful things such as dervish mysticism tanks, skills like Shield of Absorption, and infinite fire ele engine of Mind Blast. All of these will definitely make the nudist going much easier than it has been, although some may find it more fun to have access to so many options.
One "justification" at the time was that the Mursaat are going to be absolute beasts with us only have 1 slot of infused armor. I've even thought over the possibility of allowing some other infused slots (starter-level AL on marginal areas like feet and hands), though the energy bonuses are not consistently distributed to set body parts across the classes, and those are bonuses that need to be avoided. We're already at the point where people without prot can die in two hits, and that will move to one once you hit the enemies above level 20. That said, crafty use of elites and good teamwork can probably see us through on proph + core only, and that would give us more to brag about; I'd also feel better about that route if we have more guildies/regulars involved. We could reserve full skill access for some truly suicidal nudist escapaes like say, EotN.
I don't feel very warm to PvE-only skills, if only because a proper "save yourselves" paragon negates the low-armor half of being nude. This isn't to speak of the insane killing power (if not survivability) of Ursan mode, which if kept up by say bonders or the like, would see us plowing through the missions like nothing.
About candy cane weapons: at times people have been breaking rules and itching to try the darn things. They aren't much use for anything else but the odd scrimmage test. I was also laboring under the mistaken notion that starter items are always customized (only true for prophecies), and we wanted to be able to give newcomers standardized appropriate weapons. It's also questionable whether the entire party being some variant of spellcaster has proved the severe weapon restrictions a wise choice. CC weapons both look good with our holiday hats, speed up the game by killing things a little faster without approaching anything remotely "fast", and give the poor non-spellcasters a bone. That and allowing the +5 energy from the gingerbread focus grants every profession access (in theory) to their 25 e skills, and lets us eliminate the "eyeglasses" rule for res, without anywhere approaching the power of a full energy pool and regen. I'd personally enjoy the addition of CCs (and crafted weapons in about the same damage range), but we can certainly manage without if we have enough purists who would prefer that.
Consumeables; when this was first mildly debated, we only had things such as candy canes wiping DP, but then power creep started with the Birthday Cupcake. Now the EotN consumeables are completely out of control, and stacking them is a good way for otherwise outclassed PvE groups to easymode an area in exchange for gold. The latter feels like far to strong a reliance on "items" for the nudist spirit; rather than sorting the benign from the malign, I'm for a simple ban on the things.
Summary Version of My Opinions (which are up for debate)
- Allow all Core+Prophecies skills. Factions/Nightfall optional.
- Disallow PvE-only skills and consumeables.
- Allow candy cane weapons and equivalents.
Discuss!
) I thought we should begin discussing post-Ascension revision of the nudist rules.You might want to look here for reference when I came up with these ideas.
The short version therin:
-allow any character from any campaign
-any skills elite or non
-Candy Cane weapons/shield and their equivalents
-not resolved on PvE skills or consumeables
Now at least Zed was grumbling a bit about these, so I want to provide my reasoning for coming up with these rules at the time; they might be less applicable now and we can try something different.
The situation was one where we couldn't always have our full team together. Working with only one monk for instance is absolutely crippling, and henchies just can't replace suitably thanks to their heathen clothes-wearing ways. (Alesia is probably a better monk than anyone with 2 pips...) We needed not only fresh bodies to replace nudists that had fallen by, but also to join up once the team count hit 8, and we needed guests to fill in if someone couldn't make it some night.
At the time I wasn't sure we could pull this off from just within our guild; hence I wanted to make a very simplified, bare-bones version of the rules that you could teach someone in a few bullet points. Limited character slots also make dedicated variant characters a hard bite for newcomers to swallow, hence these were opened up so that any character could participate if they play by the rules. I think most of these developments were a good thing, but the above isn't necessarily the only way KISS rules have to be done.
One thing that has kept nudist progress so slow is the various skill quests we kept doing to expand our skills. While those are about dried up after ascension, it is replaced by the much more arduous task of skill capping and accessing out-of-the-way shiverpeak outposts. I wanted our sessions to just focus on the main mission path, and leave it to members to coordinate skill aquisition on their own time. That combined with bringing in non-nudist characters who have no idea where they aquired skills, and avoid bogging down artificial determinations like "could this elite have been capped yet?" made me want to break the skill acquisition wide open.
With that in mind, at least allowing all core + prophecies skills seems like a good move. Next on the platter is whether to include the "power creep" of factions, nightfall, and their associated classes. The core/proph is another restriction, however minor, that can be an obstacle to guests. You can conveniently sort your skill list by campaign, but then the attributes are a jumbled mess so it's slightly more difficult to deal with. Also I figured some people might want to bring in a nude dervish, ritualist, etc. This opens up many powerful things such as dervish mysticism tanks, skills like Shield of Absorption, and infinite fire ele engine of Mind Blast. All of these will definitely make the nudist going much easier than it has been, although some may find it more fun to have access to so many options.
One "justification" at the time was that the Mursaat are going to be absolute beasts with us only have 1 slot of infused armor. I've even thought over the possibility of allowing some other infused slots (starter-level AL on marginal areas like feet and hands), though the energy bonuses are not consistently distributed to set body parts across the classes, and those are bonuses that need to be avoided. We're already at the point where people without prot can die in two hits, and that will move to one once you hit the enemies above level 20. That said, crafty use of elites and good teamwork can probably see us through on proph + core only, and that would give us more to brag about; I'd also feel better about that route if we have more guildies/regulars involved. We could reserve full skill access for some truly suicidal nudist escapaes like say, EotN.
I don't feel very warm to PvE-only skills, if only because a proper "save yourselves" paragon negates the low-armor half of being nude. This isn't to speak of the insane killing power (if not survivability) of Ursan mode, which if kept up by say bonders or the like, would see us plowing through the missions like nothing.
About candy cane weapons: at times people have been breaking rules and itching to try the darn things. They aren't much use for anything else but the odd scrimmage test. I was also laboring under the mistaken notion that starter items are always customized (only true for prophecies), and we wanted to be able to give newcomers standardized appropriate weapons. It's also questionable whether the entire party being some variant of spellcaster has proved the severe weapon restrictions a wise choice. CC weapons both look good with our holiday hats, speed up the game by killing things a little faster without approaching anything remotely "fast", and give the poor non-spellcasters a bone. That and allowing the +5 energy from the gingerbread focus grants every profession access (in theory) to their 25 e skills, and lets us eliminate the "eyeglasses" rule for res, without anywhere approaching the power of a full energy pool and regen. I'd personally enjoy the addition of CCs (and crafted weapons in about the same damage range), but we can certainly manage without if we have enough purists who would prefer that.
Consumeables; when this was first mildly debated, we only had things such as candy canes wiping DP, but then power creep started with the Birthday Cupcake. Now the EotN consumeables are completely out of control, and stacking them is a good way for otherwise outclassed PvE groups to easymode an area in exchange for gold. The latter feels like far to strong a reliance on "items" for the nudist spirit; rather than sorting the benign from the malign, I'm for a simple ban on the things.
Summary Version of My Opinions (which are up for debate)
- Allow all Core+Prophecies skills. Factions/Nightfall optional.
- Disallow PvE-only skills and consumeables.
- Allow candy cane weapons and equivalents.
Discuss!
CC weapons won't break the variant.
![[Image: huh.gif]](http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/huh.gif)
![[Image: thumbsup.gif]](http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/images/smilies/thumbsup.gif)