Shadowdancers, Warlocks and Entropic Warding

I've noticed that you seem to have some of your changes designed in a way to be optional; small tweaks can be easily made at the user end once the pack has been downloaded. I don't know how you go about doing that, or how difficult it is to enable that feature, but I was hoping I could request an option for one of your upcoming changes.

You have changed Entropic Warding to be 24 hours/CL, which I think is a much more reasonable duration, but then you have added a further stipulation; this duration change does not apply to characters with Shadowdancer levels. Of course, the reason why this change makes the Invocation much more attractive is that you would not have to recast it as frequently; which would bring you out of stealth and give you up.

I'm not entirely sure why you target Shadowdancers as opposed to any other HiPS class, but my guess is that Shadowdancer gains HiPS in the three levels required as a per-class minimum by most PWs. Extending this, I'd say you're concerned that HiPS combined with a high Warlock caster level is a problematic combination in terms of balance on PWs, which may or may not be the case. Generally, the broken PW classes seem to be druids, clerics and wizards, which have obviously also gotten plenty of support from your work. If I'm right about these assumtions, I'd like to put forward a suggestion:

On a Warlock with high caster levels and HiPS, it won't matter if the duration is 24 hours or not; in the PW environment, 30 minutes might as well be 24 hours, with fairly frequent resting, and moderately short PvP. Any dedicated Warlock that takes Shadowdancer will take Practiced Invoker and probably have a full (or nearly) caster level. Remember, for those without HiPS, the Invocation is nearly useless, and consider how hard of a time a pure Warlock has getting into Shadowdancer.

On the other hand, if you're concerned about dipping Warlock and Shadowdancer, I can assure you that isn't a problem. I play a character who's dipped both Shadowdancer and Warlock, and is nowhere near the power of same-level PCs. Low CL makes the Eldritch Blast useless, and the class comes with average BAB, and lousy saves and skills. Most PWs disable sneaks and touch spells, so even if you can bypass someone's SR, a low-level Warlock won't be able to use stealth to gain damage. Lastly, there are a lot of other dips that provide way more than +4 H/MS for a stealther... The Nightsong guild classes and Dread Commando spring to mind.

So this is why I ask for the possibility of allowing the duration to remain 24 hours regardless of what classes are held, so individual PWs can decide what works best for them.

thanks for reading!

Are you really sure it's Kaedrin's pack that introduced this change?
For starters, try grabbing an unmodified version of his pack and see if the script for entropic warding is even in there.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. According to his list of upcoming changes, exactly what I described is coming down the pipes.

"•Entropic Warding now lasts 24 hours if the character does not have Shadowdancer.
•Entropic Warding now uses the premonition VFX (as in none)."

pyro wrote:I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. According to his list of upcoming changes, exactly what I described is coming down the pipes.

Oh, I didn't realized you were talking about the upcoming release. Chalk that one up to having read that post of yours before I had my morning coffee.
Nevermind.

No. If a PW wants me to make it optional, I'll discuss it with them. I'm not going to do any extra work because someone thinks a PW may want an option. I'm also not worried about max level and the anti-SD is to directly make it inconvenient for the low level hips types. The non-casters you mentioned have nothing to do with this change.

Kaedrin wrote:No. If a PW wants me to make it optional, I'll discuss it with them. I'm not going to do any extra work because someone thinks a PW may want an option. I'm also not worried about max level and the anti-SD is to directly make it inconvenient for the low level hips types. The non-casters you mentioned have nothing to do with this change.

Ok, gotcha. Unfortunately, I often find myself only worrying about balance in the 20+ area, since thats where the majority of characters spend the majority of thier time. I didn't consider making things inconvienient for HiPSters as a priority, but I do know a lot of people seem to hate stealth characters. I can definately see how, for a couple levels (around 8-10), there's potential for getting a higher stealth check than many by using EW, though.

I guess I was just confused, because the non-casters who have splashed Warlock are the only ones that really benefit from the change to twenty-four hour duration for Entropic Warding. Like I mentioned above, full caster Warlocks won't need the boost, and if they slipped into Shadowdancer for HiPS, they probably also took Practiced Invoker.

Either way, thanks for working on the invocation; I've been hassling you about this forever, and I appreciate the time.

I find that to be a lie as level 20+ isn't even a damn issue for the invocation as it lasts 20+ minutes a pop. Your whole reason for complaining about this was your low level warlock had to keep recasting when it dropped while you were stealthed. Now you admit you have shadowdancer so it's just another "I want it X way for MY character" request. I've already discussed this with Mustang so you are getting it the way I've currently done it.

Maybe I should just set it back to what it was and be done with this. Warlock/Shadowdancer is one of the most exploit abusable builds there are.

Kaedrin wrote:I find that to be a lie as level 20+ isn't even a damn issue for the invocation as it lasts 20+ minutes a pop. Your whole reason for complaining about this was your low level warlock had to keep recasting when it dropped while you were stealthed. Now you admit you have shadowdancer so it's just another "I want it X way for MY character" request. I've already discussed this with Mustang so you are getting it the way I've currently done it.

Maybe I should just set it back to what it was and be done with this. Warlock/Shadowdancer is one of the most exploit abusable builds there are.

Hey man, I'm kinda getting the vibe that this all irritates you, so don't feel like you have to respond to this or whatever; I don't want to put you off. The only reason I sent a reply is because I like people to understand where I'm coming from.

*I* don't see myself as asking for something unbalanced/unfair, and I'm sorry if it comes off that way. There are a lot of things I can ask for, and to me it makes sense that I'm going to notice an incongruity related to the one and only character I play. That's the only reason I'm focused on this; because I've dealt with it and given it some thought. If there was something else to ask for that seemed equally obvious, I would. As for my requests and my build, I was pretty straight up with the character I was playing, and haven't tried to conceal any information or anything from you. I'm not "admitting" I play a Shadowdancer, that was open from the start. Sorry if I didn't communicate that to you better. I would like to point out though that, regardless of the invocation's duration, it's usless to all but a very specific kind of 'lock; one with HiPS.

I think you'd find the majority of requests here are based around a character someone plays/plans to play. Don't see why else you'd ask.

Kaedrin wrote:I find that to be a lie as level 20+ isn't even a damn issue for the invocation as it lasts 20+ minutes a pop.

I think we're actually trying to say the same thing with the first part of your post here. I don't understand why you feel I'm lying, or what I'm lying about; we seem to be saying the same thing. I mentioned earlier that full-caster-level Warlocks don't really benefit from the change, and this is what I meant.

I didn't really see who this change is *for*. High level 'locks don't need it, and most low level 'locks won't benefit from it, because they don't have HiPS. I understand now that your concern is actually a mix of a few Warlock levels and a few Shadowdancer levels. That's what I'm playing now; mostly Rogue with Warlock splashed for a few invocations and Shadowdancer splashed for Darkvision and HiPS; and I can assure you *my* particular build is not OP or particularly abuseable. Personally, I think that getting HiPS from Shadowdancer isn't any more abusive than getting it from any other class, given the 4 class limit and 3 level minimum of most PWs. However, I understand that you have a lot more experience than me, and if *you* can think of builds that would use Shadowdancer to exploit a 24 hour EW duration, then so be it.

I DO have another question, and if you'd like to answer, please understand I'm not looking to argue or piss you off, I'm just trying to understand your decisions and share my point of view. If you don't, that's cool too, I won't bug you anymore.

What kind of build did you imagine taking advantage of this change?

Also, if you're so inclined, what is an example of a build that would abuse the 24 hour duration by combining Warlock and Shadowdancer without getting a high caster level? A few levels of Warlock generally don't seem to be much use for anything other than the 24 hour duration Least Invocs.