Vampire negatives are outdated.

Rammus

Affs/dmg in the sun, fire malus and sip malus for something that adds one word to a description and is 100% flavor.  This is clearly out of date, and doesn't make sense for aetolia post-multiclassing.

Thoughts?

Mastema

I agree with you, but a lot of people won't which is why it has stuck for so long 

Another point is generation based sipping and elemental protection still a thing for vampires or was it removed? For example it use to be you became a Arch duke and got better protection than a Count from cold/fire etc.

Xarian

The sip malus is a holdover from back when vamps used concoctions. It doesn't make any sense that every class that has the vampire race has to deal with a sip malus, it imbalances combat. The sun damage and affs unbalance combat too, but since that's so much a part of "vampire roleplay" and there's artifacts that they want to sell to reduce it, I doubt that's going anywhere. There is no reason that the sip malus should exist now that reanimation exists though.

Aldric

You know, this has become something so ingrained into the Aetolian culture that until we were discussing it tonight, I hadn't even thought twice about it.

I understand that there's the obligatory RP of vampires not being able to walk freely in sunlight, and thus they suffer for it, but in terms of mechanics what does the class or subrace offer that others do not that makes the negatives worth it? The FEED command? A singular word added to your description? 

Boy oh boy.

I could certainly understand and even welcome negative effects for carrying the subrace if it carried with it anything that made dealing with it actually worth them; as of now there is nothing like that. If you do not have either the praenomen or bloodborn class, but choose to take the subrace, you wind up taking a sip malus, sun damage/affs, but receive only an opportunity for roleplay in exchange.

Proposals:

- Remove/reduce the affs/damage/sip malus/fire weakness, but leave the messages for being out in the sun for flavor. No other class receives such drastic punishments simply for "flavor". 

- Give some sort of stat boosts/something nice at night in an attempt to balance out the negatives during the day.

Borscin

My idea here was to treat the sun effects/-fire audit similar to eating and drinking as living. Once you hit 80, you're strong enough to ignore these things and they no longer effect you.

Alternatively, you could keep these effects during the day, but give bonuses at night. -sip/sun damage/-fire audit during the day. +sip/lunar regen/+cold audit at night. Or something.

But really all the maluses that comes along with the subrace are pretty mind boggling. -sip, damage and affs in the sun, can't be rezzed (but still leave a corpse). For what, an extra word in your description?

Raeche

I think more mechanics to bring to life the influence of day/night to a vampire would give the race more flavour.

Alexina

I brought this up back when races turned into statpacks. The sip malus especially seems out of place (there is no such thing as racial sip bonuses or disadvantages anymore, except for the vampire subrace). Back then, vampires were generally stronger as well with higher resists and better blood mend, but they got rid of the bloodrank scaling as well. Pretty please, do a statpack/race/vampires/endgame revamp? Or if not a revamp, at least go over all the available statpacks, racial bonuses, vampire, vampire subraces, endgame-specifc bonuses and make a thorough check for imbalances and whatnot. Unlike class revamps, this should be easy to balance while still adding tons and tons of flavour and wow-factor to the game.

Is the vampire sip malus really something that balances the class? Would the game be better off and easier to balance with the endgame healing skills? Should lithe and agile really have such steep maluses that speed combat is not viable pre-endgame? Why do we need reach level 75 to gain blood reserves as humans? -Why- do humans even have blood reserves as an innate racial skill?

Ideally, 'HELP RACES' would go over each of the races briefly, whereas 'HELP HUMAN' or whatever would have a bit more of detail as well as the race's four innate abilities listed with syntaxes and an explanation of what they do. As such:

HELP HUMAN
The race of Humans is adept at many things, but their true expertise is in their ability to adapt and grow. Where many races have settled in one or two areas alone, Humankind covers the realm with an equal influence. The cities are filled with the voices of Humans, and their hands have shaped society since the start of the Midnight Age.

Base statistics for this race's starting Statpack:
   Strength:     13    Dexterity:    12
   Constitution: 13    Intelligence: 12

Starting Statpack: Typical

The humans' innate abilities are:

Imp. Meditation:
- You will enjoy increased willpower and mana gain when meditating.

Imp. Sleep:
- You will regain health and endurance faster when sleeping.

Selfishness:
- You will have access to the SELFISHNESS command.

Blood reserves:
- A character with this skill will have increased blood reserves.

See Also: HELP RACES, HELP RACIAL SKILLS, HELP STATPACKS.

-A lot- has changed over the years but races/statpacks/vampire bonuses has not. Using my previous examples, the human abilities are a list full of nothing.

There are -so- many interesting things and bonuses that could be added to racial skills (or endgame skills, if you prefer that). Improved crafting to have a chance to return commodities used when crafting an item. Master scavanger for gold drops when bashing. Marksman for improved bow and throwing accuracy if we want to go into more specific bonuses. I even think we could do things like improved dodging for rajmala, or experience gains for humans, horkval chitin skin for a few percent (2-3%) blunt/cutting protection, and things like that. Nice bonuses without really being too overpowered. I think we should start working towards endgame being less of a 'must have' and more of a 'this is pretty cool'. Endgame could be made a bit less powerful while the mortal races could be upgraded a bit to reduce the gap. It's a bit depressing to tell new players 'you want to pick a statpack with high constitution because you'll be bashing all the way to 99 if you want to do well in combat'.

Some suggestions would be to improve constitution across the board for non-endgame statpacks (with the exception of resilient), remove reconstitution/renew, make it so miasma/warmth does not stack with blessing damage reduction (or simply just remove the blessing damage reduction, it's pretty crazy how much of a difference blessings make), bump the Typical/Normal statpack experience gains to 3 as well, etcetera, etcetera. I think a lot could be done if this is something that would make the game better. And I think it would. Endgame statpacks, abilities, haven bonuses seem to be a bit too far ahead of what you have as a non-endgame character.

Opinions? Suggestions? Criticism?

Borscin

Although you may have laid out some valid points Lexi, I believe the thread was made for a discussion about vampire bonuses/maluses and more specifically, some of the maluses that stay with the subrace without the benefits of the vampire class.

Mastema

The idea of removing the malus at night in favour of a bonus like lunar reg +con would be a nice fix for both vamps and the sub-race.

Ilyon

The maluses / sun damage are definitely a poorly thought out idea and do need to be altered or (ideally) removed.

Raeche

I reckon they shouldn't be removed, just have both the maluses during the day and bonuses during the night made noticeable, and overall balanced.

It might return that same trepidation of 'oh shit it's night time, better find shelter' (or vice versa, depending on who you are) that defined the early days of the release of the Consanguine.

Razmael

The sip malus only applies to people in the Praenomen and Bloodborn classes. If you're not in the class, you don't get that malus.

Alistaire

While I'm generally of the opinion that if you want to roleplay a vampire, you have to deal with the downsides of being a vampire...

Borscin's level 80 making you stronger in regards to it seems fair, maybe just give them annoying cosmetic effects, no sun-affs and...y'know, leave the sun damage as is. As a level 50-ish vampire I never had issues tanking it, why is it a problem now?

'Smelling like burnt bacon, Xarian enters from the west."

Xavin

Razmael said:

The sip malus only applies to people in the Praenomen and Bloodborn classes. If you're not in the class, you don't get that malus.

I was under the impression this was the case for all of the vampire subrace effects except for sun damage/afflictions.

Luna

The fire vulnerability shifted from vamps outside of prae/bb class back in July (Announce 1970). HELP UNDEADSTATS essentially says what Xavin says above- the only things inherent to the subrace is mistform, bloodrage, sun affs and having to feed instead of regenerating blood. I think it's looked exactly like this since the changes half a year ago, so it might've been helpful if people had checked that before hopping onto the forums.

Aldric

Even in regards to the sip malus only applying to Praenomen and Bloodborn classes, there's really not anything unbalanced within those classes that gives them a particular edge over any other class in the game to warrant something like that.

Luna

Aldric said:

Even in regards to the sip malus only applying to Praenomen and Bloodborn classes, there's really not anything unbalanced within those classes that gives them a particular edge over any other class in the game to warrant something like that.

Not really sure what you're talking about. How exactly do you feel Praenomen/Bloodborn have issues with tanking damage?

Xavin

Hahaha praenomen and bloodborn having trouble with damage. That's funny. Hilarious, even.

Praenomen and Bloodborn are two of the most tanky classes in the game, though there are a couple that are more tanky. They have some of the best active healing in the game and their damage reduction is some of the best in the game. The malus is a balancing factor.

Heck, when I played a bloodborn I have very very little difficulty tanking damage. It was pretty much a guarantee that I was not going to get damage killed. In fact, there were several times when Tralendar sigularity-bomb-killed basically everyone on both sides of group engagements and I was one the few people that survived - with a decent amount of health left.

"But Xavin", you might ask, "Hasn't it been almost a year and a half since you last played Bloodborn?" Well, yes, it has. But the only thing that has changed in that time was the fact that the powerful statpack lost a single point in each of its resistances. Not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.

Ilyon

Luna said:

The fire vulnerability shifted from vamps outside of prae/bb class back in July (Announce 1970). HELP UNDEADSTATS essentially says what Xavin says above- the only things inherent to the subrace is mistform, bloodrage, sun affs and having to feed instead of regenerating blood. I think it's looked exactly like this since the changes half a year ago, so it might've been helpful if people had checked that before hopping onto the forums.

To be fair, the "Heals less from serums" line got moved to the appropriate place in the help file at some point within the last 8 hours.

Aarbrok

As a blooded vampire without Praenomen or Bloodborn class, the only negative aspect I have is the sun allergy, and that is part of the roleplay I easily can deal with by having a 100 cr artifact for darkness, or I just play Syssin with the sun is out, or stay indoors.  The 100 damage I take from the sun is an annoyance, but I see it as part of the Roleplay of subjecting myself to vampirism.

When it all comes down to it, it is an option for undead to become vampiric, you make the choice, you understand the repercussions of said choice.

Ezalor

Just make us sparkle in the sunlight!

...but for real. With the sip malus only being for Prae/BB I don't think it's a huge issue anymore. Maybe make it so the sun doesn't give afflictions and instead just burns for damage. Removing all effects from the sun is starting to tread the Twilight line but a minor damage burn seems like a reasonable way to keep the vampires as actual vampires and not having it affect balance in a huge way.

Xavin

There -is- an artifact that mitigates the afflictions and reduces the damage from the sun:

Amulet of the Moon                500cr
---------------------------------------
Artifact Property: sunbane
Reduces damage taken from sunlight, also prevents afflictions the sun normally gives out.


That said, even without the artifact, I never found the afflictions to be that terrible. They should be even less trouble in this day and age of first aid.

Edit: and if that's too expensive for your tastes, there's the 100cr darkness artifact as well, though that doesn't really help with sun-running.

Ezalor

Ah yeah, I can see why they'd want to keep the affs then with that artifact in existence. I think people are still going to be sore that being a vampire forces you to take those negatives (they're not much, but still negatives) without getting anything in return while taking on any other class has no such drawbacks.

But yeah, I don't see any real reasonable RP solution to that. Removing the affs would be a step but the presence of that artifact probably wipes that option out. While I would love to not have anything at all happen in the sun (after 80, like Borsc suggested), it would destroy a lot of the essence of what a vampire actually is.

Lanira

Someone's going to have to make a good argument that these classes aren't already pretty dang tanky. While it seems like a very out of place mechanic, there are actual balance concerns to be addressed. I'm all for the affliction bit going away, because, really, that's just a dumb annoyance.

As for the artifact, I can't imagine it's that popular, and I see it as a rather trivial thing.

Arbre

Anyone who isn't a newbie complaining about sun damage is being ridiculous.  I bashed to endgame as Praenomen, outside in Ollin, Khauskin, and Ayhesa (off the top of my head) with no issues.  The only time it's a problem is when you're a low level (because I don't -believe- it scales to health), which is why most Houses have a higher level requirement to be embraced.

Rammus

this post was about sip and fire malus when not a vampire class, but it has since been cleared up. No reason to keep posting nonsense.

Alexina

Rammus said:

Affs/dmg in the sun, fire malus and sip malus for something that adds one word to a description and is 100% flavor.  This is clearly out of date, and doesn't make sense for aetolia post-multiclassing.

Thoughts?

...

Rammus said:

this post was about sip and fire malus when not a vampire class, but it has since been cleared up. No reason to keep posting nonsense.

Whenever people disagree with your opinion, they're posting nonsense?

Rammus

Yes, that's entirely what I was saying.

Xarian

Arbre said:

Anyone who isn't a newbie complaining about sun damage is being ridiculous.  I bashed to endgame as Praenomen, outside in Ollin, Khauskin, and Ayhesa (off the top of my head) with no issues.  The only time it's a problem is when you're a low level (because I don't -believe- it scales to health), which is why most Houses have a higher level requirement to be embraced.

I'm pretty sure the brunt of the complaint isn't that sun damage alone is going to kill you, it's that it counts as a significant source of damage and afflictions during combat. Which it does. There are ways to deal with it, but it's not trivial, or ridiculous, and it's a major balancing factor when you consider BB/Praenomen. That that factor now applies to everyone in any class if they picked up BB/Praenomen as a different class, or who wants vampire roleplay, even when they aren't actively in a vampire-restricted class, is worth discussing.

Illikaal

Alexina said:

Rammus said:

Affs/dmg in the sun, fire malus and sip malus for something that adds one word to a description and is 100% flavor.  This is clearly out of date, and doesn't make sense for aetolia post-multiclassing.

Thoughts?

...

Rammus said:

this post was about sip and fire malus when not a vampire class, but it has since been cleared up. No reason to keep posting nonsense.

Whenever people disagree with your opinion, they're posting nonsense?


You noncom you. You're trolling him into being done with his own thread. Again.

Calipso

Ezalor said:

Just make us sparkle in the sunlight!

Vampires dont  sparkle in sunlight? o.o

The world as I know it is over...