Remove physical resistance differences from races, and make it purely based on class. Return the extra exp those races had to spend and level the playing field. Physical damage is such a major part of the game, that penalizing people for an ignorant choice back at conversion shouldn’t remain in effect.

Also, an aristo skill to raise physical resistance could be added. I hounded Reaver to add it but obviously it didn’t happen.

Anon

Does the “superior defense” skill raise physical resistence or “natural ac”?  If not I agree that beining able to increase physical resistance would be a much welcome aristo skill to go alogn with teh other resistance change bonuses available.

Just wanted to bump this and add a little more.

Superior Defense just makes you harder to hit AFAIK.

I’ll add a know target for some of the less physical resistant races out there to further the point. I’d seriously like to see some wizard input to justify what those races get out of having such horrible physical resistance. I was playing around a little with Arjuno (gnome) and anything good completely rolled him. I think it was two very hard hits to an arm to disarm him and he has maxed increased health too. It’s really ridiculous. When conversion came around, none of us had the information to make a truly -fair- choice.

An easy way to fix this. Two new aristo skills (Physical resist and infra-vision), or balance physical resistance across all races a lot better.

Races that have horrible physical resistance will have to spend more to raise it, but will also get more out of the skill. These races will still not be able to surpass ogres, but it’ll make it a lot less lopsided.

Races that have natural infra-vision can improve it further just like physical resist, but just like before, races that didn’t have it will have to spend much more to raise it while getting a bit more out of the skill. Ogres will never be able to see as well as races that get it naturally.

Scale the costs to properly balance any experience penalty (or extra costs) races with high physical resistance/infra-vision need to pay, if it exists.

-PLEASE- put this in,
Anon

Does the natural AC aristo skill increse physical resistance like your asking.  I thoguht that was teh answer to a “phyislcal resist” aristo skill.

in my opinon gnomes should suck at fighting… like ogres should suck at casting spells.. they are 2 extremes in opp directions .. but races as a whole need a overhaul i think and will take to much effort atm

I think his knows should really be gnomes....but who really knows what a half-elf is thinking.

haha i dont know what your talking about

hahaha...I should have hit a quote button

haha yup.. the evadence is gone.. it never happened

I think realism flew out the window when we drank corpses for health/mana, the point of the game is to have fun. All races should be equally attractive, even if most of the special armor out there is generally large...although I’ll admit that some of it custom fits.

A complete race overhaul could be avoided with askills as a “patch” fix...even though higher physical resistance would make the lower levels even easier for those races.

Anon

First we all had an opportunity to talk to others, ask around long ago, (alliby only after we had made our primary character) what resistances were.  Some of us decided to play off race types on certain classes and paid a HUGE penalty, especialy with the old aristo stat system.  Halfling or elf barb comes to mind.  And my own enchanter spent between 1.2-1.5 million spendable xp on 25 int.  That’s not total for int 21-25....that was just for 25 int.  I find it interesting that this discussion seemed to show up only after the new aristo system went in and A. stats were lowered in cost across the board… B. there was no physical resistance (other then natural armor and superior defense) added.  There was also no poison resistance added....

MD’s current race set up allows any race to be used for any class and it promotes new and different combinations....such as a gnome cleric....ogre necro…

If u start changing race characteristics now several things should be considered.

No penalty change allowed to all players one time......it’s possible that if races were recoded....and there are a hell of a lot more important things that probably need to be worked on first.....that what players originally had worked for is now gone or is now a penalty.  None of us has time to play night and day anymore to work up a new character to where our current one is....and we have all seen some recodes go in that have been less then warmly received....(devotion, removal of store undead...just some examples).

Right now u see races in every character class.....hands down for resistances dwarf is the best for what is normally seen on md...U do not see every new character being made a dwarf though...Monkey enough with races and u may very well see md become “human or dwarf” only on all new characters...I’m certain that the armor makers out there would just love that....

Personally I consider a recoding of races crazy…

The impact would be enormous. It would affect every character there is. That means: there is NO room for error. Besides Im only guessing but would this affect NPC’s as well? They have a race just as a character. If that holdt true every NPC is affected too.

Besides. every know target only shows the resistance in relation to others of that same race. That means that you cant really compare anything unless you are a Wizard and knows the actual numbers that lie behind the values.

For example: an Ogre has a physical as its best resistance. Then that resistance could be 45%. An elf that has physical as a lower resistance could have 43% as physical resistance. But other resistances higher. And the Human could have physical resist = 70% and others that are higher.

Im not saying this holds true, BUT you have no basis for discussing different resistances of classes except playing different races over time and then all you can get is a “feel” of how it is. A “feel” is still very vague and a lousy basis for a discussion.

Besides races is some of the basics of the game that you build everything else on. Things like these are not changed lightly in other systems in companies - perhaps we should consider that… But that’s just the systemdeveloper in me talking.

I say if some race is more powerful than another then tweak the resistances and let that be it.

well just my 2 cents.

Azalin

yea old stats my 25 str was over a mil exp also.. losing that hurt.. .but i was also making 350k boots

I honistly dont see race resistances that much of a factor.. yes dwarf has that locked down, and halfling/gnomes worst is probably physical (cause they are little weak people).. but really.. race is just a name for roll playing in they end with the minor diffrences in how much a stat costs to raise, resistances, size and infrvison

Think you guys are missing something, which is the major aspect of the conversation. Physical resistance accounts for (guesstimate, but probably right on) over 90% of the damage you will ever take. It is SO dominant, that it pigeonholes race choices. Trust me, if I had known this horrible resistance was going to be in the game at conversion, I would have chosen much differently. This is how I went at conversion and why:

Raiden (thief) -> Halfling because they favor dex.
Arjuno (cleric) -> Gnome because they favor wis.
Anon (mage) -> Elf because they favor int.
Yator (monk) -> Human because stats were more evenly distributed.
Sadler (fighter) -> Half-ogre because they favor physical stats and the only plate armor in game at that time that was -always- large was in Anshelm. Remember old headbutt?

Now for the resistance listing that I promised:

Arjuno -> Cold, Sonic Vibration, Poison, Pure Magic, Death Magic, Asphyxiation, Fire, Electricity, Psychic, Disease, Dessication, Physical, Acid, and Exhaustion
He has the askills for Resist Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire, Psychic, and Sonic. Draw your own conclusions as to where physical is in the non-adjusted list, but I doubt it would move far.

Raiden -> Exhaustion, Disease, Poison, Pure Magic, Acid, Asphyxiation, Fire, Cold, Electricity, Psychic, Death Magic, Sonic Vibration, Physical, and Dessication
No askills.

I’m not sure where classes come into play with resist either, but I think it’s either non-existent, or a minor change in a resist or two. The only thing I know for sure is that class choice changes your health and mana pool.

Rager: I partially addressed your main point with how I personally chose my races, but how much you spent on int was padded by paying less for str and con than other mages did. If the costs were adjusted down and experience was not refunded, then that was the fault of the wiz council at that time and should not skew your opinion for something almost completely unrelated. If you have to end up paying more than someone else because of your race (overall), then it should be adjusted to be fair.

This is also not a new issue, just a new post on a new forum. I (and many others) have mentioned physical resistance many times since we figured out how bad it was for some races. You made your choice because you had that information available to you, and it was a good choice. I argue that this system does NOT promote new combinations for race/class on the basis for physical resistance and the availability of equipment. As I mentioned before, most high ac armor is large by default (Barb leather is the same way) because the wizards expected that most fighters would probably be large. Clerics are a different problem though, and I’d still like to see some cleric-specific armor get put in...but that’s a whole new post.

I’d agree that there should be a one-time free change for race even if there wasn’t a race recode. I’ve said this so many times, and I wonder when it will finally click, but games, by their very definition, are supposed to be partaken for fun. There is -zero- fun in the current system that requires mages and clerics to lose months of work because they are unhappy with how their class ended up working for them, and the same goes for race.

The point about armor makers is false too. Shops that specialize in small high ac armor have almost no business. Why is that?

Azalin: This isn’t a recode suggestion, just a balance of one resistance. I added infra-vision simply to offset the only other major difference in race choice. Also, most monsters that you would care enough to cast know target on have been given artificial resistances. I highly doubt that changing physical resistance for races would have a negative impact on people’s gameplay. I’m not sure where I said this was based on “feel” but I know that something that hurts players the most on the game shouldn’t cause more/less on certain races. It’s simply bad design. Open a D&D;book and tell me what race takes more damage from physical attacks, then tell me how many people would play them.

Lynis: Yes, race should be about role-playing if anyone actually did that anymore. If that was all a race choice changed, then this post wouldn’t exist. Just like I mentioned to Azalin, open up a DnD book (I highly recommend 4th Edition) and none of the races take more damage from a specific attack. Why? Because it’s a bad idea.

Anon

First I’ll say leave resistances alone.  Now I’ll move on to something I’ve noticed....and trust me many other players have commented on.

Ambidexterity.  Barbs got it naturally it was there guaranteed domain.  Now everybody on md can buy it with enough xp.  Barbs got no offensive or defensive power just for them to compensate for every other class on md getting what had been a class power. 

Here are some possible ideas for barbs to get a little thunder back.
1.  Allow them to buy an aristo skill that will allow them to eventually work their way up to banded mail if enough skills are purchased.
2.  Give them an aristo skill that increases not the maximum damage possible...but actually increases the damage done!
3.  Aristo skill increasing intensity of zerk.  Where it is now being the base and with additional raises u get more intensity/hits.
4.  Shorter but more intense zerk? same # of attacks overall, but duration goes down…
5.  ?

I’ll ask that any responses to barb go ahead and post em on the class forum…

Threadjacker =)

I agree though. I’ll comment on your thread.

But anyways heh...does anyone know what the races with crap physical resistance get in return? I’m starting to think it’s something stupid like the ability to drink/eat a little more.

Anon