Feature Rundown - Differences Between DoN and SoH

[Chevy]

I noticed we don't have a dedicated thread for an in-depth feature rundown on the differences between the major systems in SOH and DON. Here's a more detailed comparison. It's not complete just yet. I'll post more as I think of it.

XP and Essence

Essence will remain on the scale it does now. Characters start at 50, the starting maximum. XP is earned from monster combat in a formula similar to the one SOH uses. However, Restedness has been entirely removed, and instead a character's Essence is used to determine a modifier on the XP you gain from combat. At full essence, a character gains a bonus to XP and loot gains, but each monster killed will reduce essence by 1 point. When a character's essence becomes low, XP and loot gains will begin to diminish and eventually go away altogether if a character's essence value reaches 0. The recharge rate of essence has been increased tenfold, and a character should be able to go from 0 back to full in a matter of 1.5 hrs or so of rest after combat. Low essence no longer incurs any combat penalties, nor do any spells reduce essence score.

XP and RP

XP is now tracked in two separate pools: XP earned from slain monsters and XP earned from RP. Only your XP earned from slain monsters will be capped (at 190,000 - level 20). RP XP will be uncapped, and all RP XP you earn willl apply toward your epic levels once you reach level 20. This should be fairer to people who take their time leveling their character and not encourage people to rush to 20 so they can begin gaining RP XP that actually counts toward epic levels. Your RP XP will also be able to be spent on certain bonuses, such as increased essence capacity.

Death and Respawning

Characters will no longer be automatically raised after a battle. We will be using something like SoZ's system in which a character that reaches 0 HP begins bleeding, continuing to lose HP until dead or stabilized. A character going half their HP in the negative (instead of -10) is killed and must respawn or be raised by a cleric spell. Respawning will no longer remove already earned XP from a character. Instead, a character's maximum essence will be lowered slightly for each respawn, reducing potential XP gains...at least temporarily.

Beware, however, a character whose maximum essence is 0 when they die will not be able to respawn! Such a character will require clerical assistance or remain in the grasp of death.

Loot

The loot system has received some tweaks. The general level of gear is mostly the same, although epic level monsters will have the possibility of dropping +5 weapons and armor. Attribute bonuses will generally be higher, since this property doesn't stack in NWN2. Universal saving throw bonuses will be very rare and less stackable (as they will only appear on certain pieces of equipment). Damage reduction and resistance are gone from the loot table, but damage immunity will appear (in small, but stackable, increments). Skill bonuses will tend to be more sensible for the item they appear on (only boots will receive tumble bonuses, parry will appear on weapons, etc). In general, it will be possible for crafters to create weapony more powerful than what is found, including magic-piercing adamantine weapons.

Spells

Boooo! Nerfs!

We didn't make any changes here lightly. We've polled players, surveyed DMs, consulted the bones and come to a consensus that many of the spells added in the expansions were simply too powerful for our setting. Rather than continue to try to fight with these spells using essence costs, we've decided it would be fairer for everybody to reduce the power of these spells or in some cases remove them outright. A full list of effected spells will be forthcoming. What to expect? Immunities are very strong and sometimes cause bugs or unintended side-effects, so some spells with immunities are having their duration reduced or the immunity removed (and replaced by a saving throw increase instead). There were too many spells that would stack AC and saving throws, allowing some casters to become invulnerable to most spells and nearly impossible to hit or damage. The effects of these spells are being reduced. Some regeneration spells are being slightly toned down, and focus shifting to active healing (which will be ranged). Instant "I Win" disables like Bigby's and Chilling Tentacles are being reduced in power and/or duration to bring them in line with other spells of their level. The Persistent Spell feat is being removed. The ability to cast semi-permanent buffs on oneself did not make a graceful transition to NWN2 from PnP (in which it was a large expenditure of time/money).

Classes and PrCs

With the destruction of Mezzeracht, the power of the Wayward Souls slowly waned until there were no more. Alas.

Since the Ice Age, Grehta's spawn have spread far and wide. DoN will see the debut of the White Dragon Disciple on DC, also called the Wyrmbloods. These humans and meta-humans bear the dragon's blood and possess supernatural powers as a result. Some have embraced their lineage and quietly subvert colonies' resistance to their Mother. Others want only to be left alone. The law of the land is clear, however. All wyrmbloods must die! With the Wyrmblood, we see the return of the perma-death class. Hunters abound and a Wyrmblood who is discovered or caught sabotaging the colonies' efforts will be permakilled. The likelihood of this eventuality is high, so this is a class for those who enjoy the thrill...while it lasts. More detailed info on this class will be coming before we launch. Any thematic similarities to Cylons of Battlestar Galactica are purely coincidental.

We've heard the lament of the paladin and blackguard. The virtuous knight and dark warrior are receiving significant changes that will make them more combat viable. That's all I can say for now.

With the release of DoN, we'll be testing the current crop of classes to iron out bugs. There are a few other PrCs we have in the pipeline which I'd originally intended to be in for launch, but we've decided rather than delay DoN, we'll set them loose after launch and after we've finished testing the preliminary crop of classes and PrCs. These will be announced ahead of time to let people prep their character if it's a PrC they want to take. More info on those later.

[ColoredPencils]

I have to say, I like how pretty much everything is sounding. No complaints here! 

[Omega]

Awesome, no XP loss on death. Also awesome for the nerfs to Bigby spells (which were murder in certain dungeons in SoH, like the tower near the Wall). Farewell to the pwnage of Chilling Tentacles.

Very interested in the new PrCs.

[Dwarfare]

Chevy, I'll be honest with you.   I love everything you just said.

[Tildryn]

White Dragon Disciple/Wyrmblood = Cylon.

Yes.

[turnipfarmer]

It all sounds good.

As for nerfing Chilling Tentacles - I'm totally cool with that.  At one point in SoH, I purchased a medallion on the pirate isle that was supposed to specifically block getting grabbed by Evard's Black Tentacles.  It didn't work on chilling tentacles...  During the final showdown, expecting the worst, I cast Freedom of Movement on myself just before following the crowd through the door into the final level of the Illravaal's Tower... and was promptly frozen and tentacle-raped in the kill zone.  (Kudos to the Warlocks on that!)  Is Freedom of Movement going to work against this in DoN or do I misinterpret the spell?

[Tildryn]

It all sounds good.

As for nerfing Chilling Tentacles - I'm totally cool with that.  At one point in SoH, I purchased a medallion on the pirate isle that was supposed to specifically block getting grabbed by Evard's Black Tentacles.  It didn't work on chilling tentacles...  During the final showdown, expecting the worst, I cast Freedom of Movement on myself just before following the crowd through the door into the final level of the Illravaal's Tower... and was promptly frozen and tentacle-raped in the kill zone.  (Kudos to the Warlocks on that!)  Is Freedom of Movement going to work against this in DoN or do I misinterpret the spell?

Chilling Tentacles is being reverted to its original form, and Freedom of Movement no longer exists. Chilling Tentacles was so ridiculously overpowered in SoH because of custom changes. It ignored Freedom, Spell Resistance, and required obscene Strength to break. And even obscene Strength didn't work when it was stacked on top of itself over and over.

[Zenix]

I love that the changes made encourages RP! -1 essence / kill and a risk of not being able to ressurect on your own if you reach 0 really makes it harder to grind yourself to 20 over a night! Now if you RP yourself with a group through a dungeoun I assume you will regain some Essence along the way too, really making it worth while to stop and chat inbetween the choping of heads. Which leads me to a question 

In a party, will a kill count to everyone's essence or will it just be the one dealing the final blow that gets the -1?

[Kingofdreams]

I love that the changes made encourages RP!

I totally agree.
Thanks Chevy, I like the changes

[Tor]

I love that the changes made encourages RP! -1 essence / kill and a risk of not being able to ressurect on your own if you reach 0 really makes it harder to grind yourself to 20 over a night!

I think one of us have misunderstood.
You get -1 essence for a kill, but you still have a max essence of 50. Respawning gives you -X to max essence, and so only works until you've respawned Y amount of times.
If I understand correctly, then you can crawl all the dungeons you want with 0/50 essence, and not have to worry about bringing a cleric. Of course, you wouldn't get any XP...

[Norseman]

I love that the changes made encourages RP! -1 essence / kill and a risk of not being able to ressurect on your own if you reach 0 really makes it harder to grind yourself to 20 over a night!

I think one of us have misunderstood.
You get -1 essence for a kill, but you still have a max essence of 50. Respawning gives you -X to max essence, and so only works until you've respawned Y amount of times.
If I understand correctly, then you can crawl all the dungeons you want with 0/50 essence, and not have to worry about bringing a cleric. Of course, you wouldn't get any XP...

You wouldn't get XP OR Loot, and once you hit 0/50 essence and DIE, you are UNABLE to respawn without cleric or respawn item. So you'd be stuck wherever you died. That doesn't seem like much incentive to dungeon-crawl to me, as you'd have no reward for doing it. I mean, sure, people could go through and kill monsters but they would be shooting themselves in the foot because then their essence isn't regenerating.

[Dinean]

Well Norseman, there is the adrenalin rush of it; and I'm sure there will be moments of 'holy crap, I need to fight through all that just to survive!' and thus the reward being the journey, and the survival itself. ^.^

[Kobold Innovations]

*Echoes Zenixs question*

Your essence drops as you kill things. If in a party how is the essence drop doled out? The killer, or the entire party?

[ZaoGao]

So let me see if I understand:

Assuming my character starts with a full 50 essance - after he kills 50 creatures, regardless of level/type, he will no longer gain xp or have loot drop until he waits for essence to regen? And the further his essence degenerates the less xp and less interesting the loot gets until it disappears?

[Tildryn]

Correct. Full essence being an effective 'bonus' to XP, I imagine around 25 being what would be the NWN average, and from there reducing.

Though I'm not so sure I'm keen about it dropping so quickly, in the average dungeon you kill 50 creatures very quickly. Unless the number of mobs is incredibly sparse in the DoN dungeons. At a quick count there are more than 50 mobs in most of the SoH dungeons, so your essence would be expended (and you would be getting incredibly crappy loot and XP) by the time you reached the end of a dungeon.

Which has worse ramifications than you might think, considering the end of dungeons is where the bosses, hardest highest XP-giving mobs, and the best loot containers are.

I think a little more thought on the implementation's problems, or elaboration on how these challenges are to be met is required.