Diablo 3 - Monk Class Revealed

magerette said:

and his summoning skills weren't on par with the necromancer's.

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I tend to disagree.* When the Expansion came out, my Necro friend used to ridicule the Druid's pets, and challenged me to a duel to show that he's stronger. Even *I* was surprised at how strong my summoned bear proved to be! We were more or less at the same level, and repeated the duel several times to the same effect - but I think that, as always, it depends.

*Not that I don't like the Necromancer.

magerette said:

for the fifth character this time, I'm hoping it's a ranger/Amazon variation.

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Yeah, I can't imagine there not being a ranged class, or bows for that matter.

Krzychu said:

I tend to disagree.* When the Expansion came out, my Necro friend used to ridicule the Druid's pets, and challenged me to a duel to show that he's stronger. Even *I* was surprised at how strong my summoned bear proved to be! We were more or less at the same level, and repeated the duel several times to the same effect - but I think that, as always, it depends.

*Not that I don't like the Necromancer.

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The bear was definitely bad, and I even enjoyed the crows, if only for the atmosphere of having a flock of carrion birds swirling around your enemies-- but somehow I never really felt that I could stand back and just feel my pets' awesome power and not get clobbered. A great build in normal, but it sort of fell apart for me in Nightmare, especially in the boss-killing department. That could be me, of course--so much depends on how you make your build once you get past normal. I'm not a skilled necro player either, so I was just going by my very limited experience with a skelliemancer, where you could almost go cook dinner while the minions were disposing of everything on the map.

I like rogues. And magic-users. My favorite character in D&D cRPG's was a Drow rogue/wizard/arcane trickster I used to plow through NWN OC + MotB.

And IMO it's a crying shame that stealth gameplay is so poorly implemented in all of these games. Hide and Move Silently are practically useless.

Prime Junta said:

I like rogues. And magic-users. My favorite character in D&D cRPG's was a Drow rogue/wizard/arcane trickster I used to plow through NWN OC + MotB.

And IMO it's a crying shame that stealth gameplay is so poorly implemented in all of these games. Hide and Move Silently are practically useless.

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Stealth was quite useful in BG...

JDR13 said:

Stealth was quite useful in BG...

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I thought it was handled very poorly - and it was extremely annoying having to manually deal with this - as scripts never did what one wanted them to.

That's been my experience, anyway.

Just make sure you get the skill Hide in Plain Sight. Yes, it's cheesy, but with it, any stealth character becomes very powerful in NWN/NWN2.

DArtagnan said:

I thought it was handled very poorly - and it was extremely annoying having to manually deal with this - as scripts never did what one wanted them to.

That's been my experience, anyway.

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Really? I never had a problem with it not performing as it was supposed to. How else would you do it other than manually?

Maylander said:

Just make sure you get the skill Hide in Plain Sight. Yes, it's cheesy, but with it, any stealth character becomes very powerful in NWN/NWN2.

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That's not quite what I meant: it doesn't really change the gameplay any; it just makes stealth another combat perk. What I'd like to see is situations where the objective is to sneak past a whole bunch of guards/traps/whatever, in order to steal/assassinate/spy on/whatever some target. IOW, something where you'd actually have to leave the tanks behind to succeed.

I think it'd be majorly cool to play an entire party-based RTwP or TB game with that type of focus. You know, "Assassinate the Emperor." You'd have to sneak your squad of elite ninjas into the imperial palace under the nose of the Imperial Guard, jimmy the locks, disarm the traps, quietly dispose of any resistance without raising the alarm, drug his food taster, disguise yourself as said food taster, slip poison in his porridge, make sure he eats it, stick around to make sure he dies a beautifully natural death, and then quietly remove your squad from the premises. Or whatever. I think it'd be exciting. (No, I didn't really think that through, so sue me.)

Prime Junta said:

I think it'd be majorly cool to play an entire party-based RTwP or TB game with that type of focus. You know, "Assassinate the Emperor." You'd have to sneak your squad of elite ninjas into the imperial palace under the nose of the Imperial Guard, jimmy the locks, disarm the traps, quietly dispose of any resistance without raising the alarm, drug his food taster, disguise yourself as said food taster, slip poison in his porridge, make sure he eats it, stick around to make sure he dies a beautifully natural death, and then quietly remove your squad from the premises. Or whatever. I think it'd be exciting.

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It would be great to have some missions like that thrown in... but the entire game? No thanks... not in a RTwP or TB environment anyways.

Prime Junta said:

(No, I didn't really think that through, so sue me.)

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You're forgiven, just don't let it happen again.

JDR13 said:

Really? I never had a problem with it not performing as it was supposed to. How else would you do it other than manually?

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I'd have the AI stay in stealth and attempt backstabs/sneak attacks - and I'd allow unstealthing during out-of-combat movement with auto stealth as soon as an enemy was detected. Something like a reasonable course of action.

Basically, I'd prefer some lightly customisable scripts - so you could indicate whether the character should stay in stealth and whether he/she should attempt ranged/melee stealth based attacks. I certainly wouldn't have detected traps be ignored constantly.

It was basically too unwieldy to comfortably handle stealth characters in a party of six.

Even NWN/NWN2 vanilla versions had issues with stealth AI.

JDR13 said:

It would be great to have some missions like that thrown in... but the entire game? No thanks... not in a RTwP or TB environment anyways.

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Aw, come on! Please?

I don't think it would be all that difficult to think up a whole game's worth of varied, exciting stealth-based gameplay. Or gameplay where stealth is a factor anyway. It wouldn't have to be all stealth, of course, but I'd like the sneaky types to take center stage for once.

How about an ambush scenario? You divide your party in two, with the main part sneaking behind enemy lines into a good backstab position, and the remaining character(s) leading a party of tanks to attack them from the front. When the melee is good and joined, the ninjas LEAP into action, and triumphantly carry the day, before disappearing back into the shadows.

I *dare* you to tell me that's not cool.

You're forgiven, just don't let it happen again.

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Will do, cap'n.

Prime Junta said:

How about an ambush scenario? You divide your party in two, with the main part sneaking behind enemy lines into a good backstab position, and the remaining character(s) leading a party of tanks to attack them from the front. When the melee is good and joined, the ninjas LEAP into action, and triumphantly carry the day, before disappearing back into the shadows.

I *dare* you to tell me that's not cool..

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You mean to tell me you never did that in BG or IWD?

JDR13 said:

You mean to tell me you never did that in BG or IWD?

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As a combat tactic, for sure, but as an actual adventure, no.

Prime Junta said:

As a combat tactic, for sure, but as an actual adventure, no.

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I think that type of scenario is more fun when done spontaneously. I wouldn't want a quest that requires it to specifically be done that way.

Prime Junta said:

I like rogues. And magic-users. My favorite character in D&D cRPG's was a Drow rogue/wizard/arcane trickster I used to plow through NWN OC + MotB.

And IMO it's a crying shame that stealth gameplay is so poorly implemented in all of these games. Hide and Move Silently are practically useless.

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Im' with you there. Although, a Druid Shifter was just as fun.