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U23's second Lammania pass brought with it a surprise. The first paid enhancement tree. The Harper.

Code:
(NEW): Harper - A new enhancement tree is now available to all classes! The Harper tree is free to VIPs, and is also available for purchase in the DDO Store.The Harper tree is currently only available to VIP players on Lamannia. Additionally, the Action Point costs of abilities are not adjusted to what they will be when U23 is released.) The tree is as follows:
Core Abilities

1 AP, character level 1:

Agent of Good I: +1 to hit versus evil, +1 Universal Spell Power.

5 AP, class level 3:

Harper Training I: Int or Cha or Dex.

10 AP, character level 6:

Agent of Good II: +2 to hit and damage versus evil, +5 Universal Spell Power.

20 AP, class level 12:

Harper Training II: Int or Cha or Dex.

30 AP, class level 18:

Agent of Good III: +3 to hit and damage versus evil, +10 Universal Spell Power.

41 AP, class level 20:

Harper's Freedom: Dispel most detrimental effects from you and add +10 to all saving throws for 12 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Tier One (0 AP Required)

Weathered Traveler: +1/2/3 Energy Resistance
Harper Enchantment I: Your weapon gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus. You gain +20 to your maximum Spell Points.
Traveler's Toughness: +5/+10/+15 maximum hit points.
Awareness: +1/+2/+3 to Listen, Search, and Spot. Rank 3: +1 save versus traps.
Strategic Combat I: You can use your Intelligence modifier to hit with Melee and Missile weapons.

Tier Two (5 AP Required)

Heroic Companion:

Anti-requisite with the Halfing race version:

Action Boost: Grants an ally +0.25[W] and +2 to hit and saving throws. Usable five times per rest.
Action Boost: Grants an ally +0.5[W], +4 to hit and saving throws, and +2% Dodge. Usable five times per rest.
Action Boost: Grants an ally +1[W], +6 to hit and saving throws, +4% Dodge, and +10 Physical Resistance Rating. Usable five times per rest.

Magical Endurance: +30/+60/+100 maximum Spell Points.
Versatile Adept I: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Know the Angles: Antirequisite: Divine Might. You gain an Insight bonus to damage and the DC of tactical feats equal to ½ your Intelligence Modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. (Activation Cost: 21/18/15 spell points. Cooldown: 20 seconds)
Strategic Combat II: You can use your Intelligence modifier for damage with Melee and Missile weapons.

Tier Three (10 AP Required)

Highly Skilled: +1/2/3 on all skills.
Know Your Foe: Multiselector: Gain a Favored Enemy. Passive: Add +1 to the DC of your spells.
Versatile Adept II: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Harper's Leadership: Your hirelings, summoned, and charmed creatures gain +2/3/4 to all ability scores.
Int or Dex: +1 Intelligence or Dexterity

Tier Four (20 AP Required)

Throat Dagger: Damages an enemy from afar for 1d4+4 Piercing damage per character level. Damaged non-boss enemies can't cast spells for 6 seconds. (This Spell Like Ability can be Quickened or Enlarged for no extra cost, if you have those feats.)

Higher ranks reduce the small spell point cost and reduce the cooldown.

Versatile Adept III: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Vigor of Life: +10 Positive Healing Amplification. -10% less damage from Negative Energy.
Magic of Austerity: Like Eschew Materials, your spells no longer need common material components. This does not increase their Spell Point cost.
Int or Dex: +1 Intelligence or Dexterity

Tier Five (30 AP Required)

Versatile Adept IV: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Vigor of Life: +10 Positive Healing Amplification. -10% less damage from Negative Energy.
Moment of Clarity: For the next 12 seconds the DC of your spells and your tactical feats is increased by +10. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
Magic of Patience: Your spells benefit from the Extend Spell metamagic feat. This does not increase their Spell Point cost. Does not stack with Extend metamagic itself.
Multiselector:

Harper Enchantment of Deception: Your weapon gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus and Improved Deception.
Harper Enchantment of Righteousness: Your weapon gains an additional +3 to its Enhancement bonus and Righteousness.
Harper Enchantment of Magic: Your weapon gains a +10 Harper bonus to Universal Spell Power.

Free to Vips, otherwise it costs you. Quite frankly, I'm amazed it took this long.

As to the tree, I only copy/pasted it, and did not dig into it much.
 
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Code:
(NEW): Harper - A new enhancement tree is now available to all classes! The Harper tree is free to VIPs, and is also available for purchase in the DDO Store.The Harper tree is currently only available to VIP players on Lamannia. Additionally, the Action Point costs of abilities are not adjusted to what they will be when U23 is released.) The tree is as follows:
Core Abilities

1 AP, character level 1:

Agent of Good I: +1 to hit versus evil, +1 Universal Spell Power.

5 AP, class level 3:

Harper Training I: Int or Cha or Dex.

10 AP, character level 6:

Agent of Good II: +2 to hit and damage versus evil, +5 Universal Spell Power.

20 AP, class level 12:

Harper Training II: Int or Cha or Dex.

30 AP, class level 18:

Agent of Good III: +3 to hit and damage versus evil, +10 Universal Spell Power.

41 AP, class level 20:

Harper's Freedom: Dispel most detrimental effects from you and add +10 to all saving throws for 12 seconds. Cooldown: 5 minutes.

Stats as cores are nice. Easy +1 INT/CHA makes this good for Sorcs, Wizards, Artificers, and Assassin Rogues. Capstone isn't great, it's just the Harper Pin everyone likely has by now. But given that it's an add-on PrE, I expect it to not be taken to the capstone very often anyway. First core may be the worst one in the game.

Code:
Tier One (0 AP Required)

Weathered Traveler: +1/2/3 Energy Resistance
Harper Enchantment I: Your weapon gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus. You gain +20 to your maximum Spell Points.
Traveler's Toughness: +5/+10/+15 maximum hit points.
Awareness: +1/+2/+3 to Listen, Search, and Spot. Rank 3: +1 save versus traps.
Strategic Combat I: You can use your Intelligence modifier to hit with Melee and Missile weapons.

Energy resistance is too low to be useful past Korthos. Strategic Combat I is the gorilla here; perfect for Artificers, Assassin Rogues, and Eldritch Knight Wizards. All in all, fairly useful tier.

Code:
Tier Two (5 AP Required)

Heroic Companion:

Anti-requisite with the Halfing race version:

Action Boost: Grants an ally +0.25[W] and +2 to hit and saving throws. Usable five times per rest.
Action Boost: Grants an ally +0.5[W], +4 to hit and saving throws, and +2% Dodge. Usable five times per rest.
Action Boost: Grants an ally +1[W], +6 to hit and saving throws, +4% Dodge, and +10 Physical Resistance Rating. Usable five times per rest.

Magical Endurance: +30/+60/+100 maximum Spell Points.
Versatile Adept I: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Know the Angles: Antirequisite: Divine Might. You gain an Insight bonus to damage and the DC of tactical feats equal to ½ your Intelligence Modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. (Activation Cost: 21/18/15 spell points. Cooldown: 20 seconds)
Strategic Combat II: You can use your Intelligence modifier for damage with Melee and Missile weapons.

Strategic Combat II basically makes this a must-have for for the melee Wizard, Assassin and Artificer. Know the Angles likewise is very strong. Heroic Companion seems useful for group play if it has a decent duration. Versatile Adept is strong, and Endurance can be of use. Very strong tier.

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Tier Three (10 AP Required)

Highly Skilled: +1/2/3 on all skills.
Know Your Foe: Multiselector: Gain a Favored Enemy. Passive: Add +1 to the DC of your spells.
Versatile Adept II: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Harper's Leadership: Your hirelings, summoned, and charmed creatures gain +2/3/4 to all ability scores.
Int or Dex: +1 Intelligence or Dexterity

+3 to all skills? +3 UMD? Again all are pretty strong.

Code:
Tier Four (20 AP Required)

Throat Dagger: Damages an enemy from afar for 1d4+4 Piercing damage per character level. Damaged non-boss enemies can't cast spells for 6 seconds. (This Spell Like Ability can be Quickened or Enlarged for no extra cost, if you have those feats.)

Higher ranks reduce the small spell point cost and reduce the cooldown.

Versatile Adept III: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Vigor of Life: +10 Positive Healing Amplification. -10% less damage from Negative Energy.
Magic of Austerity: Like Eschew Materials, your spells no longer need common material components. This does not increase their Spell Point cost.
Int or Dex: +1 Intelligence or Dexterity

Healing Amp? Check. Free meta-magic? Check. The only unknown is the ranged attack, and that because of lacking information.

Code:
Tier Five (30 AP Required)

Versatile Adept IV: +2/+4/+6 to Melee Power, Ranged Power, and Universal Spell Power.
Vigor of Life: +10 Positive Healing Amplification. -10% less damage from Negative Energy.
Moment of Clarity: For the next 12 seconds the DC of your spells and your tactical feats is increased by +10. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
Magic of Patience: Your spells benefit from the Extend Spell metamagic feat. This does not increase their Spell Point cost. Does not stack with Extend metamagic itself.
Multiselector:

Harper Enchantment of Deception: Your weapon gains an additional +1 to its Enhancement bonus and Improved Deception.
Harper Enchantment of Righteousness: Your weapon gains an additional +3 to its Enhancement bonus and Righteousness.
Harper Enchantment of Magic: Your weapon gains a +10 Harper bonus to Universal Spell Power.

Actually not as strong, though a free extend is nice. It'd be competing against some strong T5's in other trees so I don't think I'd use it. But not bad, over all.
 
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Didn't we just run heroic 3BC on our lowbies. I seem to remember we did all the quests except Scoundrel's run. We even redid most of the quests for Leywind since he wasn't around when we did it the worst time.

Sure you haven't done these quests on your level 8, Aletys?
You're correct about the group's progress, but I don't think Aletys ran that session, either. It was assumed she'd have no problem catching up, particularly since several of us had additional toons that could run that pack with her.
 
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@Az- looks to me like it's aimed at being the third arty tree, with a little better damage focus than battle engineer. As you say, also has some value for rogues and wizzys, but it looks to me like it's tailor-made for warforged repeater artys.
 
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The original thread was way back on the Dot in the old NFG. When we began the Watch, I called it the NEW TC thread since at that time the old site was still going!! :) One of these days you might even join us 'nut.
We did have a request a while back to give the thread a more descriptive name, like "Tales of the RPGWatch DDO Guild" or some such. Perhaps this thread has grown long enough to merit a graceful retirement and summary replacement?
 
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@Az- looks to me like it's aimed at being the third arty tree, with a little better damage focus than battle engineer. As you say, also has some value for rogues and wizzys, but it looks to me like it's tailor-made for warforged repeater artys.

I think it's equally solid for EK Wizards as well as Repeater Artificer. Melee and Ranged power, INT to hit and damage, spell power etc all work for Wizards as well as Artificers. There's some stuff which isn't useful for Rogues, and it's pretty well certainly more focused on Assassin vs TA or Mechanic.

I can see a Wizard/Rogue TA/Monk build. For insanity.
 
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I still haven't figured out any way to make eldritch knights viable. I perfectly willing to admit my limitations when it comes to toon building (particularly these days since I've lost my drive to min/max), but that whole tree seems to make you a horribly underpowered melee with crappy casting. Basically, a warchanter bard with arcane spells, only much, much worse.
 
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Since Leywind will be arriving 1 hour late then it looks like the plan for this evening is. We got Leywind through Sschindylryn explorers last weekend.

1. Sschindylryn explorers + possibly a DA run until Leywind shows up
2. Stormhorms chain elite. These quests are level 19 on normal.
- Tracker's trap
- Lines of supply
- Breaking in the ranks
- A break in the ice
- What goes up

These quests have some very end reward items (will always be offered), particularly what goes up + some random named loot. The end reward loot seems to be an extension of the loot we get from Wheloon.

The best item to get is from What goes up:
Guardian's Ring (Level 19) - Sheltering +24, Yellow Augment Slot

Sheltering 24 will give +24 PRR and +24 MRR. That is the best item for mitigating incoming damage (weapons and spells) until end game loot. Many toons would want to have this item.
 
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We Might consider adding puggers to the group for that one, specific classes to give us a balanced party of real people. Hires just don't do what you want in there and die too easily cause they stand there and let the stuff beat on them. We can chat on that when we all get on.

As to retiring the thread and starting a new one, it would be fine with me. Lets do call the new one something catchy and cute. lol Leave this one open for a while so people can copy and paste anything they just posted recently that should be readily available.
 
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Didn't we just run heroic 3BC on our lowbies. I seem to remember we did all the quests except Scoundrel's run. We even redid most of the quests for Leywind since he wasn't around when we did it the worst time.

Sure you haven't done these quests on your level 8, Aletys?

I got sick & had to leave early. So yes, I'm sure she does not have them. I think she may have one, but that's it, if at all. However, it's not crucial, she can always make them up later, it's not as if she needs the xp, just want to be able to use the teleporter to go to quests.

We Might consider adding puggers to the group for that one, specific classes to give us a balanced party of real people. Hires just don't do what you want in there and die too easily cause they stand there and let the stuff beat on them. We can chat on that when we all get on.

As to retiring the thread and starting a new one, it would be fine with me. Lets do call the new one something catchy and cute. lol Leave this one open for a while so people can copy and paste anything they just posted recently that should be readily available.

I agree on this. Getting a hireling rogue to disable spellwards without alerting the mobs & running into them is almost impossible. The last two quests, in particular, are much easier if you have real live people in it. Having to put a healer hireling on passive to force them to heal/rez is a royal pain, especially when you're in the middle of a big fight. That's of course, assuming they haven't suicided or spent all their SP fighting instead of healing.
 
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Personally, I'd rather do quests on an easier level than add puggers, but that's just my inherent mistrust of puggers!!
 
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Well, my experience has been that for the most part, they tend to be very nice. There are, of course, exceptions. You get a few idiots, and some clueless ones, occasionally. But my "black list" (for the total jerks) after pugging quite a bit for the last year, is very, very short.
 
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I've had DDO installed for ages but never really dug into it.

How tolerant is it of weird hybrid builds? I had the idea of of making a divine caster with a longbow: 1 Rogue / 1 Ranger / 18 Favored Soul. Is that completely dumb?
 
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Yes and no. 2 Rogue, 2 Ranger and 16 FS might be better, but Az and Jo are our experts on weird builds. Come join us on Khyber; there's nearly always someone from our Watch guild online playing who will be more than happy to help you.
 
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I've had DDO installed for ages but never really dug into it.

How tolerant is it of weird hybrid builds? I had the idea of of making a divine caster with a longbow: 1 Rogue / 1 Ranger / 18 Favored Soul. Is that completely dumb?
Actually, there's a cleric sub-type that uses longbows as a preferred weapon. There's also the option to do a "machine gun nun" build like I did with one of my toons--2 artificer / 18 cleric using repeater crossbows.
 
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As I recall, the MGN was quite an effective build!! :)
 
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Thanks, I'll come find you guys once I settle on a build. I know 3.5 moderately well, but the tweaks to it for the online version are flummoxing me.

Any type in particular that would be more useful to you all once he's leveled? (A rogue/cleric hybrid, you say? Great, that's what I'll do then! :))
 
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ANY build you enjoy is fine, between us all, we probably have nearly every build possible since we have up to about 12 toons each.
 
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