What is the most NERFED class on P&P adaptations?

[Cryomancer]

IMO are two. Pale masters(nwn1) and warlocks(nwn2)

PALE MASTERS :

Pale masters on NWN1 are pretty weak. They receive no caster level and are limited to only one summon despite being no one summon limit on previous D&D adaptation like BG1/BG2. It is sad when you consider that enemy necromancers uses a lot of summons which is not only a huge butchering of P&P rules but also put PCs and NPCs under different rules. And one summon limit is a arbitrary rule.

Some summons like Elementals on BG2 has a chance of turning against the caster but except by the summon limit of 5 putted by beamdog on EE, but you can walk with 5 Efreets. PRC makes NWN1 far more enjoyable. I love play nwn1 as a dread necromancer. Necromancer specialized wizards are also TRASH, but not pale master levels of "trashiness". They lost stop time and other amazing opposite magic school spells but for those who wanna play NWN1 as a necromancer, i recommend the PRC and dread necromancer class.i used cheats only to see how many undeads can i have and if clerics give +CL on the screenshot bellow.

WARLOCKS :

Other class that received huge nerfs is the warlocks on neverwinter nights 2. Sorcerers(that are already extremely nerfed) fire wall din't got any nerf on duration/damage, but warlocks got nerfed to 3 rounds and doesn't scale with caster level. World of Change was able to permanently transform enemies into chickens on P&P. On nwn2, it just transform the caster into a very weakling demon(that again, doesn't scale with level and is useless on higher levels) The Chilling Tentacles in particular was the most nerfed invocation ever. And the main point of warlocks are to throw tentacles on succubus(JK) The invocation according to complete arcane book - pag 132, Chilling Tentacles should be like Black Tentacles with a added cold damage. I can't post exactly the detail due the non OGL nature of the book, but if you look to black tentacles which the invocation on P&P

"Every creature within the area of the spell must make a grapple check, opposed by the grapple check of the tentacles. Treat the tentacles attacking a particular target as a Large creature with a base attack bonus equal to your caster level and a Strength score of 19. Thus, its grapple check modifier is equal to your caster level +8. The tentacles are immune to all types of damage." https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/blackTentacles.htm

On NWN2, not only the spell doesn't scale with your level but also has a fixed +5 AB damage(and a caster level = 1 would have a +AB of 9 on P&P, almost the double)

Warlocks would't get Chilling Tentacles before lv 11. On NWN2, to HIT(not grapple) a enemy with 25 AC, a lv 30 warlock would need to score a critical, while a lv 11 WLK on 3.5e, would have 19 attack bonus(11+8) needing to score only 6 or having 70% of chance of grappling the enemy. The weakest warlock on P&P capable of making a greater invocation can make a stronger invocation than a fully maxed epic warlock on nwn2. And even if the tentacle grapples the enemy, it only paralyzes when a fortitude save is made.

The situation is even worst when you consider that Neverwinter Nights 1 implemented this spell in in a more P&P like way with even a grapple check like P&P. And this is just one invocation that was amazing on P&P and useless on NWN2. The signature invocation, eldritch blast has his DC bugged and so many problems that is borderline unplayable without the warlock reworked mod. I don't recommend vanilla nwn2 warlock to anyone. Only with this mod ( https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/other/warlock-reworked-102g ). The mod doesn't fix all invocations, but makes warlocks playable.

IMO the most nerfed classes are this two; Pale masters(nwn1) and warlocks(nwn2). Those classes are SO nerfed, that i would rather see then outside of the game than in the game only to cause frustration to people who wanna play with this classes. I loved to play BG2 as a necromancer specialized wizard.

This is how my WLK needs to be

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Anyone knows any class more nerfed in any TTRPG adaptation than this two classes?

 

[Stormcrowfleet]

More nerfed ? IDK. But some spellcaster classes, because of the "closed" aspect of vidya, are gimped because they loose spell or their spell because 100% useless. For example: Druids and their control weather spells and such.

 

[Cryomancer]

More nerfed ? IDK. But some spellcaster classes, because of the "closed" aspect of vidya, are gimped because they loose spell or their spell because 100% useless. For example: Druids and their control weather spells and such.

Yep. But this is a technology limitation. Nobody expect spells like this or raise Island to be in a video game. But i expect that a greater invocation casted by a maxed epic warlock would be useful in grappling a enemy with 25 AC... And spoiler, a lv 11 WLK on P&P is stronger than a lv 30 WLK on nwn2(at least on casting the most iconic greater invocation)

 

[ArchAngel]

Wizards are most nerfed because they cannot use any of their most OP combos they can in PnP. And technical limitations was not part of your original question.

 

[Cryomancer]

And technical limitations was not part of your original question.

Well nerf is intentionally reducing the effectiveness of something.

HAving a lot of trouble to make wish work like P&P is not a nerf, is a problem of adapting from one media to another.

 

[CappenVarra]

bards are awesome outside combat only, so no game ever implements them right

 

[Cryomancer]

bards are awesome outside combat only, so no game ever implements them right

Yep; CRPG's are much more combat oriented than TTRPG's. But IMO you should be able to do crazy stuff on CRPG's, like try to seduce the dragon. hu3hu3hu3

 

[DalekFlay]

Wizards are most nerfed because they cannot use any of their most OP combos they can in PnP. And technical limitations was not part of your original question.

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

 

[Cryomancer]

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

Everyone criticize rest scumming on infinity engine games, then pathfinder kingmaker makes times matter, bring reagent requirement to spells like stoneskin, requires hunting or heavy camping supplies and ... People complain.

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About WLK, not even D&D online which has a lot of wowish mechanics, nerfed warlocks that hard. Hell, despite a lot of things that i hate on mmos,play as a WLK on DDO was more enjoyable than on vanilla nwn2. I have a epic level WLK on ddo. And ddo believe or not is the unique game that i saw where you can suppress enemy magical gear and make enemy magical gear into MUNDANE gear by using disjunction. ( i know that is temporary, but there are any other game which implemented that part on disjunction? https://ddowiki.com/page/Mordenkainen's_Disjunction )

This type of alteration(make the transformation of magical gear into temporary temporary) is a nerf but a necessary nerf. If it can permanently remove magic from gear, nobody would PvP with warlocks or do a dungeon where the boss can cast this spell since gear is too valuable in a mmo. The other things that DDO did like putting cooldowns and mana bar instead of spell slots and limiting the range of most ranged attacks(including bows) is completely BS.

Necromancers in other hands are completely TRASH on ddo. I never understand the obsession with "only one summon limit for players, and armies for enemies".

 

[Incendax]

Rangers and Paladins in Pool of Radiance.
They were nerfed so bad you couldn't even select them.

 

[DalekFlay]

Everyone criticize rest scumming on infinity engine games, then pathfinder kingmaker makes times matter, bring reagent requirement to spells like stoneskin, requires hunting or heavy camping supplies and ... People complain.

I like how P:K makes resting more rare and considered. I think there was a way to do that without the whole gaming running on a timed structure though, which is (mostly) what people bitch about.

 

[RNGsus]

Nobody expect spells like this or raise Island to be in a video game.

We should.

 

[Cryomancer]

They were nerfed so bad you couldn't even select them.

I rather not having something than having it extremely nerfed...

I like how P:K makes resting more rare and considered. I think there was a way to do that without the whole gaming running on a timed structure though, which is (mostly) what people bitch about.

As ive' said in other topic, the idea of time is good but could be better. Instead of "insta fail", if for example, your quest is to prevent a enemy necromancer from attaining lichdoom. If you are fast, you have to face a lv 15 necromancer, if you take too much time, a lv 18 lich necromancer and a hard puzzle to loot the dungeon treasury that was optional is now mandatory to destroy the lich phylactery. Maybe a NPC that was in your town also got scarified.

That would be cool.

 

[The Avatar]

3.5 Druids. In P&P, you could wildshape into any animal(some of them are quite insane), but of course in video games they only give a few choices, if any. Same thing with the animal companion.

 

[Incendax]

I like how P:K makes resting more rare and considered. I think there was a way to do that without the whole gaming running on a timed structure though, which is (mostly) what people bitch about.

I will note that I min/maxed my Lore (Nature) and was quickly able to Hunt for an entire party with no additional time taken. This ended up being a huge time saver, to the point that I finished all content and just wandered around grinding random encounters between chapters. So you can give yourself more time that way (though they later added free food from conquered territories).

 

[NJClaw]

bards are awesome outside combat only, so no game ever implements them right

In 3.x (and especially Pathfinder), Bards combat abilities can go from remarkable to completely broken.

In Pathfinder: Kingmaker it is one of the strongest classes (I can't imagine playing the game without one). Their songs give impressive bonuses to hit, damage, AC, saves and skill checks, they can debuff the enemies without save and they have access to some of the best spells in the game (with a couple of them accessible only to them). Even if they could do just one of these things at a given moment, they would still be worth having in the party, but they can do everything at once.

In Icewind Dale 1 Bards are awesome and you can't go wrong with one (or even two) of them in your party. Their songs are powerful and, since they level up quickly, they can make an excellent use of spells that scale with caster level.

 

[ArchAngel]

Wizards are most nerfed because they cannot use any of their most OP combos they can in PnP. And technical limitations was not part of your original question.

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

Not even close. PnP wizards in hands of smart players can solo most encounters.
There are documented cases of Wizards soloing whole PnP modules due to abusing every option available to a wizard.

 

[Incendax]

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

You can rest, but most of your spells are damage or CC that stalls enimes. In actual tabletop wizards have spells that can circumvent entire encounters and solve problems martial characters couldn't dream of.

Of course, tabletop has actual DMs who can try to keep things interesting for everybody. But martial characters have always struggled to do jack shit in the non-combat portions of a game.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

The dungeon master.

 

[Lacrymas]

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

PnP spellcasters are even more broken than the video game adaptations. Rest limitations can balance them out somewhat, but only if the spells themselves weren't ridiculous.

 

[Tacgnol]

Dunno about heavily nerfed, but the Kingmaker Barbarian is pretty poor compared to the tabletop version.

I wish they'd based it on the base class rather than the Unchained version, also the full selection (or atleast a larger selection) of rage powers would have helped.

 

[Max Damage]

Druid forms are nothing to write home about in 3.5e video games. I only used Wildshape in NWN because you can't summon more than 1 nature's ally, and even then you're often better off keeping distance in case you need to replace it (or heal your pet). Still one of the best classes, just not the juggernaut he is in PnP.

 

[Cryomancer]

You can rest, but most of your spells are damage or CC that stalls enimes. In actual tabletop wizards have spells that can circumvent entire encounters and solve problems martial characters couldn't dream of.

Yep. But Wizards also are dependent on SCROLLS. Much of problem on P&P is when the DM let the Wizard walk to the store and come back with a entire library on his spellbook and always have time to sleep before hard encounters. If you are in a Chaotic City, makes sense that all spells are available. But in a lawful city, makes sense that any AoE spell would be outlawed and only sold to those with connections working for the government.

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About Druids, Druid shapeshift enter in the "too complex to implement", having like 200+ animals to the player those from and unique pathways would be epic but developing resources are limited. Even Kingmaker which has amazing necromancy, din't implemented everything that you can do with create undead. Nor did implemented rightfully the undead corpses mechanics. You can only create a graveknight and a living armor. Can have like 6 living armor sacrificing 6 spell slots BUT on P&P you can create even undead elephants.

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/c/create-undead/

 

[CappenVarra]

In 3.x (and especially Pathfinder), Bards combat abilities can go from remarkable to completely broken.

In Pathfinder: Kingmaker it is one of the strongest classes (I can't imagine playing the game without one). Their songs give impressive bonuses to hit, damage, AC, saves and skill checks, they can debuff the enemies without save and they have access to some of the best spells in the game (with a couple of them accessible only to them). Even if they could do just one of these things at a given moment, they would still be worth having in the party, but they can do everything at once.

In Icewind Dale 1 Bards are awesome and you can't go wrong with one (or even two) of them in your party. Their songs are powerful and, since they level up quickly, they can make an excellent use of spells that scale with caster level.

making bards awesome in combat doesn't actually address my initial complaint, now does it?

 

[BarbequeMasta]

I'm not a PnP guy, but isn't this balanced somewhat by resting spam? I always thought video game wizards from D&D and whatnot were more powerful because you can rest between battles and always have a full stock of spells.

Everyone criticize rest scumming on infinity engine games, then pathfinder kingmaker makes times matter, bring reagent requirement to spells like stoneskin, requires hunting or heavy camping supplies and ... People complain.

Do people actully bitch about that? I thought Kingmaker handeled it's resting really well, by allowing you to rest as much as you like but giving you incentive to not abuse it. Granted some people will bitch about any rest system ever, it's part of the reason why the abomination ,that is deadfire casters, exists.