The Lands of Arda

Gupps · Joined: 07 Feb 2007 Posts: 485

Timestop, grasping hand and most movement spells reduce your dex.

Lets look at timestop and grasping hand shall we.

This reduces my dex to -4. To get a dexy bard character to have a viable AC on arda you are going to need to wear robes for the dex bonus. Uncanny dodge does not make you loose your dex bonus when caught flat footed, however you will loose your tumble AC (no way round this). Whilst been annoying this is working correctly and shouldnt be a problem as a good dexy character will have enough AC left even when their tumble bonus is gone.

The problem lies in that when you are caught flat footed you will usually right the problem after a few attacks have been landed on you However:

Now lets look at timestop, fair does you loose your tumble ac that takes me from 74 ac down to mid 50's. Ontop of this my dex bonus is reduced to - 4... suddenly im stood timestopped with less than 20 AC and Im going to take a good few powerfull hits. If a mage has done this to me its not so bad, the problem is on arda. Nazguls use timestop, switch to a weapon and its all over.

Even worse than this is bigbys, as this spell last for an age and also reduces your dex bonus, you have no chance to having time to dispell the hand before mr nazgul smashes you to a pulp with your pitiful AC.

Ontop of all this on my reincarnated archer, many times after ive been timestopped, slowed, ect once my stats arnt reapplied after the spell is over, leaving me limping around with 20 ac running from said boss.

Working as intended? should these spells reduce your dex by so much?
A str build will maybe loose a few AC from having their dex reduced to a negative number (due to wearing heavy armour), forget it if you have to wear robes on a dex build.

Boss Mele character with the ability to completely destroy your AC to nothingness = Death in a couple of hits, with no save.

*cough* bard only intrument on bigbies or timestop AC+20

Ithilsilà · Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 323 Location: Catalonia

I think restoration or gr. restoration removes bigsby.

I rather had epic mage armour removed from some mobs. That makes battles last forever...

oulu · Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 188 Location: Finland

havent experienced that with my recent dexers

Exavior · Joined: 28 Jan 2007 Posts: 309

I haven't either, but I haven't been fighting high level bosses with it.

However I can see that being a problem. Arda is built to balance with str melee guys, not dexers. I wouldn't take my archer anywhere near bosses without someone to distract it from killing me though, as my archer is strictly a support role...hence why it hasn't hit 40 yet.