Underdark Ranger power disparity

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Zymth
Posts: 45
Joined: Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:50 pm

Underdark Ranger power disparity

Unread post by Zymth »

For those who aren't familiar with the problem, if you start a ranger in the underdark, you lose many of your class abilities which you would expect to function in your native natural environment (the caves of the underdark.) In specific, you lose:

Woodland stride (10% movement speed increase while outdoors)
Camouflage (100% movement speed in stealth while outdoors)
HIPS (... Hide in plain sight, out doors)
Treestride (ability to teleport via trees)

You lose these abilities because the wilderness areas of the underdark aren't forested woodland areas, and those abilities are implemented to function only in forested woodland areas.

I'm curious why this isn't regarded as the obvious balance issue. Cavestalker is ineffectual as it doesn't reliably give you back the abilities it's supposed to give you: many of the cavernous areas aren't properly flagged, and Cavestalker Camouflage doesn't even work at all, even in the areas that are cavestalker-flagged. It also amounts to lost ranger bonus feats and lost ranger bonus damage.

For citizens of the underdark there are clearly environments that would qualify as 'natural,' and yet after probably 5 or more years these issues persist. If we're happy with an obvious power disparity between surface and underdark rangers, why not have it go in the other direction, since underdarkers are supposed to be so monsterous and lethal, and just give underdark rangers HIPS full stop, as well as a flat 10% movement increase? Better yet, since actual woodland areas are probably all properly flagged by default nwn2 behavior, why not just add a script that removes HIPS from underdark rangers in natural woodland areas?

My favorite solution of all, which has been implemented on another server to great effect, is to just give all rangers HIPS in all wilderness areas, forest or cavern. Underdarkers, who by virtue of being raised in deep dark scary places, /should/ be at least equal, if not better, than surface rangers in their natural environments. I'm really puzzled as to why the community considers this balance disparity a non-issue.
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