Stone Giants: Why aren't there any?

[Stiehl26]

[Olyn]

Stiehl, the limitations on stone giants is a result of the changing times, not a relic of them. Also, there's no need to adjust xp penalties because of player trends. If you're any good just make a stone giant, level to 50, and declare yourself the King of the arena. If you actually win your fights there will be five new stone giants within a week.

[Erlwith]

[_Clifton_]

[Stiehl26]

[Stiehl26]

Alright, I won't post any more after this...it would be too much like beating a dead horse. My whole observation came from looking at the "Players" tab on the abandonedrealms.com website. I noticed (and had previously about gnomes and illithids) that for some reason, those classes are not being played...or played very often. I state again, I do not want to play a gnome, illithid, or stone giant...why do that when I can play the, what I would consider overpowered, duergars. So, my observation lead me to post on here to see if these were things that people had been thinking, and were frankly, just too lazy to type it up. So then I laid out, what I thought was an unbiased delve into those races and how, or if those races could be changed. I like the mud a lot. I find that, for the most part, the pk system works well. I am not a fan of weapon ward or hobble, but thats a topic that will go "unobserved" by me. Blahblah...I'll end my rants and my, for what seems to be maddening to most of you, ideas. It is just frustrating to see that with very little effort we could be utilizing 100% of the races and with slight tweaking bring a much greater diversity, and therefore perhaps more players, to the mud. Good times.

[Davairus]

Diversity doesnt mean every combo is played in the same frequency. Its a proven fact in MMO's for a start, that people tend towards picking the pretty races. or the "brainy" ones - look at the demand for mystics because of that, and how often people bug for psionicist return despite it being a terrible hack-job boring class. "I want to impress people with my big brain." . People are really doing that for appearances, it has little else to offer except chores and a nice avatar to mudsex with. . Same with people picking characters that have cabal options open to them. Do they join those cabals? No. All they wanted is opportunity. You can see how deeply stone giants run against the psychology of the typical dimwit.. So the next thing you say is give it more powers, so the kiddies want to play it for the pwnage. Nothing good will come from doing that.

[Slade]

Cabals either don't, or shouldn't affect race balance. Instead you get race balance in order and then figure out what each cabal should have access to from that. Therefore races have strengths and weaknesses balanced on their own merit and exp penalty. Cabals don't factor in because while they can add greater strengths on top of that, they also add on as much if not more downsides and responsibility that frankly can often be a bad deal. Races are thrown in or excluded based on the needs and balance of the cabal, rather than the other way around.

If you are not a veteran, worry less about such races anyway. Pick mostly human or duergar, and maybe half-elf, gnome, dwarf, slith, halfling, or werebeast depending on class and boredom with the first two.

P.S. Psi is sexy but a lot of the lure is the idea of a mage/cleric hybrid, a unique and fun sounding playstyle I think I would do well with.

[Kalist19]

[Kedaleam]

Stone Giants rule...

[Ceridwel]

So I wonder who on this thread is playing the new Stoner Mookie or Moogie or whatever his name is.

[Erlwith]

his name rhymes with picpen.

[Thorgoth]

busted

[Oxyl]

I'm trying at a stone giant right now and am finding it lots of fun to play. Specifically, neutral alignment means I get to group with anyone. However, I'm finding that getting adequately equipped is tough, at least if I try it solo.

Lightwalkers get Request. That's cake.
Evils can kill anyone they want to take they're gear. Cake.
About the best I can do as a neutral by myself is TT.

So is the point for neutrals to have to group up to go on gear runs?

[Vanisse]

maybe. but isn't that one of the benefits of neutrals anyway? you can group with everybody.

[Xenyar]

Oxyl, you can actually gain quite a bit of nice equipment by yourself as a neutral giant....alot of that may depend on your level.. rod of neutrality, bracelets from the tower, pirate eye patches, studded rings/silver spiders, banner of gasteride and the mace and sword from the guys that have the banner, The list can go on.... of course actually seeing most of those items in is a different story. You can always get ore and forge. If all else fails, gamble items.
Depending on how much time you want to invest into gaining an item, you can get even some top tier stuffourself.
I had a giant that solo'd Vlad several years ago before the changes to his summoning things. It took a shiiiiit load of time, but you can do it.
I remember Loort(fire warrior) would solo all sorts of crazy mobs.

[Erlwith]