Somehow all you did was unduly buff them. Lowering taint regen is not a real change. Demigods in general wont even notice a change to that.

Irontongue are not made to be damage specialists and as stated vileblood takes care of this problem. They are a very solid bard race already (still high con with resists).

Drop some resists if you want flagrant stat buffs. -1 blunt, and -1 cutting for instance. Least you didnt ask for lower sip penalty too.

Asking for 1 or 2 more stat points to the core stats of each spec is hardly "flagrant stat buffs" and certainly not worth reducing two resists.

Brood Viscanti need more Dex to be useful warriors; they already have poor Int and nothing spectacular when it comes to Str or Con.

Master Viscanti are ok for Nihilists, since they need not rely heavily on Int, but Geo demenses rely fairly heavily on damage, and Viscanti Int is poor for a spec race, especially one with such a low Cha (meaning that they can't take advantage of TK/TP as well).

Irontongue Viscanti are the only spec that may not need buffs, but even with VileBlood, they are still significantly subpar for bards; and Necroscream is a moderately damage-y spec.

I don't think that the asked for buffs are in any way unreasonable. That's not to say I'm not willing to compromise on taking something from Viscanti; but I don't feel that stripping 2 resistance levels from ALL viscanti is anywhere near reasonable for 1, maybe 2 stat points on spec Viscanti only.

Illithoid and female Kephera are the most favorable mage classes for Mag. It's easy to see why, when you compare them both to Viscanti. heck, female Keph has just as much int unspecced, and are way tankier in comparison (especially as a TK) AND both illithoid and Keph can get a sweet +1 unweighted buff to stats if you do the honours quest, whereas Viscanti don't really benefit from any of that. Oh, also.. the sip penalty makes it impossible to tank for any sustained duration

+1 STR to shadowlord faelings

Revan:

Illithoid and female Kephera are the most favorable mage classes for Mag. It's easy to see why, when you compare them both to Viscanti. heck, female Keph has just as much int unspecced, and are way tankier in comparison (especially as a TK) AND both illithoid and Keph can get a sweet +1 unweighted buff to stats if you do the honours quest, whereas Viscanti don't really benefit from any of that. Oh, also.. the sip penalty makes it impossible to tank for any sustained duration

That stat boost for illithoid/kephera is permanent?

Malarious:

Somehow all you did was unduly buff them. Lowering taint regen is not a real change. Demigods in general wont even notice a change to that.

In a previous post you stated that their regen was important to their tankiness and offset their lowest stats, and now you are saying that their regen is useless anyway?

Malarious:

Irontongue are not made to be damage specialists and as stated vileblood takes care of this problem. They are a very solid bard race already (still high con with resists).

First off, that is -exactly- the problem. Irontongue are designed specifically for the Cacophony class and yet are worthless for it. There are faaaar better options. Cacophony function by applying plague afflictions on their victims and then the more afflictions the target has, the more damage they take based on their charisma and intelligence. Added to this that they have to survive their opponents onslaught and attempt to slow them down in order for their plague afflictions to stick. A (+3 weighted charisma) only when that vibration is up is not about to suddenly make this spec workable. A Cacophony is as much a damage kill bard like the rest. The only bard that perhaps doesnt have utilize damage kills is Harbingers as they rely on bleeding and the wonders of Crowcaw.

Oh and please no one attempt to mention "You guys can hunger kill". Anyone capable at combat out there fully well has platters in their inventory and can -easily- consume food when they get hungry if they ever actually let themselves get to such a state.

Malarious:

Drop some resists if you want flagrant stat buffs. -1 blunt, and -1 cutting for instance. Least you didnt ask for lower sip penalty too.

What exactly are the flagrant stat buffs? It is the same argument as the Merian and Mugwump, the race doesnt need more negatives to make it -slightly- better. Anyone and their mother out there who actually knows combat can attest to how crippling a level 2 sip malus is. Heck a sip malus at all is just crippling in ever form of conflict in the game. Their 14 con and resists (as well the stats for the dracnari race) wont make them last that long out there being these awesome tanks they are mentioned to be if they cant keep their health up to the damage.

Honestly this very argument aganist Viscanti seems like some mental victory. As if the thought of "Hah! I made spec of the org that I detest stay horrible. yes!" is what this report is about.

If it is so painful to give them the added buffs that they need for this spec without having to reduce something, then reduce taint regen to 1, blunt resist to 1, and magical resist to 1 to remove the sip malus. Heck why not go overboard and just remove 1 con from them to remove the sip malus. Because honestly placing a sip malus on any race is suicide and until it is gone no one is going to settle for it and suddenly go Viscanti or Dracnari.

I'm standing by my position that I have no problem with Viscanti/dracnari/faeling/whatever getting "fixed", so long as merians/mugs/tae get the improvements they need without having to pay a pointless pound of flesh to do so.

My experience with viscanti is limited to, back when I was a tracker knight, I thought it would be a larf to run about as an unspecced one for a few days. I thought it was more or less decent, and would have been fun spec'd. Of course, I also love Orclach as they are right now, so take that in its proper context.

I prodded mags on a few clans about this in general. My questions were:

1) What's wrong, apart from the fact that the world hates sip maluses, with viscanti?

• I skipped over sip maluses because that's the obvious elephant in the room and the discussion will never get past how much person X hates sip maluses, how underrated sip bonuses are, how Xenthos is some sort of secret Nazi for hating on the mag sip bonus construct that they never get built, how they hate that it never gets built, how Celest has like a bajillion ships, etc. So yeah, APART from that topic:
  
• The big common issue seems to be DEX. Base dex 10. Brood get 2, Master LOSES 2, irontongue stays at 10. Honestly, 12 for Brood isn't optimal, but it's workable. A bit hamfisted, but at demi, you're not a fish on a skillet. On this issue, I'm not concerned for Brood. On the topic of Master Viscanti, losing 2 seems almost arbitrary. Want a marginal change that would help viscanti? Lose that penalty for the master spec. They'll still be at 10, which isn't anything to run up the flag pole, but it's sure as heck better than 8.
  

2) If Viscanti are that bad, why aren't Dracnari players howling?

• The initial response tends to be "Dracs have way more stats!"- this is mostly only true for the unspec'd. Look at Brood vs. Guardian Dracnari- Same strength, same dex, Brood Viscanti have one more point of Con, and two points less intelligence, same Charisma.
  
• The disparity is wider between the caster specs- there, Dracs have 1 point more of every stat, except dex, where they have two points more.
  
• Both races have a level 2 sip malus. Dracs have the aditional penalty of a level 3 Cold malus. This matters, as dracs who have raided air will tell you. Not like a fire or electric matters, but it still hurts.
  
• Dracs have the following resists- Fire(3), Poison(1), Psychic(3).
  
• Viscanti have the following resists- Poison(1), Blunt(2), Cutting(2), Magic(2), Poison gas (immune)
  
• Both have a pretty-much-RP-only breath weapon
  
• Both regenerate in their associated terrain. Viscanti do so at level 3, dracs at 2.
  
• Dracs have "bask", and a level 1 achohol tolerance.
  
• Viscanti have level 2 village influencing bonus, and a level 2 weakening influencing bonus.
  
• So over all, I look at this, and I see two rather similar races. Viscanti have slightly worse stats, but better specials/resists overall, and no elemental malus. Both suffer from a sip malus.
  
• Ultimately, the biggest real difference is the caster spec DEX, which meshes nicely with what came up above. Again, the sip malus is the elephant in the corner- I am of the opinion that on both ends of that scale, sip maluses/bonuses are routinely under-estimated in their effect- both on faeling, and viscanti/dracnari. This applies to racial talk, and construct talk in equal measure.
  

So, at the end of the day? If you want to improve Viscanti, remove that horrid little two dex penalty on the caster spec. If you want to takle my now thrice mentioned corner-camping pachyderm, then that really needs a deeper look at how we look at sip bonuses and maluses of all stripes. But a slap-dash fix would be to drop a level of the malus off both dracs and viscanti, and then take a long hard look at that construct Xenthos loves so much.

But, I will attest from my time as an orclach, that those cutting and blunt resists are very nice to have indeed.

The stat boost is not permanent no. Or everyone would be spamming the honours quest to keep themselves epic.

The damage song from necroscream is based on plague affs and could give a rats arse what your cha/int are.

Taint regen dropping to lvl 2 has no effect on demi, and those in mag would still be at max because of construct. Construct can also reduce the sip penalty (or give a bonus). I am not saying Viscanti are awesome, but I am far from saying they are bad.

The bard Viscanti is its best spec and I have to agree that over time I have com to accept that a specced viscanti is by no means behind to other bard specs, I would much rather be a viscanti than a merian bard.

Ok, maybe it's radical idea time again.

One thing that is done with races for simplicity's sake is the symmetry of bonus and malus.

We give a flat +/- of the same amount. However, it seems that malii are more severe in all cases. Examples: Sip bonus: Nice tough ; Sip Malus: Crippling Speed bonus: not overpowered; Speed malus: crippling.

Bonuses create and enhancement, but are only overpowered if they create an obvious best choice. Maluses create a 'limiting factor' which can make the basic viability of a choice difficult. (tae andigasho can't outrace curing, sip malus races get overwhelmed too fast)

Maybe we should consider making maluses less than bonuses?

By the way, the Kephera stat bonus for the Queen of Queens being alive is +1 to dexterity, intelligence and charisma. It doesn't boost strength or constitution. And I'm really surprised she's been alive this long.

Any time she's down, she gets raised uber fast. We've got a clan of people who have dedicated themselves to empowering Kephera constantly (apparently).

I'd suggest a charisma buff of some sort to wumps, in addition to the con.