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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*
Amulet of Spell Warding

Equipped Abilities:

Spell Warding: can absorb and consume 4 spell levels of up to 4th level every five rounds

 

Sounds like too powerful to me, because a fully equipped level 13 fighter/ranger/paladin is already immune to most spells below level 4, due to his extremely low saving throws, plus all the item bonuses,

 

therefore, with the help of this amulet, a level 13 mage becomes fodder.

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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*
Bladesinger Chain +4

 

Maybe some combat bonuses, like once/twice a day,

mirror image

improved haste

or some similar combat effects.

 

 

 

 

Anyways, I like what you're doing with item revisions, but I think that most of your upgrades are very powerful.

 

Instead of "immunity to :)", you should have some sort of once a day effect, nerfing some vanilla items also.

instead of regenerating 3 HP/sec, maybe cast "regenerate" once a day, or 1 HP/round,

 

I don't like to make a fighter or thief into a power house of spell casting maniacs. The game is easy enough as it is.

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Amulet of Spell Warding

Equipped Abilities:

Spell Warding: can absorb and consume 4 spell levels of up to 4th level every five rounds

Sounds like too powerful to me, because a fully equipped level 13 fighter/ranger/paladin is already immune to most spells below level 4, due to his extremely low saving throws, plus all the item bonuses, therefore, with the help of this amulet, a level 13 mage becomes fodder.
The logic here is somewhat faulty...if those characters are already semi-immune to low level spells without the amulet, than the amulet doesn't add too much to them. How is it supposed to be too powerful? Anyway this amulet is already subject to many attentions and I'm open to suggestions.

 

Anyways, I like what you're doing with item revisions, but I think that most of your upgrades are very powerful.
For "upgrades" you mean Cespenar's one? Point out which items you think are too powerful and we'll talk about them together.

 

Instead of "immunity to :) ", you should have some sort of once a day effect, nerfing some vanilla items also.
I will nerf them if necessary, not before discussing the item in question. Keep in mind that in some cases immunity to few things is less than a global +1/+2 to saves.

 

instead of regenerating 3 HP/sec, maybe cast "regenerate" once a day, or 1 HP/round.
3 hp/sec?? I'm quite sure I didn't do such a thing. For once I've drastically reduced both Axe of the Unyelding and Ring of Gaxx's regeneration rate exactly because I consider 1hp/round to be already extremely powerful, and vanilla's values were really too much.
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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*

I am just sharing some random thoughts, nothing systemmatic, how about this one:

 

Girdle of Trollish Fortitude

Special Abilities (once per day):

Regeneration: 1hp/sec (1 turn)

Equipped Abilities:

Constitution: +2 bonus

 

for a character with 19 CON, wearing this belt and a ring of gaxx, and maybe an axe of unyielding, ring of regeneration, casting the REGEN spell, etc, would the Regeneration bonuses stack?

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Regeneration rates should stack, though some thinks only regenerations of the same type stack.

 

Are you suggesting that these regeneration rates are too powerful? As I've just said IR has already heavily reduced those regeneration rates. Ring of Gaxx now regenerates 1hp/round instead of 2hp/round and Axe of Unyelding now regenerates 1hp every 3 rounds instead of 3hp/round.

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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*

Hi There, I've got a couple of revision ideas.

 

1st: In addition to AC boost(current system), Armor should give you damage resistance, while bracers simply offer evasion bonus(AC boost). Otherwise, with the dexterity and movement penalty, there's no reason to wear armor. For Example:

 

Hide and Leather = 5% damage resistance

StuddedLeather = 10 %

ChainMail = 15

SplintMail = 20 %

PlateMail = 25%

FullPlate = 30%

 

Although this could be a bit much, so maybe:

 

Hide and Leather = 3%

StuddedLeather = 6 %

ChainMail = 9

SplintMail = 12 %

PlateMail = 15%

FullPlate = 18%

 

With Calculations rounded down for the benefit of the attacker.

Exceptional Gauntlets, Boots and helmets may offer 2% or 3% damage resistance.

Considering many items give you 15% damage resistance, this adjustment will make armor more significant.

 

 

 

 

2nd: I used to read alot of picture books, and I remember Splint Mail doesn't exist in torso armor form, only used primarily in bracers, greaves, and sometimes thighs and upper arms. Therefore, I recomment changing this under represented category to Scale Armor, to make the former Splint Mail Category stronger than Chain Mail, since Chain Mail currently offer so many benefits like zero spell casting penalty and less restrictions.

 

And to boost, Scale Armor can be Dragon Scales attached to Dragon Leather, making it metal-free. I don't think Scale Armor should suffer the same harsh penalties as plate mail though.

 

 

 

A penny for your thoughts.

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Could you make assure that every kind of weapon has at least one item that has enchantment level of +5 or +6? It doesn't have to be a real enhancement, so no +5/6 to hit&Thac0 needed as the +4 is enough, just so the weapon can hit every kind of enemy.

And in here, where is the Unholy Reaver? :) :) :D:)

 

Oh, that's good, just have to wait till all your items descriptions are available
Actually you don't have to, just navigate your way through this thread.(notice the number links in the first post have most of the items, but not all)
and I remember Splint Mail doesn't exist in torso armor form
But it does, in this form.
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1st: In addition to AC boost(current system), Armor should give you damage resistance, while bracers simply offer evasion bonus(AC boost). Otherwise, with the dexterity and movement penalty, there's no reason to wear armor
No reason to wear armor? :) Magical armors still grant a lot of armor class, and now all of them have special properties on top of that. Penalties are there to reduce the effectiveness of "heavy armors + high dexterity", but if you take some time to adapt you'll find out they are far from being useless.

 

Regarding damage resistance, I'm against it for many reasons...but if you like this solution you can still install Refinements after IR's main component. I'm quite sure some players have done it, and you'll have IR's armors with Refinements' "dex penalties + damage resistance". That being said, with such a component installed I won't be responsible for balance issues anymore.

 

Therefore, I recomment changing this under represented category to Scale Armor, to make the former Splint Mail Category stronger than Chain Mail, since Chain Mail currently offer so many benefits like zero spell casting penalty and less restrictions.
Actually Chain Mails cause 30% spell failure rate, perhaps you're referring to Elven Chain Mails? Splint Mails already grants one more point of AC than Chain Mails, and also have better bonuses against some type of weapons.

 

Could you make assure that every kind of weapon has at least one item that has enchantment level of +5 or +6? It doesn't have to be a real enhancement, so no +5/6 to hit&Thac0 needed as the +4 is enough, just so the weapon can hit every kind of enemy.
You may be right about having at least one +5 item, but surely I won't ever allow a +6 enchantment in IR. Not even a single creature requires +6 enchantment in order to be hit, and that enchantment also allows to bypass Absolute Immunity making that 9th spell weaker than its 6th level version PfMW. If you're only worried about being able to hit creatures I can assure you +4 is enough, only one or two creatures requires +5 (not to mention one of them is a Lesser Demon Lord 99% of players will never face, and it shouldn't really have such a powerful immunity considering not evenDemogorgon has it!).

 

And in here, where is the Unholy Reaver? :D:D:D:p
You really love this item! :D Anyway, it's already done and included, I've only forgot to add it to the list...will do. :) But don't be too excited about it, as it's only usable by fallen paladins. :)
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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*

Another suggestion mate:

 

2 Handed Maces, Axes, Hammers and Flails ?

 

2 Handed bastard Swords and Katanas are already on TweakPack. But I like it's implementation, such that each sword has an equipped ability that creates a twin item and destroys the existing one. Such a fix would be great for magic Axes and Hammers that can also be thrown. Because in Vanilla games, such axes cannot be dual wielded thanks to it's ranged ability, now you can make a pure thrown version, and a pure melee version of the axe, or hammer.

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Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*
(Guest_BloodBeast_* @ Oct 7 2008, 05:21 PM)

and I remember Splint Mail doesn't exist in torso armor form

 

Ha, what you showed me was a drawing from an RPG site, bet you can't find a photo of Splint Mail easily, (as per the vanilla item descriptions, SplintMail uses longitudally arranged slats that span the whole upper torso, restricting movement, as each strip of steel goes from head to thigh)

 

I think what you may have in mind, when you think SplintMail, is the Lorica Segmentata used by the Romans, but those slats are horizontal, and it's made of all plate and no mail. So I would call it Plate Armor.

 

SplintMail == PlatedMail

In historical practice, PlatedMail or SplintMail, is basically ChainMail with plates attached in any configuration. The density of scale ranges from small and uniform and tightly packed, to large and irregular, even to a single disk on the chest. When you attach plates to leather, it becomes ScaleArmor.

 

However, Plate Mail in game refers to Half-Plate, judging by in-game inventory graphics.

 

In my mind, Half-Plate and Full-Plate both fall under the Plate Armor Category. What does all this got to do with anything? Nothing, really. I know you will certainly disagree to some extent.

 

Just my two cents.

Scale Armor = Leather with plates or scales

Plated Mail = Chain mail with plates or scales

Plate Armor = Half-Plate, Field-Plate, Full-Plate, etc.

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Guest deducter

Hey guys, great work on this, I've wanted to see an epic mod like that rebalance the items in the game since forever! You guys seem to want to reduce cheese/some overpowered items while making many of the remaining items more useful and interesting, and I'd like even in version one you guys are like 80% successful. However, there are a couple points where I think a few things can be improved.

 

Cloak of Displacement

Equipped Abilities:

Displacement: 50% miss chance

 

Notes: previously granted +3 AC vs. missile and +3 bonus to save vs. breath. It now works similarly to a permanent Reflected Image (when hit there's a 50% chance of casting it) and it's visually great imo.

 

If everything works as scripted, this items seems like the new cloak of cheese. 50% miss chance translate to 50% reduced damage from all sources, including spells and whatnot, effectively doubling your character's hp. I just can't imagine how this could be reasonable for a cheap item you can buy off a merchant for a few thousand gold. Now, there are a lot of possibilities, depending on what you guys want to do. You could make the Cloak of Displacement just do its original bonuses, or change them slightly to that of a "Permanent Blur," so -3AC and +1 all saves, or have those bonuses and cast mirror image once per day.

 

I think it'd be best to keep Cloak of Displacement like the original, BUT, you could give Cloak of Mirroring this ability instead of some generic magic resistance bonus (although it'd be nice if you can reduce the miss chance to like 25%-30%, because I think 50% is still way too powerful). I always play with SCS, and with that mod this cloak is moved to the superpowered Demilich in WK, and well killing such an epic monster should give you an epic cloak. Plus you know, Cloak of Mirroring, "reflected image"? Sounds good to me. This is definitely a cool concept, just don't forget how powerful such a bonus is, so place the item accordingly.

 

Another major issue is the large number of weapons that do elemental damage, and how very early you can get them in the game. I think elemental damage is very good to have, as it penetrates stoneskin, making them awesome agains casters. But my biggest complaint is how so many items you can get at the beginning of SoA, some off merchants for just a few thousand gold, gives +1d6 elemental damage. That works out to an average of +3.5 damage per hit, which is simply insane, it's like turning a +2 weapon into a +5 weapon in terms of damage. For the beginning of SoA, or even mid-way through it (say unless you kill a dragon boosted by SCS), most weapons with elemental damage I feel should either just give +1 (I think this is the best) or at most 1D3, which works out to +2 average damage.

 

Amulet of Spell Warding

Equipped Abilities:

Spell Warding: can absorb and consume 4 spell levels of up to 4th level every turn

I forget exactly where you get this item, but my recollection is that it's pretty easy to get, and I think the current abilities are a bit too powerful, because it refreshes every turn. Plus this could be annoying, because I assume it'd absorb healing spells too. You may want to do something more like absorbs up to 7 spell levels, but only once per day.

 

On a lesser note, you might want to give Drizzt's other scimitar (Which I think is called Frostbrand, Icingdeath is the dragon that died) 100% resistance to fire, as per the books. But that may be unbalanced.

 

I have some other ideas/comments, but I'd like to see what you think of these first.

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2 Handed bastard Swords and Katanas are already on TweakPack. But I like it's implementation, such that each sword has an equipped ability that creates a twin item and destroys the existing one. Such a fix would be great for magic Axes and Hammers that can also be thrown. Because in Vanilla games, such axes cannot be dual wielded thanks to it's ranged ability, now you can make a pure thrown version, and a pure melee version of the axe, or hamme.
Throwable weapons in IR already use the tweak you're suggesting, fixing two issues:

- throwable daggers no longer grant +1 apr when used in melee

- throwable weapons can be used in the off-hand as melee weapons

 

Cloak of Displacement

If everything works as scripted, this items seems like the new cloak of cheese. 50% miss chance translate to 50% reduced damage from all sources, including spells and whatnot, effectively doubling your character's hp.
I'll probably nerf it in V2, though reducing the chance in-game is quite tricky, as I cannot change the hardcoded reflected image effect. I've just discovered its 3.5 PnP version has either a permanent 20% miss chance (lesser version) or 50% for 15 rounds (greater version, which is actually weaker imo).

 

Cloak of Mirroring

Its current version isn't the definitive one, but a placeholder to temporarily remove the Cloak of Cheese from the game. Moving displacement effect here isn't something I would do, as there's a more appropriate cloak for that...but if you have any other suggestion let me know.

 

Weapons with Elemental Damage

Another major issue is the large number of weapons that do elemental damage, and how very early you can get them in the game. I think elemental damage is very good to have, as it penetrates stoneskin, making them awesome agains casters. But my biggest complaint is how so many items you can get at the beginning of SoA, some off merchants for just a few thousand gold, gives +1d6 elemental damage.
There's a lot here to say.

 

Regarding the large number of items dealing elemental damage I haven't added more than a few, but I'm planning to replace the damage with something else if possible (e.g. Searing Blade's "searing" effect). Furthmore, most IR's items should cost more than vanilla's ones, and you won't have the considerable discount previously granted by reputation. Last but not least, one of the new feature in V2 will probably be a slightly re-allocation of magical items, and I may be able to do something about that.

 

Elemental damage is quite good but:

- 3.5 points of damage seem fine for a +1 enchancement bonus (which is the equivalent of +1 to thac0, +1 to damage, +1 to speed, and +1 to enchantment to hit creatures)

- mages are the unbalanced class par excellence in BG, especially thanks to spells like Stoneskin, thus I haven't too much concerns about some weapons bypassing it

 

That being said I'll obviosly take into account your opinion and think about it. I would say I'm surely positive about reducing the number of items dealing elemental damage, but I'm not sure I agree about reducing the damage dealt.

 

Amulet of Spell Warding

I forget exactly where you get this item, but my recollection is that it's pretty easy to get, and I think the current abilities are a bit too powerful, because it refreshes every turn.
This item really got many attentions. I agree with you about making its refreshing rate slower, but that would force me to "trust players" for not "exploiting" it by equipping it only when they know it's refreshed. If that's the case I may just allow the amulet to cast Spell Deflection once per day...

 

Icingdeath

On a lesser note, you might want to give Drizzt's other scimitar (Which I think is called Frostbrand, Icingdeath is the dragon that died) 100% resistance to fire, as per the books. But that may be unbalanced.
Frostbrand is a "generic" non-unique name for blades with properties like fire resistance and cold damage (able to extinguish non-magical flames). Drizzt's blade is named Icingdeath, and he obtained it after slaying a large white dragon of the same name.

Immunity to fire resistance is probably too much for a single one handed weapon (100% resistance to one form of energy is more or less equivalent to a +5 enhancement bonus).

 

I have some other ideas/comments, but I'd like to see what you think of these first.
I hope my answers are satisfactory. :)
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About Cloak of Displacement, In my actual game I left it almost unchanged ( just removed the annoying permanent displacment effect ) because I'm really worried about its actual implementation, for various reasons:

1) It's even more annoying than the old one, with the single clone following the npc that doesn't make sense; a 'hidden' 50% miss chance like in NWN would be preferable but I guess the engine doesn't allow it.

2) Like Deducter says, effectively doubling a character hit points is just too powerful and that's a shop-bought item.

3) Mirror Images in BG2 are sorta lame, protecting against aoe attacks, so that's a 50% permanent immunity to a lot of nasty spells as well; while I can stand the standard, easy dispellable spell ( I'd like to see it revised in SR anyway ^^ ), having a item granting a permanent effect is against my game ethics.

4) Standard Cloak of Displacement is a very nice, useful while not overpowered item already.

 

Amulet of Spell Warding worries me about the permanent removal of the deflection animation, balance-wise isn't that bad: its effect is very nice for a soloer facing mid-level casters but in a party its a big tradeoff, with it stopping beneficial buffs; a use of spell shield/deflection/reflection/whatever, alongside with some permanent bonus to saves to avoid swapping it just for the special effect would make it good enough imo.

 

Elemental damage on weapons: is it possible to make elemental damage not to cause spellfailure to mages with 100%+ immunity? That would be realistic and solve some balance issues.

 

On a last note, did you restore any bg1 item named in the readme yet ( cloak of balduran, spider bane greatsword come to my mind )?

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