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[lac]

Items that enhance one's ability scores:

 

There seems to be a ton one ones which increase your dex or cha,

and a good many that increase your strength.

 

As far as I know only the troll best increases your constitution, and I am not aware of

any items that increase your intelligence. (But I am getting that 'you are forgetting

something' feeling, so I am sure somebody will correct me here.) But there are items

which will grant you extra spells. For wisdom we have the cleric's staff, and more items

that grant spells.

 

Given that a good number of Bioware characters suffer from the 'I am really to frail to

be an adventurer' problem, I think that adding a few more Ioun stones, or rings that

boost constitution would be a nice touch. Once we get the bugs out of the trollish belt

of fortitude, of course.

the cleric's staff

[Demivrgvs]

Any chance you notice the posts about Belm

I proposed something about it in the Plans for Future releases topic, let me know what you think about it.

 

For the wishing for a powerful magic item -- I would be happier if it made a random magic item from a set list. There are times when full plate mail is precisely what your party doesn't need

I'll see if I can do it for SR, but I fear it won't be one of my priorities sorry.

 

Also can you add a bag of holding available somewhere before Spellhold? I am tired of keeping my junk in a box in the copper coronet. thanks :-)

I'm not sure I like the idea...characters can already carry much more than they should be able to imo. I'll think about it though, as it's probably not my duty to force players to play as I'd like.

 

Items that enhance one's ability scores:...

You have a point, I'll see what we can do, my main concern now is that CON bonus is driving me crazy to find a way to stop its possible "curing" exploit.

[Guest Dirty Uncle Bertie]

Regarding your proposed Belm changes in the Plans for Future releases topic, I think they sound good. Can you tell me what the required Strength is to use Belm? I summoned it in-game but it just says "Requires: Strength".

 

I think the descriptions for many items are often really long, and could use some paragraphs. Can these be inserted without any issues?

 

Just out of interest, for Valygar, would you prefer to use Belm or his Corthala Family Blade in combat? Maybe Belm would be better for regular fights and the Family Blade for mages? On that note, the "Spell Disruption: each hit causes +10% cumulative chance of spell failure (1 turn)" ability, is that just against arcane spellcasters or divine spellcasters too? Maybe you could alter the description slightly to specifiy which it is.

 

Regarding the Corthala Family Armor, I think altering the armor to look like mithral chain mail is a neat idea. As to Edwin's Amulet, I suppose you could reduce it to one extra spell of each level from 1st to 9th, but it depends what everyone else thinks. I'd very much hate it if you added one more Prohibited School.

 

That Ras sword, I found it goes unidentified after being unsummoned. Also, sometimes the other weapon in my quickslot wouldn't automatically be equipped after summoning Ras, and I'd have to do it manually which is a pain (dunno if you can do anything about that). Because of this, summoning Ras for all of 4 rounds seems more hassle that it's worth. I would much prefer X times per day with a longer duration.

 

I noticed that Namarra's Wall of Silence doesn't affect party members (which is good) but it's not clear from the description that this is the case. Should it be made clear that it's party friendly? Also, how effective is the Silence part going to be? Won't most mages easily save against it? I gave it to Imoen and had her HiS and stand next to Ilyich's mage, who kept saving against the Silence effect. Every now and then he'd get Silenced, but it was very rare. How low level is this mage compared to the others you'll encounter in the game? If the frequency of his saves are any indication, the Wall of Silence won't be that much help.

 

For Adjatha The Drinker +2, should the descritption say "...arcane casters hit by the Drinker" not "...The Drinker"? And does the wielder gain 2hp for each spell lost? If so, maybe it should say "…which raises the wielder's maximum hit points by 2 for 1 hour per spell lost".

 

Finally, re the Flame Tongue special ability, does it happen really quickly? If so that's great, since a front liner could use it then quickly engage the enemy afterwards. If it's slow, it's not so useful.

[Demivrgvs]

Regarding your proposed Belm changes in the Plans for Future releases topic, I think they sound good. Can you tell me what the required Strength is to use Belm? I summoned it in-game but it just says "Requires: Strength".

Good! Nerfing an item is generally much more difficult than improving it, both for who is supposed to keep it interesting/poerful and for the players who have to accept the fact they were using a too powerful item.

Sorry for the typo, I've fixed it now, the required strength is 8 just like any other scimitar.

 

I think the descriptions for many items are often really long, and could use some paragraphs. Can these be inserted without any issues?

We may work on that.

 

Corthala Family Blade

The spell failure currently works only against arcane spellcasters, to suit Valygar's hatred against them, should it be extended to divine casters?

If you have to chose between this blade and Belm I would say Belm is surely better against warrior type foes, while the Family Blade is without doubts much more effective against mages. The bonus to saves may come handy in many situatons though.

 

Ras +2

That Ras sword, I found it goes unidentified after being unsummoned. Also, sometimes the other weapon in my quickslot wouldn't automatically be equipped after summoning Ras, and I'd have to do it manually which is a pain (dunno if you can do anything about that). Because of this, summoning Ras for all of 4 rounds seems more hassle that it's worth. I would much prefer X times per day with a longer duration.

I'll check and fix the unidentified issue. For the other issue unfortunately I'm unable to do anything, though making it last much longer would surely make it much more appealing.

 

Namarra +2

I noticed that Namarra's Wall of Silence doesn't affect party members (which is good) but it's not clear from the description that this is the case. Should it be made clear that it's party friendly?

Indeed. What about "Wall of Silence: opponents within 15 feet must save vs. spell each round or be silenced".

Also, how effective is the Silence part going to be? Won't most mages easily save against it? I gave it to Imoen and had her HiS and stand next to Ilyich's mage, who kept saving against the Silence effect. Every now and then he'd get Silenced, but it was very rare. How low level is this mage compared to the others you'll encounter in the game? If the frequency of his saves are any indication, the Wall of Silence won't be that much help.

It's something I'm testing for V2 with the belt of Inertial Barrier, the problem is that many BG2 monsters have extremely good saves. I'll add a penalty to the save if most players think I should. If you're going to use the sword let me know how effective this ability is.

 

Adjatha The Drinker +2

For Adjatha The Drinker +2, should the descritption say "...arcane casters hit by the Drinker" not "...The Drinker"? And does the wielder gain 2hp for each spell lost? If so, maybe it should say "…which raises the wielder's maximum hit points by 2 for 1 hour per spell lost".

I'm not sure about the capital letter for "The", regarding the hp gained I thought it was obvious that the wielder gains 2hp for each spell lost, isn't it?

 

Flame Tongue +3

Finally, re the Flame Tongue special ability, does it happen really quickly? If so that's great, since a front liner could use it then quickly engage the enemy afterwards. If it's slow, it's not so useful.

It's casted instantly.

[lac]

Angheg Plate Armour

 

I am not using the 'spellcasting in armour' or the 'thieving in armour' component of IR,

but I think you have these abilities set as if the Angheg Armour is Heavy Armour,

when the whole point of it is that it is light armour. So I am not sure what percentage

should apply to them. I think of them as a sort of Brigandine armour. see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigandine, though I was thinking more of the sort

the Chinese Qin dynasty used, or the lacquered mail of the Japanese.

 

I realise that others think of the Angheg Plate Armour as something you wear more like a turtle shell, and which ought to be next to impossible to sneak in.

 

Given that there is a tweak that lets Cromwell make Angheg Armour, and that there is an infinite supply of Anghegs in the Windwhisper Hills, outfitting a whole party in them seems possible, much to the relief of Bioware clerics who suffer from a distressing inability to wear heavy armour due to their inadequate strength.

 

I think that archers ought to be able to wear it, given that brigandine was historically

used by archers, and maybe stalkers too. But that opens the question as to whether

thieves should be able to wear it. Against the idea is that the BG1 angheg armour

is not wearable by thieves. For the idea, is that if you are going to change things to

allow thieving in heavy armour, with penalties, then, why not?

 

What do other people think?

 

Laura

[lac]

Aha, discussing this with somebody who has woken up for breakfast, I see that

I have parsed 'Angheg Plate Mail' as 'Mail made out of Angheg Plates' while he

has parsed it as 'Plate Mail made out of Anghegs'. This may be where the Turtle

suit image comes from.

[lac]

idea I just had:

 

If Cromwell can make Angheg plate mail, that druids can wear, why not angheg plate

helmets, too? see: http://www.japanesehelmets.com/ for some photos -- especially

the Edo Samurai helmets

[Mike1072]

idea I just had:

 

If Cromwell can make Angheg plate mail, that druids can wear, why not angheg platehelmets, too?

The charisma modifier would make them too unappealing.

 

[lac]

Priceless! Thank you so much!

[lac]

Helm of Balduran

 

I like the BG1 item picture (brown with horns) better than the Silver with wings. The Silver with horns that my character has when equipping it looks cool, though.

[Raj]

One of Yaga-Shura lieutenants wield two scimitars+3 that both become a copy of the Water's Edge keen scimitar found in the drow city; nice weapon in his hands and not a balance issue but it's supposed to be unique ( if you're not quick at kill mr.Y more of those soldiers spawn so you could end with a nice collection of unique scimitars ).

 

 

A matter of personal preference then: too many weapons and armors glow silly, making my party look like a gipsy circus. Some examples that I hope get changed:

Axe of Unyelding: vorpal, no elemental damage, and it glows.. blue, like cold weapons? red or black would be better but no glow at all suits it good too.

Ravager: it's red, not bad but green or black would match better the poison thing; the bad part about red is that two other halberds share the same glow, the dragonbane and dragonbreath ones.

Cleric's Staff+3: with that blue glow it's like wielding a star wars laser sword or a neon tube.

Overall, I'd prefer if the unnatural colors could be kept for the weapons dealing appropriate elemental damage only.

 

Asyliferund +5 elven mail is very ugly ( not your fault, it's standard ) too: after the upgrade it becomes mostly undefined yellow. I tried to alter it to green like all elven chainmails but that corrupted some savegames so any hint about what to do with it if you're not going to change it for the mod would be appreciated

Armor of the Hart: what about activating the glow only when the wielder drops below 50% hp? It would help noticing when the special ability activates; having it glowing the whole time is a bit disturbing, expecially because helmets and shields don't match well.

 

I don't like all the best plates for not evil characters ( Hart, Balduran and Ekindu plates ) being sold by merchants as well; Shruppak is decent but after 10 minutes you could go buy the Ekindu while the one from Abazigal's scales comes at the very end of the game.

Having a way to spend all the money could be a valid motivation ( I still have 500k gp after defeating Yaga-Shura and having upgraded all the Watcher's Keep loot, never bought potions and other consumables btw ), but then lowering the prices offered by the stores could be a wiser workaround, or scatter other powerful items in the stores, just not all the heavy armors.

[J Beau]

I question why Paladins can't use the vorpal sword. I mean taking the heads off evil almost seems like a job requirement for paladins. It was a common form of capital punishment in ancient times by the state so it would certainly fall under the category of lawful. In fact Planetars use them as their weapon of choice. They are like celestial versions of paladins, turn undead, cast cleric spells etc.

[Raj]

I'd say there's nothing wrong with paladins using vorpal swords, but there's something wrong with paladins using a silver sword, a blade made by the githyanki lich queen for her champions

[Demivrgvs]

Silver Sword

I'd say there's nothing wrong with paladins using vorpal swords, but there's something wrong with paladins using a silver sword, a blade made by the githyanki lich queen for her champions

More or less what I was going to say.

 

Water's Edge

One of Yaga-Shura lieutenants wield two scimitars+3 that both become a copy of the Water's Edge keen scimitar found in the drow city; nice weapon in his hands and not a balance issue but it's supposed to be unique ( if you're not quick at kill mr.Y more of those soldiers spawn so you could end with a nice collection of unique scimitars ).

I guess I have to replace them with "normal" scimitars +3.

 

Item's glows

Great, you've have picked only items that still have vanilla's glows!! Do you like instead how I've made Doomplate, or Red Dragon Armor to name a few? Anyway, I'll work on it!

 

Axe of Unyelding: vorpal, no elemental damage, and it glows.. blue, like cold weapons? red or black would be better but no glow at all suits it good too.

Either a white glow to the upgraded version or none at all imo.

 

Ravager: it's red, not bad but green or black would match better the poison thing; the bad part about red is that two other halberds share the same glow, the dragonbane and dragonbreath ones.

Red is clearly a bad choice you're right, I'm not sure how a black glow would work...will try.

 

Cleric's Staff+3: with that blue glow it's like wielding a star wars laser sword or a neon tube.

The staff is blue...I won't change that, but I may remove the glow if it makes the staff appear so funny.

 

Asyliferund +5 elven mail is very ugly ( not your fault, it's standard ) too: after the upgrade it becomes mostly undefined yellow.

Now that you mention it, I like the unimproved version's glow much more, what about removing the glow from the Bladesinger's Chain and move it to the improved version? It would also make the upgraded version more..."distinguished".

 

Armor of the Hart: what about activating the glow only when the wielder drops below 50% hp? It would help noticing when the special ability activates; having it glowing the whole time is a bit disturbing, expecially because helmets and shields don't match well.

I like the idea quite much, I'll try it asap. Anyway, Armor of the Hart has the same glow of th Helm of Brillianc, and a good looking shield with them would be the Fortress.

 

Armors' allocation

I don't like all the best plates for not evil characters ( Hart, Balduran and Ekindu plates ) being sold by merchants as well; Shruppak is decent but after 10 minutes you could go buy the Ekindu while the one from Abazigal's scales comes at the very end of the game.

Having a way to spend all the money could be a valid motivation ( I still have 500k gp after defeating Yaga-Shura and having upgraded all the Watcher's Keep loot, never bought potions and other consumables btw ), but then lowering the prices offered by the stores could be a wiser workaround, or scatter other powerful items in the stores, just not all the heavy armors.

I cannot understand if you're asking to move more items in the stores, or if you'd like to found some more "not-evil" armors out of stores.

[Guest Dirty Uncle Bertie]

Demivrgvs, apologies in the delay of my reply to your post #64.

 

Belm/Scimitars

Did vanilla game scimitars have a strength requirement of 8? I thought it was 10. If you have changed it to 8, I can't find any mention of this in the readme. Same goes for the new composite long bow requirements. Am I just blind and can't see them?!

 

Corthala Family Armor

It has "Immunity to charm" not "Immunity to Charm".

 

The Boots of Stealth

It has "...to web" but I think maybe it should be "...to Web".

 

Composite Long Bow

The blurb for the composite long bow mentions the strength requirement of 16, but should strength requirements really be included here? This information is duplicated shortly afterwards in the statistics section, and I rather it remained there (this goes for all items).

 

Corthala Family Blade

I don't want to see the spell failure work against divine spellcasters, no, but I'd like it made clear in the description that it's arcane-only.

 

Ras

Going back to Ras for the moment, I think I'd prefer just maybe one or two times summoning a day, but for a reasonable amount of time (what that would be I dunno - what do the other summoning objects provide?).

 

Namarra

Yes, "Wall of Silence: opponents within 15 feet must save vs. spell each round or be silenced" is much better!

 

I won't be playing the game properly for a while I fear, but you may find it helpful to stick an invisible party member next to Ilyich's mage and see how often he saves.

 

Adjatha The Drinker

I didn't think it was obvious that the wielder gains 2hp for each spell lost, which is why I mentioned it here. As an alternative to what I wrote earlier, you could also consider "arcane casters hit by The Drinker must save vs. spell or lose one memorized spell. The wielder's maximum hit points increase by 2 for 1 hour per spell lost." as an alternative, although I think I prefer my first suggestion. Maybe the ever-helpful lac could suggest something.