Items re-allocation

[Shaitan]

Shields

Just a few thoughts.

 

BG1: we have 1 unique buckler (Kiel's +2), and two unique large shields (Falling Stars and Dwarven Shield), bit neither a small shield nor a medium one. Should we do something about it?

I'd say no. BG1 shouldn't get anymore item revisions IMO.

 

BG2:

- all small shields are found within mid-early SoA, but I think they are fine where they are.

Agree

 

- I don't know where to place the "new" Shield of Balduran (which is using Sentinel's filename). We placed the Mirror Shield (aka vanilla's Shield of Balduran) where vanilla's Sentinel was, and it's fine, but two medium shields there is too much. A +2 medium shield with 10% magic resistance may be fine before underdark, but it has to be hard to obtain imo. If all other items of Balduran's set (sword, cloak and armor) are still in one place (Deirdre?) I think I'd be fine with it as long as all of them come at a high price.

I'd say at Deirdre's shop. Otherwise what about adding it to Firkraags stash?

 

- I fear Dwarven Large Shield is treated as a non unique shield within BG2 despite it being clearly unique, we should fix this.

Oh I thought you allready has mended this, but could it be recoloured into darker grey or some such?

 

- Shield of the order need indeed a good place or wielder.

I don't remember his name, but what about that fallen paladin PC has to take care of on behalf of the order? He could have SotO in his pack.

 

Cheers

[Ardanis]

- all small shields are found within mid-early SoA, but I think they are fine where they are.

If RR is installed, one +3 generic buckler is added to Ch.6 Ribald's special store.

 

Sentinel -> Balduran

AM shop, along with plate and sword (200% cost). The cloak is in Ch.6 special store (225%).

 

Dwarven Large Shield

Found two droppable instances, tiefling from WK and Chak (Samia?). Currently Arnolinus the smith (Promenade) has it, along with Kiel's buckler and Dwarven Thrower. The shop seems a better choice, otherwise let Chak keep it instead.

 

SotO

ToB, oasis army general, with Answerer sword.

[Dakk]

ShieldsBG1: we have 1 unique buckler (Kiel's +2), and two unique large shields (Falling Stars and Dwarven Shield), bit neither a small shield nor a medium one. Should we do something about it?

- the unique small shield could be either Harmony of the new druid oriented one.

- the medium one is more difficult instead, because the only one we could have within both games is the Shield of Balduran, but it's too powerful for BG1 imo. Perhaps it's fine to just add one small shield as small and medium shields are relatively the same.

I think a unique shield should be added, yes. Either Shield of Harmony or Nature's Ward - take the one with lesser power? Not sure which one suits best really...

 

Did you rename Shield of the Fallen Stars btw?

[Demivrgvs]

Sentinel -> Balduran

AM shop, along with plate and sword (200% cost). The cloak is in Ch.6 special store (225%).

Ah ok, fine with me, but why is the cloak placed so late? Is it to avoid an "easy" full WS set?

 

P.S Balduran's armor is going to cost a fortune, 20000gp! Cool.

 

Dwarven Large Shield

Found two droppable instances, tiefling from WK and Chak (Samia?). Currently Arnolinus the smith (Promenade) has it, along with Kiel's buckler and Dwarven Thrower. The shop seems a better choice, otherwise let Chak keep it instead.

I agree, shop is better. Give Chak a common large shield +2.

 

@Shaitan, its black-gold color palette now matches BG1 icon. I think V2 shields were terribly messed up when I added the latests 1PP or something like that.

 

SotO

ToB, oasis army general, with Answerer sword.

Wow, that general surely is well equipped! I do hope SCS makes that encounter worthy of such loot!

 

On second thought I have only one concern: I think a couple of mods (WoP?) make that encount avoidable, and good characters are the ones who'd choose that route...loosing both sword and shield, which ironically would suit a paladin-like character best.

 

BG1 Shields

ShieldsBG1: we have 1 unique buckler (Kiel's +2), and two unique large shields (Falling Stars and Dwarven Shield), bit neither a small shield nor a medium one. Should we do something about it?

- the unique small shield could be either Harmony of the new druid oriented one.

- the medium one is more difficult instead, because the only one we could have within both games is the Shield of Balduran, but it's too powerful for BG1 imo. Perhaps it's fine to just add one small shield as small and medium shields are relatively the same.

I think a unique shield should be added, yes. Either Shield of Harmony or Nature's Ward - take the one with lesser power? Not sure which one suits best really...

They are more or less equivalent in terms of power...it's just a matter of who could wear it or where it could be find to determine which one would fit best imo.

 

Shield of the Fallen Stars

Did you rename Shield of the Fallen Stars btw?

It still have its V1 name, which was its vanilla's nickname (the original name was a lame Large Shield, +1, +4 vs Missile). It doesn't suggests its effects, but the background explains it. If you have an uber cool and appropriate Ilmater-inspired name let me know.

[J Beau]

You can obtain the Spear of Withering and Impaler back to back in the game. The result is usually that the Spear of Withering is never used. How about moving it to an earlier part of the game, say the Planar Sphere.

[Demivrgvs]

You can obtain the Spear of Withering and Impaler back to back in the game. The result is usually that the Spear of Withering is never used. How about moving it to an earlier part of the game, say the Planar Sphere.

Mmm...you do have a point, in fact I never bought SoW, though in theory it could/should be slightly more powerful than Impaler or at least remain appealing because of its different "role" ("elemental" anti-stonesking dmg plus ongoing dmg). Anyway, SoW is a very highly enchanted spear, we cannot move it to a pre-underdark quest unless nerfed.

[J Beau]

I don't think nerfing it necesarry. The dividing point of pre and post underdark is somewhat arbitrary. There are some people who do all the quests before going to the underdark. Others go as fast as possible on the idea that Imoen must be rescued right away. Its a personal preference. The principle behind it is you don't want to give high level weapons to a low level party. There are some very difficult encounters that are accessible outside the underdark. You could put it with one of the dragons or I think the planar sphere would be a good spot. It is Valgar's quest and I believe spears are one of his stock proficiencies. You could equip one of the halflings with it, the ones you encounter right before the golem building room.

[Demivrgvs]

I don't think nerfing it necesarry. The dividing point of pre and post underdark is somewhat arbitrary. There are some people who do all the quests before going to the underdark. Others go as fast as possible on the idea that Imoen must be rescued right away. Its a personal preference. The principle behind it is you don't want to give high level weapons to a low level party. There are some very difficult encounters that are accessible outside the underdark. You could put it with one of the dragons or I think the planar sphere would be a good spot. It is Valgar's quest and I believe spears are one of his stock proficiencies. You could equip one of the halflings with it, the ones you encounter right before the golem building room.

It's far from arbitrary for pretty much all runs, as the game difficulty doesn't scale with party's lvl. The Underdark is clearly geared toward mid-high lvls (drows, mind flayers, beholders, elder orb, and a baalor! ), even more so within a SCS game, and it's the clear "no turning back" point of the game in terms of narrative (doind pre-underdark quests when you should hurry to restore your soul makes no sense) and difficulty lvl (pre-underdark quests become uber easy after exiting it, as only the added liches here and there pose a decent threat by then - too bad Lands of Intrigue or Return to Windspear were never finished ). Otoh pre-underdark quests are all pretty much doable with a mid lvl party with the exception of SCS dragons, and there are very few serious boss-like characters (Lavok and Shadow Lord are the only two ones I can think of). The point as you say is to not give a mid-low lvl party a highly enchanted spear which outshines all other spears (and most weapons) in the same part of the game.

 

Anyway, that's my opinion, I'll let Ardanis and other players confute this.

[J Beau]

Not that I have ever skipped them, but the mindflayer and beholder lairs are optional in the underdark.

[SixOfSpades]

The Illithid and Beholder lairs are indeed optional . . . which is why I always skip them, and then come back & do them later.

 

Speaking from my own selfish little heart, I'd prefer it if the SoW were not moved to the Planar Sphere, as I'm putting a Spear there myself, one that's more in-tune with Valygar (and yes, Spear is one of his starting proficiencies). Owing to its ties with nature and Evil, I'd say that the Druid Grove seems a good contender to hold it--either in the Troll Mound (bouncing the Spear of the Unicorn somewhere else) or the reward for defeating Faldorn (replacing the duplicate Staff of Thunder & Lightning). But, as you say, a lot of people do the Druid Grove very early on, giving the party a +4 weapon as early as Day 3 of gameplay. (It's still not as imbalanced as Lilarcor, of course, but that's no justification.)

 

It's a shame that there are so few Druids outside of the Grove, and none that are reliably post-Spellhold, but what if you were to add a Shadow Druid to the Wyvern cultists in the Forest of Tethir, and equip the SoW on them?

[Ardanis]

Ust Natha imo is a very fitting place for SoW. Those who've read Salvatore may also remember Berg'inyon was wielding nearly identical weapon during the assault on Mithral Hall.

Impaler is a harpoon, but do sharkmen use them, or it is supposed to be used against them? Hm, maybe that's how they've got their hands on it actually.

 

Next thing to consider, Impaler can still compete with Ixil, due to being a ranged weapon. And lowering it isn't good, because there's electrical spear/javelin available early on.

 

Whereas SoW shares UD with Backbiter, most likely loses to Ixil, and beats Unicorn hands down. I also think it should remain in a shop, else there're five spears out of six in loot.

 

 

I see two issues:

- too many spears in (almost)UD

- sahuagin city might be too early for Impaler

 

Thoughts:

1) move something from the Imprisonment machine (Jhor, Albruin and Backbiter) to sahuagins, move Impaler to Ch.6-7

2) move Impaler to Ust Natha shop, move SoW to ranger stronghold quest - I imagine a witch is not shy to use/possess it, although I prefer the first variant

 

Also reminds me that UD hosts three bastard swords atm - Jhor, Searing, and semi-hidden Albruin.

[Demivrgvs]

Spears

Not that I have ever skipped them, but the mindflayer and beholder lairs are optional in the underdark.

The Illithid and Beholder lairs are indeed optional . . . which is why I always skip them, and then come back & do them later.

Indeed they are, but the Baalor is not, and SCS finally made it as it should, a opponent that can crush mid-low lvl parties with ease. That being said, if you skip these quests you shouldn't come back to them either from a roleplaying point of view.

 

Speaking from my own selfish little heart, I'd prefer it if the SoW were not moved to the Planar Sphere, as I'm putting a Spear there myself, one that's more in-tune with Valygar (and yes, Spear is one of his starting proficiencies). Owing to its ties with nature and Evil, I'd say that the Druid Grove seems a good contender to hold it--either in the Troll Mound (bouncing the Spear of the Unicorn somewhere else) or the reward for defeating Faldorn (replacing the duplicate Staff of Thunder & Lightning).

We already removed the duplicate of that staff, but as a reward for Jaheira if she defeats Faldorn it's just perfect being a druid-only item (and probably the most powerful pre-UD staff within V3).

 

It's a shame that there are so few Druids outside of the Grove, and none that are reliably post-Spellhold, but what if you were to add a Shadow Druid to the Wyvern cultists in the Forest of Tethir, and equip the SoW on them?

That would be fine if this was a chap6-only encounter, but IR doesn't alter areas nor add creatures, and...

 

Ust Natha imo is a very fitting place for SoW. Those who've read Salvatore may also remember Berg'inyon was wielding nearly identical weapon during the assault on Mithral Hall.

Seconded. Spears are also one of the few weapons used by drows within BG (along with scimitars, long swords and halberds).

 

Impaler is a harpoon, but do sharkmen use them, or it is supposed to be used against them? Hm, maybe that's how they've got their hands on it actually.

I specifically addressed this within its lore adding this line: "The spear subsequently disappeared in the river's currents, and was supposedly dragged into the open sea." I can remove or change it if necessary, not a huge problem.

 

Note: Sahuagins only use spears (their AD&D states "spears are used only as thrusting weapons"), while harpoons are the weapon of choice of kua-toas.

 

Next thing to consider, Impaler can still compete with Ixil, due to being a ranged weapon. And lowering it isn't good, because there's electrical spear/javelin available early on.

Exactly.

 

Whereas SoW shares UD with Backbiter, most likely loses to Ixil, and beats Unicorn hands down. I also think it should remain in a shop, else there're five spears out of six in loot.

Seconded again. Long story short, SoW can remain where it is imo, we only need to make it so appealing that spear using characters are tempted to buy it even if they alreay have the Impaler. I though its anti-stoneskin property was enough to make it stand, but I could be wrong...any idea?

 

Else we could have Impaler being sold by those sharks (I dare to say pretty much all spear using characters consider it a must have and would gladly pay 10k+ for it) and move SoW to a powerful UD creature (I'd say kua-toa Prince? It currently has a non-magical spear which causes slow with a grease animation. ). My only gripe with this is that I don't know why those sharks would sell such a powerful spear instead of using it (in fact, the king currently uses it).

 

Wow, so many ways to handle this!

 

P.S Didn't you moved Talos' Fury to the relevant temple shop?

 

P.P.S Backbiter really doesn't need to be where it is within BG2, especially considering it's a BG1 item, and that being a cursed spear without exceptionally powerful effects makes it clearly unappealing when you get Impaler before it and SoW right next to it. I'd say you can move it somewhere else indeed, even pre-underdark (much like the cursed two-handed sword is available early on despite its +3 enchantment).

 

Bastard Swords

Also reminds me that UD hosts three bastard swords atm - Jhor, Searing, and semi-hidden Albruin.

I thought you removed UD Albruin considering you added it to a pre-UD shop, haven't you? Anyway, I agree, it doesn't make sense that you have 3 bastards swords within UD and not a single long sword! Removing Albruin can be enough to limit the amount of bastard swords proliferating there, while adding a long sword would be a good idea, if only we had a long sword to move there (only Namarra can be a candidate imo, but I'm not sure).

[J Beau]

The bottom line is if you leave SofW in UD, it won't be used because you have to pay for it and money is in demand now and you get a spear that does more damage right before it. If you put it pre UD it won't unbalance the game because it would only really shine in a fighters hands with adequate proficiency. If you do that that means one of the other pre UD items can't be used, e.g. Celestial Fury, Lilarcor, Carsomyr. And lets not forget that Watchers Keep can be done pre UD. And all of that is OK. One of the great and fun things about this game is that it can be played in many ways. Its not linear; it doesn't pigeonhole you into always having to play it the same way every time. If you remove the flexibility of the game, you kill the game. Putting SofW pre UD only adds to the variety. I would love to play the game and have my main fighter pick spear proficiency or staff or dagger proficiency, rather than katana, two handed sword or long sword all the time. I know I can do that anyway but there is always something unsatisfying doing that knowing there are weapons twice as good that you are passing up.

[SixOfSpades]

Whether or not it fits canon lore for the Drow to have the Spear of Withering, I feel it would match the Sahuagin even better. I would move the SoW to the King & Prince of the Underwater City, and bump the Impaler to the closest thing to an Orc chieftain that we have: DigDag.

 

The Kou-Toa Prince actually might not even mind using Backbiter, as his regeneration makes the damage negligible. (Riti shouldn't even be using a Spear anyway, as the Githyanki animation can only show a 2-Handed Sword.)

 

Albruin makes next to no sense in its vanilla implementation . . . it would be better placed in the hands of someone like Gaal. Or if it's in a store, that works too, as long as it's not too expensive. (The Spear of Kuldahar and Sword of Balduran strike me as costing far more than their enchantments would seem to justify.)

[Guest Guest]

Whoa, can't believe i haven't looked here for like....a year, and v3 still isn't out haha. Which means its going to be super awesomeness when its finally released!

 

Seems like the items are all finished, just deciding on position now?