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Kit Revisions (Fighters)


Demivrgvs

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I think that there is a better way to do armor training without scripting, though it requires patching every set of armor in the game. Use effect 177 (Use EFF File) set to a unique specific.ids entry, that gives whatever bonuses you want with a duration of while equipped. Then, at the specified level, an effect in the clab sets the fighter's specific.ids to that unique value giving them the bonus while wearing that armor

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Well, we already patch every armor in IR anyway :)

 

I have very strong doubts about illegal use of specifics like this, however - those are to group NPCs for AI shout interaction. It might work as player only, but then you leave player with unfair advantage over AI.

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Well, we already patch every armor in IR anyway :)

 

I have very strong doubts about illegal use of specifics like this, however - those are to group NPCs for AI shout interaction. It might work as player only, but then you leave player with unfair advantage over AI.

Can you patch the relevant npc's giving them the necessary bonuses? Maybe check for 'fighter' class, level, and equipped armor?

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I think that there is a better way to do armor training without scripting, though it requires patching every set of armor in the game. Use effect 177 (Use EFF File) set to a unique specific.ids entry, that gives whatever bonuses you want with a duration of while equipped. Then, at the specified level, an effect in the clab sets the fighter's specific.ids to that unique value giving them the bonus while wearing that armor

I suggested this like 5 years ago (I hoped to use custom ids entries to achieve cool stuff for SR as well) but aVENGER and a few other "Lords of IE coding" told me a big "NO, don't".

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The biggest issue with specifics is that it's a single field - if you use it for one thing, you can't for another. If one mod does it, the other can't.

 

Worse yet, it painfully shows even without spells/items hijacking, e.g. try having two groups of NPCs who are supposed to work together under one circumstance, but independently of each other under other. "Hate" doesn't quite begin to describe how I feel about it :angry2:

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Just finished a run-through of BG:EE and BG2:EE with a Wizard Slayer protagonist and I have to say that Wizard Slayers are quite good now. I was using SCS with the only-long-term-auto-buffing option on the mages. I chose to dual-wield axes at random and stumbled upon the excellent Bala's Axe that allowed me to bypass PFMW with extra dispelling chances as well. Also, the Wizard Slayers' vulnerability to powerful enemy melee combatants is noticeable in the early- to mid-game, preventing them from being a no-brainer when choosing a Fighter kit. Nice work. My only suggestions would be as follows:

 

1) Extend Inner Focus to two rounds duration at epic levels (doable as an HLA option?). I found myself using it very infrequently once Resist Magic became available as Inner Focus requires lots of micromanagement and Resist Magic + innate MR + some equipment can easily get you to 70-85% MR. I think a longer duration would make it more appealing, but it is an imperfect solution.

 

2) Remove one or two of the powerful attack abilities such as Critical Strike from their HLA table. This would balance them a bit more vs. other Fighter kits in late-game play. In the endgame, my perception is that they retain all of the offensive power of the other Fighter kits due to having access to the same HLAs, have incredibly enhanced utility vs. mages due to their breaching attacks, and are able to mitigate their tanking deficiency much better as compared to the early game (with IR installed).

 

It's too bad that there are no enemy Wizard Slayers that make use of their Breach attack. Party mages would crap their pants. :)

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Wizard Slayer

@Kalindor thanks for the feedback! Did you used any other class included in the current beta? :)

 

Wizard Slayers' vulnerability to powerful enemy melee combatants is noticeable in the early- to mid-game, preventing them from being a no-brainer when choosing a Fighter kit.

Good.

 

1) Extend Inner Focus to two rounds duration at epic levels (doable as an HLA option?). I found myself using it very infrequently once Resist Magic became available as Inner Focus requires lots of micromanagement and Resist Magic + innate MR + some equipment can easily get you to 70-85% MR. I think a longer duration would make it more appealing, but it is an imperfect solution.

You have a point, and I guess slighty longer duration wouldn't be a problem. That being said, keep in mind magic resistance doesn't block all spells and can be countered by Lower Resistance (does SCS use it against your WS?). For example Inner Focus can be used to counter even Imprisonment at high lvls.

 

2) Remove one or two of the powerful attack abilities such as Critical Strike from their HLA table. This would balance them a bit more vs. other Fighter kits in late-game play. In the endgame, my perception is that they retain all of the offensive power of the other Fighter kits due to having access to the same HLAs, have incredibly enhanced utility vs. mages due to their breaching attacks, and are able to mitigate their tanking deficiency much better as compared to the early game (with IR installed).

More kit specific HLAs are indeed necessary. We could restrict some HLAs depending on the kit (e.g. Hardiness may be removed from WS and Kensai in exchange for custom abilities) and we could do some similar with greater versions (e.g. Greater Whirlwind Attack could be restricted to Fighter and Barbarian, Greater Power Attack to Fighter and Berserker, etc.). Short answer: custom HLA tables will fix this.

 

I know in the late game the armor restriction makes a smaller difference, but it's still there imo (with or without IR). Note that even if IR grants you better medium armors compared to vanilla, heavy armors offer more deflection and better physical res. IR's large shields offer insane protection and even at high lvls a Fortess or Darksteel Shield can make a huge difference if you are trying to tank.

 

Otoh, if you play with IR you may even be tempted to not pick splint in favor of Hide or Chain to retain higher weapon speed (crucial to interrupt spellcasting or chasing down SCS mages who tend to walk away), or even studded and play a ranged WS (the kit can be a really powerful anti-mage archer imo).

 

It's too bad that there are no enemy Wizard Slayers that make use of their Breach attack. Party mages would crap their pants. :)

 

And this is why player-only changes tend to suck. If the AI doesn't use it, it's essentially a cheat.

I try to use passive abilities and edit vanilla's active abilities as much as possible, but if I had to limit myself on that I think KR would be really bland compared to what we are creating.

 

Afaik there's no AI Wizard Slayer in vanilla, and I don't think SCS makes use of the kit (@Jarno see, that's something Quest/Creature Rev could do :p ) thus you will not feel like a cheater.

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Wizard Slayer

..

Afaik there's no AI Wizard Slayer in vanilla, and I don't think SCS makes use of the kit (@Jarno see, that's something Quest/Creature Rev could do :p ) thus you will not feel like a cheater.

Could the fact be that the effects of it are so minor ? And by minor I mean it's easier to make a drow warriors that are far more immune to magic than the WS. Yeah and, the game has 300 other things to throw at you, so the game balance doesn't need to rely purely on some lousy kits that have 1/10 of the same effect than what they already have.

The kit are, in my view, trades, that the game was offering originally to the, player only... you have the full freedom to make game have more Wizard Slayers. Not that that's going to be easy as ... well the enemies that have magic resistance are though enough already.

 

This is partially a reason why the over usage of added possibilities is bad... if the kit is a trade, it doesn't add advantages to multiple fronts... like the true fighter seems to get at post #1. (if you don't see it, you must be blind, but I'll say, 3 different stances...)

And that's just the non kitted character, add kits and you are completely lost. But that's my opinion.

Yeah, the R2D2(the 3-6 ed P&P) books probably have various kit with far more abilities than the BG2 manual(well, and custom rules), but considering they are balanced in different way, they get to throw as many quirks as they wish, cause the games need to sell the next edition too. That balance the unintended unbalance.

 

One thing you could make though in the cre rev or even in SR... is to make the elementals actually inflict their own elemental damage, and not just pure melee. Aka they should do about 1d8 + elemental damage... well Earth could be; crushing. But Fire Elemental; Fire damage. Air: Lightning Damage, Water; Ice Damage

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Wizard Slayer

@Kalindor thanks for the feedback! Did you used any other class included in the current beta? :)

 

 

Besides Sarevok there were none others that are current KR classes. I had to manually fix the irritating weapon proficiencies bug for trueclass Fighters on Sarevok.

 

 

Wizard Slayers' vulnerability to powerful enemy melee combatants is noticeable in the early- to mid-game, preventing them from being a no-brainer when choosing a Fighter kit.

 

 

That being said, keep in mind magic resistance doesn't block all spells and can be countered by Lower Resistance (does SCS use it against your WS?). For example Inner Focus can be used to counter even Imprisonment at high lvls.

 

I don't think I ever had SCS cast Lower Resistance on my Wizard Slayer. I had boots that prevented Imprisonment and Maze late in the game, which helped immensely. I also had the borderline overpowered Greenstone Amulet that made me immune to mind-affecting spells.

 

Usually the enemy mages were running for their life, although there were some exceptions. I think playing with the option to have ALL buffs cast automatically on enemy mages would help temper the power of the Wizard Slayer to a more normal level. Playing with just long-term buffs auto-cast, it was rather easy to strip their Stoneskin. The only times I had to pause my mage slaughtering was when I couldn't use Bala's Axe to strip PFMW because the creature was already immune to normal weapons. I think this is fine, though, as a kit that specializes in killing wizards should be damn good at it as is currently the case. Like I mentioned, taking away some of their end-game offensive output relative to other Fighters would balance them out a bit more.

 

Otoh, if you play with IR you may even be tempted to not pick splint in favor of Hide or Chain to retain higher weapon speed (crucial to interrupt spellcasting or chasing down SCS mages who tend to walk away), or even studded and play a ranged WS (the kit can be a really powerful anti-mage archer imo).

 

Funny you should mention this because I took to using the Grandmaster's Armor with the permanent Haste effect in the endgame because Fire Giants and the like pretty much hit me every time anyhow. Maybe with a tanked-out Fighter that would not have been the case.

 

Afaik there's no AI Wizard Slayer in vanilla, and I don't think SCS makes use of the kit (@Jarno see, that's something Quest/Creature Rev could do :p ) thus you will not feel like a cheater.

 

I don't think it would be too out of place to have a component in KR that makes some enemies use the kit abilities that you add.

 

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Wizard Slayer

@Kalindor thanks for the feedback! Did you used any other class included in the current beta? :)

 

 

Besides Sarevok there were none others that are current KR classes. I had to manually fix the irritating weapon proficiencies bug for trueclass Fighters on Sarevok.

 

 

...

 

That's the opcode that beamdog messed up, yes? Maybe for BGEE it can be done via the invisbile monster script? Something like,:

 

At level up, automatically summon monster that checks to see if player has at least 1 (or whatever) pip in a given weapon proficiency. If no, then set proficiency to desired amount. Repeat for all relevant proficiencies.

 

I just checked, and it seems that there is no SetStat action. Annoying, but the creature could cast a spell that sets the proficiency.

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And this is why player-only changes tend to suck. If the AI doesn't use it, it's essentially a cheat.

I take it you feel the same way about sorcerers? And Skald Song? And the Resurrection spell?

 

 

I do. The game certainly doesn't need more of it. A minor tactical advantage here or there is relatively insignificant, thus, 30 different fighter kits are ignorable when the only differences are one gives +1 with halberds and another +1 saves vs breath. There's certainly ways to give the player variety and customization without cheesing it up. (This goes to both sides, though, as Bioware was fairly heavy-handed with their own cheese.)

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Wizard Slayer

1)magic resistance doesn't block all spells and can be countered by Lower Resistance (does SCS use it against your WS?).

 

2)More kit specific HLAs are indeed necessary. We could restrict some HLAs depending on the kit (e.g. Hardiness may be removed from WS and Kensai in exchange for custom abilities) and we could do some similar with greater versions (e.g. Greater Whirlwind Attack could be restricted to Fighter and Barbarian, Greater Power Attack to Fighter and Berserker, etc.).

 

3)Afaik there's no AI Wizard Slayer in vanilla, and I don't think SCS makes use of the kit (@Jarno see, that's something Quest/Creature Rev could do :p ) thus you will not feel like a cheater.

 

4) I couldn't use Bala's Axe to strip PFMW because the creature was already immune to normal weapons.

 

5)Fire Giants and the like pretty much hit me every time anyhow. Maybe with a tanked-out Fighter that would not have been the case.

 

 

6)I don't think it would be too out of place to have a component in KR that makes some enemies use the kit abilities that you add.

 

 

 

1) SCS will use LR at if certain conditions are met, and afaik strictly in a Spell Trigger.

2) Refinement does indeed remove Hardiness from both WS & Kensai. I think it wouldn't be hard to make custom HLA tables, in any case.

3) SCS does make two enemies (a drow guard of sorts and some Yaga creep) Wizardslayer, and has a script telling them to target casters actually. You can add more (folder genai/kit/override, put cre file there and voila)

Anyhow, they're nothing by the time you meet them. Ascension does add few *proper* Wizardslayers, far more dangerous than anyhing you can have. Fallen Solar (Dispel on hit, kill on hit), Illasera (Dispel, Spell Failure), some chick called Berenna Elkhan or similar (Dispel/spell failure) etc. Probably the most lethal of all is SCS/Tactics Bodhi with Cloud of Bats ability. Others are nulled by PfMW, she isn't.

I'd say AI is covered with those....

4) I always say, PfMW is shit for AI. Using a non-enchanted weapon to break PfMW is kind of insane in it's own right...sigh.

5) Yea, a tanky fighter can sustain them for a while. I had a swashbucker who focused on AC much, tanked Yaga-Shura alone. Epic stuff there..

6) That's not really easy to do.

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I have been experimenting with creating the kensai kit from AD&D 1st ed, thoughts? Balanced?

 

KENSAI: A kensai is a warrior who has been specially trained to become one with his weapon. They are deadly, fast and have been trained to go into battle without wearing armor. A kensai must maintain his honor. If his honor (reputation) falls below 6, he loses his kensai status, becoming a bushi (fighter) of the same level. He loses all kensai abilities gained to that point, and thereafter advances as a fighter.
Advantages:
- Starts with an Armor Class of 9 at 1st level and gains an additional +1 bonus every 3 levels (to a maximum of +4).
- Gains a -1 bonus to Speed Factor every 4 levels.
- Gains a +1 bonus to all Saving Throws.
- Immune to fear and morale failure.
- May use Kai ability one time per level each day (starts at 1st level with one use).
KAI: All successful attacks within the next 10 seconds deal maximum damage
- 2nd level: Gains a +1 to hit and damage rolls every 3 levels.
- 4th level: May meditate once per day.
MEDITATE: This ability removes fatigue as if user has had a full night's sleep.
- 7th level: Gains a +2 bonus to off hand THAC0, and may use the Fear ability once per day.
FEAR: The mere appearance of the kensai can cause fear in all creatures within a 30-ft radius (saving throw vs. paralyzation is allowed).
- 11th level: Gains the Whirlwind Attack ability once per day.
WHIRLWIND ATTACK: This ability allows the kensai to unleash a flurry of super-fast blows. The ability sets one's number of attacks per round to 10 but's one's THAC0 and damage suffer a 4 point penalty. The whirlwind attack lasts for one round and may not be used in conjunction with Kai.
Disadvantages:
- Alignment restricted to lawful.
- May not dual-class
- May not wear any armor.
- May not use missile weapons.
- May not wear gauntlets or bracers.
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