IR V3 - List of changes from V2 to V3

[J Beau]

I don't understand . . . how it is possible to have a crappy weapon with a +10 enhancement lvl. Can you give me some examples?

Well, you could have a Morningstar that grants the user Grandmastery in Halberd while equipped, or a Paladin-only helmet that gives bonus Wizard spellslots. The Axe of Hrothgar comes pretty close, too, with its WIS bonus that's virtually useless unless you've got Ashes of Embers or something (and even then, you can't switch to your Sling without erasing those extra spellslots). But barring obvious stupidities like that, the weapon could be carry fantastically powerful X-bane enchantments but lack the requisite enchantment level to actually hit X (e.g., Jerrod's Mace being only a +1 weapon), or the item could grant a whole bunch of pitifully weak enchantments (+1% Resistance to each of the 10 forms of damage, whoopdeedoo), or immunities to spells or effects that are never used against you ("User cannot be Magnetized . . . what's Magnetized?").

 

I was thinking along simpler lines. With weapons, damage is king. The main reason you pick up a weapon is to do damage. Therefore I think it is misleading when you equate non-damaging and damaging abilities which is what using total enchantment to compare weapons does. e.g. A plain +3 sword is far superior to a +1 sword that also gives you 20% acid resistance and casts cure light wounds 1X/day. What I'm saying is that not all effects are equal. Even + To Hit is inferior to + damage, not in BG1 of course but its true for the most part in BG2 especially as the game progresses and it is definitely true in ToB.

This is why I disagree with the re-nerfing of hammer damage. Unless you decided to include armor damage resistance modifiers. But I thought that was scrapped because of fear of 100% damage resistance.

 

I don't see any mention of the Rod of Smiting in the V3 documentation . . . now, granted, placing the RoS in the Planar Sphere might be seen as being a bit too convenient, and I'd tend to agree . . . but since the Sphere is obviously such a hotbed of Golem-mancy, it might not be unwarranted.

If I remember right, the rod of smiting was mage only and therefore all but useless. At least I never used it. I don't know what its status is now.

 

- Cleric's Staff – You say its usable by clerics, it’s not clear if its only usable by clerics. It’s only good for undead though.

Huh? The Item Index makes no mention of this, just a +1 to WIS and Aid effects while equipped . . . and the Staff itself is listed as a +2 weapon, to boot. Sounds like the Item Index thread could use an update, and why the HELL does the game have yet another anti-Undead thing in it?!?

Check page 1 of this thread. Speaking of which, Demi, I thought you were going to post swords soon.

 

I still say the best thing to do would be to do a direct swap of Slow effects: IR FoA gets vanilla Ardulia's Fall Slow effects, while IR Ardulia gets vanilla FoA's.

I'm fine with FoA as it is. However, I haven't seen its 2 +4 variations posted.

[Demivrgvs]

Nice to see you back Six.

 

Enhancement lvl

I don't understand . . . how it is possible to have a crappy weapon with a +10 enhancement lvl. Can you give me some examples?

Well, you could have a Morningstar that grants the user Grandmastery in Halberd while equipped, or a Paladin-only helmet that gives bonus Wizard spellslots. ... But barring obvious stupidities like that, the weapon could be carry fantastically powerful X-bane enchantments but lack the requisite enchantment level to actually hit X ...

I hope you guys really don't think I'd be so stupid to create items like that (e.g. all Bane weapons within IR have at least +3 enchantment).

 

With weapons, damage is king. The main reason you pick up a weapon is to do damage. Therefore I think it is misleading when you equate non-damaging and damaging abilities which is what using total enchantment to compare weapons does. e.g. A plain +3 sword is far superior to a +1 sword that also gives you 20% acid resistance and casts cure light wounds 1X/day.

This is not completely true imo.

 

First of all, a sword +1 with 20% acid resistance and 1x/day CLW doesn't even have a total +2 enhancement bonus. We can say it's +2 because 25% res would be +1, but x/day abilities don't raise the enhancement lvl, only the item's value (as per PnP). Anyway, no wonder a plain sword +3 looks better, it has a higher enhancemnt lvl, and the other one even has a very suboptimal concept for an item which is supposed to be a weapon instead of a defensive tool.

 

That being said, if I have to choose between +2 dmg and 20-33% chance on hit to completely disable my opponent for 1-2 rounds I'd go with the latter anytime. Even "lesser" disabling effects like slow are great, they are really useful when fighting tough opponents (e.g. Frostreaver can easily slow down a troll halving its regeneration rate, while making it an easier target and slightly less threatening opponent). If you notice I rearely use enhancements that doesn't suit a weapon, and if I do it generally is on highly enchanted weapons which can "waste" part of the offensive potential on defensive properties.

 

There are many occasions where I'd prefer plain dmg output indeed, but I really cannot agree with your statement that "damage is king" (e.g. go tell that to Celestial Fury's fanbase! ).

 

What I'm saying is that not all effects are equal. Even + To Hit is inferior to + damage, not in BG1 of course but its true for the most part in BG2 especially as the game progresses and it is definitely true in ToB.

This is a valid point, not all effects are equally interesting depending on the item type and its role in the game. I do know this, and I take it into account (e.g. thac0 enhancing items like Longtooh, Crossbos of Accuracy and Sling of Seeking are all early game items if not directly BG1 items).

 

If there are items with "out of place" or too much sub-optimal enhancement just point that out to me and we'll discuss it (I've followed player's suggestions quite a lot of times, sometime even drastically altering my previous opinion), but trust me, behind each and every item there's much more under the hood brainstorming than you might imagine (e.g. like Frostreaver being a better candidate than Stonefire to be a +1 weapon as discussed here).

 

This is why I disagree with the re-nerfing of hammer damage. Unless you decided to include armor damage resistance modifiers. But I thought that was scrapped because of fear of 100% damage resistance.

Actually I fear 100%+ res, because a temporarily 100% res would be fine imo. Anyway, yes, it has been discarded because unless ToBEx ends up putting a cap at 100% I have too much fear of it.

 

Hammers deal vanilla's dmg again because we decided to not remove hidden AC values from armors. With them still in place a hammer dealing the same dmg of a long sword is simply too much superior to the latter which wouldn't have a single advantage (except a small +1 speed factor advantage). Crusing dmg is almost always the better dmg type (e.g. golems) and always have thac0 advantage over slashing weapons (up to an outstanding +3/+4 vs heavy armors).

 

Returning Weapons & Item Re-allocation component

I just second eveything Six said about these.

 

Hide Armors

Every weapon/armor type should be appealing and available throughout the entire game.

Out of curiosity, are you planning to change the way that [unenchanted] Hide Armor is in nearly every way inferior to Studded Leather?

Yes, see here.

 

Rod of Smiting

Regarding the "Planar Sphere' golems need +3 weapons" issue we'll actually handle it better than vanilla did imo. I agreed on placing there a +3 weapon (vanilla didn't offered any - I suggested a Staff of Striking which is almost an anti-golem weapom, but feel free to suggest a better candidate)

I don't see any mention of the Rod of Smiting in the V3 documentation . . . now, granted, placing the RoS in the Planar Sphere might be seen as being a bit too convenient, and I'd tend to agree . . . but since the Sphere is obviously such a hotbed of Golem-mancy, it might not be unwarranted.

Seems like I forgot to put it in the 1st post of this topic. Anyway, it still is THE anti-golem weapon, thus I'm not sure I'd vote to move it in a place full of golems much like I dislike vanilla's allocation of the MoD. I'll let Ardanis decide here, and it's rather easy to alter the weapon's power lvl if necessary (e.g. it needs +3 enchantment but it can be a +1 weapon with Golem Bane or a true +3 weapon).

 

 

P.S sorry for not having updated the first post with swords, will do asap. FoA +4 was already there though.

[Shaitan]

I always have had a crush on SixOfSpades. Now I remember why

[Jarno Mikkola]

I don't understand . . . how it is possible to have a crappy weapon with a +10 enhancement lvl. Can you give me some examples?

or the item could grant a whole bunch of pitifully weak enchantments (+1% Resistance to each of the 10 forms of damage, whoopdeedoo

In that case the item would be a +1 item at most. Or is the Carsomyr +5 a +61 enchanted item, the +50 % Magic Resistance makes it a +50 item at least, in the vanilla...

Besides there's 11 forms of damage(Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Magic Damage, Magical Fire, Magical Cold, Slashing, Crushing, Piercing, Missiles), of which you can actually use 9, cause the game crashes, normally, as there's no animation for Magical Fire and Magical Cold deaths, in the vanilla.

With weapons, damage is king. The main reason you pick up a weapon is to do damage. Therefore I think it is misleading when you equate non-damaging and damaging abilities which is what using total enchantment to compare weapons does. e.g. A plain +3 sword is far superior to a +1 sword that also gives you 20% acid resistance and casts cure light wounds 1X/day.

I hope you guys really don't think I'd be so stupid to create items like that (e.g. all Bane weapons within IR have at least +3 enchantment).

...

First of all, a sword +1 with 20% acid resistance and 1x/day CLW doesn't even have a total +2 enhancement bonus. We can say it's +2 because 25% res would be +1, but x/day abilities don't raise the enhancement lvl, only the item's value (as per PnP). Anyway, no wonder a plain sword +3 looks better, it has a higher enhancemnt lvl, and the other one even has a very suboptimal concept for an item which is supposed to be a weapon instead of a defensive tool.

====>>>>

Enhancement lvl

There's two ways to see this in: The Conseptual Enchantment, and the Actual Enchantment.

 

The Conseptual is the actual money value of the item, it also should describe where you can gain the object at, spoiler warning. -J Beau, SixOfSpades

 

And then there's the Tecnical/Actual Enchantment Level the weapon has, descibing what it can hit, it's from 0-5(6). -Demivrgvs

 

I say that they are both valid views, but they should not be viewed as the same thing.

What comes to the two swords, if you ask me if I would use either, I would probably say that I would keep the +3 sword until I got better, but I would definetly keep using the +20% acid res + 1x/day CLW until I got something better for all the sword users in my party, the +3 sword is actually easy to be replaced by a +4, but the other is not so easy... unless you make a series of them, which is a bad idea.

[SixOfSpades]

If I remember right, the rod of smiting was mage only and therefore all but useless. At least I never used it.

It's only usable by Mages or Clerics . . . I don't know if that includes Multis & Duals. I never used it either.

 

Cleric's Staff

Check page 1 of this thread.

Ooo, I missed that, thanks. So now, I must say again, why the HELL does the game have yet another anti-Undead thing in it?!?

 

Enhancement lvl

I hope you guys really don't think I'd be so stupid to create items like that

Certainly not, but you did ask for examples.

 

Rod of Smiting

Seems like I forgot to put it in the 1st post of this topic. Anyway, it still is THE anti-golem weapon, thus I'm not sure I'd vote to move it in a place full of golems much like I dislike vanilla's allocation of the MoD.

. . . with the critical difference being that the Vampires (and Firkraag) are smart enough to hide (if not destroy) items designed to kill them, as opposed to leaving those items just lying around their lair--but that's a self-preservation value judgement that Golems just aren't equipped to make. So I can easily see Lavok whipping up a fail-safe tool in case one (or more) of his Golems goes wonky, just as easily as I can see the Golems not caring about this Sword of Damocles in their midst. Now, don't get me wrong; like you, I am not advocating moving the Rod of Smiting to the Sphere--I think the Staff of Striking & Enchanted Weapon should be quite enough, even if the party didn't bring any +3 toys on the way in--I just think it's something to explore. The Rod's current location just smacks too much of BioWare's constant "Let's make the Good roleplaying path really easy."

 

I always have had a crush on SixOfSpades. Now I remember why

I'd always assumed it was because of my breathtaking physique and irrepressible machismo.

 

Besides there's 11 forms of damage(Acid, Cold, Electricity, Fire, Magic Damage, Magical Fire, Magical Cold, Slashing, Crushing, Piercing, Missiles), of which you can actually use 9, cause the game crashes, normally, as there's no animation for Magical Fire and Magical Cold deaths, in the vanilla.

That's half of the reason I wasn't counting Magical Cold/Fire . . . the other half is that in IR & SR, Demi folds the damage types of MCold & MFire into regular Cold and Fire, so that the Magical types aren't used at all. The 10th type of damage is Poison, but you're right, there actually are 11 types, I was forgetting about Stunning.

[J Beau]

Are you planning to do anything with the Mask of King Strohm? I didn't see any mention of it when i did a search. It would be nice if it was useful beyond revealing the guardian.

[Demivrgvs]

Rod of Smiting

It's only usable by Mages or Clerics . . . I don't know if that includes Multis & Duals. I never used it either.

I've removed these restrictions within IR (at least they are within V3, I don't remember V2 right now). I don't see any reason at all to keep them, neither within its non-existant background nor the item's concept per se.

 

Now, don't get me wrong; like you, I am not advocating moving the Rod of Smiting to the Sphere. I think the Staff of Striking & Enchanted Weapon should be quite enough, even if the party didn't bring any +3 toys on the way in...

I'm glad we agree.

 

The Rod's current location just smacks too much of BioWare's constant "Let's make the Good roleplaying path really easy."

Good path? It is sold by a drow merchant, and an evil character can buy it as well as a good one.

 

Cleric's Staff

Check page 1 of this thread.

Ooo, I missed that, thanks. So now, I must say again, why the HELL does the game have yet another anti-Undead thing in it?!?

Because I couldn't find any other decent concept, and "cleric vs undead" is a classic. If you have a better suggestion let me know, it's really hard to find new concepts as I've already used all opcodes in pretty much all the possible ways I could imagine.

 

That being said, I actually removed one of the most powerful anti-undead weapons within IR, vanilla's Runehammer, and I would also love to remove/replace Azuredge's Disruption enhancement (in PnP only bludgeoning weapons can have it). As you see it's not like I love to put anti-undead weapons everywhere, it's just that within BG has an incredibly huge amount of magical equipment and having a bunch of anti-undead weapons is relatively inevitable imo.

 

Mask of King Strohm

Are you planning to do anything with the Mask of King Strohm? I didn't see any mention of it when i did a search. It would be nice if it was useful beyond revealing the guardian.

Long story short, the current item is kinda hard to handle because it's clearly a helmet but it's usable by anyone (for quest related issues - aka a solo mage could not wear it and thus end the side quest). Furthermore, I haven't any great suggestion that would fit its current concept other than:

- detect illusion bonus (but rogues should wear a helmet!)

- permanent Detect Invisibility while equipped (this is simply too powerful imo, perhaps even in the late game)

 

I also though about simply raising its value, but that surely isn't a priority.

[SixOfSpades]

Rod of Smiting

The Rod's current location just smacks too much of BioWare's constant "Let's make the Good roleplaying path really easy."

Good path? It is sold by a drow merchant, and an evil character can buy it as well as a good one.

The Good path necessarily involves whacking Golems, while one of the (arguably) Evil paths requires you to do nothing more than betray Phaere to Ardulace. Also, while shoplifting from the Drow is clearly more Chaotic than Good, I can't help but remark that compared with the [Evil] Ust Natha merchants, the Duergar and [Neutral] Svirfneblin have almost nothing worth stealing.

 

Cleric's Staff

If you have a better suggestion let me know, it's really hard to find new concepts

Each hit with the Staff has a 1% chance to restore a previously-cast Priest spell to memory. The highest spell level that can be restored is 1/2 of the maximum spell level that the wielder can normally cast, so ToB-level Clerics & Druids can regain up to 4th-level spells, while Paladins & Rangers must be content with Level 2. It would naturally require some mildly convoluted spells & IDS checks to make this work, but it's quite doable, and produces a weapon that's far more interesting & unique than yet another anti-Undead thing (see: BioWare making the Good roleplaying path really easy).

 

That being said, I actually removed one of the most powerful anti-undead weapons within IR, vanilla's Runehammer

Except that by the time you can obtain the Runehammer, you've already beaten roughly 95% of all the Undead creatures in the game . . . and as for the rest, even your Paladin or Multiclass Cleric should be able to Turn Undead them to smithereens by that point.

 

Mask of King Strohm

The Guardians say that the King pulled the Scale. So I think some strictly melee kamikaze action is what's called for here. I would prefer a 1x/day casting of an ability that all-out mirrors Strohm's heroic sacrifice, but you don't items that can be "cast" and immediately replaced with a more combat-oriented replacement, so here's the while-equipped version:

-2 melee THAC0 bonus

Additional -2 melee THAC0 bonus against Dragons, Demons, and Giants

+4 ranged THAC0 penalty

+2 AC penalty

-10% penalty to Physical and Fire resistances

[Jarno Mikkola]

-2 melee THAC0 bonus

...

+2 AC penalty

Is it too hard to say those as:

Melee thac0 bonus of 2

AC penalty of 2

As either the "+/-" or the "bonus/penalty" actually have no meaning in the saying you use... so don't use both.

[Demivrgvs]

Cleric's Staff

If you have a better suggestion let me know, it's really hard to find new concepts

Each hit with the Staff has a 1% chance to restore a previously-cast Priest spell to memory. The highest spell level that can be restored is 1/2 of the maximum spell level that the wielder can normally cast, so ToB-level Clerics & Druids can regain up to 4th-level spells, while Paladins & Rangers must be content with Level 2. It would naturally require some mildly convoluted spells & IDS checks to make this work, but it's quite doable, and produces a weapon that's far more interesting & unique than yet another anti-Undead thing (see: BioWare making the Good roleplaying path really easy).

Even that isn't as unique as you might think, because that's more or less how V3 Dak'kon's Zerth Blade work, though the katana is for fighter-mages. The problem here is conceptual for me. Clerics don't cast spells like mages, they simply pray their gods to borrow them divine powers, and then they can use the x spells they prayed for. A holy simbol (e.g. Ring of Holiness) can be used to better channel the divine power or getting the favor of the gods, but I don't see how hitting an opponent with a staff could restore a previously cast cleric spell. Am I wrong?

[Shaitan]

Sacrifice anger/bodily health to a God to gain spells - simple

[Salk]

Sacrifice anger/bodily health to a God to gain spells - simple

 

Blood magic for evil clerics!

[SixOfSpades]

-2 melee THAC0 bonus

+2 AC penalty

Is it too hard to say those as:

Melee thac0 bonus of 2

AC penalty of 2

As either the "+/-" or the "bonus/penalty" actually have no meaning in the saying you use... so don't use both.

Why on earth shouldn't I use both? When you take off your Plate armor to put on Full Plate, your base AC goes from 3 to 1. It goes down two points. You have just experienced a -2 bonus to AC. Same with THAC0, Saving Throws, etc., why is my way of phrasing it difficult or unfamiliar?

 

Now, I agree that the whole system is screwed up. D&D should never have implemented a setup where low numbers are good . . . and BioWare should never have perpetuated that setup . . . but they did, and that's what we're stuck with. So even though I think it's stupid, that's what's displayed in-game, so that's how I word it.

 

Cleric's Staff

Each hit with the Staff has a 1% chance to restore a previously-cast Priest spell to memory.

Even that isn't as unique as you might think, because that's more or less how V3 Dak'kon's Zerth Blade works . . . I don't see how hitting an opponent with a staff could restore a previously cast cleric spell.

Well, phooey! I thought I was coming up with a snazzy new idea. Well, actually, a weapon that restores Priest spells actually makes slightly more sense than Wizard spells, as one could argue that whackin' your god's enemies, or whackin' them in a certain way, or whatever, is pleasing to your god and you get rewarded with increased favor. But for Wizard spells . . . you have to say something about how it saps the victim's aura or Intelligence and transfers it to the wielder, although logically this would only make sense when the Zerth Blade is used to hit Wizards.

 

The problem here is conceptual for me

I had that problem too, the issue is the weapon's name. "Cleric's Staff" isn't very helpful when it doesn't name a god, and you can't give the thing much of a flavor without making it displeasing to at least 1 deity. (And of course, the real problem is that Clerics have no business using Staves at all, they'd be far better off staying behind their Shields.) So, 3 generic designs [all of which you've probably already done], all of which are only usable by Clerics & Druids:

 

1) Wielder Regenerates 1 hp per 12 seconds while equipped, can cast Transfusion (wielder loses 2D6 hp, target creature healed by same amount) at will.

2) Bless while equipped (non-cumulative with Bless spell), casts Sanctuary 3x/day.

3) Casts Righteous Magic (or DUDM, or whatever) 1x/day, with all proficiencies except Staff and 2-Handed Weapon set to 0 for the duration. (Though I haven't actually tested to see if Weapon Proficiencies can safely be set temporarily).

Either that, or just make the Cleric's Staff take on all the properties of the Staff of Curing, and stick something else in Besamen's tomb.

[polytope]

But for Wizard spells . . . you have to say something about how it saps the victim's aura or Intelligence and transfers it to the wielder, although logically this would only make sense when the Zerth Blade is used to hit Wizards.

 

I'm sure that's doable via eff so that the spell drain only triggers against magic users (preferrably humanoid magic users, i.e. it shouldn't drain from demons and such with innate spell like effects)

 

Casts Righteous Magic (or DUDM, or whatever) 1x/day, with all proficiencies except Staff and 2-Handed Weapon set to 0 for the duration. (Though I haven't actually tested to see if Weapon Proficiencies can safely be set temporarily).

 

Proficiency modifier does not reduce existing proficiencies, if a once per day combat effect is needed, something like the 2ed priest staves Staff of Slinging (hurl rocks as a giant) or Staff of the Serpent (a python which can constrict) might be good.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Why on earth shouldn't I use both? When you take off your Plate armor to put on Full Plate, your base AC goes from 3 to 1. It goes down two points. You have just experienced a -2 bonus to AC. Same with THAC0, Saving Throws, etc., why is my way of phrasing it difficult or unfamiliar?

For humanoid creatures, the base Armor Class usually is and usually stays 10. The armor doesn't touch the base AC, it modifies it, and thus it's part of the total AC or just simply AC (as a modifier, with a few hidden bonuses against certain types of attacks).

 

Now, what comes to the expressions, it's usually the fault of the of different view angles, not what's being said, that actually causes confusion, and +negative(penalty) and -positive(bonus) numbers actually just cause harm to that. So you either drop the + and -, or the penalty and bonus from the sentence, as it's shorter and easier to understand.

PS: don't blame the system, blame yourself... as the thac0 actually is: d20 "to hit armor class zero".