Kit Revisions (Paladins)

[Kalindor]

Or you can also cast a protection spell that makes you temporarily immune to level drain... no permanency needed.

 

Or you could wear a piece of equipment that gives you immunity to level drain. I am not arguing that there is no other way to defeat enemies that use level drain than to have immunity on this one particular kit. I think that it would be more conceptually sound for a class that specializes in fighting undead to have developed or contrived an immunity to what is arguably their most devastating attack. Similarly, if there was a kit called the Basilisk Hunter, (Who would play that? Haha!) I would expect it to be immune to petrification even though there is a first-level spell that has the same function.

[Johs]

On a slightly different topic: I guess (hope) you are planning to make KR compatible with BG EE and BG2 EE once that comes out. If so, any plans to rebalance the blackguard similarly to the other paladin kits?

 

/Johs

[Demivrgvs]

On a slightly different topic: I guess (hope) you are planning to make KR compatible with BG EE and BG2 EE once that comes out. If so, any plans to rebalance the blackguard similarly to the other paladin kits?

The currently available beta already is compatible with BGEE, and yes, I'll handle the Blackguard too.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Or you can also cast a protection spell that makes you temporarily immune to level drain... no permanency needed.

Or you could wear a piece of equipment that gives you immunity to level drain. I am not arguing that there is no other way to defeat enemies that use level drain than to have immunity on this one particular kit. I think that it would be more conceptually sound for a class that specializes in fighting undead to have developed or contrived an immunity to what is arguably their most devastating attack. Similarly, if there was a kit called the Basilisk Hunter, (Who would play that? Haha!) I would expect it to be immune to petrification even though there is a first-level spell that has the same function.

Well, just the fact that there's a few more than the Basilisks that use the Stone to Flesh spell at range should make the Basilisk Hunter Immune to the effect... NO. You could make him immune to the attack yeah, but that's harder to deal in modded game than we might like it to be... and thus I could see the kit giving the level 1 spell mage spell as a innate to the kit user and nearly everyone would be happy. Just like all the Paladins aren't immune to the demons, while they do have the protection from evil spell, it's no way permanent.

That's the whole idea... and the fact that it can be dispelled.

 

Erhm, Demivrgvs, could you make the Kit Revision have baseclass based components ? Or even single Kit components ? The later is not that much needed... but, anyways.

[Kalindor]

and thus I could see the kit giving the level 1 spell mage spell as a innate to the kit user and nearly everyone would be happy. Just like all the Paladins aren't immune to the demons, while they do have the protection from evil spell, it's no way permanent.

 

I think I may have misunderstood you. The Undead Hunter as currently proposed cannot cast cleric spells, so casting Negative Plane Protection is not an option for him. In this case, no immunity to level drain leaves him without protection against it, save being able to remove it once per day with lay on hands. Are you saying he should instead be given the innate ability to cast Negative Plant Protection?

[Demivrgvs]

Erhm, Demivrgvs, could you make the Kit Revision have baseclass based components ? Or even single Kit components ? The later is not that much needed... but, anyways.

It's not a priority right now, but I'm probably fine with it (note to self: check for files shared by multiple classes before attempting to split the mod in separate components).

 

The Undead Hunter as currently proposed cannot cast cleric spells, so casting Negative Plane Protection is not an option for him. In this case, no immunity to level drain leaves him without protection against it, save being able to remove it once per day with lay on hands. Are you saying he should instead be given the innate ability to cast Negative Plant Protection?

Negative Plant? Jokes aside, just for the sake of information, Lay on Hands will not simply be 1/day, but once for every 3 levels.

 

That being said, I'd vote for immunity to fear & paralysis instead of paralysis & level drain simply because fear is much more common (both among undead creatures, and in general) and it's a fully disabling effect. While he can use LoH to quickly recover from energy drains if the UH panics he's completely screwed. Not to mention that I cannot really imagine an Hundead Hunter running in fear, especially when facing his sworn enemies.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Are you saying he should instead be given the innate ability to cast Negative Plane Protection?

That or similar effect... as in it shouldn't be the exact priest spell, instead a stable form of it. Say duration set to 10 turns. Gained at later than the level 1...

Erhm, and it should be the Inquisitor that's unable to cast priest spells, not Undead Hunter/what_ever-Hunter.

[Kalindor]

Negative Plant?

 

All of this plant genetics I work on must be getting to me...

[Grammarsalad]

This just occurred to me: are fallen paladins (and rangers) getting the revision treatment? What happens when one falls? should they convert to a revisionsesque fighter? A unique class?

[Demivrgvs]

This just occurred to me: are fallen paladins (and rangers) getting the revision treatment? What happens when one falls? should they convert to a revisionsesque fighter? A unique class?

This is not a priority of mine because I believe the whole "fallen" thing doesn't belong to BG anyway. There's no related plot (such as Anomen's quest), the game dialogs doesn't even notice if your shiny paladin just turned into a blackguard (charname becomes a fallen Cavalier but Keldorn doesn't say a thing? Seems legit!), and there's no "redemption". In the end, unless you want to purposely make your paladin/ranger fall (and why would do you that in a game which not even even notice the difference? Can't you just pick BGEE Blackguard then?) you're just going to re-load to get your class class back. Am I wrong?

 

That being said, tweaking clabpa05 and clabrn05 could provide revised and at least playable fallen classes. We'll see.

[Jarno Mikkola]

the game dialogs doesn't even notice if your shiny paladin just turned into a blackguard (charname becomes a fallen Cavalier but Keldorn doesn't say a thing? Seems legit!),

Yeah, the Fallen Keldorn just smites your evil ass to kingdom come ... He doesn't notice a thing no...

 

That being said, tweaking clabpa05 and clabrn05 could provide revised and at least playable fallen classes. We'll see.

This is the exact reason for why I sponsored that to this.

[kreso]

Are they coming out tonight?

[Demivrgvs]

Are they coming out tonight?

Not sure. I'll surely update the beta to fix all reported issues, but I've had like 5 seconds to actually mod since I got home.

[Demivrgvs]

I should be relatively free this afternoon, thus I can probably have enough time to seriously finish paladin's kits regardless of how many changes I might be applying to them.

 

Speaking of which, I want to throw in a bunch of random things.

 

Divine Spellcasting

Mike is rightfully concerned about me removing spellcasting abilities from pretty much all paladin and ranger kits (the only kits that might still get them in my eyes are the Undead Hunter, the Stalker, and to a lesser extent the Beastmaster) and I wanted to know what most of you think on this matter.

 

So, do you think I should keep spellcasting abilities? Are they a must for a particular kit?

 

Btw, quoting myself: "When it comes to paladins and rangers, if it was for me not even base classes would have spells. Paladins should get divine blessings and powers in the form of combat abilities imo, not spells (rituals are for priests, divine warriors smite evil face to face), and rangers should be scouts with supernatural affinity with animals and nature in general, but not divine casters imo." Now, knowing I can't please everyone or make everyone agree on my idea of these classes, I thought a good compromise was to let base classes keep spellcasting

 

 

Channel Divinity

For once I'm the one taking inspiration from D&D Next (you can't imagine how many times I've done a thing and later on discovered they were going to do the same for 5e lately). This in my mind should actually be part of the whole "paladins don't get spells but divine powers", but 5e is actually using both at the same time (even making paladins get spells at level 1!).

 

In terms of gameplay, this would pretty much be similar to how Ki Pool currently works. The Paladin gets x/day uses of divine power, and he can channel it in various ways including Smite Evil and Lay on Hands (Turn Undead too in PnP, but my hands are tied within BG regarding how TU works), and abilities unique to each kit, such as Inquisitor's Dispel Evil. I think standard Aura of Protection should be permanent, but certain powerful or unique auras might fit here too.

 

Now, the question is, should I actually spend some time working on this system, or do you think it's not worth it?

[kreso]

I should be relatively free this afternoon, thus I can probably have enough time to seriously finish paladin's kits regardless of how many changes I might be applying to them.

Hoorey. I'm gonna start a no-reload over on Bioware Forums with 4 Paladins then.

 

Divine Spellcasting

So, do you think I should keep spellcasting abilities are a must for certain kits?

Well. Beastmaster could get innates instead (summonings and area-buffs like...ummm..some kind of Roar?). I don't see BM as a spellcaster.

Stalker - not sure, this kit in vanilla is a strange mix of fighter/thief with some serious mage stuff involved (Minor Spell Turning?!). An abilities Pool might be good here, he has it in Refinements. Here you could add invisibility x times/day, at level x it becomes Improved invisibility, etc.

Archer - no spells, altough things such as SR Entangle are perfect for them. Think this class (kit THAC0/dmg bonus, Called Shots, Stealth) is quite powerful.

True Ranger - ummmm.....how about letting him choose another racial enemy every x levels instead of casting, if possible? Or, let him have both.

 

For Paladins...I'm not sure. They already are better than Rangers in general...

Particulary powerful spell is Shield of Faith, 20% resistance to physical damage...I'd leave spellcasting for True Paladin.

 

Now, knowing I can't please everyone or make everyone agree on my idea of these classes, I thought a good compromise was to let base classes keep spellcasting

It is within SR, to a (much)lesser extent even without it.

 

Channel Divinity

(you can't imagine how many times I've done a thing and later on discovered they were going to do the same for 5e lately).

........

 

In terms of gameplay, this would pretty much be similar to how Ki Pool currently works. The Paladin gets x/day uses of divine power, and he can channel it in various ways including Smite Evil and Lay on Hands (Turn Undead too in PnP, but my hands are tied within BG regarding how TU works), and abilities unique to each kit, such as Inquisitor's Dispel Evil. I think standard Aura of Protection should be permanent, but certain powerful or unique auras might fit here too.

Now, the question is, should I actually spend some time working on this system, or do you think it's not worth it?

Well.....I'd leave Pools as this for Monks and Kensai....this might be just because I'm so used to vanilla system. Otoh, I'm sure plenty of people, including other testers, will like it. Mind you, this is a much better solution in gameplay (similar of sorcerer vs mage) - if I fight a bunch of Ogres, I won't be using Dispel, but I might want to use Lay on Hands instead etc. I don't mind if you decide to give them ability Pools. Might end up even liking it.