General thoughts on difficulty with SCS v24, IR v3, SR v3.1, aTweaks

[kreso]

What IR and/or SR can do?

...the party is not supposed to be able to afford the cost of buying and using potions on a regular basis. I'm not sure if this currently happens, but that is what I was hoping to accomplish in the long run.

I can only speak for myself (I don't abuse re-spawns and similar exploits to get rich), but BG1 indeed has money to burn - I usually buy all potions (those I find useful), finish the game, and still have loads of them. It's not like you can buy very expensive armors (and to a lesser extent, other equipment) there, the best being 1500 gp Full-plate.

BG2 + IR - not so much money - i.e. - I can't buy all I want, let alone waste money on potions, apart a few before really major battles. Specifically, I run into troubles in Ust Natha, since those shops have big ammount of exellent equipment, and money is scarce within IR..

ToB - you don't care anymore, since your're stacked enough already. Few thousands to get Cespy to forge a dozen items, and that's it.

 

There's plenty of ways to handle this, from reducing the duration of effects gained from potions (e.g from 5 turns to 10 rounds) to making certain effects not stack (e.g. Potion of Absorption, Armor of Faith and/or Hardiness can be tweaked to prevent stacking).

Well, given that potions of strenght already last for 1 turn, I see no reason for these to last any longer. The other option is valid as well. Just keep in mind, a stoneskin potion on a -12 AC fighter in BG1 makes him virtually immune to melee damage for full duration from all but Drizzt and Sarevok, who can punch through such AC.

 

You might have noticed what's the biggest difference between BG and PnP, mages are incredibly more vulnerable outside of BG, making warrior's role as tanks much more crucial imo.

And this is why I like BG1 gameplay more than BG2.

[April]

BG2 + IR - not so much money - i.e. - I can't buy all I want, let alone waste money on potions, apart a few before really major battles. Specifically, I run into troubles in Ust Natha, since those shops have big ammount of exellent equipment, and money is scarce within IR..

 

Regarding Ust Natha and money problems, all the shops in that city can be stolen from. That's what I usually do anyway. Funny that surface merchants care that they are fenced goods considering where I stole them from but w/e.

[DavidW]

You might have noticed what's the biggest difference between BG and PnP, mages are incredibly more vulnerable outside of BG, making warrior's role as tanks much more crucial imo.

And this is why I like BG1 gameplay more than BG2.

Though this really comes down to an engine issue: there's basically no way in the IE that a wizard's bodyguards can prevent enemy fighters beating on him, so the only way to keep wizards alive at all is to give them individual protection.

 

Regarding Ust Natha and money problems, all the shops in that city can be stolen from.

Have you no sense of morals? There's some poor drow slaver, trying to scratch a living and to brighten the day of his fellow citizens and of tourists to the city by making goods available at reasonable prices - and what do you do? Steal his hard-earned gains. Keep him from putting rothe on the table for his children the next evening.

That's what I usually do anyway. Funny that surface merchants care that they are fenced goods considering where I stole them from but w/e.

Never underestimate the reach of the Merchants' Guild.

[kreso]

2) How many hit dice does a multiclassed character have, for the purposes of spells like SR's Holy Word, etc? Say, 1.5M XP F/M, so 11/12.

Good question...I guess either 11 or 12, but I never really tested it.

I did now.

Actors:

Viconia level 19 cleric

Aerie 10/11 cleric/mage

I was changing Aerie's levels.

 

10/11 - stun, slow, deafness

13/13 - stun , slow, deafness

14/14 - stun, slow, deafness

15/14 - slow, deafness - 1 of classes' level is above the treshold, but I don't think that's relevant actually

18/16 -slow, deafness

19/16 - deafness only

 

EDIT:

I was wrong here, it appears that the "1 level above treshold" is relevant (I blame this seemingly neverending fever I have). Buffing up Aerie resulted in this, changing Viconia's levels:

 

Aerie 22/18 cleric/mage

Viconia level 15 cleric

 

15 - stun, slow, deaf

16 - slow, deafness

19 - slow, deafness

20 - deafness

 

It appears the game takes higher multiclass level into account when determining hit dice, and is capped at 20th level - once somebody reaches it, he can only suffer deafness as an ill effect, and will never kill characters above 10th level.

[Demivrgvs]

Attacks of Opportunity & Mobility

You might have noticed what's the biggest difference between BG and PnP, mages are incredibly more vulnerable outside of BG, making warrior's role as tanks much more crucial imo.

And this is why I like BG1 gameplay more than BG2.

Though this really comes down to an engine issue: there's basically no way in the IE that a wizard's bodyguards can prevent enemy fighters beating on him, so the only way to keep wizards alive at all is to give them individual protection.

Yeah, that is indeed a big part of the problem, but even if BG lacks something like PnP Attacks of Opportunity, I do think we have plenty of room to make mages fun and tough without always having to rely on that damn PfMW.

 

Btw, regarding what you say...in theory something similar to PnP could be doable imo (though I guess it's outside SCS scope). I thought about implementing the following as a Cavalier ability but suits fighters just fine. What if a character has a sort of "hidden aura" with 5' radius which makes every enemy within melee reach to move at reduced speed? The reduced movement rate doesn't even need to be harsh, but enough to prevent opponents to harmlessly move between a group of warriors (within what PnP calls "threatened area"). Then you could even adds something like PnP Mobility to characters like the Swashbuckler, allowing them to not be slowed down when moving close to warriors.

 

Am I too crazy?

 

What IR and/or SR can do?

I can only speak for myself (I don't abuse re-spawns and similar exploits to get rich), but BG1 indeed has money to burn - I usually buy all potions (those I find useful), finish the game, and still have loads of them. It's not like you can buy very expensive armors (and to a lesser extent, other equipment) there, the best being 1500 gp Full-plate.

Well, I guess part of it is because IR's Store Revisions (we need a better name imo) is fully "operative" only in BG2. As soon as Arda manages to work on BG1 more I'm confident he will do a great job there as well.

 

BG2 + IR - not so much money - i.e. - I can't buy all I want, let alone waste money on potions, apart a few before really major battles. Specifically, I run into troubles in Ust Natha, since those shops have big ammount of exellent equipment, and money is scarce within IR.

This is what I wanted to hear. Great!

[ancalimohtar]

Yeah I always felt the lack space-control abilities in BG2 was the main culprit for most balance concerns. (Did 2E have AoO?) I only played 3E, 3.5E, and a little bit of 4E, but to me, the most satisfying part of being a fighter was getting buffed to have 10' reach and tripping fools with AoO all day long.

 

Re: aura that slowed people down, people have come up with that specific mechanic for other games, and I've thought about it before, and it's not bad, a rather easy, rough n' ready way to implement space-control. The issue is with true AoOs, you can limit the number of targets these space-controllers can affect, whereas one Fighter with an aura stops 10 vamps around him from moving past. It's not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, and certainly an improvement over their current uselessness.

 

Anyway, this whole reason is why melee have to do damage in BG2, because they're no good at controlling space. This is also why party-unfriendly AoE is so mediocre except when you're cheesing, because you have limited control of enemies' placement, except early on in the fight.

 

You know, there are some shield-based warrior skills in Dragon Age that stopped enemies cold. But then you kind of run into the problem that tabletop D&D rules never gave any respect to shields; everybody always realized running around with a 2-hander or dual-wielding gave you more damage or battlefield-control for not much defensive tradeoff. Not sure if you're willing to implement a Fighter kit that specializes in 1h+ shield and space-control--it would have nothing to do with tabletop rules. But I would totally get one of those...

[kreso]

What if a character has a sort of "hidden aura" with 5' radius which makes every enemy within melee reach to move at reduced speed?

This sounds great, but can it be implemented flawlessly? Usually people leaving aura's range still have the benefits for a short while (or in this case, drawbacks).

 

Then you could even adds something like PnP Mobility to characters like the Swashbuckler, allowing them to not be slowed down when moving close to warriors.

The scene I'm envisioning now is KR's Monk getting boxed in, then using his teleport right up to an enemy mage, killing him the following round with Quivering Palm.

 

IR's Store Revisions (we need a better name imo)

Item Reallocation.

[polytope]

Why not apply the same idea to Firkraag that we talked about regarding mindflayers--give him some backup. Change the quest some so he doesn't pit his pet mage against you just for shits and giggles (which made NO sense at all), and at the beginning of the fight, his pet mage unloads antimagic? Or give him two pet mages. Either way, I don't think it's absurd if his backup is mainly there to antimagic/Breach you.

 

Actually it's currently possible to fight Firkraag and his mage Conster at the same time if you threaten him and don't back down; this reminds me, FIRMAG01 needs to have protection from fire added to his spell choices so he doesn't get incinerated if you do it this way.

 

Also those tactics wouldn't even work against a party like yours, because you have several arcane casters who could take turns tanking the dragon.

They would, actually (you can see a whole thread here about IA where Saros posts his runs, with great detail - so you may see how Firkraag handles arcane casters easilly, regardless of their number). But it's Anvil and I'd rather compare BG2 than that with SCS.

 

I was referring to ancalimohtar's suggestion to make the dragon more "legally" difficult by giving him khelben, spellstrikes, pierce shield etc. Those are still just solo enemy mage tactics which don't work all that well against multiple arcane casters in the party; dragons could still only cast one debuffing spell per round vs the party mage's 3 spells, whether they're "rebuffs", antimagic or whatever.

 

Even with SCS the only real limit to the usefulness of 3 arcane casters is running out of spell scrolls for them to learn, but that's not an issue for a sorcerer and it's less of an issue if one of the remaining casters is multiclass f/m (or a blade) who won't have a need for the high level scrolls.

 

Dragons

This would essentially make a dragon a high level f/m without the "uniqueness" such a creature should have (dragons already cast too many spells to be true to PnP).

While I'm sympathetic to the whole "don't make everyone and his mother a spellcaster", the statement is kinda false. Even within AD&D dragons were F/M if not F/M/C (see here AD&D Red Dragon and Shadow Dragon)

 

It's true that they had a few priest and wizard spells and i wouldn't change that, but giving them an entire high level mages' spellbook makes dragon fights feel rather "generic" as the emphasis is on a regular SCS magic duel rather than the unique abilities of a dragon.

 

Btw, Mirror Image shouldn't really work against them. Dragons are immune to illusions.

 

I'd let any creature with immunity to illusions (like Mariliths) dispel MI and blur on hit (through #220), it'd maybe allow their minions who don't see through illusions to hit you but that could be justified as them taking cues from the main bad guy.

 

* Invulnerability to Magical Weapons - that's AD&D name for PfMW - would only protect from magical weapons, and not from attacks such as a golem's fist or a dragon's claw, not to mention it could not be used together with any form of immunity to non-magical weapons (aka it could NEVER be used to obtain full immunity such as when cast by liches).

 

Since SCS already has a macro to relabel weapons you could filter them as follows:

 

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*\.itm~ ~override~
READ_BYTE "0x1c" "type"
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x5")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0xE")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0xF") // bows, because some are 'ranged' rather than 'launchers'
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x10")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x11")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x12")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x13")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x14")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x15")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x16")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x17")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x18")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x19")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1A")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1B") //crossbows ^^
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1D")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1E")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1F")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x2C") // 'club', no actual clubs seem to be flagged as such but who knows?
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x39") // 'great sword', no 2h swords flagged as such ^^?
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x45") // 'bastard sword', no bastard swords flagged as such ^^?

 

This will catch all "real" weapons (including melf meteors, apparently they're darts) including mod added ones, but the natural attacks of creatures are "0x0" or "0x1C" with a few possible exceptions: DEMOGORG.itm is a flail "0x17", and GOLFLE.itm is a hammer "0x15" - they need to be set to "0x0".

 

Then it's just a matter of setting the silver flag in the header if the magical flag is set and changing ProMW to defend against silver weapons.

 

You might have noticed what's the biggest difference between BG and PnP, mages are incredibly more vulnerable outside of BG, making warrior's role as tanks much more crucial imo.

 

This is necessary for enemy mages to be challenging because the designers didn't implement a chance for enemies to gain "surprise" and didn't really implement "initiative" either (well, I suppose they couldn't for a real time game) - unlike in PnP there's zero chance for a hostile mage without layers of protections to get off any spell with a long casting time against your party unless they're still very low level.

[April]

Question: In PNP, does protection from magical weapons protect against monk fists?

 

Edit: Also, Demi's talk about that aura made me think of this: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/415136

[DavidW]

Since SCS already has a macro to relabel weapons you could filter them as follows:

 

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*\.itm~ ~override~
READ_BYTE "0x1c" "type"
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x5")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0xE")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0xF") // bows, because some are 'ranged' rather than 'launchers'
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x10")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x11")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x12")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x13")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x14")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x15")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x16")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x17")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x18")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x19")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1A")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1B") //crossbows ^^
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1D")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1E")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x1F")
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x2C") // 'club', no actual clubs seem to be flagged as such but who knows?
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x39") // 'great sword', no 2h swords flagged as such ^^?
 IF_EVAL ("%type%" = "0x45") // 'bastard sword', no bastard swords flagged as such ^^?

 

Save yourself some typing:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*\.itm~ ~override~
READ_BYTE 0x1c type
PATCH_MATCH "%type%" WITH 0x5 0xe "0x1[0-9a-f]"  0x2c 0x39 0x45
BEGIN
do_something
END
DEFAULT END

[Wisp]

Additionally, IF_EVAL is not documented for a reason. Don't use it.

[polytope]

Question: In PNP, does protection from magical weapons protect against monk fists?

 

Were there even monks in 2ed? My impression is that ProMW shouldn't protect from fists. I doubt it would make monks overpowered vs mages; monks don't have elemental damage on their fists, they only have 4 attacks per round maximum (no haste) until they get to epic levels* thus need at least 2.5 rounds to strip a high level mage's stoneskins, lastly, with SCS improved mantle protects from +4 weapons including any monk's fists.

 

At a glance quivering palm or stunning blow bypassing ProMW might seem OP, but I don't believe it would be, because these abilities check save vs spells rather than death. A high level improved invisible, blurred mage will have little trouble making his save vs spells (not to mention it could be done in vanilla anyway if a monk switched from fists to a regular sword - yep, you can transmit quivering palm through your weapon).

 

The only other balance issue I can think of (with natural attacks bypassing ProMW) is summoned demons, Nishrus and fire elementals; although protection from evil keeps the former at bay and death spell.deals with latter. I suspect in general it would make things harder for players, particularly in places like mind flayer city, demon maze etc.

 

*No ToB mage should use ProMW anyway because they can easily be stunned by power attack with a normal weapon.

 

Save yourself some typing:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*\.itm~ ~override~
READ_BYTE "0x1c" "type"
TO_LOWER type
PATCH_MATCH "%type%" WITH 0x5 0xe "0x1[0-9a-f]"  0x2c 0x39 0x45
BEGIN
do_something
END
DEFAULT END

 

Okay thanks David and Wisp, I'm a noob with Weidu.

[Demivrgvs]

Invulnerability to Magical Weapons

Question: In PNP, does protection from magical weapons protect against monk fists?

Right now I don't remember because 2E monks were on Oriantal Adventures book and I never got into those much. I could search more info, but does it really matter? It's not like we'll ever really implement it anyway because it would kinda break the AI imo unless specifically taken into account (especially because of player summons).

 

Attacks of Opportunity

Demi's talk about that aura made me think of this: http://www.kickstart...ty/posts/415136

Wow, I did not know. Those guys at Obsidian should have hired me! Jokes aside, I'm glad they seem to have a good grasp of these mechanics.

 

You know what, I could start to test my idea (especially if kreso or other KR's beta testers like it) by making it part of Fighter's Tactical Awareness abilitiy. Then if it seem to work we could extend it a bit more, though I don't know how many "auras" the engine can handle without starting to slow down.

 

@kreso, what do you say, is it worth a try?

[kreso]

@kreso, what do you say, is it worth a try?

Sure, I don't see why not.

Besides, you can put whatever you can think of as appropriate in KR betas. If it seems broken/doesn't work, it's rather easy to disable or fix.