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Proficiencies, PIPs and such


pblack476

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Well, if you put a clab based effect to a level, and and thus be able to restrict the 5th layer, what happens if

Ah - that's not what I meant. Limit fighters to 4 pips in any weapon, and then at 11th level apply a spell effect that switches them into a shadow kit, which is identical to the normal fighter kit in every way except for being able to reach grandmastery. Then the player can get that 5th pip at 12th level, or later if he doesn' have any weapons with 4 pips yet. Voila - the PnP rule applied. Only catch is, as I said, it relies on an invisicre and an AddSuperKit script. Which people dislike because scripts can flake out, and basic kit abilities are not something you want to flake out.

Ahh... well that case is pretty much ToBEx(and EE) exclusive ... cause the base game has a 255 kit flag limit(the ToBEx should set the limit to some ~1280), install a few tens of thief mods, Refinements HLA thingy after and you are pretty much out off the limit. See your mods would do the exact same thing, so not just doubling, but triple the amount of fighter kits. Well, that's how it was done so in the past so...

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Well yeah, if you install a few tens of thief kits (why??) and a hundred other kits, yes, you might get to exactly 254, and then perhaps these two added fighter kits would be precisely what puts you over the limit and ZOMG breaks everything!! But that is assuming a lot... if you value using this PnP rule correctly more than you value a hundred horrible TDD kits, then, no problem.

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Well yeah, if you install a few tens of thief kits (why??) and a hundred other kits, yes, you might get to exactly 254, and then perhaps these two added fighter kits would be precisely what puts you over the limit and ZOMG breaks everything!! But that is assuming a lot... if you value using this PnP rule correctly more than you value a hundred horrible TDD kits, then, no problem.

The thing with this is, the player might not know the result of his actions... and a warning of a sort is a concern you should take to think about. Now if it's only the base class and not each fighter kit and mod combo then it doesn't come to be that large concern ... but, just got to say this:

The Refinements triples every thief and I think bard kit you have installed, mod included ... so the 30 thief kits become 90 and whops you are above the hundreds marker very fast and easily, and you still have only 30 kits to select/in use as a thief.

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1) Who installs 30 thief kits??

 

2) If someone installs 30 thief kits and 1 fighter kit, why come to the conclusion that it's the fighter kit that causes problems?

 

Remove APR from 7th level, add it to 3rd level.

Remove APR from 13th, add it to 12th.

Now you have:

 

level 3 - 3/2 apr, all warriors

level 6 - high mastery, fighters gain 2 apr (with chosen weapon only)

level 9 - gm, fighters 5/2 apr

level 12 - 2 apr all warriors, fighters 3 apr (chosen weapon)

 

Naturally, I'd swap 9/12 but it's not really possible.

I think I forgot to address this: the problem here is that it would tend to encourage dual-class cheese, and I gather Demi wants to reduce dual-class cheese.

 

A simple fix would be to move the extra APR bonus at level 3 out of the CLAB and into the Mastery proficiency level. So every point you spend after 1st level would get you an APR bonus... and then at 12th level because you're a bada$$ warrior, you get another bonus independent of proficiency. (I personally move that to 15th level to reduce dual-class cheese even more.)

 

A side-effect of that is to slightly disincentive dual-wielding, because every point you spend in a weapon gets you 1/2 extra main-hand APR, which might be more valuable than the thac0 bonus from an extra point in DW. Given how OP DW is in vanilla, I really like this side effect.

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1) Who installs 30 thief kits??

I do. See I have a lot of NPCs I use the Level 1 NPC mod to make my guild of thieves in the BG1 and in BG2 portions(40 into thieves)... well that's a bit of a lie, but anyways the possibility is there. I also got a guild for mages, which Minsc occupies as the central figure, fighters that have (half)orcs and dwarves, ETC. etc.

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I think that the best way to make sure kits remain useful is givinng them useful extra abilities at later levels, KR already does that. There's no need to dual if you can have a kit viable throughout the game which adds something unique to the table (in addition, Rages prevent any casting/thieving abilities, thus serker-mage is out of the equation).

The class which I found viable as a dual is WS(10)-thief. Figher (x) - cleric/mage/whatever can also be useful, naturally, but in this instances I think multi is actually better throughout the game, especially with Refinements HLA system (fighter-clerics gain combat casting, yey!)

Kensai could probably work as a dual, but in my install I buffed the class quite a bit - you'd have to be crazy to dual him before 20th level :D.

Imo, the table I posted is

a) balanced,

b) geared more toward warrior classes than what is now used (right now paladins gain 1 apr until 7th, which is very, very late, and not something I like - playing BG1 with a party of 6 makes getting level 7 a chore, and I usually end up soloing/duo-ing up to 7th since it's annoying to have 1 apr if you're a warrior. Barbarians can get around this with Rage/Cleave, but paladins can't.)

Let's just say I like distinctions. Warrior is a warior (is a warrior) from early on. There's no need to wait for 7th level to get seperated from "the rest of the flock" and shows who wields a badass sword with extra 1/2 apr.

c) ends up actually being closer to vanilla game 1/2 extra apr for specialization, and allows for customization in weapon mastery w/o actually giving extra attacks (now one can create a Beastmaster who is very limited in weapons, but can obtain mastery in club/bow/staff or similar).

And the numbers are also cool: 3, 6, 9, 12. :p

 

 

1) Who installs 30 thief kits??

A lot of people do, actually. Why not? In BWS all you have to do is tag it in the selection screen, without bothering when/how to install or find it. Who knows when a certain kit can come in handy, or which NPC shall it fit?

I like Charming Rogue, albeit that's only for Imoen.

Fwiw, I think I once had about 25 thief kits installed + Imoen (Charming Rogue) + Amber (unique kit). Just add Song and Silence, TDD, and you're there.

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Yeah but even if someone uses 30 thief kits, neither of you answered the follow-up question #2, which is: if you add one fighter for purposes of actually applying the proper PnP rule, and end up breaking the 255 kit limit, why is the response "well the gazillion thief kits are fine but the one fighter broke things" ?

 

They collectively broke things. Any argument against adding a fighter kit is *precisely* as valid an argument against installing any given thief kit. Or any other kit. This is all academic, and I should know better than to debate the Imp, but I was just demonstrating a simple way to achieve your stated goal of switching 9 and 12 in your earlier post.

 

As far as warriors being good and the pleasing progression of getting bonuses at levels 3/6/9/12, I don't see how any of that changes if you switch one of the extra APR bonuses from a level-up effect to an effect of Mastery. (Assuming you give non-fighter warriors access to Mastery - assumed because this thread originated with discussion of giving many non-fighters the ability to spend an extra prof point.)

 

It would be the same, just not for weapons the warrior isn't skilled with. (As I recall from PnP, APR bonuses for warriors weren't supposed apply unless they had specialization, anyway.)

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Yeah but even if someone uses 30 thief kits, neither of you answered the follow-up question #2, which is: if you add one fighter for purposes of actually applying the proper PnP rule, and end up breaking the 255 kit limit, why is the response "well the gazillion thief kits are fine but the one fighter broke things" ?

I actually did:

The thing with this is, the player might not know the result of his actions... and a warning of a sort is a concern you should take to think about.

Now a warning at the download link and the read me will do fine as a proper step. Something like "This component actually adds x amount of kits while you can select to use y amount." Read as; if it's only one kit, that's not usually a problem, but if the increase is large enough it becomes a problem if there is no warning of any kind.

Also the Refinements actually has the warning. But really, no one reads the readme. :p

 

But back to the actual subject then...

What kreso suggests is a table like this, this is for warriors only apparently:

   HIT  DAMAGE Speed Hits Per Round bonus         Definition:
0   -x    0     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       No proficiency
1   1     0     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       Proficiency
2   1     2     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       Specialization
3   2     3     0     +1/2 at levels 3, 6 and 12   Mastery
4   3     4     0     +1/2 at levels 3, 6, 12      High Mastery
5   3     5     -2    +1/2 at levels 3, 6, 9, 12   Grand Mastery

Am I wrong ?

In my mind the HPRb's auto gain on No prof is a mistake, but after the Specialazation table, it looks OK-ish.

Let's see if the table stays in format or I'll have to edit it again.

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I don't see how any of that changes if you switch one of the extra APR bonuses from a level-up effect to an effect of Mastery.

Since then classes with mastery (Cavalier) get a bit crazy in BG1. And end up having 5/2 apr after level 13, which makes Haste (and SR Imp.Haste) affect them "partially".

This way, you end up with 2 apr for all warriors, 3 for fighters; which the same as it is now, only non-fighters gain their extras faster - again, I think this is good.

The real benefit is that it pretty much opens the 3rd pip for anyone who is "highly skilled" in a weapon type (example, Cavalier, UH mayhap, BM hopefully) to further distinguish the kit, w/o making it on par with fighters in BG1.

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@kreso, I edited the above post a bit and came up with a question, could you answer it... as in give the actual table. Just curious. Also one could add yet another column that determines the kit and class restrictions. Yeah, it's a totality of the used .2da tables, not an actual table file.

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Am I wrong ?

Just a bit.

This is straight from my NI:

2DA V1.0
0
HIT DAMAGE SPEED
0 0 0 0
1 1 0 0 // ...... :) //kk. I'll remove it.
2 1 2 0
3 2 3 0
4 3 4 0
5 3 5 -2
And wspatck.2da (up to level 12, since it stops there)
level 1 level 3 level 6 level 9 level 12
1 0 -1 -1 -1 1
2 0 -1 -1 -1 1
3 0 -1 -1 -1 1
4 -1 1 1 1 -2
5 1 -2 -2 -2 2
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So the table you use looks like this:

 

   HIT  DAMAGE SPEED Hits Per Round bonus         Definition:
0   -x    0     0     No bonuses                   No proficiency
1   1     0     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       Proficiency
2   1     2     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       Specialization
3   2     3     0     +1/2 at level 3 and 12       Mastery
4   3     4     0     +1/2 at levels 1, 3, 12      High Mastery
5   3     5     -2    +1/2 at levels 1, 1, 3, 12   Grand Mastery 

 

K.

And yes, we know one can't have 5 stars at level one, but anyways. And yes, without the 4th line(0) in the wspatck.2da, there's no bonuses from the No proficiency. Which to me is very good. But my opinion on the rest is, I still wouldn't use it. :)

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Since then classes with mastery (Cavalier) get a bit crazy in BG1. And end up having 5/2 apr after level 13, which makes Haste (and SR Imp.Haste) affect them "partially".

This way, you end up with 2 apr for all warriors, 3 for fighters; which the same as it is now, only non-fighters gain their extras faster - again, I think this is good.

The real benefit is that it pretty much opens the 3rd pip for anyone who is "highly skilled" in a weapon type (example, Cavalier, UH mayhap, BM hopefully) to further distinguish the kit, w/o making it on par with fighters in BG1.

One of us in not understanding the other. (It might well be me!)

 

I'm suggesting adding an APR bonus at Mastery, *and removing* the bonus at 3rd level. So Cavsliers would be exactly the same, 1 apr at 1st level with Specialization, 3/2 at 3rd level with Mastery, and 2 apr at 12th level. My change would nerf them a bit if they use weapons they're not masters of. (But seriously, how often does that happen? And anyway -0.5 apr for using a weapon you're not skilled in sounds appropriate to me, it's a good trade-off if you find something so powerful that it makes you ditch your weapon of focus.)

 

Basically just zero out the first two lines of your wspatck.2da, except make them -1 at level 12. This assumes that you're allowing all warriors to get 3 pips in some (perhaps kit-specific) weapons.

 

It would disincentivize players doing F3=>xx just to get that apr bonus that would apply even weapons they're not even proficient in. (Of course the much worse DC cheese is retaining all those 1st-class profs and prof limits... but my idea to use shadow kits to limit prof advancement by level would help with that as well! :p )

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Ah, now I understand what you'd do. :)

 

 

It would disincentivize players doing F3=>xx just to get that apr bonus

In all honesty, if you install KR and dual at level 3, you ain't playing KR anymore.

 

This assumes that you're allowing all warriors to get 3 pips in some (perhaps kit-specific) weapons.

No, only Cavalier. Maybe UH will be added in KR weapon mastery, I don't know.

I don't like the idea of granting all warriors 3 pips (I can somewhat "dig" Stalkers being masters of daggers/short sword, Beastmaster - club but Inquisitor, Paladin, Barbarian etc. don't really merit this imo; and even those I mentioned could get very imba - Stalker in particular is a very powerful kit, granting mastery to him isn't really balancing.)

Besides, that pretty much negates the whole point of 3rd pip and what it should stand for in my suggested table.

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Gusy, I'd like to derail you a bit.

 

There was that issue in original (or more or less modified) game back in the days: all melee-oriented classes, when it comes to the endgame (i.e.: ToB), could wield ANY weapon out there with as much deadliness as the one they were actually specialized in.

 

For example, here we have Sarevok, he has twenty stars in Two-Handed Swords and no, not overcompensating at all.

 

Then you make Ravager+6 and give it to him (he actually has 0 stars in Polearms).

 

He'll still have THAC0 in his minuses and will make a million attacks per round thanks to enchantments and Haste. And he'll be whirlwinding constantly anyway. So it's like weapon proficiences just cease to exist at some point.

 

Same goes for less obvious examples: Minsc and 1-handers. At some point you just stop to care if he has any proficiency put in weapon you want to give him, he'll swing anything just as fine as his pip'd weapons.

 

Would KR (or anything out there) address this issue in any way?

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