Jump to content

Unearthed Arcana presents Scales of Balance: a post-hac tweak pack


Recommended Posts

@subtledoctorSomething I noticed about the xp bonus from CHA in the Stat Bonus Overhaul component. In a BGEE game with the vanilla trap/lock/scroll xp progression from EET Tweaks (that is, nerfing those sources of xp), it didn't took long for Imoen to reach about level 5 with only some light sidequesting before Nashkel. By the first visit to the Iron Throne, my entire party was starting to bulldoze both trash and bosses at Insane difficulty just by overleveling them (the less I say about fighting the Demon Knight at Durlag's during chapter 6, the better). I can only imagine if I had installed the BG2 xp progression. Hell, I managed to dual Imoen to 13/14 Thief/Mage with some effort just before Sarevok, and gifted him some magiked stab-stab-stabbies. So much for the "weakest" bhaalspawn. :p.

I'm not complaining, it gave me some trivial worries and merely introducing new quests would be enough to skew the xp gains. Still, I can imagine there might be people who wouldn't want it for any reason (difficulty purists come to mind). Whether the xp gains are too much, too little or =Just Fine=, can I suggest splitting the xp bonus away from the broader component? Say, a subcomponent that's only offered after installing the Stat Bonus Overhaul.

Also I imagine this wasn't intended, or it's a necessary evil to make the entire thing work, but something funny happened to me: Get Algernon's Cloak. Give to Imoen. Suddenly, level up! It seems that buffing your CHA causes the character's xp to increase as well until taken away, at which point your xp is restored. This can be exploited to skip gaining about 10% of the xp required for each level up, without actually questing, fighting, thieving, or studying involved. Not that it matters for most NPCs unless they have +16 CHA, but it's there.

Edited by Connelly
Link to comment
15 hours ago, Connelly said:

about the xp bonus from CHA in the Stat Bonus Overhaul component ... my entire party was starting to bulldoze both trash and bosses at Insane difficulty just by overleveling them [etc.]

So, I am completely sympathetic to your POV here. I think that being overleveled takes away the fun of this game for 90% of the interaction you have with the game. I am totally with you on that. Being 5th level going into Nashkel and 13th level at the end of BG1 does indeed sound like a snoozefest.

That said, if you are gaining too much XP and finding the gameplay unsatisfying, I don't think this mod has much to do with it. If you are dualling Imoen to a 14th-level mage that means you are collecting a cumulative 1,540,000 XP before you get to Sarevok. That's literally a full order of magnitude more than the normal XP cap for this game. Take away this mod and... you're still getting ~1,375,000 XP, which is enough for Imoen to be a Thief 12/Mage 14. I can't really see any daylight between a Thief 13/Mage 14 and a Thief 12/Mage 14 in BG1.

At 18 CHA, the bonus is good for a 10% overall boost in XP advancement, and it's a cumulative total bonus - there's no way to double-dip or max out the bonus in some way. The total XP number reflecting the sum total of everything you've ever done in your life is modified by your current CHA score. The idea is, CHA doesn't so much represent being pretty or handsome, as much as being one of those people dealt an easy hand by the gods. Yes it is dynamic, because the whole point of this component is to create dynamic bonuses for all the stats. But at the end of the day, while a 10% different in XP gain will make for some variability in intraparty leveling, it is not going to materially affect the encounters you face. Going to Nashkel with 4,400 XP instead of 4,000 XP? Doing Chateau Irenicus with 180,000 XP instead of 160,000 XP? Or even if you max out SoD, you're starting BG2 with 550,000 XP instead of 500,000 XP.

You haven't mentioned how else you have changed your game, but if you're getting a million and a half XP in BG1 there there other places to look to address your overleveling issue. Are you getting extra XP for the difficulty level? Are you using BG2 XP rewards in BG1? Did you install a metric ton of mod-added quests that give out cheesy amounts of XP without addressing that? (Those old "mega mods" were created before BG2 was released, they were intended to let you reach BG2 levels in the BG1 campaign, they were not designed for a game where you continue from defeating Sarevok to play through BG2.)

15 hours ago, Connelly said:

Algernon's Cloak ... This can be exploited to skip gaining about 10% of the xp required for each level up

I mean, a +2 stat bonus is worth 4% at CHA below 20, and only 2% at 21+. So not exactly 10%. But I guess potayto/potahto? :rolleyes:  (And as soon as you take it off you lose the XP and you have to gain more XP to reach the next level-up.)

EDIT - just a bit mor to put this in perspective: a 10% bonus is never enough to get you a full level more than you otherwise would have, until level 20+. So what is that extra level worth, that you don't have for most of the game? Instead of putting points into CHA you could put them into DEX, which gives you much more than one level's worth of bonuses to melee thac0, ranged thac0, and AC. STR will get you thaco0 and damage bonuses, INT and WIS will get you extra spells... this is very much designed as a trade-off for moving stat points away from the traditionally important stats, and that trade-off has to be meaningful or else CHA just remains a dump stat.

Edited by subtledoctor
Link to comment
19 hours ago, GawainBS said:

Is there any chance you'd make the Stat rebalancing available for Planecape: Torment EE? Given that you can increase your stats by 1 point every level there, your mod would suit it tremendously. As we are all aware, 1 point under vanilla AD&D 2E often means literally nothing...

I don't know much about the PSTEE engine, but I know enough to guess that the opcodes needed for that component (op321, op326) almost certainly will not work there.

Sigh. I so wish Beamdog had done a total conversion to put PST into the BGEE engine, rather than just tuning up the weird old PST engine...

Link to comment

Nah, the PSTEE engine is basically the same as the old PST engine, but with a handful of bugfixes and interface changes, and adapted or emulated to work on different platforms. But it’s full of hard-coded stuff and very hard to mod, and it has received none of the good stuff we’ve seen in the BGEE 2.0+ updates. 

TBH I still think it would be worth doing a total conversion - the BGEE engine is flexible enough to handle 99% of what’s hard-coded in PSTEE. Only hurdle is the sheer amount of time required…

Link to comment
Guest MassFantasy

Hi,

I can't install the combat skills component, it doesn't show at all during the installation. Is it because I haven't installed the feats component from Might and Guile?

I haven't, because of an error:

ERROR: cannot convert D5SHADD or %D5SHADD% to an integer

Anyone know what might be wrong, how to make it work?

I'm installing on IDEE - bunch of npc and quest mods, systemic and tweak mods are exclusively subtledoctor's, I think.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...