My thoughts on balance of new kits (feel free to add)

[polytope]

I haven't had time to properly look through everything in this quite massive and impressive mod, it's one of the most overarching and ambitious conversions of the base game rules I've seen yet, but some preliminary impressions:

1. Original specialist wizards; each now have two opposition schools except for Diviner, since Diviners don't benefit from the specialist saving throw penalty to offensive spells or personal bonus that seems fair. There are also no divinations beyond 6th circle wizard True Sight, I think most would prefer the party priest to take care of that as well. Any plans to introduce high level divinations like Foresight, since Enchanters now have high level specialties in the revision of Symbols etc.?
2. Elementalist mage kits; I see problems in their respective balance, an Earth Elementalist most notably loses arcane Protection from Electricity, which priests (or potions of insulation/absorption) can cover, and yes, lightning spells too, which are rarely necessary damage options, plus Cloudkill for which there's a wand and Stinking Cloud which is rarely tactically better than Web, all easy to work around. An Air Elementalist on the other hand loses - among other things - Protection from Petrification, Stoneskin and Imprisonment/Freedom. In particular the inability to protect from basilisks (and wizards...) in the early game and loss of Freedom in mid-late game is problematic if they're you're only mage. To balance things I think the counterspells of Earth related magic (pro-petrification and Freedom) should be allowed as they're thematically opposed. Also if the kit lacks Stoneskin I feel they should get a unique spell granting a mid-duration (in the region of 3 rounds, +1 round/level) self only luck-bonus - tie it flavour wise to spirits of the air watching over them - this would make Mirror Image an acceptable substitute for Stoneskin in their repertoire since positive luck diverts hits to images. Force Mages who give up all elemental related magic look like a weak choice too right now, even with the Telekinetic Storm. Possible candidates, as a list of Force Mage barred spells; Chromatic Orb, Spook, Ray of Enfeeblement, Horror, Slow, Confusion, Emotion, Chaos, Prismatic Spray, Sphere of Chaos (arguably also those spells summoning extra-planar creatures, except for Wish & Limited Wish... which would take it back to being excessively nerfed). I can explain why I'd choose those spells particularly as antithetical to a Force Mage if you care.
3. Militant wizards; seem underpowered too (I mean, compared to the options, they're still wizards who will become very powerful) as AC isn't much of a concern for a mage, any who can cast Spirit Armor and Blur can already get it quite low, am I wrong in thinking they should have more hp? What would be interesting would be forbidding human fighter-> mage duals in your system and treating the militant wizard as a substitute to this notoriously powerful option, as I think militants might otherwise go unused.
4. Ranger kits; I don't remember the gamut of PnP abilities of a Beastmaster that well (don't think all such are really implementable either), but I know they did get a touch range Hold Monster as a special ability, which could even be treated as a melee-hit ability like the Assasin's poison/monk's stunning blow etc. Also, about their weapon restrictions, I'd drop crossbows but allow axe/spear/dagger, the latter three make sense as things a forest dweller apart from civilization could make or maintain, whereas even a light crossbow's complicated trigger mechanism would be too much, not to mention the windlass on heavier crossbows. It would make that kit a lot more playable.

Edited December 16, 2023 by polytope

[DavidW]

Thanks for these thoughtful comments. Some quick responses:

1) Fundamentally I just don't really think 'Diviner' makes sense as an adventuring class (and the 2nd edition AD&D Players Handbook agrees with me). So I couldn't be bothered to think of a bunch of level 7-9 spells to fill the gap. (If someone else wants to design and code them, I'm not necessarily averse to hosting.) That said, if anything it's an advantage for Diviners that there are no level 7-level 9 divination spells, because the 'spend one slot on your specialist school' requirement is only enforced when there are spells of your school at a given level.

2) The lack of Stoneskin did concern me for Air Elementalists. It might well be that it needs an air defensive spell. Force mages I did more because I thought it was thematically fun - I'm unsure about balance, the damage boost for magic-damage spells is a nontrivial advantage, but probably you're right. I'm not too horrified though - in a single-player game like BG2 I don't want to worry too much about precise balance between options.

3) I did militant wizards mostly as a proof-of-concept (they demo both extra opposition schools and armored wizards, just as Bloodragers do). They're fairly faithful copies of AD&D's version, and I agree they're probably underpowered.

4) Will consider, thanks.

 

[polytope]

On 12/29/2023 at 3:10 AM, DavidW said:

Force mages I did more because I thought it was thematically fun - I'm unsure about balance, the damage boost for magic-damage spells is a nontrivial advantage, but probably you're right. I'm not too horrified though - in a single-player game like BG2 I don't want to worry too much about precise balance between options.

I, too, like the concept, but the description of force mages from the player's option series isn't very helpful because it says they should be barred from alteration and divination... much unlike the other elementalists.

The way I see it, "forces" (their speciality) all operate by rigid and quantifiable laws, so magic that's chaotic and unpredictable (Prismatic Spray, Sphere of Chaos, Chromatic Orb by extension) is antithetical, as would be summons from supernatural realms like the outer planes (Nishruus, demons etc., but I'm unsure if it should extend to [limited] Wishes). Similarly, mind affecting magic that strips reason and acts on emotions (Spook, Horror, Emotion [all subtypes], Confusion, Chaos) but not those enchantment spells which purely constrain or compel (like the Hold line and Domination) should go, I added Slow and Ray of Enfeeblement to the list because they don't seem to act by an opposing force (like Telekinesis) but rather the "leeching" of a force.

I'm stuck for better ideas as to what could be justified as "philosophical" opposition spells to force magic without just copying the Invoker's restrictions.

Edited January 2 by polytope

[DavidW]

Heh, I didn't even know 'force mage' was an AD&D thing - I just made it up.

[RoyalProtector]

One thing I would comment with regards to balance is that a few things don't improve enough with levels. It's a pretty well established problem with many kit abilities that they don't scale well, especially as far as saving throws are concerned, especially when you get into ToB.

For example, Poison Weapon. The saving throw penalty improves to -2, and I would argue that it is on the weak side of things. I would improve it again a couple of times so by the end the penalty is -4.

If you have to cast greater malison and/or doom very regularly to have a reasonably good chance at high levels, I would argue that improvement is needed for the class.

[DavidW]

To some extent this anticipates other aspects of ToF - there is a HLA that increases poison saving throw penalties.

[rpmaster]

Speaking of HLA-system and new kits, I started to think about the possibility to implement sort of 4-ed multiclassing.

I.e. to allow learning other kits' abilities via spending feats for this - maybe they would be a bit weaker then the original versions, but it may spice things a little and add interesting combinations.

Another way here is to reward single-classes kits with some unique bonus not available to multiclasses using this kit. After all, in a game with several mods XP cap is not an issue and multiclasses end up with much more HLAs, spells and abilities. 

[RoyalProtector]

2 hours ago, DavidW said:

To some extent this anticipates other aspects of ToF - there is a HLA that increases poison saving throw penalties.

Ah, I missed that part! Very nice addition, you were even more generous than in my scenario.