"Rebalanced and Revised Kits" - Feedback

[Chitown Willie]

David,

While the entire mod is amazing, I can't thank you enough for this one component. I've always had a problem with numerous kits - in particular, Skalds, Cavaliers, Shapeshifters, and Totemic Druids - and this opens up a whole new world of replay ability and fun.

I would recommend that this - as well as the "Rebalanced Thief/Bounty Hunter traps" - should be mandatory for every install.

Thanks again.

[RoyalProtector]

I'm with you on that!

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Chitown Willie said:

I've always had a problem with numerous kits - in particular, Skalds, Cavaliers, Shapeshifters, and Totemic Druids -

I just glanced at the Readme and I don’t see any mention of Totemic Druids. And Skalds and Cavaliers don’t look very different from the vanilla kits. What am I missing? (The Shapeshifter changes look good - though I may be biased as it looks strikingly similar to me own take on the kit  )

[DavidW]

As I say in the readme, it's mostly not that they're unbalanced per se but that they're balanced for the SoA section of BG2, and don't necessarily scale well to other levels (or to other content - e.g. the fact that Cavaliers are protected from fire and acid because the chromatic dragons in SoA are red and black). I'm sort of surprised Beamdog didn't address it (though not really, given that I had something of an inside view of what developing BGEE and IWDEE was like and can see how there was way too much time pressure).

[DavidW]

22 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

I just glanced at the Readme and I don’t see any mention of Totemic Druids.

I don't do anything to them IIRC (except I think they get a few bespoke HLAs).

24 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

And Skalds and Cavaliers don’t look very different from the vanilla kits.

Mostly I was interested in spreading power build a bit more smoothly. With cavaliers I wanted not to be tied in to the specific dragons in SoA - hence level-dependent boosts to all elemental damage types and eventually getting breath weapon evasion.

25 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

The Shapeshifter changes look good - though I may be biased as it looks strikingly similar to me own take on the kit 

I don't think I'd seen yours, but having had a look, I'm not sure it's all that similar, except insofar as both are implementing the IWD idea of scaling shapeshifts plus the economic move of upscaling a couple of them instead of leaving underpowered ones around. The implementation is pretty different I think, and for thematic reasons I'm keen to leave things like wyverns to the Avenger, whereas I think you actively want to get rid of the Avenger on PnP grounds. (There are only so many ways to add level-dependent shapeshift powers to a nature priest, ultimately.)

[RoyalProtector]

8 minutes ago, DavidW said:

I don't do anything to them IIRC (except I think they get a few bespoke HLAs).

Well, at least in the strings of the Spirit Summons, it looks like you extended their improvements up to 16 HD.

 

[RoyalProtector]

39 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

Cavaliers don’t look very different from the vanilla kits.

Just the fact that he added Smite Evil is for me a massive improvement (as far BG is concerned). In BG they feel like poor clerics mixed with poor fighters. Smite Evil adds some nuance. With this component and a few others, they really stand out.