BG1NPC items

[Gorilym]

Instead of breathing more life into the item tangent of this thread, I'll make a new topic. IMHO Gorion's amulet is a very nice addition, but given that it's essentially an Amulet of Protection +1 it would be preferable if it was considered 'magical' - so you couldn't wear it with magical armor etc.

 

As for Imoen's Artifact - it's odd to me that everyone from Ajantis to Xzar can use an item the effects of which aren't completely clear even to its creator. (referring to the item's description, roughly "even Imoen isn't quite sure what it does") It seems reasonable to me that only Imoen should be able to use it. (Unuseable to all except human thiefs / mages with minimum stats of 18 DEX, 16 CON, 16 CHA, 17 INT - that should do the trick)

 

Of course, if these items are in fact exactly as the writers intended them to be, nevermind.

[WizWom]

Er, let's explore some other, too.

 

Why would Kivan own a magical spear, but not have proficiency in it? It seems gratuitious.

 

Xzar's item - the ring. charm person is an undocumented feature of both Nymph's cloaks. But immunity to charm effects is a BIG thing to have in BG1.

 

Ajantis' shield is cool, but unneeded. Or rather, with a Dex like his, he shouldn't be thinking 2-handed sword... (I can understand not wanting to hack up all the hundreds of frames for an animation BAM of the shield. Would have been cool, though). The Amulet of demon protection is

 

The Amulet of additional spells, well, not too bad.

 

The Great shield of oak, with a con bonus... I would probably have made it limited to druids, especially in BG1.

 

The eye of the storm joins a handful of other +2 items in the game, which isn't too bad.

 

Kivan's +2 spear is extreme, considering you can get it in chapter 1 with no effort. At least it's limited to elves.

 

The ring of human influence was just gratuitious. I think that was my primary reason for uninstall BG1NPC project. But that one's now an artifact, in the beta I got today, it no longer is an issue.

 

"Safana's Box' - er, I'm not even going to go there. Too tight a situation. I should be Pun-ished for thinking about Safana's Box at all. It has surprisingly little use, though, considering her history.

 

The Succubus' toe ring - a little strong for BG1, but by the time you could reasonably get it.

[Gorilym]

Er, let's explore some other, too.

 

By all means.

 

Re: Kivan's spear, supposedly he used it in a battle against gnolls - as a makeshift weapon perhaps - and Thalantyr repaired and enchanted it as a gift. That he is proficient with a halberd and not with a spear is arguably the result of arbitrary decisions made in the conversion from BG1 to BG2 proficiency systems. The +2 enchantment is a bit powerful given the early stage of the game in which it can be acquired - but since Kivan probably won't be able use it (without THAC0 penalty) for a while, it's no big deal IMHO. Spear is such an unpopular choice for proficiency that I certainly don't see it as a gamebreaker.

 

As for Ajantis' shield, not that powerful and is a nice flavour item. By the endgame he will typically have a better shield to use though. Don't have a problem with this one at all.

 

I agree about the Ring of Human Influence, the Charm is one thing, and the Charisma boost could potentially mean tens of thousands of extra gold by the end of the game. I'd just sell it off without using it though.

 

The others I don't think I've seen outside of NI, so I'll refrain from commenting on those.

[Linguist in Training]

Repeating my post on in the item tangent:

 

What is the idea behind the ring of human influence anyway? I don't see any special content attached to it.

 

heh, I would be in favor of removing the ring from bgII as well...

[Gorilym]

Well, in BGII it serves a certain purpose story-wise. Kalah's rise to (shortlived) power makes more sense when he has such a ring to aid him. As for the ring in BG1NPC, beats me. If the idea was to make the Foreshadow encounter more substantial, that could be done in other ways methinks.

[WizWom]

As I said, Lord Foreshadow no longer gives the ring. So it's moot.

 

The team has given tacit approval to changing Tutu "standard" proficiencies - no reason not to hack Kivan to have spear instead of halberd. Either is a reasonable interpretation of the BG1 "Spears" proficiency. In fact, the BG1 Kivan in all cases uses a spear. halberds was a serious tweak that probably was bad form.

 

Same thing with Ajantis & "2-handed sword" proficiency - just as likely to hack it to Longsword or bastard sword. And he has a bastard sword in BG1 when you meet him. Another tutu bad form tweak.

[Gorilym]

As I said, Lord Foreshadow no longer gives the ring. So it's moot.

 

Right you are, just wondering about the initial reasoning behind it.

 

The team has given tacit approval to changing Tutu "standard" proficiencies - no reason not to hack Kivan to have spear instead of halberd. Either is a reasonable interpretation of the BG1 "Spears" proficiency. In fact, the BG1 Kivan in all cases uses a spear. halberds was a serious tweak that probably was bad form.

 

Same thing with Ajantis & "2-handed sword" proficiency - just as likely to hack it to Longsword or bastard sword. And he has a bastard sword in BG1 when you meet him. Another tutu bad form tweak.

 

I agree, and I would applaud it if a 'Sensible NPC weapon proficiencies' component was added to BG1NPC. However, I don't think its a big problem when the same changes can be made easily with the 'Allow player to choose NPC proficiencies and skills' component of SCS.

[Domi]

Lord Foreshadow gave ring when we started to introduce romances, because many of them had what the original BG2 romances did not - relatively high charisma requirement. He has a line indicating that much along his normal dialogue lines as in "foreshadow", predicting that PC might just fall in love and the ring will come in handy. He did not give the ring if Jaheira was in the party because it interferred with the way her interjection was structured. That's the rationale.

[jastey]

The Amulet of demon protection is

Either the sentence is unfinished or I can't grab the context. What is your opinion on the romance amulet?