subtledoctor

Careful with that quote-editing knife, sir, you might cut yourself! Hey I don't advocate doing any of that - just giving a proof-of-concept (concept-of-concept?) of an improvement on Jarno's idea of starting with a fighter(!). It's not for KR - KR isn't doing added kits, and Demi would hate doing kits for one class differently from another class. BUT it's not a bad method, I use it for my kensai, which is loads better than the vanilla kensai - and, I daresay, even better than KR's kensai (though I admit being biased) for at least accurately reflecting the kit description.

I don't understand the question? Read from? I meant, if Jarno is to be believed, you can make new monk kits with their own CLAB files to read, you just can't make them selectable via K_M_x files. So once you switch to the kit it's fine and should function normally with whatever CLAB abilities you want to give it. If that was a typo and you meant how would you *remove* an innate ability from a CLAB, I figure you would GA_ the ability at first level, and AP_ a spell at second level that uses opcode 146 to remove the 1st-level ability. So you could choose at 1st level to specialize as a certain style of monk; or you could ignore it and stick to the vanilla kit. And of course all that jiggery-pokery would all be OG-only; on EE games you would just choose the kits at CharGen. In fact this could be a method to backport the two EE kits to the OG.

Or you could give all monk kits the same abilities at level 1, and include an innate ability (which is removed at level 2) that lets you switch from the basic kit and chose from a few different specialty kits. That would take care of the animation issue.

I'm not concerned about a list of benefits and drawbacks; I'm not suggesting this to balance things, in fact I think it's kind of a suggestion to *unbalance* things - at least that aspect (DPS) - to account for various other things that are unbalanced, like the ability to use stunning blow and slow time and stealth and X Y & Z other mystical abilities that can't be added up as numbers in a calculation. Also, I must say that there are some incredibly creative ideas in this thread, it's really impressive. But larger picture, implementing all those ideas just because it is possible and they are really cool can just lead to a class that is all about those "toys to play with." Rather than give the one vanilla monk all of these abilities, why not add a few kits and give them each some overlapping but also some different abilities - that would increase variety and flavor and push people into playing different ways in different runs. Crap, don't tell me monk kits are hard-coded. Like I say, I haven't looked into monks much, but that wouldn't surprise me. And to clarify, I hope I don't sound critical, I'm not saying it ought to be this way or that way I have very little experience playing monks, so I'm least qualified to give advice on specifics. Just looking at the bigger picture.

In the above vein (but in a separate post because it's a different, more specific point), someone above asked about monks' weapon proficiencies. I have to infer why do they have any in the first place? If the theme of the class is that they gone their bodies to become weapons, why use any other? I mean think about it: in BG1 people find fists underwhelming so they use a weapon instead. Then after a few levels, their fists become more powerful - even though they haven't been practicing with them in daily use! So why not just give monks zero weapon proficiencies? Doubling APR with fists seems like a pretty good trade-off for that in the early going.

So I am investigating this class a bit, both with and without KR. It's new to me, I've never once played a monk in a BG game. I think it's worth chiming in on the issue above: comparing a monk's fist damage with a fighter's weapon damage is not really a great comparison because a) just thinking about it, even with focused chi behind the attack, it's still a fist versus a 5-20 pound weapon wielded by a grandmaster. And b) monks have a gazillion other magical powers and immunities that fighters lack. So even saying "it's only 9.5 average, versus 10.5 for a dagger" - to me that still looks like way too much for the fists. (Especially since any given party will most likely only have one monk, meaning the pkayer is basically guaranteed to be using the Gauntlets of Crushing.) So instead of/in addition to reducing the damage, is there any thought to maybe, (I hate to suggest this but...) actually reign in some of those gazillion superpowers and immunities? Like just straight-up have fewer "toys to play with" as you say. Follow the KISS principle (which Bioware clearly did not).

Well acid is really basically high-ph water right? And lightning is electrified air. Close enough to be considered "elemental," I figure. I mean we are talking about a game where lightning bounces off walls instead of being grounded. (If any part of the BG magic system needs fixing, it's that.)

This is great thinking. This would be ideal for the basic Charm Person.

Single-target confusion effect would be perfectly appropriate (why isn't there a spell for that already?)

I'm not actually thinking of psychic damage so much. (Well, it could be interesting... say, Slow for a number of seconds equal to spell level every time you make a saving throw... but such a broad-ranging change is for another conversation.) Rather, I'm just looking at the original mechanics of the spell: if you have 60hp you die, if you have 61 you survive. As the magic assaults your body, that 61st hp, that one little hp, saves your life. I know the spell says it only affects those with <60hp, but the general mechanics of the game are, when one hp saves your life it's because you lost all the other hps. So you could read the spell to implicitly work that way. Or at least you could mod the spell to work that way, and decide it's better than the vanilla one (if indeed you think it is better). What about: 60hp or less = die, no save; over 60 hp = take 60 damage, save for only 30? That would at least prevent it from being inferior to Finger of Death. It is after all a 9th level spell, I really hate the idea of 9th level magic just fizzling.

Great work you have going here. I really like the berserker rage change. I never understood in what way the effect could described as "berserk" when they are in complete control of their faculties the whole time. (Also never understood how a fighter whose defining tactic is to go berserk would have the patience and discipline to become a grandmaster with a weapon - my mod limits them to 3 stars.) I look forward to getting my grubby hands on this. I want to see how compatible it is with my mod - my berserker kit characteristics with your berserk rage ability, my revised Kensai with your revised Kai ability, etc.

Also, I was just thinking about Power Word: Kill (I think its discussion was in this thread, but I'm on my phone and can't reasonably comb through 31 pages to find it) The discussion was, how to make it a decent spell when right now it is extraordinarily 'expensive' if the target has > 60hp. Demi talked about having it kill people with more hp, but giving them a save to avoid the effect. That is s substantial 'buff' for the spell. But how about treating it like the new version of Harm? Just do 60hp of damage, no save. People with 60hp or less will die, those with more will still be substantially affected. You might resist the Power Word, but doing so takes a toll on you. (I first thought how about being stunned or slowed or something, then I figured, why not just damaged - why not damaged by the very threshold of the spell? What else does that threshold represent??) (In general I dislike 'save to completely avoid being affected.' Saves should generally indicate resisting the effects of a spell; but resistance should not be perfect, it's not like you were in a different room or something. A successful save should mean half damage, half duration, etc. (Magic resistance should work that way too, but that's a whole other discussion.))

Hey Demi, do you think I could get access to the SR and IR betas? Unfortunately I don't have time to actually beta-test for you (because I don't have time to, y'know, play the game ) But I'd like to be able to really test for full compatibility with my mod, since I (only half-jokingly) want my install instructions to be something like: 1) install SR 2) install IR 3) install my mod I'd also love to look at KR to get a better sense of what exactly it does, and how modular its components are - e.g., see if it would be possible to mix and match by class, like use KR's thieves but SoB's clerics.

Hey people I am quite late to the party and this may be more for v5 than v4 at this point, but I'd like to briefly discuss (briefly with a Wall Of Text ) Offensive Illusions Reading prior posts about Phantasmal Killer, Sadiw Monsters, Shades, etc. I like the idea of summons that are glass cannons. Magicians using an illusion of a fantastically powerful creature to freak people out is a great old trope. But, rather than simply making them delicate, it would be great if they could really be tied to the target's belief. So for Phantasmal Killer: instead of a souped-up Spook where the spell is cast and the target suffers the effect, would it be possible to conjure an actual CRE (maybe in the form of a mist) that incessantly targets the victim, relentlessly attacking and immune to most/all damage... but also have a background effect running, forcing the victim save vs. spells every round, and if he makes the save, it destroys the CRE. Or, just cripples the CRE's HP and damage so that it can be easily dispatched. The other spells like Shadow Monsters should summon much more powerful monsters than normal summoning spells, but they should be subject to the same 'death/diminishment when the victim saves' effect. (As illusions in someone's head, these would all be targeted at enemies, not 'cast at any point within range' like normal summons.) The difference between Shadow Monsters/Demi-Shadow Monsters/Shades, i.e. how "real" the monsters appear, was just set as a %age of HP and damage in PnP; but if this system works perhaps it could be better reflected by bonusrs/penalties to the target's saving throw. Alternatively or in addition: illusionary summons should do subdual damage, not real damage. So if/when the enemy "dies" from the wounds, he would just go unconscious (that's how the Command priest spell is described as working). (Also, query whether that spell could/should be an Illusion wizard spell, since it's described as kind of a Power Word: Kill that's all in the target's head.) They would still be fantastically useful, from a tactical standpoint, for 1) distracting the target with something much stronger than a regular summons (as long as the target believes it), and 2) incapacitating the target when he "dies," letting the caster focus on other threats.

Not crazy scaling... just scaling to match the values you set. Yes, if a dragon lands a 50hp hit on Keldorn in my game, he only takes 25 damage. Whereas Valygar takes 50 damage. That's fine to me, it properly reflects the tankiness of plate armors and the vulnerability of light armors. And it's easy to balance it with AC (Keldorn is more likely to get hit in the first place) and other tweaks (I play with BECMI hit dice) and by simply moving the difficulty slider. It's very much a different system... it works and I think it's superior to vanilla, but it's not for everyone. IR tiptoes up to using a different system ("let's add some DR and DEX penalties to heavy armor") but then backs off ("we want gameplay to basically be the same as vanilla.") What remains are minor tweaks. I'm just saying, if I'm a player interested in adding depth to the armor system by way of DR, then Revised Armors doesn't really interest me. If I'm a player who likes AD&D's method of using AC as a complete abstracted representation of physical vulnerability, then I don't see a need to revise armors. I guess it's really a marketing issue: I just don't see who is the target audience for that component. But clearly it's not me, so maybe you guys shouldn't be listening to me!

No theorycrafting here, sir, I'm reporting my results after multiple playthroughs with this system in effect. Obviously I was using 4hp arrows as an extreme example to make the point; but the point is valid. The rounding affects damage actually taken, not possible damage. So even in your counter-example: Yes at 10hp/hit you can distinguish between 10% DR and 20% DR. But you *cannot* distinguish between 10% and 15%. In fact at up to 14 hp per hit (and let's remember that 4d6 averages to 14, so we're not talking about Carbos and Shank here) 15% DR will be about as effective as 5%... meaning IR leather and IR plate will be roughly equal. Which is not ideal. I only raised that to explain why, in my *actual experience* (not theory), a system like this needs relatively large steps between armor types. In my *actual experience,* 15% jumps work pretty well across all parts of the game. (They were full BGT playthroughs.) Been tried in Refinements....not good. You can't set the cap without stuttering. Nah, I wouldn't do it by scripting. Just change most of the instances of "Inc/Dec by +40%" to "Set value at 40%." Well keep in mind that in my system if you're wearing plate mail for high DR you probably have crappier AC than in vanilla; Armor of the Hart is something like AC2, with *zero* DEX bonus. But anyway that's only something I came up with for Hardiness after literally 5 seconds of thought. I'd have to think about it more before actually proposing, or coding, something definite.

Which I why I say again, this is not something I suggest to be included in IR, rather it's an option I use for further customization after IR. Sigh. Well that's just stupid. See, crap like that is why I refuse to play this game without TobEx's "Concentration Check for Spell Disruption" component. Which would make my proposal work a) well enough, for a 6th-level spell, and more importantly, b) the way a rational new player might actually expect the damn game to work (no damage = no spell disruption, duh). I say again, sigh... I don't think what you wrote there means that my system is what is delicate So I just read through that thread, it is a good discussion of the issues at hand. Btw the graph there is wrong: 90% DR on a 100hp warrior will not let him survive 1,000hp of damage. If he takes 250 4hp arrows, they will each do 1hp of damage. So he will take 2.5x more damage than the graph suggests (250 damage, not 100 damage). I've playtested it: it is a quirk of this game that DR is less effective in practice than it would seem to be on paper. Of course 100% is 100% effective, so that must be blocked. The thing that keeps coming back to me is, the vanilla game only uses DR in a handful of places. So if I have a functional and enjoyable system in place for Armor with DR, it will only require tweaking a few other items/spells. That, I think, is a good thing from a modding point of view. First, most obviously, is to limit resistance stacking. Frankly this doesn't just apply to DR, but to any resistances. Cheesemongers love stacking resistances but I don't think there's anything in the rules as written or conceived that says they deserve to get it. Most items and effects should set resistance, not increase it. Hardiness is a big issue, with +40% DR. And having it set DR will be useless for warriors, since they will likely be wearing good armor. But let's step back: this system is already giving warriors what the Hardiness HLA was conceived to give them. So, quite simply, we no longer need it. It can be eliminated, or it can be replaced by another useful defensive effect. (Maybe AC + broad elemental resistance + guaranteed saves... whatever, you could think of something.) Armor of Faith is actually okay as-is, I think - it's supposed to be the power of a deity protecting his faithful, it should be powerful. (Whereas, in vanilla, for reasons I described above, the DR it grants is functionally near-useless.) I think you could leave it as a 15-20% increase in DR, even for a priest in 45%-DR plate mail, and just drastically reduce the duration: like, 3 rounds + 1 round per 5 levels. In other words I agree that 75%+ DR should be prevented... but I don't think it's that hard to prevent it. I agree 100%. (Agreement stacks ) In fact that is my whole point here: if someone wants to go to the trouble of creating a DR-based armor system, i think it's possible to do so successfully. But IR need not take on the burden of that task.

I apologize in advance because this discussion is more apporpriate on teh IR forums. But: Yes, it is perfectly easy to install FPPS after/with/on top of IR. Which is why... I just don't think the revised armor system gets done what it aims to, and I'm not sure I would even do it. (Mind you, I appreciate how crappy that must be to hear after spending lots of hours and effort making that mod component... but hear me out.) Trying not to stray too far from vanilla play for those non-hardcore players, while also earnestly trying to change the way armors work... these two goals clash, and I just don't think the BG2 ruleset permits a good compromise. We all agree on the problem: Leather +3 at 1,000gp is the same as Chain +1 at 250 gp is the same as Splint at 45gp. Yeah it's different for thieves and in a few other ways but it's still flawed. On the other hand the best way do something about it is to implement a drastic solution like (but not exactly like) FPPS. If you're not going to go there, then I say focus on making the armors the best the are under the current, flawed system. People have plenty of fun playing BG without FPPS, and IR v1-3 made that a lot better, even with the flawed armor system. It wasn't a big deal. The problem is that adding a 5% DR does nothing. Adding 10% DR does next to nothing, and indeed sometimes it does nothing. My understanding and experience with the system is, the resistance always rounds to an integer. When I first played with FPPS I had guys in leather with 10% DR, in chain with 20% DR, in splint mail with 30% DR. They got hit by an arrow, for 4 hp damage. The guy in leather took 3 damage. The guy in chain took 3 damage. And the guy in splint took 3 damage. So what's the point? After 25 arrows the leather guy should take 90 damage, and the chain guy should take 80, and the splint guy should take 70. But instead they all take 75. In short, small bumps in resistance don't really translate into anything in-game. So I see Revised Armors giving 5% for leather, and 15% for plate, to me that's basically meaningless. Yes, with that 15% plate + 20% for Defender of Easthaven + 40% for Hardiness you can reach a nice 75% DR... but then again, with leather armor you can get 65% DR, so what is the plate mail really doing there? Inevitably you'll say it has to do something, so you'll give it better base AC than the leather, and now you're just embracing the vanilla system. Which, let me reiterate, is fine. You wanna know my personal solution? I think FPPS is great not because of the choices it makes for AC and DR values, but as a tool. I edited thebiglist.txt and used FPPS to install my own whole new system for armors. AC is normalized - all nonmagical armors have the same AC, all armors +1 have the same AC, etc. Armor grants +2 AC over unarmored, and each magical "+" grants +2 AC beyond that. DEX can drop AC lower, and is a bit more effective at that than in vanilla (18-19 gets you +5 AC bonus). But AC is seriously penalized in heavy armors, balanced by DR. The DR goes up in big 15% chunks, so that you can tell the different even with hits from bandit bows. I forget offhand, but something like 0% for leather, 15% for studded leather, 30% for chain, and 45% for plate. (Of course the DoE and Hardiness etc. are balanced to account for this and prevent DR from going over ~80%.) A high-DEX, lightly-armored thief can avoid blows better than anyone else in the game... but if he takes a hit from a Fire Giant, he gets hit real hard. A heavily armored fighter can have 40-60% DR, and take hits much better. But his AC is worse. He can use a shield and get his AC down to where the thief's is; or he can dual-wield or use a greatsword and try to deal enough damage to make up for it. The tactical decisions are much more interesting than in the vanilla game. It's not just slapping values onto ITMs, it's a whole system, and contrary to kreso's assertion above, it worked shockingly well in my recent BGT playthroughs, from Candlekeep right to TOB. Lots of fun, to the point that it's really jarring to go back to vanilla where my 8 DEX fighter in heavy plate mail can dodge blows better than my 18 DEX swashbuckler in supple leather. But, I don't suspect many other people want such a drastic change, so I don't publicize it and I don't expect IR to try to reproduce it. IR does great stuff; I just say, focus on doing what you are already doing extremely well.

Whoa! Didn't intend to kick up a sh- uh, sandstorm here. I should say right off that I didn't mean any criticism; SR and IR are basically behaving exactly as I like them to. When I say something like "PfMW should be erased," I mean that's how I want my particular game to work; not that every game with SR should be that way. Well, that's why I'm erasing it after SCS is already installed! I agree - the idea that you can be immune to attacks from a Holy Avenger but can be killed by a nonmagical club, strains credulity enough to make the game unfun. Not to mention, I found myself simply carrying around one nonmagical weapon for each character, in their 2nd weapon slot, just in case any enemies cast that spell. It was horribly annoying and at some point I just smacked myself for putting up with it. For players like that, and mobs with RR AI, PfMW is more useless than a 2nd-level spell. For lazy players and non-optimized (even SCS!) AI, it is as good as a 9th-level spell. (Likewise with your tweak.) It is completely inappropriate at 6th level, no matter which way you cut it. So the AI depends on being untouchable after casting a 6th-level spell? Due respect to DavidW, but that isn't very good AI. If you turn it into Absolute Immunity (the non-SR version), which is fine, then it shouldn't be a sixth-level spell. Keep the same .spl name, keep it in all the scripts, keep SCS mages using it, but put it at 8th level. It shouldn't matter for the AI - they'll cast what they're scriped to cast, no? But it will better situate a ridiculous spell for the player. Of course then you have to re-level, or else simply remove, or else completely re-imagine, all of the Mantle spells. Which is a crying shame, because those spells, in concept and execultion, are much better than PfMW. Therefore, my preference is to eliminate PfMW and make better use of the Mantles. Stoneskin is indeed overpowered, which is why my original thought was to move it to 6th level. And while I'm adding a 6th-level combat protection spell, and removing a 6th-level combat protection spell... at first it made sense to just rename SS with PfMW's filename, and let the scripts run as normal. On paper, ignoring the AI, it is very well-balanced. Demi pointed out the weakness of this though, and indeed it was a kneejerk, lazy, imperfect solution. My current idea is to give druids Stoneskin and re-purpose Ironskins as a souped-up version, giving 3 rounds of elemental protection in addition to some extra skins. So you can't just plink away at an Ironskinned mage with fire arrows or the Flail of Ages and expect to interrupt his spells. That mage will be much better protected. Not perfectly protected, of course, because Well, them's the breaks man. It's a 6th-level spell. The idea that the AI should be designed around the assumption of near perfect invulnerability with a mid-level spell is very, very flawed. Mages should be casting the best, highest-level protection spells they can; this is a fight to the death, their lives are on the line. Sometimes, though, your best isn't enough - the enemy breaks through your best defenses and slays you. That's life. That's great role-playing! tl;dr: PfMW as implemented was a very bad design decision. We're all modding here, changing a million parts of the game to suit ourselves better. Seems to me making a dozen changes to deal with that one bad design isn't optimal; why not change that one bad part instead? This is not the job of SR - Demi, you're doing everything right. But for instance, if I was doing SCS AI I wouldn't use PfMW regardless of whether a mod removes it or leaves it in. It's a bad spell; the best AI should use better spells. Then modding it wouldn't make a difference. (And let's keep things in perspective, this is not really a knock on Davidw either, he does great work. It's just one instance where I disagree with his decision.)

I actually don't think IR's armor is truly balanced the way it needs to be, I think you really have to adopt a FPPS system (slightly modified, though) to get it right. But that's pretty subjective, and not relevant to the post, and anyway I was only kidding above. Revising the entire way armor works could be balanced, but would be WAY too much work for very little reward. We have a reasonably good system, with tweaks like SR/IR, and the occasional hiccup like you see in Barkskin is not the end of the world. Anyway looking forward to SRv4, so I can kick the tires and see what further modifications I want to layer over it in my mod! (For the minority who hates PfMW, I'm doing away with it.)

Not to necro an old point, but the obvious way to balance stuff like this is to eliminate every instance of an item of spell *setting* AC at a particular value, and make everything give AC bonuses. The every item and dpell can be balanced against each other and for determination of stackable use. I can't wait to see this in SR/IR v5. Get to work!