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yarpen

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Posts posted by yarpen

  1. Well, let's try to sum up what we do have in store for Rangers in the final draft.

     

    Class Features:

    - Warrior's ThaC0

    - Specialization

    - Additional attack per round

    - 2-weapons Fighting Style

    - Hide in Shadows and Move Silently

    - Druidic Spellcasting

    - Racial Enemy

    - Quarry

    - Tracking

    - Animal Companion

    - Charm Animal

     

    RANGER is master of nothing in particular. He can wear chainmails! And has Doge!

    STALKER is master of hiding in shadows and Quarry.

    ARCHER is master of ranged combat.

    BEASTMASTER is master of Animal Companions and Animal Empathy (maybe Druidic Spellcasting?).

     

    So, few ideas to make things look a bit better.

     

    Moving Tracking into Animal Companion (Wolf)

    I've mentioned it before. I just don't think that Ranger can afford getting so many combat penalties to detect invisible creatures - and in terms of roleplaying it just fits an animal in much better way, also granting it some kind of combat utility.

     

    Upgrading Stalker's Quarry

    Don't be afraid, I mean minor nerfs to Quarry instead of buffs for already too-good Stalker. Well, to turn his gameplay into something different than Fighter-Thief with cool spells, I'd propose shifting his Backstab capability to Quarry. So, only succesfull Quarry gives you capability of backstabing opponent.

     

    Quarry for Beastmaster's Companion

    While Beastmaster is not the kind of guy who'd be Quarrying the hell out of his opponents - that kind of feature on his Panther would be a nice touch (unless you plan to restrict Beastmaster from that).

     

    Beastmaster's Spellcasting

    Beastmaster could be THE spellcasting Ranger - keeping his Animal Summoning spells would be fine, especially if you'll fill his spellbook with enhanced Magical Fang spells for his sexy Panther.

     

    Falcon Companion for Archer

    Already mentioned that somewhere else. Instead of just copying Called Shot ability from Fighter, Archer could get some kind of modifier Quarry and Farsight to simulate having a Falcon companion (hey, it fits Ranger a lot!).

  2. Okay, I do have some kind of crazy idea for Rangers. Single animal companion dependant on his kit.

     

    Ranger gets Wolf capable of detecting invisible units at small range (Scent) or at least detecting their presence.

    Stalker gets Ferret capable of stealing stuff and scouting.

    Archer gets... Hawk. Represented in weird way of having once per turn Farsight and Hawk randomly marking his targets (granting -2 penalty to AC).

  3. Okay, so when sitting bored at work, I've done some minor pondering.

     

    - Tracking: both it's stance-ish and combat capability actually bother me. I'd rather make it less powerfull version of HLA that:

    Is useable once per Turn.

    Has %-chance based on Ranger's level (up to 95% at level 17?)

    Gives you some text-based advices on terrain and shows the general direction of where the enemies can be.

    Gives you text-based information on where the traps can be.

    Is usable only in wilderness (Stalkers can use it everywhere).

     

    So yeah, dumping it's gameplay-potential for actual roleplay potential.

     

    - I'd love to see expanded Racial Enemy as one of the defining points. Waiting for ToBEx/BGEE possibilities I guess.

    At level 1, +4 bonus to Damage Rolls vs chosen enemy.

    At level 9, +2 bonus to Armor Class/Saves vs chosen enemy.

    At level 18, protection against specific attack from the chosen type (psi-attacks against aberrations, backstabs against humanoids, poison against insects etc.)

     

    - Removing the 2-weapons absurd. For fuck's sake, not everyone is Drizzit.

     

    - Animal Companion as another defining point of this class. Hard to implement due to NPCs I guess. Hey, at least Minsc has Boo, right?

     

    - Quarry could be just -2 penalty to Attack Rolls, Armor Class, making opponent unable to Stealth for 4 rounds. Broken against single target? It needs to be visible from the beginning.

  4. - I'm all for removing the third point in 2-weapons fighting style and change proposed by Ogi.

    - Single weapon fighting style should be the one giving you some:

    * minor AC bonus

    * minor Attack Rolls bonus

    * major Attack Speed bonus

    - 2-handed weapon fighting style should add some damage and crit chance.

    - Weapon and Shield, welp, should grant Armor Class and physical resistances I guess.

  5. Actually the best possible way of handling it would be giving you an your teammates increased critial strike chance against selected target, but I really doubt it if that's possible.

     

    The "remove protection" way could be handled by doing some work involved with items that grant immunity to backstab against selected target.

     

    Optionally, Quarry could be made into team buff.

    "Grants +2 bonus to Attack Rolls and +10% increased critical strike chance and has increased chance to detect invisible opponents", but then it looses it's purpose of being "pick a person in a fight, it is screwed".

  6. Actually, there's one nice solution to the whole Quarry thing.

    Make it grant penalties for... for example 4 rounds. But make it prevent opponents from going invisible just for 1 round. For how long you can track someone who becomes invisible? Not for so long, right? Right.

     

     

    QUARRY: Ranger studies the opponent, which after short delay will have severe conseqences on foe's fighting prowress.

    At level 1, grants -2 penalty to Attack Rolls for 4 rounds.

    At level 7, makes opponent unable to become invisible for 1 round.

    At level 15, grants -2 penalty to Armor Class and Saving Throws for 4 rounds.

     

    The level 1 and level 15 effects do suck a dick tho. Thought about -1 penalty to Attack Rolls and AC at level 1, and -2 penalty to all saving throws at level 15. Or even -4.

     

    - It doesn't ruin the lives of low-level mages and thieves.

    - Gives at least some kind of counterplay to both sides (I can prevent you from becoming invisible and running away -- the restriction lasts just 1 round so it's ok for mages)

    - Is as cool as Combat Maneuvre/Called Hit.

     

    Also, I'd rather ask than not as Ardanis is apparently a god of finding a quirky solutions...

    is there a possibility of giving Ranger an ability that dispels invisibility, but no matter the source (Hide in Shadows, 2nd level Invisibility) it reveals opponent in the same way as being revealed after Improved Invisibility does? I mean the AC penalty + being untargetable. I doubt it's possible, but I guess that'd leave the whole system much more balanced (hey, SCS cares about being untargetable and hard to hit, right?).

  7. Not sure if I should mention new spells here, but recently I've found some old documents that regarded early versions of Divine Remixes. Nightmare compiled a beautiful list of divine spells from variety of D&D handbooks, some of them seem to be possible to implement (and I'd say - worth it).

     

    - Cause Fear (Level 1): opposite of Remove Fear.

    - Darkness (Level 1): I always felt this spell should be available in BG2. While Mages have access to single-target Blindness, Priests should be able to manipulate with darkness to create a black cloud of complete Darkness. Cute spell which could have strong synergy with Barbarians (immunity to Blindness) and one of the Halberds.

    - Call Upon Faith (Level 1): single target +2 Bless. Could be called Boon to counter Doom.

    - Dispel Fatigue (Level 1): could negate both Fatigue and fatigue coming from abilities (Enrage and stuff)

    - Beast Claw (Level 2): offensive spell for druids. I think you already implemented Stone Fists though. Beast Claws are still cooler :D

    - Exaltation (Level 3): protection from Fear, Sleep, Confusion, Berserk.

    - Wither (Level 7): opposite of Regeneration

    - Hesitation (Level 2): penalties to Spellcasting Time and Attack Speed Factor.

    - Solipsism (Level 4): yeah, some clerics get that.

    - Mindshatter (Level 5): alternative name for Feeblemind, could have some additional effects to make it cool. (sorry, I don't know what PnP spell does this time)

    - Othertime (Level 5): very, very limited Time Stop for Priests. Can't cast spells and autoattack, so it's for movement purposes only.

    - Spacewarp (Level 7): cool spell, pulls or pushes away every opponent.

    - Timelessness (Level 7): also Time Stop variant, but not sure what it did.

  8. I once had suggested to add +1 backstab multiplier to daggers...

    Dual wielding Dagger Assassin with over 9000 backstab modifier and Assassination online. Scary.

    I'd either grant them Armor Piercing ability (+1 bonus to ThaC0 against armored opponents) or Increased critical strike range. Both fit flavorwise and aren't creating yet another troublesome mechanic.

  9. I've thought about an alternative method to create a huge difference between light weapons and heavy weapons. I think it'd be possible to do in BG:EE.

    Light Weapons don't gain bonuses from Strength. They gain them from Dexterity.

    Heavy Weapons gain bonuses from Strength.

     

    That would make few things happen.

    - Dexterity-based Warriors.

    - Better Thieves.

     

    While you gain Attack Rolls (small) / Damage Rolls (large) bonuses from Strenght, exceptional Dexterity would grant Weapon Speed (Small) / Attack Rolls (large) boosts.

  10. I tend to group items into few terms.

    Simple Weapons: weapons usable by mages - staff, dagger, sling, dart

    Light Weapons: weapons usable by thieves

    Heavy Weapons: weapons usable only by Warriors

    Exotic Weapons: Katana, Wakizashi, Ninja-To

     

    Light Armor: Leather, Studded Leather

    Medium Armor: Chainmail, Field Mail

    Heavy Armor: Plate, Full Plate

     

    Hope this helps.

  11. I removed Faerie Fire because in PnP the ranger does not get it, and gameplay wise it actually heavily overlaps with both Tracking ability and the newQuarry. Trust me, with those two abilities you really won't need FF while playing a ranger.

    Forgot you want to implement this stuff. Then yeah, FF is obsolete.

     

    I wouldn't restrict the True Ranger to light armors, but medium ones as per PnP, thus still 1 step better than all its kits.

    Sounds okay.

    What about restricting Paladins from using Light Armors and Exotic Weapons to balance that off? Or at least limit them off to profiiency in exotic weapons.

     

    Meh, I actually don't like the spell name myself, but it's the original PnP name. :( The spell doesn't scale with levels within PnP, and while nothing prevents us from tweaking it if necessary keep in mind that it sort of scale by itself when Stalker's base multiplier improve at levels 9 and 17.

    Forgot now Stalkers have x4 modifier which is enough. Spell still feels underwhelming then.

     

    Camouflage

    What about this spell making it possible to hide in plain sight? Just invisibility is like... the most boring thing ever.

     

    Well...I can actually give this spell to all rangers while keeping Stalker's focus on stealth oriented ones.

    What about upgrading lvl1 Longstrider to actually affect your whole team but for example working only out of combat?

  12. We already discussed this, and that is EXACTLY what I would do if only Racial Enemy wasn't hardcoded to use race.ids entries. :( I do hope sooner or later BGEE and/or ToBEx allow us to tweak it, but right now my hands are tied.

    Meh. I also do remember an old mod that added some additional racial enemies, I think it was SimDong's TweakPack. Still, it probably just added new entries to Races.IDS. Rebuilding everything from scratch is a bit harder. ToBHack pls?

    I really do like spellbook of Ranger. Suddenly it feels much more 'supportive' and blends with the skillset instead of becoming really bad Druid. I am not sure about what I feel about Ranger's not have an access to Faerie Fire. That's a good spell, fits them flavorwise and mechanic-wise.

    Hunter's Eye seems to be an awkward name for this spell. And possibly it should somehow scale into lategame, maybe by increasing Backstab modifier more at later levels?

    I'm all for mass Longstrider. I often use Haste just to move my party over locations.

     

    Archers

    - loose 2-weapon fighting style free points

    - loose any animal-based powers (let it be charm or companion)

    - loose Hide in Shadows?

     

    As overall, I'm all for restricting Rangers to Leather Armors but then they require some really strong features so his kits (which usually just restrict them to Leather armors) can have new disadvantages.

  13. Silly thing, but Refinements managed to actually implement additional +2 bonus to AC/ST against Racial Enemy. Look up Racial Nemesis HLA.

     

    Also, what do you think about making Racial enemies much more... generalized? Now this ability is just narrow and terrible. But if we could choose between:

    - Beasts

    - Humanoids

    - Monsters

    - Undeads

    - Extra-Planars

    Nearly any choice except of Beasts becomes good here. And that's what we call a choice!

  14. - implementation of Ranger's Quarry innate ability (after brief study a single target suffer AC and physical resistance penalties and cannot hide) and small upgrades to both Tracking and Animal Empathy

    I believe you could actually make Quarry give Ranger +x to Attack Rolls and Damage against chosen target. Not sure if that's possible but I'd say it could be nice.

    Also, I'd really love to have Rangers limited to Light Armors just as they are in DD4, but not sure if we can find advantages big enough to justify that. (being able to achieve mastery in swords and bows?)

  15. I'd say it could become party-friendly at higher levels.

    Spell is really broken in BG1 if party-friendly. Cast Entangle, massacre people with bows.

    In BG2 spell starts to be a bit less relevant, so some buff to it would be nice.

     

    Level 1-9: not party friendly

    10+: party friendly

     

    I'd actually love to see more spells working like that and gaining more than just ST penalties and damage while mage progresses.

  16. Similiar to Fighter and Paladin, Ranger could give his allies some kind of aura on later levels.

    Bonus to Silent Movement and Hide in Shadows could be great for your team's thieves.

    Immunity to Entangle would actually make the whole thing much more tactical.

    Bonus Movement Speed for everyone seems pretty high in terms of powerlevel.

    Either Protection from Animals or +2 bonus to AC/Saves against them seems cool as well even if that's just small bonus.

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