The familiars need help in so many ways...
One of them is as follows:
Expected behavior: Pseudo dragon can knock stuff out with its special weapon.
Current behavior: It cant do that in the least...
Why? Because its only weapon is "s1-3" which is basically just a 1d3 slashing creature weapon. I learned this through Control M. As a side note this thing's thac0 is nowhere near as good as it should be (It hits AC6 at a minimum of an 11. So that is a thac0 of 17 rather than 13 like the description.)
Honestly though... I have noticed that most, if not all of the familiars have bugs in implementation and/or some serious discrepancies in their descriptions. I did some research in BG2 and I think most of these bugs are inherited from there. Seriously though; someone in the developer position should probably just open up all the familiars files and look for bugs and discrepancies. I guarantee that they will find plenty enough to keep them occupied for quite a while as the issues involved in that alone seem quite plentiful.
Expected behavior: Pseudo dragon can knock stuff out with its special weapon.
Current behavior: It cant do that in the least...
Why? Because its only weapon is "s1-3" which is basically just a 1d3 slashing creature weapon. I learned this through Control M. As a side note this thing's thac0 is nowhere near as good as it should be (It hits AC6 at a minimum of an 11. So that is a thac0 of 17 rather than 13 like the description.)
Honestly though... I have noticed that most, if not all of the familiars have bugs in implementation and/or some serious discrepancies in their descriptions. I did some research in BG2 and I think most of these bugs are inherited from there. Seriously though; someone in the developer position should probably just open up all the familiars files and look for bugs and discrepancies. I guarantee that they will find plenty enough to keep them occupied for quite a while as the issues involved in that alone seem quite plentiful.
Post edited by Aedan on
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In the spell description, it's reported that the rabbit has 24 hit points, so that's correct.
In the item description, though, that's written that the rabbit has 16 hit points.
I'm not sure which one is correct (I'm guessing there's just a typo in the description), but anyway I think they should be consistent.
Bye!
I think these OP effects won't remain (like imp lost its save or death poison).
Unmodded bg2 has s1-3. But my modded bg2 has some stun claws coming from @CamDawg.
As for the HP bonus... That becomes very tiny once you reach early-mid BG2. Also, even with the HP boost, your mage is probably still one of the most frail people in your party since their armor likely sucks and 12 HP does not a tank make. The main penalty of having a familiar in the long run is usually 1 less inventory space. I would prefer that using them in combat were actually a risk worth taking.
But arguing that +12HP at level 1 for a mage is balanced is ridiculous.
It is definitely balanced by mage level 12. So giving them 1 of those 12 hps every level till 12 would balance it better.
That being said, I was suggesting a way to balance things. I'm completely for it staying unbalanced and I love it, especially on a Fighter / Mage.
The spirit animals have also been balanced so they scale up to the bg2 level without breaking bg1.
The bonus HP is less of a concern for me though since it just means that your mage may be killed by 2-3 wolf hits instead of just one (yay). I also failed to mention in the above comment that I think the bonus HP becomes kind of "meh whatever" very quickly even in BG1. It certainly does not inspire me to go without some hamster packing warrior backup because I have a tank on my hands. It more feels like a small reward for deciding to make my PC a mage rather than choosing from the abundance of nice mages which all have nice perks in the NPC department. Especially after considering all the nice perks they get such as Xan's Moonblade and Edwin's amulet. It feels quite nice that I finally get a perk of my own other than some really "meh" abilities related to the plot. Like I said before: 12 HP does not a tank make... only a slightly less squishy mage.
Edit: I completely understand balancing the spirit beasts too. Since you start BG2 at a high level there was no need to program low level behavior in them. In BG1 that certainly isn't the case. But I also think that 12 HP is no where NEAR as unbalanced as starting with immunity to half the game at level 1. If you gave me a cloak, for instance, that gave me +12 hp I probably wouldn't even wear it on my mage for very long and instead pick up Algernon's, Wolf, or Displacement cloaks and dump the +12 hp cloak on one of my NPC peons. It honestly isn't that great a bonus IMO.
* a Pseudo Dragon under the influence of Skald Song has a base THAC0 of 11, -4 AC (which would be -7 if it cast it's Blur spell) and does 3-5 damage with it's claws (though sounds like these are implemented as slashing weapons, so would get THAC0 penalties in many situations) with 2 APR (plus of course the chance to stun opponents), and has 50% magic resistance...
I think the extra 9-12 HP at level 1 that you get from Familiars is a little excessive, would prefer it to be a little more progressive e.g. 25% of familiars HP to level 5, then 50% or something. They did scale things the other way around in ToB in that familiars got more HP (and therefore so did your Mage/Bard)
Scales from +200% HP to +22%HP assuming max HP rolls and a +2 con bonus by level 9.
+22% HP isn't that great a bonus? Because that is the worst you get, +200% HP is amazing.
Level 1 no reload on a mage. 6HP and I take an unlucky arrow and I get to end my game. 18HP and I take an unlucky arrow and I get to keep playing.
I don't think comparing it to a cloak bonus is really fair given you are turning it into a if I could pick A or B I would pick B. Where as, with this you don't have to choose. Having one less inventory slot isn't a real downside. It is completely free.
@moopy my point with the cloak thing was comparing the value of 12 hp to other magical boosts. I meant to show that if I had to make a choice I would choose a different bonus. Consider it this way: If 12 HP just once were on a spectrum of the value of effects, it would rank somewhat low in my opinion. I will admit that it is a life saver from level 1-3 but once I got my full party I just let my warriors take all the risks and kept my mage in back to chuck spells and daggers. Besides, he's a wild mage so he needs the health to survive himself.
P.S. Pseudo dragon regenerates. Neat, huh?
What's the Pseudo Dragon's base THAC0 *meant* to be in BGEE? I thought that some of the familiars abilities were toned down a little for BGEE (e.g. the Imp can't polymorph into a hasted sword spider anymore, just a "ordinary" huge spider), maybe they decided to nerf the Pseudo Dragon? Or is it a bug? Another thing not documented in the in-game description, but I did notice that my neutral evil fighter/mage's Dust Mephit does this too...
Id suggest either:
1) keeping the rules re familiars as is, but change the graphic rendering so that even when a familiar is 'in your pack' and safe, its still hopping (or flying) around near you. Perhaps intermittently, and it cant be selected and attacked. Purely visual candy but it would make all casters with familiars more fun to look at and play.
2) Change the rule that you lose -1 constitution permanently. Make it maybe that (just for example) you immediately take damage equal to the full max hp of your familiar if it dies (maybe killing you), and are automatically stunned for 1-2 rounds. And make Find Familiar only castable once per day (or per week if this is possible)
Those are my suggestions.