Bards and HLA traps

mjs

Do these traps always set? What does the game check against? Obviously thieves have Set Traps ability, but Bards don't.

Chow

I believe they work always, whether on bards or thieves.

mjs

Do you think this is a bug or feature?

Oxford_Guy

mjs said:

Do you think this is a bug or feature?

Feature

mjs

makes the set traps ability kind of pointless though doesn't it?

Oxford_Guy

mjs said:

makes the set traps ability kind of pointless though doesn't it?

Not for the normal traps

mjs

but for the most powerful traps in the game? given how find traps, open locks, stealth are the most used thief abilities, i wonder how many people even put points into set traps until these others are up to 100%? or if they do at all considering that the HLA traps don't even check against the ability

Oxford_Guy

mjs said:

but for the most powerful traps in the game? given how find traps, open locks, stealth are the most used thief abilities, i wonder how many people even put points into set traps until these others are up to 100%? or if they do at all considering that the HLA traps don't even check against the ability

I don't usually dual Imoen or Safana in my games, and often rely on Invisibility rather than hide in shadows for them (since removing traps doesn't affect Invisibility, but does remove hide in shadows), so they have plenty of points over by about level 6/7 to put into Set Traps, even Shar-Teel as a fighter>Thief can have plenty of Thief points spare later if dualled at Level 3. If going the hide in shadows/move silently route (for scouting and backstabs), then you will have less points to spare, unless you have two thieves in your party (e.g. In one of my current parties I have Montaron on hide in shadows/move silently/pick pockets, with Imoen on Find Traps/Open Locks/Set Traps).

BTW the normal traps get stronger at level 6 onwards:

Level 6 Trap:
Deals 2d8+5 damage to any enemies within the area
of effect of the Trap when it goes off. This is non-magical damage
so Magic Resistence can't stop it (as is the same for all initial
damage of later Traps).

Level 11 Trap:
Deals 2d8+5 damage to any enemies within the area
of effect of the Trap when it goes off. In addition, for the next
three rounds, it deals 2d6 poison damage per round (hence
resistence or vulnerability to poison also affects the damage).
In addition, this extra damage also disrupts spell casting (like
Melf's Acid Arrow).

Level 16 Trap:
Deals 3d8+5 damage plus 4d8+2 fire damage to any
enemies within the area of effect of the Trap when it goes off.
Like poison, any vulnerability or resistence to fire also effects
the extra damage.

Level 21 Trap:
Deals 3d8+5 damage plus 20 poison damage to any
enemies within the area of effect of the Trap when it goes off.
Plus, enemies must Save vs Death with a +4 bonus or die instantly.
Again, the poison damage can be reduced or increased according to
resistence/vulnerability.

Taken from the excellent thief guide here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/470765-baldurs-gate-ii-throne-of-bhaal/faqs/27550

Unfortunatly it was written for BG2 so it doesn't have info on lvl1 traps, hopefully someone else can help us out there.

BTW obviously in BGEE the highest thief level you can reach is 10, so would be max of two traps/day at the "level 6" effectiveness. The Level 11 Traps and upwards are *nasty*, though!

mjs

@oxford_guy

awesome i did not know that. i never used to bother with traps, not even the HLAs before i came to this forum

you guys are the best. knowledgeable, eager to share and nice about it

Oxford_Guy

mjs said:

@oxford_guy

awesome i did not know that. i never used to bother with traps, not even the HLAs before i came to this forum

you guys are the best. knowledgeable, eager to share and nice about it

No worries, I only found out about this because I found out from someone else! :-)

Oxford_Guy

BTW this is how the Bounty Hunter's special traps progress from Level 6 (also from C. Lee's guide):

Level 6 Special Trap: Deals 3d8+5 damage to any enemies within the
area of effect of the Special Trap when it goes off. In addition,
enemies must Save vs. Spells with a -4 penalty or be slowed for 5
rounds. (Like normal Traps, the initial damage is non-magical.)

Level 11 Special Trap: Deals 4d8+5 damage to any enemies within the
area of effect of the Special Trap when it goes off. In addition,
humanoid enemies must Save vs. Spells with a -1 penalty or be
held for 5 rounds.

Level 16 Special Trap: All enemies within the area of effect when
the Special Trap goes off must Save vs. Spells or be affected as
Otiluke's Resilient Sphere for 7 rounds.

Level 21 Special Trap: All enemies within the area of effect,
regardless of Magic Resistence, are Mazed as the spell of the same
name (except Spell Trap and the like cannot stop it from occuring).
The Maze lasts according to intelligence, as according to the
actual spell.

TJ_Hooker

mjs said:

but for the most powerful traps in the game? given how find traps, open locks, stealth are the most used thief abilities, i wonder how many people even put points into set traps until these others are up to 100%? or if they do at all considering that the HLA traps don't even check against the ability

You have to remember that you only start getting get HLAs at 3 million xp. For rogues, a lot of people will take Use Any Item as their first HLA, and even if you take nothing but traps from then on, ignoring other cool HLAs like Assassination, it'll take some time to build up a decent repertoire. Maybe be the end you'll be using nothing but HLA traps, but I think the normal traps will remain relevant for the majority of the game.

Oxford_Guy

TJ_Hooker said:

mjs said:

but for the most powerful traps in the game? given how find traps, open locks, stealth are the most used thief abilities, i wonder how many people even put points into set traps until these others are up to 100%? or if they do at all considering that the HLA traps don't even check against the ability

You have to remember that you only start getting get HLAs at 3 million xp. For rogues, a lot of people will take Use Any Item as their first HLA, and even if you take nothing but traps from then on, ignoring other cool HLAs like Assassination, it'll take some time to build up a decent reportoire. Maybe be the end you'll be using nothing but HLA traps, but I think the normal traps will remain relevant for the majority of the game.

I agree, it's like saying that a Blade is the only worthwhile Bard kit, because *all* Bards get access to the HLA song, removing the main disadvantage of a Balde, *BUT* that's not until level 24 at a minimum (probably later, as UAI is usually worth taking first), that's a very long time to wait until getting a decent song, especially if starting at Level 1 in BGEE. Of course Blades have other advantages, but it never ceases to amaze me (especially with ridiculous dual builds that don't dual until level 20 or something) how many people seem to think how strong you are right at the end of the game is everythiing...

Ahem! Sorry, rant over...

Chow

What's so great about UAI anyway? Especially for bards, who can already use almost anything.

Maybe it lets you wear full plate and wield Carsomyr, but you're still not going to hit anything with that weapon and the armor stops you from casting spells. I never really saw it anything that great to bother with, and, in case of bards, always went for the improved song first.

Lord_Tansheron

Also keep in mind that the really difficult fights (especially those added by the nastier mods) will feature enemies immune to traps anyway.

Honestly at this point in BG2/ToB I'm questioning whether it's even worth it to have a Thief gaining levels past 13. Rather dual it to Fighter!

Chow

Lord_Tansheron said:

Honestly at this point in BG2/ToB I'm questioning whether it's even worth it to have a Thief gaining levels past 13. Rather dual it to Fighter!

I prefer multiclassing. Assassination combined with Whirlwind Attack is absolute murder.

Corvino

@Chow UAI allows a lot of marginal gains that add up to big bonuses. Things like going from offhanding Belm to offhanding the Scarlet ninja-to, and being able to use a helmet, and a half-dozen other little upgrades including stuff that normally only NPCs can use.

Admittedly it's probably better for a thief who is otherwise more restricted in gear choice to start with, but it still goes a long way for a bard.

Oxford_Guy

Chow said:

What's so great about UAI anyway? Especially for bards, who can already use almost anything.

Staff of the Magi, Staff of the Ram, Ring of Wizardry (and similar items), Cloak of Vecna, Cloak of Archmagi, Scarlet Ninja-To (the *only* +3 speed weapon), Helm of Balduran, Azuredge (if not good-aligned already), all non-bard thief-specific items, NPC-specific items etc.

Also, if soloing, Jesters mat not want Improved Bard Song, as it's best for a party, whereas Jesters song is offensive.

Lord_Tansheron

Chow said:

I prefer multiclassing. Assassination combined with Whirlwind Attack is absolute murder.

You don't need Whirlwind except for the one guy wielding FoA+5 - Improved Haste is simply better and lasts a lot longer, too.

I do agree that Assassination is nice - but as I said before, many of the truly difficult enemies are immune to backstabs anyway

chickenhed

Oxford_Guy said:

I agree, it's like saying that a Blade is the only worthwhile Bard kit, because *all* Bards get access to the HLA song, removing the main disadvantage of a Balde, *BUT* that's not until level 24 at a minimum (probably later, as UAI is usually worth taking first), that's a very long time to wait until getting a decent song, especially if starting at Level 1 in BGEE. Of course Blades have other advantages, but it never ceases to amaze me (especially with ridiculous dual builds that don't dual until level 20 or something) how many people seem to think how strong you are right at the end of the game is everythiing...

Ahem! Sorry, rant over...

I wanted to chime in here because of how much I agree with this. It actually irks me when people talk about an end-game build like it is attainable within the first few hours of the game.

Sure (using your Blade example here), a blade has no weaknesses at later levels, but that is LATER levels! All of BG1 and half of BG2 are DONE by the time you get that! Well over 100 hours of gameplay!

It is why I rarely dual or multi class in the game (some exceptions for dualing of course but I won't get into those). I like to enjoy my chosen class's benefits as early as possible. If I'm choosing a blade, rest assured it ISN'T because of his late game power. But because of his early to mid game enjoyment.

Now, as you said, "rant over".

Oxford_Guy

chickenhed said:

Oxford_Guy said:

I agree, it's like saying that a Blade is the only worthwhile Bard kit, because *all* Bards get access to the HLA song, removing the main disadvantage of a Balde, *BUT* that's not until level 24 at a minimum (probably later, as UAI is usually worth taking first), that's a very long time to wait until getting a decent song, especially if starting at Level 1 in BGEE. Of course Blades have other advantages, but it never ceases to amaze me (especially with ridiculous dual builds that don't dual until level 20 or something) how many people seem to think how strong you are right at the end of the game is everythiing...

Ahem! Sorry, rant over...

I wanted to chime in here because of how much I agree with this. It actually irks me when people talk about an end-game build like it is attainable within the first few hours of the game.

Sure (using your Blade example here), a blade has no weaknesses at later levels, but that is LATER levels! All of BG1 and half of BG2 are DONE by the time you get that! Well over 100 hours of gameplay!

It is why I rarely dual or multi class in the game (some exceptions for dualing of course but I won't get into those). I like to enjoy my chosen class's benefits as early as possible. If I'm choosing a blade, rest assured it ISN'T because of his late game power. But because of his early to mid game enjoyment.

Now, as you said, "rant over".

I couldn't agree more, I don't even usually dual Imoen, though do dual Shar-Teel to thief at Level 3. Also, I don't mind multi-classing nearly as much as dual-classing- at least you get to play both the classes you want to play from the off, fighter/mage, illusionist/thief and fighter/thief are all still fun IMHO, as well as ranger/cleric, though it's a bit broken and cheesy, as gets both cleric and *druid* spells (all levels)

ZanathKariashi

I'm not very fond of the implementation for UAI anyway. The PnP equivalent isn't even an a high level ability, it's class feature that thieves and bards get at lvl 24, Thieves get the ability to cast spells from scrolls (up to 5th level without failure, fairly high failure chance for 6th+) automatically at level 24 and that's it, and Bards get the ability to use items that are normally Mage-only automatically at 24 and that's it. And then later at 27, Bards get the ability to scribe scrolls of any spells they know as if they were a mage. At 25 both get the ability to craft potions, following all the same rules as clerics (lvl 8)/mages (lvl10) do.

Chow

Thieves get the scroll use ability as early as level 10, not 24.

ZanathKariashi

Yeah, you're right about that, the lvl 24+ ability just removes the chance of failure for spell levels 1-5 (misread it) At lvl 10 they can use scrolls but suffer a 25% chance of screwing up the cast (either failing to work, function harmfully on the caster in someway, etc etc, depending oh the spell and how the DM wants to handle it when attempting to use any scroll), though the bard one about using mage-only stuff is correct (and after re-reading they also get a no-failure for casting from scrolls of spells levels 1-5, though they already suffer a much lower chance of failure then thieves do).

TJ_Hooker

Chow said:

Lord_Tansheron said:

Honestly at this point in BG2/ToB I'm questioning whether it's even worth it to have a Thief gaining levels past 13. Rather dual it to Fighter!

I prefer multiclassing. Assassination combined with Whirlwind Attack is absolute murder.

How do you use them both at once? They both have a 1 round duration.

Lord_Tansheron

chickenhed said:

Sure (using your Blade example here), a blade has no weaknesses at later levels, but that is LATER levels! All of BG1 and half of BG2 are DONE by the time you get that! Well over 100 hours of gameplay!

It is why I rarely dual or multi class in the game (some exceptions for dualing of course but I won't get into those). I like to enjoy my chosen class's benefits as early as possible. If I'm choosing a blade, rest assured it ISN'T because of his late game power. But because of his early to mid game enjoyment.

Now, as you said, "rant over".

Keep in mind that people don't play the same game a lot of the time. Once you start loading up on difficulty-increasing mods (which is a dire need given how easy the vanilla game is), you'll start worrying about power pretty quickly

To each his own, of course, but when playing modded the most challenging fights simply are towards the "end" of the game. You can beat the early/midgame with pretty much anything, but the differences really start to kick in once you face things like Red Badge, Lunar Eclipse, Pontifex or Ascenion's Amelyssan.

It helps to view things as sort of balancing each other out - you can choose OP dual-class variants, so people make mods that are difficult enough for those. Doesn't fix the mistake at the beginning (i.e. allowing things like Kensai->Mage to begin with), but mitigates the damage. True, RP may suffer, but it's a world of trade-offs. It all depends on how you want to play. Ascension on Insane isn't for everyone, but neither's vanilla!

Chow

TJ_Hooker said:

How do you use them both at once? They both have a 1 round duration.

Improved Alacrity.

TJ_Hooker

Chow said:

TJ_Hooker said:

How do you use them both at once? They both have a 1 round duration.

Improved Alacrity.

How does a F/T get Improved Alacrity? Unless you're talking a F/M/T with the level cap removed.

Corvino

I suppose you could cast it IA from a scroll. What @Lord_Tansheron said is probably more effective though - get to 5 attacks unbuffed then use improved haste to get to 10, then mix in Assassination and Critical strike for giggles.

Lord_Tansheron

It's amazing that after all these years people still don't know how ridiculous Improved Haste is

Flail of Ages+5 is an important issue though, since it comes with Free Action attached which prevents haste effects. Given how it's arguably the best weapon in the game you really want to give it to a fighter that does have access to Greater Whirlwind...

Also, to my knowledge there are no IA scrolls, since it's a HLA spell and all...

ZanathKariashi

Yeah, the 10th level spells don't exist as scrolls.

Kensai -> Mage is a legitimate PnP class (actually the PnP version is even stronger because it's allowed to use bracers/gauntlets...the only thing they can't equip is physical armor or bows/x-bows, since it restricts their precise movement based attack style) (aside from the fact they can achieve GM, which is wrong (they're limited to specialized only with mastery (***) in 1 weapon type, or no specialization except for one weapon if you aren't using GM rules), and their kai and hit/damage bonuses are only supposed to apply with their Mastered weapon type), but..that aside).

Mage robes aren't considered Armor, and allow enough freedom of movement for delicate Reality warping magics with very complex hand-signs and gestures, so I'd imagine they could be used just as well for a kensai (and most clothing can be altered to a large degree as you see fit, if certain elements of the robe were in the way, without hindering it's magics, if any.