In tabletop I hardly think mages would be resting in the room next door to a boss fight in the middle of enemy held mines
Tabletop tends to not have mines filled with 40+ bad guys that 6 people are expected to deal with without dying or running out of ammo/spells, either... In BG you'd be stupid not to rest in mines (or leave for days to find an inn but leaving your problem unsolved) just to stay alive. Even resting 6 times, I still needed to pray to the RNG gods to survive the first dungeon in BG.
Tabletop also doesn't throw 100,000s of gold worth of equipment at you every 5 steps. There are so many free or cheap wands available, you can literally blast your way through the whole game solo without ever memorizing a single spell (I've done it, I know). It's why wands and casting from scrolls even exist, to bolster your limited number of daily spell-casts.
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
Psh, "balance" just means "fairness".
No, "balance" means "boring".
I was in the SWTOR beta long enough to watch all the fun and variety being sucked out of the game by frantic attempts to balance the classes.
D&D was designed to reflect both real life and fantasy literatature, where everyone is NOT equal, and quite often the guys with the least power are the biggest heroes (Tolkien being the prime example).
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
Psh, "balance" just means "fairness".
No, "balance" means "boring".
I was in the SWTOR beta long enough to watch all the fun and variety being sucked out of the game by frantic attempts to balance the classes.
D&D was designed to reflect both real life and fantasy literatature, where everyone is NOT equal, and quite often the guys with the least power are the biggest heroes (Tolkien being the prime example).
I know, I was being polite. Now, eeeeveryone's gotta shine. Me, I prefer playing support characters. One of my favorites was a Cleric in a game of Labyrinth Lord, but she's another story, for another thread. It might be fun to make her into an NPC mod, though...
The mage table is no good and if I ever learn to mod I would adjust it. But until that day comes I gladly play with a bad, inconsistent or whatever table.
By the way, is there a simple way to do this? The road to modding might not be that hard at all?
Adjusting the XP table is quite easy. All you need is a modding tool, like NearInfinity, to edit XPLEVEL.2DA. Change the numbers to whatever you like and save (saving will export the modified 2da file in override).
To revert the changes, you can simply delete "XPLEVEL.2DA" from the override folder.
The rules are published, they apply to all players equally, that is completely fair. I love the eccentricity of the experience tables and class powers. Working with those oddities is just part of the game. You don't like, there's plenty of other games out there...
2nd ed AD&D was once a great RPG in the same sense the Model T was a great car. The Baldurs Gate games were great CRPGs in spite of the 2nd ed rules not because of them. It would have been awesome if Beambog's contract had allowed them to make major changes so the game could be remade in 3.5 ed rules.
No.
This set of rules is part of the fun in Baldur's Gate.
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
...in non MMORPG game...
MMOs had a lot of imbalance as well in the early days. I remember Ultima Online and Everquest pretty fondly though frustrating at times. Ultima Online being a open world PvP and Everquest being a primarly D&D 1st edition type PvE game. Both were lots of fun. I'll admit now MMOs are pretty watered down and most have ever class as simply dps of a different flavor.
I like different rules sets for different purposes. I enjoy the 2nd edition rules in BG more than I enjoyed the 3rd edition rules in Neverwinter Nights. On the other hand, I wouldn't run a PnP game with either set of rules.
I kinda think of 2E and 3E being like the imperial and metric systems, respectively (my only experience with either ruleset is with video games though). 3E, like the metric system, is so much more logical, straightforward and streamlined, and yet there's something more natural and fluid about 2E, the same way the word "miles" flows off the tongue so much nicer than "kilometers". They both feel appropriate in different situations.
I kinda think of 2E and 3E being like the imperial and metric systems, respectively (my only experience with either ruleset is with video games though). 3E, like the metric system, is so much more logical, straightforward and streamlined, and yet there's something more natural and fluid about 2E, the same way the word "miles" flows off the tongue so much nicer than "kilometers". They both feel appropriate in different situations.
Kind of with you, there. I'm playing in a 2nd Edition game on a play-by-post message board, but I have lots of v3.5 experience. ...still like BECMI more, though.
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
Yeah, darn this new generation and their newfangled ideas about everybody at the table feeling powerful, and not just the Wizard who pored over the PHB and spell list the most.
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
Yeah, darn this new generation and their newfangled ideas about everybody at the table feeling powerful, and not just the Wizard who pored over the PHB and spell list the most.
A good DM would make sure your rules obsessed wizard was stimied, and only the 3rd level halfing thief (with maxed out gardening and smoking proficences) can throw the magic ring into the Crack of Doom.
I love things that where designed in the days before people became obsessed with "balance".
Yeah, darn this new generation and their newfangled ideas about everybody at the table feeling powerful, and not just the Wizard who pored over the PHB and spell list the most.
In 3.5e, you could feel powerful as a Cleric, Druid or Wizard! Not just Wizard! That's progress!
In the 1E and 2E games I played longest it was usually the Paladin who was top dog. Although at different times I remember high level Clerics, Rangers or Thieves who were the real powers in the party. Rarely a mage. Any class in 2E can be an impressively powerful character if played well.
A good DM would make sure your rules obsessed wizard was stimied, and only the 3rd level halfing thief (with maxed out gardening and smoking proficences) can throw the magic ring into the Crack of Doom.
True enough, sir. Your words carry with them great wisdom. Still, I prefer Pathfinder and 4E where everybody gets to be awesome in their own ways. Less work for me as a DM AND as a player.
In the 1E and 2E games I played longest it was usually the Paladin who was top dog. Although at different times I remember high level Clerics, Rangers or Thieves who were the real powers in the party. Rarely a mage. Any class in 2E can be an impressively powerful character if played well.
I think this one might be a direct result of the Paladin's +2 to saving throws. More opportunity to be awesome when you can avoid more save or die nonsense, eh?
I disagree. This is a single-player game, so "balance" really means "fun."
Baldur's Gate may be a single player game, but Dungeons and Dragons is NOT. BG attempts to emulate, as much as is reasonable, the PnP game experience. If you where designing from scratch for the computer you would do things completly differently, but that would sap the game of much of it's appeal, much of which is due to the quirkyness and excentricity of the PnP rules. Without them it would just be Generic Fantasy XXII.
If a game is "unbalanced" such that a single tactic/item/character is clearly and *uniformly* superior than another one, the game becomes rote and boring.
The tactic of giving yourself all the best stuff via the console is most effective. The game does nothing to prevent that, you're the DM, you can do what you like. The fun comes from gathering an eccentric band if interesting characters who may not have optimum skills and resources, and who bicker and argue, and beating the game that way
This could have to do with cheese (scrolls of protection from magic/undead) or with simple game design (what use is the 4th-level Neutralize Poison when it is functionally identical to the 2nd-level Slow Poison? Why did they bother to expend the resources to code that spell?)
Because IT'S BASED ON PnP, spells are included because they are IN PnP, not because the computer game needs them.
This could have to do with cheese (scrolls of protection from magic/undead) or with simple game design (what use is the 4th-level Neutralize Poison when it is functionally identical to the 2nd-level Slow Poison? Why did they bother to expend the resources to code that spell?)
Because IT'S BASED ON PnP, spells are included because they are IN PnP, not because the computer game needs them.
In PnP the 2nd level slow poison did not have the same effect as the 4th level neutralize poison so I think that is a critique of coding/game engine and not PnP. In fact, I am not sure what connection slow poison being done in a way that is better than the PnP version has to do with a discussion of balance (the same classes cast both spells; neither the classes nor the spells are OP relative to the rest of the options out there).
In the 1E and 2E games I played longest it was usually the Paladin who was top dog. Although at different times I remember high level Clerics, Rangers or Thieves who were the real powers in the party. Rarely a mage. Any class in 2E can be an impressively powerful character if played well.
I think this one might be a direct result of the Paladin's +2 to saving throws. More opportunity to be awesome when you can avoid more save or die nonsense, eh?
I think the biggest is the player not the class. While there are some luck and situational issues involved, it seems usually the dominant character belongs to the dominant player. And that does mean different characters can dominate in the role playing/story sense while another is dominant in combat. But assuming we're talking the power/combat sense of the term here, it always seemed to me it was the players who spent the most time knowing the game and their characters who dominated regardless of class. With my longest running gaming group, the guys who liked mages were clearly style over substance and only rarely got the most out of their characters. While the guys playing paladins (especially cavaliers), rangers (to a lesser extent) and clerics (one particular spectacular example in the highest level game I played in) really knew how to work their characters and rule the battlefield.
Based on the first few years I gamed, I would have said mages and Druids were pretty worthless. It took a while for me to overcome that bias and realize a Mage in particular could be very powerful if played well. Of course it also took a couple years before my own powerful paladin was facing off against higher level mages and I really started to see the special challenges they could present. And that relates to my current view that any character in 2E can be dangerous, powerful and respected if they are played well. The reverse also holds true. If any particular character in their middle teens (level-wise) is NOT dangerous, they probably aren't being very well played.
True enough, sir. Your words carry with them great wisdom. Still, I prefer Pathfinder and 4E where everybody gets to be awesome in their own ways. Less work for me as a DM AND as a player.
This is pretty much why I prefer to run 4th edition D&D. As a DM, I try to achieve a balanced distribution of "usefulness" between the characters. Doing this in 2nd/3rd edition can really tax your ingenuity when you have to come up with a new means of preventing the Wizard (or Spellcaster in general for 3.X) from stealing the show every time. I can then take up that time and effort and apply it to crafting a better story with more branching points and opportunities to blaze completely unexpected trails. That said, more recently I've been drawn to Mouse Guard, Cog Wars, or Legend over any edition of D&D.
It's weird because the idea behind the XP tables, as explained in the 2e player's handbook, is that classes that are weak at low levels should advance more quickly. The slowest at low levels, the Ranger and Paladin, are quite strong at that point.
I see why thieves and bards are fast, but a low-level wizard seems weaker to me than a low-level thief. Especially assuming your characters won't have 85+ stat points to go around.
Wizards are brokenly powerful at all levels (The PnP charm person can last for MONTHS depending on the intelligence of the target (it lasts until they make a save against it), and if you cast it without the target being hostile to you they don't get a bonus to save, and targets you've buttered up to actually get a penalty...the duration between checks after the initial one is based on their intelligence and the average person (10-11 int) would only get to check every 3 months to break the effect (and unless you did something during the duration to effect their opinion of you negatively (they still remember everything that occurs while it's in effect), you'll actually BE on friendly terms with them when it expires since their only memories of you will be as a good friend)..it takes 18 int just to get the duration between checks down to 24 hours). At lower levels, you tend to fight lower level targets, and 1 well placed spell can turn the tide of battle. Especially if you find a wand or some scrolls to boost your daily spells with, (And you'll have bags and bags of darts to throw at the enemy who will usually have between 1-8 HP unless there's only 1 tough target which might have 2 or 3 HD, so for those first few levels, you're pretty well set). This is the same at all levels, except you go from inconveniencing the enemy with your limited spells per day to making Reality your %^$&# with your slightly less limited spells per day. Using wands, rods, staves, scrolls and other magic items to fill in the gaps.
Controlling WHEN a wizard finds a spell is the DM's main way of controlling their power. Otherwise you could just take Animate Dead Animals (a level 1 spell) at creation and animate a few, permanent until destroyed minions to attack your enemies, each spell can create a total HD of skeletal animals equal to the caster level, split evenly between all the created undead. (so at level 1, you could get a 1 HD (1d8 hp) skeleton animal, 2 1/2 HD (4 hp each) skeleton animals, or 4 1/4 HD (2 hp each) skeleton animals) (or even 8 1/8 HD (1 hp each) if you want a horde of 1 hit wonders...army of skeletal rats) (A caster can only control up to double his caster level in Undead HD at one time, no matter which spell or class ability they come from...so if you were a Necromancer and had two casts memorized, you could have 2 1 HD, 4 1/2 HD, 8 1/4 HD, 16 1/8 HD or some combination not exceeding 2 HD total at level 1).
Druids are ok....just the majority of their spells aren't very flashy and more utility based, rather then direct combat advantages..and then there's that whole mess that starts at lvl 14-16 that massively bogs you down to discourage players from being high level druids...but if you can stick it out long enough to become a Heirophant Druid, you basically become a physical god by the time you hit lvl 20 (No longer age, immunity to poison and natural disease, immunity to natural fire, cold, acid, and electricity, and 75% resistance to magic elemental damage, can breath without air, and move through non-magical stone and earth as if it were water...and travel to any elemental plane at will, take on the form of any elemental equal to your HD at will, summon an elemental equal to your HD once per day for each element, permanent tongues/comprehend languages
Something to remember is the 2nd ed tables are largely inherited from 1st edition, which was disigned with the idea that most characters would retire at about level 9, and it could take several sessions to go from level 1 to 2.
Getting way off the tracks here. Baldur's Gate, a CRPG, may be based on the pen and paper rules but that doesn't mean they fit perfectly or that you can compare the two systems. It's not a bad thing, it's just how it is.
It's weird because the idea behind the XP tables, as explained in the 2e player's handbook, is that classes that are weak at low levels should advance more quickly. The slowest at low levels, the Ranger and Paladin, are quite strong at that point.
I see why thieves and bards are fast, but a low-level wizard seems weaker to me than a low-level thief. Especially assuming your characters won't have 85+ stat points to go around.
Well, a low-level wizard can trivialize encounters with a single sleep spell, so I'd say they're more powerful than a low-level thief; they're just really fragile at low levels due to low hit points, bad AC, and few spell options to make up for that until higher levels. It is odd, though, by that rationale, that they start leveling up faster as they start getting really powerful spells.
Comments
I was in the SWTOR beta long enough to watch all the fun and variety being sucked out of the game by frantic attempts to balance the classes.
D&D was designed to reflect both real life and fantasy literatature, where everyone is NOT equal, and quite often the guys with the least power are the biggest heroes (Tolkien being the prime example).
To revert the changes, you can simply delete "XPLEVEL.2DA" from the override folder.
That's what XPLEVEL.2DA looks like:
http://iesdp.gibberlings3.net/files/2da/2da_tob/xplevel.htm
No.
This set of rules is part of the fun in Baldur's Gate.
Thanks!
Not just Wizard!
That's progress!
In PnP the 2nd level slow poison did not have the same effect as the 4th level neutralize poison so I think that is a critique of coding/game engine and not PnP. In fact, I am not sure what connection slow poison being done in a way that is better than the PnP version has to do with a discussion of balance (the same classes cast both spells; neither the classes nor the spells are OP relative to the rest of the options out there).
Based on the first few years I gamed, I would have said mages and Druids were pretty worthless. It took a while for me to overcome that bias and realize a Mage in particular could be very powerful if played well. Of course it also took a couple years before my own powerful paladin was facing off against higher level mages and I really started to see the special challenges they could present. And that relates to my current view that any character in 2E can be dangerous, powerful and respected if they are played well. The reverse also holds true. If any particular character in their middle teens (level-wise) is NOT dangerous, they probably aren't being very well played.
I see why thieves and bards are fast, but a low-level wizard seems weaker to me than a low-level thief. Especially assuming your characters won't have 85+ stat points to go around.
Controlling WHEN a wizard finds a spell is the DM's main way of controlling their power. Otherwise you could just take Animate Dead Animals (a level 1 spell) at creation and animate a few, permanent until destroyed minions to attack your enemies, each spell can create a total HD of skeletal animals equal to the caster level, split evenly between all the created undead. (so at level 1, you could get a 1 HD (1d8 hp) skeleton animal, 2 1/2 HD (4 hp each) skeleton animals, or 4 1/4 HD (2 hp each) skeleton animals) (or even 8 1/8 HD (1 hp each) if you want a horde of 1 hit wonders...army of skeletal rats) (A caster can only control up to double his caster level in Undead HD at one time, no matter which spell or class ability they come from...so if you were a Necromancer and had two casts memorized, you could have 2 1 HD, 4 1/2 HD, 8 1/4 HD, 16 1/8 HD or some combination not exceeding 2 HD total at level 1).
Druids are ok....just the majority of their spells aren't very flashy and more utility based, rather then direct combat advantages..and then there's that whole mess that starts at lvl 14-16 that massively bogs you down to discourage players from being high level druids...but if you can stick it out long enough to become a Heirophant Druid, you basically become a physical god by the time you hit lvl 20 (No longer age, immunity to poison and natural disease, immunity to natural fire, cold, acid, and electricity, and 75% resistance to magic elemental damage, can breath without air, and move through non-magical stone and earth as if it were water...and travel to any elemental plane at will, take on the form of any elemental equal to your HD at will, summon an elemental equal to your HD once per day for each element, permanent tongues/comprehend languages