I thought I read before launch that kit balance changes were something they'd like to do postlaunch

PugPug

Did I make that up in my head?

Drusyc

To be fair, the following kits are underwhelming:
Warrior's Wizard Slayer
Ranger's Beastmaster
Druid's Shapeshifter
Cleric's Priest of Helm
Mage's Enchanting School
Thief's Swashbuckler* (Not terribly useless)
Monk's Dark Moon
Sorceror's Dragon Disciple

The following kits are overpowered:
Paladin's Blackguard
Paladin's Inquisitor** (BG2)
Paladin's Cavalier*** (BG:EE)
Bard's Blade
Mage's Wild Mage
???

In that respect, only the Wild Mage is *really* overpowered because of NRD, and the mechanics for Inquisitor/Cavalier are redundancy checks that allows clerics/mages to memorize something other than dispel magic.

So it leaves the underwhelming kits (except Wizard Slayer, which is truly poor) to be fixed. I had fun with all of the kits but Wizard Slayer and Priest of Helm. Instead of patronizing the team, perhaps make a Feature Request to suggest how these kits could be fixed which are both reasonable and according to the 2e lore that is available to us.

For example, With the Priest of Helm:
True Sight is a useful skill, but that spell level is occupied by Iron Skins (Druid) and Righteous Magic (Cleric) that would be an "absolute staple" for those levels, so we can spare a slot for True Sight. Instead, The first spell that Helm provides can be Globe of Invulnerability, because its use is useful in early game, where we would expect, and still carries fairly well when absorbing spells mid-late game. The other spell, Seeking Sword, while useful in melee actually neuters a Cleric because of the spell casting loss. Since Clerics can make useful self-supporting tanks, allow them to continue casting touch spells OR allow them to cast spells that only affect themselves.

PugPug

Drusyc said:

Instead of patronizing the team,

My post is entirely sincere.

Drusyc said:

perhaps make a Feature Request to suggest how these kits could be fixed which are both reasonable and according to the 2e lore that is available to us.

I have.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for your input. I just want to clarify things.

secretmantra

@Drusyc

I actually disagree that Dragon Disciple or Swashbuckler are underpowered. I haven't tried any of the others, but those both play quite well.

bgplaya

I can confirm that swashbuckler works quite well for me, though I am no D&D pro to judge what's over or underpowered. I was dealing out decent damage though, better than any thief I've used before. That being said, I never used backstab extensively in my previous strategies, which is the Swashbuckler's main weakness.

Lord_Tansheron

Swashbuckler is actually a pretty good kit. In certain versions of BG2/ToB I'd even say it's the best thief kit, and one of the best melee kits overall.

I also disagree that Blade is overpowered - it's a decent fighting bard, but it's not better than most class combinations involving fighters, or even certain thief setups.

Inquisitor is powerful, not sure if I'd go as far as saying it's overpowered, though. Maybe not in the sense of overall balance, but when compared to other Paladins? Maybe Undead Hunters are just too weak?

DrHappyAngry

2nd Ed D&D wasn't balanced and wasn't meant to be, some stuff is just more powerful than other stuff. And that's the way I like it

Drusyc

@secretmantra not underpowered, but underwhelming. I get the same effect out of fighter/thieves, or even Blades with knock. Sorry if I wasn't clear. :-)

Edit: @Lord_Tansheron inquisitors are the best kind of redundancy imo, and I really like having one on the team. If I had to solidly plant my feet in my opinion, only wild mage would be op and only wizard slayer would be up. Everything else is up in the air.
As for the blade, I think when I wrote the post I included the blade because there's nothing they're really bad at. All their avenues are covered in a single class and kit. Once we introduce multi- and dual- classes I'd take a fighter/mage.

Paheej

Drusyc said:

If I had to solidly plant my feet in my opinion, only wild mage would be op and only wizard slayer would be up.

lolwut.

I need you to explain this opinion.

Fardragon

The Dragon Disciple is slightly weaker than a basic sorcerer, but given that a basic sorcerer is very very overpowered, it is still belongs in the overpowered catagory.

But balance isn't really an issue in 2nd edition DnD. They only one that needs looking at is the Wizard Slayer, since that is so weak that it is simply not fun.

Drusyc

@paheej Wild Mage's NRD doesn't obey the one cast per round rule, which single handedly makes a high level wild mage (I've had good luck with as low as 6, actually) infinitely better than any other school of mage in the game, and then improved alacrity is ridiculous since NRDing high level spells = possibly 6-12 more level 2-9 slots.

Wizard Slayer on the other hand has a kit ability that is inapplicable to any battle wher e a mage survives for fewer than 4 rounds of melee combat (i.e., none in Bg1, maybe liches in bg2?). Not only that, but magical equipment is mostly offlimits, which hinders their ability to perform with adequate immunities or advantages.

Lord_Tansheron

I'm not sure I follow how Wild Mage is supposed to be OP. Sure they can cast a lot of high-level spells, but they can also cripple you to devastating effect. And do you really NEED to cast so many high-level spells through NRD? Resting is practically penalty-free and I can't really think of a fight where you'd need to stand and chain lvl9 spells all day long.

Besides, WM can't even dual-class, meaning you're stuck with a pure mage that has a risk of doing nasty things to you. Certainly not something I would call "overpowered".

Schneidend

Blackguard, OP? What? They sacrifice the passive effectiveness of Grand Mastery for daily powers. Seems like a fair trade to me.

TJ_Hooker

Schneidend said:

Blackguard, OP? What? They sacrifice the passive effectiveness of Grand Mastery for daily powers. Seems like a fair trade to me.

I think it makes more sense to compare them to their base class, Paladins, rather than Fighters. In that regard:
-Restricted to evil: pretty much meaningless, given how little BG enforces alignment
-Cannot cast Detect Evil: this ability was useless anyways
-Cannot use Lay on Hands: I think the Blackguard's Absorb Health ability makes up for this. Sure, you can't heal others, but this is offset by the fact that it can heal the Blackguard and damage an enemy at the same time
-Cannot cast Protection From Evil

So pretty much you're trading PFE for Poison Weapon, Aura of Despair, and immunity to level drain and fear. Sound like a fairly one-sided deal (in favour of the Blackguard) to me.

I don't really care whether they're OP, and I'm not advocating that they be nerfed, though. There are other kits whose advantages significantly outweigh their penalties.

ajwz

Well, we are still post launch, so I'd say they are well within the announced time frame.

Drusyc

I'm not really comparing to other classes, just the kits to their respective base class.

@Lord_Tansheron When would you say mages have game-breaking strength? Level 9 or 11 ish? So with an NRD and chaos shield, you have zero-delay spells which have an automatic:
19-29% chance of normal effect
13% chance of an effect that is immediately bad
~15-25% chance of an effect that is not beneficial or detrimental
~33-43% chance of an effect that is beneficial or 'different' and otherwise useful for the caster.

In other words, upon entering SoA, your Wild mage is only bad for your team 13% of the time for a single spell cast of NRD, and you can always skip NRD. If you get a non-beneficial effect, you spent a cast-time 1 spell waiting for the spell to fizzle, and then you can cast again. What else would you have done with that time? Moved around?

At level 13, the Wild Mage has access to Improved Chaos Shield. Your chances at level 13 of those same effects immediately jumps to:
33-43% chance of a normal effect.
7% chance of an effect that is immediately bad (6 bad effects are completely removed from the wild mage's boo table)
13-23% chance of an effect that is non-beneficial or detrimental (2 neutral effects are completely removed from the wild mage table
21-31% chance of an effect that is beneficial or 'different' and otherwise useful for the caster.

In other words, very early into SoA, your wild mage is only bad for your team 7% of the time for a single cast of NRD, and now he is more flexible at the cost of 1 level 7 slot per fight. Not only that, but you don't need to cast a ton of huge spells; you can cast many smaller ones in a shorter time frame. Instead of wasting any spell slots at all on say, Acid Arrow (which would be launched once in a round), you could launch 4-5 acid arrows and completely shut down an enemy mage for the entire duration of their lives.

At level 20, where the maximum acid arrow benefit would occur, your chances of success are automatically 40-50% with Improved Chaos shield.

When you do fail with a caster mod of -5, the following bad effects can happen:

-Caster polymorphs into a wolf
-Target's Hit Points doubled
-Duration Halved
-Target Healed
-Caster weakened

~17% of the effects are useless, and you can cast again instantly. The other effects are beneficial and can be deadlier than the spell you're casting in some cases (no-save hold ain't bad, no-save spell isn't bad either)

Fireballs, skull traps and magic missiles are all fast spells too. You don't need to chaincast 9th level spells. You don't even really need to chain cast NRD. The benefit of NRD is that it is not round restricted, so you can cast it literally whenever you want. That's a strength that outweighs the flaw of being a poor early-game spell.

If you attempt to cast a spell at a caster level higher than your own through NRD, you receive caster level bonuses such that you are casting at the same level as the requirement for that spell. For example, if you're casting NRD Haste at level 1, you automatically gain +4 caster levels, +-5. NRD the Improved Chaos Shield at level 1 = +12 caster levels, +-5. If this is intended, I'm not sure. As it stands, it's very helpful early game.

Is it OP with respect to the rest of the game? Probably not. Is it OP when you're talking about end-game? Well, you're a non-restricted specialist mage with a minimum 51% chance of a favourable effect when using a first level spell on any spell you cast, no matter what. Otherwise, Timestop/Improved Alacrity is ridiculous no matter what discipline of caster you are.

I would take a Fighter/Mage over Wild Mage... but I'd take Wild Mage over any other school of mage. With regards to your resting statement, I could just as easily save/reload any set of spells I desire to exactly counter any hostile group I run into. I could even do it with a basic mage class, and I'm sure I could do it without even memorizing half the spell slots available to me from 1-7. Unfortunately, Baldur's Gate isn't hard.

@Schneidend: I could say the same thing about any paladin kit and the argument would still be as strong because there's nothing a Paladin can do that other classes can't do better.
Just like I could say Druids are pointless because Cleric/Rangers can do the same thing with more hitpoints, better proficiencies, and a wider selection of spells.

Lord_Tansheron

@Drusyc: Relative power levels are a tough thing to judge. Usually it would require high difficulty setups (in-game settings plus mods) so that differences actually have a noticeable impact on your performance. But that also skews things in the favor of certain dual-class combinations...

While I don't doubt the power of a Wild Mage, I simply disagree about the actual benefits. It's just not enough of an advantage, given the high power of mages already, to be able to "abuse" NDR's speed and versatility at the price of bad RNG - would suck to have someone like Ascension Melissan randomly healed at Near Death, wouldn't it... I do agree, though, WM is the best mage specialist - but only because Sorcerers aren't technically mages. And yeah, every mage should be a fighter->mage dual anyway...

But anyway, I stand by my verdict: powerful, yes; overpowered, no.

Drusyc

@Lord_Tansheron your assertion is fair and probably the most logical if we run the numbers for potential bad news in a key fight. I'll probably even curse your name when my wild mage inevitably forces me to reload some day. :P

Schneidend

TJ_Hooker said:

I think it makes more sense to compare them to their base class, Paladins, rather than Fighters. In that regard:
-Restricted to evil: pretty much meaningless, given how little BG enforces alignment
-Cannot cast Detect Evil: this ability was useless anyways
-Cannot use Lay on Hands: I think the Blackguard's Absorb Health ability makes up for this. Sure, you can't heal others, but this is offset by the fact that it can heal the Blackguard and damage an enemy at the same time
-Cannot cast Protection From Evil

So pretty much you're trading PFE for Poison Weapon, Aura of Despair, and immunity to level drain and fear. Sound like a fairly one-sided deal (in favour of the Blackguard) to me.

I don't really care whether they're OP, and I'm not advocating that they be nerfed, though. There are other kits whose advantages significantly outweigh their penalties.

I don't think Blackguards get the +2 to saving throws, though, do they?

TJ_Hooker

Schneidend said:

I don't think Blackguards get the +2 to saving throws, though, do they?

Nah, they still get the saving throw bonus.