Balance Question: "One Kit Ever"

Nifft

I'm curious if the following proposal could be broken -- more overpowered than the options we have now.

Here's the proposal:
- Characters may select up to one kit ever.
- When you dual-class, if you don't have a kit, you may choose to gain one in your new class.
- If you have a kit when you dual-class, you may only dual into a base class.

For the purpose of this proposal, let's say Sorcerer counts as a Mage kit. So, you could have:
yes Fighter > Swashbuckler
yes Kensai > Mage
yes Fighter > Sorcerer
yes Fighter > Avenger Druid
yes Berserker > Druid

But you could not have:
no Kensai > Sorcerer
no Berserker > Avenger Druid


In a world where Kensai > Mage is a legal option, is it MORE broken to allow stuff like Fighter > Wild Mage?

Thanks, -- N

bill_zagoudis

i cannot agree with sorcerers/barbarians and paladins multi or dual classing( sorc are just op and disciple will make it worse in dual class situations, barbarians and paladins will be taken for a single level to get free immunities,saving throws,rage even true sight if inquisitor)

kensai/mage multiclass is seriously op,the only reason kensai/mage dual class(apart from the fact it sucks rp wise) are ok is because they have no acces to high level fighter abilities so the +hit +damage bonus(+4 max) is no big deal,likewise he doesn't loose much as a caster but it's of no importance as he'll end up being a caster that will occasionally finish foes with katanas for style, now if tou multiclass him the +4 bonus becomes +7 and he will have acces to whirlwind and critical strike,that's not cool if you consider that he will still have level 9 spells(even if few)

berserker is also very strong and needs care with it's dual/multi class capabilities(i'd rather that he had none)

the rest are ok(like swashbuckler/fighter) but make no sense neither in rp nor in powergame

The_New_Romance

I think apart from having two kits, everything should be allowed. Stuff being OP isn't really an argument in a singleplayer game, just give people a small advance warning when creating powerful combinations. Making sense roleplay-wise is very, very subjective, and I wouldn't want to be the one putting constrictions on other people's fantasy. I say allow dual and multiclassing with kits, at either end, but restrict double-kits.

Fardragon

The kitting and dual classing restrictions in BG have nothing to do with game balance. They are simply down to limitations of the game engine, and, to a lesser extent, the lore explaining kits in 2nd edition (basically, you have a kit because of your background. So you can't dual class into a kit because you can't change your backstory).

FinneousPJ

I think everything should be allowed including two kits, even three kits.

Fardragon

It's not a matter of "allowing" things. They haven't been barred. They simply don't exist in the BG engine.

Eudaemonium

This is actually how I run a lot of my characters. I guess for the most part I see the kits as specialisations more than backstory, and so for me it makes more sense that you would focus on a specialisation *after* dualling rather than before. One of my mains is a Fighter/Assassin, for example. I sometimes orient the dual around certain party members. For example, I RP'd that my Charname began learning poisons from Dorn, and the bonus damage and THAC0 made sense since she was a warrior and more oriented towards combat. The backstab bonuses would only come much later, anyway, and seems like a natural progression of her abilities.

That said, I really want to roll a Swashbuckler/Priest of Talos rather than having to pick one kit over the other.

Lord_Tansheron

I suppose you can fix up a lot of that in SK. Not the Sorcerer dual/multi though (I think) as that's pretty hard-coded...

That being said, I don't think it would be TOO op - if you also increase the overall difficulty of the game. Vanilla BG is too easy already, allowing even more powerful class/kit combinations will just make it boring. But if you add the proper mods and crank up the difficulty, it can actually be fun to have some seriously strong tools to play with.

And btw, a K/M multi isn't actually THAT much stronger than a K->M dual. Fighters don't scale very well past level 13, but mages do; you'd rather have a lot more mage levels than more fighter levels. There comes a point where this is moot, of course, because you essentially max both classes of a multi-class - but only if you play without XP cap, and only very very late in the game (unless your party is very small).

Nifft

Fardragon said:

The kitting and dual classing restrictions in BG have nothing to do with game balance. They are simply down to limitations of the game engine

Almost everything I'm proposing is supported in the game engine.

As you know from playing the original BG1, Imoen could dual-class into a kit (a specialist wizard instead of the base class "Mage").

This is mostly an interface issue, not an engine issue. The engine can handle putting a kit on the 2nd class of a dual-class.

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KidCarnival

It's not making the game easier to have the kit on the "other side". For example - it's already a lot easier for a melee oriented thief to take 2 fighter levels for the simple ability to wear a helm and not be vulnurable to criticals anymore. It wouldn't be game changing to allow dualing to Swashbuckler, but it would make perfect sense that a Swashbuckler would have basic training as a fighter and then specialize.

Roleplay-wise, it also makes sense to learn from NPCs you travel with and would be influenced by their knowledge. For example, if charname travels with Xzar, it's likely he learns a lot more about Necromancy than other schools, and would therefore more likely become a specialist rather than a plain mage. Why waste the insider knowledge you got from an expert? That's why I want "mentor paths" more than anything - learn and improve from NPCs you travel with. It just makes more sense than starting specialized as a 20 years old sheltered kid.

Gallowglass

The_New_Romance said:

Stuff being OP isn't really an argument in a singleplayer game

I disagree strongly.

A game company wants to build a reputation and a fanbase for its game, it wants people to keep on replaying and keep on recommending the game to their friends. For many (probably most) players, replayability is critically dependent upon the game continuing to be a challenge. As soon as a player has found a sure-fire way to beat the game very easily, s/he's quite likely to think ever afterwards that it's now too easy to bother replaying, and furthermore s/he'll tell friends how to beat it easily and many of them will stop playing too.

Sure, some of us diehard fans would still keep playing because we're interested to explore other classes and other styles, but it's a safe bet that many other people would never play again.

The BG series kept people's attention all these years, thousands of people kept on playing it (and developing mods for it) for 15 years after it first came out, and one of the major reasons it lasted so well was that Bioware had been very attentive to game balance in spite of it being a single-player game, so it always remained a reasonably interesting challenge even for experienced players who knew the game well.

Thus, stuff not being OP is one of the factors which made BG a great game rather than a five-minute wonder. So far, Overhaul have not wrecked this great heritage, and I hope they'll continue not to do so. They've moved a little in the direction of overpowering in order to please child players, which has made it slightly easier than before, but I trust they'll be careful not to go much further in that direction.

Nifft

Gallowglass said:

The_New_Romance said:

Stuff being OP isn't really an argument in a singleplayer game

I disagree strongly.

A game company wants to build a reputation and a fanbase for its game, it wants people to keep on replaying and keep on recommending the game to their friends. For many (probably most) players, replayability is critically dependent upon the game continuing to be a challenge.

So, would allowing kits on the 2nd class of a dual-classed character break game balance?

Would it be more broken than a Kensai > Mage, or Kensai > Thief (with UAI)?

That's the question for this thread.

Thanks, -- N

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Nifft

subtledoctor said:

you have ShadowKeeper for that kind of thing.

ShadowKeeper does not boost specialist mage bonus spells correctly.

ShadowKeeper has issues with affects from some kits.

ShadowKeeper is good for some things, but it is insufficient for this purpose.

zenblack

I.E Change the game to work the way that you want. Sounds like a waste of resources when they are already limited.

Nifft

zenblack said:

I.E Change the game to work the way that you want. Sounds like a waste of resources when they are already limited.

How do I change the level-up interface to allow this?

The ENGINE allows it, but not the interface.

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Fardragon

Nifft said:

Fardragon said:

The kitting and dual classing restrictions in BG have nothing to do with game balance. They are simply down to limitations of the game engine

Almost everything I'm proposing is supported in the game engine.

As you know from playing the original BG1, Imoen could dual-class into a kit (a specialist wizard instead of the base class "Mage").

This is mostly an interface issue, not an engine issue. The engine can handle putting a kit on the 2nd class of a dual-class.

Sure, adding a kit to the second class would require a major reworking of the character creation and dual classing interface, not the game engine itself. This would still require a considereable (i.e. non-economic) amount of developer resources.

And why would they do it, GIVEN THAT IT IS NOT ALOWED IN PnP RULES? (Indead, quite a few kits should loose some or all of their benefits upon dual classing). In PnP, if you want something normally disalowed, you negotiate with the DM. In BG, you use an editor.

Oh, and Sorcerer - they are not treated as a mage kit by the game engine. Thus, alowing multi-and dual class sorcerers could NOT be achieved without changing the game engine. (Barbarian could be done though).

Eudaemonium

subtledoctor said:

Eudaemonium said:

...One of my mains is a Fighter/Assassin, for example. I sometimes orient the dual around certain party members. For example, I RP'd that...

But... why not just play an assassin? What does twisting the rules around via SK to dual from fighter get you, except to make the game easier?

Because I like the concept? That's pretty-much the only real reason. Making the game easier hasn't ever really bothered me because I generally don't play BG for the challenge.

Nifft

Fardragon said:

Sure, adding a kit to the second class would require a major reworking of the character creation and dual classing interface

Nah, just putting the Kit screen in after the Dual Class selection, when applicable.

You know, like they had in BG1 for specialist mages.

Fardragon said:

And why would they do it, GIVEN THAT IT IS NOT ALOWED

Calm the heck down, son. Shouting won't raise your Charisma.

Again, I must remind you about specialist mages. You can dual-class into one in P&P rules. It is something "alowed" [sic], both in the P&P rules, and in the original BG1.

Fardragon

The "specialist mage" field from BG1 dual classing was removed from the dual classing screen because when it became the "kit" field it broke the game.

So no, it's nothing like as simple as you seem to think. Nor is the validation required to make sure there is no kit already applied. (the current Dragon Disciple dual classing bug shows what happens when validation is incorrectly applied).

Whilst I would have no objection to reinstating specialist mage selection, since that is not really a kit by PnP rules, I don't think the benefit is equal to the amount of work that would be required. But I oppose the idea of selecting a (true) kit at any time other than character creation, since that goes against what a kit is intended to represent.

What I would like to see is the addition of kits for multi-class, the ability to abandon a kit, and the addition of multi-class barbarians (and dual classing out of, but not into, barbarian).

Multi and dual class sorcerers would be nice, but I think the amount of work required probably outweighs the benefit.

Nifft

Fardragon said:

The "specialist mage" field from BG1 dual classing was removed from the dual classing screen because when it became the "kit" field it broke the game.

My copy of this game isn't broken.

Gosh, it's hard to keep people anywhere near the thread topic.

Fardragon said:

Multi and dual class sorcerers would be nice

I can agree with that.

Eudaemonium said:

Because I like the concept? That's pretty-much the only real reason. Making the game easier hasn't ever really bothered me because I generally don't play BG for the challenge.

Signed. Concepts and variety are my goals with this idea.