I think there is a viable reason there is no Katana +5 in ToB...
Which is?
Katanas already do more damage per hit than other swords, and thus making one +5 would severely compromise the viability of, say +5 Longswords and Scimitars. By keeping katanas at +4 maximum, you give the other types of sword an edge that makes them good choices.
That's one reason, anyway. I have no idea if it was the one IkMarc was getting at.
Which is why we have +8 daggers I suppose. I've always found this a silly justification, as by the time you're using +5 weapons you're choosing them more for the special abilities than (possibly) 2 entire points of damage.
@TJ_hooker : I forgot about starting gold. I did it with a Fighter/Mage where the starting gold was over 100 but I just rolled a blade (18 str/18 chr) and was 50 gp short of purchasing it after looting and questing through Candlekeep (without resorting to killing or pickpocketing). Starting gold is what killed me as the game only gave me 40 gp.
The trick is to get and sell the dagger +1 as well for 150 gp (without paying to get it identified using either the spell; or I thought with a bard, tethoril's scroll), with firebead's 300 and other gold just lying around. The Katana cost 635 with a CHR of 18
Breakdown:
Katana 635 (/w 18 chr) - 130 starting gold - 300 firebead - 150 dagger + 1 - 20 from Hull - 18 from the chest /w the scrolls - 15 from the chest outside the bunkhouse - 5 for killing rats gives you 3 whole gp to play with and a bunch of other stuff to sell after purchasing the katana.
You need high Charisma and/or the Friends spell to get the +1 Dagger, or good enough pick pockets score to steal it (without reloading, as that's cheating, obviously)
I think there is a viable reason there is no Katana +5 in ToB...
Which is?
Katanas already do more damage per hit than other swords, and thus making one +5 would severely compromise the viability of, say +5 Longswords and Scimitars. By keeping katanas at +4 maximum, you give the other types of sword an edge that makes them good choices.
That's one reason, anyway. I have no idea if it was the one IkMarc was getting at.
This, and that Katanas would become überweapons throughout the whole game. Celestial Fury is one of the strongest weapons, if not the strongest weapon in SoA and you can pick it up early game. Now if there would also be a +5 katana in ToB they would just be too good to specialize in from the beginning, reducing the incentive to experiment with other weapons. Its one of those things that sounds really cool, but when you actually have it, it becomes lame and boring very quickly.
I am pretty sure the developers have given this plenty of thought and this was their reasoning.
@deltago doesn't Firebead only give you 300 gold? Winthrop charges 750 gold for the katana (not including charisma/reputation discounts). I think the only ways to get the katana in Candlekeep would be:
-Steal it from Winthrop if you're a thief or bard -Get the star sapphire if you're a thief
If you begin as a thief with aobut 65 opening locks skill points, you can get easy money on the second floor of Winthrop's inn, more than one thousand golds.
Now if there would also be a +5 katana in ToB they would just be too good to specialize in from the beginning, reducing the incentive to experiment with other weapons. Its one of those things that sounds really cool, but when you actually have it, it becomes lame and boring very quickly.
I wouldn't want the +5 katana to be overpowered, but honestly, I think it's clearly inferior as it is now. If it would just be made +5 it would be arguable. It would still suck as a damage dealer compared to the others, but not that much and the buffs it has would be cool, albeit quite situational.
On a side note, I don't consider speed factor to really be important enough to factor it into a decision of which weapon to use.
Actually, if you have a weapon with a speed factor lower to the one wielded by the enemy you can hit him -> run away without giving him the time to attempt an attack -> wait for 6sec (less if you have more than 1ApR) -> face him and attack again -> run away and so on. That's the main reason why daggers are so awesome, imo.
In d&d you would give an opportunity attack, but hey xD
For BG EE actually a katana isn't worth to have, i hope the devs introduce a katana +2 with a later update. In fact every kind of weapon shoud have at least 1 example of it enchanted as +2 in BG EE. And Each item that doesn't have a version of it +3 should have special abilities on his +2 version, otherwise people will aways tend to use the cheese weapons.
In BG2, after they update the mod, use the "item upgrade mod" and make Celestial fury a +5 weapon , roleplay the moment of the upgrade to avoid lame the fun by the lost of challenge (a +5 celestial fury can be pretty cheese at the early moments of BG2).
For BG EE actually a katana isn't worth to have, i hope the devs introduce a katana +2 with a later update. In fact every kind of weapon shoud have at least 1 example of it enchanted as +2 in BG EE. And Each item that doesn't have a version of it +3 should have special abilities on his +2 version, otherwise people will aways tend to use the cheese weapons.
In BG2, after they update the mod, use the "item upgrade mod" and make Celestial fury a +5 weapon , roleplay the moment of the upgrade to avoid lame the fun by the lost of challenge (a +5 celestial fury can be pretty cheese at the early moments of BG2).
Why choose a long sword with a 1d8+2 at character creation when you can choose a weapon that does 1d10+2.
Why choose a long sword with a 1d8+2 at character creation when you can choose a weapon that does 1d10+2.
It is fine as it is.
Yes, if it were like that, you would be right. But it's not, since not only does the long sword has a +2 variant, it also has bonus damage. What would make them equivalent is if they were to make them both +2 and give the long sword something extra. Currently all the other swords (the magical ones) have better damage and to hit than the Katana +1.
Just noticed that Albruin has a +2 dmg bonus over the regular +1 it gets (for being a Bastard Sword +1), so altogether its damage is 2d4+3 (5-11=8 average), which actually makes it one of the highest damage output one handed weapons. So here again, the Katana +1 (1d10+1=2-11=6,5 average) doesn't even get close to it. The only way would be to use the kensai's kai or the blade's offensive spin ability, but that would still only get them to be even during that short period (and katana doesn't have immunity to poison). So my power gamer side, who would like to play with katana, just feels sad...
Why choose a long sword with a 1d8+2 at character creation when you can choose a weapon that does 1d10+2.
It is fine as it is.
One of the things that made sense to me about 3E (or the NWN version of it, at least -- not sure how PnP worked) was that exotic weapons like katanas, two-bladed swords, etc. required extra 'training' for you to use them with the same level of effectiveness as a run-of-the-mill longsword. They might have been stronger in terms of straight statistics, but they still had a disadvantage in terms of feat requirements.
Since BG doesn't have a feat-based system to allow for the same types of penalties, the katana's rarity is a good way to compensate.
Since BG doesn't have a feat-based system to allow for the same types of penalties, the katana's rarity is a good way to compensate.
OK, let's say I give in! Rarity is not a bad thing. And let's say that I won't object to not having stronger Katanas in BGEE, since Katana +1, albeit weaker than the others, is not that bad. Powergamers will still use Varscona, but you can't do anything with that cause there will always be a weapon which is slightly better than others. RP gamers will just have to accept that if they want to use these swords, they will do a bit less damage and have a bit less to hit. BG2 will compensate them with Celestial Fury.
What I will still stand to is that Hindo's Doom could use a buff. The way to make an end game katana equal to other weapons is not to make it a +4, but maybe to give it a bit less buffs than the others. And that d8-d10 doesn't really matter that much at that point of the game I think (but I might be wrong). If they could make Hindo a +5 weapon I might be satisfied, but even then it would make considerably less damage than the other +5 swords (or the mace, or the flail, or the club...).
I'm also still saying that if we are not getting a buffed katana in BGEE, we could at least have say 2 Katana +1-s in the game, so players would have more options to choose from.
I definitely don't see what the big deal would be with a +5 katana, especially if it were just Hindo's Doom. buffed to +5 The arguments I'm seeing contrary to doing such are mostly hypothetical, like "well if the +5 katana were better or just as good as the existing +5 weapons then why would you ever use anything else?"
Why would someone use a +5 longsword over a +5 Hindo's Doom? Because the +5 longsword in the game already does more damage than a +5 Hindo's Doom would.
I mean, if we want to go with the "why use X if you could use Y instead" argument, then why use longswords at all when you could just go with flail/morning star proficiency? Morning Stars get 0.5 higher average damage in the beginning when compared to longswords, and by the end of BG2 you're still most likely doing more damage than a longsword would with Flail of Ages. If that half a damage difference isn't a big deal when it comes to +5 weapon balance then I don't see why the 1 damage difference on a Katana is.
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Which is why we have +8 daggers I suppose. I've always found this a silly justification, as by the time you're using +5 weapons you're choosing them more for the special abilities than (possibly) 2 entire points of damage.
I am pretty sure the developers have given this plenty of thought and this was their reasoning.
PS. bist du deutsch?
you can hit him -> run away without giving him the time to attempt an attack -> wait for 6sec (less if you have more than 1ApR) -> face him and attack again -> run away and so on.
That's the main reason why daggers are so awesome, imo.
In d&d you would give an opportunity attack, but hey xD
So yeah, this gonna hurt.
In BG2, after they update the mod, use the "item upgrade mod" and make Celestial fury a +5 weapon
It is fine as it is.
Edit: There, I've fixed the title. And thanks by the way
As far as the original question goes... One of the things that made sense to me about 3E (or the NWN version of it, at least -- not sure how PnP worked) was that exotic weapons like katanas, two-bladed swords, etc. required extra 'training' for you to use them with the same level of effectiveness as a run-of-the-mill longsword. They might have been stronger in terms of straight statistics, but they still had a disadvantage in terms of feat requirements.
Since BG doesn't have a feat-based system to allow for the same types of penalties, the katana's rarity is a good way to compensate.
What I will still stand to is that Hindo's Doom could use a buff. The way to make an end game katana equal to other weapons is not to make it a +4, but maybe to give it a bit less buffs than the others. And that d8-d10 doesn't really matter that much at that point of the game I think (but I might be wrong). If they could make Hindo a +5 weapon I might be satisfied, but even then it would make considerably less damage than the other +5 swords (or the mace, or the flail, or the club...).
I'm also still saying that if we are not getting a buffed katana in BGEE, we could at least have say 2 Katana +1-s in the game, so players would have more options to choose from.
Why would someone use a +5 longsword over a +5 Hindo's Doom? Because the +5 longsword in the game already does more damage than a +5 Hindo's Doom would.
I mean, if we want to go with the "why use X if you could use Y instead" argument, then why use longswords at all when you could just go with flail/morning star proficiency? Morning Stars get 0.5 higher average damage in the beginning when compared to longswords, and by the end of BG2 you're still most likely doing more damage than a longsword would with Flail of Ages. If that half a damage difference isn't a big deal when it comes to +5 weapon balance then I don't see why the 1 damage difference on a Katana is.