Can someone explain Grand Mastery to me?
I have looked at both BG1 and 2 regarding grand mastery and just can't figure it out. Some people say 1 got it right, others say 2.
I am playing through ToB right now and both my characters use two-handed swords +5, both are wearing boots of speed.
One is a Paladin with ** in two-handed swords, his sheet says he has 3 attacks per round.
The other is a Fighter with ***** in two-handed swords, he also has 3 attacks per round.
Surely the fighter shold have more attacks per round than the paladin?
At the bottom of the sheet, under weapon style bonus both read:
Damage +1
Critical +1
Speed -4
Can someone explain this please?
I am playing through ToB right now and both my characters use two-handed swords +5, both are wearing boots of speed.
One is a Paladin with ** in two-handed swords, his sheet says he has 3 attacks per round.
The other is a Fighter with ***** in two-handed swords, he also has 3 attacks per round.
Surely the fighter shold have more attacks per round than the paladin?
At the bottom of the sheet, under weapon style bonus both read:
Damage +1
Critical +1
Speed -4
Can someone explain this please?
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As far as I know, what it should be is that without any points, you suffer a -4 penalty to hit.
With 1 point, you don't get any penalties or bonuses.
2 points, you get +1 to hit, +2 damage and an additional 1/2 attacks per turn.
3 points, the hit and damage bonuses both become 3.
4 points, the damage bonus goes up to 5 and you gain a -1 to the speed.
and 5 points which is grand mastery, the 1/2 extra attack becomes a full one and the speed goes to -3.
Edit: The developers seem to have misread the table and coded it differently throughout the games.
Shouldn't the fighter be getting 4 or 5 attacks? And the Paladin 3?
So going by that, it should be according to very uncomplex calculations 5/2 (or 2 and 1/2) for the Paladin at high levels and 3 for the Fighter...
But like I edited my other post, there are misreadings of the table by developers which make results vary.
If not a warrior though, you only get to hit and damage boosts.
At the bottom of this page, it compares the weapon proficiency systems between BG1 and BG2. It's not updated for BGEE though.
If the Paladin has 5/2 attacks shouldn't the Fighter have 3?
Base attack: 1
Level 7 gives +1/2 attack; Level 13 gives another +1/2 attack (if you are a warrior class)
Specialization (**) gives +1/2 attack
So the most attacks your Paladin should have is 5/2 attacks (as Kaltzor says), which means he must be getting bonus attacks from an item (perhaps the Gauntlets of Extraordinary Specialization?).
Grandmastery (*****) has been implemented differently in each game in the series as far as attacks go.
In BGEE, it gives +1/2 attack, bringing you to 3 attacks per round
BG2 Vanilla gave no additional attacks, keeping you at 5/2
The popular "True Grandmastery" mod for BG2, on the other hand, gave +1 attack, which bumps you up to 7/2
I am running plain old BG2 but I was not sure if it had been patched at some point.
So now what I want to ask is, is there a mod out there that gives you (the correct?) 3 attacks per round?
Edit:
I was looking at the Baldurdash patch for BG2, I like 99% of what it does, would this "fix" this problem?
The one thing I do not like in the patch is the -DEX Hell Trials bug they got rid of, a very nasty thing to put in the game, evil characters just have to raise a companion, good guys loose a whole point of DEX! Why such a harsh punishment for being good? Would anyone know the name of the file placed in the override file that "fixes" the trials so I could remove it?
Baldurdash is wholly, fully, totally super obsolete, in more ways than one. Don't use it. The G3 BG2 Fixpack contains all the fixes (and many, many more) and the G3 BG2 Tweakpack should contain all the tweaks. (Other than that, Baldurdash is more likely to make GM give you an additional full attack, but that is also available in the BG2 Tweakpack.)
I don't know of a released mod that makes GM grant an additional ½-attack. I wrote an (unreleased) "Reasonable Grandmastery" component many years ago. I suppose this is as good a time as any to hack out the relevant bit. Can be installed in any order with pretty much any mod (last mod installed takes precedence in cases where the other mod also affects the GM APR bonus).
I also figured out the names of the hell trials fix, it was HELLSELF so I just removed that. All the other fixes should be good though!
What does your fix do exactly?
It simply sets GM APR to +1 at levels 1 through 6, +1.5 at levels 7 through 12 and +2 at level 13 and above, i.e, 0.5 APR more than what you get with Specialization at the respective levels.
Using Baldurdash with more modern mods, particularly the G3 Fixpack (assuming it installs, IIRC, it shouldn't if you have BD), can cause problems.
The chart doesn't stack, you only get the benefits of whatever rank of proficiency you have. So at GM, you have just +3 hit, +5 damage, -4 speed, and +1 attacks per round. Nothing else.
With any chart in DnD, what it says is what you have for whatever it affects.
The style bonuses show up on your sheet...not sure about proficiency.
The +1 crit, -2 speed is from * in two-handed style, and the +1 damage and other-2 speed is from the 2nd * in 2hd style.
Also, the reason your paladin has the same number of attacks is due to the fact that boots of speed are bugged and round any half attacks you have up to a full attack (a 13+ paladin should have 2.5 attacks per round when using a specialized weapon (1 base attack, +1/2 for level 7, +1/2 from lvl 13, +1/2 from specialization), while a fighter gets 3 total attacks and an extra +2 hit and +3 damage more per hit when GM'd).
And technically speaking...Paladin, MC fighters, and rangers aren't even supposed to get extra attacks from proficiency. They don't get specialization...they get expertise....which is functionally identical to specialization except it lacks the extra half attack (but due to hard-coding involved in warrior classes, gives them the extra attack anyway....they should actually be like swashbucklers...just getting +1 hit and +2 damage).
Which book would this be? (It doesn't seem to be either the PHB or the Complete Fighter's Handbook.)
Only fighters can achieve specialization (Specialist Fighters), The table also lists different APRs for different weapon types. It should also be noted that proficiency and specialization are listed as "Optional".
Flipping over to C&T, it says under Combat expertise (which is between the proficiency and specialization entries).
Weapon Expertise is a limited form of specialization able to be learned by non-single classed fighters. Specialization and beyond are only available to Single-classed fighters, while Multi-class fighters, paladins, and rangers can learn expertise. There no real rule against a fighter learning expertise as well, but has the same proficiency cost as specialization and is inferior. Weapon expertise only grants a +1 to hit and +1 damage boost to attacks, and does not grant additional attacks. However, it does allow the character to use items restricted to weapon specialists only, if they have expertise in that weapon type.
Not in vanilla BG1 (requires Tutu or BGT to pull that exploit off). It CORRECTLY prevented you from placing additional points in weapon profs if you dualed out of a fighter (specialization is part of fighter advancement, and since you're no longer advancing as a fighter, you can no longer specialize further in new weapons). You kept what you had when you switched, but could never add anymore.
Multiclass fighters get expertise instead of specialization, and X>fighter duals get expertise instead as well, since they aren't single class, which is required for a fighter to get specialization. (Fallen rangers/paladins also don't get it because they weren't fighters at creation, and are stuck with expertise only). (Currently unimplemented, though whether it's a true engine limitation, or just laziness....is hard to say.)