improvements to current features
Arawn
Member Posts: 3
i have considered these changes heavily before posting them here for discussion and consideration and i would like your opinions.
1) remove free action from FoA+5. after the first time i have always kept the FoA at +4 because the free action feels more as an inconvenience than an upgrade as it prevents some of the more useful items spells (haste basically)
2) equal opportunity backstabbing. ai should not be allowed to do something the player cannot, either i should back stab from the front as the ai currently can (rename it sneak attack for consistency if you want) or the ai should only be allowed to backstab from behind as the player currently does.
3) allow grandmastery in daggers for assassins. this is more a personal opinion but i think this would fit from a lore and rp perspective, besides it would give the kit a little something extra to offset the rather extreme penalty of only 15 points that are almost assuredly used in hide and move silently only, and give it a chance to do something against bs immune creatures
1) remove free action from FoA+5. after the first time i have always kept the FoA at +4 because the free action feels more as an inconvenience than an upgrade as it prevents some of the more useful items spells (haste basically)
2) equal opportunity backstabbing. ai should not be allowed to do something the player cannot, either i should back stab from the front as the ai currently can (rename it sneak attack for consistency if you want) or the ai should only be allowed to backstab from behind as the player currently does.
3) allow grandmastery in daggers for assassins. this is more a personal opinion but i think this would fit from a lore and rp perspective, besides it would give the kit a little something extra to offset the rather extreme penalty of only 15 points that are almost assuredly used in hide and move silently only, and give it a chance to do something against bs immune creatures
0
Comments
Remove the increased backstab mod and +1 hit/damage
Raise skill points per level to 20.
Allow them to be proficient in any weapon a fighter can (and remove the backstab limitation to thief-only weapons, since it doesn't exist in PnP, and a PnP-style Assassin (or any F/T) can backstab with a halberd or battleaxe to full affect if he damn well wants to (that it be melee is the only requirement)).
Change their poison weapon ability as follows- (all saves are made vs poison and effects are non-magical)
1 charge per level. Charges last for 1 round and applying the poison doesn't remove stealth or count as an action. Only one poison can be active at a time.
Poison Weapon is a nested ability with several sub-poisons to choose from whose affects generally increase based on level.
Wounding Poison - Deal 1d3 poison damage, On a failed save also deals 1 damage per second per level.
Paralytic Toxin - Target must save at -2 or be paralyzed for 1 round per 6 levels.
Lethargy Poison - Target takes 1d3 poison damage and is slowed for 3 rounds. Save to negate the slow effect.
Doomroot Toxin - Target must save or suffer a -1 save penalty per 6 levels for 3 rounds. Only applies to saves vs Spells.
Poison use-
Every 5 levels, the assassin gets a +1 bonus to saves vs poison, and a -1 save penalty added to all his poisons.
At level 16 gains 1 daily use of Black Lotus Extract. Applies on the next melee hit. Reduces the target's current hp to 1d4. On a successful save, the target is instead reduced to half their current hp.
FoA+5 is pretty balanced. It's the strongest weapon in the game, and by the time you can craft it, you already have access to GWW to offset the inability to combine with IH. While that's obviously not efficient from a power-gaming perspective, this game was NEVER meant to be power-gamed, so it doesn't matter.
I do agree about the Face-stabbing Bull%^$# though.
Everytime i get ambushed at the docks or slum by those thugs i curse for myself as they appear one after another and backstab everyone in my party.
I love it to bits but god damn it's annoying to lose your party members when they appear. :P
[Edited] :
The assassin is fine. The backstab modifier is great and the poison weapon will make sure that the mage won't be able to cast any spells if he survives the backstab. I feel that they should look at other thief kits before trying to remedy the assassin which in my opinion is the most complete thief kit.
Bounty hunter : Give us something other than just the traps, they are incredible powerful and the maze trap will let you win hard group fights alone. But it gets incredible boring very quickly to place traps before fights and that's it. Try to add something else to them so they truly become a bounty hunter and not only a trapper.
Swashbuckler : I really like the Swashbuckler and it's my favorite kit when it comes to thiefs. But unless you dual class him/her it's going to be one of the most boring classes in the whole game. The one thing that thiefs can fool around with and enjoy is backstabs, this is removed from the swashbuckler. I don't want backstab on him but i would like something else to perhaps use as an ability so it's not just hit-hit-hit. Also the whole level progression with the Damage/thac0 and AC is great, but having to wait over 500 000 experience to get the next bonus is just boring.
Atleast the monk gets something new almost each level...
It's why they removed the assassin's planned x8 BS in ToB....they realized it was worthless and powered up their poison's damage progression instead (and added a slow effect for 15+) (with no documentation on it AT ALL about the changes).
The Bounty hunter is currently the most PnP accurate of thief kits (the vanilla thief would be, except they lack their unique ability (none of their kits get it) to cast spells from scrolls at 10+, which is a pretty big nerf).
And even it's missing some things. It's supposed to have social bonuses when gathering information (possibly reducing the amount of gold needed for aid in BG2 by 5000 for a BH, or only having to pay half as much when investigating the skinner murders), the ability to track as if they were a ranger (and can apply the bonus even in urban settings, were as rangers are limited to the wilderness), as well as lesser poison knowledge, though specialized more in status effects like weakness, slow, or blinding, rather then outright damage or strong effects like the assassin is (and lacks the assassin's bonus to poison use). (and both assassins and BH are supposed to get a large bonus (+15) to pickpocket attempts when attempting to plant poison discreetly on a target's food/drink or via contact....not that it would ever have a use in BG)
@SionIV @ZanathKariashi what you both say is the reason i proposed a "minor" change to the assassins proficiencies, after a while the bs multiplier becomes simple overkill and inmune creatures become more common, x7bs is just useless, i mean 5 pips in daggers wont amount to too much extra damage, the + to hit would be the most useful as the apr bonus is just for fighters