Capstone bonus
Sindyan
Member Posts: 146
One thing that I would like to see someday is to borrow the idea if capstone bonus from ddo.
I feel people who play their class as pure should have a benefit that makes it worth it instead of dual and multi classes which are more powerful in almost all cases. This way it would not make dual and multi classing useless but it would balance the classes.
I do understand 2e is not balanced very well.
Maybe this could be a Hla or someone.
I feel people who play their class as pure should have a benefit that makes it worth it instead of dual and multi classes which are more powerful in almost all cases. This way it would not make dual and multi classing useless but it would balance the classes.
I do understand 2e is not balanced very well.
Maybe this could be a Hla or someone.
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Comments
First, BG2 level cap. I cannot recall playthrought I legally reached it.
Second, balance. Many people of this forums will be against it, claiming that a single-player game doesn't need a balance (which is simply not true, IMO) etc. Also, PnP purists might be against it.
It's a videogame, not a PnP DnD session. At least we can agree on that, can't we?
The very fact that @God agreed with you is disturbing.
As much as I am aware of the fact that this is a dream never to come true, I would still greatly enjoy a 'nerfed' rather than 'enhanced' rendition of Baldur's Gate. There is, of course, a lot of desirable enhancing that can be done but I'd rather play the game vanilla but with all the silly things fixed and properly balanced. Mind, I design things myself and if I worked without setting myself some standards like the folks at Black Isle did, you would now sport a grassy giraffe head growing on your back, have turnip wheelbarrows for hands and aquaria filled with violet hump-backed toads instead of eyes. I actually created creatures like these but I hid them in the depths of the ocean. There is nothing harmful little harm in my expecting others to follow standards similar to mine, even though I know they can't.
And a capstone bonus could be something to think about but only after the game is repaired.
If so, then why playing Baldur's Gate instead of Pen and Paper DnD session? I think you must have know that videogame had to had it's limitations and differences from PnP for a reason.
Unless it involves jumping, flying, climbing, mounts, swimming, or destruction of the environment, it's do-able in BG. And some of those can be worked around.
And I know all too well that video games, especially the big and complex ones, have limitations - I develop games myself, too. However, technical limitations are no excuse for overlooking serious gameplay issues that trouble BG. Besides, having modded my IE games quite a bit, I know that Infinity Engine's limitations are rather few and far between and the only problem is that these limitations are largely hardcoded within the game files themselves and can't be easily manipulated like other, external resources. Whereas modders can fix or alter certain portions of the game, the program itself should undergo proper quality assurance carried out by the devs. This includes, but is not limited to, what ZanathKariashi proposes. If my company was responsible for overhauling Baldur's Gate, I'd also e.g. revamp the interface (probably more IWD2/NWN style, that would allow for much greater flexibility), resolve technical level design issues (mostly pathfinding) and rewrite AI from scratch. But, since it's up to Beamdog and not me, let 'em do it their way.
...And that's all I'll say on that matter, since it's super off topic. I've always been a fan of capstones; I also am intrigued by the idea of only giving high-level abilities to the base classes, as a trade-off for the kits being "more powerful". Of course, that would then also require some kit rebalancing; the Wizard Slayer, for instance, would need to be beefed up a bit in order to be competitive.
If proper penalties/benefits were applied to classes/kits, you really would have to sit down and think whether or not a kit was worth taking over it's vanilla class.
Just a handful of examples since the list is massive.
Only vanilla fighters can go above specialization. This is explicitly mentioned in the CF and C&T books for mastery and above (and optionally, and highly recommended by both books, that mastery and above require at least lvl 9 before it can be attained, pushing GM up to lvl 15 minimum). Kits gain other benefits/playstyles, while the fighter is a just a general melee combatant.
(the kensai's mastery of their chosen weapon is built into their class-features, a fighter even with GM, cannot hold a candle to what a kensai can do using the same weapon, and were Mastery limited to lvl 9+ as the books recommends, the Kensai would always be better with that weapon, instead of just most of the time).
(Obviously the Wizard slayer is in dire need of a massive overhaul...but...it just depends on if one of it's iconic abilities (passive bonus that allows them to ignore hit-requirements of a particular level, with non-magical weapons, since they can't use ANY magical equipment) is feasible to implement. The monk can do it, because their fist weapon actually changes to a new one with the proper flags....but the wizard slayer does it with any melee weapon, I mean there's ways to workaround that, but if that mechanic is possible, it would also allow for implementation of the Imbue with Magic druid spell (allows unarmed/natural attacks of creatures to by-pass some hit requirements, based on caster level) which would be a huge boon to druid shapeshifting/animal summons.)
Vanilla thieves get the ability to cast spells from scrolls at lvl 10 (50% base success, -5% per spell level, +5% per point of int over 14). No kit gains this feature. Also, unlike BG, UAI (Thief) is acquired automatically at 24 by vanilla thieves and removes the failure chance of their scroll use ability, depending on class level (up to 6th spell level by 30).
(Limiting HLAs so that only BH's get epic traps, only vanilla thieves get UAI (changed to only allow them to use scrolls and wands instead of anything), only assassins get Assassination (but can now select it multiple times, similar to WWA), and only Swashbucklers get WWA (as current) would go a long away to making the classes distinctly useful).
I also wouldn't mind seeing racial caps enforced for mutil-class characters, or change HLA to be gained based on level, instead of total xp. Currently MC have no real disadvantage and end up with about 7 more HLA then a single class does, and are overall more powerful on top, especially the dual-caster MC's.
Proper druid spell-casting. at 15 their base spell capacity jumps to 1-6th: 7, 7th: 6, but never improves further (their caster levels continues to progress until level 20). And instead of HLA, starting at 16 and every 3 levels there after they gain 1 daily use of Elemental Summoning (totaling 7 casts at 31), which upgrades to Greater Elemental summoning at 22.
This isn't PnP though. The game isn't going to be PnP (I'm not happy about certain PnP bonuses not included like wisdom and int bonuses) however some of you want to nerf and attack to ridiculous levels.
BG throws out MASSIVE amounts of overkill at the player's disposal, to the point you don't even have to learn the game to play. And people STILL want more buffs to things that are already buffed so high even a munchkin friendly DM would be sick of all that $%#^.
And that isn't even touching the monty haul and lack of limitations (casters especially were just given a free-pass to do whatever with no disadvantages, aside from spell-capacity which even that is mostly a joke due to the ease of resting whenever and several means of by-passing it, through exploits or VERY bone-head design decisions that took what the DMG says you should never do, and did the opposite)
You could implement every single nerf and buff I've ever suggested (I've implemented a lot of the easier to implement ones already to my own game to test out before suggesting them), and new player would have just as much trouble picking up the game as they do now, and they would learn the ins and outs just as fast as they do now.
The only difference is, even once they gained experience, the game would still remain fairly challenging without the need for mods, and they could freely choose a class/kit for playstyle/fluff, without worrying over the fact that they chose a vanilla fighter but a berserker can do everything they can, better, with no real downsides, and a massive over-buff on top.
The problem though is the scope. BG has evolved into a beastly mess of random house rules that clearly favor some classes/kits while the rest were just kind of tossed in, and a few were nerfed on top of just being tossed in willy-nilly, making the class much weaker then it should've been.
(in no particular order)
1. Base Mechanics
2. Base Classes
3. Kits
4. Spells/Abilities
5. Items
6. Monsters/Npcs
7. Quests/Storyline
8. UI
Some of those, especially spells/abilities are massive and interlaced with several other areas, especially ensuring kits perform correctly.
It's all wishful thinking....but currently only the developers have the access needed to open up or change things that haven't been possible before. Even if they can't implement something themselves, at least making sure all the tools and systems possible to make something happen are available to modders is better then nothing.
I did, however, witness WotC sue someone just because they used the name and general idea of a "beholder" without official approval (sometimes known as $), so it might not be such a good idea, after all. Though, who knows, perhaps both they and Atari would see it as a relevant compromise with the community if they, too, would be getting an extra bit of revenue.
I'm all in favor of you getting the mod tools required to do so.
As I've said, I'm not opposed to making quite a few more things closer to PnP to actually make them useful and better. However I do read your post and a lot of them are very long and usually contain things that won't translate well into a game system. If for example you wanted to change a wizard slayer(I know I do) make a post like these are the current advantage and disadvantages of the wizard slayer, I'd like to change them to, then make a list that has things that are at somewhat closer to PnP that can actually be put into a CRPG. A lot of the lore has features that simply cannot be put into a CRPG system, if that's the case then take ideas or find a way to translate them into the game system to the best of your ability. You have done this to a certain extent with some of your post, but I recommend toning it down a bit more.