Avengers in Enhanced EditionS...
DeathKnight
Member Posts: 93
Lately, i took a liking towards Avengers. A liking with passion. Because their most crippling con, was out of the picture, when you imported a druid from BG1 to 2 and just chose the kit (-2 str -2 con). And because in 2 they can wear the shadow dragon scale armor, which is treated as if it was leather. Now, i want to ask about EE. In 1EE, the kits are already existing and implemented.
What about 2EE, though? If i complete a run of 1EE with druid main, can i choose the avenger kit in 2EE? Will 2EE's shadow dragon plate forged item be equipable by him? Or the whole "avenger wearing shadow dragon scale armor" was a bug from original 2, and will be fixed in 2EE? Also, does the armor of the Grandmaster fit on an Avenger (can be worn by him)?
What about 2EE, though? If i complete a run of 1EE with druid main, can i choose the avenger kit in 2EE? Will 2EE's shadow dragon plate forged item be equipable by him? Or the whole "avenger wearing shadow dragon scale armor" was a bug from original 2, and will be fixed in 2EE? Also, does the armor of the Grandmaster fit on an Avenger (can be worn by him)?
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Comments
The reason you got to choose the kit in BG1->BG2 was that it didn't exist in BG1. In BG1:EE however it does; if you want to play it in BG2:EE, you will have to make an Avenger in BG1:EE, not a regular druid. Importing should proceed without problem.
and -2 to strength? who cares, either shapeshift or pick up one of the many strength enhancing items/potions/spells
They really need to strip their shapechanging entirely as a penalty and just leave them with the extra spells and the same penalties + no shapeshifting. Not much of a loss now, but if they then implemented more useful druid forms, would then be a nice penalty to counter their stronger spellcasting, since then only the vanilla druid would get them.
(I'd actually remove the Shapeshifter's werewolf forms completely and give them the Avenger's extra forms instead, except at lvl 1, with double uses per day at 7+, which would take care of several problems without having to create new resources).
Plus, avengers behave as if they had been the real shapeshifter kit; they gain many forms, unique and powerful, like the baby wyvern, fire salamandra etc. In essence and conception, they are the perfect druids (and lorewise, since they are fanatic warriors bent on revenge, against "civilization" which ruined their forests). Can melee/tank (wear good gear transform wyvern etc), can cast and crowd control (web, doom, chromatic orb etc), they are jacks of all trades. And perfectly damn fine in WHATEVER it is they are doing. Any class, especially single, pales in comparison with them.
Hence why the kit is clearly horribly implemented and needs to have the crap beaten out of it with a nerf bat. It's not only better then the vanilla druid in every way (which automatically makes the kit broken and in need of nerfs), with no real penalty, it's better then the other 2 kits by a huge margin. It's just as badly implemented as the berserker is.
As mentioned earlier, the kit would be much more balanced if they simply removed shapeshifting entirely with the other penalties staying the same.
Even I admit the PnP Avenger is lackluster (+1 weapon prof at creation due to a more martial stance, severe reaction penalty when dealing with non-druids due to viewing non-druids as usurpers, being the only difference from the vanilla druid).
But as implemented, the class has no downside AT ALL, and a ton of bonuses.
But regardless, avengers rock! My favorite leather from 2 standalone is of the viper (or something, which you find in drow city lich room), and from TOB Grandmaster armor (but i do not know if avengers can wear it, that's why i asked).
And, it wasn't a matter of "level 14 druids", it was *the* level 14 grand archdruid, (or whatever the title was), there was only one at a time in the whole world, and you had to find and defeat that character in order to take the title and become level 14.
I can see the problems with implementing that in a computer game, so the big 1.5 million experience bump was their way to simulate the level penalty.
I think that it's the plain, vanilla druid class that needs work, probably in the shapeshifting implementation. In the original 1st edition version of the druid, the shapeshifting was supposed to be one of the main benefits of the class, and it was limited only by the player's imagination, and a few mass restrictions.
It would make a lot of sense to me if the vanilla druid got the good shapeshifting forms currently given to the avenger, the avenger kit had to give up those forms in return for having mage spells, and the "shapeshifter" were just renamed to what it is, Werewolf, and then the wolfie form progression tweaked to be balanced by level, with some actually good, useful abilities in greater wolfie form at high and epic levels. The totemist kit seems pretty well balanced as it is, now that the EE has fixed it so that the player can choose which spirit animal to summon, rather than it being random.
And that xp cap isn't set in stone. A druid that defeats another higher rank druid in ritual combat (as opposed to just jumping and ganking them) immediately advances to the next level. But there are some restrictions to that. An Initiate must be 11 to challenge a Druid and you must be a Druid to challenge an Arch-Druid, and an Arch-Druid to challenge a Great-Druid. A Druid at cap is simply eligible to be awarded the position without combat, if a position opens up via death or resignation.
A Grand Druid however can only be raised by being chosen by the previous Grand Druid who then retires, and only candidates at the xp cap are available for the nomination.
The 1.5 mil cap is to ensure only the most devoted candidates will be eligible for the honor of becoming Grand Druid.
1-11 = Initiate, no limit. (0 - 299,999)
12 = Druid, only 9 in each region (300,000 - 749,999)
13 = Arch-Druid, only 3 in each region (750,000 - 1,499,999)
14 = Great Druid, 1 one in each region (1,500,000 - 2,999,999)
15 = Grand Druid, "There can be only One!" (Xp total reset upon becoming Grand Druid: 0 - 499,000).
16+ = Hierophant Druid, no limit (every 500,000 xp grants a new level).
Main difference is that PnP Druid spell progression stops at 15 (though they get an immediate bump in casting power with levels 1-6th being 7 per day, and 6 per day for 7th, + bonus for high wisdom) (though not caster level) and they simply start getting at-will abilities and powerful passives from 16 onwards, and have maximum level of 20, even when using the High Level rules. Druids simply can't become any stronger then they already are at 20.
Though yes, druid are just supposed to be divine jacks of all trades, via their forms and most of their spell-casting having mostly utility/quality of living functions rather then being outright useful in combat. They do get some options, but are much less battle oriented then clerics.
Avenger is a pure spell caster. Also, the shapeshifts overwrite your strength, so you only need to put enough into STR to carry stuff around. Invest in a strength enhancing item if you plan to use a sling a lot.
@ZanathKariashi
Are you by any chance playing a different game than me? I have played both games as an Avenger plenty of times. I can assure you that their shapeshifting is about as overpowered as the Paladins detect/protection from evil (I.e. fluffy but not all that useful). In reality, you are sacrificing armor (which hurts for a good long time) and the ability to multi/dual class in a meaningful way to get 6 extra spells. I can easily make a more powerful fighter/Druid than an avenger could ever hope to be... which is a moot point because a quasi competent Mage would blow either of them out of the water.
As for the mage, that's just shoddy implementation. Vanilla Druids don't even currently get everything they're supposed to have by core rules (they're actually supposed to function more as jacks of all trades with their animal forms allowing them to fulfill additional roles to make up for the more passive/support nature of their spell-casting, and several passive benefits they currently lack), while mages had pretty much all their balancing factors ripped out, with even spell slots compromised due to basically complete freedom to rest whenever and at high levels due to Project Image not working correctly and Wish-resting (which is one of the examples of a Wish the DM is never supposed to allow, or if they do, only allow it to restore like 4 spells up to 8th level or so per cast, which is supposed to have a VERY heavy cost every time the spell is used).
The Avenger is both the best single-class melee druid AND the best caster druid, and suffer NO PENALTY because the only difference between a regular druid and an Avenger is -2 str at creation (the Con penalty is irrelevant since 16 is the maximum useful anyway), which is irrelevant because your forms replace your str anyway, and str is the EASIEST stat in the game to replace via spells or items.
Spider form and Wyvern form both hit as +5/+4 respectively, making them better then even the Greater Werewolf form is because they can actually HIT the enemies if they require +3 or better to hit, where as Gww caps at +2. They also get more apr (5 and 3) and poison on hit (the wyvern form poison is just as powerful as a normal wyverns, while the spider form poison is a more reasonable), a decent amount of base AC (better then a druid can normally get anyway, barring Black (AC1) or White (AC -2) dragon armors...which are both leather and they can wear if they want to. I don't really use Salamander form ever, except for it's fire immunity, so I can't comment much on it, though what little I did seemed lack-luster compared to the offensive might of wyvern/spider forms.
(Gww form gets an impressive AC, but as far as offense goes, it's pretty bad, losing even to a normal druid at higher levels.)
Their spell casting adds several powerful CCs and a couple extra damage spells to round out their casting, with Imp Invis being yet another anti-caster measure or short term AC buff. All of which Druids sorely lack.
Actually that whole post is straight from the 2nd Ed PHB (aside from the part concerning ritual combat which is from complete druid. The PHB mentions it in passing, but doesn't go too into detail).
@belgarathmth
Unless otherwise specified, when it comes to Baldur's Gate I'm referring to 2nd edition, since BG is supposed based on it and most of the monster's use their 2nd edition stats, and therefore all the classes should be as close to PnP-levels of power as possible as well, IMO.
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I don't have a problem with them changing a kit with a lackluster bonus, or it's benefit/penalty is less tangible or wouldn't fit into BG's system, but I would at least like to see a better job of balancing the kits to the base class. As long as the kits follow the kit golden rule that a kit can never be outright superior or worse then the vanilla class, just a slightly different flavor or play-style, then that's all that needs to be considered, since 2nd edition already has an established dynamic on how each Base class interacts with other base classes, keeping the overall relative power of a kit the same as the base class maintains that dynamic. Every for every benefit the kit has, it needs an approximately equal penalty to force the player to seriously consider if that bonus/new playstyle is worth losing some other significant aspect of the class for it vs just playing the vanilla class.
BG's biggest problem is a tendency to rip out balancing factors, and sometimes give even more bonuses on top. Or like in the case of Bards and Druids, didn't even fully implement the basic features of the class...just tossed a few things in, slapped some duct-tape on it, and called it done.
The Avenger fails because it gets WAY too many benefits over the base druid at effectively no real penalty.
As mentioned earlier, I would find it perfectly acceptable to trade all shapeshifting for the improved spell-casting, since it adds several powerful spells to the druids otherwise lack-luster spell catalog, and stripping them of their shapeshifts would make them more caster oriented. But getting both is just too much.
Especially if they ever tweak the base druid forms to have more utility, there would never be a reason to ever use a vanilla druid if the Avenger got them too AND had better spell-casting for basically the same penalty as a normal druid.
@ZanathKariashi
I suppose I should let you in on a little secret. In BGEE, Avengers shapeshifted weapons count as normal weapons (at least they did, the last time I tried them). Also, sword spider has no poison. There you go, Avenger nerfed.
The only reason the totemic is currently superior to the base druid is due to the basic shapeshifting forms are utterly lacking any utility or benefit to make them worthwhile, and are useless 3 levels before you can even use them, making the no-shapeshifting a non-penalty, which also applies to the Avenger...so if their EE forms are so pathetically weak now, where's the harm in losing them completely since much like current druid shapeshifting, they're pointless and not worth disabling your SUPERIOR spell-casting for.
I'll admit I'm not very familar with every aspect of EE's changes, since I uninstalled it months ago due to all the rampant bugs, inconsistant rule changes, and new exploits (among other things), however I am very familiar with what they get in BG2.
Too many free time, maybe? Lack of a good, or cheap MMO perchance? I do not know about you, but i am not a balance maniac. Kindly request, please if you want to nag and demand things changed and fixed, open another, more appropriately named thread. This is the first forum i have ever seen, in which you demand some info and mechanics of a class, and a bunch of MMO-influenced players flame the class discussed and the mechanics used to implement it.
So rather than 'nerf' the Avenger, the vanilla druid, shapeshifter, and (to a lesser extent) totemic druid all need some kind of *boost*.
There would be no difference to using that mod. The Avenger would get everything the vanilla druid did from it, + extra forms and spells on top and their penalties would still be meaningless.
Though yes, I do fully agree that druids are currently badly implemented, but the Avenger is still overpowered and needs to be nerfed.
Also...get your MMO mentality out of BG. Classes are in a vacuum. What a mage can do has no relevance at ALL to what a fighter or it's kits can do. The only thing that matters is a kit relative to it's base class. Even the other of kits of that class don't factor in AT ALL.
Not even dual or multiclass is relevant. Because there's always a trade-off. (though yes, this is another area BG has royally F'd up, but I've ranted on that part enough in several other threads).
The only thing that matters is how powerful an Avenger is relative to the vanilla druid (assuming it's missing passives and value of it's shapeshifting were overhauled to be closer to their PnP levels of utility and power), in which case the Avenger would get everything the druid did, + some extra forms and spell-casting at no penalty. By taking their shapeshifting, they would have to decide if the extra spell-casting was worth the loss of the utility and benefits the shapeshifting forms bring.
I'm an AD&D (1e, and familiar with 2e) player and DM.
While I don't think that classes need to be finely balanced vis-a-vis each other, I do think that they should be competent. The vanilla druid in BG + BG2 is just too incompetent to be worth playing. The avenger, on the other hand, is competent.
Also: remember that CRPGs =| tabletop RPGs. Rules have to be tweaked to fit into the CRPG format.
Finally, the notion that "classes are in a vacuum" is ridiculous.
Such as the stalker trading some of their ability to use stronger armor for more emphasis on stealth and ambushing enemies. The archer trading their ability to fight well in melee for stronger ranged benefits, or the beastmaster forgoing advanced weapons/armor entirely for an army of devoted animal companions and stealth.
The reason the classes are still in a vacuum is due to that number one rule of kit building. If a kit can never be overall stronger or weaker then the base class, then it's place in the overall Class dynamic doesn't really chance meaningfully, though it might slightly effect their role in the group. All kits exist to do is give you a little more fluff to why you want to play that class, not give you a bunch of free extra abilities.
The Avenger and Berserker are the two most broken kits the game. Their penalties are non-existent, and they get a TON of bonuses on top leaving no reason to ever play the base class, with no downside.
Mages/Sorcerers are the most broken class in general, due to having basically every limiting factor that is supposed to keep Arcane magic in check torn out, and addition of broken spells that undermine what few balances did make it in.
The stalker being up there as well. Though they at least lose something that at least has some value. Their extra mage spells are too much though, especially since Improved Haste is one of them. The armor penalty lines up nicely with the stealth/BS bonuses...but they lose nothing to compensate for the extra mage spells..including one of the single strongest spells of the game, especially when used by a melee class.
Bounty Hunters are up there as well. Traps are extremely powerful and BH get 2x as many, for a tiny penalty that is partially off-set due to getting a skill bonus. (If vanilla thieves got their 10+ scroll use ability, which none of the kits are allowed to have (which also includes the loss of UAI to kits since it's just an upgraded form of the scroll use ability that removes the failure chance for scrolls up to a certain level, based on thief level, capping at 6th), it would be much more balanced).
I actually don't mind them holding off nerfing stuff till the base classes have everything they should, unless it's something blatant like the Berserker (nerf rage benefits, limit to specialization, adds chance of go fully Berserk while raging), Stalker (removes extra mage spells) or Avenger (remove shapeshifting), since those can be nerfed right now.
(Oh but my berserker might die if I lose control. Well then they need to remove wild surges from Wild Mages, cause my WM has TPK'd be several times and losing control of a berserker is always MUCH less dangerous then a wild surge, so I don't even want to hear that BS, especially since you even get to control when it happens).
Still...the spells don't have a penalty....nor do they actually fit the class concept at all (they're basically added exclusively for Valygar's backstory, and have nothing to do with a stalker in general). They could just tack 3 daily uses of minor spell turning to Valygar's sword or armor and he'd have all the anti-mage fluff he'd need.
Take their charm animal, and give them access to Friends at 8 (1st), Detect Invisibility at 10 (2nd), and Clairvoyance at 12 (3rd), instead of the current spells.
Stalkers are supposed to be adept at getting information out of people, finding targets, and quickly learning the lay of the land to better prepare ambushes, so these spells would fit a non-Valygar stalker much more appropriately. And since they're social/situational, aren't worth much, so losing charm animal would be an appropriate trade, since stalkers are more used to dealing with people and in urban settings then a typical ranger.
(Mage Specialists are not kits. Though after re-checking in the Tome of Magic, Wild Mages are considered kits rather then specialists, despite having several similarities to specialists.)
Small steps........the problem is this isn't limited to a few classes. The Avenger just happens to be an easy fix. Just remove the shapeshifting and they're on par with the Totemic, just a caster, instead of a summoner. And then if the base druid is ever overhauled, they won't have to touch the Avenger ever again.
However, should you really feel the need to do something, I have good news. This game is fairly easy to mod. Feel free to make a mod rebalancing all the kits in a way that you see fit and share it with the rest of us.