The party balance problem *spoiler alert*
ZyklonM
Member Posts: 16
Perhaps a bit too late now, didn't notice there was a forum until now. But anyway:
*Spoiler alert*
In BG2 I often end up starting a new game as a thief or a mage just because I don't think that any of the existing mages or thieves (Except for Jan, of course) are good enough. In my opinion, the mage and the thief are the two most important characters in your party, and naturally you want them to be very good. However, this is not the case with Imoen, Nalia, Edwin and Yoshimo. Let me tell you why:
While any of the fighters in the game can get their strenght greatly improved by gear, Nalia and Imoen are stuck with a lousy 17 intelligence and a terrible wisdom score. Sure, you can increase the intelligence or wisdom by one with the help of an ioun stone or by the machine in watchers keep, but that isn't good enough compared to the increased strenght of fighters. Edwin has an intelligence of 18, but he is stuck with the conjurer kit...and I don't like mage kits at all. And he has a terrible wisdom score too. Beeing multiclassed, Jan and Aerie are simply just not good enough as the primary mage. The new wild mage? No thank you, I don't like mage kits. Especially not the chaos factor of the wild mage.
As for thieves, both Yoshimo and Jan are great! The problem is of course that Yoshimo isn't around forever, and therefore I never accept him into my party. Really like him though! Also, I really do like Jan. He is extremely good when combining simulacrum and trap setting... But let's face it, he's not much of a ninja. So when I get tired of Jan, there's not really much to do than make you own character a thief (Imoen and Nalia doesn't count, as they are both dual classed and not good enough as thieves).
A few suggestions:
1. New gear that greatly improves the intelligence and/or wisdom of a mage. Perhaps a new recipe that combines the wisdom ioun stone and the intelligence ioun stone into a single stone with at least +2 to wis and int each? Or more?
2. After Yoshimos betrayal and death, make it possible to resurrect him and yet again use him in your party. Even though I like Jan, I want a stronger thief without having to be a thief myself.
Also: It would be really nice to have a lot more powerful weapons to choose from. I have never put a single profiency into scimitar or club as the existing clubs or scimitars are very bad compared to other weapon types. I like to try out all of the kits, but I would never play as (for example) a beast master because of the wooden weapon thing.
My point is: While every kit and class is playable in theory, I sometimes feel stuck with just two classes because I don't want a weak team. Just a few suggestions from a veteran BG2 player, really looking forward to the enhanced edition!
*Spoiler alert*
In BG2 I often end up starting a new game as a thief or a mage just because I don't think that any of the existing mages or thieves (Except for Jan, of course) are good enough. In my opinion, the mage and the thief are the two most important characters in your party, and naturally you want them to be very good. However, this is not the case with Imoen, Nalia, Edwin and Yoshimo. Let me tell you why:
While any of the fighters in the game can get their strenght greatly improved by gear, Nalia and Imoen are stuck with a lousy 17 intelligence and a terrible wisdom score. Sure, you can increase the intelligence or wisdom by one with the help of an ioun stone or by the machine in watchers keep, but that isn't good enough compared to the increased strenght of fighters. Edwin has an intelligence of 18, but he is stuck with the conjurer kit...and I don't like mage kits at all. And he has a terrible wisdom score too. Beeing multiclassed, Jan and Aerie are simply just not good enough as the primary mage. The new wild mage? No thank you, I don't like mage kits. Especially not the chaos factor of the wild mage.
As for thieves, both Yoshimo and Jan are great! The problem is of course that Yoshimo isn't around forever, and therefore I never accept him into my party. Really like him though! Also, I really do like Jan. He is extremely good when combining simulacrum and trap setting... But let's face it, he's not much of a ninja. So when I get tired of Jan, there's not really much to do than make you own character a thief (Imoen and Nalia doesn't count, as they are both dual classed and not good enough as thieves).
A few suggestions:
1. New gear that greatly improves the intelligence and/or wisdom of a mage. Perhaps a new recipe that combines the wisdom ioun stone and the intelligence ioun stone into a single stone with at least +2 to wis and int each? Or more?
2. After Yoshimos betrayal and death, make it possible to resurrect him and yet again use him in your party. Even though I like Jan, I want a stronger thief without having to be a thief myself.
Also: It would be really nice to have a lot more powerful weapons to choose from. I have never put a single profiency into scimitar or club as the existing clubs or scimitars are very bad compared to other weapon types. I like to try out all of the kits, but I would never play as (for example) a beast master because of the wooden weapon thing.
My point is: While every kit and class is playable in theory, I sometimes feel stuck with just two classes because I don't want a weak team. Just a few suggestions from a veteran BG2 player, really looking forward to the enhanced edition!
0
Comments
Also both Edwin and wild mages rule (like Tiax) and are a lot of fun.
Your are right with the thieves though. I'd be nice to have some kind of pure or fighter/thief for some nice backstabs.
Edit: Int also increases the amount of spells a mage can have in the spellbook, but I always felt that even with "just" 17 int Imoen had enough spells.
A high intelligence score also gives you an extra number of spells.
A high wisdom score gives the wish-spell a purpose.
ok so more wisdom and int would make mages more powerfull, but I think they are strong enough already with contingencys and layers of protective spells and their aoe nukes
When I played ToB even Imoen could cast multiple of Abdul's horrid wiltings in one go and increasing her spell cap even more would just make high level mages way too powerfull, wouldn't it?
I agree that my suggestion would make the mages very powerful indeed. But compared to other classes and kits? I'm not sure. Any paladin, equipped with carsomyr, is too powerful in my opinion. Valygar is a real menace while equipped with the celestial fury and his family blade. But is that really a bad thing?
Ofcourse I never use to high stats as well, strength and constitution is around 10-14 but not 15, then I get an bonus on hit/hp.. Whit high wisdom and intelignece ofcourse
I see your point, but a gamer who likes to max his party out isn't given that chance, right? If I would like to play the game with an average team, I could choose to make my team less then perfect. But i can't do it the other way around, can I?
With my experience as a DM and BG enthusiast alike, I think that some characters can afford to be weaker than others: D&D is a party based game where the whole is emphasized over it's parts.
Gaps in class distributions and differences in power levels are the result of the AD&D 2nd Edition ruleset, and some characters will ineveitably be stronger than others. As such, don't be too concerned about party balance: assembling a reasonable party from a crowd of people of disparate abilities is part of the fun.
If you are concerned about maxing out your party, again, don't be: BG characters are not without fault, much like real people. The NPCs are just as powerful as they need to be.
@ZyklonM:
As for the inclusion of additional weapons, I agree with you: there are some weapon types which see very little use, clubs, spears and morningstars all come to mind. Adding weapons of these types that atleast approach the power of swords and bows would encourage variety in weapon choice.
Since BG1 is full of thieves (too many in my opinion) this could be a solution to the lack of thieves in BG2.
For exemple I'd love to have Coran in BG2, he's one of my favourite characters.
I like to max my party out. While I love welcoming "weak" characters like Aerie or Haer'dalis for the roleplaying fun of it, I just don't find them as useful as a custom mage/cleric or bard, and therefore seldom let them join up. After all, I've already explored their personal quests many times. After a while I get more interested in experimenting with the party build then the dialogue that I already know all about. I want to try out different characters to find my ideal titan-party. I've finished the game with a lot of different parties. Solo as well as four members, five members and six members.
I guess I still have the option of starting a multiplayer game and creating a full party. However, that ruins a lot of the fun. Tried it, but didn't like it. The characters of BG2 are simply fantastic, it's just too bad they are not all given the chance to max out their abilities.
Great idea!
But seriosly, why does the warrior need to compensate for their flaws? What flaws? Think about it, if it where warriors, rouges,bards and wizzards, do you think they would have been equal 1vs1? an Wizzard would just erase an warrior from the face of the earth so to speak. Ifcourse an low lvl wizzard would have gotten his arse whoped.
My opinion is that classes should be diffrent, some better than others. This is prob. most anoying thing whit wow etc, all classes should be able to fight 1vs1, making "all realisme" disapear.
How could ever a fighter,barbarian,ranger etc ever take out an high lvl wizzard? The wizzards stops time and that was that? To take out an high lvl wizzard you NEED an high lvl wizzard, or perhaps an priest would do. Or a dragon might do the trick if the dragon is the attacker ;-P
However, for those who still want to do some powerleveling/perfect party, I don't think a better mage is a wise idea. Mages are extremely powerful throughout BG2 while fighters are pretty much item-dependent.
But a thief would be a good addition. God BG2 thieves suck, wether it's combat, lockpicking, traps, anything. Not being able to really play with a thief's abilities unless your roll one yourself is pretty lame.
He really puts every other mage to shame even with his measly Wisdom stat (that, honestly, is barely relevant for a mage).
Well, probably because I have never made such a claim. There is a difference between being a bad mage (your words) and not good enough by MY standards because of MY distaste for mage kits and his puny wisdom score of 10. See the difference?
Edwin's opposite mage school of divination is one I wouldn't want to skip regardless of how many summoning bonuses a conjurer will recieve. If I want to focus on summoning I'd rather get a wand of summoning and a simulacrum spell. Besides, Edwin is hardly an option for players who want to max out their reputation. But I guess the small selection of evil fighters and clerics is a similar problem, now probably being partly solved through the new blackguard.
Firstly, he's a specialist so he gets bonus spell slots. Secondly, Conjurers aren't that bad since Divination spells can be handled by a backup mage (I prefer Aerie since she's also my backup cleric). Third, while 18 intelligence isn't as good as 19, its still good enough to reliably learn spells from scrolls and not max out your spellbook's spells-known-per-level limit.
Fourth, and most importantly, Edwin's amulet has a hidden ability which gives him more spell slots, thus letting him memorize more spells than a PC can.
And the problem with his 10 WIS can easily be fixed by a Potion of Insight. Those are sold everywhere and drop from enemies sometimes - and the effect lasts a good while too.
1. All specialists gets a spell bonus, even CHARNAME. But the cost is too great - no spells from the opposition school.
2. I do not want to use a backup mage every time I form my party. Sometimes I do, but not always. Sometimes I play a party of four because of the higher character levels.
3. Yes, I agree on that one.
4. Still, no divination spells. That forces you to use Keldorn or a backup mage.
Plus, try to have Edwin in a party with a reputation of 20.
Evil npc are less in number but at least they are stronger: Viconia, Korgan and Edwin are probably the best npcs in the game.
Just my point, because I always play a good/neutral party so that I get to max the reputation