New difficulty: Core Rules with max level up HP

rae

I think most of us play with core rules ( poll here http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/7017/what-difficulty-do-you-play-on/ ), but changing to "normal" difficulty on level up.
Since it's tedious, it would be welcome to have the best of both worlds on the same difficulty level.

jethro

+1

alnair

I think there already is a feature request for a separate 'Max HP on level up' option.

TJ_Hooker

I do think this would be handy, but... it's really not that hard to turn down the difficulty slider at level up. I mean, if this is something that's easy to implement, then by all means do so, but otherwise I think they have better things to do.

AendaeronBluescale

Better Idea: Strip max hp from all difficulties, make max hp a toggleable option like in IWD.

ZanathKariashi

Or you know..just play on normal, since the only difference from Core is spell learning, chunking, and hp totals.

It's not like you actually NEED maximum HP rolls anyway.

TJ_Hooker

ZanathKariashi said:

Or you know..just play on normal, since the only difference from Core is spell learning, chunking, and hp totals.

There's also a reduction to monster damage (they do 3/4 of normal).

beo

Yes, why isn't this implemented yet?

Well either this or "Normal" difficulty with full damage.

Or, as @Edwin_Odesseiron said here https://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/24298/about-difficulty-and-level-up

Edwin_Odesseiron said:

I really wish this would be rectified already. Difficulty should only affect damage. That's it.

EVERYTHING else should be a "tick the box" option, from automatically scribing scrolls, to whether or not you want HP rolls to be random.

I've brought up this myself as a suggestion in the past. I've also seen it posted again and again on these forums, but never have I seen or heard any of the mods/devs respond to this matter. Surely it cannot be that difficult to implement, nor do I see a downside to it. By having these "tick the box" options, everyone gets to play the game the way they want to.

and @Kirkor here http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/9112/difficulty-setting

Kirkor said:

Damn, there should be just options to tick:
- Maximum HP per level
- Spells learned automaticaly
- No perma death

So everyone could play the exactly way they like. I like normal setting, but 3/4 damage is too low :S

Was this ever answered? If not, please do.

Edwin_Odesseiron

Indeed. Would a mod respond to this issue already and tell us WHY it can't be done?

Dee

It isn't that it can't be done; it's more that changing the way it works is a deeply involved process, and before we make changes to it we have to be absolutely sure that we're making the right changes and that they don't break anything.

CrevsDaak

Edwin_Odesseiron said:

Indeed. Would a mod respond to this issue already and tell us WHY it can't be done?

Because they would break the Barbarian's HP per level up, they said so before, hundreds of times.
EDIT: typo fixed :P

beo

I don't really understand nature of this problem, though if it is so, maybe it's just another bug to fix?

Supposedly "BG2Tweaks" can be used as some kind of workaround, so why not..

[Deleted User]

BG2Tweaks, unless I'm mistaken, takes a brute force method to doing max HP that can't be turned on and off at a whim. It's a decent alternative, but if you want to, say, run one game at a high difficulty without max HP alongside a game where you do have max HP, it's rather inconvenient to have to uninstall and reinstall your mods when you switch between the two.

beo

Yes indeed, I mentioned it mainly because @CamDawg said Barbarian's hard-coded limitation doesn't actually apply to BG:EE which I assume was the biggest obstacle?

@CrevsDaak said the opposite though.

CamDawg

beo said:

Yes indeed, I mentioned it mainly because @CamDawg said Barbarian's hard-coded limitation doesn't actually apply to BG:EE which I assume was the biggest obstacle?

@CrevsDaak said the opposite though.

The barbarian die size is hardcoded in the original BG2. This was an issue since what Tweaks does is read the table and changes, say, 1d10 to 10d1 (there was a reason for doing this instead of 0d10+10, but it was so long ago I no longer remember). Since the barbarian pulls the number of rolls from the fighter table, but not the die size, it ends up rolling 10d12 under this approach.

BG:EE, BGII:EE, and a TobEx-ed BG2 properly softcode barbarian hit points into their own table, which Tweaks will detect and modify appropriately. EE actually lets any kit create a custom HP table, which Tweaks will detect and modify.

As for an IWD-style checkbox, it's the best approach but a surprisingly involved process.

CrevsDaak

@beo I said it will break the Barbarians HP, they will get 10HP per lvl instead of 12. Oh, now I saw, I made another typo.

AlexDeLarge

Yes please!! I always install the mod feature Max HP on level up anyway.

ZanathKariashi

No. Because Core rules is exactly that. Core rules...and you roll all HP after the 1st level in the core rules. Mod it if you like, since no one cares what you do to your own game after the fact, but Core rules needs to stay core rules.

If you want to cheat, just play on normal.

Dee

@ZanathKariashi‌ I think it's a bit of a leap to say it's cheating to use a lower difficulty setting.

ZanathKariashi

It is when you want something added to core difficulty that it isn't supposed to do, when another difficulty already includes it, with neglible other benefits. (the damage reduction in normal is so small, it might as well not exist. You need 150-200 damage effects for it actually knock off a noticeable amount).

If you want to cheat in Core Difficulty, just play normal.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

ZanathKariashi

By the same logic, you might as well auto-hit with all attacks, auto-save vs hostile spells, always successfully rest, always get the Wish-rest option from Wish, always learn spells, enemies auto-fail all saves, etc etc etc, because hey, all it concerns is luck/mere chance.

95% of DnD is based on the outcome of a roll of the dice, with modifiers, the other 5% is tactics. If you don't like it. PLAY NORMAL, that's why it's THERE if you don't want to play by the core rules as they're intended.

The ROLE-PLAYING, comes in by making due with what you were given, and finding ways to emphasize your strengths while mitigating your weaknesses. It might as well be an Action game if you all you want is a perfect character without having to take on the role you've been given by fate. Or you know..just play on Normal, which already does exactly what you want, because you're either going to reload till you successfully learn your spells or exploit potion stacking to do the same...or you've already modded the game to always auto-succeed, so that being the only other main benefit aside from maxed HP won't hurt anything.

Save yourself from becoming a cheater and just play on normal. there is absolutely zero reason for this thread to exist because normal already includes auto-learning spells and maxed hp, with negliable other benefits, which basically every one already exploits via save scumming or exploits anyway even when they play on Core rules. So no, if you wanna cheat or exploit, you're gonna have to put up with the annoyance or inconvenience of swapping to normal whenever you want to learn spells or level up for max HP.

Edvin

@ZanathKariashi‌
You're right, we should focus on 100% monster damage on normal difficulty, instead max hp on D&D rules.

Demonoid_Limewire

In this single aspect, Icewind Dale was the boss. In options screen, there was a button to be checked, name: "Max hp per level up". It would be a nice addition in the EE itself, since it continues being updated and having content added, every once in a while.

DreadKhan

This issue makes me think about engineering... its often pretty simple to change something before you've started, but many truly tiny things are incredibly difficult to retrofit in an interconnected system. If you're trying to add a ladder inside a tank, its vastly easier (and cheaper) to add it during production, but might easily be too expensive to add it after the the tank is finished. If it it isnt a code or safety issue, its usually cheaper to just work around it. If that tank is a pressure vessel, or a dynamic structure, changing even tiny things often means double checking almost everyhing to verify the changes dont lead to a catastrophic failure.

Lowering difficulty to level up is a convinience issue, and thus is less important than bugs. Of course, changing some stuff affects other stuff, and nobody wants to open a can of bugs for minor inconviniences while still dealing with other problems.

I like difficulty affecting damage only though. Core rules could be a seperate setting, but much easier to build around than implement I would wager

[Deleted User]

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Franpa

Sergio said:

Wonder if there is a chance to add this "feature"? Nothing at all ?

This and an additional option to prevent perma death of characters (No dismembering or shattering etc. while still keeping a need to visit a temple to revive dead characters) would be nice to see for the harder difficulties.

So we can experience more of the "proper" game rules without the introduction of massive penalties.