If they changed BH special snares so they are no longer ranged, then I'm cool with that.
I don't understand how people say making everyone else ungodly is a "dead slot." While he's singing, even your mage is deadly with weapons. Besides, are you wasting all of your memorized spells with your mage every encounter or is your wizard a 'dead slot' as he inaccurately throws darts until his spells are actually needed? Are you unable to drop his song to cast a spell and then go back to singing? I've used a Skald in BGtutu before. It made the early parts of the game a total joke. Summoning spells became totally broken because singing affects them too.
Skalds still get a raw +1hit/damage bonus. It's not like they are incapable of fighting. They do so better than a regular bard does even if you don't utilize the totally super stronk buff.
Still don't see how Kensai would be a solid choice in BG1, but I can see it being good end-game. The issue is it'd be such a liability for a really long time. All the fun Kensai dual-class builds don't really serve a purpose by the end of BG1 simply because you'd be forced to bounce out of Kensai before you'd gain any sigificant bonuses for picking the class to begin with. Means you have to have your mage devote spells just to keeping your Kensai alive and that mage can't be Dynaheir because she can't use conjurations and therefore Ghost Armor.
And this is just a personal thing but I feel like Half-Orcs are overrated. Dwarves are better. Difference between 19 and 20 strength isn't really a big deal (+1 damage and +100 lb carry weight). The difference between 18 and 19 dexterity is also not a big deal (+1 ranged thac0 and +5% bonus to a bunch of thief skills). Then we get to the fun stuff: Dwarven saving throws. +5 to your saves vs. pretty much everything >>>>>>>>>>>> +1 damage on melee and +1 thac0 on ranged skills. The bonuses to thieving skills actually goes in favor of Dwarves, btw, because Half-Orcs get no racial bonuses to any skills while Dwarves get pretty significant ones.
Until you get those tomes, yes a Half-Orc is more dangerous. But afterwards? Dorfs all da way!
I think I miscommunicated my point about Skalds. By 'dead slot' I meant they are a character which performs 1 action and nothing else. That's boring for me, no matter how powerful it is, because it undermines the essence of the tactical RPG. And you're right, Skalds are actually great fighters (though Blades are better) and their bardsong is powered.
Kensais are really solid end-game. Once you get the potions and items. I was just trying to point out they don't suck too badly.
Definitely agree with your point about half-orcs. Dwarven saves are absolutely awesome!
I do wish that armor would limit dex bonus a la 3rd Ed ruleset, only because it makes so much sense. It could mess up the BG balance to do so, but I think it's worth a risk. Essentially, it makes STR and DEX based fighters different and gives reasons not to opt for "Full plate, packing steel". Also makes the Kensai seem more viable.
Would love to play a Kensai without double classing, but the thought of never getting below AC1 worries me. I mean, not even bracers? Ouch!
Such a restriction wouldn't make much of a difference for 2nd edition rules. You can get up to 18 or 19 dexterity from the start. But that will just give a +4 bonus to AC. With magic you can raise this temporarily, but you'll hardly get to 25 dexterity. And that will not be such a massive boost to AC anyways..
In 3rd edition a simple full plate would allows a max +1 dex bonus. A full plate of some other material (e.g. mithril) would raise the max dex bonus to +3. Using a tower shield would limit the max dex bonus to +2. Depsite of that there exist lots of other stacking bonus effects. If you look at 3rd edition games (e.g. DDO) you'll notice that the opposite will come true. Wearing heavy armor will penalize you more and multi-class monk/kensai builds can easily attain a better armour class. It's just crazy what you can do with certain builds, provided you farmed the appropriate gear (e.g. barbarians that can reach a strength of 110+ when raged, multiclassed monk meleer with a 130+ AC, etc.). With the examples provided here the Thac0 and AC mechanism gets really broken. 3rd edition has issues of its own concerning balance.
Balancing the classes/kits isn't that easy. It depends all on itemization as well. I doubt that most kits were designed with the level of balance people have in mind with today's games. Don't open a can of worms. It will just get more and more ugly.
@beerflavour: Though I agree that we shouldn't try too hard to balance the game, I gotta disagree with your assessment. 'Just giving a bonus of +4 AC' is actually giving a tremendous advantage. In 2e, a single hit can kill you - and often does.
Also - DDO, while fun, is not even close to a faithful adaptation of D&D in terms of rules or spirit.
I was excited about the Assassin kit at first, but then I found it to be almost useless unless you played it 'til much later chapter.
The extra 2x backstab multiplier and poison coating weren't worth the hundred of points you could've spent for thieving skills throughout your adventure.
Hence it is an underpowered kit for either the beginning of BG1 or BG2.
Poison Weapon will totally wreck casters, which are some of the most dangerous enemies in the entire franchise. Don't count them out.
That is true, but then during most boss fights (Dragons, Irenicus, Amelyssan) and when going up against undead and planar creatures, poison weapon and backstab become obsolete.
It's the 15 thieving skill points per level that bugs me, my assassin cannot stand his ground and fight like a fighter, nor can he do his job of disarming the traps and unlocking chests.
Utterly useless during early and mid chapters, since I spent all the points on hiding in shadows and still can't get a guarantee'd stealth out of it most of the time.
@Kenji for my assassin (on top of likely going Halfling just to try to minimize the effect of the point loss), I'll be dumping points into find traps and pick locks. The reason for that is you'll be able to get Boots of Stealth rather early. You can even kill the halfling that steals money from you after you give them back for no reputation loss.
Then it would be saving up for Potions of Invisibility. In BG2 you might also use the ring of air control which also gives you invisibility as well.
Also Shadow Armor + Boots of Stealth give you a 50% bonus to stealth which is how an assassin could psuedo justify putting points other places.
Maybe the Wizard Slayer just needs a special kind of favored enemy that grants them a bonus to THAC0 and/or damage against spellcasters. That would be significant enough to be useful throughout BG1 and BG2, without being any more powerful than a ranger's favored enemy, and still matches the flavor of the class.
I don't think that really addresses the main problem of the Wizard Slayer, which is that his spell disruption ability requires him to land hits, and if a mage is taking hits, he is 1) Not casting spells, and 2) Not long for this world.
The Wizard Slayer's problems can't be solved by adding or subtracting from the values of a few bonuses. The kit's functionality is fundamentally not useful.
I don't think that really addresses the main problem of the Wizard Slayer, which is that his spell disruption ability requires him to land hits, and if a mage is taking hits, he is 1) Not casting spells, and 2) Not long for this world.
You only need to hit your target, not damage it. Meaning the disruption works through stone skins and mirror images, and if one of the older posts was right (can't bother to re-read the 4 pages), through weapon immunities as well, which makes it far from useless. The WS is still one of the worst classes though IMHO, but the disruption ability is not the reason why.
Some of the kits should be improved, but I have never been a fan of the though that all classes should be equally powerful. It is generally more fun when they aren't. You know what your getting into when you make your choice of class. For instance I love Rangers, but despite their high minimums they are probably the worst fighter class. They get a few crapy Druid spells and hide in shadows. None the less I would play one in BG if thats what I wanted to be. If I wanted to play the most powerful class I'd choose some dual class combo that involved fighters and mages/clerics/druids/thieves or play as a paladin. One class I do feel needs to be rebalanced is bard. I think they could use at least the ability specialize in weapons and get extra attacks per round.
You only need to hit your target, not damage it. Meaning the disruption works through stone skins and mirror images, and if one of the older posts was right (can't bother to re-read the 4 pages), through weapon immunities as well, which makes it far from useless. The WS is still one of the worst classes though IMHO, but the disruption ability is not the reason why.
Thank you, I did not know this. I read it has no effect on Irenicus or Melissan, however. That should be corrected. The Melissan fight in particular is plenty hard enough even without her spells.
Other than that, I'm not sure how to balance them, then. Their magic resistance seems too low, particularly at lower levels (it progresses faster after level 20).
I guess the problem is that at high levels, they fail at fighting anything that isn't a mage. There should be some tradeoff, and disallowing magic equipment makes sense for the theme. @Aosaw's earlier idea of making their magic resistance also potentially block beneficial spells sounds good; maybe that instead.
Comments
I don't understand how people say making everyone else ungodly is a "dead slot." While he's singing, even your mage is deadly with weapons. Besides, are you wasting all of your memorized spells with your mage every encounter or is your wizard a 'dead slot' as he inaccurately throws darts until his spells are actually needed? Are you unable to drop his song to cast a spell and then go back to singing? I've used a Skald in BGtutu before. It made the early parts of the game a total joke. Summoning spells became totally broken because singing affects them too.
Skalds still get a raw +1hit/damage bonus. It's not like they are incapable of fighting. They do so better than a regular bard does even if you don't utilize the totally super stronk buff.
Still don't see how Kensai would be a solid choice in BG1, but I can see it being good end-game. The issue is it'd be such a liability for a really long time. All the fun Kensai dual-class builds don't really serve a purpose by the end of BG1 simply because you'd be forced to bounce out of Kensai before you'd gain any sigificant bonuses for picking the class to begin with. Means you have to have your mage devote spells just to keeping your Kensai alive and that mage can't be Dynaheir because she can't use conjurations and therefore Ghost Armor.
And this is just a personal thing but I feel like Half-Orcs are overrated. Dwarves are better. Difference between 19 and 20 strength isn't really a big deal (+1 damage and +100 lb carry weight). The difference between 18 and 19 dexterity is also not a big deal (+1 ranged thac0 and +5% bonus to a bunch of thief skills). Then we get to the fun stuff: Dwarven saving throws. +5 to your saves vs. pretty much everything >>>>>>>>>>>> +1 damage on melee and +1 thac0 on ranged skills. The bonuses to thieving skills actually goes in favor of Dwarves, btw, because Half-Orcs get no racial bonuses to any skills while Dwarves get pretty significant ones.
Until you get those tomes, yes a Half-Orc is more dangerous. But afterwards? Dorfs all da way!
Kensais are really solid end-game. Once you get the potions and items. I was just trying to point out they don't suck too badly.
Definitely agree with your point about half-orcs. Dwarven saves are absolutely awesome!
In 3rd edition a simple full plate would allows a max +1 dex bonus. A full plate of some other material (e.g. mithril) would raise the max dex bonus to +3. Using a tower shield would limit the max dex bonus to +2. Depsite of that there exist lots of other stacking bonus effects. If you look at 3rd edition games (e.g. DDO) you'll notice that the opposite will come true. Wearing heavy armor will penalize you more and multi-class monk/kensai builds can easily attain a better armour class. It's just crazy what you can do with certain builds, provided you farmed the appropriate gear (e.g. barbarians that can reach a strength of 110+ when raged, multiclassed monk meleer with a 130+ AC, etc.). With the examples provided here the Thac0 and AC mechanism gets really broken. 3rd edition has issues of its own concerning balance.
Balancing the classes/kits isn't that easy. It depends all on itemization as well. I doubt that most kits were designed with the level of balance people have in mind with today's games. Don't open a can of worms. It will just get more and more ugly.
Also - DDO, while fun, is not even close to a faithful adaptation of D&D in terms of rules or spirit.
It's the 15 thieving skill points per level that bugs me, my assassin cannot stand his ground and fight like a fighter, nor can he do his job of disarming the traps and unlocking chests.
Utterly useless during early and mid chapters, since I spent all the points on hiding in shadows and still can't get a guarantee'd stealth out of it most of the time.
Then it would be saving up for Potions of Invisibility. In BG2 you might also use the ring of air control which also gives you invisibility as well.
Also Shadow Armor + Boots of Stealth give you a 50% bonus to stealth which is how an assassin could psuedo justify putting points other places.
The Wizard Slayer's problems can't be solved by adding or subtracting from the values of a few bonuses. The kit's functionality is fundamentally not useful.
Other than that, I'm not sure how to balance them, then. Their magic resistance seems too low, particularly at lower levels (it progresses faster after level 20).
I guess the problem is that at high levels, they fail at fighting anything that isn't a mage. There should be some tradeoff, and disallowing magic equipment makes sense for the theme. @Aosaw's earlier idea of making their magic resistance also potentially block beneficial spells sounds good; maybe that instead.