It'll only work with the beta, at least until the patch is released officially. The externalization of Backstab.2da is the reason why these changes are possible.
The x5 was there primarily as an extension of the Thief change. What I'll probably do is end both progressions at level 13 (x4 to Shadowdancer, x5 for Thief/Bounty Hunter), so that the Assassin still ends up with +2 above what the Thief gets.
Having messed around a little bit, I am liking the increased BS on Assassins, though I am missing Poison Weapon and am not wholly convinced it is worth the trade. I am also slightly concerned with the Poison Weapon progression. In the base game an Assassin will have 3 uses of PW by level ten, but with this change it only gets one. I'm not sure if the early-increased BS modifier is worth losing quite *that* much poison. My personal recommendation would be to give them their first use at Level 5 instead of 7, when they would normally get their second use, and then every 4 levels from there. I think this is probably better overall.
EDIT: I want to clarify that my main issue here is that while the Assassin becomes a BS-machine at lower levels, the lack of Poison until level 7 (and resultant reduction to only a single use in all of BGEE rather than the 3 it gets normally) reduces the utility of the class. The poison is very useful for occupying spellcasters and for whittling down enemies, especially when used with ranged weaponry.
I'm still not overly keen on upping the normal Thief and Bounty Hunter to x6, Shadowdancer seems like it might be a bit too powerful with a full x5 multiplier, but obviously I won't really know how these work until BG2EE is out. My gut instinct would be to stop Thief at the usually x5 (at lvl 13), and to stop Shadowdancers at x4 at the same level (but keep the progression you have here).
EDIT: Apparently Dee responded while I was typing XD.
Looking mainly at the Shadowdancer here, I think it's okay, but as it's been put quite alot of weight on the argument that "backstabbing isn't the kit's focus", I feel like x5 at level 17 is a bit too much.
Earlier when there were mainly two threads dominated by discussions about the changes to the Shadowdancer kit I eventually decided to stay out of it, because I found that I frequently agreed with both "sides" in the matter.
As I said I think a backstab multiplier of x5 is a bit too much, or at least x5 at level 17 is too early. In my opinion level 17-20 is a fitting level for maxing backstabbing at a multiplier of x4, after having gained x3 at level 9. EDIT: I see @Dee has posted that he might stop Shadowdancer backstab at level 13 with x4, so I'll just add - I think putting x4 at a higher level like I suggested here would give players something more to aim for in the later stages of BG2, while at the same time avoiding that Shadowdancer turns into a somewhat overpowered Dual Class kit (which I think it would be if one gained x4 at level 13).
What seemed to fuel the need for changes to the kit in the first place seemed to be the fact that the Shadowdancer had nothing to go for after level 9. Personally I thought at first that the backstab multiplier could've stayed the way it was (maxing at level 9), while anything happening from there on out could focus on developing the Shadowdancer's ability to hide in shadows. As has been mentioned before the threads about these topics are riddled with good suggestions, though I suppose many of them would be hard or impossible to implement.
Alright, here's a revised pack with some different changes:
- Thief/Bounty Hunter now cap at x5 at level 13 (like they did before) - Shadowdancer caps at x4 at level 13 - Assassin gets Poison Weapon at the normal levels, but the ability now scales with level:
Level 1: deals 2 damage per round for four rounds (save vs poison negates), and 2 damage per round for one round (no save). Level 10: Deals 1 damage per second for 24 seconds (save vs poison negates), and 1 damage per second for 6 seconds (no save). Level 15: Deals 3 damage per second for 10 seconds (save vs poison negates), and 3 damage per second for four seconds (no save). Also slows the target (save vs poison negates).
The scaling effect, as it turns out, was supposed to work that way initially but was never hooked up properly.
In my opinion level 17-20 is a fitting level for maxing backstabbing at a multiplier of x4, after having gained x3 at level 9. EDIT: I see @Dee has posted that he might stop Shadowdancer backstab at level 13 with x4, so I'll just add - I think putting x4 at a higher level like I suggested here would give players something more to aim for in the later stages of BG2, while at the same time avoiding that Shadowdancer turns into a somewhat overpowered Dual Class kit (which I think it would be if one gained x4 at level 13).
The Assassin tweaks are really good. I wish they were standard. Poison Weapon was a bit too insane for BG:EE, really you didn't even need to bother with backstabbing, but removing it completely wasn't good either. I'm a big fan of abilities that progress rather than stay static (grr Shapeshifter!). Now it looks like a much more worthwhile option, not only compared to the other thief kits but also to multi/duals.
I agree with @Basillicum that x4 backstab for SD is better left to lvl17, same reasons.
Well I'd love to test this guys but is there a way for me to get into the beta without a beamdog-purchased BG1? I can submit proof of me owning the game on steam if needed..
Few returns from your proposal : - Disagree about giving x6 to thieves (But you canceled that so it's all right ) - Agreed with the new proposed poison weapon progression (Ensure it's changed for blackguard too !) - Assassin: Small disagreement about backstab progression. How about having it start at x2, but progress faster than for thieves, ending at x7 at level 18 ? (x5 at level 9 is too powerful )
- Shadow Dancer : Disagree about giving them x4 that fast. x4 is a pretty big reward for a Shadow Dancer, so it should come later on. I'd propose something like : - Level 1-6 : x1 - Level 7-12 : x2 - Level 13-18 : x3 - Level 19+ : x4
Basically : Regular thieves get +1 to backstab every 4 level, cap at x5 (Same as vanilla) Assassin get +1 to backstab every 3 levels, cap at x7 (Slightly faster progression) Shadow Dancer get +1 to backstab every 6 levels, cap at x4 (Same as stalker) but start at x1.
Straight from a theoretic point of view, I think 17 is the perfect level for any thief-type class to cap out his stabbing multiplier, primarily because the levels afterwards won't matter as much. Assassin is the perfect case for that. Sure, he continues to progress after theif, but that boon comes way too late.
So, everyone should have different multipliers (apart from thief+BH) but they should all cap at the same point in time, because the core mechanic (backstabbing) becomes significantly weaker soon after that.
Shadow Dancer get +1 to backstab every 6 levels, cap at x4 (Same as stalker) but start at x1.
It's a bit close to the current beta implementation that a lot of people complained about. Level 7 is quite a way into BG:EE even with thief XP tables.
Shadow Dancer get +1 to backstab every 6 levels, cap at x4 (Same as stalker) but start at x1.
It's a bit close to the current beta implementation that a lot of people complained about. Level 7 is quite a way into BG:EE even with thief XP tables.
Then, have them start at x2, then increase to x3 at level 9, and finally x4 at level 18.
Straight from a theoretic point of view, I think 17 is the perfect level for any thief-type class to cap out his stabbing multiplier, primarily because the levels afterwards won't matter as much. Assassin is the perfect case for that. Sure, he continues to progress after theif, but that boon comes way too late.
So, everyone should have different multipliers (apart from thief+BH) but they should all cap at the same point in time, because the core mechanic (backstabbing) becomes significantly weaker soon after that.
Backstabbing is still something that is useful even in ToB. Maybe not against the bosses/dragons/demons, but there still are quite a few other humanoid creatures along the way that you can backstab.
It's useful situationally, but no one likes to get the crowning point of their carreer path and realize that there isn't much they can utilize it on until the game ends. This exact thing happens with the assassin. There are creatures and humans you can backstab, but the list is very small compared to what you can do prior to that point. Being such a core skill, I think it doesn't make sense that you get to top it off when there's so little (in comparison) to use it against.
Being such a core skill, I think it doesn't make sense that you get to top it off when there's so little (in comparison) to use it against.
Agreed about that. ToB is more about HLA's Hence the faster progression I proposed. I don't think that giving a +1 multiplier from the get go is the way to go, it'll unbalance low level quite a bit.
Being such a core skill, I think it doesn't make sense that you get to top it off when there's so little (in comparison) to use it against.
Agreed about that. ToB is more about HLA's Hence the faster progression I proposed. I don't think that giving a +1 multiplier from the get go is the way to go, it'll unbalance low level quite a bit.
Agreed. Though obviously the +1 to Assassin and -1 to Shadowdancer is great basis to work from to land at some kind of consensus, which seems to take form here.
Most of us are agreed that Shadowdancer should max at x4 at a relatively high level (17-20 as I proposed earlier), while the Assassin maxes out at x7 at more or less the same level.
To me something like this looks like a fitting compromise for all parts involved, although there hasn't been much feedback from anyone who were negatively inclined in the first place.
I am willing to wager that if a thief got x6, Assassin x7 and Shadowdancer x5 at level 17, it wouldn't break any of them.
The shadowdancers ability to stealth in combat weakens as the game progresses - more monsters have true sight, more monsters become backstab immune and thieves and assassins practically swim in invisibility potions by level 17 (as well as rings of invisibility). It's EXTREMELY strong early on when you're vulnerable and a lot of things can one-shot you, but later on, any thief can afford to chainstab without ducking behind corners.
But like I said I can't test it, this is just from a theoretical perspective.
- Shadow Dancer : Disagree about giving them x4 that fast. x4 is a pretty big reward for a Shadow Dancer, so it should come later on. I'd propose something like : - Level 1-6 : x1 - Level 7-12 : x2 - Level 13-18 : x3 - Level 19+ : x4
After playing around a bit with a Shadow Dancer (unmodded beta version), I like this idea. At the very early levels, HiPS is the bee's knees for helping you stay alive, full stop, as it gives you a lot more room for error when kiting with a shortbow and can be used to defang mages and their magic missile spam. But once I hit level 6ish and started assembling a party around me that included some good front-liners, the defensive utility of HiPS fell off a bit and I found myself just shooting with the bow in any fight that didn't involve spellcasters. Getting a backstab multiplier around that time would be a great way to breathe some life back into HiPS's utility.
That said, I also like delaying the higher multipliers to make the Shadow Dancer slightly less attractive as a dual-class. If all you want is a good stealth chance in darkness (i.e. you're going to be using another thief for OL and FT anyway), you can have that by level 6 or 7, in time to dual-class in BGEE. Even if you wait until level 10 for the second shadow step use, that's still a relatively quick turnaround on dual-classing (especially into Mage). Pushing the x3 or better multiplier back puts dual-classing with it into the territory where earning back the levels gets to be a trade-off rather than trivial.
Being such a core skill, I think it doesn't make sense that you get to top it off when there's so little (in comparison) to use it against.
Agreed about that. ToB is more about HLA's Hence the faster progression I proposed. I don't think that giving a +1 multiplier from the get go is the way to go, it'll unbalance low level quite a bit.
At first I thought it would too; however, the Assassin doesn't start out with very high stealth scores; in fact, after level 1, the assassin is ten points (per level) behind a standard thief, meaning that finding those moments to use backstab is less of a guarantee. A level 9 thief and a level 9 assassin are 90 skill points apart, and they have the same backstab multiplier. The assassin has Poison Weapon, but until level 10 it's not potent enough to be a game-changer; and the +1 bonus to THAC0 and Damage doesn't go anywhere near close to compensating for a 90-point skill gap.
The trouble with the assassin having the same multiplier as the thief at level 1 is that the kit doesn't feel any different; even a faster progression only means the assassin spends a couple of levels feeling special before the thief catches up. It might be more balanced (arguably), but for a player at level 1 you want to know right away why you chose your kit.
The Shadowdancer could just follow a slower progression, but I think then we get back into the same territory we were in before, of the disadvantage not compensating appropriately for the advantage. It's also less elegant design; if the thief kits follow a rule of "+1 multiplier" or "-1 multiplier", it's a lot easier to see immediately what the real change is from kit to kit.
The break-down is this:
- Thief has standard progression, has no special abilities, and gives nothing up. - Assassin has +1 multiplier, gives up a significant amount of skill points, and has a minor special ability that becomes more potent only in BGII. - Shadowdancer has -1 multiplier, gains a significantly potent special ability, and gives up a similarly potent ability.
To me, this is balanced. The assassin comes in with a handicap (15 skill points per level), and is compensated with an increased multiplier. The shadowdancer comes in with an advantage (Hide in Plain Sight), and pays for it with a diminished multiplier and fewer skill points.
i agree dee....i was fighting a ogre and was hitting but took a few hits myself and hips and was able to score a backstab and then the rest of my party arrived....having a blast playing the shadow dancer,,,in nwn the shadow dancer was able to summon a shadow to fight for him,any thought of that happening to this shadow dancer?
You should note that mostly none of the kits are very different from their base class at level 1. So I don't think it's that bad to have them start similar, and specialize with levels.
It actually even feels logical.
Regarding the +1 from the get go, what matters is that low level assassins can poison their weapons, making them mage killers in BG1. Later on, by the time they are level 6-7 they can backstab pretty well while still beeing able to poison stuff. Assassins have always been pretty well balanced, beside poison damage, so I don't think it's a good idea to change them all that much. The only department that could maybe use some improvement is (eventually) their backstab progression that doesn't make much sense (But was still fine in vanilla...)
Finally, I really think the Shadow Dancer should follow the stalker multiplier, which always made sense as a "I can somehow backstab, but not as good as a thief" class. 1-8 : x2 9-16 : x3 17+ : x4
Comments
Maybe you can sweettalk Dee into giving you beta access so you can play with the changes =p
The changes here aren't going into the patch (at least not yet; we need more substantial feedback first).
Im having a blast playing my shadowdancer just the way he was.....good times yes sir.
EDIT: I want to clarify that my main issue here is that while the Assassin becomes a BS-machine at lower levels, the lack of Poison until level 7 (and resultant reduction to only a single use in all of BGEE rather than the 3 it gets normally) reduces the utility of the class. The poison is very useful for occupying spellcasters and for whittling down enemies, especially when used with ranged weaponry.
I'm still not overly keen on upping the normal Thief and Bounty Hunter to x6, Shadowdancer seems like it might be a bit too powerful with a full x5 multiplier, but obviously I won't really know how these work until BG2EE is out. My gut instinct would be to stop Thief at the usually x5 (at lvl 13), and to stop Shadowdancers at x4 at the same level (but keep the progression you have here).
EDIT: Apparently Dee responded while I was typing XD.
Earlier when there were mainly two threads dominated by discussions about the changes to the Shadowdancer kit I eventually decided to stay out of it, because I found that I frequently agreed with both "sides" in the matter.
As I said I think a backstab multiplier of x5 is a bit too much, or at least x5 at level 17 is too early. In my opinion level 17-20 is a fitting level for maxing backstabbing at a multiplier of x4, after having gained x3 at level 9. EDIT: I see @Dee has posted that he might stop Shadowdancer backstab at level 13 with x4, so I'll just add - I think putting x4 at a higher level like I suggested here would give players something more to aim for in the later stages of BG2, while at the same time avoiding that Shadowdancer turns into a somewhat overpowered Dual Class kit (which I think it would be if one gained x4 at level 13).
What seemed to fuel the need for changes to the kit in the first place seemed to be the fact that the Shadowdancer had nothing to go for after level 9. Personally I thought at first that the backstab multiplier could've stayed the way it was (maxing at level 9), while anything happening from there on out could focus on developing the Shadowdancer's ability to hide in shadows. As has been mentioned before the threads about these topics are riddled with good suggestions, though I suppose many of them would be hard or impossible to implement.
- Thief/Bounty Hunter now cap at x5 at level 13 (like they did before)
- Shadowdancer caps at x4 at level 13
- Assassin gets Poison Weapon at the normal levels, but the ability now scales with level: The scaling effect, as it turns out, was supposed to work that way initially but was never hooked up properly.
I agree with @Basillicum that x4 backstab for SD is better left to lvl17, same reasons.
- Disagree about giving x6 to thieves (But you canceled that so it's all right
- Agreed with the new proposed poison weapon progression (Ensure it's changed for blackguard too !)
- Assassin: Small disagreement about backstab progression. How about having it start at x2, but progress faster than for thieves, ending at x7 at level 18 ? (x5 at level 9 is too powerful
Something like :
- Level 1-3: x2
- Level 4-6: x3
- Level 7-9: x4
- Level 10-12 : x5
- Level 13-15 : x6
- Level 16+ : x7
- Shadow Dancer : Disagree about giving them x4 that fast. x4 is a pretty big reward for a Shadow Dancer, so it should come later on.
I'd propose something like :
- Level 1-6 : x1
- Level 7-12 : x2
- Level 13-18 : x3
- Level 19+ : x4
Basically :
Regular thieves get +1 to backstab every 4 level, cap at x5 (Same as vanilla)
Assassin get +1 to backstab every 3 levels, cap at x7 (Slightly faster progression)
Shadow Dancer get +1 to backstab every 6 levels, cap at x4 (Same as stalker) but start at x1.
So, everyone should have different multipliers (apart from thief+BH) but they should all cap at the same point in time, because the core mechanic (backstabbing) becomes significantly weaker soon after that.
Maybe not against the bosses/dragons/demons, but there still are quite a few other humanoid creatures along the way that you can backstab.
I don't think that giving a +1 multiplier from the get go is the way to go, it'll unbalance low level quite a bit.
Most of us are agreed that Shadowdancer should max at x4 at a relatively high level (17-20 as I proposed earlier), while the Assassin maxes out at x7 at more or less the same level.
To me something like this looks like a fitting compromise for all parts involved, although there hasn't been much feedback from anyone who were negatively inclined in the first place.
The shadowdancers ability to stealth in combat weakens as the game progresses - more monsters have true sight, more monsters become backstab immune and thieves and assassins practically swim in invisibility potions by level 17 (as well as rings of invisibility). It's EXTREMELY strong early on when you're vulnerable and a lot of things can one-shot you, but later on, any thief can afford to chainstab without ducking behind corners.
But like I said I can't test it, this is just from a theoretical perspective.
That said, I also like delaying the higher multipliers to make the Shadow Dancer slightly less attractive as a dual-class. If all you want is a good stealth chance in darkness (i.e. you're going to be using another thief for OL and FT anyway), you can have that by level 6 or 7, in time to dual-class in BGEE. Even if you wait until level 10 for the second shadow step use, that's still a relatively quick turnaround on dual-classing (especially into Mage). Pushing the x3 or better multiplier back puts dual-classing with it into the territory where earning back the levels gets to be a trade-off rather than trivial.
The trouble with the assassin having the same multiplier as the thief at level 1 is that the kit doesn't feel any different; even a faster progression only means the assassin spends a couple of levels feeling special before the thief catches up. It might be more balanced (arguably), but for a player at level 1 you want to know right away why you chose your kit.
The Shadowdancer could just follow a slower progression, but I think then we get back into the same territory we were in before, of the disadvantage not compensating appropriately for the advantage. It's also less elegant design; if the thief kits follow a rule of "+1 multiplier" or "-1 multiplier", it's a lot easier to see immediately what the real change is from kit to kit.
The break-down is this:
- Thief has standard progression, has no special abilities, and gives nothing up.
- Assassin has +1 multiplier, gives up a significant amount of skill points, and has a minor special ability that becomes more potent only in BGII.
- Shadowdancer has -1 multiplier, gains a significantly potent special ability, and gives up a similarly potent ability.
To me, this is balanced. The assassin comes in with a handicap (15 skill points per level), and is compensated with an increased multiplier. The shadowdancer comes in with an advantage (Hide in Plain Sight), and pays for it with a diminished multiplier and fewer skill points.
So I don't think it's that bad to have them start similar, and specialize with levels.
It actually even feels logical.
Regarding the +1 from the get go, what matters is that low level assassins can poison their weapons, making them mage killers in BG1.
Later on, by the time they are level 6-7 they can backstab pretty well while still beeing able to poison stuff.
Assassins have always been pretty well balanced, beside poison damage, so I don't think it's a good idea to change them all that much. The only department that could maybe use some improvement is (eventually) their backstab progression that doesn't make much sense (But was still fine in vanilla...)
Finally, I really think the Shadow Dancer should follow the stalker multiplier, which always made sense as a "I can somehow backstab, but not as good as a thief" class.
1-8 : x2
9-16 : x3
17+ : x4