Flail of Ages +4 is better than Flail of Age +5 Now
acw18
Member Posts: 62
In vanilla BG2, free action worked with boots of haste so that you could get the benefits of free action as well as being hasted, but the change to it in BG2EE has made the FoA +5 a terrible weapon. It now prevents the wearer from being hasted which is an astonishingly HUGE debuff.
It's such a large debuff that it basically makes "upgrading" the weapon a horrendous mistake. I would be perfectly fine with just removing the free action status from the weapon all together than having to deal with this. I realize that this is not a bug, and it is working as intended, but for the sake of this awesome weapon, what are the possibilities of free action being removed from it, or allowing boots of speed to work in conjunction. I have Minsc using the FoA and the upgrade has literally halved his effectiveness. It's depressing and frankly it doesn't make sense for the item's upgrade to make it worse, especially considering the +4 FoA description says that finding the last flail head will make it even more powerful.
It's such a large debuff that it basically makes "upgrading" the weapon a horrendous mistake. I would be perfectly fine with just removing the free action status from the weapon all together than having to deal with this. I realize that this is not a bug, and it is working as intended, but for the sake of this awesome weapon, what are the possibilities of free action being removed from it, or allowing boots of speed to work in conjunction. I have Minsc using the FoA and the upgrade has literally halved his effectiveness. It's depressing and frankly it doesn't make sense for the item's upgrade to make it worse, especially considering the +4 FoA description says that finding the last flail head will make it even more powerful.
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It's not quite as bad as giving her the Crom Faeyr... but it IS the flail of ages and should only be wielded by a certified butt kicker.
Now we can.
I guess I don't understand the logic of a buff needing to have such a serious downside. By the end of SoA, and certainly within ToB, having melee dps (or an archer for that matter) who a) can't benefit from Improved Haste and b) can't get the movement speed increase from Boots of Speed or Grandmaster's Armor is tantamount to having them permanently Slowed. Imagine if Vocalize doubled the casting time of every spell, or if Remove Fear caused you to be unable to move away from an enemy.
I've come to terms with the developers' intent, and decided that for this case I'm going to be a horrible cheater. :P
It's not a major issue, as it's simple to stay away from said items and just use Chaotic Commands instead, but it does mean I have to bring a set of armor whenever I pick up Keldorn. Luckily, such armor is available slightly north east of where Keldorn is picked up..
Someone mentioned how it's comparable to the Club of Detonation, that weapon has the downside of a chance of fire-balling your party. That is an incorrect statement, because the Club of Detonation has this chance on it's upgraded and it's regular version. The Flail of Ages does not always have free action on it, only the +5 version.
With that said, I have no problem with items that have free action on them to begin with (Such as the ring of free action). But with the Flail there is a major continuity error with it's final upgrade having free action. If free action was always on the flail this argument would never have came up. But it comes later, and its awful and it makes the weapon nigh worthless amongst the other great items of TOB without resorting to silly cheese tactics to get around it.
I understand that mods can fix this, but I shouldn't have to resort to mods to fix it, there is simply no good reason for it to be there in the first place.
1. FoA Free Action negates and prevents speed bonus from Boots of Speed
2. FoA Free Action does not negate speed and APR bonus from Haste/Improved Haste
The current situation does not make sense. If Free Action negates speed bonus from equipped Boots of Speed, shouldn't it negate Haste/Improved Haste if these spells are active?
Next patch, is this going to go "negate all haste effects including haste spells"? I'd hate to choose a specialization now, then when a patch comes out I'll have to rework or mod my character.
PnP Free Action does not affect Haste, and the spell description of Free Action says "... becomes immune..." with no mention whether any existing effects are negated. The old treatment of "equip haste items/cast haste spells, then equip FoA" is consistent with the "does not negate existing effects but prevents future effects" logic. The argument can go the other way of course, but the existing arrangement is neither here not there.