@kamuizin Not played IWD2 in a long long time, but I do remember the 3rd edition 1d6 sneaks every 2 levels or so. Am I the only one who thinks this is overpowered? What I enjoyed about the mechanics of the aurora engine was the AI mostly. No hope for a rogue to stand there sneaking constantly when the heavily armored warrior would turn around and back hand your character preventing you from sneak attacking while facing you. BG being second edition how would 10d6 of damage (on top of normal damage) with every hit work by level 20? 3rd edition balanced this with different AC rules, dodge and a variety of feats. IWD2 has these whereas BGEE does not.
I can't remember how it worked for IWD2, but i'm guessing (with it being infinity) that the AI never recognised aggression correctly.
I will admit however, that I have yet to test this on BGEE and this could have been addressed already. If so I will eat my own words and I apologise thoroughly.
Don't get me wrong, I love sneak attacks - I just don't think they will be possible to implement in 2nd edition.
I meant IWD, not IWD2, i didn't had the chance to play IWD2, yet.
IWD was an 2° edition D&D game plataform with the same version of infinite engine used for Baldur's Gate 2 (or very likely). Sneak attack as you see, was already being implemented on 2nd edition D&D and on infinite engine itself.
too bad there is no good dual wielding animations in IWD. Rangers got "dual wielding" by leaving nothing in off hand so they got an extra attack. yay.
@EntropyXII sneak attack is in IWD as @kamuizin mentioned. Breakdown of implementation is this in iwd:
Sneak Attack and Crippling Strike were introduced with Heart of Winter:
Sneak Attack: This is an optional ability that you can replace backstab with. This option can be enabled in your config program. When a thief uses Sneak Attack and attacks an enemy from the rear or flank, they can do additional damage but one time only. This additional damage is +1d6 every four levels. At level thirty this would be 8d6. Critical hits do not double damage. The thief does not need to be hidden or moving silently to use Sneak Attack.
Crippling Strike: In addition to Sneak Attack, at level five the thief learns the ability of Crippling Strike. When a Sneak Attack is successful, the thief cripples the enemy reducing their hit and damage rolls. This effect is in addition to the Sneak Attack damage. The enemies regain normal hit and damage rolls one turn after the successful Crippling Strike. At level five this causes the enemy to have -1 to hit and damage rolls. Every four levels after, the thief gains minus one to this ability. At level thirty, an enemy hit with Crippling Strike would have -7 to hit and damage rolls.
@kamuizin whaa?! I played IWD to death! How did I not know this? Incredible. Well okay then... -eats his own words- chomp. Wow I feel daft.
@smeagolheart So instead of having it 1d6 every two levels they had it every four levels? Well that could work I suppose. My only problem with it would have been if it was every two.
Did it work well in game? If it worked well, then yes - I say implement it. I have the strangest urge to play IWD now.
If They did implement sneak attack however - wouldn't they also have to completely redesign the assassin class and give them the death attack which they had in 3e?
About the assassin class not necessary, they can let it broken, give an extra 1d6 dmg above the average thief or an huge bonus on thac0 to the assassin class, after all it's an optional feature, if you play an assassin just let the sneak attack unchecked on the game options and the game will use backstab configurations.
I would prefer to have both, sneak attack and backstab implemented, with backstab taking preference over sneak attack (if i have all the requisites to backstab when i hit, then backstab instead of sneak attack).
Fair enough. We'll have to see if they do indeed implement it. Will be interesting none the less. I really do hope they have a think about some kind of 'finesse' ability. I hate roleplaying high strength rogues just so i'm any good with melee weapons...
At least on sneak and backstab, the damage bonus should come from dexterity instead of strenght. After all both attacks give damage (backstab an huge amount of damage) based on the precision of the rogue to hit an very specific vulnerable point of the enemy.
I like that idea. Would it be difficult however to have a finesse ability? If it is implemented chances are it will probably be class based. Only available to rogues or so on. Something like:
Level 2: If the Thieves dexterity is higher than his strength, the Thief will use his dexterity to calculate attack rolls instead. Damage bonus is still effected by strength.
Personally I am a big fan of 2nd edition but what I do admit 3rd edition got right were details such as these. Finesse was one I loved. Also the AC modifier in regards to dexterity and the weight of armour. Feels odd that someone in full plate should benefit from dexterity, whereas a lightly armoured character will always be easier to hit. It's a shame really because for those of us that play warrior types, the temptation is always there to always wear the heaviest armour you can find. Many of the nice looking chainmail, splintmail etc go unused
Probably asking for a little to much with those above, but ah well, one can always dream.
I believe it will be simple to redirect the code for damage bonus to use dexterity values instead strengh values on a set class, but i'm presuming only atm.
Thieves are RIDICULOUSLY overpowered compared to PnP, if you don't think so, you're playing them wrong (aka treating them like a fighter...don't..that's not a thief (unless you're playing as a swashy, who REALLY needs dual-speed weapons to be useful). I'd advise heading to the BG2 gamefaqs entry, and checking C. Lee's Thief guide in the FAQ section. He lays down in great detail how the thief is THE most powerful class in the game, if used correctly, and after soloing the game as each type (avoiding the common cheese strats that grossly undermine how fun playing a thief can be), I whole-heartedly agree. The multi/duals bring a little bit of extra variety, but nothing that's really necessary to dominate as a thief.
Not only does Backstab multiply stuff it shouldn't, there's no real limit on the number of times you can backstab a target (in PNP you can only backstab a target once, and if ANYONE witnesses you in the battle at any time or calls out warnings, you can't backstab at all that encounter relegating you to purely utility work in most cases to be useful, aside from getting lucky while shooting at the enemy), short of it dying on you. The only thing that somewhat makes Backstab lack luster is the number of enemies towards the end of TOB, or really tough enemies in SOA, who are immune...but on the other hand, their traps work just fine vs those. And once you hit epic levels, you gain a massive amount of freedom to use any item you wish (pretending to be a mage if you'd like) and a bunch of REALLY strong traps.
In PnP the GM has a lot of flexibility to address OP/UP issues that arise from the mechanics, so I think letter-of-the-law PnP balance is not externally valid to BG.
Comments
3rd edition balanced this with different AC rules, dodge and a variety of feats. IWD2 has these whereas BGEE does not.
I can't remember how it worked for IWD2, but i'm guessing (with it being infinity) that the AI never recognised aggression correctly.
I will admit however, that I have yet to test this on BGEE and this could have been addressed already. If so I will eat my own words and I apologise thoroughly.
Don't get me wrong, I love sneak attacks - I just don't think they will be possible to implement in 2nd edition.
IWD was an 2° edition D&D game plataform with the same version of infinite engine used for Baldur's Gate 2 (or very likely). Sneak attack as you see, was already being implemented on 2nd edition D&D and on infinite engine itself.
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@EntropyXII sneak attack is in IWD as @kamuizin mentioned. Breakdown of implementation is this in iwd:
@smeagolheart So instead of having it 1d6 every two levels they had it every four levels? Well that could work I suppose. My only problem with it would have been if it was every two.
Did it work well in game? If it worked well, then yes - I say implement it. I have the strangest urge to play IWD now.
If They did implement sneak attack however - wouldn't they also have to completely redesign the assassin class and give them the death attack which they had in 3e?
I would prefer to have both, sneak attack and backstab implemented, with backstab taking preference over sneak attack (if i have all the requisites to backstab when i hit, then backstab instead of sneak attack).
Level 2: If the Thieves dexterity is higher than his strength, the Thief will use his dexterity to calculate attack rolls instead. Damage bonus is still effected by strength.
Personally I am a big fan of 2nd edition but what I do admit 3rd edition got right were details such as these. Finesse was one I loved. Also the AC modifier in regards to dexterity and the weight of armour. Feels odd that someone in full plate should benefit from dexterity, whereas a lightly armoured character will always be easier to hit. It's a shame really because for those of us that play warrior types, the temptation is always there to always wear the heaviest armour you can find. Many of the nice looking chainmail, splintmail etc go unused
Probably asking for a little to much with those above, but ah well, one can always dream.
Not only does Backstab multiply stuff it shouldn't, there's no real limit on the number of times you can backstab a target (in PNP you can only backstab a target once, and if ANYONE witnesses you in the battle at any time or calls out warnings, you can't backstab at all that encounter relegating you to purely utility work in most cases to be useful, aside from getting lucky while shooting at the enemy), short of it dying on you. The only thing that somewhat makes Backstab lack luster is the number of enemies towards the end of TOB, or really tough enemies in SOA, who are immune...but on the other hand, their traps work just fine vs those. And once you hit epic levels, you gain a massive amount of freedom to use any item you wish (pretending to be a mage if you'd like) and a bunch of REALLY strong traps.