[Mod ENG BG1:EE / SoA-ToB] Saradas Revisioned Shapeshifter V 1.1

Saradas

Hello dear friends.
I've just finished testing my latest mod.

WHAT'S THIS MOD?

This mod is a slight rebalancing of the shapeshifter's skills. I've always thought this wonderful kit didn't express its full potential, due to some bugs and
a limited design.
What bugged me the most was the lack of progression. First of all, the Shapeshifter's level was almost pointless to determining the strength of the Werewolf forms...
And some features were never implemented (immunity to normal weapons, regeneration....)
So, beside adding some new features, I slightly improved the two forms in order to keep them useful and competitive in the late parts of SoA and ToB without resulting overpowered.

This mod improves the synergy between class level and shapeshifting power. When the druid reaches a certain level, his werewolf form becomes stronger.


I tested it but I will continue to modify the contents if bugs or balance issues are found.



DOWNLOAD LINK: --> http://www.mediafire.com/download/z30wb0pbdsz5863/Saradas Revisioned Shapeshifter v1_1.zip


Edit: now compatible with BG1:EE as well

Saradas

New progression table:

WEREWOLF FORM: ------------------ LV 1 LV 13 LV 15 LV 20 Claw +2 1d8 Claw +2 1d8+1 Claw +3 1d8+2 Claw +3 1d8+3 / Poison on hit STR +2 STR +2 STR +2 STR +3 DEX +2 DEX +2 DEX +2 DEX +3 CON +2 CON +2 CON +2 CON +3 APR +1 APR +1 APR +2 APR +2 HP +10 HP +20 HP +30 HP +30 M RES: +20 M RES: +30 M RES: +40 M RES: 40 BASE AC: 3 BASE AC: 2 BASE AC: 1 BASE AC:0 Thac0: +1 Thac0: +2 Thac0: +3 Thac0: +3 Hasted ELEM RES: +10 ELEM RES: +20 ELEM RES: +30 PHYS RES: +10 PHYS RES: +20 PHYS RES: +25 REG: 1HP/s REG: 1HP/s REG: 1HP/s Hasted IMM POISON & DIS IMM POISON & DIS IMM NORM WEAPON IMM NORM WEAPON Hasted Hasted GREATER WEREWOLF FORM: --------------------------- LV 13 LV 17 LV 20 Claw +3 2d6/ Poison on hit Claw +4 2d6+1 / Poison on hit Claw +5 2d6+2 / Poison on hit + Knock Back STR +3 STR +4 STR +4 DEX +3 DEX +4 DEX +4 CON +4 CON +5 CON +5 APR +2 APR +2 APR +2 HP +30 HP +40 HP +50 M RES: +40 M RES: +50 M RES: +50 BASE AC: -6 BASE AC: -6 BASE AC: -6 Thac0: +3 Thac0: +5 Thac0: +6 ELEM RES: +50 ELEM RES: +50 ELEM RES: +50 PHYS RES: +33 PHYS RES: +35 PHYS RES: +35 IMM POISON & DIS IMM POISON & DIS IMM POISON & DIS IMM NORM WEAPON IMM NORM WEAPON IMM NORM WEAPON REG: 2HP/s REG: 2HP/s REG: 3HP/s Hasted Hasted Hasted


The claws improvement keeps the werewolf forms useful against tougher enemies (Liches for example) and their damage type is now slashing, not piercing.
I kept the first level of shapeshifts werewolf very close to the vanilla one, this way the kit will not result overpowered in BG1:EE (it will not regenerate, it is not immune to poisons or normal weapons).
At higher levels (reached in SoA) the shapeshifted form of the druid will scale well with the progression of the game.
Moreover, I thought it was lazy putting the same stats for every shapeshifting druid.
In vanilla version, the werewolf form has standard stats for strength and dexterity, so it could potentially be counterproductive for high level characters, and very unbalanced for weak characters.

With my mod, the druid's stats receive a buff (constitution and maximum HP too), resulting in an enhancment of the druid's prowess, but still proportional to his/her initial stats in human form.

Illustair

Looks sweet. If not a bit too powerful IMHO. But what the heck, you're the effin Bhaalspawn and you're supposed to be at the top of the food chain! Any plans on adding new HLA? Like turning into black greater werewolf or something.

Saradas

Illustair said:

Any plans on adding new HLA? Like turning into black greater werewolf or something.

Now THAT sounds overpowered :P but I like the idea, if people helps me to test the balance I will gladly add it at level 20~23.
BTW my mod makes WW tougher regarding defence. The AC has a difference of something like +1 from vanilla WW, and thac0 approximatively +4. Not super overpowered if you ask me, but we can always modify the balance

Skie

Well, I don't know if it's balanced or not, but obviously shapeshifters need some fixing.
I'd change their piercing type damage to slashing, like BronxH did ( http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/26791/shapeshifter-paw-weapon-tweak ).
I like the fact you get +X to your str/con/dex instead of a fixed number. This is much better exactly for your reasoning.

Saradas

oh thank you for reminding me this, @Skie, my mod changed the claw's damage type from piercing to slashing, I just forgot to add this in the new features. I'm going to edit my first post

Skie

So now it's just a question of balance, and I'm no expert for that. The life bonus seems superfluous though.

Saradas

I'm about to finish my playthrough in BG:EE and I have to say the kit doesn't feel overpowered. Let's not forget that for the first 3-4 levels, the shapeshifter is VERY squishy if not in the Werewolf form, and it can only be used 1-2 times a day.
The speed bonus is a great improvement, but not overpowered because it doesn't grant additional APR, only movement speed (yes if you stack that with boots of speed is cheesy, but so it was before with haste+boots).
The life boost offers a slight improvement to survivability, along with AC bonus, but the bonus to strength and thac0 didn't really overshadowed the fighters in my party.
I will test if the balance is guaranteed at highers level too in SoA and ToB

Skie

Well you said it's close to the original form in that level, so I didn't expect much impact on BG:EE. It's more of BG2:EE and ToB that is a concern.
Regarding 1-2 uses a day - it's irrelevant since you can just stay in the form with no drawbacks apparently.

Saradas

New version 1.1 has been released with the following balance improvements:

- In Werewolf form now the druid regenerates 3HP/round (1HP/2s) starting from level 13. It was 1HP/s before.
- Greater Werewolf form now has 0 base AC at level 13, -1 at level 17 and 20. (Before was -6, ending up at -16 AC...my mistake. Now it's much more reasonable.)
- Greater Werewolf form now has +4 thac0 bonus at level 13, before it was +3.
- In Greater Werewolf form now the druid regenerates 6HP/round (1HP/s). Before it was 2HP/s and considering the GWW's high resistances and low AC, the results were overpowered.
- The "Regenerating" status icon now correctly appears during Werewolf form, starting from level 13.

Allbrother

Great mod

2 things though -

1.Regeneration doesn't display its icon on the character portrait in werewolf form (haven't checked if it actually applies). Works fine on greater werewolf

Perhaps you haven't updated the dl link?

2.Poison on hit is totally OP and unnecessary

Apart from that, FINALLY the fix that shapeshifters deserve


edit:

Looking over it again, the elemental resist seems like a bit of an overkill
Combined with a druid's innate resist, it adds up to a whopping 80%. Throw in a ring of fire protection and enjoy soloing Firkraag

Saradas

Thanks for your feedback @Silchas, I checked all the things you mentioned and you were right, now I really fixed the problem about the icon not showing up.

about balance: the elemental resistances come at a very late part of the game, so I don't think they become a game-breaking issue. Consider that a fire giant can deal a fire damage of 20-30 per hit, and crushing 20-30 too. So they can still kill you very efficiently.
And btw you can reach a resistance of 100% in many other ways, potions+resistance ring, potions+magic, potions+magic+rings+armors ecc ecc...

I will test it thouroughly and see what happens. I mean about poison on hit too
I can even set the resistances to a defined value, not by adding them to the already existing value.
They become 50 when polymorphed, not x+50. We will see...
(link updated)

Menkalinan

Hello and thanks for this mod! It finally made this neglected class fun to play. I don't think it feels overpowered at all, just fun. But I'm not one of those pros who are able to solo the whole damn series as a wizard slayer or something equally terrible without breaking a sweat.

+1 to new HLAs. Would make this class even more fun!

Naesh

Thank you for this mod.

Saradas

thanks for your feedback about new HLAs, we have to consider that the druid receives them at level 15, and by that time you already receive an improvement to Werewolf form (check table above), and Greater Werewolf form receives an upgrade at level 17. If I make a HLA stronger than GWW form (as it should be), I break the balance. Maybe we can think about some passive abilities...or I can create a daily ability that only lasts for few minutes

Ingemar82

Thank you for the mod! It looks perfect! .. just one quick question: are claws on shapeshifters still dispellable? Or is this already fixed in EE?

Saradas

Still not fixed, unfortunately. Infact you are immune to dispel effect with my mod when you are in ww form. I know is lame but I hope they will fix it in the future, and I'll remove this workaround. The problem is it dispels magic weapons no matter what

Menkalinan

When I bought the EEs, I was hoping they'd actually fixed these old problems, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I wonder why?

Good point about the druid's early access to HLAs. Obviously, the new HLAs for this kit shouldn't be overpowered, but if they are too useless, nobody will pick them.

Maybe an HLA that allows you to cast some spells or summon something while in werewolf form?

velorien

In there any chance to build a mod that makes shapeshifter as strong as the p&p's one?

nysi

I'm just restarting a whole new party and want to thanks you for this mod, I was planning to play a shapeshifter, and this mod is very promising. Lot of fun in perspective ! Gratz

Arizael

I've never played as shapeshifter, but I am inclined to try one with this mod. I don't get one thing though - why are there four levels of the ordinary werewolf form, when as soon as i hit lvl 13 i will probably use only Greater form anyway, thus rendering normal forms lvl 2+ useless?

Saradas

Thanks for your appreciation, guys

Arizael said:

why are there four levels of the ordinary werewolf form, when as soon as i hit lvl 13 i will probably use only Greater form anyway, thus rendering normal forms lvl 2+ useless?

that's exactly why I gave the WW form upgrades throughout the game, otherwise you would forget it as soon as you reach lvl 13, and start abusing rest to always have GWW form available.

I like to think in a rpging way, thus making the WW form the standard and GWW for when the druid REALLY gets angry and wants to show his real potential and scare the hell out of his enemies

RJones

First, let me say thank you for making this mod. I always wanted to play a shape-shifter, but the usual complaints about the class held me back. The only addition I would ask you to consider is an idea I saw in another mod (which one I unfortunately can not remember). It had the early levels of the transformation start out berserk, and as you progressed in level this would change to going berserk if you fell below certain hp thresholds. I personally feel that this would add a feeling of actually being werewolf like that the class lacks. But whether you like that idea or not, I look forward to finally playing the shape-shifter, and appreciate the work you put into making it happen.

Saradas

Thanks for your support, I really appreciate it
I like the idea of a frenzy effect applied, but rather than triggering it when the werewolf's hp drop below a certain value, I would prefer to add a X% on every attack you make. This way you cannot predict when it will trigger, and more importantly, it prevents you from triggering it by yourself (cheesy tactics, you know).
I will surely implement it in the next mod update. Stay tuned @RJones

RJones

Well i guess I will have to hold off on that shape-shifter run then. I like the idea of a random chance of frenzy. Were you thinking of scaling it with level or leaving it static?

Saradas

my concept of shapeshifting druid is that he gets better control over his abilities as he gains levels... so, I will surely start with a moderate % chance of frenzy on hit, and reduce that value on higher levels

Rangeltoft

Sounds like an intresting mod, does it work for BG2:EE aswell?

Saradas

yes, absolutely. the table you see above shows the progression

Rangeltoft

@Saradas Thought that was for SoA + ToB (non-EE), but great to know Will try it out for a full run then

Oddler

Thank you for this mod. It really made me go back to the game and try a shapeshifter run. You are excellent, as is this mod ^^

Hemaka

First of all, thanks for the mod, it seems almost perfect (except that poison attack, not needed imo).
I've got a question to the author though. After 1.3 patch fixed that dispel magic bug are you going to update this mod as you've said before? Cheers.