How To Make New Kits? Seeking Documentation + Prowler Thief Kit Feedback
unkinhead
Member Posts: 107
I would like to begin making custom kits, i have limited, but ample coding experience, so i think i would be alright to do something basic such as creating kits. I would like some documentation, walk-through, instructional, tutorial, video etc, that pertains to how something like this is done.
This is one of the kits i intend to create, please also inform me on how to balance this class if you feel it is unbalanced.
Thought it would be neat to incorporate daggers, as they are so underplayed...and for good reason.
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Prowler:
The Prowler is the epitome of stealth and convenience with daggers. By sacrificing other aspect of a thieves repertoire, These quick and decisive Prowlers regard using the bare essentials as a necessity to maintain anonymity and accuracy.
Advantages:
- +15% bonus to Hide in Shadows.
- May achieve Grand Mastery (five slots) in Daggers.
- May achieve Mastery (three slots) in Two-Weapon Style.
- -1 bonus to Speed Factor every 5 levels.
- May use Backstab ability at a greater multiplier than normal thieves. (May be taken away)
Level 1-8: x2
Level 5-8: x3
Level 9-12: x4
Level 13-16: x5
Level 17-20: x6
Level 21-25: x7
Level 25+: x8
- May cast Rapid Blow once per day every 5 levels (starts at 1st level with one use).
RAPID BLOW: For one round, the caster gets distinct cumulative bonuses while dual wielding daggers depending on level.
1st Level: +1 bonus to THAC0
5th Level: 1 extra attack per round
10th Level: +2 bonus to damage roll
15th Level: 1 extra attack per round
Disadvantages:
- May not use Set Snare ability.
- May only distribute 20 skill points per level among thieving skills.
- Alignment restricted to any non-lawful.
- Can not become Proficient (one slot) in any other weapon.
Justifications: Speed Factor --- They are extremely quick, granted by their convenient weapon choice.
Grand Mastery --- After looking at the bonuses, this is the only one which has a great benefit higher than specialization.
Set Snare + skill point disadvantage: --- They sacrifice these skills for the skills they have.
Alignment Restriction --- They pride themselves on being quick and deceptive, doesn't really make sense for you to be a lawful deceptive backstabbing thief.
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Opinions? Overpowered? Underpowered? Boring? Let me know
This is one of the kits i intend to create, please also inform me on how to balance this class if you feel it is unbalanced.
Thought it would be neat to incorporate daggers, as they are so underplayed...and for good reason.
------------------------
Prowler:
The Prowler is the epitome of stealth and convenience with daggers. By sacrificing other aspect of a thieves repertoire, These quick and decisive Prowlers regard using the bare essentials as a necessity to maintain anonymity and accuracy.
Advantages:
- +15% bonus to Hide in Shadows.
- May achieve Grand Mastery (five slots) in Daggers.
- May achieve Mastery (three slots) in Two-Weapon Style.
- -1 bonus to Speed Factor every 5 levels.
- May use Backstab ability at a greater multiplier than normal thieves. (May be taken away)
Level 1-8: x2
Level 5-8: x3
Level 9-12: x4
Level 13-16: x5
Level 17-20: x6
Level 21-25: x7
Level 25+: x8
- May cast Rapid Blow once per day every 5 levels (starts at 1st level with one use).
RAPID BLOW: For one round, the caster gets distinct cumulative bonuses while dual wielding daggers depending on level.
1st Level: +1 bonus to THAC0
5th Level: 1 extra attack per round
10th Level: +2 bonus to damage roll
15th Level: 1 extra attack per round
Disadvantages:
- May not use Set Snare ability.
- May only distribute 20 skill points per level among thieving skills.
- Alignment restricted to any non-lawful.
- Can not become Proficient (one slot) in any other weapon.
Justifications: Speed Factor --- They are extremely quick, granted by their convenient weapon choice.
Grand Mastery --- After looking at the bonuses, this is the only one which has a great benefit higher than specialization.
Set Snare + skill point disadvantage: --- They sacrifice these skills for the skills they have.
Alignment Restriction --- They pride themselves on being quick and deceptive, doesn't really make sense for you to be a lawful deceptive backstabbing thief.
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Opinions? Overpowered? Underpowered? Boring? Let me know
Post edited by unkinhead on
0
Comments
Becoming Specialized in a weapon is a big bonus, because you get +1 THAC0 and +2 damage. However, Mastery only gets you an additional +1 THAC0, which is not very useful, so this particular benefit of the class is not that great. When you consider that the Swashbuckler (another Thief kit) gets Specialization, this becomes sort of redundant. I would not think that this would balance out the daggers significantly, since other weapon types are still going to be better to pick (1d8 beats 1d4+2).
The two-weapon specialization kind of hits the same problem- Swashbuckler does it better.
Reduction in speed factor is extremely mild, and since daggers already have very low speed factors, I don't think that this ability synergizes very well with the class concept.
Rapid Blow would need to be tweaked- remember that a dual-wielding thief already gets 2 APR, and if you're using a speed weapon you're beating this with 3 APR. I would make this ability slightly more powerful, make it scale with level, and hand it out at level 1. Level 13 is way too late for this, and you'd only have 3 uses at the ToB level cap which isn't very impressive.
Not being able to use traps is a pretty hefty disadvantage considering that is the way to deal damage as a thief, but not unworkable if the class was compensated better.
15 skill points per level is a really big disadvantage for this class in my opinion. I don't think it really makes sense thematically and it makes the +15% Hide in Shadows bonus very lame, as a normal thief will totally offset that bonus in two level ups.
I really don't think the backstab nerf makes sense. Daggers are made for stabbing. If anything I would like to see a backstab buff on this kit since daggers are actually really bad for backstabbing in this game- preferably this buff would only apply when wielding daggers, but I don't know how difficult this would be to code.
As for the other stuff, thanks, i actually didn't even have the knowledge of:
-Daggers suck at backstabbing -- i didn't know that at all, although i suppose it makes sense because they are underwhelming in general.
-APR stuff --- I thought they always had 1APR, my bad. I figured 2APR would give them "double" the attacks per round
Thanks to both of you, i will tweak it now.
Also edited description to make more sense of why they lose certain thief abilities such as loss of skill points and traps.
I think a good tweak for the Rapid Blow ability would be to incorporate it as a flat x2 APR, so it's useful whether or not you dual-wield it. I don't think it would be too powerful on a thief kit since your THAC0/damage/base APR is going to be worse than any of the fighter classes anyway, and you'll be restricted to daggers. Getting it at level 3 is a big improvement as well, 13 seemed like such a weird number to get it.
So i changed it to 5 so it works... 1, 5, 10, 15, 20
Rather than have to add a new perk every 3 levels.
Right now its (after its completely level'd) +2 extra attacks per round regardless of what the base attacks per round is.
I believe the engine is limited (modding wise) to simple addition though, meaning i don't think its possible to do (Base X Interval = Attacks per round) i think i can only do (Base + Interval = Attacks per round).
Could you link me a source to these statistics your referencing? I would like to see the APR for normal thieves per level and things like that.
Also, what would you suggest for a addition based interval, or do you think +2 is enough? (keep in mind all the other buffs)
I think i should make "Can not dual class" as a disadvantage for this kit, and that would be a huge one...
Think about it though...If i were to dual class into a fighter, it would be pretty OP, considering you would have thief abilities + Grand Mastery in daggers + something that increases your APR + Fighter Bonuses. Then again, not really sure if that would really be any better for a fighter, considering they can do all of that anyways...And they would be limited to using daggers for those bonuses when they could get more damage output with flails/long swords, etc...
I would just see people do Hide in Shadows, "Rapid Blow", Backstab for x8, switch to their grandmaster'd Long Swords, then go to town...lol
Also, you could do x2 APR by incorporating it as an Improved Haste effect, since that effect already doubles your APR. Not sure how these are laid out in the code, though, or whether you could separate it from the movement speed effect. I dunno if I can point to any statistics- but I can explain the mechanics a little more.
Thieves never gain additional APR as a result of weapon proficiency or leveling up. If they're wielding a single weapon, they always have 1 APR. The only exceptions are bows and throwing daggers (2 APR) and darts (3 APR).
If they dual wield, they gain 1 APR. If they equip a speed weapon (Belm, Kundane, or the Scarlet Ninja-To) they gain 1 APR. All of these bonuses stack (dual-wielding with one speed weapon is +2 APR, dual-wielding with two speed weapons is +3 APR).
The Haste effect adds 1 APR. The Improved Haste effect doubles your APR.
If you dual-class or multi-class with a Fighter, you can get APR bonuses in different ways, but those aren't directly relevant to this class. For a thief, +2 APR is a pretty good bonus. I think the kicker for the class is going to be what level you get +2 APR... since that's the best bonus this class gets. I wouldn't worry about it too much- Fighters are going to get Greater Whirlwind anyway which will max out their APR anyway so I don't see this class's benefits being a huge thing for a Fighter.
Anyway, looking at the kit, something crossed my mind. Instead of dual-wielding, if you gave +1 attack per round while using a single dagger, and allowed 2 slots in single weapon style, you'd slightly strengthen the kit. A bigger bonus if you only have access to one awesome dagger. If using two daggers at once was core to the philosophy of the kit, well, don't do this!
Thanks, il update.