I still believe a few other classes should be able to put more points into club, such as Druids and maybe a couple of the Ranger Kits. I understand your reasoning behind the one point only club rule, and in BG1 it doesn't hurt the usability of clubs too greatly. However by BG2, clubs become really bad as more points are placed into other weapon types.
I was curious, do you plan on trying to get your mod to work with IWDEE when it releases?
On clubs: well, the thing is, if a club is a chair leg or log that you pick up and swing at someone, how do you "specialize" in that? How do you achieve "grandmastery" with a chair leg? An why would you ever swing a chair leg at someone if a sword or an axe, something actually designed to be a lethal weapon, is available? In other words, clubs are *supposed* to be really bad compared to other weapon types.
I think playability wins over realism. AFAIK almost no-one uses clubs anyway because they're generally just a poor option in the games. In any case, if you look at the drawings for various magical clubs, theyre somewhat more advanced than just a chair leg, plus obviously there's magical enhancements so...this change seems a bit unnecessary. And it's definitely nothing to do with balance which I thought was the point of the mod, though of course it's your mod, you do what you want with it. I'd suggest making it an optional part of the proficiency install (to limit them to 1*). Options are always good.
I think it would be fine, though I could see some people not liking it. Just make it optional I say.
I usually end up rolling my own stats by hand when making a character, with some minute tweaking or re-rolling it all if need be (BG and BG2 aren't going to be nice to a character with completely awful stats). I like doing it this way though cause I don't really end up with a fighter with all 3's in his dump stats.
Definitely not a huge problem. This is really only going to affect very few NPCs, mainly the main character, Imoen, Shar-Teel and Sarevok (also Xzar if you give him the Tome of Wisdom and Safana if you give the Tome of Intelligence yes?) This is something that would be very easy to fix in Shadowkeeper if you did end up with this issue.
Obviously it is best to fix it if possible, but better to have everything else working smoothly
Just as a heads up, I am still getting that Valygar and Yoshimo add kit bug I reported earlier.
I start with a fighter, get a lot of proficiencies at level 1. I advance to 3rd level, put 2 stars in long swords. Then I dual-class to thief. I get the level 1 thief profs. I advance to 4th level in thief and get my fighter class back. At this point I get back all of my level 1 fighter proficiencies - i.e. 1 star in lots of things. But that 2nd star in long swords gets lost.
It also overrides any proficiencies you placed from your second class. If you advance to 4th level fighter, put 1 point in longswords, dual to thief, advance to level 4, put 1 star in short swords, then advance to level 5 and re-activate fighter, both longswords and shortswords get reset to 1 star.
After your first class "reactivates", all of its CLAB is re-applied, with a new timestamp, overriding everything you've already done with your proficiencies. You need to have each proficiency spell apply Opcode 206, with itself as the resource, to prevent itself from being re-applied. Make sure to use timing mode "Instant/Permanent until Death"(1), as that will bypass the Dual-Class removal, and that it is the last effect.
I mentioned it in the Gallant thread, but I feel that, especially in your mod, he could use some buffing. Making "Heart of Valor" better as I mentioned would help whether the Gallant was used alone or in your mod, but compared to the Jongleur the Gallant is just worse.
- They both get thaco bonuses at the same time, but the Jongleur also gains AC. The Jongleur also begins with some extra proficiencies in a few weapon styles, and can put three pips into a few weapons. - In fact, the kit disadvantages seem pretty minor for choosing a Jongleur, are there more than the kit description mentions? Less spells per level or something? All it has is "May not become proficient in Heavy weapons or sword and shield style, limited to light armors."
- I would suggest allowing the Gallant to put 3 out of 4 pips into Greatswords and Spears/Halberds, as well as starting with a point in two-handed weapon style, allowing them to have up to two. I know you thought it sounded odd to have a bard using spears and such, but I feel like it fits the theme of the kit: The Gallant fights evil like a Paladin, but is also a man of the people, stealing the hearts of the young and lifting the spirits of the elderly. Plus the spear and greatsword proficiencies could fit in with the tendencies for Gallant's to take part in tournaments. I would also recommend some AC bonus gains, but perhaps only 1 to start out with and 1 more at level 9; the level 1 bonus to reflect his focus on combat and the level 9 bonus to reflect his honed skills (also fits in with "Heart of Valor" improving).
Ah alright, in the Jongleur's kit description in-game it lists him as gaining both thaco and AC bonuses, but you are correct that only ac is granted.
- Also a bug (I think), the Jongleur can reach Mastery in ANY weapon he can access, including things like Axes (supposed to be limited to a few weapons yea?)
Your points are valid, I just was trying to find a way to make him slightly more unique, which I was doing by trying to create a heavy weapon favoring bard, something I don't think I have ever used in a BG playthough before.
- Would you consider at least letting him get to two points in weapon stlyes (and possibly the full three in two weapon style?) I figure that wouldn't be too crazy, and he is more combat oriented than a normal bard so it would make sense he could put more points towards weapon styles.
- You could possibly give him an innate Protection from Evil 10' radius, call it "Valiant Shout" or something. It could be like his way of encouraging his fellow party members to greater heights of courage, and fits in with the whole "combating evil" aspect.
- An innate that casts Holy Power on the Gallant could also be useful, though perhaps too powerful? You could call it "Unyielding Courage" or some such.
Out of curiosity, when BG2EE finally gets 1.3, do you expect you will be able to add the extra APR bonus from proficiencies to it?
I knew you had it for BG:EE, glad to hear it is easily available once the patch comes down.
As for the Gallant I understand what you are saying. I was just trying to figure out a way to make him a viable choice against the Jongleur, they compete for the same role of a battle bard but I feel the Jongleur to be the stronger kit. Arguments could be made for either kit though I'm sure.
From an RP standpoint I do think the Gallant is a cool kit.
Yep you are correct, the Valygar/Yoshimo bug was something on my end, did a clean install og BG2EE and it works fine now.
As to the proficiency issues, I agree that you may just want to focus on getting your mod up and running without it for now, especially if it is killing your mood on doing the rest of the mod.
So, I was looking at the game the other day and I had some thoughts on multiclassing: 1) the broken/exploity ranger/cleric combo is a half-elf class... that seems weird. Neither of those base classes are something I consider to be very half-elf-y. Seems to me it should be shut down, only allowed with some kind of special dispensation for being a priest of Mielikki.
IWD:EE will have this working normally (ranger/cleric gets druid spells when a ranger normally would and only up to max allowed level). maybe it will be ported to BG in a future patch.
I'm not sure I follow your rationale. Halflings are already disadvantaged relative to dwarf or human warriors by their strength penalty. Is there some bit of lore I missed that explains that Halflings are terrible at weapon drills and have an innate difficulty in identifying the pointy end of their weapon? I'm also not sure how such a change would improve gameplay.
Disclaimer: I'm generally biased in favor of opening up classes to more races rather than shutting them off because I tend to view them as "nuture" as opposed to "nature" and thus open to anyone who seeks out the necessary training.
I would rather leave it alone, especially if it takes those multi classes from them as well.
"This is all about improving gameplay. I love mods that bring the game closer to PnP, like Rogue Rebalancing and aTweaks. But BG is a single-player computer game. If tweaking a rule makes this specific game more fun, then it's a good tweak, PnP be damned. Consider this mod as a collection of 'house rules' specific to the BG campaign. Every choice has been made with an eye to the particular gameplay mechanics of BG2 and the EEs."
Comments
I usually end up rolling my own stats by hand when making a character, with some minute tweaking or re-rolling it all if need be (BG and BG2 aren't going to be nice to a character with completely awful stats). I like doing it this way though cause I don't really end up with a fighter with all 3's in his dump stats.
Obviously it is best to fix it if possible, but better to have everything else working smoothly
Just as a heads up, I am still getting that Valygar and Yoshimo add kit bug I reported earlier.
After your first class "reactivates", all of its CLAB is re-applied, with a new timestamp, overriding everything you've already done with your proficiencies. You need to have each proficiency spell apply Opcode 206, with itself as the resource, to prevent itself from being re-applied. Make sure to use timing mode "Instant/Permanent until Death"(1), as that will bypass the Dual-Class removal, and that it is the last effect.
- They both get thaco bonuses at the same time, but the Jongleur also gains AC. The Jongleur also begins with some extra proficiencies in a few weapon styles, and can put three pips into a few weapons.
- In fact, the kit disadvantages seem pretty minor for choosing a Jongleur, are there more than the kit description mentions? Less spells per level or something? All it has is "May not become proficient in Heavy weapons or sword and shield style, limited to light armors."
- I would suggest allowing the Gallant to put 3 out of 4 pips into Greatswords and Spears/Halberds, as well as starting with a point in two-handed weapon style, allowing them to have up to two. I know you thought it sounded odd to have a bard using spears and such, but I feel like it fits the theme of the kit: The Gallant fights evil like a Paladin, but is also a man of the people, stealing the hearts of the young and lifting the spirits of the elderly. Plus the spear and greatsword proficiencies could fit in with the tendencies for Gallant's to take part in tournaments. I would also recommend some AC bonus gains, but perhaps only 1 to start out with and 1 more at level 9; the level 1 bonus to reflect his focus on combat and the level 9 bonus to reflect his honed skills (also fits in with "Heart of Valor" improving).
What do you think of any of that?
- Also a bug (I think), the Jongleur can reach Mastery in ANY weapon he can access, including things like Axes (supposed to be limited to a few weapons yea?)
Your points are valid, I just was trying to find a way to make him slightly more unique, which I was doing by trying to create a heavy weapon favoring bard, something I don't think I have ever used in a BG playthough before.
- Would you consider at least letting him get to two points in weapon stlyes (and possibly the full three in two weapon style?) I figure that wouldn't be too crazy, and he is more combat oriented than a normal bard so it would make sense he could put more points towards weapon styles.
- You could possibly give him an innate Protection from Evil 10' radius, call it "Valiant Shout" or something. It could be like his way of encouraging his fellow party members to greater heights of courage, and fits in with the whole "combating evil" aspect.
- An innate that casts Holy Power on the Gallant could also be useful, though perhaps too powerful? You could call it "Unyielding Courage" or some such.
Out of curiosity, when BG2EE finally gets 1.3, do you expect you will be able to add the extra APR bonus from proficiencies to it?
As for the Gallant I understand what you are saying. I was just trying to figure out a way to make him a viable choice against the Jongleur, they compete for the same role of a battle bard but I feel the Jongleur to be the stronger kit. Arguments could be made for either kit though I'm sure.
From an RP standpoint I do think the Gallant is a cool kit.
As to the proficiency issues, I agree that you may just want to focus on getting your mod up and running without it for now, especially if it is killing your mood on doing the rest of the mod.
BADVAL
VALUE
START_AREA AR0602
START_XPOS 3666
START_YPOS 2878
START_AREA_TUTORIAL AR0015
START_XPOS_TUTORIAL 607
START_YPOS_TUTORIAL 660
START_AREA_MP AR4000
START_XPOS_MP 1311
START_YPOS_MP 2347
START_XP 89000
START_XP_CAP 8000000
Disclaimer: I'm generally biased in favor of opening up classes to more races rather than shutting them off because I tend to view them as "nuture" as opposed to "nature" and thus open to anyone who seeks out the necessary training.
"This is all about improving gameplay. I love mods that bring the game closer to PnP, like Rogue Rebalancing and aTweaks. But BG is a single-player computer game. If tweaking a rule makes this specific game more fun, then it's a good tweak, PnP be damned. Consider this mod as a collection of 'house rules' specific to the BG campaign. Every choice has been made with an eye to the particular gameplay mechanics of BG2 and the EEs."
Just try to keep this in mind eh? :-p