Differences between BG and IWD in character generation?
What differences can we look forward to when designing our party for IWD compared to what we've been accustomed to in BG1 and 2ee?
I've never played IWD so full information would be appreciated
- create up to 6 characters
- Kits all the same?
- Bards get spells up to level 8?
- rangers and paladins start getting spells sooner?
- HLAs?
- some weapon groups terribly under represented
- level 30 cap (not an XP cap so 30/30/30 multiclass possible?)
- triple multis get Mage HLAs?
- shortage of Mage spell scrolls
- Wild Mage vastly superior to specialist Mage due to double opposition
- significant story content for bard, Druid, paladin
I've never played IWD so full information would be appreciated
- create up to 6 characters
- Kits all the same?
- Bards get spells up to level 8?
- rangers and paladins start getting spells sooner?
- HLAs?
- some weapon groups terribly under represented
- level 30 cap (not an XP cap so 30/30/30 multiclass possible?)
- triple multis get Mage HLAs?
- shortage of Mage spell scrolls
- Wild Mage vastly superior to specialist Mage due to double opposition
- significant story content for bard, Druid, paladin
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Comments
Good call on the HLA's, im curious if they will be implemented as well.
I will try to adress your points:
- Yes 6 char's max. I usually only pick 4 or 5.
- I don't know it the kits will be the same, but guess so.
- The bard can use lvl 8 spells, a wizard lvl 9.
- Rangers and Paladins are the same as far as I know, but not sure.
- HLAs? What is HLA's?
- Weapon groups? not in char- gen? Magical weapons in game are sparse, but it adds to the gameplay.
- Yes lvl 30 cap - multiclass should be fun.
- I don't know what HLA's mean?
- Yes there is a shortage of mage scrolls, also in shops. But it adds to balancing the gameplay. A bit annoying at times though.
- Never played Wild Mage in IWD.
- And, yes if you pick Bard especially, there will be more dialouge options at some points.
- From what we know till now, the kits we have in BG2EE will also exist in IWDEE
- I would assume that the bard's, ranger's, and paladin's will be getting more generous spell progression like they do in IWD compared to BG2 (For example, as you said, Bard's can reach 8th level spells in IWD with expansion)
- IWD does not have HLA's and kits by default. Since kits will be included which implies that there will be balance changes, I will assume that they will be implemented to make the higher levels more interesting
- I would also assume/hope they will do some tweaks to include katanas, scimitars etc but I would not expect that the groups will be significantly balanced without them adding far too many powerful items. Though with the 'unfinished business' news quests they can implement such unique rewards
- From what I remember, mage spell scrolls are sufficient for 2 or so mages but, with proper distribution, it is not an issue even for high caster parties (though if you do so, pick an lolREKT sorcerer)
- From what I remembers, bard's, druid's etc do not really have any real additional content. There are unique class items but I do not recall unique quests etc... IWD2 did have such features and absolutely stunning dialogues for some classes and races.
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I am not in any beta, this is just speculations using reason and my, albeit old, memory
*starts planning his Blade*
Paladin and Ranger spell progression should remain the same, per 2E rules.
I'm fairly sure that they will be in add they are, AFAIK for all intents and purposes, starting with the bgee engine. However, you should be able to easily eliminate them in your game--and you can do this in bgee add well. You just need to change some numbers in a text file.
Research suggests that 30/30/30 is possible though the xp required would limit it to games on Hearts of Fury difficulty, even then it might be a struggle.
Though another source mentioned the 8mil ToB cap. What is great about no HLAs?
I read that Rangers and Paladins started getting spells at level 6 in IWD though maybe that was IWD2?
What's great about about no HLAs is just that they really aren't a part of 2E rules. They're more of a 3E graft into the older rule set. Now its hard to fuss too much about it, core 2E rules pretty much stop at 20th level, so I'm sort of okay with the idea adapting something to go to higher levels than the core game allows for.
But it seriously screws with balance and gameplay. If the game is designed to have them, then we as players need to use them or we will be severely handicapped.
But I really liked the way the original game was balanced. Adding such things now can only make a mess of balance issues.
I have similar concerns about the whole magic system. IWD was not designed for BG style high level mage battles. And I hope we don't end up seeing hostile mages spamming protection spells that require us to play the dispel/pierce tango in every magic battle.
What IWD offered that was so different was the large scale melee/free for alls. If this gets junked up with spam mages and HLAs, well, I'll likely stick with vanilla.
Bards definitely get up to level 8 spells in HoW. The last play through I did had my bard get level 9 spells for some reason, reaching them before my multiclassed wizard. I suspect this was due to one of the tweaks mods I had installed (possibly rogue rebalancing).
FYI in 3e rules, Paladins and Rangers start getting spells at level 4. This is also the case in IWD2, although I recall that their spell tables went up to level 9, even though in real 3e rules they only go up to 4.
But yeah, you shouldn't look at 3.x games for level caps in comparison to 2.x games. Multiclassing in 3.x works quite different in 2.x.
In 3.x, you have a single XP total, and a single Character level based on that XP total. Each time you gain a Character level, you may choose which class to gain that level in, and while you can go for the same class every level, it's perfectly allowed to mix and match different classes.
Especially melee oriented classes dabble into multiclassing, since pretty much everything they gain stacks with each other. BaB (the 3.x version of THAC0) improvements from all classes stack together, as do saving throw scores, so a fighter4/ranger4/paladin4 has roughly the same BaB, Health and Saves as a fighter12, ranger12 or paladin12, but he has a mixture of low level skills from 3 different classes, instead of the low and medium level skills of a single class. Casters benefit a lot less from multiclassing, as spell progressions from different classes don't stack.
Also, 3.x has a much more linear XP requirement for levels. To gain a new level, you need 1000x your current level in XP.
2.x doubles the XP requirement every level up to around 10th level, and then requires roughly the same XP for each remaining level as the total XP up to that level.