Why No Adjustments to Original Characters?
Jorkan
Member Posts: 74
I understand that we cannot adjust the conversations, stats or much of anything in regards to the original characters and that this choice came down from the people that own the franchise. My questions is why? I've read through many a thread, but cannot find the answer to this question besides, "because."
I think the game would be so much better if there were romances with original characters, more party banter, etc. What is the logic for placing these artificial limitation on the creators of BG:EE?
I think the game would be so much better if there were romances with original characters, more party banter, etc. What is the logic for placing these artificial limitation on the creators of BG:EE?
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Imho, the enhancement Overhaul is doing within the current limits are nice and welcome.
Anything beyond this would just destroy the classic. You don't make adjustment to a VanGogh piece just because in your time other styles are more appreciated.
But then again I always shudder when thinking what G. Lucas has done to the classic Star Wars Trilogy
I'd like more choices, more art, more anything as well, mind you.
But why change an existing game then, instead of doing a completely new one?
That would be the way to go for including all the awesome things one wants in a game
Adding new stuff to BG instead of changing existing stuff is a compromise, I can accept and even appreciate.
But some classic things just should remain as they are with all their beauty and faults.
BG trilogy is regarded as one of the greatest games of all time, or pretty high up there. I'm surprised that they would let them work on it, but sometimes when you remake something and you change too much, you break the game and people find it hard to go back to the original. But the thing that doesn't makes sense to me is that this is going to make the version on Gog.com all but worthless (why buy the original when you have the EE version).
I'm not one to say if it's not broke, don't fix it. I'm the opposite. Improve it, change it, whatever it takes to make it better.
Let's be honest. Baldur's Gate isn't a terribly difficult game. It's not like you're going to get stuck and be unable to beat the game if you use guys like Tiax and Eldoth and Quayle
Otherwise, I can't see why Wotc would green light BG:EE without also mandating that it be updated to 4E (which would, of course, kill the project -- better to write a new game at that point).
Characters who are fundamentally worthless? Please fix them. Garrick, Alora and Quayle are bad characters and are so far behind even other bad characters, it's comical. Every other characters is fine but these guys are all total garbage. I have literally never used any of them for any length of time, ever.
When they are dead weight, it means they need some sort of rework. It's not like they'd need something really significant, either.
Garrick: Either boost his dexterity to max for a human, or boost his intelligence to 16. He's so stupid he basically can't even scribe scrolls. He has +2 dex modifier, and that's it. Everything else might as well be 7. I don't even think Garrick has a unique ability.
Alora: Honestly all they'd really have to do is make it so you can recruit her earlier somehow. Maybe give her 15 CON to make use of halfling saving throws? The fact she's worse at thievery than the multi-classed Coran, whom also joins really late, and yet is statistically worse than he is in every way? Trash character. I can't think of a reason to use her, period. Ever. Unless you're doing a hardcore run and literally every other character in the game is dead.
Quayle: He'd be worth using if he didn't suffer divine spellcasting failure. All you have to do is bump his Wisdom to 13. Also make him proficient in quarterstaves rather than maces considering he can't lift a mace with his low strength.
That's all. Just make them usable. That's all I ask.
Are you seriously calling Alora and Qayale "Trash". that must be trolling.
+1 ranged Thac0, an extra 5% bonus to thievery skills.
Ooh. Aah. I'm amazed. (I'd write this in a sarcasm font if one existed.)
By the way, it's her ONLY stat in the black. That's ALL you have with her. I guess she has slightly better saving throws than your other thieves simply for being a halfling. OH WAIT: that only happens on character creation so she doesn't actually get those bonuses even though she's entitled to them.
So yes, I'm calling Alora trash. Name a single way she is better than Imoen. Her bonus to thieving skills for being a halfling and having higher dexterity are negated by the fact Imoen is with you from level 1 so you can actually put them into useful abilities. Imoen also has significantly better HP.
The worst pure thief statistically is Safana, but I'd still rather take Safana. If I really want, I can dual-class Safana to mage if I give her the +INT tome. Also, she's easy to get which means I can skill her up how I want. Also she can hold an item or two without that being the only two items she's holding. That's a minor pet peeve, but still one that goes a long way into my loathe for Alora.
Skie manages to get a bonus to constitution and also has 18 Dex, so she's a better thief.
Coran has 20 Dex and also joins earlier and is also super handy with a bow. Montaron joins the moment you leave Candlekeep and is a fairly capable thief/warrior without any boosts from equipment. Even Shar-Teel if you want to dual her to thief ends up a more capable character than Alora.
Give me a single reason to use her. She's the most superfluous character in the game. Having the natural max Dex for your race type doesn't save you from being worthless, Alora.
@Roller12: Quayle can't even reliably cast his cleric spells, of which he is very limited due to no bonus spells per level and the fact he's multi-classed and therefore levels really slowly. As such, it means he's a somewhat capable mage that levels really, really, really, really, really slowly. Boosting his wisdom to 13 doesn't give him bonus cleric spells but it means they wouldn't fail to cast any more. It'd go a long way to making him a viable pick to a given party. He's clunky and unwieldy purely for that reason. Make it so his cleric multi-class makes sense and okay. He's a decent character then.
If you guys don't think those characters are bad, then you must not think any character is bad because they are all clearly the worst.
As for the other stuff, thats just one huge pile of theorycrafting, come on man. Id rather abstain picking on that. Even Shar-teel is better as a thief? Ye shar-teel is about as worthless as Alora.
I doubt I'm alone in that regard. And if you think like I do, it becomes apparent Alora is pretty useless. If you don't want to waste your INT tome on Safana to dual-class her into Mage, okay. Alora is a better pure thief than Safana is and doesn't use up something you'll probably want on your Bhaalspawn. Skie would be the next closest comparison. I'll take the trade off of a single ranged Thac0 and slightly better saving throws for improved HP and the ability to hold more gear than a single weapon and armor, plus she's got to tag along with another NPC so hey there's something unique there.
Besides, this is assuming you're going to use any of those over Imoen anyway, who is statistically superior to all of them AND she tags along from level 1.
Every other thief is multi- or dual-classed so they already set themselves apart for those reasons alone. I don't think I'm a horrible monster for thinking Alora has no purpose for existing. She doesn't even have a unique ability about her like 75% of the cast does, so I could simply roll a better NPC than her with extremely little effort. It's not like she has a whole lot of interaction with the rest of your NPCs due to how little scripting they did for her due to her joining so late.
They have their fans, though, from a roleplayer's perspective, which is different from a powergamer's. One of the great things about Baldur's Gate, and part of its lasting appeal, is that it is a flexible D&D world that can satisfy several different playstyles.
As for the "weaker" characters, you could use them as a difficulty-increasing handicap for a greater challenge, or you could use them just because you like them and they're fun to have around. Have you read Alora's player in @LadyRhian's pencil-and-paper D&D thread? They're really bringing Alora to life in there, and it's a lot of fun to read the lines and banters they're writing for her. And who can resist smiling when Garrick's morale breaks and he sings "Brave, Brave, Sir Garrick"?
Hopefully there will be some voiced lines as such, but if so we'll only get to hear them in the game's new areas.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/3587
Only about half the fans seem to want this, which surprised me. Many people said the original statistics do not even matter! People seem to respond to the personalities more than the stats. They also feel that the number of changes should be kept to an absolute minimum. I guess it's a sobering reminder to me...if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I don't want to go all George Lucas and ruin something by remastering it.
(kidding)
Every other character does at least one thing well, even ones I commonly hear a lot of people think "suck" like Khalid, Jahiera, Tiax, and Eldoth. Khalid + gauntlets of Ogre Power = arguably the best tank in the game. Jahiera can at least make use of her druid spells and has access to decent equipment so she's not dead weight. Tiax has possibly the best personal ability in the game with Summon Ghoul. Eldoth + Gauntlets of Dexterity is one of the best anti-casters and a capable archer in his own right because of his poison arrows, and he's a licence to print money due to those same arrows regardless.
Poor statistics are one thing. Borderline unusable statistics are another. I fail to see how making these characters functional changes their RP value, either. If you like their personalities, you like their personalities and boosting some stats to make them shine isn't going to change that.
@SandmanCCL Don't forget -1 to AC, which is always useful. Perhaps, as an old skool (ironically used here) gamer, I see no characters as "trash", useless or hopeless. My first character in Basic D&D had a 14 strength, and that was her highest stat. It didn't make her "trash" or "Useless". If all a character's worth to you is in their stats... eh. I find it more heroic to survive and thrive without extremely high stats in all areas. So, no. I don't agree that Alora is trash. And I really dislike Eldoth. I would never have him in my party, poison arrows or no. But even I wouldn't call his character "trash". I also dislike Skie, but that's because I find her character annoying rather than any deficiency in her stats.
By flat out saying that they won't touch ANY of the old characters, they freed themselves to focus on adding new characters, new stuff... to look to the future rather than muck about in the below-average stat pools of the past. :-)
Quayle. the manual is wrong, divine spell failure is not implemented in the game, clerics will happily cast everything even with minimum wisdom. Quyale has low wisdom purely for balance reasons. The exp system in BG works a bit weird so multiclasses get almost as far as pure classes. Quayle will be a lvl7cleric/lvl7mage, where pure casters end as lvl8 cleric and lvl9 mage. Quayle has access to all spells a pure cleric has access to, and his only disadvantage is that he cant cast arcane lvl5 spells, being short just a couple of k exp to reach it. With cap he and Edwin both have 23 spells/day. Without exp cap he gets access to all arcane spells and becomes the absolute best caster in the game. And cap is increased in BGEE. No matter what caster your party has he/she safely can be replaced with him, again short of Edwin maybe. Quayle is that good.
Alora, apparenty words are not enough to defeat rampant theorycrafting, so here is a pic how Alora should look like with keypoints highlighted.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Cast Strength to get her up to 18/50 for 9 hours, which is not necessary btw but sure helps. The real gem is her stealth value. The more stealth you have the easier it is to hide, and consequently to backstab more often. Once there are no red circles in sight, the character is eligible for hiding, even in bright daylight, but penalized. And Alora is a hiding goddess. Skills are capped and the only way one can progress beyond the cap is via dex and racial bonuses, so Alora has the best possible stealth value in the game. Even with 8 strength she backstabs for about 45 damage, rehide and continue.
Next, saving throw of 3 vs spells. This a BG2:ToB value, In case it is not sufficiently clear, she is almost immune vs save-or-else spells. Needs to roll a 3-20 on a d20 dice to get away unharmed. Which is also not necessarily true because of her special ability.
Yes she does have one. Notice her lucky rabbit foot? This is not just a silent Boo. This is the best item in the game, no exceptions. Ok that would be too good. It would be the best item in the game if it would be working as intended, her rabbit foot gives +luck, and luck affects every roll in the game, although currently it doesnt, hopefully they fix it in BGee. Explaining luck is outside the scope of this post.
In short Alora may have a small frame but is miles ahead other NPC. As for Shar-teel being "weak", sorry i almost died from laughter. Be it as it be.
You apparently have some sort of emotional investment in Alora and that's fine. I am not looking at this from an RP perspective because that really doesn't matter to me especially in a conversation about making adjustments to characters. I wish you wouldn't take it personally I feel she's the most superfluous character in the game from a gameplay, mechanics perspective.
Part of the reason I wish Garrick was a more viable NPC is because I like his personality and I want more incentive to use him. Wasn't this way in BG1 Vanilla to the best of my memory so I suppose I never gave him a chance beyond that.
I've happily admitted he'd be a good character if it wasn't for that. My suggestion to bump his wisdom up 3 points didn't change any value Wisdom grants beyond 10 except for removing spell failure. Changing his wisdom to 13 WOULDN'T HAVE IMPACTED HIS BALANCE TO THE GAME.
You could have said "Divine Spell Failure is not implemented in the game so 10 Wisdom doesn't actual hinder his spellcasting" several posts ago and I would have readily backed off. Because you can't do that with other thief NPCs. Ones that also have significantly better stats in other areas. And that don't have a bloated stealth value beyond what you'd reasonably need to succeed in stealth every time. And that have better find traps skill. Montaron has better saving throws, is usable from level 1, and without buffs can actually manage to land a hit for damage due to better Thac0. So she has "the best item in the game, no exceptions" except that it actually does nothing because it doesn't work as intended?
K.
Also if we're counting buffs through spells, pretty sure you can cast Luck on anyone with your wizard if you really need it. Cool to have in an item, sure. Hardly makes it the "best item in the game" if a level 2 spell can replicate it's effects. Shar-Teel is the best evil-aligned ranged character. Did I miss something? Has that somehow become totally insignificant? Also, fighter levels so she's not a pure thief even if you decide to go that route.
Quayle is a powerhouse if you know how to profit from his spell arsenal.
He doesn't get bonus spells, but come on, every NPC is counter balanced in some way in BG1.
I can somehow understand your points concerning Alora and Garrick.
Me personally, I find Garrick pretty useful. He's available early, nicely identifies your stuff and levels up very fast so that his spells are very strong compared to the mage's version of the same Exp.
Plus he is an OK backup (X-bow)archer.
His weak point is his measly Int, so that scribing is tedious, yes.
Alora seems superfluous to me, only because she joins so late and there are a ton of thieves already in the game much more earlier. Though I used her once to get me that shiny scimitar from Drizzt and she was good at this task ;P