I thoroughly dislike the very idea of dual- and multi-classes;
I find them immersion-breaking. Classes give character. For example, when I hear of an assassin or a barbarian or a sorceror, I will have some sort of an image in my mind on who they are; on the other hand, when I hear of a 'fighter/mage/thief', nothing pops up. Come to think of it, do we really hear about dual- or multi-classed characters ingame? There are like a dozen dual- and multi-classed companions in the series, but I can only remember Anomen introducing himself as 'warrior priest of Helm'. It is almost as if the whole concept solely exists as a technical convenience to satisfy the player.
Now kits I very much like. In fact, I think they are a viable, immersion-friendly substitute for dual- and multi-classing. Want a thief that leans a bit towards a warrior? Have yourself a swashbuckler. Read the description of this kit and the image of Coran will be conjured in your head, who is of course a 'fighter/thief' in the actual game. *sigh*
I agree full-heartedly with almost all of this and have voiced this opinion in a number of threads. I would rather have singleclasses replace all MC classes, but I think dualclassing should be a possibility, though with more drawbacks. IMHO, it's when MC's outshine and outperforme their singleclass counterparts that the class-system flaunts its flaws.
A mage spends many years studying magic, hoping to broaden their understanding of the Weave. A thief spends many years plying the trade, hoping to gather a fortune. A fighter spends many years practicing with weapons, hoping to chop up his or her enemies.
The only roleplaying justification I can think of for a Fighter/Mage/Thief is that the character must be really indecisive about his or her future.
A mage spends many years studying magic, hoping to broaden their understanding of the Weave. A thief spends many years plying the trade, hoping to gather a fortune. A fighter spends many years practicing with weapons, hoping to chop up his or her enemies.
The only roleplaying justification I can think of for a Fighter/Mage/Thief is that the character must be really indecisive about his or her future.
I dunno. Seems to me that a FMT is someone who wants to do it all without relying on others.
You want to be able to find and disarm traps. You also understand that a blade across the throat ends fights quickly. Thief levels.
You also understand that sometimes you have to fight someone face to face. You do some training (not full time, but enough) to be able to hold your own. Fighter levels.
Finally, you realize that no matter how strong or quick you are, a mage can lock you down and obliterate you. You also know that mages can protect themselves against physical attacks. So you learn enough to get yourself out of bad situations (invisibility), protect yourself from melee attacks (stone skin) and fight enemy mages (breach).
A FMT seems to me to be a somewhat untrusting soul who wants to always be ready for any challenge, with or without his allies.
A FMT can't and won't fight anyone to their strengths, but will fight to their weaknesses. If he comes across an enemy thief...his stoneskin will block the backstab and he will then use his fighter levels to take down the thief.
If he comes across an enemy mage, he will backstab the mage if the mage has no protections, or will defend himself against magic, remove the enemy's protections, and beat the mage over the head.
If he comes across an enemy fighter, he will disable the fighter with magic and kill him at his leisure.
Be good at everything but great at nothing, so you can exploit the weaknesses of those who are great at just one thing.
A Dynaheir's romance from the BG1 NPC mod is very-well written, adds greatly to learning what a character Dynaheir is. What's her story? What about her country?
I hated how I was forced into this *knight in shining* armor role in that romance. I'm a pure arcane caster, I want to talk to her as if, idk she was my peer in magic.
Multi-classing carries its own penalties. Slower level progression and inability to reach top of the profession. I have never played a multi-class, nor have I any desire to do so.
I have only dual classed anyone twice. Sarevok->mage and my swashbuckler-> mage. And I changed my mind about that one, and went back to an earlier save. I'll keep that one as a swash until at least ToB when I'll make a final decision.
Now, making a solo run is another story. I haven't tried that, but it's certainly a reason to have a F/M/T. There you really do need to be able to do it all, and since you aren't splitting up the experience, your progression will be faster than a multi who is running around as part of a full party of 6.
-I think many people are confusing gimping their characters and roleplaying their characters; it's not because your Fighter has 16 Str that you are a roleplayer compared to the guy playing a Fighter/Mage with 18 Str and 18 Int!
Yes and no. An average person in the realms would have stats of 9 or 10. Having a stat of 18 is extremely rare and exceptional, not to mention having two of them at 18 and by chance also for those you need for your class. Remember that classes are not necessarily a choice of what one excels at but often what one likes to do our portray in life. In that sense I myself could never roleplay a character with many 18s especially in the stats the class would require. However, I can see / have seen other people do so. Does not mean that when I play an 18s protagonist I do not roleplay a little to stay in character.
Unpopular opinions? Sweet Buddha I'm all over this.
- Declining to have any stat lower than 10 isn't good roleplaying. Real people, even heroes, have things they're below average in.
- The elven "truth sages" thing was not only completely reasonable but far better than anything the humans would have done.
- Paladins are dangerous mentally unstable bigots who attack strangers on the slighest provocation, they should be branded as dangerous vigilantes and avoided, not given a headquarters in town.
- Chaotic Neutral is the only appropriate alignment for a CHARNAME.
- Elves really are superior to humans, as are gnomes, dwarves and halflings.
- Humans should have just been allowed to multiclass rather than allow the abomination that is dual classing to exist, and could have done away with Half-Elves entirely as a result.
- Bards should have been allowed to specialise in all weapons and styles, and any class that can specialise in weapons should get the bonus APR from that specialisation.
- Multiclass Fighters should be allowed to Grand Master any weapon, just as multiclass mages can reach level 9 spells.
- Anomen is actually a pretty cool guy. Out of all the NPCs, he's the only one who joins you without having a shared quest or because you did something nice for them in the first place, and he literally follows you to hell and back all the same.
- There should be a setting without humans at all so people stop feeling the need to make them overpowered to justify their existence.
- Neera and her wild mage buddies overused the "wild surge" gag way, way too hard considering even the most spell-spammy wild mage surges maybe three times a day.
- Imoen and CHARNAME is the OTP of Baldur's Gate.
- Fighters should have been granted a wide variety of combat manoeuvres they could use in battle starting at mundane things like parry and lunge and finishing in cosmically ridiculous feats of earth-shattering glory far, far stronger than HLAs that barely match the power of medium level spells.
- No character should have a min1HP belt. Biff the Understudy should have made a reappearance instead.
- Fighters are underpowered.
- Any Thief with a level above 28 is pointless, since that's 100 in every skill at 13 Dexterity. QED single class thieves are pointless and should always be multiclassed.
- It is perfectly legitimate in a high stress, high danger situation for a group of professional monster hunters to stop whenever necessary to replenish spells and resources. It's also, arguably, the most realistic method of a professional adventuring outfit.
- Mages should have been able to leave spell slots empty, then select them later as they were required and, so long as they were out of combat for a few minutes, memorise those new spells without having to rest, so long as that spell slot hadn't been cast or prepared that day already.
- Mages being able to do this should have replaced the sorcerer class entirely.
- Elves should have been able to be druids.
- Races should not define what the player can choose as their class, it makes no sense for an entire population to be incapable of casting spells.
- Dragons would have been better if they were completely bestial, unable to communicate or comprehend humanoids but still gifted with powerful innate magical and physical power, rather than basically arrogant scaly lizards who generally think they're smarter than they actually are.
- Elves and Dwarves should be allied and in the middle of an industrial revolution, enslaving humans to work in their factories creating giant magical mecha.
- Doppelganger should have been one of CHARNAME's race choices.
- Given their upbringing, neutral CHARNAME should have been a cleric of Oghma, not Helm.
- Non-human CHARNAMEs should have had race-specific kits, you ethnocentrists.
- There should be more responses available where CHARNAME is aware of something, but just doesn't care and went along with it anyway, particularly at high Wisdom and Intelligence.
- Characters with below 5 in mental stats should have unique responses as they grunt and meander their way through the plot, potentially locking them out of content and companions as a result.
- The Raise Dead penalty of losing 1 constitution per cast (and even when restored only allowed Max!Con revivals) should have been enforced to give death real meaning and encourage careful planning.
- The Wish spell should have included one-time only options like Limited Wish, for doing things like granting a permanent stat gain or gaining the ability to turn into a carrion crawler at will.
- Casting invisibility in the middle of combat for anything but Shadow Door and Mislead should not cause the target to turn truly invisible.
- Glitterdust should have removed invisiblity effects every round for multiple rounds.
- Thieves should have been able to set snares in combat, but snares should have had a casting time of 9.
- Rasaad's kit is stupid, because the Shadows he is supposed to oppose are immune to fire, but vulnerable to lightning.
- The EE NPCs have a few niggles here and there, but generally Neera and Rasaad are both solid NPCs who fit in decently well, and all of them have great quests with a variety of choices and methods of approach that actually exceed vanilla quests at times. Except for Hexxat, she's just bad.
- Imoen should have lost one random stat point per day due losing her soul.
- CHARNAME should have got back their Bhaalspawn abilities when they defeated Irenicus.
- Rations should have been included, and nutrition enforced, as should have Create Food and Water.
- Haer'dalis' only use is to bring along to enhance Aerie's romance.
- Jaheira is the worst romance and the worst party mate because she cannot bear to be ignored or disagreed with even once, cannot be dropped from the party for even five minutes without whining, abandons the party, and you, without notice repeatedly, betrays your trust to her Harper friends, and betrays her duties as a druid,
All the helmet animations in infinity look terrible except the crested one (the one the flaming fist use in EE). I go as far as to completely ignore magic helms in favor of a regular crest.
The axe and halberd animations look poorly done aswell. They aren't wide/bulky enough.
Morningstars are literally unuseable to me until they can get their own animation.
I refuse to use cloaks of blur simply because the effect greatly annoys me.
Everything with a limited charge should just be useable once a day forever, rather than having multiple temporary charges that eventually break the item.
Critical misses should only exist at zero proficiency.
Critical hits should only apply to hits that would have really landed, rather than force a hit by itself.
Charms and maze have no reason to game-over a solo game. I'll just use that time to go make myself a sandwich.
Black Pits 1 & 2 should have infinite money. If you want me to put on a show, then let me use the best possible gear the merchants have at this time.
Bards should have been allowed to specialise in all weapons and styles, and any class that can specialise in weapons should get the bonus APR from that specialisation.
The whole idea behind the Bard is being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Specialization is in direct opposition to that.
Fighters should have been granted a wide variety of combat manoeuvres they could use in battle starting at mundane things like parry and lunge and finishing in cosmically ridiculous feats of earth-shattering glory far, far stronger than HLAs that barely match the power of medium level spells.
HLAs *are* cosmically ridiculous feats of earth-shattering glory. They would only be mundane if you were playing Exalted instead of D&D.
Mages should have been able to leave spell slots empty, then select them later as they were required and, so long as they were out of combat for a few minutes, memorise those new spells without having to rest, so long as that spell slot hadn't been cast or prepared that day already.
I can't see how that could be implemented in an IE game without resulting in a convoluted mess.
Races should not define what the player can choose as their class, it makes no sense for an entire population to be incapable of casting spells.
Class restrictions were supposed to enforce the archetypes which certain races represent and if you ask me, D&D was all the better for it before 3e came along.
Dragons would have been better if they were completely bestial, unable to communicate or comprehend humanoids but still gifted with powerful innate magical and physical power, rather than basically arrogant scaly lizards who generally think they're smarter than they actually are.
You can thank Tolkien for this one. As far as talking, scheming dragons go, Smaug was the OG.
There should be more responses available where CHARNAME is aware of something, but just doesn't care and went along with it anyway, particularly at high Wisdom and Intelligence.
Characters with below 5 in mental stats should have unique responses as they grunt and meander their way through the plot, potentially locking them out of content and companions as a result.
I completely agree but I wouldn't say that's an unpopular opinion. Are there really any players opposed to more comprehensive dialogue options?
Everything with a limited charge should just be useable once a day forever, rather than having multiple temporary charges that eventually break the item.
Bards should have been allowed to specialise in all weapons and styles, and any class that can specialise in weapons should get the bonus APR from that specialisation.
The whole idea behind the Bard is being a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Specialization is in direct opposition to that.
I'd rather think Mastery, or even GM, is the direct opposition for that. A bard (or swashie) getting the ½ APR, THAC0 and dmg from specialization won't make him/her specialized enough to remove the obvious need for speed weapons to make them viable fighters. I agree with @Pantalion in this, but this has been discussed before and it really isn't an unpopular opinion, even though there are is no general consensus.
Edit: Only APR for Swashie ofc since they already get the dmg/thac0, just like haer'dalis.
HLAs *are* cosmically ridiculous feats of earth-shattering glory. They would only be mundane if you were playing Exalted instead of D&D.
... Sure.
Earth Shattering Glory: Fighter Style
"Attack lots of times." - Level 6 spell. "Attack very accurately." - Level 7 spell. "Become approximately as resistant to damage as a level 1 Cleric spell." - ... Level 1 spell. "Stab someone fatally." - Level 6 spell. "Stab someone... MORE fatally." - Level 7 spell. "Resist magic." - Level 5 spell. "Hit someone hard enough they get dizzy." - Level 2 spell. "Hit someone hard enough they get dizzy and fall down." - Level 3 spell. "Shout very loudly and scarily." - Level 2 spell.
Earth Shattering Glory: Mage Style
"Stop time." - Level 9 spell. "Call upon an angelic/demonic champion to serve you." - Level (7) 9 spell. "Harness an embodiment of absolute destruction and form it into the shape of a blade to fight with." - Level 9 spell. "Banish someone from this realm of reality, no buts." - Level 9 spell. "Kill/blind/paralyse someone with a single word." - Level 7-9 spell. "Turn someone into stone." - Level 6 spell. "Change shape into crazy awesome creatures." - Level (4) 9 spell. "Shout so loudly and scarily that anyone nearby straight up dies." - Level (6) 9 spell. "Wish for the world to be different, and the world listens." - Level (7) 9 spell. "Shadowclone-no-jutsu" - Level 8 spell.
And this is why it's an unpopular opinion. People think all Fighters of any level and they think "mundane schlub with a sword". I see high level fighters and think "Achilles", who stabbed a guy so hard the wound never healed, accidentally hugged a dude so hard they died, waded through entire armies so easily he was given a backstory about being made immortal after the fact, and killed guys with a single punch.
Or "Hercules", who rerouted an entire river for his convenience, had a tendency of throwing things into the sea from wherever he was standing at that particular moment, chased a dear that "could run faster than an arrow" on foot for a full year before catching it, managed to beat down a literally immortal hydra, with blood so poisonous it could kill anything, and when faced with a lion impervious to all weapons he just straight up choked it out with his bare hands, all without wearing a Christmas tree of magical gear to do it.
Above level 20, fighters are supposed to be EPIC, but they're not even able to handle melee combat with a dragon as well as a mage of equal level, and people are so ingrained in thinking that fighters have to be this gritty, down-to-earth everyman (which they should be... at level 6) that they not only accept this, they expect it.
High level fighters should be nearly impervious to physical damage, barely able to be touched in combat even while naked because they're so good at blocking blows, and so tough that when they are hit, unless someone is using some kind of poison the fighter just laughs it off. They should be so powerful just by default that they can cut the freaking tops off mountains because they're having a hissy fit about their spouse flirting with someone else.
High level warriors should be the ones that walk up to dragons and trade blow for blow without gulping down healing potions and cowering behind magic items that a mage made for them or buffs that the mage cast on them. High level fighters should be things that mages avoid through trickery and magic because dealing with them is too damn awkward and dangerous, not things that mages ignore because they're too busy playing with real threats at the time.
And that really shouldn't be an unpopular opinion.
I like this parallel with Achilles and Hercules. A lot, actually.
And I concede your point, though I don't think the fault lies on Fighters and their abilities, but on the way that enemies scale to their level.
"Attack lots of times" and "Attack very accurately" are respectively "attack 10 times a round" (with a ridiculously low THAC0 to boot) and "make sure EVERY hit is a critical". In theory, these abilities make a warrior as deadly as you describe with your examples.
But then I think of the sewers beneath Saradush, where an epic-level warrior faced with a couple of nameless dwarves with pickaxes (who, in the context of the story, are supposed to be grunts) will fall in a couple of rounds regardless of having 100-150 HP (super high as far as AD&D goes) and AC below -10.
Of course, players need to be challenged. But at that point of the campaign you and your companions are supposed to be one of the most powerful forces in the realms. Any grunt or soldier with half a brain wouldn't *dare* face you and if they had to, they'd probably flee.
But instead you face one encounter after the other with Mages powerful enough to cast Time Stop. And they somehow haven't carved a name for themselves in the world. They're Mage #327 of division whatever of Yaga-Shura's or Gromnir's army.
(Is that enough of an unpopular opinion for me to still be on-topic?)
I Think ToB is a pretty much an unpopular sequel. HLA level enemies everywhere makes the balance and the story kind of hard to understand and agree with, you just have to take it for what it is. And taking it for what it is might be the unpopular opinon? And I kind of do because I like all the shiny items and spells ppl tend to toss around like there is no tomorrow. The popular opinion being to just ignore or hate ToB as a whole.
I do hate WK though. I can't really Think of a reason why my charname would ever go there. He seems to be a busy guy mostly, just strolling to a random location on a big map just seems stupid.
My big "unpopular" opinion with this Amazing game is that the stat system is really bad. I might even go as far as to say that NWN2 did it better. This huge neutral ground with stats and almost no bonuses for semi-high stats and no penalties for semi-low or even VERY low stats is just bad. A character with 7 in Everything is basically the same as a character with 13 in Everything. I don't know anything about DnD pen and paper rules but I feel that someone really dropped the ball with the stat system as a whole. I feel EVERY Point should mean something. Both in conversations, combat, save vs something, romance options (NO the stat boosting items does NOT Count) etc. The stat system in the BG series is imho really odd and underutilized.
Also some spells. Most of all wish, Project image and polymorph spells, I hate them with a passion.
Spell level immunities on some of the enemies, I can sort of accept that demi-liches are highly resistant to magic, but some more generic enemies like rakshasas (who I cant breach even with SCS) are just tiresome. I am totally fine with magic resistant enemies or enemies with really good saves.
I like this parallel with Achilles and Hercules. A lot, actually.
And I concede your point, though I don't think the fault lies on Fighters and their abilities, but on the way that enemies scale to their level.
"Attack lots of times" and "Attack very accurately" are respectively "attack 10 times a round" (with a ridiculously low THAC0 to boot) and "make sure EVERY hit is a critical". In theory, these abilities make a warrior as deadly as you describe with your examples.
But then I think of the sewers beneath Saradush, where an epic-level warrior faced with a couple of nameless dwarves with pickaxes (who, in the context of the story, are supposed to be grunts) will fall in a couple of rounds regardless of having 100-150 HP (super high as far as AD&D goes) and AC below -10.
Of course, players need to be challenged. But at that point of the campaign you and your companions are supposed to be one of the most powerful forces in the realms. Any grunt or soldier with half a brain wouldn't *dare* face you and if they had to, they'd probably flee.
But instead you face one encounter after the other with Mages powerful enough to cast Time Stop. And they somehow haven't carved a name for themselves in the world. They're Mage #327 of division whatever of Yaga-Shura's or Gromnir's army.
(Is that enough of an unpopular opinion for me to still be on-topic?)
Nameless dwarves with pick axes would be one of Hercules' feats. Don't you dare underestimate a determine dwarf with a pickaxe.
Allowing the Thief more than 2 HLA traps per type was a stupid idea. Allowing the Thief to rest and set more traps was even more stupid. And no, the Thief isn't lacking in HLAs, that's a nonsensical argument. They already get Assassination, UAI (which includes the use of scrolls), Greater Evasion, Alchemy (which is more useful than people think), and Avoid Death. The need for an abundance of traps just isn't there. 2 per type would've sufficed.
Druids suck.
Pillars of Eternity is nowhere close to Baldur's Gate. I respect the fact they used Baldur's Gate as an inspiration, but it ended up looking just like a cheap imitation. I was disappointed in it, even looking through nostalgia-tinted glasses.
I'm not as excited for SoD as everyone else is. I'm reserving my judgement for the time it comes out.
Playing solo is better than playing with a party. Obviously playing with a party is better story-wise, but in every other area it's better to play solo.
My big "unpopular" opinion with this Amazing game is that the stat system is really bad. I might even go as far as to say that NWN2 did it better. This huge neutral ground with stats and almost no bonuses for semi-high stats and no penalties for semi-low or even VERY low stats is just bad. A character with 7 in Everything is basically the same as a character with 13 in Everything. I don't know anything about DnD pen and paper rules but I feel that someone really dropped the ball with the stat system as a whole. I feel EVERY Point should mean something. Both in conversations, combat, save vs something, romance options (NO the stat boosting items does NOT Count) etc. The stat system in the BG series is imho really odd and underutilized.
*Casts Protection from Petrification* Your basilisk cannot save you now, Mutamin!
But in order to actually contribute to the discussion, why Original Sin? I haven't played as much of it as BG/IWD, but I'm not a fan of the combat system.
Also, seemingly unpopular opinion, I really dislike D&D 3rd edition and am fine with no IWD2EE (if that's how it goes down).
Well if you go into those discussions, I liked fallout, iwd, bg because of the isometric view. I hated the first person player view and as a result I never got into (nor finished) neverwinter nights, fallout 3 and beyond. I even tried skyrim because I learned about the skill progression on doing things but no..... unable to finish it. Isometric >>>> 3d fps
-Dualclass are bad. -Armor Class and Shields are super strong, even (especially?) in ToB. -Dragon Disciples are stronger than vanilla Sorcerers. -Tripleclasses are as powerful in a party than solo. -Wizard Slayers are good. -Inquisitors are average. -Bards are useless, Blades are okay, Jesters are good, Skalds are excellent. -Glitterdust is overrated. -Damage per round is totally overrated (as are Grandmastery and Kensais). -BG1 is better than BG2. -Shadowdancer is the most powerful kit of the game.
Comments
The only roleplaying justification I can think of for a Fighter/Mage/Thief is that the character must be really indecisive about his or her future.
You want to be able to find and disarm traps. You also understand that a blade across the throat ends fights quickly. Thief levels.
You also understand that sometimes you have to fight someone face to face. You do some training (not full time, but enough) to be able to hold your own. Fighter levels.
Finally, you realize that no matter how strong or quick you are, a mage can lock you down and obliterate you. You also know that mages can protect themselves against physical attacks. So you learn enough to get yourself out of bad situations (invisibility), protect yourself from melee attacks (stone skin) and fight enemy mages (breach).
A FMT seems to me to be a somewhat untrusting soul who wants to always be ready for any challenge, with or without his allies.
A FMT can't and won't fight anyone to their strengths, but will fight to their weaknesses.
If he comes across an enemy thief...his stoneskin will block the backstab and he will then use his fighter levels to take down the thief.
If he comes across an enemy mage, he will backstab the mage if the mage has no protections, or will defend himself against magic, remove the enemy's protections, and beat the mage over the head.
If he comes across an enemy fighter, he will disable the fighter with magic and kill him at his leisure.
Be good at everything but great at nothing, so you can exploit the weaknesses of those who are great at just one thing.
I have only dual classed anyone twice. Sarevok->mage and my swashbuckler-> mage. And I changed my mind about that one, and went back to an earlier save. I'll keep that one as a swash until at least ToB when I'll make a final decision.
Now, making a solo run is another story. I haven't tried that, but it's certainly a reason to have a F/M/T. There you really do need to be able to do it all, and since you aren't splitting up the experience, your progression will be faster than a multi who is running around as part of a full party of 6.
-I think many people are confusing gimping their characters and roleplaying their characters; it's not because your Fighter has 16 Str that you are a roleplayer compared to the guy playing a Fighter/Mage with 18 Str and 18 Int!
An average person in the realms would have stats of 9 or 10. Having a stat of 18 is extremely rare and exceptional, not to mention having two of them at 18 and by chance also for those you need for your class. Remember that classes are not necessarily a choice of what one excels at but often what one likes to do our portray in life.
In that sense I myself could never roleplay a character with many 18s especially in the stats the class would require. However, I can see / have seen other people do so.
Does not mean that when I play an 18s protagonist I do not roleplay a little to stay in character.
- Declining to have any stat lower than 10 isn't good roleplaying. Real people, even heroes, have things they're below average in.
- The elven "truth sages" thing was not only completely reasonable but far better than anything the humans would have done.
- Paladins are dangerous mentally unstable bigots who attack strangers on the slighest provocation, they should be branded as dangerous vigilantes and avoided, not given a headquarters in town.
- Chaotic Neutral is the only appropriate alignment for a CHARNAME.
- Elves really are superior to humans, as are gnomes, dwarves and halflings.
- Humans should have just been allowed to multiclass rather than allow the abomination that is dual classing to exist, and could have done away with Half-Elves entirely as a result.
- Bards should have been allowed to specialise in all weapons and styles, and any class that can specialise in weapons should get the bonus APR from that specialisation.
- Multiclass Fighters should be allowed to Grand Master any weapon, just as multiclass mages can reach level 9 spells.
- Anomen is actually a pretty cool guy. Out of all the NPCs, he's the only one who joins you without having a shared quest or because you did something nice for them in the first place, and he literally follows you to hell and back all the same.
- There should be a setting without humans at all so people stop feeling the need to make them overpowered to justify their existence.
- Neera and her wild mage buddies overused the "wild surge" gag way, way too hard considering even the most spell-spammy wild mage surges maybe three times a day.
- Imoen and CHARNAME is the OTP of Baldur's Gate.
- Fighters should have been granted a wide variety of combat manoeuvres they could use in battle starting at mundane things like parry and lunge and finishing in cosmically ridiculous feats of earth-shattering glory far, far stronger than HLAs that barely match the power of medium level spells.
- No character should have a min1HP belt. Biff the Understudy should have made a reappearance instead.
- Fighters are underpowered.
- Any Thief with a level above 28 is pointless, since that's 100 in every skill at 13 Dexterity. QED single class thieves are pointless and should always be multiclassed.
- It is perfectly legitimate in a high stress, high danger situation for a group of professional monster hunters to stop whenever necessary to replenish spells and resources. It's also, arguably, the most realistic method of a professional adventuring outfit.
- Mages should have been able to leave spell slots empty, then select them later as they were required and, so long as they were out of combat for a few minutes, memorise those new spells without having to rest, so long as that spell slot hadn't been cast or prepared that day already.
- Mages being able to do this should have replaced the sorcerer class entirely.
- Elves should have been able to be druids.
- Races should not define what the player can choose as their class, it makes no sense for an entire population to be incapable of casting spells.
- Dragons would have been better if they were completely bestial, unable to communicate or comprehend humanoids but still gifted with powerful innate magical and physical power, rather than basically arrogant scaly lizards who generally think they're smarter than they actually are.
- Elves and Dwarves should be allied and in the middle of an industrial revolution, enslaving humans to work in their factories creating giant magical mecha.
- Doppelganger should have been one of CHARNAME's race choices.
- Given their upbringing, neutral CHARNAME should have been a cleric of Oghma, not Helm.
- Non-human CHARNAMEs should have had race-specific kits, you ethnocentrists.
- There should be more responses available where CHARNAME is aware of something, but just doesn't care and went along with it anyway, particularly at high Wisdom and Intelligence.
- Characters with below 5 in mental stats should have unique responses as they grunt and meander their way through the plot, potentially locking them out of content and companions as a result.
- The Raise Dead penalty of losing 1 constitution per cast (and even when restored only allowed Max!Con revivals) should have been enforced to give death real meaning and encourage careful planning.
- The Wish spell should have included one-time only options like Limited Wish, for doing things like granting a permanent stat gain or gaining the ability to turn into a carrion crawler at will.
- Casting invisibility in the middle of combat for anything but Shadow Door and Mislead should not cause the target to turn truly invisible.
- Glitterdust should have removed invisiblity effects every round for multiple rounds.
- Thieves should have been able to set snares in combat, but snares should have had a casting time of 9.
- Rasaad's kit is stupid, because the Shadows he is supposed to oppose are immune to fire, but vulnerable to lightning.
- The EE NPCs have a few niggles here and there, but generally Neera and Rasaad are both solid NPCs who fit in decently well, and all of them have great quests with a variety of choices and methods of approach that actually exceed vanilla quests at times. Except for Hexxat, she's just bad.
- Imoen should have lost one random stat point per day due losing her soul.
- CHARNAME should have got back their Bhaalspawn abilities when they defeated Irenicus.
- Rations should have been included, and nutrition enforced, as should have Create Food and Water.
- Haer'dalis' only use is to bring along to enhance Aerie's romance.
- Jaheira is the worst romance and the worst party mate because she cannot bear to be ignored or disagreed with even once, cannot be dropped from the party for even five minutes without whining, abandons the party, and you, without notice repeatedly, betrays your trust to her Harper friends, and betrays her duties as a druid,
2- I will never play a paladin.
The axe and halberd animations look poorly done aswell. They aren't wide/bulky enough.
Morningstars are literally unuseable to me until they can get their own animation.
I refuse to use cloaks of blur simply because the effect greatly annoys me.
Everything with a limited charge should just be useable once a day forever, rather than having multiple temporary charges that eventually break the item.
Critical misses should only exist at zero proficiency.
Critical hits should only apply to hits that would have really landed, rather than force a hit by itself.
Charms and maze have no reason to game-over a solo game. I'll just use that time to go make myself a sandwich.
Black Pits 1 & 2 should have infinite money. If you want me to put on a show, then let me use the best possible gear the merchants have at this time.
Edit: Only APR for Swashie ofc since they already get the dmg/thac0, just like haer'dalis.
Earth Shattering Glory: Fighter Style
"Attack very accurately." - Level 7 spell.
"Become approximately as resistant to damage as a level 1 Cleric spell." - ... Level 1 spell.
"Stab someone fatally." - Level 6 spell.
"Stab someone... MORE fatally." - Level 7 spell.
"Resist magic." - Level 5 spell.
"Hit someone hard enough they get dizzy." - Level 2 spell.
"Hit someone hard enough they get dizzy and fall down." - Level 3 spell.
"Shout very loudly and scarily." - Level 2 spell.
Earth Shattering Glory: Mage Style
"Call upon an angelic/demonic champion to serve you." - Level (7) 9 spell.
"Harness an embodiment of absolute destruction and form it into the shape of a blade to fight with." - Level 9 spell.
"Banish someone from this realm of reality, no buts." - Level 9 spell.
"Kill/blind/paralyse someone with a single word." - Level 7-9 spell.
"Turn someone into stone." - Level 6 spell.
"Change shape into crazy awesome creatures." - Level (4) 9 spell.
"Shout so loudly and scarily that anyone nearby straight up dies." - Level (6) 9 spell.
"Wish for the world to be different, and the world listens." - Level (7) 9 spell.
"Shadowclone-no-jutsu" - Level 8 spell.
And this is why it's an unpopular opinion. People think all Fighters of any level and they think "mundane schlub with a sword". I see high level fighters and think "Achilles", who stabbed a guy so hard the wound never healed, accidentally hugged a dude so hard they died, waded through entire armies so easily he was given a backstory about being made immortal after the fact, and killed guys with a single punch.
Or "Hercules", who rerouted an entire river for his convenience, had a tendency of throwing things into the sea from wherever he was standing at that particular moment, chased a dear that "could run faster than an arrow" on foot for a full year before catching it, managed to beat down a literally immortal hydra, with blood so poisonous it could kill anything, and when faced with a lion impervious to all weapons he just straight up choked it out with his bare hands, all without wearing a Christmas tree of magical gear to do it.
Above level 20, fighters are supposed to be EPIC, but they're not even able to handle melee combat with a dragon as well as a mage of equal level, and people are so ingrained in thinking that fighters have to be this gritty, down-to-earth everyman (which they should be... at level 6) that they not only accept this, they expect it.
High level fighters should be nearly impervious to physical damage, barely able to be touched in combat even while naked because they're so good at blocking blows, and so tough that when they are hit, unless someone is using some kind of poison the fighter just laughs it off. They should be so powerful just by default that they can cut the freaking tops off mountains because they're having a hissy fit about their spouse flirting with someone else.
High level warriors should be the ones that walk up to dragons and trade blow for blow without gulping down healing potions and cowering behind magic items that a mage made for them or buffs that the mage cast on them. High level fighters should be things that mages avoid through trickery and magic because dealing with them is too damn awkward and dangerous, not things that mages ignore because they're too busy playing with real threats at the time.
And that really shouldn't be an unpopular opinion.
And I concede your point, though I don't think the fault lies on Fighters and their abilities, but on the way that enemies scale to their level.
"Attack lots of times" and "Attack very accurately" are respectively "attack 10 times a round" (with a ridiculously low THAC0 to boot) and "make sure EVERY hit is a critical". In theory, these abilities make a warrior as deadly as you describe with your examples.
But then I think of the sewers beneath Saradush, where an epic-level warrior faced with a couple of nameless dwarves with pickaxes (who, in the context of the story, are supposed to be grunts) will fall in a couple of rounds regardless of having 100-150 HP (super high as far as AD&D goes) and AC below -10.
Of course, players need to be challenged. But at that point of the campaign you and your companions are supposed to be one of the most powerful forces in the realms. Any grunt or soldier with half a brain wouldn't *dare* face you and if they had to, they'd probably flee.
But instead you face one encounter after the other with Mages powerful enough to cast Time Stop. And they somehow haven't carved a name for themselves in the world. They're Mage #327 of division whatever of Yaga-Shura's or Gromnir's army.
(Is that enough of an unpopular opinion for me to still be on-topic?)
I do hate WK though. I can't really Think of a reason why my charname would ever go there. He seems to be a busy guy mostly, just strolling to a random location on a big map just seems stupid.
My big "unpopular" opinion with this Amazing game is that the stat system is really bad. I might even go as far as to say that NWN2 did it better. This huge neutral ground with stats and almost no bonuses for semi-high stats and no penalties for semi-low or even VERY low stats is just bad. A character with 7 in Everything is basically the same as a character with 13 in Everything. I don't know anything about DnD pen and paper rules but I feel that someone really dropped the ball with the stat system as a whole. I feel EVERY Point should mean something. Both in conversations, combat, save vs something, romance options (NO the stat boosting items does NOT Count) etc. The stat system in the BG series is imho really odd and underutilized.
Also some spells. Most of all wish, Project image and polymorph spells, I hate them with a passion.
Spell level immunities on some of the enemies, I can sort of accept that demi-liches are highly resistant to magic, but some more generic enemies like rakshasas (who I cant breach even with SCS) are just tiresome. I am totally fine with magic resistant enemies or enemies with really good saves.
Love the thread btw, wanted to vent that.
Time Stop shouldn't be in the game.
Allowing the Thief more than 2 HLA traps per type was a stupid idea. Allowing the Thief to rest and set more traps was even more stupid. And no, the Thief isn't lacking in HLAs, that's a nonsensical argument. They already get Assassination, UAI (which includes the use of scrolls), Greater Evasion, Alchemy (which is more useful than people think), and Avoid Death. The need for an abundance of traps just isn't there. 2 per type would've sufficed.
Druids suck.
Pillars of Eternity is nowhere close to Baldur's Gate. I respect the fact they used Baldur's Gate as an inspiration, but it ended up looking just like a cheap imitation. I was disappointed in it, even looking through nostalgia-tinted glasses.
I'm not as excited for SoD as everyone else is. I'm reserving my judgement for the time it comes out.
Playing solo is better than playing with a party. Obviously playing with a party is better story-wise, but in every other area it's better to play solo.
Heroic
Popular
Neutral
Despised
Villain
To (I have a mod that does this so hopefully I got this right)
Savior
Hero
Adventurer
Medler
Ruffian
Thug
Sadist
Edit: Please note this is just my personal take on it. It's not official.
Race/Class Restrictions and strange stat modifiers kill AD&D for me >_<
But in order to actually contribute to the discussion, why Original Sin? I haven't played as much of it as BG/IWD, but I'm not a fan of the combat system.
Also, seemingly unpopular opinion, I really dislike D&D 3rd edition and am fine with no IWD2EE (if that's how it goes down).
Isometric >>>> 3d fps
-Armor Class and Shields are super strong, even (especially?) in ToB.
-Dragon Disciples are stronger than vanilla Sorcerers.
-Tripleclasses are as powerful in a party than solo.
-Wizard Slayers are good.
-Inquisitors are average.
-Bards are useless, Blades are okay, Jesters are good, Skalds are excellent.
-Glitterdust is overrated.
-Damage per round is totally overrated (as are Grandmastery and Kensais).
-BG1 is better than BG2.
-Shadowdancer is the most powerful kit of the game.