The Spear problem.

Skydree

So, I was wondering if you guys think the same as me. Spears in BG and BG2 seem to be the most undesirable weapon. I love the looks, and history of spears, but the game certainly doesn't glorify it. It is presently the worst two handed weapon in terms of Damage, with a 1d6 output. It is also tough to find a magical one. To my memory, there only exists a +1 one, and the cursed Backbiter. In DnD, range was a factor, but not so much in Baldur's Gate. So, the only reason you would use one is looks.Here are solutions I can think of...

a- Either up the damage a little bit (1d8, 1d10?)
b- Open access to more magical ones, to give a reason to use them, or...
c- Get rid of two handed spears and bring one handed shortspears, so you can do spear / shield combo?

What do you guys think?

Mortianna

I'm for all three. I never understood why spears and short swords had the same damage potential. 1d8 seems much more realistic for being hit by a spike on a pole.

Having both one-handed and two-handed spears would be nice, but I doubt it'll make it into any of the enhanced editions.

Skydree

Mortianna said:

I'm for all three. I never understood why spears and short swords had the same damage potential. 1d8 seems much more realistic for being hit by a spike on a pole.

Having both one-handed and two-handed spears would be nice, but I doubt it'll make it into any of the enhanced editions.

I agree on the chances of seeing it happen, but I'm glad I'm not the only one aware of the issue. ^^

MatteoTurini

In Ad&d, that I recall, spears were 1-handed weapons, not 2-handed. When I saw them in BG, I thought that they confounded them with pikes.

Spear+shield would be awesome for a barbarian or a kensai (even if a little underpowered), so I'd be really in favour of just making them 1-handed weapons.



(Plus, if things stay as they are for halberds, they're basically 2-handed spears.)

Skydree

Now imagine a Dwarven version of 300. Even better. Dwarven Phalanxes ftw!

theJoshFrost

It requires quite a bit of training to use normal sized spears as one handed weapons. And 300 wasn't really realistic (shocking, I know). They didn't use the spears to spin around and stab folks, it was mainly for fortified positions for fighting in mountain passes. Phalanxes and what not.

Though I do find it strange spears are so wimpy in Baldur's Gate. If I recall, in IWD, they were 1d10 damage, which seems more fair.

Boaster

Keep the 1d6, but roll out some magicals that add extra piercing damage (splinters) or adds something like acid damage.

MatteoTurini

theJoshFrost said:

It requires quite a bit of training to use normal sized spears as one handed weapons. And 300 wasn't really realistic (shocking, I know).

Well, neither being Bhaal's kid is...

The_New_Romance

One-handed would be great, but most likely won't happen because of the animations required. Tinkering with the damage or other effects might be worth a try, though. I like spears, but they are really underrepresented in the game. It's all about swords and spellcasting (both in the literal sense), not so much about crossbows or spears (like the real Middle Ages, but then again it's a fantasy game).

reedmilfam

Actually, owing to the relatively small impact/penetration site, a short sword is more damaging than a spear. What is missing is that a spear is more penetrating and, therefore, should have greater critical damage. Wall of spears works, but that was essentially the only way that the weapon was utilized, once better weapons arrived on the scene.

bigdogchris

I'm not for upping the damage over the core rules, I am up though for increasing the amount of magical spears as well as adding 1 handed short spears (would they be 1d4?).

James

The item revisions mod ups the damage to 1d8, and adds some nice ones to BG2, for some reason whenever I take Jaheira I always give her a spear, there is a returning thrown spear in BG2 which i often take, so maybe a +1 returning spear in EE might make them more attractive

ego1ste

I love the idea of 1handed spears, it would look really cool on my charname , i could even make a warrior or barbarian instead of monk if they implemented it I think 2handed ones should be 1d8 and 1handed 1d6. Don't remember what damage it does in 3ed but there was 2x strength modifier in that edition. Of course adding some magical ones to the game would be needed too.

Demivrgvs

As James says, within Item Revisions we made spears deal 1d8 dmg instead of 1d6, and more recently we also increased its range a little bit (from 2 to 3). The latter change may seem pointless but it actually means that spears can be used to attack Fireshields or similar effects from a safe distance. And yes, we also added a bunch of magical Returning spears.

Silence

To my knowledge, there are only three good spears in all of BG2. One is that Spear of Withering (+4), which you get in the Drow City. Another is the Impaler (+3, +10 extra piercing damage), which you get in the Sahaugin city. The last is Ixil's Spike (+6), which you only get at the end of Watcher's Keep.

They really make you wait for decent spears in BG2. They offer you no spears in BG1. For such a common weapon it's a little surprising. I support a lot of the changes you're proposing. +1 Agree!

Djimmy

1d10 + more magical spears would be more than nice. In d&d some of the polearms have greater critical strike (dmg x3 or x4) than swords, axes etc. Is this the case with BG weaponry?

Moomintroll

I totally agree, there should be one handed spears but I can't see how they'd do it without new animations.
I can't see that they were only used in formation, a huge number of informal battles in the Icelandic sagas use spears, even in one on one fights, though they are quite often thrown.. let's see that implemented!

reedmilfam

Romans used them, too, but only for an initial strike. They generally shifted to broadswords soon after (another missing item in BG that is in PnP D&D).

Skydree

The Chinese used it profusely too, although it was probably more because it was cheaper to produce. But Generals did use them in duels, it was one of their most popular weapon in some era. There are cultural reasons to give them a chance (I'm not saying to make better than anything else, here.) as well as practical reasons, since a club was simply more effective. With skeletons early in the game being pretty much immune to piercing, just why would you pick a two handed 1d6 piercing weapon as your main, especially with no good option at the end? I say revamp, or get rid of them entirely. :P

But yes, realistically, to change them would require either a little fix, or much time to work on an animation for one handed. But maybe it could be a latter change that could be introduced in BG2:EE? I don't know. My posts are about general stuff I can think of. If it is not doable, no worries. BG is still one of my favorite games of all time. I can't wait till next week... :-)

Dazzu

Like in all good videogames, Spears should counter Knights... so a bonus vs Cavaliers then?

ego1ste

Instant kill vs horseman if you ever find one Or maybe having spear equiped works simmilar to cleric's repel undead and thats why you can't find anyone on horse...

bbear

How about throwing spears like a javelin? Why not when throwing axes and throwing daggers are available. Now druids can range instead of slings and Jaheira can become more deadly.

LadyRhian

Atlatl?

Moomintroll

Throwing a spear into combat (in my reading) normally occurs just before the opponents close for melee. Carrying loads of throwing spears would be silly, similar to all those throwing axes! not to mention inconvenient for party members in melee! where to draw the line..

Khamill

@Moomintroll
The Idea is good, maybe you could throw it whenever equipped as primary weapon and then automatically draw your offhand weapon if equipped offcourse.

Demivrgvs

I see many interesting comments here and I'd like to give my 2 cents on them again. Just so you know, even if you happen to not like Item Revisions mod as a whole, changes to weapon base stats (such as spears getting 1d8 dmg and range 3) are applied as a separate component, and can be installed as a tweak while ignoring the entire rest of the mod.

DAMAGE: it has been suggested to give it 1d10 but that's too much imo, even if 2handed. Halberds deal 1d10, and they need to remain more damaging to keep some appeal, because they are slower (speed factor), and with no Returning specimen. Also keep in mind that 2handed weapons also get +1 dmg from the weapon style, thus 1-8 actually means 2-9 base dmg (more than vanilla's bastard sword).

CRITICAL HITS: @Djimmy, polearms do have better criticals within BG, though not in the form of a better multiplier. Both spears and halberds benefit from 2handed weapon style granting 2x chance to score critical hits. Within BG only 4 weapons share this property: spears, halberd, staves and greatswords.

ANTI-CAVALIER: @Dazzu well, this is actually already there, sort of. Cavaliers run around in heavy armor, and spears happen to be better than slashing weapons against armors (aka spears suffer a lower penalty to attack rolls when attacking an armored target).

THROWING SPEARS: as others have said, a ranged version of the current 2handed spear would be an entirely different weapon. It should be a 1handed Javelin doing no more than 1d6 dmg (but allowing STR bonus to dmg). Anyway, I don't think BGEE will implement new weapon types, so the only thing I could do within IR was to allow a bunch of magical Returning spears to be thrown (albeit with a relatively short range). Btw, I agree with @Moomintroll when it comes to stacking tons of throwing axes or javelins. More than 3-5 is quite silly.

MAGICAL SPECIMENS: we just need to add within BG1 a decent magical specimen. BG2 has plenty of specimens instead imo, and for IR it was very easy to make this weapon type really great within BG2. If you ask me it's easy, just add either sper07 (Spear of the Unicorn +2) or sper09 (vanilla's Halcyon +1) within BG1.

Djimmy

@Demivrgvs Thanks for the reply. It was good to know that.

Skydree

Thanks for the deeper insight, Demi. It's good to see that we were basically on the same page here. I thought about it at work before writing the post and found three solutions... seems they were the only solutions discussed so far!

Am I also with you that, it can be easily solved by adding new magical ones. I think we should allow it to be found relatively early in the game, maybe Cloakwood? I don't know. At the risk of being flayed alive for not remembering where to find the +1 spear in BG, I'll risk saying it was fairly far in the game, for a simple magical weapon.

I also like Moomin's idea of not having more than a few javelin. I had the same problem with axes before, where my character had like, 60 axes on him, hehe. Tough to imagine that, in real life! Daggers maybe, Darts, sure. But Javelins? I don't think so.

Another thing that occurred to me. Why did they give us the best helmet right at the start of BG2? I always wondered that. I usually solo these games, and it is weird to be given the craziest helmet of the game in the introduction dungeon. Your thoughts on this?

Skydree

Thanks for the deeper insight, Demi. It's good to see that we were basically on the same page here. I thought about it at work before writing the post and found three solutions... seems they were the only solutions discussed so far!

Am I also with you that, it can be easily solved by adding new magical ones. I think we should allow it to be found relatively early in the game, maybe Cloakwood? I don't know. At the risk of being flayed alive for not remembering where to find the +1 spear in BG, I'll risk saying it was fairly far in the game, for a simple magical weapon.

I also like Moomin's idea of not having more than a few javelin. I had the same problem with axes before, where my character had like, 60 axes on him, hehe. Tough to imagine that, in real life! Daggers maybe, Darts, sure. But Javelins? I don't think so.

Another thing that occurred to me. Why did they give us the best helmet right at the start of BG2? I always wondered that. I usually solo these games, and it is weird to be given the craziest helmet of the game in the introduction dungeon. Your thoughts on this?

Dazzu

In a game where spears are utilized smartly, like say... Age of Empires or Empire Earth, they do bonus damage to mounted units. Henceforth, BG fails to capture the true advantage of a pointy edged stick.

Demivrgvs

Skydree said:

... it can be easily solved by adding new magical ones. I think we should allow it to be found relatively early in the game, maybe Cloakwood?

I actually wouldn't allow any unique specimen of weapon to be found in the early part of the game. Within IR we lowered the overall enchantment level of BG2 weapons, and I would surely not raise it for BG1 weapons.

In general I'd say that not getting magical weapons for a good part of the game actually makes BG1 great. There's even the Iron Crisis there after all! Let players get a plain "Spear +1 or +2" relatively early, but not easily, and a good unique specimen mid-game.

Skydree said:

Another thing that occurred to me. Why did they give us the best helmet right at the start of BG2? I always wondered that. I usually solo these games, and it is weird to be given the craziest helmet of the game in the introduction dungeon. Your thoughts on this?

It's kinda off-topic, but if you're asking me I can say that within Item Revisions we have moved the Helm of Balduran later in the game, and replaced it with a slightly less powerful helmet (the Watcher's Helm). That being said, most helmets within IR have a relatively similar power lvl (see here: http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showtopic=15700&st=4) thus it's not a big deal.