Though it is a very nice change as far as Blackguard is concerned (Yes, they were OP and even beyond that because of poison weapon and multiple APR synergy) I find it a pity that assassin should suffer the same fate. While blackguard has many other tools that makes it still good despite this nerf, the assassin's main weapon was, until late levels, poison weapon. I'd certainly mod assassin poison weapon to get a more powerful poison weapon (slightly so at early levels, but much more powerful at later levels, to prevent abuse with dual class and still provide the assassin with a decent lategame ). I like the "once per round only" though, it adds some gameplay if you want, say, to cancel a mage spell through stoneskin.
@Dee Actually I don't believe much playtesting is needed for the assassin to say it will be underpowered: Right now a pure assassin is quite strong early on, and quite weak later on. This nerf nerfs early game and duals to warrior, that's fine with me, but it also nerfs lategame for a pure assassin and it hardly needs it IMHO.
This is probably just my worthless opinion but I really wish blackguard could just get this new variant of PW and have it renamed to Infect Weapon, while the old PW is left intact for the thief dude made of paper and clumsy skill points.
As for dual-classing, well, wasn't dual-classing balanced around true classes in the first place? Nearly every kit combo is game breaking. Doesn't seem to be assassin-specific.
It's all my fault!!! I started a thread on trying to make a useful dart-flinger, and the clear early winner was the dart-flinging assassin. @Dee was clearly watching that thread (he posted to say so) and this is clearly the result!!!
Actually, I suspect it is largely unrelated, but it is a huge power-down for the dart-flinging builds, pushing us back in the direction of the archer kit over the long term. The main problem that I see is the limit of one poison-effect per round. The whole point of a dart-flinging build is to take advantage of the many attacks. The place this hurts most badly is relying on poison to cripple mages, as now they get a save vs. poison as well. That might not be so bad if we still got 3-5 APR, for repeated poison saves, but with only one save, our key threat for mages is lost. If I could suggest a rebalance, either restore a limited no-save effect, or, better, allow multiple attacks to force a poison save, but if the target is already poisoned, merely reset the duration from the latest failure (i.e. do not stack damage). That allows the benefit to continue even into late game, where saves are far more likely.
Either way, we lose our ability to claim the few treasure items held by NPCs that are currently vulnerable only to poison, but that is probably for the best - the original BG did not have kits with poison in the first place!
I don't see why assassins and blackguards must use the same ability. In fact they shouldn't. One should have an ability properly balanced for a thief kit, and the other for a high THAC0 and APR paladin kit.
This. It was OP on Blackguards since you could apply it actually 10 times in a round when you got HLAs, which meant that any single enemy (until you got the BMU's OP "crossbow") without Poison Resistance would go down in 1 or 3 rounds (this was my Dragon-slaying technic in BG2:EE, give Dorn a good THAC0 ranged weapon, and have him hit the Dragon two rounds or so) and literally anything in the game without Poison Resistance went down in 1 or 3 rounds when combing Poison Weapon + AoE ranged weapon. And then Assassins don't have the early game Blackguards have (more HP, THAC0, Immunity to Fear (fk u Tarnesh) and a lifesteal ability that scales nicely) unless they start with Darts. Also Assassins don't innately have the 10 ApR the Blackguards can get when they unlock their HLAs (they can, of course, equip the BMU's "crossbow" and use Improved Haste, but you don't get the BMU every game and then you'll need a ton of IH scrolls (or a Friendly Mage Companion™ (sold separately) to cast it on you).
/sleepy rant Anyway I like this change. If you use Darts it was OP as well at level 1 tbh.
I agree that for a Blackguard, Poison Weapon is horrendously unbalanced. It takes the Blackguard from a solid Paladin kit to an overpowered win button.
But Assassins receive far fewer advantages than a blackguard, and have more more drawbacks (less thieving abilities compared to other thieves, for instance). This change affects Assassins are more than it does Blackguards, and for that reason, I don't think you will be able to find a balance that suits both.
I think what you need to do is either: A) Separate Poison Weapon into two versions, one for the Assassin and one for the Blackguard. Remove the ability from the Blackguard altogether (does it really need it?) C) Remove the ability from the Blackguard and replace it with something different, in keeping with the flavour of the class. D) Remove the ability from the Assassin.
I would vote for option B. I know people have got used to the Blackguard having poison weapon, but the class is still very effective without it. I think Poison Weapon should be the signature move of the assassin - it should not be shared. Just like the Bounty Hunter has his special traps that are not shared, it should be the same with the assassin. The assassin, per the kit description, spends a lot of time working on his poisons. The Blackguard does not - his power comes from his patron. Why then should he have a poison weapon ability?
The problem is actually not with the assassin, but with the Blackguard. The Blackguard is the more recent of the two kits in any case.
On top of that, I would rebalance Poison Weapon so that it scales in terms of damage output. It should do slightly less damage at first level and slightly more damage at 16th level. And it should affect a target more than once - if I inject 1ml of Cyanide into you, it is quite a different story to me injecting 100ml of Cyanide into you.
@AstroBryGuy I knew about the Anti-Paladin kit, but as far as I know Blackguards, Shadowdancers, Dwarven Defender and Dragon Disciples were inspired from the 3E prestige classes like in NWN.
Still, the class has poison and backstab in PnP and doesn't have backstab in Baldur's Gate. If you remove Poison Weapon as well this kit will have nothing left.
To be more accurate they can apply poison vials to their weapons without poisoning themselves in the process.
From a roleplaying point of view it would be more interesting to have a 'poison brewing' ability akin to the Alchemy HLA. Depending on the character Level, the potency of the venoms rise. (From Drow Poison all the way up to Black Lotus Extract, for example.)
This way we could give both Blackguards and Assassins some more variety in their craft as well. And having the need of either buying the poisons or creating them before able to use them in combat would also help to rebalance them in my eyes.
To be more accurate they can apply poison vials to their weapons without poisoning themselves in the process.
From a roleplaying point of view it would be more interesting to have a 'poison brewing' ability akin to the Alchemy HLA. Depending on the character Level, the potency of the venoms rise. (From Drow Poison all the way up to Black Lotus Extract, for example.)
This way we could give both Blackguards and Assassins some more variety in their craft as well. And having the need of either buying the poisons or creating them before able to use them in combat would also help to rebalance them in my eyes.
Just a thought.
My thought on it is that it is a good idea, I'd give both blackguard and assassin the currently planned Poison Weapon, but give the assassin various poison HLA (instead of traps for example, like Shadowdancer). The type of possible poisons might be: One with a CC, either stun or hold. Let's say, no save stun/hold for 1 or 2 round but can only be applied once per person. One with extra damage (Improved Poison weapon giving back the current Poison Weapon could be an idea) One with a debilitating effects, stats lowering (whether Thac0, AC or ability scores).
This would make assassins more unique and that's what I would like.
My other (minor) concern with this rebalancing is that it messes up any existing dual-classed character who played enough assassin to just get their second use of poison/day. Not only is their poison much weaker, but they get it half as often, and cannot revisit their assassin class to boost it back up. If the ability is taking such a heavy hit in the rebalancing, I suggest letting assassins acquire usage at the old rate, especially if balancing Blackguards is the real problem. Also, capping out at 3/day at level 16 is a bit rough for the signature ability of a 40th level assassin.
My other (minor) concern with this rebalancing is that it messes up any existing dual-classed character who played enough assassin to just get their second use of poison/day. Not only is their poison much weaker, but they get it half as often, and cannot revisit their assassin class to boost it back up. If the ability is taking such a heavy hit in the rebalancing, I suggest letting assassins acquire usage at the old rate, especially if balancing Blackguards is the real problem. Also, capping out at 3/day at level 16 is a bit rough for the signature ability of a 40th level assassin.
We didn't change the rate at which the Assassin gets the ability.
OK, my poor interpretation of the information, mixing up the power of the effect with the rate of acquisition. Thanks for the clarification, even if it should have been clear to me from the start
There's a way to make it worth for both classes; I'm confident we'll find the right balance.
Dee, can you tell us why do you want to stick with one ability instead of making two? The latter seems to me like a much more logical choice.
There's no reason to create a new mechanic when an existing one will suffice. In this case, the Blackguard shines a spotlight on a problem the Poison Weapon ability has to begin with.
The next build won't have the ability updated, but we are working on a new progression that scales better and has an end-game potency that roughly matches its current effects (but without quite so much potential for abuse).
For Maximum Illumination, here's the math on the original, vanilla BG2 implementation of Poison Weapon:
| Initial Damage (no save) | Secondary Damage (save negates) | Total | | 1/sec for 6 seconds | 1/sec for 24 seconds | 30 damage |
It didn't stack on subsequent hits, and it didn't penetrate Mirror Image or Stoneskin. So if you're seeing more than 30 damage total in BG:EE, that's a bug. (The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
The math we're looking at implementing (though not in this next update to the beta builds) will put you on track to hit that same damage output by level 13 and cap it there, instead of making you wait until level 16. And it'll have growing save penalties to make the ability remain useful for more of the later parts of the game.
Let's not kid ourselves; we're rebalancing this ability because it's too powerful. If this ability lets you automatically win, it's too powerful, no matter what your level is. Our goal is to make the ability balanced while still keeping it fun. That's why I ask that if you have concerns about this ability, roll up an Assassin and try it out in-game. If it's too weak, we can tweak the numbers; that's easy. What I want to know is, is this ability still fun to use.
My only real concern is the once/round effect, as my main use is to justify playing with darts. I don't mind the effect not stacking, but would welcome multiple chances/round for a saving throw to fail.
My only real concern is the once/round effect, as my main use is to justify playing with darts. I don't mind the effect not stacking, but would welcome multiple chances/round for a saving throw to fail.
That could be done with opcode 321. Only have the Effect Removal By Resource happen if the target fails the save.
Then, hitting again with poison weapon would deal the initial poison damage, but it would extend the extended effects rather than stacking them.
My only real concern is the once/round effect, as my main use is to justify playing with darts. I don't mind the effect not stacking, but would welcome multiple chances/round for a saving throw to fail.
Something to consider: you can still use your 3/round darts, and use them to poison multiple enemies per round. Attack mage A > attack mage B > attack warrior C. It requires some deft pausing, but if you're using all your poison against a single enemy you're probably not using that ability to its full potential anyway.
(The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
It was. If you can make it so that mirror image did not grant total immunity to the poison opcode (25) but could still prevent you from becoming poisoned if an image is hit by a poisoned weapon then that would make my day. I was told it was not possible, but maybe your programming skills have increased over the years.
(The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
Unless it can be perfectly fixed to not bypass Mirror Image only when an image is struck, I would ask that there be no more hard-coded changes to this implementation. There is no reason to change Stoneskins back, it is entirely mod-able now, but it does require a default = bypass, unless you're going to make toggling it even easier.
We currently have the option of always-bypass, and have the ability to mod it back to its previous never-bypass, complete with the bugged behavior of striking the real target among mirror images not inflicting the poison.
Stoneskin should not allow a bypass in this specific case of poison, but again, the current implementation allows us to mod whether or not stoneskins protects against on-hit effects on a case-by-case basis.
(The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
Unless it can be perfectly fixed to not bypass Mirror Image only when an image is struck, I would ask that there be no more hard-coded changes to this implementation. There is no reason to change Stoneskins back, it is entirely mod-able now, but it does require a default = bypass, unless you're going to make toggling it even easier.
We currently have the option of always-bypass, and have the ability to mod it back to its previous never-bypass, complete with the bugged behavior of striking the real target among mirror images not inflicting the poison.
Stoneskin should not allow a bypass in this specific case of poison, but again, the current implementation allows us to mod whether or not stoneskins protects against on-hit effects on a case-by-case basis.
@kjeron How do you mod that? The bypass mirror image flag or something?
@kjeron How do you mod that? The bypass mirror image flag or something?
Opcode 326/318 and Splprot.2da with:
"X 273 0x40000000 7" for a Mirror Image check. "Y 88 0 5" for Stoneskin effect "Z 199 0 5" for the other Stoneskin(Golem) effect "YZ 259 Y Z" for either stoneskins effect "XYZ 199 X YZ" for either mirror image or stoneskins For Poison Weapon Ability(SPCL423.spl):
LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 101 target = 2 parameter2 = 25 END // Immunity to Effect "Poison" LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 169 target = 2 parameter2 = 6 END // Prevent Portrait Icon "Poison" LPF ADD_SPELL_EFFECT INT_VAR opcode = 267 target = 2 parameter1 = 14662 END // Prevent Display String "Poisoned", there are others, just a sample.
If the target has Mirror Image or Stoneskins up, they will not become poisoned. Can be extended for items that poison on hit or for other effects as well.
First, I don't get why suddenly a special ability needs to change because it's overpowered, because it's an "I win button" while:
-It existed since 2000.
-Does it really break the game? It still cannot bypass the various Protection from Magic Weapons / Mantle / Improved Mantle / Absolute Immunity line of spells, except if you use an exploit to spread the poison from an area of effect. Is it too strong for BG:EE? Sure it is. The Sleep spell also is too powerful for the first game, as it's basically a AoE save or die (-3) spell when enemies have saves in the 15+ range, meaning it's a spamable death sentence. You can even buy a Wand of Sleep.
-There are various other abilities or spells which are even more powerful, or even some builds. Why do Poison Weapon alone needs a nerf while Spell Immunity, Mislead, Chain Contingency, Protection from Magical Weapons and the Enrage ability from Berserker remain untouched?
-You can reproduce its effect anyway in BG:EE with Arrow of Biting or Bolt of Biting, these effects won't change and they will still be able to stack.
Last time I checked, the playerbase thought that the best Paladin kit was the Inquisitor, not the Blackguard. Is their Dispel Magic ability going to get nerfed too?
Plus I really see no reason to reduce the Assassin's power while it's definitely not a powergaming kit (once again, while other characters, like Fighter dualled to Mage/Thief or multiclass F/M and so forth are not receiving the slightest change).
Note: I'm not against a change or a nerf of this ability, I would even welcome it (though not as harsh as of now) but I'm really wondering about the reasons behind this change in a single player game while some other builds are stronger and they aren't going to change.
PS: I forgot! Poison is suppose to be deadly. Look at all these poisonous spiders and such in BG:EE. Do you know that Phase Spiders' poison actually deals 5 damage per second? and it can be stacked.
Comments
@Dee Actually I don't believe much playtesting is needed for the assassin to say it will be underpowered:
Right now a pure assassin is quite strong early on, and quite weak later on. This nerf nerfs early game and duals to warrior, that's fine with me, but it also nerfs lategame for a pure assassin and it hardly needs it IMHO.
As for dual-classing, well, wasn't dual-classing balanced around true classes in the first place? Nearly every kit combo is game breaking. Doesn't seem to be assassin-specific.
Actually, I suspect it is largely unrelated, but it is a huge power-down for the dart-flinging builds, pushing us back in the direction of the archer kit over the long term. The main problem that I see is the limit of one poison-effect per round. The whole point of a dart-flinging build is to take advantage of the many attacks. The place this hurts most badly is relying on poison to cripple mages, as now they get a save vs. poison as well. That might not be so bad if we still got 3-5 APR, for repeated poison saves, but with only one save, our key threat for mages is lost. If I could suggest a rebalance, either restore a limited no-save effect, or, better, allow multiple attacks to force a poison save, but if the target is already poisoned, merely reset the duration from the latest failure (i.e. do not stack damage). That allows the benefit to continue even into late game, where saves are far more likely.
Either way, we lose our ability to claim the few treasure items held by NPCs that are currently vulnerable only to poison, but that is probably for the best - the original BG did not have kits with poison in the first place!
/sleepy rant
Anyway I like this change. If you use Darts it was OP as well at level 1 tbh.
Now that I know that poison weapon penetrates stoneskin and mirror image, it really bothers me. Any chance that will be fixed?
But Assassins receive far fewer advantages than a blackguard, and have more more drawbacks (less thieving abilities compared to other thieves, for instance). This change affects Assassins are more than it does Blackguards, and for that reason, I don't think you will be able to find a balance that suits both.
I think what you need to do is either:
A) Separate Poison Weapon into two versions, one for the Assassin and one for the Blackguard.
C) Remove the ability from the Blackguard and replace it with something different, in keeping with the flavour of the class.
D) Remove the ability from the Assassin.
I would vote for option B. I know people have got used to the Blackguard having poison weapon, but the class is still very effective without it. I think Poison Weapon should be the signature move of the assassin - it should not be shared. Just like the Bounty Hunter has his special traps that are not shared, it should be the same with the assassin. The assassin, per the kit description, spends a lot of time working on his poisons. The Blackguard does not - his power comes from his patron. Why then should he have a poison weapon ability?
The problem is actually not with the assassin, but with the Blackguard. The Blackguard is the more recent of the two kits in any case.
On top of that, I would rebalance Poison Weapon so that it scales in terms of damage output. It should do slightly less damage at first level and slightly more damage at 16th level. And it should affect a target more than once - if I inject 1ml of Cyanide into you, it is quite a different story to me injecting 100ml of Cyanide into you.
And this prestige class has poison, it even has backstab!
Whippersnappers think 3E invented D&D.... That's a paddlin'
Still, the class has poison and backstab in PnP and doesn't have backstab in Baldur's Gate. If you remove Poison Weapon as well this kit will have nothing left.
From a roleplaying point of view it would be more interesting to have a 'poison brewing' ability akin to the Alchemy HLA. Depending on the character Level, the potency of the venoms rise. (From Drow Poison all the way up to Black Lotus Extract, for example.)
This way we could give both Blackguards and Assassins some more variety in their craft as well. And having the need of either buying the poisons or creating them before able to use them in combat would also help to rebalance them in my eyes.
Just a thought.
The type of possible poisons might be:
One with a CC, either stun or hold. Let's say, no save stun/hold for 1 or 2 round but can only be applied once per person.
One with extra damage (Improved Poison weapon giving back the current Poison Weapon could be an idea)
One with a debilitating effects, stats lowering (whether Thac0, AC or ability scores).
This would make assassins more unique and that's what I would like.
The next build won't have the ability updated, but we are working on a new progression that scales better and has an end-game potency that roughly matches its current effects (but without quite so much potential for abuse).
For Maximum Illumination, here's the math on the original, vanilla BG2 implementation of Poison Weapon: It didn't stack on subsequent hits, and it didn't penetrate Mirror Image or Stoneskin. So if you're seeing more than 30 damage total in BG:EE, that's a bug. (The stoneskin and mirror image thing was apparently intentional on our part, but we're looking at it more closely to see if it's actually what we want to keep.)
The math we're looking at implementing (though not in this next update to the beta builds) will put you on track to hit that same damage output by level 13 and cap it there, instead of making you wait until level 16. And it'll have growing save penalties to make the ability remain useful for more of the later parts of the game.
Let's not kid ourselves; we're rebalancing this ability because it's too powerful. If this ability lets you automatically win, it's too powerful, no matter what your level is. Our goal is to make the ability balanced while still keeping it fun. That's why I ask that if you have concerns about this ability, roll up an Assassin and try it out in-game. If it's too weak, we can tweak the numbers; that's easy. What I want to know is, is this ability still fun to use.
Then, hitting again with poison weapon would deal the initial poison damage, but it would extend the extended effects rather than stacking them.
We currently have the option of always-bypass, and have the ability to mod it back to its previous never-bypass, complete with the bugged behavior of striking the real target among mirror images not inflicting the poison.
Stoneskin should not allow a bypass in this specific case of poison, but again, the current implementation allows us to mod whether or not stoneskins protects against on-hit effects on a case-by-case basis.
-It existed since 2000.
-Does it really break the game? It still cannot bypass the various Protection from Magic Weapons / Mantle / Improved Mantle / Absolute Immunity line of spells, except if you use an exploit to spread the poison from an area of effect.
Is it too strong for BG:EE? Sure it is. The Sleep spell also is too powerful for the first game, as it's basically a AoE save or die (-3) spell when enemies have saves in the 15+ range, meaning it's a spamable death sentence. You can even buy a Wand of Sleep.
-There are various other abilities or spells which are even more powerful, or even some builds. Why do Poison Weapon alone needs a nerf while Spell Immunity, Mislead, Chain Contingency, Protection from Magical Weapons and the Enrage ability from Berserker remain untouched?
-You can reproduce its effect anyway in BG:EE with Arrow of Biting or Bolt of Biting, these effects won't change and they will still be able to stack.
Last time I checked, the playerbase thought that the best Paladin kit was the Inquisitor, not the Blackguard. Is their Dispel Magic ability going to get nerfed too?
Plus I really see no reason to reduce the Assassin's power while it's definitely not a powergaming kit (once again, while other characters, like Fighter dualled to Mage/Thief or multiclass F/M and so forth are not receiving the slightest change).
Note: I'm not against a change or a nerf of this ability, I would even welcome it (though not as harsh as of now) but I'm really wondering about the reasons behind this change in a single player game while some other builds are stronger and they aren't going to change.
PS: I forgot! Poison is suppose to be deadly. Look at all these poisonous spiders and such in BG:EE. Do you know that Phase Spiders' poison actually deals 5 damage per second? and it can be stacked.