I'd be happy with two or three spells for each of the first three levels, where druids have always been rather weak. The reason we're only complaining now is because there's now TWO classes with very limited early spell selection, and some of us were expecting at least a few Icewind Dale spells to be included in the new patch, since they have now been updated to use the EE engine and have been given matching artwork already.
I don't really expect Beamdog to do anything, I'm just a bit disappointed, I've disliked the druid spell selection since I first played BG1 back in the late 90s, and thought after IWD:EE we might finally get something ported over to address some obvious weaknesses.
Slow Poison, Charm Person or Mammal, Find Traps, Barkskin (bonus on save vs. magic), Resist Fire/Cold.
Lv 2 druid spells are not THAT useless. They're just not optimal.
With Jaheira or Faldorn or Cernd I put lots of slow poison and lots of resist fire/cold. Helps a lot.
Charm Person or Mammal is really useful against sirines, as you regain control over your party members. And helps a lot when that damn cave bear shows up at the wrong place in the wrong time. Or can help you turn him into a tank or spell-target.
Barkskin is a must for Shapeshifters and helps a lot other druids (and wizards!)
Resist Fire/Cold is useful through the entire saga.
Slow Poison is obligatory. If you don't get any you're playing wrong.
Find Traps can help, but it's not mandatory. But can be useful.
I'm surprised they went with the Shaman instead of the Favored Soul...
And I don't rate things in the game on the bases that you CAN get a mod to change this or a mod to change that. I'm low tec - I just like playing it vanilla.
@subtledoctor The mod excuse is a cop-out for developers. The simple fact is that druids should've been buffed before both EEs came out.
@PK2748 If people are going to use balancing issues as another excuse, then why were arcane spells from BG2 lazily imported into IWDEE? Surely it's more of a game breaker that way around than it is to put a few IWD spells into the BG series. I would really like to try and understand that line of thinking, because it doesn't make any sense to me.
@subtledoctor Lol Your advice is appreciated, and I am thankful you are doing your part for the community. It's just frustrating how badly druids get treated by the developers. Even the Shapeshifter hasn't been fixed, to my knowledge.
They created a whole new class based on druids and I thought they had finally decided to make them worthwhile. The Shaman class does look disappointing so far. I know people will say "The game isn't even out yet! Wait!" and that is a fair point. However, I think some constructive criticisms should be encouraged before it is released.
Well, I'm thinking, for starters, all they could/should have done was just add a few druid spells to BALANCE it out and make the Druid class act like cool druids again and not really lame druids.
Then come out with a Favored Soul class. I believe the sorcerer type cleric who can also chose from a range of martial weapons but is hindered in healing spell advancment would have been a much more long-over-do addition. I mean, dont U devs have any idea how cool and epic it would be see a cleric type class wield a sword, an axe, a bow, legitimately and to bring the sorcerer's casting style into the Clerical!?!? (Favored Soul would not be aloud to multi-class but open to all races)
THEN come out with the Shamon Druid KIT not class. But *sigh* I am happy for the ANY new class. I'm sure ya'll done a bang up job, and didn't drop the Bhaal on this one.
Further more, count how many clerical spells there are and how many druid spells there are.
Advantage cleric. Now, I always thought this was due to lack of creativity or just plain scripting time restrictions, but, hey, at least now with the new Shaman spells we can finally call it even??
I'm surprised they went with the Shaman instead of the Favored Soul...
Favoured Soul is purely a 3.5 class. Shaman has been around in one form or another since 1st edition.
And I don't rate things in the game on the bases that you CAN get a mod to change this or a mod to change that. I'm low tec - I just like playing it vanilla.
There's a number of comments in this thread about how poor druids 1st and 2nd level spells are. As I agreed with a comment earlier on I think that's slightly unfair anyway, but I think it's also missing the point for a couple of reasons: 1) I actually think it's positively good to have a class with a more restricted range of spells. The spell range for arcane is interesting, but the number of spells means that quite a lot are simply not used in many runs. Having a small selection for a druid seems to me to add balance to the game as a whole, even if that is slightly at the expense of the druid. 2) Druids have some great higher level spells - and are incredibly quick to get them. Druids get level 5 spells at 90k XP, which for anyone who knows the game well enough to be frustrated by their spell selection at level 1 & 2 would only take about 30 minutes game play to get to . It seems reasonable to me that one reason for Bioware to give fast levelling at early druid levels in the original BG was in order to balance the character class for the lack of spells at lower levels.
The mod excuse is a cop-out for developers. The simple fact is that druids should've been buffed before both EEs came out.
If you ever hear someone from Beamdog saying that modders can do something that Beamdog won't do, it's for one of two reasons: 1) The feature you're asking for is one that will take time to design, implement, test, and balance properly, so if it comes it won't be immediate. 2) The feature you're asking for makes a significant change to the overall design of the game, and is one that Beamdog isn't prepared to make right now.
In both cases, talking to modders about what you want is a way to get it faster and with more fine tuning to your personal tastes. We're not saying "We don't want to do the work; go do it yourself." We're saying, "We haven't decided yet if this is a thing we want or can afford to spend time on, but if you really feel strongly about this feature, there's a wealth of resources out there to help you create it yourself if you're interested."
If people are going to use balancing issues as another excuse, then why were arcane spells from BG2 lazily imported into IWDEE? Surely it's more of a game breaker that way around than it is to put a few IWD spells into the BG series. I would really like to try and understand that line of thinking, because it doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't remember the exact number of spells that were brought over from BG to IWD, but it's a much smaller number than would be brought over from IWD to BG (compare "a few dozen" to "more than a hundred"). And, again, doing so is time-intensive; the process took months of development time for IWD:EE to make sure we were using and accounting for them correctly in enemy scripts, and to make sure that they didn't ruin the game's challenge.
This isn't to say that we won't ever port IWD spells to BG, but that's why it's not an automatic decision on our part.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to clear up. Carry on!
Bioware gave fast leveling to druids because that is how they are in 2nd edition rules.
Sure, but the same comments can apply to TSR as the original publishers. Rather than having every class have a nice smooth progression, it's interesting for the game as a whole to have some oddities. So druids start pretty weak, but soon flourish into an extremely strong class in the early-middle game. They then have a huge pause while everyone else overtakes them before catching up later on.
In the original design druids had a hard level cap at 14, and there could only be one 14th level druid in the world. Of course, anything over level 9 was considered extremely high level content in those days.
It was done to match the "lore" that the Victorians invented about druids.
Sure, but the same comments can apply to TSR as the original publishers.
You might want to (re)read the 2E Player's Handbook and the Complete Druid's Handbook before potentially arriving to such a possibly rushed conclusion. The Druid's spell list is much larger than what has been incorporated in the IE games, case in point: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Druid_spells_(2e)
Sure, but the same comments can apply to TSR as the original publishers.
You might want to (re)read the 2E Player's Handbook and the Complete Druid's Handbook before potentially arriving to such a possibly rushed conclusion. The Druid's spell list is much larger than what has been incorporated in the IE games, case in point: http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Druid_spells_(2e)
Possibly, but remember that the 2nd edition of AD&D wasn't actually a single issue, but a gradually expanding body of work over 10+ years. The Complete Druid's Handbook for instance wasn't part of the original release (when the basic structure for character classes was determined) and the number of spells available was greatly expanded over time. To offer an alternative wiki - here's a brief summary of the development of Dungeons & Dragons : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons#Original_game
In the original design druids had a hard level cap at 14, and there could only be one 14th level druid in the world. Of course, anything over level 9 was considered extremely high level content in those days.
Agreed. I did wonder whether to go into that in my earlier comment as it certainly had a big impact on the way druids developed (both in PnP and in ToB), but thought that was maybe too much detail.
The mod excuse is a cop-out for developers. The simple fact is that druids should've been buffed before both EEs came out.
If you ever hear someone from Beamdog saying that modders can do something that Beamdog won't do, it's for one of two reasons: 1) The feature you're asking for is one that will take time to design, implement, test, and balance properly, so if it comes it won't be immediate. 2) The feature you're asking for makes a significant change to the overall design of the game, and is one that Beamdog isn't prepared to make right now.
In both cases, talking to modders about what you want is a way to get it faster and with more fine tuning to your personal tastes. We're not saying "We don't want to do the work; go do it yourself." We're saying, "We haven't decided yet if this is a thing we want or can afford to spend time on, but if you really feel strongly about this feature, there's a wealth of resources out there to help you create it yourself if you're interested."
If people are going to use balancing issues as another excuse, then why were arcane spells from BG2 lazily imported into IWDEE? Surely it's more of a game breaker that way around than it is to put a few IWD spells into the BG series. I would really like to try and understand that line of thinking, because it doesn't make any sense to me.
I don't remember the exact number of spells that were brought over from BG to IWD, but it's a much smaller number than would be brought over from IWD to BG (compare "a few dozen" to "more than a hundred"). And, again, doing so is time-intensive; the process took months of development time for IWD:EE to make sure we were using and accounting for them correctly in enemy scripts, and to make sure that they didn't ruin the game's challenge.
This isn't to say that we won't ever port IWD spells to BG, but that's why it's not an automatic decision on our part.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to clear up. Carry on!
This is very well put.
And I want to emphasize the point that mods allow the end user to tailor the game to their own desires. If there are 1,000 people playing the game, they might each be playing their own personal 'version' of the game. One gal might use just npc mod a, and b, another guy might use all of the 'cheats'he can, another just wants the extra challenge offered by SCS, etc. And that is just... Awesome!
Comments
I don't really expect Beamdog to do anything, I'm just a bit disappointed, I've disliked the druid spell selection since I first played BG1 back in the late 90s, and thought after IWD:EE we might finally get something ported over to address some obvious weaknesses.
Lv 2 druid spells are not THAT useless. They're just not optimal.
With Jaheira or Faldorn or Cernd I put lots of slow poison and lots of resist fire/cold. Helps a lot.
Charm Person or Mammal is really useful against sirines, as you regain control over your party members. And helps a lot when that damn cave bear shows up at the wrong place in the wrong time. Or can help you turn him into a tank or spell-target.
Barkskin is a must for Shapeshifters and helps a lot other druids (and wizards!)
Resist Fire/Cold is useful through the entire saga.
Slow Poison is obligatory. If you don't get any you're playing wrong.
Find Traps can help, but it's not mandatory. But can be useful.
I'm surprised they went with the Shaman instead of the Favored Soul...
And I don't rate things in the game on the bases that you CAN get a mod to change this or a mod to change that. I'm low tec - I just like playing it vanilla.
So come on Michael let's Shamon
@PK2748 If people are going to use balancing issues as another excuse, then why were arcane spells from BG2 lazily imported into IWDEE? Surely it's more of a game breaker that way around than it is to put a few IWD spells into the BG series. I would really like to try and understand that line of thinking, because it doesn't make any sense to me.
They created a whole new class based on druids and I thought they had finally decided to make them worthwhile. The Shaman class does look disappointing so far. I know people will say "The game isn't even out yet! Wait!" and that is a fair point. However, I think some constructive criticisms should be encouraged before it is released.
Then come out with a Favored Soul class. I believe the sorcerer type cleric who can also chose from a range of martial weapons but is hindered in healing spell advancment would have been a much more long-over-do addition. I mean, dont U devs have any idea how cool and epic it would be see a cleric type class wield a sword, an axe, a bow, legitimately and to bring the sorcerer's casting style into the Clerical!?!? (Favored Soul would not be aloud to multi-class but open to all races)
THEN come out with the Shamon Druid KIT not class. But *sigh* I am happy for the ANY new class. I'm sure ya'll done a bang up job, and didn't drop the Bhaal on this one.
Advantage cleric. Now, I always thought this was due to lack of creativity or just plain scripting time restrictions, but, hey, at least now with the new Shaman spells we can finally call it even??
1) I actually think it's positively good to have a class with a more restricted range of spells. The spell range for arcane is interesting, but the number of spells means that quite a lot are simply not used in many runs. Having a small selection for a druid seems to me to add balance to the game as a whole, even if that is slightly at the expense of the druid.
2) Druids have some great higher level spells - and are incredibly quick to get them. Druids get level 5 spells at 90k XP, which for anyone who knows the game well enough to be frustrated by their spell selection at level 1 & 2 would only take about 30 minutes game play to get to
1) The feature you're asking for is one that will take time to design, implement, test, and balance properly, so if it comes it won't be immediate.
2) The feature you're asking for makes a significant change to the overall design of the game, and is one that Beamdog isn't prepared to make right now.
In both cases, talking to modders about what you want is a way to get it faster and with more fine tuning to your personal tastes. We're not saying "We don't want to do the work; go do it yourself." We're saying, "We haven't decided yet if this is a thing we want or can afford to spend time on, but if you really feel strongly about this feature, there's a wealth of resources out there to help you create it yourself if you're interested." I don't remember the exact number of spells that were brought over from BG to IWD, but it's a much smaller number than would be brought over from IWD to BG (compare "a few dozen" to "more than a hundred"). And, again, doing so is time-intensive; the process took months of development time for IWD:EE to make sure we were using and accounting for them correctly in enemy scripts, and to make sure that they didn't ruin the game's challenge.
This isn't to say that we won't ever port IWD spells to BG, but that's why it's not an automatic decision on our part.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to clear up. Carry on!
I'm just very bitter about druids, and have been for years. It just feels like they get neglected
It was done to match the "lore" that the Victorians invented about druids.
http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Druid_spells_(2e)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeons_&_Dragons#Original_game
This isn't to say that we won't ever port IWD spells to BG, but that's why it's not an automatic decision on our part.
Anyway, that's all I wanted to clear up. Carry on!
This is very well put.
And I want to emphasize the point that mods allow the end user to tailor the game to their own desires. If there are 1,000 people playing the game, they might each be playing their own personal 'version' of the game. One gal might use just npc mod a, and b, another guy might use all of the 'cheats'he can, another just wants the extra challenge offered by SCS, etc. And that is just... Awesome!
A Priest XP table would work (which is why you also get a Tweaks/SCS option to replace the Druid progression with the Priest one).