Ranger tracking

OlleDenStore

I would love it if all Rangers got the HLA Tracking at lvl 1.
They do in pnp and I think the only reason it's a HLA is that it was added in ToB and doing it this way was the easiest way to not break existing characters.

elminster

I agree it should be added at least to a level that makes it useful in BG and BG2.

Dee

Yeah, I don't think I've ever used this. And I probably never would, unless it was given to me for free.

Cloutier

It would be great in BG1.

OlleDenStore

Cloutier said:

It would be great in BG1.

Yeah I know. There are a few quests where you need to track down monster X in the wilderness to get item Y back. This would be a lot more fun if you had a ranger with tracking. It adds some nice flavor to the class.

HexHammer

It would be really nice to have random encounters where we could track missing persons, lengendary beasts and monsters, all beginnings to a nice adventure.

Dux89

Completely agree. Rangers are severely underpowered (except for the Archer kit).

Grammarsalad

Agreed. It's an easy mod though. Might want to request it on the mod board...hmmm, there is no place specifically for mod requests

Demivrgvs

Implementing Tracking ability as a base feature of all Ranger classes is on my to-do list for Kit Revisions, BUT while technically it's extremely easy (just a matter of adding string references for each area to tracking.2da file), in practice it's incredibly time consuming, more than you can imagine if you want the result to be good.

We pratically have to write down an "area description" line for each and every area of the game, and depending on the standard informations we want such ability to give it may requires relatively little work (e.g. "There are kobolds and wolves in the area.") or an absurd amount of work (e.g. "The marks on the ground seems to indicate a large group of kobolds in the area, probably directed to the south. We have to look out for their traps. Footprints of wolves are still visible heading into the forest, and judging by the traces it should be a pack of dire wolves, perhaps lead by a winter wolf too. Bla bla bla").

Speaking of which, if someone is willing to help me and Arda on this matter he/she is welcome! Especially if he/she is a good writer (I am not, to write good backgrounds for IR items I took ages, and only after many proofreading the result become really good).

Khamill

Yeah good idea. It would be great to have a possibility of achieving special abilities by completing hidden quests. For instance you could find a quest in the book, and such a quest would not appear in the diary, so those who read books carefully could benefit more. Same for NPC conversations.
...Its probably more of BG3 idea though.

Grammarsalad

@demivrgvs I was going to get around to asking you if you need any help. I'm only capable of grunt work (basically .itm and .spl creation, 2da manipulation, starting to poke .dlg s, cannibalizing others brilliant work, kit creation, etc. ) at this point and I'm not sure how much time I can devote to it. I might be willing to make a commitment on a few things though..perhaps tracking...hmmm what kind of time frame are we looking at? I do a little something almost everyday anyway...

Demivrgvs

@Grammarsalad I don't want to go off topic too much. If you want to help, writing down those string references for BG1 and BG2 areas would be great (not a funny task I know). Anyway, if you want to actively help it's best to contact me or Ardanis via PM at G3 forums.