[REQUEST] Give Bards a little love! (Light spoiling post)

Khyron

Hoy! I love playing a Bard (Blade) in Baldur's Gate, but there's this one thing that irks me juuust a little bit in Bg1. I have to murder Drizzt in cold blood to get an armor I can use -and- cast magic!

Now this might be unproblematic for a lot of people, but I actually like keeping that darkskinned lil bugger alive.

So if you could pretty please with sugar on top, add a few elven chainmails do the game, I'd be a very happy lil troubadour.

It doesn't need "omfglol" stats, heck even an unenchanted armor would be nice (though I'd squeel in joy for a +2)
With all the uber-powered stuff in Durlag's Tower and such, I don't think a proper armor for Bards and Fighter/mages is unbalancing (though F/M's can use arch magi robe already.. so.. yeah, they won't need it anyhow)

So, to end a messy and poorly constructed post.. Please don't make it all in hideous green, making us look like we've tripped over our own lvl 2 noob feet and fell face first into the Ooze outside Mullahey's lair.. *cough*

(If you don't wanna put a lot of work into it.. just add a elven chainmail +2 to the Blacksmith in Beregost.. :P )

Sed

@TrentOster mentioned in a tweet that they would be adding one.. or if it was in the AMAA.

Hopefully it will be there :-)

Khyron

"one" as in one piece of elven chainmail in the entire game? With my luck, that'll be at the very bottom of Durlag's, the last place I go before hacking down Sarevok and i get to use it for a total of 30 minutes. >.<

Tanthalas

Its actually drops from Tazok in the final battle.

Mortianna

Also, if they included the various bard songs from IWD, I think the bard would be a much more valuable class to have in one's party.

Grammarsalad

I'm pretty sure they will be casting in leather once kit revisions comes out...

Demivrgvs

Grammarsalad said:

I'm pretty sure they will be casting in leather once kit revisions comes out...

Indeed. Though implementing it is actually easier within Item Revisions, because we need to edit armors for making it work. Anyway, one way or the other we'll make this tweak available.

Grammarsalad

@demivrgvs

great work on spell and item revisions! You never see me on g3 (yet anyway) but I'm always lurking on ir, sr and kr. Looking forward to future releases.

: D

Demivrgvs

@Grammarsalad thanks man, we do our best and it's always nice to see many players like the result. Speaking of which, BGEE and 1PPv4 delayed a new release of IR (I had to work on compatibility issues), but if you are interested I'm now confident both IR and a first version of KR will actually be out before BGEE.

Grammarsalad

@demivrgvs

O I am interested! Good to know!

so, did you guys hear that? You should check it out. I know there is a thread on bards at g3.

Andyr

In case anyone is interested the meantime, the Song and Silence mod from G3 adds some bardic armour to Tutu and BG2: http://www.gibberlings3.net/sns/index.php

Grammarsalad

@andyr still waiting on those hlas

Brude

Andyr said:

In case anyone is interested the meantime, the Song and Silence mod from G3 adds some bardic armour to Tutu and BG2: http://www.gibberlings3.net/sns/index.php

Thanks for this link. I recently played around with a bard & installed the fixes and the store. Surprisingly, the additional items were priced well and not overpowered for the vanilla game.

bigdogchris

Part of the balance in Bard is the inability to case magic while wearing armor. Armor that allows casting is supposed to be very rare. If developers added items to the game to offset all of the downsides of a class, we have sold-out game and class balance for min/maxers.

Brude

bigdogchris said:

Part of the balance in Bard is the inability to case magic while wearing armor. Armor that allows casting is supposed to be very rare. If developers added items to the game to offset all of the downsides of a class, we have sold-out game and class balance for min/maxers.

I agree with you in spirit.

The problem with BG1 is that it offers *no* items specifically for Bards. There's no caster armor anywhere in the game. There's no magical bucklers for them. There's no rings, amulets or offhands that boost the power of their songs.

If there were existing armor or weapons catering to them that you could get mid way or late into the game, then I'd more fully agree with you. As it stands, I think mods here can correct a bad oversight by the original developers.

Kalindor

Demivrgvs said:

@Grammarsalad thanks man, we do our best and it's always nice to see many players like the result. Speaking of which, BGEE and 1PPv4 delayed a new release of IR (I had to work on compatibility issues), but if you are interested I'm now confident both IR and a first version of KR will actually be out before BGEE.

Good news, Demi. Are we talking just the Fighter Kit Revisions or the first version of the whole lot?

Demivrgvs

Kalindor said:

Demivrgvs said:

@Grammarsalad thanks man, we do our best and it's always nice to see many players like the result. Speaking of which, BGEE and 1PPv4 delayed a new release of IR (I had to work on compatibility issues), but if you are interested I'm now confident both IR and a first version of KR will actually be out before BGEE.

Good news, Demi. Are we talking just the Fighter Kit Revisions or the first version of the whole lot?

@Kalindor That will depend on many factors, and this is probably not the right place for a wall of text of mine.

"Short" story:
- my goal is to relase Fighters first, to get some feedback on a couple of new mechanics (e.g. I've added PnP Power Attack, Combat Expertise, Cleave, Called Shots) and most importantly try to get some in-game balance feedback (if possible within BG1 too) of the most noticeable changes (e.g. the Barbarian now has a completely different Rage - the Wizard Slayer is the most changed class, with no magical item restrictions and new anti-mage abilities - but the Kensai will be the most tricky class to balance for BG1 imo) .
- then other warriors will shortly follow (still before BGEE imo), as I've done most of the work on Paladins and Rangers (the Beastmaster's Animal Companion is my only real problem here).
- I've already tweaked pre-existing HLAs too, and planned to expand them even more than Refinements mod did, but in a first realease I think you'll have to live only with the improved vanilla ones.

- For the other classes instead I really don't know. I've done many things in my internal build, but even more are still to do. Too many variables to even guess a release date. But soon I'll fill KR's forums with an absurd amount of new informations on all of them.

Cheers, and sorry, I really cannot manage to write short posts!

Moomintroll

I didn't think you could cast mage spells in Drizzt's chain, just use thief skills, is this a TuTu thing or do I just not kill Drizzt often enough?

elminster

@Moomintroll for 12,000 experience I kill him as soon as I am able. It totally shoot him from that island, I admit. Thank goodness water is an impassible barrier in this game. Unless you find a bridge or have a ship captained by Saemon Havarian of course.

Moomintroll

@elminster but can you cast spells in Drizzt's chain or not?

elminster

@Moomintroll I'm not sure, I will find out for you shortly as I have a fighter/illusionist specialised with bows near beregost.

elminster

No you can not. Well, you can't in vanilla BG1 + TOTsc, I'm not sure if this was addressed in a fixpack.

PugPug

Tanthalas said:

Its actually drops from Tazok in the final battle.

Hah, good thing there's New Game+.

Or you could kill Drizzt and export/import into a new game, erasing your crime. He'll still be very cross with you in BG2 if you are wearing it in your final BG save, though.

Kaxon

Tanthalas said:

Its actually drops from Tazok in the final battle.

Kinda like the +1 Full Plate that you get from Tamoko right outside the final battle? Which I forgot to equip after I got it, and then the game was over... *sigh*