3rd Ed Ability modifiers in BG?
Chnapy
Member Posts: 360
I have been looking around for a while but couldn't seem to find an answer so I decided I'd bother you magnificent modders :
Is there a mod that would make the BG games use 3rd edition ability modifiers? As in modifier goes up by one for every 2 points in an ability, applies the same way to everything that depends on that ability.
I suppose most of it (from the top of my head, strength bonus to damage, to hit, carrying capacity, and breaking ; dex bonus to AC, Thieving skills, ranged to hit ; con bonus to HP ; wisdom bonus spells ; charisma bonus to social interactions) would just require .2DA changes.
But there are some, such as
int&charisma bonus spells, bonus to saving throws, prolly some more,
that I have no idea how they could be done, if it is at all possible.
I'm not necessarily looking for every balancing factors (such as max dex bonus to ac on armor) but I'd really like a more linear scaling for abilities as a whole, so if you happen to know of a mod that gives that or to know what (and ideally why, i'm curious =D ) isn't possible at all, I would very much like to hear it.
Is there a mod that would make the BG games use 3rd edition ability modifiers? As in modifier goes up by one for every 2 points in an ability, applies the same way to everything that depends on that ability.
I suppose most of it (from the top of my head, strength bonus to damage, to hit, carrying capacity, and breaking ; dex bonus to AC, Thieving skills, ranged to hit ; con bonus to HP ; wisdom bonus spells ; charisma bonus to social interactions) would just require .2DA changes.
But there are some, such as
int&charisma bonus spells, bonus to saving throws, prolly some more,
that I have no idea how they could be done, if it is at all possible.
I'm not necessarily looking for every balancing factors (such as max dex bonus to ac on armor) but I'd really like a more linear scaling for abilities as a whole, so if you happen to know of a mod that gives that or to know what (and ideally why, i'm curious =D ) isn't possible at all, I would very much like to hear it.
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I'm actually working on Wisdom-based AC for Monks right now. The catch is that it only checks Wisdom at character creation (so if you have 17 Wisdom and later use the Wisdom tome, you'll still only get a +3 bonus.)
You could have it check at every level, but if you leveled up with one of the ever popular ability modifying items (belt of giant strength or gloves of dexterity) the game would think you had that ability score, which feels a bit... cheesy.
So it is doable, but it requires some compromises for the sake of not being exploitable.
Another thing I've been investigating this for is having Int/Wis/Cha give caster level bonuses to appropriate classes (to replicate the way how 3/PF handles spell saves...).
Is there anything in particular you were looking into?
They're also a lot more balanced. No big gaping hole at 7-14, and then when you get just a little higher, you can suddenly get into a world of difference. A 17 or 18 strength makes a huge difference in 2e if you're a warrior class.
Score - 2e bonus / 3e bonus (2e bonuses estimated, as they vary from bonus to bonus):
-
-
- -4 / -4
- -3 / -3
- -2 / -3
- -1 / -2
- 0 / -2
- 0 / -1
- 0 / -1
- 0 / 0
- 0 / 0
- 0 / +1
- 0 / +1
- 0 / +2
- +1 / +2
- +2 / +3
- +3 / +3
- +4 / +4
That said, BG NPCs and creatures tend to be rather overpowered. You need high stats in 2e for those stats to mean anything, so they gave most NPCs lots of very high scores to work with the 2e system.For example, using the standard character creation rules, a character on average has a total of 63 for ability scores. Even if you roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die for each ability score, you get to an average total of 73,5. If you look at standard (25) point buy, you can get up to a total of 73 as well, less if you want to buy scores higher than 14.
3e is pretty balanced. The problem is that the BG creatures aren't balanced. They're pretty OP, but due to the rather odd ability score tables that 2e uses, it's not that bad (and things would have been pretty bland if they weren't OP). Had BG been created for 3e from the very start, I'm sure most creatures would have lower stats, and things would be fine, but with their current high amount of stats, 3e rules would be pretty op.
If you want to balance the creatures around 3e stats, you'd have to change all their stats accordingly:
3-4 stays 3-4
5 becomes 6
6 becomes 8
7-10 becomes 10
11-14 becomes 11
15 becomes 13
16 becomes 15
17-18 stays 17-18
Applied to recrutiable npcs, 3rd ed would make most of them better fighters. No exStrength nor con-bonus cap means that characters without some warrior thrown in would perform much better in hand to hand combat (but would still be locked at 1apr so that wouldn't really last) and that most actual warriors would get a +1 or +2 to ac and hp/lvl and prolly about +2 to thaco and damage.
Divine spellcasters would end with fewer low level spells (except does it makes much sense to adjust the spells one get due to abilities without adjusting what is given by the class) and arcane casters with a bit more.
People with very 18+ scores don't gain much (very high strength comes with a very real loss of damage).(thieves prolly lose a bit on most skills) so Charname stays put.
People with 10-17 scores gain between +1 and +3 to thac0/damage/AC/HP
People with >10 scores get -1 to ad hoc stats.
I'm under the impression that people like khalid would come out on top and Viconia would get the shaft...
As for enemies, I was under the impression that most of them ranged in the Khalid area with bosses were more into Dorn territory so henchmen would get a pretty big boost and that's about it, or so I'd wager.
Again, I'm not saying this would be better balanced. It's just not the point. The point of my asking was that I really despise 2nd ed, that's all =D
As for the whole "Even number-only bonuses and every bonuses being the same", I consider those acceptable losses (Probably in no small part because i'm used to it, though) for the sake of clarity. AD&D had to give a table for each ability whereas 3rd only needed one all-purpose (and clearer, imo) table.
Take Khalid for example. In the 2e system, he gets no strength bonuses, a +1 to reaction and ranged attacks, -2 to AC, and +3 hit points per level. In a 3e system, he would get +2 to hit and damage with melee weapons, +3 reaction/ranged hit/AC, and +3 hit points per level... Total change of +2 to melee, +1 to ranged, +1 to reaction, +1 to Armor Class. Not too shabby.
Conversely, Viconia's attribute bonuses would change to +4 Dex (AC/ranged/reaction), -1 Con (hit points per level), and +4 Wis (bonus spells). Overall she would gain +1 ranged attack and reaction, and would lose 1 hit point per level and 1 1st and 1 2nd level spell slot.
The advantage that 3E has (and probably the reason that PF, 4E and 5E held onto it) is that it makes more intuitive sense ("my strength is higher so I will hit harder") and also has less of a binary between acceptable and unaccpetable stats (e.g. the difference between 10 and 14 Str is basically none, whereas that's a +2 bonus to hit and damage in a 3E system).