Should the Wizard Slayer kit be modified?

Loldrup

Relevant redmine issue: http://redmine.beamdog.com/issues/26584

semiticgoddess

I love Wizard Slayers as they are--they are devastating with darts and Fire Seeds throughout the saga--but the rebalanced kit actually looks more interesting and complex.

ajwz

Only if they add a Fighter-Slayer class for wizards to avoid discrimination

Raduziel

IDK what to vote

I like the WSR mod version but some things should be added...

Potions of Explosions and Oils of Fiery Burning, for example, should be allowed. AFAIK they are alchemical, not magical.

Potion of Clarity should be allowed, as they simulate a Divine spell (Chaotic Commands), not an Arcane one.

As should be any and all item that increases MR

IMHO, of course.

JumboWheat01

I've played one both without Wizard Slayer Rebalancing and with it. I find it a somewhat enjoyable experience before, but after I got the mod, they were much more interesting and enjoyable, as you could do a lot more with them than just "click target to attack until dead."

I do wonder how long this poll will go until someone votes "No." Of course, now that I've mentioned it, someone will do so out of spite. But since I know that they know, they'd avoid it, but since they know that I know that they know...

Demivrgvs

Avenger's WS Rebalancing is waay better than vanilla's WS but I tried a different approach within Kit Revisions -> KR's wizard slayer CAN USE ANY MAGICAL ITEM because he's neither a stupid/ignorant fool nor a dumb barbarian-like 'me hate magic, me don't use magical items...but wait these I can".

Advantages:
- Gains a +2 bonus to saves vs. spell.
- At 1st level, can use Disruptive Strike once per day. For every 4 levels, the ability can be used an additional time per day. This ability improves significantly at level 10.
- At 1st level, can use Inner Focus once per day. For every 4 levels, the ability can be used an additional time per day. This ability improves significantly at levels 10 and 19.
- At 5th level, gains Magical Defense.
- At 11th level, gains a 10% resistance to magic. At 14th and 17th level, this resistance increases by an additional 5%.
- At 15th level, can use Resist Magic once per day.

Disadvantages:
- Cannot wear heavy armor, nor use large shields.
- Cannot use Offensive Stance or Defensive Stance.
- Cannot use Called Shot.
- Cannot dual class to mage.

DISRUPTIVE STRIKE: During the round when this ability is activated, any successful melee or ranged hit on an arcane spellcaster imposes a non-cumulative 40% spell failure penalty, lasting 3 rounds.
At 10th level, the wizard slayer becomes able to break through the magical defenses of arcane spellcasters when performing a Disruptive Strike. Each successful hit during the round removes one combat protection from his target.

INNER FOCUS: Concentrating all his fortitude, agility and mental resistance, the wizard slayer is able to withstand, dodge, or resist almost any type of magical threat. During the round when this ability is activated, the wizard slayer becomes immune to all spells of 4th level or lower.
At 10th level, the wizard slayer becomes immune to all spells of 7th level or lower when using Inner Focus.
At 19th level, the wizard slayer becomes immune to all spells of 9th level or lower when using Inner Focus.

MAGICAL DEFENSE: A wizard slayer's constant training in countering arcane spells manifests itself as a +2 bonus to all saves made against spells cast by practitioners of arcane magic.

RESIST MAGIC: This ability grants the warrior +50% magic resistance for 5 rounds.

As always, feedback is welcome.

Arthas

@Demivrgvs I thought you had interrupted working in kit revisions. And I mean totally interrupted..

Raduziel

If it wasn't for the changes in the kitless Fighter I would love your version of the kit @Demivrgvs

I particularly try to avoid everything that enlarges the chasm between BG and P&P. Same reason why I don't use the @subtledoctor mods.

You guys do a terrific job, is just some personal taste

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lroumen

Too many mods already.... how would you choose which one is the best suitable?

Grond0

Having mods available is great, but I don't see a compelling need to introduce one particular mod into the basic game. I think the WS is an interesting class already (weak for a long time solo, but in latter stages of the game extremely strong; in a party can make a good contribution throughout) and the fact that some people find it unbalanced provides a good topic of conversation to keep interest in the game going

Kurona

Not too hot on shoving arbitrary kit changes to the base game. WS, underpowered or not, is a viable choice and this is enough. Mods exist and should be used when you feel like changing stuff like that.

Demivrgvs

On topic: base game WS should be left alone. Many players/modders have widely different ideas on how a kit should be, thus changing the base one won't fix much imo. Nothing stops anyone from liking vanilla's WS, or just picking the WS mod they like the most.

@Arthas I haven't totally interrupted KR, I just haven't modded for like 6 months until few weeks ago. I'm working hard to get new releases, possibly on one particular day (secret hint).

@Raduziel which changes of the kitless Fighter don't you like?

I surely haven't tried to "enlarge the chasm between BG and P&P":
- Offensive/Defensive Stances are almost perfect copies of the two most classic PnP fighter's feats, Power Attack and Combat Expertise respectively
- Called Hits are based upon AD&D Complete Fighter Handbook, and have been part of Fighter's abilities in every D&D edition in some way (e.g. Disarm, Trip, Sunder maneuvers within 3E)

Danacm

I like rebalancing mod but i feel we need it more close to bonus malus to vanilla fighter. I think maybe dont get the mr per level, but can use more items, and a, only specialized to weapons b, use chain or leather only. And permutate this options. And add a breach onhit ability, maybe 1per 5 levels or smthing.

smeagolheart

Danacm said:

I like rebalancing mod but i feel we need it more close to bonus malus to vanilla fighter. I think maybe dont get the mr per level, but can use more items, and a, only specialized to weapons b, use chain or leather only. And permutate this options. And add a breach onhit ability, maybe 1per 5 levels or smthing.

Agree none of the mod attempts I've seen are perfect for replacing the vanilla kit and fitting alongside the other kits.

Raduziel

Demivrgvs said:

@Raduziel which changes of the kitless Fighter don't you like?

I surely haven't tried to "enlarge the chasm between BG and P&P":
- Offensive/Defensive Stances are almost perfect copies of the two most classic PnP fighter's feats, Power Attack and Combat Expertise respectively
- Called Hits are based upon AD&D Complete Fighter Handbook, and have been part of Fighter's abilities in every D&D edition in some way (e.g. Disarm, Trip, Sunder maneuvers within 3E)

@Demivrgvs

You mixed up AD&D and D&D3 features. It's something I don't like.

As said earlier it's not a bad thing, it's just personal taste.

I would love to see the Complete Fighter's Handbook maneuvers implemented as they should be. Your Disarm is not the same of the CoFiHb. Neither is the Trip. IDK if it is an engine limit TBH.

One more time: I hope you didn't take any offense. Is just a preference o' mine.

Demivrgvs

@Raduziel both Disarm and Trip are as close as they could be to AD&D, but yes, I often mix AD&D and 3E pretty much like vanilla BG2 did already by default. Ironically, 5E pretty much did the same. This is a videogame, not a true PnP session, thus I strive to get the best mix of PnP and gameplay value rather than sticking blindly to PnP or even worse to a single version of it.

P.S I didn't take any offense. It takes much more than a different opinion to offend me.

lroumen

Breach on hit is too powerful.
I also think one needs to be able to differentiate wizard slayer from inquisitor, stalker and even monk. Too similar abilities will not make the different roles of the kits clear to the user.

Loldrup

Demivrgvs said:

P.S I didn't take any offense. It takes much more than a different opinion to offend me.

pardon me, but I don't think that's true. Here's an example of an opinionated statement that I'm sure would offend you if someone said they were of that opinion:
* all kids in the world should be r**** before they turn 4

(yes, that was the most gross statement I could come up with)

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TheArtisan

Loldrup said:

Demivrgvs said:

P.S I didn't take any offense. It takes much more than a different opinion to offend me.

pardon me, but I don't think that's true. Here's an example of an opinionated statement that I'm sure would offend you if someone said they were of that opinion:
* all kids in the world should be r**** before they turn 4

(yes, that was the most gross statement I could come up with)

That's not an opinion. That's a sign of clear mental disorder.

Abi_Dalzim

I feel like Wizard Slayers need to be compared to the other fighter kits in terms of utility, and, well, compared to Berserkers and Kensai it seems clear to me that they come up short, requiring party support or otherwise sub-optimal choices like darts to be good at their supposed specialty, while being terrible at most anything else compared to a vanilla fighter. Their specialty is more worth it if you use mods like SCS that go out of their way to make spellcasters the most dangerous things in the game, but since the kit was made in vanilla, it should be worth using in vanilla, where there's more challenging things than high-level mages. I'm not familiar with the proffered rebalancing, though, so I can't weigh in on what that compared to doing anything else with the kit.

batoor

I don't know, right now there's at least two items in SoD that grant extra bonuses to the Wizard slayer lol. So it looks to me that even beamdog thinks it's a tad underpowered and as I understand it, the rebalancing mod was made by a beamdog employee as well.

As it stands I'm uncertain what would be a good change...But the way it's been, the inquisitor has been better at wizard slaying than this kit will ever be. And the classes with access to poison, even though it was recently nerfed.

Abi_Dalzim

batoor said:

As it stands I'm uncertain what would be a good change...But the way it's been, the inquisitor has been better at wizard slaying than this kit will ever be. And the classes with access to poison, even though it was recently nerfed.

Hell, Berserker rage makes that kit a better wizard slayer than the wizard slayer. Honestly, with the right magic items, an unkitted fighter might do better against wizards than a wizard slayer, they're that bad.

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Abi_Dalzim

Of course it's senseless, that's the point of going berserk!

Flashburn

Abi_Dalzim said:

Of course it's senseless, that's the point of going berserk!

Kick logic to the curb and do the impossible! That's the way the Berserker kit rolls!
sorry
not really

Danacm

The berserker kit is simply overpowered. The biggest threat for a fighter is status effects, because fighter is created to be hit always as she can. And the mages and clerics answer is the status effects, hold, charm etc to stop the fighter because in raw power, the fighter is better. But a fighter with built in cc immunity is strongest fighter ever, very hard to stop, and i think its a failed design. Look the imprisonement immunity, why get this ?

Abi_Dalzim

Danacm said:

The berserker kit is simply overpowered. The biggest threat for a fighter is status effects, because fighter is created to be hit always as she can. And the mages and clerics answer is the status effects, hold, charm etc to stop the fighter because in raw power, the fighter is better. But a fighter with built in cc immunity is strongest fighter ever, very hard to stop, and i think its a failed design. Look the imprisonement immunity, why get this ?

Because your only other alternatives for Kangaxx are Spell Immunity: Abjuration, going Slayer, or Protection from Undead. Maybe it's imprisonment that's overpowered.

Danacm

Abi_Dalzim said:

Danacm said:

The berserker kit is simply overpowered. The biggest threat for a fighter is status effects, because fighter is created to be hit always as she can. And the mages and clerics answer is the status effects, hold, charm etc to stop the fighter because in raw power, the fighter is better. But a fighter with built in cc immunity is strongest fighter ever, very hard to stop, and i think its a failed design. Look the imprisonement immunity, why get this ?

Because your only other alternatives for Kangaxx are Spell Immunity: Abjuration, going Slayer, or Protection from Undead. Maybe it's imprisonment that's overpowered.

But any other cc is useless against berserker. Far the strongest fighter kit, no drawback.

Raduziel

The Berserker is just this strong if you do an abusive use of rests.

And a pure class Wizard Slayer is the strongest kit IMO. His abilities are active all the time and he can do what a fighter is supposed to do: take hits and swing hard.

WS is far superior to Kensai, the way I see, and more reliable than Berserker.

PS: Talking abou the modded WS here.

@batoor What are those items?