I think AD&D was THE MOST SUPER BALANCED GAME EVER
sandmanCCL
Member Posts: 1,389
Just kidding.
Seriously, guys, just stop trying to throw in rebalancing.
Seriously. 15 year old game. Contractual limitations. Based on rules developed in 1977.
Seriously, please. Guys?
... Guys?
Seriously, guys, just stop trying to throw in rebalancing.
Seriously. 15 year old game. Contractual limitations. Based on rules developed in 1977.Seriously, please. Guys?
... Guys?
11
Comments
I haven't heard anything about contracts setting limitations on mechanics. If so, that's disappointing. One might expect an "enhanced" edition to do more than mere bug fixes -- like not allowing players to abuse PnP mechanics in a videogame.
Its also funny to think that PnP doesn't work well in a video game, its sure worked well in this game and kept it alive for over 15 years. How many non PnP RPGs are this old, still so popular and as fun? The answer is zero.
Anyway~ In a real game the Dungeon Master would change things up to keep the game interesting. Baldur's Gate can't do that for you. So either you need to self-impose challenges or download mods to change things so you won't know how things will turn out each time. If you think something is too overpowered, just don't use it. If you're playing in a Multiplayer game, set the ground rules ahead of time. It's not rocket surgery.
As for BG balance - it's unbalanced because you can re-roll until you get ridiculous. We talk about the Kensai->mage. To get an awesome one, you have to play with dice and roll, roll, roll. Try to do that with a character with 63 total points (average of 3.5 per roll of a d6 x 3 per stat x 6 stats). I'm sure it can be done, but you will not have the amazingness that a BG character with ~90+ points will have (an average of 10-11 on stats is << than an <i>average of 15+).
Later rules that let you roll 3 and drop the lowest, or roll six characters, boost that average of 63 to around 70, but that's still a far cry from the average 'accepted' BG character.
I'm not saying to change how BG is played. It's more a rebuttal of how badly balanced D&D was or is.
Well the Masters Book said if you don´t want to roll you can make a character with 75 points. (thats why this is the minimum amount you can get in Baldurs gate 2). ( but also have another 24 ways of creating a char with or without rolls heheh, for me the 75 points is the most balanced).
Also im sure about it because its the rule we are using in a AD&D campaing my friends and i are playing (birthright scenario).
75 points is also the number im going to use in BG1. (if im able to get a number so low).
Heh, someone could mod the game so its like the Director in L4D. You know, throws random things in your way
@reedmilfam: No it wasn't. D&D in any iteration ever has never been remotely balanced. That's because the entire concept was make believe with rules. A wizard is inherently just more powerful than some fighter. This is true through every edition, ever, once you hit level 5 or so and beyond.
I guess my whole point here is I'm getting really tired of seeing thread after thread saying, "X is over/underpowered. Fix X!" when it's all stuff subjective to that person. I'd be okay with that if people were asking the modding community to do it, because that's akin to house rules. But you don't go to the developer who can't "fix" that problem anyway making demands to inherently change the core make up of a game literally considered the greatest RPG of all time by a large number of people.
Don't get me wrong; I have a lot of issues with AD&D myself and there's things if I had the ability to mod, I would. I think the discrepancy in XP tables needs to be addressed in a way that at least makes sense within itself. (Clerics level up third fast til lvl7, then magically level slower than mages, the previous slowest level gainers, til level 13? what is this i don't even)
The rules have been established as a fun product for longer than kids currently in middle school have been alive on this earth. So let's chill out a little on making demands of Overhaul about changing the rules to the game to "balance it" a week before it comes out.
But otherwise, BGEE is going to be the basic system it is - AD&D 2.5, which is an evolutionary tweak in the timeline. Core 2nd, as BG1 is closer to, is much easier to manage.
But I also agree that those who love rules exploits at least aren't harming anyone else's experience, except in multiplayer, and there you have a choice as well.
The stats for the main BG character are easily gross, but I think that expectation is already built into the game. Your character might stat out like a demi-god or demon prince, which ends up being appropriate. But if you're a truly skilled player across the board, not just a DPS counter, you can play a 15 STR fighter all the way through -
Items are a different bag. I think the people who argue "well just don't use them" are mostly right. Still, for me, it undermines dev credibility and overall game design that I have to think about that nonsense to begin with.
I dont see an issue with HP on level up (As long as you have your difficulty set to "AD&D core rules" then you dont get max on level up. Maybe im mistaking your concern, please elaborate?
I imagine your concern with mage memorization is cheesing XP? Then I agree. If not, please elaborate.
Even if it's off (and I can't remember if it's a default option), the entire rest mechanic in BG makes the mage process of memorizing spells per day totally irrelevant.
Again, it's possible to cheese the game and make it significantly easier around the rest mechanic, even if you don't intend to do that.
I just offered that as an example of something that works just fine in PnP but breaks down completely in a computer game. It mostly depends on how the game ships. IIRC, the original game defaulted to "normal" when you first installed it. In other words, new players got max HP and spell memorization out of the box, with no downside, and without realizing that's a bit of a cheese of the actual ruleset.
Like, the game I realized one of the things you can summon with Monster Summoning III in Pathfinder is a shark. So, I got on my magic carpet and flew really high in the sky to literally summon sharks like they were predator missiles.