Alignment....

huldu

What's the point of it? Sure, you can go good and everyone "loves" you, except evil folks. However if you're going the other way... all you get is penalty. At reputation level 3, you're basically kill on sight. Merchants are selling items to you at an increased price and so forth.

Honestly I never understood the point of being evil in BG. At least toss out some bonuses, like you're doing when you're going "good". It's far more fun and enjoyable being evil, period. It just doesn't work very well in BG.

I haven't played BG in over 10 years, that goes for both of them+expansions. One thing I disliked then and I really dislike nowadays is being a thief and the backstab concept. I prefer the more modern takes, ie being *behind* the target and the target isn't facing you. I played around with the assassin for a few hours but it just got so boring, running around trying to hide in shadows to them pop out and do a backstab and then run and hide again.

I'm going to play around with the archer. I do like the "kits" from BG2 in BG1 but some are just unbalanced, too strong or too weak. Wizard Slayer is a great example...

ZanathKariashi

It's because of how the 2nd edition rule for backstabs was worded....if the target is AWARE of you, it can't be backstabbed. It's assumed, unless you're invisible or making an effort at sneaking, they're going to be aware of your presence (and actually being in their range of vision is right out, since even invisible they might see just enough to tip them off you're there). 3rd loosened it up so that as long as they were distracted (assuming they didn't have 360* vision or a similar ability to perceive danger like uncanny dodge) you could aim more carefully for their weak spots, which is what a sneak attack is.

And while I do agree that the good/evil concept definitely needs some work....just remember this...your reasons for doing something, and what people THINK your reasons for doing are, are too VERY different things (given that you'll have to kill a fair amount of people to get that low (there aren't that many quests that give lower rep), I'd imagine I'd be sending heavily armed guards and refusing your business too). I prefer to think of evil alignments as complete freedom to make whatever choice I desire for my own reasons to a given situation, regardless of if someone thinks I'm a paragon of justice for doing it..hey, the reward was better...I'm greedy. And of course...there's always a villain with good publicity situation...hell.....play the game...hahaha....BG will actually teach you a fair amount of the "proper" way to play evil.


yeah...I've felt that some kits need some serious rebalancing...aka..the Berserker....the most broken kit in the game. Enrage needs some serious nerfs to it's list of immunities (aka, damn near everything but straight damage)..the first few things..sure..reasonable..the next couple...ehhh...maybe (though a bonus save would be better then full immunity)..the last 2 (and the unlisted level drain immunity) right out stupid (Imprisonment doesn't care if you're angry, and it would actually make maze effect you MORE since you couldn't concentrate as easily and it would take longer to get out..and level drain I'm convinced is a bug since it's unlisted).

The wizard slayer is...ok...not as bad as people make it out, but not really any good either...if it had a dispel (say 1 per 10 levels starting at 1), cast breach 1/day per 4 levels, spell turning 1/day per 6 levels starting at 4, all cast speed 1 and caster level equal to their wizard slayer level + everything it has now...they might be kind of useful...but as is..they sacrifice a lot, for a bunch of near useless novelties. (yes I've solo'd the entire series as one...no it's not fun..it's probably the most boring I've ever had....you just bludgeon everything to death because you don't any little magical extras to play with..the lack of a str belt is especially annoying in BG2 (thankfully I imported from BG1 so he at least had 19 str for most of the game...it's the only time I found a justifiable reason to make Crom Faeyr).

Shapeshifter = crap...though it's hard to balance for it's actual stats since it'd be unstoppable for the first half of the game, decent for a quarter, and utter crap at the end.

Assassins = Give them the same skill penalty as bounty hunters, and +10 bonus to Hide/MS, OR give them the ability to back-stab creatures that can't normally be backstabbed. Early game they're a they very poor thief, that gets a little better for a while and then drops significantly as the enemy start sending gobs of un-backstabable enemies at you.

Give the swashbuckler and blade an extra 1/2 attack at 7 and 13...and they'd actually be pretty serviceable with that alone (as is you need to dual-wield speed weapons to make them useful and they have low enhancement bonus so you eventually can't damage very powerful enemies)..though letting swashy benefit from the attack part of specialization and let Blades consistently get specialization and gain full benefit would also help a lot.

Do some SERIOUS work on the jester songs. Replace confusion with fear...hmm..that would actually probably do it. Even counting the save bonus it would be fairly useful (the confusion effect is pretty much worthless). The other song effects they get are actually pretty nice. (Give them a new Epic song that gives a -4 save penalty to all the effects and prevents confusion, charm, fear, stunned on allies)

The Skald is mostly fine as is, but replace Epic Bard Song (pretty much 23+ skald song) with Epic Skald Song (25-50% better) so the Skald won't be equal in playing to Blade who spent merely a HLA on the song upgrade.


That's all I got....mages are pretty decent as is, clerics also, even Beastmasters are actually quite good (shocking, I know).

sandmanCCL

As for alignments:

They mean borderline nothing. There's some gear that requires you to be certain alignments, but outside of paladins or rangers, you don't even have to "live up to" your alignment. Playing good vs. evil in the game is a bit difficult but you have to remember this game was a pioneer for it's day just in the fact there were quests that gave you the option to do it more than one way, even if the other way is simply "Demand more cash under penalty of death WELLTIMETOKILLTHISGUY."

About game balance:

LOL BALANCE. It's AD&D. Roll a mage, win game. Yeah okay a lot of the kits are exceptionally broken but I always go back to the fact no one ever whines about how powerful wizards are and that's not even a kit. It's not balanced and that's kind of the point. In a world that's make believe with rules, why would some fighter, even a veteran fighter of some kind, ever be able to stand up to some arch-wizard? I'm okay with there being clear-cut awesomes and clear-cut fails in a game like this.

CaptRory

I'll just leave this here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards