I would say the problem isn't in the ability to reroll, but rather that you can move individual points around, which is something that PnP doesn't normally allow. It would be more "realistic" (from a CRPG-to-TableTop perspective) if you had your rolls, which you could then rearrange. Since it's a video game, you do have to allow some rearranging from random stats because you have to be able to choose your class in order to have a reliable way to plan your character, but the full customization that we have now is rather bland.
That wouldn't make a difference, as i told, people would simply restart the new character option or cheat through CLUAConsole and Shadow Keeper, further after the old game experience. Few people would accept a character with the best stat at 12 and the wrost stat as 5 or 6. I'm one of those that wouldn't want this.
What could be done to make things fair, is set a 10 stats for every atribute, and then roll a 1d8 for each other atribute, yet it will not be well received.
@kamuizin well, I would still allow rerolls. I just wouldn't allow full point-by-point reassignment. If you wanted three eighteens, you'd have to reroll until you got them.
@Aosaw - and what would the point be, apart from appalling players who want three 18s? They would merely waste more time getting bored and re-rolling, but the end result would be the same: a characther with three 18s. May as well just let them have it through point-by-point reassignment and get quickly to the real fun; after all, it's just a game. It's supposed to be fun. If a gamer can only have fun with cheese and powerful characters, why would you deny that to him?
@AndreaColombo I think for me, it's more a question of, why bother with random rolling if the players are just going to rearrange the points themselves? It's kind of like randomly determining your point-buy.
If you're allowing them to reroll or rearrange their stats based on random rolls, they should have to use the rolls that they get in some fashion. If you want it to be based on points, then it should be a set number of points (perhaps scaled with difficulty as it is in most modern games).
A point-buy solution, meanwhile, could still appeal to players wanting an element of chance if you included a "generate randomly", which would assign the points randomly to each ability. But if there's rolling involved, I really don't think it makes sense to allow the player to fudge it. It seems counter-intuitive.
There's a point. it's hard to sum the points when they're spread in 6 diferent tables, i lost the count of the amount of times i rolled a godly roll and didn't even noticed, just saw my mistake after the new roll. The actual system is pretty good, if team BG want to make a Dungeon Master roll system for multi-player i'm ok with that, but for single player, let it as it is.
@fighter_mage_thief Wisdom bonuses were incorporated when considering the different classes' spell saves, supernatural protections, equipment options, and spell lists as much as constitution bonuses were considered along with each class's hp rolls. It is suppose to be part of the game. Read your manual. Right now it is just decoration.
This is wild, I know, but have a point buy system that will let you at least resemble the npc's stats roughly, Let stats do what they exist to do, and grant an exp % bonus or penalty by going over or under the point buy number. I'd say give bigger penalties for going over and only slight bonuses for going under. This is a bad idea if many of the stats do not have any function. Since point buy was not in the original this would not be messing with any existing systems people would want to play with. This is just a crazy idea. Having the stats work as intended is far more important.
@kamuizin well, I would still allow rerolls. I just wouldn't allow full point-by-point reassignment. If you wanted three eighteens, you'd have to reroll until you got them.
No, that would be a c r a p p y idea.
At least there should be an option to let people choose.
Since it is not a pnp RPG, where the dungeon master can adapt the game difficulty to your stats, it would be too unfair to run through a combat oriented game with a 12 in strength / constitution or whatever if you are a warrior (or an other class).
I you like so much the system you are praising, go and try Icewind Dale, which is even more combat-oriented with you 12 in strength and so on. Good Luck.
I do not use the CLUA or Shadowkeeper, I keep rolling until the dices scores satisfy me. I do not consider myself as a cheater in BG.
In pnp with my friends, I am not too much looking for my stats, since I know that there's always my friend DM who adapt encounters / scenario to our party strengths and weakness.
Having stumbled onto this thread, I can only say that I survived first edition (hack and slash gaming) with a 14 Strength for my fighter character. People are too used to having godly stats these days.
I think Intelligence should give a bonus to weapon proficiency points. After all, we're using the BG2 weapon groups, but the BG1 proficiency bonuses, so even fighters won't have nearly enough points to distribute around. This was even sort of in AD&D: intelligence gives bonus languages, and there's an optional rule to trade those for proficiency points.
Fighters receive by nature additional feats in 3° ED if we try to simulate the 3° ED int bonus to feats, we would need to do the same with the fighter class what would make the characters simply proficient with everything.
Fighters receive by nature additional feats in 3° ED if we try to simulate the 3° ED int bonus to feats, we would need to do the same with the fighter class what would make the characters simply proficient with everything.
I don't think we need to simulate 3rd edition for BG characters. Int to languages/proficiencies was all part of AD&D, so there isn't really a need. Although I don't mind including things that aren't in AD&D as long as they improve the game and aren't too against the spirit of the game.
To non-martial proficiences, but those features weren't implemented on BG.
There was an alternate rule somewhere letting you trade those in for weapon proficiency, I think. It could be possible that was just a house rule since it's been so long since I played...
After viewing this thread I like a lot of the suggested modifications but I think there should be a priority to what really needs to get fixed. The two that i feel are really important are:
1. Magic defense for Wisdom because that's what the manual says. No excuse for that to not be working right because of this.
2. Intelligence for bonus spells for magic-users. Gives an actual decent reason to want to max your int if playing one of these types.
*I stand corrected, the enhanced edition manual does not state magic defense as a bonus to Wisdom like the original did.
High Int and Wis should never allow cheese play, only that one could make the spells do half effect, never totally nullify them!
There should be some down sides to too high stats, ie too much Str you get just a bit slower, high Wis one may mix up things and Int come to the wrong conclusion, etc.
It's all swings and roundabouts for me - either roll normal stats because its honest roleplaying (but unlike Fallout 1 my low int/wis is ignored) or try for that +100 total roll that allows for points in charisma that...allows more roleplaying.
And while you're at it, the Wis and dex save modifiers, and the con modifier to poisons, and applying your dex reaction adjustment when dual-wielding...and overhaul Dual-wielding to use the correct bonuses (discussed in more detail in the Bard Overhaul request). And bring back proper penalties for raise dead and resurrection, and enforce the system shock and resurrection revival rolls.
In 2nd edition, Intelligence doesn't give bonus spells, it's required to cast spells of a particular level. Enforce intelligence (and charisma for sorcerers, none of this free ride garbage) to max castable spell levels (discussed further in Overhaul of the Arcane magic system request)
The Int Bonus must have been left off because there are only 4 offensive illusions in the game. Blind, Spook, Deaf and Nature's Beauty. The rest are all buffs and forms of invisibility, plus Project Image and Simulacrum.
Regarding bonus spells for high INT: It'll further trivialize the low levels of the game. Wisdom gives a LOT of bonus spells in 2e. If we used that same table for Arcane Casters, it'd double or triple spells per day at level 1 (in some cases). If you used 3rd editions bonus spells for high casting stat chart, it'd be a lot less crazy.
2e 18 Wis gets you 2/2/1/1 bonus spells (6) 23 Wis gets you 3/3/2/4/4 bonus spells (16)
3e 18 Caststat gets you 1/1/1/1 bonus spells (4) 23 Caststat gets you 2/2/1/1/1/1 bonus spells (8)
I'm not completely against making the stats more useful. I like the idea of Int giving bonus spells. I like the idea of Wisdom giving a save bonus (though probably not immunities) but adding spells per day to wizards and sorcerers and using the same table as Priests use will negate the only alleged drawback of being a low level wizard or sorcerer. With priests, I feel like it's ok for them to receive a superior number of bonus spells for high stats, because their spells tend not to instantly win battles. But Arcane spells DO instantly win battles at level 1. Having to rest is supposed to be their balance.
Of course, this is all completely ignoring the existence of Evermemory.
Intelligence also gives you extra proficiency points (it's near the beginning of the proficiency section in the handbook. Languages are completely separate, you get so many extra at creation based on your starting int, and can spend non-combat proficiencies to learn additional languages beyond those if you choose to do so, but you can't trade extra languages for proficiency points). Also for higher int scores you gain additional proficiency points beyond what your class gets by default, you can spread between weapons and non-combat as you choose (so high int would grant a few extra weapon profs). 14-15 +1 (total extra), 16-17 +2, 18-19 +3, 20-21 +4, 22-23 +5, 24-25 +6
Int doesn't just give you immunity to direct illusions it allows you to instantly SEE THROUGH ALL of them, up to a particular level (19=1st, 20 =2nd, 21=3rd, 22=4th, 23=5th, 24= 6th, 25= 7th). 20 int would allow you to see through basic invisibility, mirror image, blind, spook, blur, etc. That's why the invisibility spells up through the spell levels seem redundant..they're there because highly intelligent creatures are effectively immune to them if they're lower level, and this immunity by-passes non-detection or Spell Immunity: Divination, since they aren't trying to dispel the illusion, they're completely ignoring it outright.
Wisdom gives bonus spells, because divine only has 7 levels of spells, while arcane has 9...if you add them up, with a reasonable amount of wisdom, they have the same overall total amount of spell casts. You need 23+ wisdom to tip the balance, and as above, cleric spells tend to be less flashy and outright game-breakingly powerful as Arcane.
Not to mention There's rings of wizardy for every spell level up to 7th, and some double multiple levels of spells, 1 even doubles levels 1-3. IF rest limits were enforced, I might agree to have some of the others added to the game, but at current, they aren't needed at all.
And while we're on the subject...Dexerity as well. You're supposed to get your dex reaction bonus to saves vs certain spells..basically all the same ones that have a reflexive save in 3rd edition (fireballs and such), as well as applying your dex reaction bonus to lower the penalties for dual-wielding, as proper (a thief with 18 dex and * two weapon would have a 0/-1 thac0 penalty)
Comments
What could be done to make things fair, is set a 10 stats for every atribute, and then roll a 1d8 for each other atribute, yet it will not be well received.
If you're allowing them to reroll or rearrange their stats based on random rolls, they should have to use the rolls that they get in some fashion. If you want it to be based on points, then it should be a set number of points (perhaps scaled with difficulty as it is in most modern games).
A point-buy solution, meanwhile, could still appeal to players wanting an element of chance if you included a "generate randomly", which would assign the points randomly to each ability. But if there's rolling involved, I really don't think it makes sense to allow the player to fudge it. It seems counter-intuitive.
At least there should be an option to let people choose.
Since it is not a pnp RPG, where the dungeon master can adapt the game difficulty to your stats, it would be too unfair to run through a combat oriented game with a 12 in strength / constitution or whatever if you are a warrior (or an other class).
I you like so much the system you are praising, go and try Icewind Dale, which is even more combat-oriented with you 12 in strength and so on. Good Luck.
I do not use the CLUA or Shadowkeeper, I keep rolling until the dices scores satisfy me. I do not consider myself as a cheater in BG.
In pnp with my friends, I am not too much looking for my stats, since I know that there's always my friend DM who adapt encounters / scenario to our party strengths and weakness.
1. Magic defense for Wisdom because that's what the manual says. No excuse for that to not be working right because of this.
2. Intelligence for bonus spells for magic-users. Gives an actual decent reason to want to max your int if playing one of these types.
*I stand corrected, the enhanced edition manual does not state magic defense as a bonus to Wisdom like the original did.
There should be some down sides to too high stats, ie too much Str you get just a bit slower, high Wis one may mix up things and Int come to the wrong conclusion, etc.
In 2nd edition, Intelligence doesn't give bonus spells, it's required to cast spells of a particular level. Enforce intelligence (and charisma for sorcerers, none of this free ride garbage) to max castable spell levels (discussed further in Overhaul of the Arcane magic system request)
Regarding bonus spells for high INT: It'll further trivialize the low levels of the game. Wisdom gives a LOT of bonus spells in 2e. If we used that same table for Arcane Casters, it'd double or triple spells per day at level 1 (in some cases). If you used 3rd editions bonus spells for high casting stat chart, it'd be a lot less crazy.
2e
18 Wis gets you 2/2/1/1 bonus spells (6)
23 Wis gets you 3/3/2/4/4 bonus spells (16)
3e
18 Caststat gets you 1/1/1/1 bonus spells (4)
23 Caststat gets you 2/2/1/1/1/1 bonus spells (8)
I'm not completely against making the stats more useful. I like the idea of Int giving bonus spells. I like the idea of Wisdom giving a save bonus (though probably not immunities) but adding spells per day to wizards and sorcerers and using the same table as Priests use will negate the only alleged drawback of being a low level wizard or sorcerer. With priests, I feel like it's ok for them to receive a superior number of bonus spells for high stats, because their spells tend not to instantly win battles. But Arcane spells DO instantly win battles at level 1. Having to rest is supposed to be their balance.
Of course, this is all completely ignoring the existence of Evermemory.
Int doesn't just give you immunity to direct illusions it allows you to instantly SEE THROUGH ALL of them, up to a particular level (19=1st, 20 =2nd, 21=3rd, 22=4th, 23=5th, 24= 6th, 25= 7th). 20 int would allow you to see through basic invisibility, mirror image, blind, spook, blur, etc. That's why the invisibility spells up through the spell levels seem redundant..they're there because highly intelligent creatures are effectively immune to them if they're lower level, and this immunity by-passes non-detection or Spell Immunity: Divination, since they aren't trying to dispel the illusion, they're completely ignoring it outright.
Wisdom gives bonus spells, because divine only has 7 levels of spells, while arcane has 9...if you add them up, with a reasonable amount of wisdom, they have the same overall total amount of spell casts. You need 23+ wisdom to tip the balance, and as above, cleric spells tend to be less flashy and outright game-breakingly powerful as Arcane.
Not to mention There's rings of wizardy for every spell level up to 7th, and some double multiple levels of spells, 1 even doubles levels 1-3. IF rest limits were enforced, I might agree to have some of the others added to the game, but at current, they aren't needed at all.
And while we're on the subject...Dexerity as well. You're supposed to get your dex reaction bonus to saves vs certain spells..basically all the same ones that have a reflexive save in 3rd edition (fireballs and such), as well as applying your dex reaction bonus to lower the penalties for dual-wielding, as proper (a thief with 18 dex and * two weapon would have a 0/-1 thac0 penalty)
It would be pretty cool if wisdom/intelligence did more