More experience from spell learning

Chow

Honestly, I always thought that 10 experience points per spell level was pretty much entirely irrelevant and pointless: in Baldur's Gate 2 the 1000xlevel points you got could stack up into some pretty good numbers later on, but the equivalent BG1 number is far too little to amount to anything at all, even if I taught every spell ever to my mages.

50xlevel, I feel, would be the bare minimum, although I do think 100 points wouldn't be that bad either.

Darkcloud

The XP should be exchanged for personal XP not group XP. That would make way more sense.

Chow

True, and it wouldn't be the only one: there are a lot of experience awards that should only be given to a single character - lockpicking, trap disarming, etc. - but they're all given to the entire group instead. Maybe even bring in some bonus experience to warriors for defeating enemies, like the tabletop does. As it stands, only quest awards are individual, and those only in BG2 in that case too, and I'm not sure if it'd just be too complicated to make them more common.

If it took that route, though, then the experience award from learning spells in BG2 should be reduced instead - but that won't be a relevant matter for a long time now.

Dee

I like the idea of only giving the XP to the caster learning the spell. That makes a lot of sense.

The XP reward for learning spells was reduced because it was simply way too much experience at lower levels. You could easily leave Candlekeep at level 5, which definitely shouldn't be the case.

elminster

It will be interesting to see if they increase it for BG2 and by how much, or if it will stay the same.

Chow

Aosaw said:

The XP reward for learning spells was reduced because it was simply way too much experience at lower levels. You could easily leave Candlekeep at level 5, which definitely shouldn't be the case.

Well, obviously I'm not saying we should've kept the old numbers. All I'm saying is they reduced it a little too much.

Also you can't learn spells before leaving Candlekeep, unless I remember things wrong. At least no more than the Identify scroll you are supposed to deliver.

ZanathKariashi

There's only 3 level 1 spells in candle keep, you could leave at level 2 or 3 depending on if you were a mage or bard and whether you failed any, if it used BG2 xp rewards. And then, instead of using the ring of wizardry, you could sell for 9k, and buy most of Thalantyr's lowbie spells to learn and relearn...you end up at lvl 6 or 7 if memory serves. Even worse if you're a T/M with BG2 appropriate skill xp (they actually had variable amounts for lvls 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-21, which in a full party would be reasonable...but a solo character could level cap just from candlekeep, beregost, and friendly arm inn traps/locks, and Thalantyr's scroll supplies.

Then again..I capped my bounty hunter in EE just doing my usual questing path solo...haven't even made it down to Naskel yet. So..it's not really that hard as a solo character if you know what you're doing.

Loremaster

As the xp-system is based on first killing monster and second compleating quests a high number for learning spells seems a little odd. -I know, you can always argue the whole xp-system is off, and I would agree-. But with a system like the one we have, xp from learning spells are very cheep earned compared to combat and quest xp.

Chow

Then why give experience from it at all?

mlnevese

@Chow You can change the bonus to whatever you like. It's just a question of editing XPBONUS.2DA.

bob_veng

i think the base should be 100xp and each additonal level beyond the 1st should add 50, so learning a 3rd level spell would earn you 200; 9th level spell would earn you 500xp.

also, spells in the game should be more expensive. got nothing to spend all those coins on.

i think this should even be in bg2, because xp=levelx1000 is ridiculous

Dee

I think the biggest problem with gaining XP from scribing spells is that it's so easily exploitable. You just erase and then re-write the spell as many times as you have it in scrolls, and you get a fast boost to your XP total.

100xlevel, even, would be fine. I think the bigger problem is in duplicating the bonus more than once per spell.

bob_veng

yeah, there's that too. it'd be best to remove xp gain from learning spells.

Darkcloud

The default values the Big World Setup sets for them is pretty good. It has no clear formula I think but gave a reasonable amount based on the spell level. Maybe 1/3 of that value but as individual xp for the learner should be used.