I don't see those immunities breaking the game. INT and WIS scores so high are only available to monsters, and to CHARNAME later in the game (and CHARNAME will never get to 25 in any stat without cheating).
If I roll and 18, use a Wis Tome, Lum's Machine and an Ioun Stone of +1 Wis which I believe exists, all I need is an insight potion (or whichever 1 is +4 Wis) to suddenly laugh at any mage.
Although, why would anyone want wisdom enough to be immune to questing?
With the correct race, all three tomes, lums machine and the ioun stone you can get 24 easily and wisdom potions are pretty abundant.
If I'm not mistaken, its the potion that gives intelligence that actually adds to the score, the potion of wisdom sets it at 18.
I don't see those immunities breaking the game. INT and WIS scores so high are only available to monsters, and to CHARNAME later in the game (and CHARNAME will never get to 25 in any stat without cheating).
If I roll and 18, use a Wis Tome, Lum's Machine and an Ioun Stone of +1 Wis which I believe exists, all I need is an insight potion (or whichever 1 is +4 Wis) to suddenly laugh at any mage.
Although, why would anyone want wisdom enough to be immune to questing?
With the correct race, all three tomes, lums machine and the ioun stone you can get 24 easily and wisdom potions are pretty abundant.
If I'm not mistaken, its the potion that gives intelligence that actually adds to the score, the potion of wisdom sets it at 18.
Ah yes, you're right. My point about being able to get 24 still stands though, and it's possible to start BG2 with 22 and ToB with 24.
Quest is a 6th level spell (also known as Geas) that "places a magical command upon a creature (usually human or humanoid) to carry out some service, or to refrain from some action or course of activity, as desired by the spellcaster." (quoted verbatim from the AD&D Player's Handbook). It also has its own D&D Wiki entry.
When I typed the list of spells to which high WIS scores grant immunity in P&P, I didn't bother picking out those that weren't implemented in Baldur's Gate. Geas/Quest is one of them.
I have a number of counter-arguments to your assumption that P&P bonuses for high WIS scores would make the game unbalanced:
- CHARNAME is the only PC that could benefit from them. The only exception would be Viconia in ToB if you gave her a +1 WIS bonus through Lum's machine, and at that point through the game a WIS score of 19 on Viconia would hardly break the balance. WIS scores that high are out of reach from every other playble NPC. - All creatures in the game would benefit from them, not just PCs. As few as they may end up being, the NPCs that would get those bonuses would surely outnumber the PCs, since CHARNAME is the only one who would get them as per my previous point. - I can't see why STR, DEX and CON should grant full P&P bonuses, while INT and WIS shouldn't. They are part of AD&D as much as the other stats, and their effects were playtested just the same. If they don't break P&P games, why would they break BG? A bonus to AC or THAC0 will always be more useful/sought after than immunity to a specific spell. - The previous point is especially true in BG, where not all of those spells are even implemented. The others aren't the most used by the AI and most of them (if not all, I don't have time to check) grant a saving throw already. Having one character who is immune to them is not going to be a big deal.
Besides, as it is now potions that raise your INT are completely useless, and potions that raise your WIS are almost completely useless. However, they are as easily available as potions that boost your STR, DEX or CON, all of which are significantly more useful.
@AndreaColombo, could a middle-ground be reached wherein high WIS and INT give bonuses, but those bonuses start at a higher level than you listed? Like at WIS/INT of 20 or 21 instead of 19...
However, as the rules lawyer I am, I would much prefer a full implementation of P&P rules. After all, by making those bonuses start at higher scores, you would basically be parting but with the smaller / weaker bonuses.
Another great suggestion Andrea, I too am a rule lawyer and I'd love them to implement that. As you said though it'll probably have to be through some mod unfortunately due to lack of time. Hopefully we'll have a system similar to this for BG3 though.
Also I haven't played tabletop DND in quite a few years but wasn't there saving throw bonuses according to intelligence as well as the other things you mentioned?
i agree with AndreaC. however, i think INT and WIS should do more than just that... they should also matter in some of the dialogs, together with charisma (and maybe the other attributes as well, depending on the dialog). i always thought it was 'unrealistic' how a character with int 3 could communicate with the NPCs as good as one with int 18 could...
in short, IMO, those attributes should have more effects in dialogs.
As per my previous post listing the P&P effects of high INT and WIS scores:
"In P&P, WIS also grants a Magical Defense Adjustment that ranges from +1 for a score of 15 to a maximum of +4 for scores of 19 or higher. It is a bonus to saving throws against spells that attack the mind, like beguilling, charm, fear, hypnosis, illusions, possession, suggestion etc."
INT doesn't grant any bonus to any saving throw.
However, I believe something as specific as the Magical Defense bonus could be quite hacky / time consuming to implement, and would therefore be better left to modders. In fact, my request to make this soft-coded stands regardless of whether P&P bonuses for high INT and WIS are implemented by the devs. I would like them to do so, and to do so as thoroughly as they can, but it's fine if they leave something - or even everything - for modders to do in this department, so long as it was soft-coded and therefore moddable.
I'm not very knowledgable in programming, does anyone know how hard it would be for them to implement these rules to BGEE? I would LOVE if it happened without need for a mod. It would make the game so much more complex and interesting. As it is, BG is mostly all about fighters. High Str. and Con. gets the job done best so Minsc is pretty much the best character since he's got the best average of these two stats. Having these rules implemented would balance things out a bit since he's got a wisdom of 6 and thus would be more susceptible to harmful spells. It would also be great when rolling your PC because you would end up with a more realistic looking character sheet since having a wis. and int. of three would give severe maluses to spell resists and such. Then all that would need to be worked on would be the benefits of charisma... I'll start a new thread for that
The only reason why I didn't include CHA in this thread is that its P&P benefits are very hard, if not at all impossible, to implement in BG:EE. Getting lower prices and nicer reactions from NPCs are better solutions than P&P, in this case.
Either implement it or make it soft-coded so that modders could easily take care of it.
Completely agree. This is just another instance of a PnP implementation that would undoubtedly improve the game. I really hope that if they don't/can't take care of it that they'll heed your suggestion and make it soft-coded.
This may be in the fixpack or it may not even be a bug, but I'll mention it while it is on my mind: observed behaviour: Actually it's in the manual, in the BG1 manual it mentions wisdom affecting saving throws (I think), but it never actually implements that. I'm not sure what the rules have to say about it, but I do think that it should be a more influental stat! what should happen: I don't know, whatever the rules say?
EDIT: this also ties in with other missing documented stuff, like racial saving throw bonuses, which I think the g3 fixpack covers. I'll take it for granted that noone needs to reupload g3 fixes on this forum...
Wisdom: Mag Def Adj: Applies to saving throws against magical spells that attack the mind. Bonus Spells: This is the number of additional spells a priest receives for exceptional Wisdom. The bonus spells are cumulative as you move down the table. Thus, a priest with a 17 in Wisdom gains two 1st-, two 2nd-, and one 3rd-level spell as bonuses to their normal spellcasting abilities. These spells become available only when the priest can normally access spells of the appropriate level. % Spell Failure: The chance that a spell attempt by a priest or druid character will fail before being successfully cast. Lore Bonus: This bonus is added to the character’s Lore ability. This is cumulative with the Lore bonus for Intelligence.
The Baldur's Gate 2 manual has an identical table to the one corresponding this quote, which is just a saving throw bonus (or penalty) for mind-affecting spells from -3 at 3 WIS up to +4 at 18-25 WIS.
This is what the Player's Handbook says about Wisdom: Wisdom Wisdom (Wis) describes a composite of the character's enlightenment, judgment, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition. It can affect the character's resistance to magical attack. It is the prime requisite of priests; those with a Wisdom score of 16 or higher gain a 10% bonus to experience points earned. Clerics, druids, and other priests with Wisdom scores of 13 or higher also gain bonus spells over and above the number they are normally allowed to use. Magical Defense Adjustment listed on Table 5 applies to saving throws against magical spells that attack the mind: beguiling, charm, fear, hypnosis, illusions, possession, suggestion, etc. These bonuses and penalties are applied automatically, without any conscious effort from the character. Bonus Spells indicates the number of additional spells a priest (and only a priest) is entitled to because of his extreme Wisdom. Note that these spells are available only when the priest is entitled to spells of the appropriate level. Bonus spells are cumulative, so a priest with a Wisdom of 15 is entitled to two 1st-level bonus spells and one 2nd-level bonus spell. Chance of Spell Failure states the percentage chance that any particular spell fails when cast. Priests with low Wisdom scores run the risk of having their spells fizzle. Roll percentile dice every time the priest casts a spell; if the number rolled is less than or equal to the listed chance for spell failure, the spell is expended with absolutely no effect whatsoever. Note that priests with Wisdom scores of 13 or higher don't need to worry about their spells failing. Spell Immunity gives those extremely wise characters complete protection from certain spells, spell-like abilities, and magical items as listed. These immunities are cumulative, so that a character with a Wisdom of 23 is immune to all listed spells up to and including those listed on the 23 Wisdom row.
So obviously there are some bonuses to wisdom that aren't in the games (such as the XP gain that was present in PS:T), but the saving throw adjustment tables in the manuals are identical to the one in the player's handbook, I'm not entirely sure if this was implemented in the game, I've never looked into it.
Is it normal for Paladins and Rangers to not get bonus priest spells with wisdom and capping out at being able to memorize only 3 spells of level 1, 2 and 3?
It always made me sad when I rolled up a cleric who after a period of time managed to get to 19 Wisdom but never gained any of the mind immunities they should gain. Is it possible to add this in without breaking balance?
Here are the spell immunities which should be gained;
19 Wis - cause fear, charm person, command, friends, hypnotism 20 Wis - forget, hold person, ray of enfeeblement, scare 21 Wis - fear 22 Wis - charm monster, confusion, emotion, fumble, suggestion 23 Wis - chaos, feeblemind, hold monster, magic jar, quest 24 Wis - geas, mass suggestion, rod of rulership 25 Wis - antipathy/sympathy, death spell, mass charm
There is a similar Illusion immunity granted for a high Int as well.
I fully agree these changes should be implemented if possible. It made me a very sad panda when my dwarven cleric didn't receive any benefits from a high Wisdom other than some bonus spells.
Correct me if I'm wrong but in Baldur's gate wisdom was meant to affect the success of casting wisdom based spells and give a magic defense adjustment. Is this fixed in the enhanced edition?
@bryn It's not a bug to be fixed, but it's a great request... and one that's already been made as @Anton mentioned... Merging with the Request thread...
Comments
Quest is a 6th level spell (also known as Geas) that "places a magical command upon a creature (usually human or humanoid) to carry out some service, or to refrain from some action or course of activity, as desired by the spellcaster." (quoted verbatim from the AD&D Player's Handbook). It also has its own D&D Wiki entry.
When I typed the list of spells to which high WIS scores grant immunity in P&P, I didn't bother picking out those that weren't implemented in Baldur's Gate. Geas/Quest is one of them.
@Kore
I have a number of counter-arguments to your assumption that P&P bonuses for high WIS scores would make the game unbalanced:
- CHARNAME is the only PC that could benefit from them. The only exception would be Viconia in ToB if you gave her a +1 WIS bonus through Lum's machine, and at that point through the game a WIS score of 19 on Viconia would hardly break the balance. WIS scores that high are out of reach from every other playble NPC.
- All creatures in the game would benefit from them, not just PCs. As few as they may end up being, the NPCs that would get those bonuses would surely outnumber the PCs, since CHARNAME is the only one who would get them as per my previous point.
- I can't see why STR, DEX and CON should grant full P&P bonuses, while INT and WIS shouldn't. They are part of AD&D as much as the other stats, and their effects were playtested just the same. If they don't break P&P games, why would they break BG? A bonus to AC or THAC0 will always be more useful/sought after than immunity to a specific spell.
- The previous point is especially true in BG, where not all of those spells are even implemented. The others aren't the most used by the AI and most of them (if not all, I don't have time to check) grant a saving throw already. Having one character who is immune to them is not going to be a big deal.
Besides, as it is now potions that raise your INT are completely useless, and potions that raise your WIS are almost completely useless. However, they are as easily available as potions that boost your STR, DEX or CON, all of which are significantly more useful.
A few P&P bonuses is better than none.
However, as the rules lawyer I am, I would much prefer a full implementation of P&P rules. After all, by making those bonuses start at higher scores, you would basically be parting but with the smaller / weaker bonuses.
Another great suggestion Andrea, I too am a rule lawyer and I'd love them to implement that. As you said though it'll probably have to be through some mod unfortunately due to lack of time. Hopefully we'll have a system similar to this for BG3 though.
Also I haven't played tabletop DND in quite a few years but wasn't there saving throw bonuses according to intelligence as well as the other things you mentioned?
in short, IMO, those attributes should have more effects in dialogs.
"In P&P, WIS also grants a Magical Defense Adjustment that ranges from +1 for a score of 15 to a maximum of +4 for scores of 19 or higher. It is a bonus to saving throws against spells that attack the mind, like beguilling, charm, fear, hypnosis, illusions, possession, suggestion etc."
INT doesn't grant any bonus to any saving throw.
However, I believe something as specific as the Magical Defense bonus could be quite hacky / time consuming to implement, and would therefore be better left to modders. In fact, my request to make this soft-coded stands regardless of whether P&P bonuses for high INT and WIS are implemented by the devs. I would like them to do so, and to do so as thoroughly as they can, but it's fine if they leave something - or even everything - for modders to do in this department, so long as it was soft-coded and therefore moddable.
The only reason why I didn't include CHA in this thread is that its P&P benefits are very hard, if not at all impossible, to implement in BG:EE. Getting lower prices and nicer reactions from NPCs are better solutions than P&P, in this case.
observed behaviour: Actually it's in the manual, in the BG1 manual it mentions wisdom affecting saving throws (I think), but it never actually implements that. I'm not sure what the rules have to say about it, but I do think that it should be a more influental stat!
what should happen: I don't know, whatever the rules say?
EDIT: this also ties in with other missing documented stuff, like racial saving throw bonuses, which I think the g3 fixpack covers. I'll take it for granted that noone needs to reupload g3 fixes on this forum...
There is a Feature request to enhance Wisdom though.
Wisdom:
Mag Def Adj: Applies to saving throws against magical spells that
attack the mind.
Bonus Spells: This is the number of additional spells a priest
receives for exceptional Wisdom. The bonus spells are cumulative as
you move down the table. Thus, a priest with a 17 in Wisdom gains
two 1st-, two 2nd-, and one 3rd-level spell as bonuses to their normal
spellcasting abilities. These spells become available only when the
priest can normally access spells of the appropriate level.
% Spell Failure: The chance that a spell attempt by a priest or druid
character will fail before being successfully cast.
Lore Bonus: This bonus is added to the character’s Lore ability.
This is cumulative with the Lore bonus for Intelligence.
The Baldur's Gate 2 manual has an identical table to the one corresponding this quote, which is just a saving throw bonus (or penalty) for mind-affecting spells from -3 at 3 WIS up to +4 at 18-25 WIS.
This is what the Player's Handbook says about Wisdom:
Wisdom
Wisdom (Wis) describes a composite of the character's enlightenment, judgment, guile, willpower, common sense, and intuition. It can affect the character's resistance to magical attack. It is the prime requisite of priests; those with a Wisdom score of 16 or higher gain a 10% bonus to experience points earned. Clerics, druids, and other priests with Wisdom scores of 13 or higher also gain bonus spells over and above the number they are normally allowed to use.
Magical Defense Adjustment listed on Table 5 applies to saving throws against magical spells that attack the mind: beguiling, charm, fear, hypnosis, illusions, possession, suggestion, etc. These bonuses and penalties are applied automatically, without any conscious effort from the character.
Bonus Spells indicates the number of additional spells a priest (and only a priest) is entitled to because of his extreme Wisdom. Note that these spells are available only when the priest is entitled to spells of the appropriate level. Bonus spells are cumulative, so a priest with a Wisdom of 15 is entitled to two 1st-level bonus spells and one 2nd-level bonus spell.
Chance of Spell Failure states the percentage chance that any particular spell fails when cast. Priests with low Wisdom scores run the risk of having their spells fizzle. Roll percentile dice every time the priest casts a spell; if the number rolled is less than or equal to the listed chance for spell failure, the spell is expended with absolutely no effect whatsoever. Note that priests with Wisdom scores of 13 or higher don't need to worry about their spells failing.
Spell Immunity gives those extremely wise characters complete protection from certain spells, spell-like abilities, and magical items as listed. These immunities are cumulative, so that a character with a Wisdom of 23 is immune to all listed spells up to and including those listed on the 23 Wisdom row.
So obviously there are some bonuses to wisdom that aren't in the games (such as the XP gain that was present in PS:T), but the saving throw adjustment tables in the manuals are identical to the one in the player's handbook, I'm not entirely sure if this was implemented in the game, I've never looked into it.
Also, shameless bump.
Here are the spell immunities which should be gained;
19 Wis - cause fear, charm person, command, friends, hypnotism
20 Wis - forget, hold person, ray of enfeeblement, scare
21 Wis - fear
22 Wis - charm monster, confusion, emotion, fumble, suggestion
23 Wis - chaos, feeblemind, hold monster, magic jar, quest
24 Wis - geas, mass suggestion, rod of rulership
25 Wis - antipathy/sympathy, death spell, mass charm
There is a similar Illusion immunity granted for a high Int as well.
And bump...
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/870/#Comment_870
and
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/95/request-pnp-bonuses-for-high-int-and-wis-scores
It's not a bug to be fixed, but it's a great request... and one that's already been made as @Anton mentioned... Merging with the Request thread...