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[MOD] -Scales of Balance- a post-hac tweak mod

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  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    I really like the idea of giving the shorties a static bonus tied to race, rather than having it ties to stats.
    StummvonBordwehrQueegon
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited January 2018
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    QueegonThacoBell
  • cbarchukcbarchuk Member Posts: 322
    edited January 2018
    Subtledoctor,

    Wanted to first say that your mod is fantastic. I'm still somewhat confused on dual wielding. There is always a THACO penalty when dual wielding and that penalty is a +4. Is that right? Is there a THACO difference between dual wielding 2 short swords vs a short sword and dagger? I'm not seeing any difference in the info box. Now I do get the best THACO when dual wielding daggers. At any rate could just list again the THACO penalties for various weapon combinations? Sorry for my slowness here. I'm just having hard time wrapping my head around this for some reason. But I love the changes. Great work!
  • QueegonQueegon Member Posts: 363
    edited January 2018
    @cbarchuk Heh, had the same question. This is is subtledoctor's follow-up:

    "Yes - stylbonu.2da gives a -4 penalty to thac0 (both hands). Small/medium weapons then give you a +2 bonus (TWF2 I think), and daggers a further +2 (TWF3). But medium weapons block TWF3, and large weapons block TWF2. So:
    large + large: -4 (base from stylbonu.2da)
    large + medium: -4 (TWF2 blocked)
    medium + medium: -2 (TWF2 not blocked)
    medium + dagger: -2 (TWF2; TWF3 blocked)
    dagger + dagger: no penalty (TWF2+TWF3) "

    From what I understand anything up to 1d6 base damage is medium (short sword, mace, club, war hammer), anything higher is large.

    @subtledoctor the zip file

    I'm playing a fighter/thief halfling with dual-wielding daggers. It's pretty good (and I never even touched daggers before just because they have lower max damage - this is a good reason to swap to daggers). But I wouldn't consider dual-wielding anything else unless an enemy is resistant to piercing in which case I swap to a mace. I'd like to see daggers having no thac0 penalty and a difference between dagger+medium and medium+medium, or for other cases like large+medium compared to large+dagger compared to large+large.
  • cbarchukcbarchuk Member Posts: 322
    edited January 2018
    Queegon said:

    @cbarchuk Heh, had the same question. This is is subtledoctor's follow-up:

    "Yes - stylbonu.2da gives a -4 penalty to thac0 (both hands). Small/medium weapons then give you a +2 bonus (TWF2 I think), and daggers a further +2 (TWF3). But medium weapons block TWF3, and large weapons block TWF2. So:
    large + large: -4 (base from stylbonu.2da)
    large + medium: -4 (TWF2 blocked)
    medium + medium: -2 (TWF2 not blocked)
    medium + dagger: -2 (TWF2; TWF3 blocked)
    dagger + dagger: no penalty (TWF2+TWF3) "

    From what I understand anything up to 1d6 base damage is medium (short sword, mace, club, war hammer), anything higher is large.

    @subtledoctor the zip file

    Okay I just did some testing using a few different weapons including a +1 dagger, +1 short sword, and a +1 long sword. This is what I gathered by testing on my level 20 blade with a BASE THACO of 11 and strength of 17.

    -Dual +1 Daggers THACO of 9
    -Dual +1 Short swords THACO 11
    -Short sword +1/Dagger +1 THACO of 11
    -Long Sword +1/Dagger +1 THACO 11
    -Long sword +1/Short sword +1 THACO 13 BUT sometimes it says 11. So I'm confused on that.

    Conclusion is that dual wielding daggers gives you the best THACO, 1 dagger or medium + whatever gives next best THACO. Adding large weapons will be worse. Of course this doesn't include the AC bonus you get when using a dagger. So the idea seems to be that dual wielding should include at least 1 dagger
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited January 2018
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  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    I love the idea of Dual Wield being a quasi defense/counter style (matches real world dual wield better as well). While its been explained that a riposte ability wouldn't work well, maybe have the second pip give a 1 point thaco boost at 2 pips to simulate an improved attack using one of the weapons as a distraction for the real blow. This doesn't fix the low level problem, but maybe dual wield isn't really suited to being optimal at low levels. This would also make it a nice balanced style between 1 hand styels thaco and apr, and shield styles better defense boosts and shield bash.
  • cbarchukcbarchuk Member Posts: 322
    edited January 2018

    cbarchuk said:

    I'm still somewhat confused on dual wielding. There is always a THACO penalty when dual wielding and that penalty is a +4. Is that right? Is there a THACO difference between dual wielding 2 short swords vs a short sword and dagger? I'm not seeing any difference in the info box. Now I do get the best THACO when dual wielding daggers. At any rate could just list again the THACO penalties for various weapon combinations?

    Don't trust the info box. I had to torture the engine in terrible ways to make this work, and the info box is not necessarily reliable. Just look at the final thac0 value. (Also, don't look at the final thac0 value immediately; let 1-2 seconds of game time run and then look at your thac0 value.)

    The following assumes 2 stars in dual-wielding.

    - 2 daggers: no thac0 penalty, 2-point AC bonus (melee only)
    - Dagger + any other: 2-point thac0 penalty, 1-point AC bonus
    - 2 medium weapons: 2-point thac0 penalty (I think)
    - Medium+large: 4-point thac0 penalty
    - 2 large weapons: 4-point thac0 penalty
    Okay I got it. Despite my confusion I love it. It's more realistic and less OP while making the other styles more useful. Great work man.
  • CodeTalkerCodeTalker Member Posts: 3
    Excuse me, sorry if there was anyone who had post the problem.

    My mage has 20 INT(18 base+2 equipment) but has no lvl 7 and lvl 8 spell slots bonus.

    I don't know if it is a game bug ( IWDEE 2.5beta ) or the attribute boosted by equipment isn't counted in Stat Bonus Component.
  • cbarchukcbarchuk Member Posts: 322
    edited January 2018
    Wanted to add subtledoctor that using your version of dual wielding really fits well with my halfling dagger assassin using sneak attacks. It gives him an extra attack and AC bonus without hurting his THACO. And sneak attack works great with low damage weapons like daggers and low strength races like halflings. Dual Wielding daggers for the win!
    [Deleted User]
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  • cbarchukcbarchuk Member Posts: 322
    edited January 2018

    cbarchuk said:

    version of dual wielding really fits well with my halfling dagger assassin using sneak attacks. It gives him an extra attack and AC bonus without hurting his THACO. And sneak attack works great with low damage weapons like daggers and low strength races like halflings. Dual Wielding daggers for the win!

    Yeah I had a low-STR high-DEX Blade dual-wielding daggers and it was totally awesome. I think I just need to un-nerf some of the other smallish weapons like short sword/club/hammer.

    I wish I had a suggestion for you. I do think since dual wielding didn't exist in the original game that being more conservative with it is better in the long run for balance purposes. I definitely do not like the BG2 version at all especially for IWD. Maybe reduce the penalty for 2 medium weapons to just a +1 penalty instead of +2. But I definitely would keep the harsh penalties for using bigger weapons. That is one of the main reasons the original version of dual wielding was so much better than anything else. But honestly my dwarf barbarian is dual wielding two warhammers and her THACO is still a -2. So for fighter classes the penalty isn't really a big deal. It only hurts classes like thieves and blades. My blade is dual wielding 2 short swords and her THACO is 7 and she is level 21.

    Post edited by cbarchuk on
  • CodeTalkerCodeTalker Member Posts: 3
    edited January 2018


    There's not really any way to do bonus spell slots as a dynamic bonus, the way all the other bonuses work. Spell slots can only be determined by your inherent natural INT, at the time you level up. So that INT-boosting equipment will help with your saves, but not with spell slots. Only permanent increases like Tomes and Lum's Machine will add spell slots, and only if you use them before you reach the level affected by that bonus.

    Thank you for the reply!

    One more issue here I can't sure if had been posted by anyone yet or will be fixed in the coming version.

    Weapon Proficiency Overhaul and Fighting Style Overhaul (modding all the bastard swords category from 'longsword(20)' to 'bastardsword(69)' ) cause the bastard swords can not be put into the bag of holding.





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  • DymeDefDymeDef Member Posts: 66
    Reading the comments on dual wielding, is say that for a low level character it should be very tough for them to hit anything, as it makes sense in both realism and gameplay imo. Also, I think part of the issue is that (from the last I played with your mods) outside of daggers everything else seems like it wasn't meant to be wielded in the off hand. I don't think any other weapon added any other bonuses, which is okay. But I think smaller weapons should maybe take less of a penalty while as the weapon gets bigger the penalty continues to get worse. Dual wielding 2 bastard swords should be near impossible to do reliably. But two daggers should pretty much always be better than one (in terms of gameplay, hard to recreate a person's skill with a blade in a game), as using two is Not encumbersome and really just offers more utility and options without really sacrificing much. Short swords, wakizashis, tantos, are some other weapons that imo should be sort of specialized off hand weapons, where when in the off hand they are less penalized than normal and large sized weapons. The size of the weapon should play a larger impact on the to hit in my opinion with the skill not playing as large of a role in to hit, as no matter how skilled you are with wielding two weapons, trying to effectively attack and defend with two bastard sword sized weapons will be inefficient by any means.

    Just my 2 pennies.
    cbarchukQueegon
  • _Luke__Luke_ Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 1,535

    Oh, that ended up being super easy to do. So this will be in the next update. :smiley:

    What about doing the same for the revised weapon styles?
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  • GawainBSGawainBS Member Posts: 523
    I have F&P, NPCEE & SoB running, amongst ToB and M&G. I've selected Jaheira to become a Light Mystic, then selected one start in dualwielding & dagger and if I equip two daggers, she gets a +24 THAC0 penalty. One dagger alone works fine.
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    Grammarsalad
  • GawainBSGawainBS Member Posts: 523
    Alright, fair enough, thanks for the update.
  • GawainBSGawainBS Member Posts: 523
    Not sure if it's because of F&P or SoB, but my Mountain Ranger has no access to Greatswords. The proficiency dialogue let her select Greatsword, but the levelup screen simply doesn't show that option.
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  • GawainBSGawainBS Member Posts: 523
    The dialogue works, but the level-up screen/character creation screen doesn't let her select Greatswords. Not sure if I expressed myself clearly earlier.
    I don't think Rangers are barred from using Greatswords, right?
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  • GawainBSGawainBS Member Posts: 523
    Yes, the MC definitely gets the dialogue options from high INT.
  • _Luke__Luke_ Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 1,535
    edited February 2018
    I have another feature request regarding component 204: Concentration Checks -> What about adding a message in the combat log that says something like "Concentration: success" or "Concentration: fail" (à la NWN)?
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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited February 2018
    The user and all related content has been deleted.
    DjinnContemplative_HamsterQueegonThacoBell
  • Contemplative_HamsterContemplative_Hamster Member Posts: 844
    edited February 2018
    Cheers, these seem perfectly reasonable.



    Question, revised: is the thaco penalty applied to each hand or only the off-hand?


    EDIT. On reflection, my original question made little sense.
    Post edited by Contemplative_Hamster on
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