Now I'm curious to know what Cespenar could do with a +2 or a +1 flail. But I'm guessing that he wouldn't recognize them as "upgradable" items since the script only checks your inventory for the +3 flail.
(Apropos: If you start a new game in ToB, the Flail of Ages +3 is part of your starting inventory.)
IWD:EE also removed some very powerful things. In the original IWD, haste doubled your APR, allowed you to cast two spells in a single round, and made bard songs trigger twice per round, which stacked (I was able to hit 100% damage resistance in the original game by stacking War Chants of the Sith, without needing a pre-cast Armor of Faith). Plus, rangers could get an extra melee attack per round with no THAC0 penalty as long as they didn't use shields, which even applied to two-handed weapons. Ranger/clerics also benefited from this and could combine it with DUHM and Righteous Magic, making them better at dealing damage than an EE Kensai! And the original Haste spell only expands the gap.
EE has some good kits, but you could deal more than twice as much damage in the original game as you could in IWD:EE. It didn't hurt that Belhifet was erroneously unarmed and dealt nonlethal damage before EE.
@semiticgod Don't forget Expeditious Retreat! You also listed Mantle twice.
I've played the original Icewind Dale a lot with mages. I actually think they're even more fun to use in Icewind Dale than in Baldur's Gate 2. Although the original Icewind Dale (with Heart of Winter installed) didn't have many of the spells from BG2, there was one big difference, which is that spell power caps at level 30 in Icewind Dale whereas it caps at level 20 in Baldur's Gate 2. This means, for example, that a Cone of Cold in Icewind Dale will deal 30d4+30 damage when cast by a level 30 mage. While this might not be as broken as a wish-rest triple Horrid Wilting mage, it's still a LOT of fun to obliterate enemies with a level 30 caster.
Story Mode doesn't just prevent the player from dropping to zero HP. It also comes with a bunch of bonus effects:
25 Strength (to open locks) -20 to hit Immunity to all disablers and instant death effects 5 acid damage on hit (to deal with trolls) All weapons strike as +5 (so you don't even need magical weapons)
I just tried it out and it's actually a lot easier than you'd think.
@histamiini, one of the most skilled players in the community, has discovered a couple of important things about the Throne of Bhaal fight:
1. Succubi have a charm spell that has a shocking -10 save penalty against male characters. 2. The Cambions from the Ascension mod wield copies of the Soul Reaver sword, which imposes a cumulative -2 THAC0 penalty per hit for 20 rounds that bypasses magic resistance. Even just a few hits from the Cambion can absolutely cripple any fighter.
Dont forget the item stealing Babau demons around the Throne of Bhaal @semiticgod.
The most annyoing thing about them is not only that they grab items from your quickslot and drop them on the ground but - no - the icons are still displayed on the screen which let you think everything is okay. So it can happen that you try to switch your weapon-set only to realize that its not working anymore. The first time i thought the game would bug me until i realized some items lying all around the Throne - my own ones...
If you mean suboptimal, then I agree. But you could totally satisfy yourself with 1 +2 FOA and a +1, or else 3 +1 flails, if your party setup made that seem like a good idea. Implementing the idea isn't that hard.
"Magic is impressive, but now @Abi_Dalzim leads. Flails for everyone!"
According to ancient Arabic/Muslim lore sorcerors where the true wielders of magic. The magii where fireworshipping adherants of Zoroaster/Zarathustra.
The notable and gifted 14. Century scholar Ibn Khaldun (the founder of social science) even differentiated between different kinds of magic wielded by the sorcerors: transmutation, illusionists, conjurers and such... it seems some of the notation and lore has found a new home in the forgotten realms.
Noted as one of the first fantasy epics the Tillism-e-Hosruba by urdu poet Muhammed Hussain Jah (1890) draws heavily on Arabic/Muslim sorcery lore.
The epic tells the tale of the noble Asad (a Holy warrior) and his fight against the vile sorcerors (magic is forbudden in the Koran). The evil spellflinging sorceror emperor even uses a project image to hise from the hero. So its an up hill battle.
Luckily Asad is aided by Amar the trickster who relies on guile. Amar has a Bag in which he can hide loot, people and even land. You can freely breathe, move very large objects in an out of the bag (eventhough the mouth of the bag is small) and the bag seems bottomless. Perhaps not the first story of magic bag, but the first in a fantasy novell, and perhaps the inspiration of the much fabled and talked about Bag of Holding.
BTW: As I see it the above mentioned bag of holding could even hold the large amounts of Iron that Tranzig has to transport... but thats just me
Daran Highhammer (the character that was created for me for SoD) now has a 5th edition character sheet (set around the year of 1480 DR). I've been DMing a group as of about a month ago and decided to make one up for him.
(Spoiler tagged it so the image doesn't take up so much space)
Here's a measure of how high NPC ability scores are: out of 46 total NPCs across BG1, SoD, SoA, and ToB, there are 16 ability scores of 18, 3 scores of 19, and 4 scores of 20, with Hexxat accounting for 2 of them.
The original BG2 characters are much higher than the BG1 NPCs, with 75% of all the characters having an 18 in one ability score. With a normal 3d6 roll, only about 12% of the population would have an 18.
Here's a measure of how high NPC ability scores are: out of 46 total NPCs across BG1, SoD, SoA, and ToB, there are 16 ability scores of 18, 3 scores of 19, and 4 scores of 20, with Hexxat accounting for 2 of them.
The original BG2 characters are much higher than the BG1 NPCs, with 75% of all the characters having an 18 in one ability score. With a normal 3d6 roll, only about 12% of the population would have an 18.
Same goes for Faerun. The top 12% become adventurers, the remaining 88% become farmers, quest-givers, nobels, commoners, bandits and Noober.
Here's a measure of how high NPC ability scores are: out of 46 total NPCs across BG1, SoD, SoA, and ToB, there are 16 ability scores of 18, 3 scores of 19, and 4 scores of 20, with Hexxat accounting for 2 of them.
The original BG2 characters are much higher than the BG1 NPCs, with 75% of all the characters having an 18 in one ability score. With a normal 3d6 roll, only about 12% of the population would have an 18.
Same goes for Faerun. The top 12% become adventurers, the remaining 88% become farmers, quest-givers, nobels, commoners, bandits and Noober.
I have serious doubt if Noober may be qualified as a member of any known sentient species....
@Pantalion: The item description always said it doubled APR and movement rate, yet it only granted +1 APR. The effect was inconsistent with the description.
In fact, in the original Baldur's Gate and the original Icewind Dale, all haste effects doubled APR. In IWD at least, it even doubled the spells you could cast and items you could drink per round, and made bard songs trigger twice per round. It was only with the introduction of BG2 that the engine made a distinction between Haste and Improved Haste, with the former only giving +1 APR and the latter giving double APR.
So, given the choice between changing the item description and changing the effect, changing the effect would actually be more true to the original Baldur's Gate.
@Pantalion: The item description always said it doubled APR and movement rate, yet it only granted +1 APR. The effect was inconsistent with the description.
In fact, in the original Baldur's Gate and the original Icewind Dale, all haste effects doubled APR. In IWD at least, it even doubled the spells you could cast and items you could drink per round, and made bard songs trigger twice per round. It was only with the introduction of BG2 that the engine made a distinction between Haste and Improved Haste, with the former only giving +1 APR and the latter giving double APR.
So, given the choice between changing the item description and changing the effect, changing the effect would actually be more true to the original Baldur's Gate.
@Pantalion: The item description always said it doubled APR and movement rate, yet it only granted +1 APR. The effect was inconsistent with the description.
In fact, in the original Baldur's Gate and the original Icewind Dale, all haste effects doubled APR. In IWD at least, it even doubled the spells you could cast and items you could drink per round, and made bard songs trigger twice per round. It was only with the introduction of BG2 that the engine made a distinction between Haste and Improved Haste, with the former only giving +1 APR and the latter giving double APR.
So, given the choice between changing the item description and changing the effect, changing the effect would actually be more true to the original Baldur's Gate.
... Invisibility?
My apologies; I just woke up and I thought you were talking about the v2.5 change to Oil of Speed, which doubled APR like Improved Haste, as in the original BG1. I was talking about that change in another thread and didn't realize you were talking about the invisibility thing in this thread.
This spell causes the creature touched to vanish from sight and be undetectable by normal vision or even infravision. Of course, the invisible creature is not magically silenced, and certain other conditions can render the creature detectable. Even allies cannot see the invisible creature or its gear, unless these allies can normally see invisible things or employ magic to do so. Items dropped or put down by the invisible creature become visible; items picked up disappear if tucked into the clothing or pouches worn by the creature. The spell remains in effect until it is magically broken or dispelled, until the recipient attacks any creature, or until 24 hours have passed. The caster cannot perform any actions that manipulate the environment around , such as opening doors, disarming a trap, or opening a chest. The caster can, however, cast defensive spells on self and fellow party members. And if attacks, immediately becomes visible, although the invisibility enables to attack first.
It doesn't matter what you can or can't do when hidden in shadows, this is a spell, and invisibility expressly refers to picking up objects as not breaking the spell.
@Pantalion: Interesting. In the original game, picking up items from the ground normally also broke invisibility. In both vanilla and EE, it was only possible to safely pick up items by picking them up on the inventory screen. Opening containers also broke invisibility, as did picking locks. One of the reasons Sanctuary was special was because it couldn't be broken by any of these things. In earlier versions of EE, the quick-loot feature didn't break invisibility, just like the inventory trick.
Stealth operates just like invisibility in all these cases. I think they use the same opcode.
This spell causes the creature touched to vanish from sight and be undetectable by normal vision or even infravision. Of course, the invisible creature is not magically silenced, and certain other conditions can render the creature detectable. Even allies cannot see the invisible creature or its gear, unless these allies can normally see invisible things or employ magic to do so. Items dropped or put down by the invisible creature become visible; items picked up disappear if tucked into the clothing or pouches worn by the creature. The spell remains in effect until it is magically broken or dispelled, until the recipient attacks any creature, or until 24 hours have passed. The caster cannot perform any actions that manipulate the environment around , such as opening doors, disarming a trap, or opening a chest. The caster can, however, cast defensive spells on self and fellow party members. And if attacks, immediately becomes visible, although the invisibility enables to attack first.
It doesn't matter what you can or can't do when hidden in shadows, this is a spell, and invisibility expressly refers to picking up objects as not breaking the spell.
Sorry - I misunderstood you! I originally reported a bug because a thief could use the loot bar to loot from bodies and still remain hidden in shadows. Picking up items from the ground causes a thief to become visible.
Yeah, pretty sure both are true. The quick loot bar not breaking invisibility was actually an unintentional improvement, picking up unattended items without being noticed or breaking the effect is correct behaviour unintentional or otherwise.
Of course, it should also break when disarming traps and doesn't, unless they fixed that in 2.5?
Comments
(Apropos: If you start a new game in ToB, the Flail of Ages +3 is part of your starting inventory.)
Level 1:
Find Familiar
Spook
Nahal's Reckless Dweomer
Level 2:
Glitterdust
Chaos Shield
Level 3:
Minor Spell Deflection
Spell Thrust
Melf's Minute Meteors
Remove Magic
Level 4:
Enchanted Weapon
Secret Word
Teleport Field
Minor Sequencer
Polymorph Self
Polymorph Other
Level 5:
Spell Immunity
Spell Shield
Protection from Normal Weapons
Breach
Minor Spell Turning
Level 6:
Mislead
Protection from Magical Energy
Summon Nishruu
Contingency
Protection from Magical Weapons
Spell Deflection
Improved Haste
Pierce Magic
Level 7:
Ruby Ray of Reversal
Khelben's Warding Whip
Limited Wish
Spell Turning
Spell Sequencer
Sphere of Chaos
Project Image
Greater Chaos Shield
Mantle
Summon Djinni
Summon Efreeti
Summon Hakeashar
Level 8:
Bigby's Clenched Fist
Improved Mantle
Maze
Pierce Shield
Simulacrum
Spell Trigger
Level 9:
Absolute Immunity
Bigby's Crushing Hand
Time Stop
Wish
Chain Contingency
Shapechange
Imprisonment
Freedom
Spellstrike
Spell Trap
The original IWD was wildly different for mages.
EE has some good kits, but you could deal more than twice as much damage in the original game as you could in IWD:EE. It didn't hurt that Belhifet was erroneously unarmed and dealt nonlethal damage before EE.
I've played the original Icewind Dale a lot with mages. I actually think they're even more fun to use in Icewind Dale than in Baldur's Gate 2. Although the original Icewind Dale (with Heart of Winter installed) didn't have many of the spells from BG2, there was one big difference, which is that spell power caps at level 30 in Icewind Dale whereas it caps at level 20 in Baldur's Gate 2. This means, for example, that a Cone of Cold in Icewind Dale will deal 30d4+30 damage when cast by a level 30 mage. While this might not be as broken as a wish-rest triple Horrid Wilting mage, it's still a LOT of fun to obliterate enemies with a level 30 caster.
25 Strength (to open locks)
-20 to hit
Immunity to all disablers and instant death effects
5 acid damage on hit (to deal with trolls)
All weapons strike as +5 (so you don't even need magical weapons)
I just tried it out and it's actually a lot easier than you'd think.
1. Succubi have a charm spell that has a shocking -10 save penalty against male characters.
2. The Cambions from the Ascension mod wield copies of the Soul Reaver sword, which imposes a cumulative -2 THAC0 penalty per hit for 20 rounds that bypasses magic resistance. Even just a few hits from the Cambion can absolutely cripple any fighter.
The most annyoing thing about them is not only that they grab items from your quickslot and drop them on the ground but - no - the icons are still displayed on the screen which let you think everything is okay. So it can happen that you try to switch your weapon-set only to realize that its not working anymore. The first time i thought the game would bug me until i realized some items lying all around the Throne - my own ones...
The notable and gifted 14. Century scholar Ibn Khaldun (the founder of social science) even differentiated between different kinds of magic wielded by the sorcerors: transmutation, illusionists, conjurers and such... it seems some of the notation and lore has found a new home in the forgotten realms.
The epic tells the tale of the noble Asad (a Holy warrior) and his fight against the vile sorcerors (magic is forbudden in the Koran). The evil spellflinging sorceror emperor even uses a project image to hise from the hero. So its an up hill battle.
Luckily Asad is aided by Amar the trickster who relies on guile. Amar has a Bag in which he can hide loot, people and even land. You can freely breathe, move very large objects in an out of the bag (eventhough the mouth of the bag is small) and the bag seems bottomless. Perhaps not the first story of magic bag, but the first in a fantasy novell, and perhaps the inspiration of the much fabled and talked about Bag of Holding.
BTW: As I see it the above mentioned bag of holding could even hold the large amounts of Iron that Tranzig has to transport... but thats just me
(Spoiler tagged it so the image doesn't take up so much space)
The original BG2 characters are much higher than the BG1 NPCs, with 75% of all the characters having an 18 in one ability score. With a normal 3d6 roll, only about 12% of the population would have an 18.
You can still pick up items while maintaining invisibility by standing over an item on the ground and then picking it up from the inventory screen.
In fact, in the original Baldur's Gate and the original Icewind Dale, all haste effects doubled APR. In IWD at least, it even doubled the spells you could cast and items you could drink per round, and made bard songs trigger twice per round. It was only with the introduction of BG2 that the engine made a distinction between Haste and Improved Haste, with the former only giving +1 APR and the latter giving double APR.
So, given the choice between changing the item description and changing the effect, changing the effect would actually be more true to the original Baldur's Gate.
Stealth operates just like invisibility in all these cases. I think they use the same opcode.
Of course, it should also break when disarming traps and doesn't, unless they fixed that in 2.5?