42 réponses à ce sujet

[Humanoid_Taifun]

I would have my own Tweak pack, consisting of the following changes:

1) Archers to get their bonuses every 3 levels
Why do archers suddenly gain damage slower at high levels? Because the average enemy has now more HP or because there are strength items in abundancy that make melee attacks more and more powerful?

2) Bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts to receive proper enchantment bonus
Similarily, I find it really retarded that the high end weaponry, a bow +5 (for which you have to pay a nifty price to upgrade it) and arrows +3 only deal 1D6 damage. What the hell?
At the same time a melee attack (even from a non-warrior) may deal about 20 damage, that's 6 times as much.
Currently the best weapon for an archer is a sling. That's stupid. (They can't even reach grandmastery with them...)
I'm aware that there are mods that do this, partially. ATweaks gives the bonus damage to arrows and bolts, while RR adds some short bows with bonus damage. I want to go all the way though.

3) Kensai dexterity requirement to 18 + a) Kensai to get their base armor improved by 1 every 5 levels or Kensai to get their base armor improved by 1 every 3 levels, reduce their Hardiness to 20%
Kensai are supposed to be nimble warriors, neglecting armor because it hinders their movement. So why can I create one with a dexterity score of 3? For the same reason I believe it is very inappropiate that they don't get better at dodging attacks as they grow more experienced. Changing the Base AC ensures that this does not stack with Spirit Armor, Bark Skin or, in case of a Kenthief, normal armor, so they shouldn't really get all that much more powerful (and you should only really notice the difference if solo-ing.

4) Blur and Mirror Image to add a THAC0 bonus
Excuse me? You can't see where the attack is coming from, but it's still as easy to defend from it as from a normal swing? That difficulties with seeing the opponent should give them an advantage is already accepted as seen with Improved Invisibility.

5) Every class to get a backstabbing multiplier of 2 (or an automatic critical if the attack connects)
More of a personal taste, really...

6) Blades to receive a combination spin HLA in place of Enhanced Bard Song, without movement modifiers
Same here. There are quite a few mods that remove the EBS HLA for blades, but I thought that in return they should receive something worthwile. The defensive spin gets rarely used any more at high levels, because the bonuses from the offensive one are simply more interesting to an invulnerable warrior, so this might help reintroduce it.

7) To add ammunition +4, +5
This would make ranged combat useful against bosses. Joy.
Of course, the enemy will get them too (Illasera for example).
Of course this component would benefit from 2)
Keep in mind, even with 1) and 2) and 7) combined, an archer could only get a damage bonus of 21, which is still behind what they can currently do with slings (or what kensai can do on an every-day basis). (yes, the extra APR will put the bow before the sling, damage-wise).

8) Your Bhaalpowers to be restored once you retrieve your soul from Irenicus
Why isn't this part of the vanilla game anyway? I believe it's because the new bhaalpowers were cut (as was said in the readme of Ascension) and they forgot that you should have some, already.

9) Shields to have a base protection bonus of 4
This would give an actual point to the use of shields. A +8 bonus to your AC would probably justify leaving Belm (or Crom Faeyr) in the backpack.

10) The enchantment level of Hindo's Doom to be improved by 1
It is conceivable that the weapon was left so weak because the developers saw a one-handed 1D10 weapon and thought it should be nerfed, but as with ranged weapons they completely forgot that compared to everything else this wasn't anything special.

11) Darkness to impose a THAC0 penalty on those without Infravision
Nothing special, just a +2 for melee fighting and +7 for ranged combat. (or something like that)

This would probably not be the end of it, but for some time now I've felt that these changes ought to be implemented. I just had a short run-in with NearInfinity, and when I'm done reinstalling the game, I'll probably leave my fingers from it.

I'm posting this in the hopes that an actual modder reads this and agrees with at least a few of my points...

[Morbidest]

I agree with most of your comments, but I have a problem with making shields stronger.
In European history when warfare was mostly a few hundred guys fighting another few hundred guys over who got to loot the silver from the local church (9th century) both sides usually would start shouting Form the Shield Wall and go after each other until one shield wall cracked and the winners started slaughtering the losers, or even better, went and looted the church and "liberated" the nuns.
But as bigger horses got breed, within 200 years the real problem in warfare became what do you do if 1500# of man, armor, and horse is lumbering towards with all that kinetic energy concertrated behind an iron lance point. Trying to protect yourself with a shield was definitely the wrong answer; 16' pikes and longbows worked a lot better! And things stayed that way for another 400 years until early muskets started being semi-reliable.
In Asia when the horse archers got close enough to fight it out on foot, the richer ones would pull out their 2 handed katanas and carve up the poor slobs who couldn't afford such efficent weapons. Not many  shields in sight.

My pet peeve with BG fighting rules is the superiority 2 weapon fighters have over sword and shield, or 2 handed weapon styles. Although in the later middle ages a rich nobleman might train with using a long knife(in Asia, some sort of sword catcher) in his off hand as a defensive weapon, hardly anyone was ambidexterous enough to fight with 2 offensive weapons. But in BG2 and Kung Fu movies, it's the best way to go.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Interesting point. I thought about adding a "12) Two handed weapons (except staves) to impose a minor AC penalty but to deal noticably more damage per hit", but I wasn't quite sure what kinds of numbers I should use for that.

[Joshh Avatar]

Half of those could easily be implemented with DLTCEP.

The kits are hardcoded in bg2 though, your archer and kensai edits would have to be implemented as new kits entirely; (beyond my can-be-botheredness) but the blur and mirror image edits, for example, are very easy to do

As for bullets/arrows, the easy fix to that is to make all arrows count as a +5 weapons without increasing the thaco bonus , and all arrows in the game (including those used by say, Illasera) would keep this quality, while +3 etc magical arrows would still be useful for thaco bonus and so on.

Modifié par Joshh Avatar, 28 août 2010 - 02:21 .

[Morbidest]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

Interesting point. I thought about adding a "12) Two handed weapons (except staves) to impose a minor AC penalty but to deal noticably more damage per hit", but I wasn't quite sure what kinds of numbers I should use for that.

My suggestion would be that when talking about slashing ("roundhouse") swings, the damage would be proportional to the square of the length (from tip to grip) of the blade. For piercing weapons some other sort or rule would have to be figured out, but you're not going to try to "pierce" someone with a 2hw anyway.

This rule should also apply to all 2handed weapons like battle axes, including the ones we don't have in BG, but show up in later games like NWN. Applying it means that a Highland claymore would do more damge that a battle axe, assuming fighters of equal strength.

We already see this in BG with some one handed weapons: a longer striking arc flail does a little more damage than a mace, for instance.

Modifié par Morbidest, 28 août 2010 - 03:35 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

[quote]Joshh Avatar wrote...
Half of those could easily be implemented with DLTCEP.[/quote]
As I said, I can't mod.

[quote]As for bullets/arrows, the easy fix to
that is to make all arrows count as a +5 weapons without increasing the
thaco bonus , and all arrows in the game (including those used by say,
Illasera) would keep this quality, while +3 etc magical arrows would
still be useful for thaco bonus and so on.[/quote]
No, I want real arrows and bolts +5. The damage bonus of +10 (combining missile and launcher) seems high at first, but don't forget the strength bonuses, which make any melee attack at that point worth that much without even taking the weapon enchantment into consideration.
But I don't want to break the game needlessly by making the Mantle spells useless against any and all missiles.
[/quote]
[quote]Morbidest wrote...
My suggestion would be that when talking about slashing ("roundhouse") swings, the damage would be proportional to the square of the length (from tip to grip) of the blade. For piercing weapons some other sort or rule would have to be figured out, but you're not going to try to "pierce" someone with a 2hw anyway.[/quote]
Unless it's a spear.
Nice idea about the square, but you'd need an extra formula for weapons like katanas or scimitars which work on a different basis, their curved form being used to slice the enemy up rather than chopping them.

Modifié par Humanoid_Taifun, 28 août 2010 - 04:13 .

[Joshh Avatar]

Modding with DLTCEP is actually really easy.

[CoM Solaufein]

Editing preexisting items is one of the easiest things to do. IEEP and DLTCEP are capable tools to use for doing just that. Plus reading over a tutorial or two can help out also.

[jaxsbudgie]

I'd really like to see one handed quarterstaffs and spears, but that is near impossible unless people are actually capable of editing the animations well?

Another aspect I'd like to see is the penalties at dark unless you have infravision.

I think raising the base protection of shields to 4 is a bit drastic, what about bucklers? Maybe adding further missile protection and physical protections such as slashing, bludgeoning and piercing. These types of damage protections could vary from shield to shield depending on the type.

Backstabbing for every class I'm not so keen on, that's what gives the thieves an edge, you can't suddenly allow every class to do it, that could potentially end a fairly difficult combat within seconds. Plus this is a unique ability that thieves had studied, they know where kinks in armour are and where pressure points are. Maybe further implementing this for thieves would be an idea, bonuses to backstab based on dexterity and intelligence. I wouldn't say backstabbing is necessarily a strength requiring skills. Like I said, it takes dexterity to know where to slip the blade successfully and intelligence on knowing where the strike will hurt the most.Suddenly this gives a reason for thieves to have intelligence. But now I'm rambling ...

[jaxsbudgie]

Also, maybe head over to the Spell Revisions forums to propose the THAC0 bonus for Mirror Image and Blur idea, I don't think the two should stack though, that would mage fighter/mages too powerful. Maybe only limit it to Mirror Image? With Blur imposing a THAC0 penalty on the target, or visa versa?

[Slyx]

jaxsbudgie wrote...

I'd really like to see one handed quarterstaffs and spears

You know about the Staff Mace right?  It's only one item, but it's a 1-handed weapon that is quarterstaff proficiency.  You can buy it from Ribald and shows up 2 or more times elsewhere in the game too.

jaxsbudgie wrote...
Backstabbing for every class I'm not so
keen on, that's what gives the thieves an edge, you can't suddenly allow
every class to do it, that could potentially end a fairly difficult
combat within seconds. Plus this is a unique ability that thieves had
studied, they know where kinks in armour are and where pressure points
are. ... Like I said, it takes dexterity to know where to slip the blade
successfully...

Everybody gets a +4 bonus to THAC0 for attacking while hidden or invisible (sanctuary doesn't count though).  This makes sense to me, as if you're invisible, you have more time to carefully aim your shot to make sure you do not miss.  Whether everyone should also get a bonus to damage for this more carefully thought out and timed shot is something I'm on the fence about.  I think given H_T's 2 suggested scenarios: all get at least a 2x BS dmg mod, or it's always a critical, I'd say all get a 2x dmg mod.  A critical would double str damage, etc., so it would end up being more powerful than a 2x BS mod.

Modifié par Slyx, 29 août 2010 - 03:29 .

[Thrar]

jaxsbudgie wrote...

I'd really like to see one handed quarterstaffs and spears, but that is near impossible unless people are actually capable of editing the animations well?

I can't imagine how this would make sense in reality. Wielding a quarterstaff one-handed essentially gives you an oversized and unwieldy club, with the additional drawback (over a plain club) that it doesn't have anything heavy on one end to hit someone over the head with. BG2 does have a staff mace which is used with the staff proficiency but looks like a mace and is wielded one-handed - convenient to use, but I don't see how you could possibly apply knowledge in using a staff to fighting with a mace in reality.

With a spear it's similar. Actually, a lot of spear fighting is similar to staff fighting, except that you have an additional pointy end to stab someone with. If you wield a spear with one hand, I could only imagine using it like a foil (which we don't have in BG), except that it's not as balanced, too long, and lacks a proper grip.

I can think of two situations where spears are wielded with one hand. One is as part of a battle formation, where each soldier has a spear and a shield. However, in this case, their battle tactic mainly consists of hiding behind the shield wall and stabbing whatever is in front of it; in a small-scale battle this won't be possible as you don't have people next to you providing cover. The other is a throwing spear - another item which is missing in BG. Throwing spears are practically useless for melee fighting, their balance is different and they're not stable enough to withstand blows. On the other hand you can't just throw a melee spear either, it's much heavier (requiring more strength) and is balanced for melee rather than for accurate throws.

[Slyx]

What if you're a mage with a disability? Perhaps you're an amputee and only have one arm with which to swing a weapon =)

[jaxsbudgie]

You're right about the one handed quarterstaffs, I didn't think that one through very well. The one handed spear idea came from what you mentioned Thrar, but I guess it wouldn't be so practical in close combat battle. I think I like the idea of it more than it actually being implemented.

The trouble with allowing all classes x2 backstab multiplier is what about the Swashbuckler or Sharpshooter, who get no bonus to backstab? Rogue Rebalancing and Song & Silence would have to implement that in somehow, I know they did it with the revised Shortsword of Backstabbing.
I think the +4 THAC0 bonus is enough, maybe lowering the range for a critical? Then again, I think this is territory that we shouldn't go into. They haven't even implemented this in 3rd edition which is the closest to realism in my opinion. They did add Coup de Grace though, although that only applies to people who are helpless right?

Modifié par jaxsbudgie, 29 août 2010 - 04:01 .

[Morbidest]

Thrar wrote...

jaxsbudgie wrote...

I'd really like to see one handed quarterstaffs and spears, but that is near impossible unless people are actually capable of editing the animations well?

I can't imagine how this would make sense in reality. Wielding a quarterstaff one-handed essentially gives you an oversized and unwieldy club, with the additional drawback (over a plain club) that it doesn't have anything heavy on one end to hit someone over the head with. BG2 does have a staff mace which is used with the staff proficiency but looks like a mace and is wielded one-handed - convenient to use, but I don't see how you could possibly apply knowledge in using a staff to fighting with a mace in reality.

With a spear it's similar. Actually, a lot of spear fighting is similar to staff fighting, except that you have an additional pointy end to stab someone with. If you wield a spear with one hand, I could only imagine using it like a foil (which we don't have in BG), except that it's not as balanced, too long, and lacks a proper grip.

I can think of two situations where spears are wielded with one hand. One is as part of a battle formation, where each soldier has a spear and a shield. However, in this case, their battle tactic mainly consists of hiding behind the shield wall and stabbing whatever is in front of it; in a small-scale battle this won't be possible as you don't have people next to you providing cover. The other is a throwing spear - another item which is missing in BG. Throwing spears are practically useless for melee fighting, their balance is different and they're not stable enough to withstand blows. On the other hand you can't just throw a melee spear either, it's much heavier (requiring more strength) and is balanced for melee rather than for accurate throws.

I believe the chief Zulu weapon, the assagi, was a spear that had been cut down to a total length of less than 4': 1.5' iron head, 2.5'- wooden shaft. So it was basically a stabbing short sword mounted on a stick. The idea was you got inside the thrusting distance of the enemy spearman, knocked aside his shield with your shield and then had your short spear versus a wooden pole whose spear tip couldn't reach you. Seems risky, but it worked for them.

A lot of earlier D&D games had throwing spears (javelins) which were basically useless - a weapon for a mage who forgot to bring a sling along and had used up all his spells. So I guess BW got bored with them and dropped them.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

The reason why I suggested an automatic critical rather than an actual backstab is because with the latter the critical can still happen (and even be enforced by warriors), totalling in quadruple damage, which I believe is a little too much.

Maybe you can disable criticals? I have no idea about the workings of this.

Spears that are one meter long should not be used with the spear proficiency though, I guess it would best be compared to a short sword, going from what exists in BG2.

Oh and I didn't think about bucklers when I wrote point 9. I guess they shouldn't be of much more use than they currently are.

About the stacking of the THAC0 bonuses of illusionary spells, maybe let them max out at 6 or something like that?

[bloodanddarknessfillmysoul]

I think perhaps having a maximised base damage would more accurately reflect what you are trying to model.

I agree whole heartedly with the comments on illusory spells, but I think there should be a single effect covering all bases for this: i.e. +4 thac0 for hidden creatures, "hidden" covering blur, mirror image, revealed imp. invisible, standard invisble and sanctuary effects.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Yeah that would probably do the job without being all that unbalancing.

[Demivrgvs]

1) Archers to get their bonuses every 3 levels
I think you're understimating how powerful this class is.

2) Bows, crossbows, arrows, bolts to receive proper enchantment bonus
Well, I thought aTweaks did the same but Item Revisions surely does this to full extent, though it also reduce bow's apr from 2 to 3/2 to balance BG1 fighting system where bows were really overpowered.

3) Kensai dexterity requirement to 18 + a) Kensai to get their base armor improved by 1 every 5 levels or Kensai to get their base armor improved by 1 every 3 levels, reduce their Hardiness to 20%
I sort of agree with a) and I'm more or less working on it for Kit Revisions.

4) Blur and Mirror Image to add a THAC0 bonus
Conceptually I can probrably agree, balance wise I'm not sure. For Mirror Image it's not even implementable, because the spell hasn't a fixed duration and uses an hardcoded effect (THAC0 bonus would still be active even with no images left).

5) Every class to get a backstabbing multiplier of 2 (or an automatic critical if the attack connects)
Again, conceptually I may agree, but it can be pretty disastrous in terms of balance, because a party of warriors in heavy armor and two-handed weapons starting a fight with massive backstab damage doesn't seem right. Not to mention that you'd be stealing one of the very few things that make thieves shine.

Automatic critical or maximum-damage would be a better choice but it's not implementable (actually I could do that for spells with a complicated workaround via "secondary types", but not for normal Hide in Shadows). Anyway, +4 THAC0 bonus is there for any class to simulate the advantage of not being seen for the first attack, not much, but better than nothing.

6) Blades to receive a combination spin HLA in place of Enhanced Bard Song, without movement modifiers
You may look into Refinements mod at SHS, it may not do this (I don't remember), but it does handle HLAs for this and any other class much better than vanilla game.

7) To add ammunition +4, +5
Just so you know, +3 enchantment is enough to hit 99% of BG opponents. Only demi-liches (2 creatures), and a unique creature in the last floor of Watcher's Keep need +4 enchantment.

8) Your Bhaalpowers to be restored once you retrieve your soul from Irenicus
I don't know which mod could contain a similar thing, perhaps Tweak Pack, but I wouldn't bet on this happening.

9) Shields to have a base protection bonus of 4
Item Revisions does this, though in a less radical way. Medium shields have a base +2 AC bonus, while tower shields grant +4 AC with a -2 thac0 penalty.

11) Darkness to impose a THAC0 penalty on those without Infravision
This would be uber-cool, but it's only doable editing the main BG script, something every modder try to avoid like a plague.

I'm posting this in the hopes that an actual modder reads this and agrees with at least a few of my points...

Done.

Modifié par Demivrgvs, 31 août 2010 - 10:13 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Yay. ^.^

It appears I didn't give Item Revisions the respect it was due (always confusing it with Weimer's "Item Upgrade")...
Downloaded and going to implement it in the upcoming reinstallation.

Oh and about the missile enchantment +5. It's not only about the possibility of hitting the opponent, it's also about making it a viable option for people like Keldorn and Valygar who even come with such weapons.

Modifié par Humanoid_Taifun, 31 août 2010 - 10:52 .

[jaxsbudgie]

You haven't used Item Revisions before? It's probably one of my quintessential mods, highly recommendable to everyone.

[The Fred]

If I could mod...

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
As I said, I can't mod.

Everyone can mod.

Modifié par The Fred, 31 août 2010 - 01:48 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

The Fred wrote...

If I could mod...

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
As I said, I can't mod.

Everyone can mod.

Let me rephrase that.
I have no expertise in any programming language or any of the programs commonly used to modify the Infinite Engine games. I understand that it would take me several months of practise before I could create something and hope for it not to severely bug a multi-mod installation like the ones I usually play with, but I'm not willing to invest even a third of that time at this moment, and I doubt that this will change soon. Call me lazy if you will.

[The Fred]

Something like adding +4 or +5 ammunition would be pretty easy, though. You would probably need something like Near Infinity (which makes it really easy to make something like an Arrow +4) and maybe some WeiDU knowledge to make a WeiDU mod which would patch the item into stores (this might take a while but I'm pretty sure I haven't spent several months messing about with WeiDU and I could probably do it).



Don't take this the wrong way, though, I'm not saying you *should* go and make such a mod yourself - in fact, I'm highly respectful of everyone's right to be lazy (I'm lazy enough myself). ;-)



I just mean that, in principle, everyone *could* learn how to mod.

[jaxsbudgie]

IF I COULD MOD I'D MAKE 4 QUICK WEAPON SLOTS AVAILABLE TO ALL classES AND THE ABILITY TO STORE DARTS AND THROWING DAGGERS IN YOUR QUIVER. BAH!

Edit: Apparently you can't type classES in capitals.

Edit2: Hahaha

Edit3: I realise the quick weapon slots are hard coded, but we can still dream ...

Modifié par jaxsbudgie, 06 septembre 2010 - 09:29 .