51 réponses à ce sujet

[Pipboy3billion]

I've read quite a bit about how the cleric/ranger is pretty uber/bugged/munchkiny. In truth, I think it's the least buggy class/multi-class/dual-class combination. However, I think it's is really easy to exploit, considering how the engine works.

I intend to run two games through the series concurrently. One is a solo game, and the other is a canon party game with the PC, a cleric/ranger, as the leader....but with a twist: no cheese tactics. I'd like to see people's opinion on character creation/development. If you want, go through a round of character creation, just to see what you actually get, and post that along with your planned development.

These are the rules:

1a) The number one rule is that if it wouldn't fly in PnP 2e, it doesn't fly here. When in doubt, WWADDMD. That is, What Would Any Decent Dungeon Master Do?

1b) Having access to both cleric and druid spells is fine. It's actually allowed in the 2e rules. It's not the IE's fault TSR had a bizarre system for managing divinity.

2) No exploiting bugs. I blanking at the moment for examples, but you know when you're cheating.

3) This character is the party leader, and this is a RP-oriented build. He's in position #1. Which means he's also the party talker. Therefore, charisma is now important. On top of that, just to make it interesting, no Ring of Human Influence in BG2. Sure, you can go with a low-Charisma character, but considering you have very little access to charisma boosting items (and no spells), you'll have to deal with the consequences. Additionally, if you want a romance, your Charisma has to be equal to or higher than the charisma of your desired mate. That's 14 for Viconia or Aeria, 15 for Jaheira, and only 13 for Anomen.

4) A ranger is good aligned. That means no stealing. No raiding houses/inns or picking pockets of allies or innocents. So, no Cloak of Algernon, Helm of Balduran, no Ring of Regeneration from Ribald, no pickpocketing messengers, etc.

5) No abusing the reroll system in character creation. You get three rolls (or the initial roll and two rerolls) and that's it, unless none of your three sets have a single score of 16 or higher. Then you can reroll, but only until you get your first 16+. Also, no shaving points from one attribute to put in another. You can't do that in PnP, so you can't do it here. Take the best of what you get and arrange it how you like (keeping class minimums in mind), though you can't transfer rolls between sets. For example, if you get a 14 for Int and 12 for Cha, you can switch to a 12 for Int and 14 for Cha. Considering the cleric/ranger has the highest minimum requirements (next to the elven ranger), one really can't complain too much.

6) This is actually a subset of rule #1, but you can only use one tome per attribute per character. This is explicitly stated in the 2e rules. So, no replaying to get tomes and you can only use one of the wisdom tomes on yourself.

Under these circumstances, what is your priority for attribute allocation? How much does Str, Dex, Con matter to you when you have access to DUHM? Are you better off focusing on Wis and Cha? How would you play/develop this character?

[Pipboy3billion]

I just took a quick run through char creation myself and this is what I got (post re-arrangement):

Set 1: 13, 16, 17, 10, 15, 14
Set 2: 18/62, 13, 15, 9, 14, 14
Set 3: 16, 17, 16, 9, 16 , 13

Those were actually some pretty good rolls, even considering the class/race minimums. I'm tempted to redo it, just to give myself more of a challenge. Right off the bat, I'm tempted to ditch set #3, It's probably the best roll, but I'd want to do a Jaheira romance, and I'd need to start with a 14 Cha (15 with the tome) for that. If only that last 13 was a 14, then I would be ok.

Between #1 and #2, I'm a little tossed. #1 has better AC and hit points, but won't pass the 18 Str point with DUHM until level 15 (which is going to be a while for a multi). Sure there's the Crom and strength belts in BG2, but other party members (like Jaheira) will need strength boosting items, too. I think that #2 is definitely more DUHM-friendly. In the end, I think I'd side with #1. Overall, it's probably a little better, regardless of supply limitations, Strength is probably the easiest stat to boost, anyway. BG1 is going to be a little rough until he gets the gauntlets of ogre power, but he'll survive.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

In BG2, any cleric can easily reach str 25 once they can cast level 5 spells. Holy Power, Righteous Magic, Draw Upon Holy Might.
This combination won't be of much help in BG1, but since BG1 gives signficant bonuses to ranged combatants, you could still benefit from setting strength low but dexterity, constitution and wisdom high.

[Pipboy3billion]

Are magical bonus cumulative in proper PnP though? I could have sworn that you're only allowed something like one natural bonus, one magical bonus, and then one of one or two other types of bonuses (item and something else maybe?). So, while the engine will let you stack buffs, doing so kinda breaks rules #1 and #2.

Also, Holy Power isn't terribly useful for a multi warrior/cleric I'd expect.

However, Crom alone will get you to 25. And there are enough strength belts out there. So, you're right, it's not that hard. Considering the circumstances, I would expect Strength to be lowest priority of the three physical stats, since it's the easiest to buff by other means.

I'm also not thinking that Wis is that important either. 14 is enough for a cleric (and weird a ranger has a higher wis req. than a cleric). Sure, a couple bonus spells are nice, as are the save bonuses. However, clerics don't have the limitations of arcane spellcasters, so it's not a big deal. I'm thinking that Con and Dex (and probably Cha, considering the rules here) are your top priorities.

[Grond0]

You might consider wisdom as giving save bonuses on RP grounds, but there are none in the game (the manual is wrong - the PnP bonuses were never implemented).

[Pipboy3billion]

Seriously? I never knew that. I'm surprised it was never patched.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

In regards of multiple strength bonuses working together:
Baldur's Gate does not always follow the rules of 2nd Edition D&D to the letter. Some of the stuff seemed impossible to implement, other stuff simply looked boring to the developers. Are you going to skip for example the HLAs entirely or will you accept that Baldur's Gate comes with a certain set of house rules?

[Pipboy3billion]

Good point. HLAs are definitely not canon. I'm actually tempted to skip the non-caster HLAs entirely. The caster HLAs can just be interpreted as high level spells. Calling the system changes put in BG "house rules" is kinda funny. I never thought of it that way; it's a rather liberal interpretation of the situation.

Some of the stuff seemed impossible to implement, other stuff simply looked boring to the developers.

...and some stuff missed the bus because the devs probably had a deadline to hit. I'm surprised nobody ever made a 2e reformation mod, though I bet that's not possible considering how much of pure 2e would directly conflict with what's hard-coded into the engine.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Oh, partial reformations have been done. There is a huge world of mods out there, ones that adress almost every aspect of the game. Just take a look at the huge amount of tweakpacks/revision mods...

[Ishad Nha]

HLAs were not 2E canon but there was a High Level Adventures book, TSR Publication 2156 'Dungeon Master Option: High-Level Campaigns'.
Ditto, kits are not canon per se but they were part of the Complete [class] Handbook series. As I recall a few of the BG2 spells are not canon, they come from Player's Option or Complete Wizard Handbook tomes.

Modifié par Ishad Nha, 09 septembre 2011 - 04:17 .

[Pipboy3billion]

I vaguely remember the High-Level campaigns book, but I don't remember seeing anything remotely similar to the HLAs in BG2.

I do remember the kits from the Complete [class] handbooks, especially the Thieves' Handbook. I really like what they did with kits for PnP. They gave characters more panache and depth without sacrificing balance (in most cases).

As for spells, well, BG is a video game. Compromises are definitely going to be made. BG1 was pretty decent, I'll say, but BG2 kinda killed it. What can you expect though? Most of what DnD high level spellcasting could do would be a game designer/programmers nightmare.

I think I'm starting to miss PnP...

[Ishad Nha]

A lot of the DMO: HLA book would be game-breaking or hard to implement. The ability to turn someone into a toadstool and kill them is game-breaking, that is why Creeping Doom was toned-down.
Hard to quantify means hard to implement, hard to program. What sort of items to use to power a True Dweomer would be a case in point. You would probably need a menu of fixed options to make it work, that is how Limited Wish and Wish were implemented. I doubt they read DMO:HLA before writing BG2.
Temple of Elemental Evil is the closest game to pnp that I know of, it is 3E of course.

[Pipboy3billion]

Yeah, I've heard of TOEE. I'm not a huge fan of 3e+, considering the absurd multiclassing possibilities, and heavy reliance on feats.

Maybe I'll check it out, though.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

You'd rather play an unliked edition of DnD than a slightly altered version of your favourite one?
Is the fact that it's not the original enough to spoil your fun?

(also, I just reread one of your earlier posts: Why is it bad to regard things as house rules when clearly they are implemented as such by the developers?)

[Ishad Nha]

I like 3E, it all depends on your personal taste. It is not biased against non-human races. Feats you can become familiar with, ditto skills.
Multiclassing is restricted by alignment in a few cases, so the most glaring absurdities don't happen in actual practice. If you are a spellcaster you don't want to multiclass too much because that will leave you behind in maximum spell level.

[Pipboy3billion]

You'd rather play an unliked edition of DnD than a slightly altered version of your favourite one?

Most of what I dislike about 3e is it's potential for munchkining and min/maxing. So, I wouldn't likely want to play 3e in a PnP group as there's almost always that one guy who just plays the numbers. However, I wouldn't have to worry about that in a VG because I'm the only player.

I just reread one of your earlier posts: Why is it bad to regard things as house rules when clearly they are implemented as such by the developers?

In every house ruled PnP game I've played, the house rules were pretty subtle. They weren't any dramatic divergences from vanilla, just some minor tweaks to enhance the depth of the characters and settings and make the game a little more interesting. I think the most drastic house rule I've ever experience was a no multiclassing rule. It sounds more drastic than it is, but this was back in 6th grade with 1e where multiclassing was not as big of a deal. There was one exception to this, though. I played with this one GM who smoked way too much pot and dropped way too much acid. His house ruled system made Planescape look like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. I think that the house rules in the BG series are more in this vein. The later parts of BG2, and definitely all of ToB, are terribly high powered. Most of the house ruling involved giving the character's powers that could compete. Frankly, I would have been happier if they toned it down a bit all around.

Multiclassing is restricted by alignment in a few cases, so the most glaring absurdities don't happen in actual practice.

I did 3e for a while, but got out of it. Partly this was because the GM was a sadist, but mostly it was because of what I was seeing on the forums for the game. A lot of posts had to do with optimizing a character's ability. The actual character concept itself was secondary, if even considered. I once posted a character looking for advice on how to make certain elements of the character fit the concept (he was an amnesiac gnome bard amateur artificer). Instead, all I got were suggestions of how I could take a few levels of such and such to boost my saves or BAB or get some feats or whatever. The gaming process was pretty much the same as someone building a deck for Magic (a game of which I am not a fan). Crunch some numbers and powergame. That's not RPG behavior in my book.

[Ishad Nha]

In TEE you don't have the Prestige classes. Reading about The Prestige class of the Month in Dragon never grabbed me.
As TEE is a converted pnp module it is guaranteed to have at least some story worth playing. I rather liked it, pity it only went up to level 10.

[Pipboy3billion]

I was supposed to play TOEE PnP way back in the day, but the GM had to leave town before he could get started. I was looking forward to it as I heard that it was one of the better modules out there.

I'm actually surprised I didn't see more module conversions for NWN. It was odd. I saw a ton of Lovecraft inspired games (which was kind of a random trend), but almost no conversions.

[amanasleep]

Pipboy3billion wrote...

1b) Having access to both cleric and druid spells is fine. It's actually allowed in the 2e rules. It's not the IE's fault TSR had a bizarre system for managing divinity.

OK, yes, but are you going to allow the casting of Druid spells above Level 3?  That's what causes the issue.  Otherwise the class is fine.  Following this restriction is how I justified my Stalker 12 -> Cleric run.

[Ishad Nha]

In BG2 the Priest spell spheres were one big stuff-up, Minor Spheres v Major Spheres was not covered at all.
Cleric kits, Clerics of a specific god (Lathander, Helm, Talos) are Specialty Priests, as was outlined in the TSR book Faiths and Avatars. They can never access all Cleric spheres.
I don't recall a coherent list of which spells are "Cleric" and which are "Druid".

Modifié par Ishad Nha, 11 septembre 2011 - 03:09 .

[Pipboy3billion]

The 2e supplements did a better job of managing clerics than vanilla. However, in vanilla, it basically boiled down to domain access. IIRC, a plain cleric had major access to a ton of domains and minor access to some of the druid ones. Also in vanilla, a ranger had major access to all the druid domains. As a result, the Cleric/ Ranger ended up getting major access to all domains.

You might think it was uber (and it can be in BG), but the role of the cleric was very different in PnP. That is, they were the team medic. For all the spells to which they had access, most of the time they were casting the curing ones. This isn't much of a factor in BG as there are tons of healing potions, and you can always retreat and rest until healed. Additionally, unlike in BG where you can scout ahead buff a ton outside of the fog of war and then run into combat, combat in PnP generally started the second both sides discovered each other. You spend a few rounds or so buffing and combat is half over before you're ready to go. And that's assuming your DM doesn't sic an enemy archer on you to disrupt your spellcasting.

Frankly, I wouldn't consider a Cleric/Ranger in PnP. I'm not really a fan of 2e clerics in general. There were too many weird rules that only existed for game balance but were done in a way to detract from the potential depth of the class. The only reason I'm playing one here is because it fits in well with a canon party, which is lacking a cleric and the ranger class gives him a nature bent to jive with a romance with Jaheira.

[Ishad Nha]

I have the PHB in front of me. Cleric has
no access to: Animal, Plant and Weather,
minor access to: Elemental
major access to: all other spheres.

Ranger only gets minor access to the Animal and Plant spheres! That is all, what a ripoff.

[Pipboy3billion]

It is minor access? But I thought they could cast up to 4th level in 2e? Or am I mixing it up with Paladins?

[Ishad Nha]

It is only minor access for Rangers.
Paladins are the guys who have the four spell levels. Four levels is neither minor access nor major access, it is of course a holdover from First Edition where there were no spheres and no access.

[Flamedance]

@Ishad Na

I heartily recopmmend the "Company of 8" mod pack for TEE. It raises the level cap to 20, adds new areas and generally improves the game. Get it here: http://www.co8.org/f...9d23caf3a1&f=54