Yes, but does the The Black Raven Monestary have an order of monks trained in hand-to-hand combat, or is it a normal monestary?

I't an unarmed combat monk monestary.

And that's not a problem in 3rd ed. All the base classes are open to all races.

Elves, Half Elves, & Humans are a no-brainer for me.

I *might* be able to see a Gnome or Halfling Sword Angel, but it seems a bit silly. Yoda in BGII.

I have a really hard time picturing a Dwarf Sword Angel. It's almost as bad as that winged dwarf pictured in the BoED.

Half Ork ... meh ... on the fence.

Going from 2000 to a mere 300 years was a pretty extreme makeover.

I personally don?t really care for that change, but most of the folks that I play PnP with really like it.

There is also the fact that elves are usually better swordsmen than humans and the fact that in 3e their lifespans got shortened considerably. They are no longer so 'immortal.'

Hmmm, isn't 'Virtue' dependent on 'Oversight'? Because I have no intention installing 'Oversight'...

No it is not.  Virtue is standalone.

I get it, but as I asked, how does LMD and VT work? Are they using a different effect to boost the caster's max HP?

I'm pretty sure that they add a fixed amount of HP to the caster. The spell description talks about a random number (direct port from PnP) but I'm pretty sure that the actual BG implementation has used a fixed number in both versions.

If one of your characters is a custom kit (100% chance in Refinements) you'll get screwed up for sure.

I beg to differ. It's not easy but it can be done with SK.

I've had *very* few problems with ShadowKeeper over the years. The interface is clean and easy to use.

On the other hand while NI might be technically better I hate using it.

This is my first run though the game but i usually check with the various walk-throughs from time to time to see if I'm missing anything. And boy am I!

I just recently finished the final level of the Dragon's Eye - ugh hate time travel - and from what I can tell I'm supposed to be whisked back to the Ice Temple somehow ... but it's not happening. I can head for the exit or take the boat and then I leave without the Ice Temple triggering. I end up in the Fields of Slaughter and promptly wander into a decent little fight there.

So my question is why am I not getting the Return to the Ice Temple? Did I miss something way back when. Is there an in game variable that I could set if so?

First just let me post and say congrats!

I'll be trying v2 this weekend though a full game test will likely have to wait a week or two so I can finish my current IWD2 game.

The first place the new version will be is on the web sites mentioned.

The download link is in the sticky posts or in TGM's sig (though I alway have to use the alternate link ... the one in the sig doesn't work for me either at home or work).

Anyway while 2.0 is done the refinements web page and mirrors are updated by different folks & I don't think that they have been able to put that version up yet.

Here is a post with both addresses of the main site:

http://www.shsforums...ndpost&p=131829

Suggest that you rename this thread for version 1.x and create a new sticky for 2.x.

Indeed Rathwelin. Yet, if you want to enjoy IWD2's story 100%, you really have to play IWD before that.

What story?  

Seriously, I didn't expect much story wise from IWD2.  My expectation was that for story I would play a game like BGII.

I played IWD2 so that I could play an Infinity Engine game (I *like* this engine) that had something close to 3.0 rules.

Only recently have I actually started to play 3.x PnP DnD and I was curious what a CRPG experience would be like.  I was not disappointed.

IWD2 actually brings out some of the weaknesses of BGII quite strongly.  With apologies to Refinements, in general I like the feat system better than HLAs.  The IWD2 Bard is *much* better than the BGII bard.  But more than this the IWD2 fights and treasure distribution feel a lot better balanced to me.  Most glaringly IWD2 really shows how ?gimped? BGII is with the excess of healing potions in the latter game.

I could go on, but for now I?m really hoping that someone picks up the Icewind Gate project and finishes converting BGII to the IWD2 engine.

Never played IWD.  I'm loving IWD2 though.  TGM hit the nail on the head when he said that the rules & abilities are great in IWD2.

I've never seen that one either ... but then I've only been playing IWD2 for about 3-4 weeks now.

Woot!

I guess that I can't tease you too much Littiz if that's the case!

:thumb:

Ok, I've been optimistic, but I couldn't know TGM would disappear from modding for 2 months

Anyway, we're progressing, and I just received a lot of proofreaded stuff (thanx Caedwyr!)

6 more days Littiz and then it's official!

Oh, and don't blame your hopeless optimism on TGM! Just admit it! Take a deep cleansing breath and reapeat after me... "My name is Littiz and I am a hopeless optimist."

I'm just waiting with baited breath for the anticipated 'Febuary' release.

If you guys don't make it then I'll finally get to tease Littiz about being hoplessly optimistic.

Suggestions.

Split the difference.  Let SSI be pickable 4 times.  Let the Robe be -4 for mages & -1 for Sorcerers.

Let the robe double first level spells for Sorcerers like the old Ring of Wizardry.  There are so few items in the game that add 1st level spells that this would make the robe seem powerful and useful at the same time ... and this would avoid adding more 7th+ level spells per day.

Honestly though the real reason I like the robe is the way it looks in the game!  But then again I use one of the tweaks to change its appearance.   Hmm.  That will be broken too if you change the item file.  Could you guys add this tweak as part of your robe fix?

After seeing a thread in the Refinements forum (http://www.shsforums...ndpost&p=156225)
I thought that Dual-able barbarians would be a cool addition. In particular, a lot of items have misplaced unusability flags, that I will correct.
Opinions?
Other tweaks suggestion?

I personally love the idea! Both the Barb and Item changes sound good to me.

It is too bad about the monk ... and all the other dual class combos that I would love to play. Ranger/Bard, Druid/Sorcerer, etc. However only the Barbarian is really doable since it is coded as a Fighter kit rather than a standalone class.

Still a Barbarian / Druid or Barbarian / Cleric would be cool! Heck even a Barbarian / Mage would be interesting. Barbarian / Thief is a classic of fantasy litature too....

In my pre-refinements experience (I admit I haven't played a full game with it yet, just started a very, very slow game through TuTu), high XP rates are usually an issue here. And mostly, it's important if you have ToB installed from the beginning, or not. If your older games were played without ToB (were they?), it's natural you used to face greater challenges. Refinements or not, reaching HLAs in SoA is definitely something that *will* make the final stages of SoA easier.

Some of the fights that were difficult at the first runs through, are pieces of cake now. This, in a good part, is due to the knowledge gained by the player.

Just to be clear I've played SoA with ToB installed *many* times Littiz. Out of game knowledge wasn't a factor here.

I've played quite a number of ToB games but I usually get bored with the storyline and power levels about mid-way though. I've only mananged to make myself finish about 7 or 8 times prior to my current testing.

Chain Contingency is buggy.

I can't help you balancing your game if you're going to take advantage of bugs.

As for the Contignency abuse ... didn't you read that this was the first time that I ever exploited it.

Actually it seemed like a very natural transition from CC abuse to Aura Cleansing. Once I had AC I never needed to abuse CC. I think that there were maybe two or three fights were I did this.

Refinements isn't responsible here, but even if it was, I have to say that ours is a mod that tries to emphatize the role-playing factor... so, to be used correctly, it'd need a bit of collaboration from the player. When I code, I assume the player won't abuse of the game's (or Refinements') bugs or weaknesses, I code in the hope players will use stuff trying to give more depth to their characters.

Noble goals. Bad assumption. If it's abuseable someone will abuse it. I'm all for depth but IMO it's silly to add some abilites that are weak or unuseable and some that are godly. I alway hope that I can actually *use* an ability that my character has so that I can *Role Play* it in the game. If something is too weak by comparison or has too many penalties then it looses *Role Play* value no matter how cool or logical it is on paper.

About the rest: I don't understand why you consider Aura Cleansing too powerful, after all sorcs used to have access to IA and my, *that* was poweful for them.

As I said, by itself AC is great & balanced even. It's when you add Speed Increase, the Robe, and Wish that it gets out of hand. IMO you can't just balance this by itself ... you need to consider action chains too.

I really hope you can wait a while and try a new game with V2, possibly with something other than a sorc, this time.

Planning on it at some point. Probably a F/M multi if the talbes look interesting in v2. I keep meaning to try one out but always get sucked into trying another class. May also bring my Blade, Rathwellen, out of retirement.

Why not refine the contingency spells to only function outside of combat then? There's a flag for that IIRC. It'd be quite decheesing for the PC.

 

Sounds good to me, though as I note it actually was only really useful for a short amount of time & seemed to feel like a 'natural' way to progress to AC.

As Littiz said, much thanks for your detailed preview Rathwellin, it proves very useful!

glad to help!

What about reducing the maximum number of picks of Speed Increase?

Only over my cold, dead body . Nope, as I said before, I don't want to nerf our otherwise good additions because of a completely overpowered and unbalancing item (yes, I'm talking about the Robe of Vecna).

Next game I try the Mage will be getting the Robe not a Sorcerer. IMO Sorcerer without robe vs Mage with ought to be OK. However I will note above that you need to plan for folks having the robe on there sorcerers. It's a 'natural' choice for someone playing one even when not trying to optimize.

I have a possible solution for this "problem", but it will take time. As you well know, we are working on revisions for many encounters and creatures in the game, to get them to "Refinements-level". This won't mean adding weimeric cheese, no. We are talking about granting the opponents you face in ToB access to the same new abilities, increasing their difficulty level where possible with more intelligent scripts and tactics. Also, if we ever get there, we will restore many creatures in both SoA and ToB to their TRUE level - trust me, you'll need all the help you can get from the Refinements HLAs to face the upcoming "refined" Demons or Devils for example...

 

Thanks! It is needed IMO ... not that I don't like Refinements as is ... it's just that it would help balance. :thumbsup:

First I need to apologize. I?ve been meaning to write this post for a long time ... but it has taken me far longer to actually *finish* my game than I thought it would. In addition to all the normal real life stuff I?ve gotten back into PnP gaming and that?s eaten up a fair amount of the time I formerly devoted to playing BG. Even now I have yet to do the Throne and face Ascension. So in a day or three when I finally get to it I?ll probably post an update.

I decided way back when that I wanted to do two things. I wanted to play though the entire series with one character again and I wanted to really test out the Refinements changes during the course of a ?real? game and not just some test scenario.

For my PC I chose Laedon, an Elf Sorcerer. It was fun playing though the original saga with a Sorcerer using TuTu but I will not bore you with tons of detail here. Suffice to say that simply by playing this way I chose some spells, like Sleep, that you usually don?t see in a ToB game.

In SoA I had planned on using a 6 man party with Jahiera, Minsc, Aerie, Yoshimo/Imoen, and the final slot to be a rotating one but usually filled by Valygar. However I found that I accumulated enough gold for Spellhold prior to even *starting* my stronghold quest so I ended up doing chapters 3-5 using a 5 man party. Even though I finally did start using that final party slot more I did most of chapter 6 and all of 7 with that same 5 member group. This did have an impact on XP ... as I ended SoA with a fair amount more of it than I usually have and that meant that Refinements HLAs started showing up in chapter 6.

I didn?t find this terribly unbalancing as I had also installed a few mods such as Rogue Rebalancing with its Chosen of Cyric encounter (OMG!!!!) though I avoided most of the cheese that is Tactics (I included a few things like the Poison encounter to see how it stacked up in ToB vs Refinements changes). Where I noticed it the most was the fight with Brodhi and the final battle with Jon. Both were significantly easier than usual for me. It was hard to tell if this was due more to the higher party XP level (probably the case with Brodhi) or some of the new HLAs (probably the case with Jon as I had just gotten Aura Cleansing before that battle).

I?ll interject here that I usually play on Core difficulty and that I?ve played several SoA games since I?ve trudged through the ToB storyline. I?ve experimented with Tactics and really refined my fighting style since I?ve played ToB. These two factors undoubtedly had an impact on my subsequent impressions.

Once I got to ToB I dispatched Illasera with ease and then invited Sarevok to travel with me. After that I breezed though ToB, killing Grommy and then Yaga-Shura before taking on Watcher?s Keep. After that I tried out Tactics Ritual (a snoozer at this level) and headed off to face Sendai, Abazigal, and then Balthazar.

I?ll be honest. I?ve never had much trouble with the Illasera, Gromnir, Sendai, or Ravager battles, but the WK final seal Guardians, Draconis, and Improved Abazigal have always been hard for me in the past. Not this time though. The Guardians were toast in record time. Draconis wasn?t bad at all, and Improved Abazigal wasn?t exactly easy but it was close.

One of the major reasons for this was Refinements.

Let me switch gears for a moment. I?m going to give a quick breakdown on my party, how I use the character, and what HLAs do and don?t do for me.

Laedon - In the past when I?ve played a non-Refinements ToB level Sorcerer I?ve chosen Timestop and Improved Alacrity at 18th level and followed up with Dragon?s Breath and Wish at 19th. After that the game became easy. Cast Time Stop, Cast IA, toss a few Dragon?s Breath spells and maybe a Horrid Wilting or two, the close with a Wish. This was noticeably different at first with Refinements. At 18th level I chose Chain Contingency and Inner Focus. This is the first game I?ve ever played where I abused Chain Contingency. I?ve been aware of the cheese before but never really needed with the old pre-refinements spells. I?ve got to say that without Chain I probably wouldn?t have beaten the Chosen of Cyric encounter. At 19th I got Time Stop and Casting by Intent ... though I almost never actually used Time Stop. I just didn?t need to with the Chain Contingency cheese and my killer party. At 20th level Wish and Spellcasting Speed Increase entered the picture followed by Aura Cleansing at 21st level. Things really didn?t start breaking until level 24 though by which time I had all three Spellcasting Speed Increases. With 3 of those and the dreaded Robe of Vecna Aura Cleansing became nuts. In planning for this ability I had made sure that Laedon had at least one or more damaging spells at every level. By 24th level it was insane. I could bust out my entire spellbook 1st-8th level and just nuke my way though most encounters. The *real* kicker was that I never had to use my 9th level spells so I was always free to Wish for all my spells back after or during nearly every battle. Given 7 tries it?s not hard to do and if you don?t get your spells back over half the time you get a nice little party buff as a consolation. This combo, Spellcasting Speed + the Robe + Aura Cleansing + Wish is as broken as it gets but it did make for some killer screenshots. Other HLAs were mostly misses as I?ve yet to really need to use any of them. You guys already know that I don?t like the elemental HLAs so I will not belabor the point. Most of the others are interesting but just don?t ever actually get used since they are so overshadowed by AC. Laedon has about 35% for both total kills and XP kill value for the game. That?s about as high as I?ve ever gotten with a Sorcerer. For what it?s worth Laedon holds the Staff of the Magi and his primary weapon is the Boomerang Dagger.

Jahiera ? I?m a sucker for doing things ?right? so all of Jahiera?s early HLAs went up the fighter tree since she didn?t gain that 15th+ Druid level for a long time. Refinements didn?t make big changes here. I made good use of Critical Strike and Hardiness with here. Jahiera is my ?meat shield? and secondary healer. She has the best AC in the party, is nearly constantly Stoneskined, and her main job is to draw enemy attacks. Any kill she gets early on is a bonus. However her kill totals have gone up as her equipment has gotten better and she has gotten the Druid 7th level and HLA spells. Nothing she does seems ridiculous or unbalanced to me so the Druid/Fighter HLAs get a thubs up.

Minsc ? For much of SoA Minsc was right up there with Laedon for kill stats. He was the party?s melee enforcer. Not long before ToB he graduated from Two Handed Swords to fighting with Flail and Axe and got even nastier. However with Sarevok in the party and Jahiera improving his kill % went down quite a bit in ToB. HLAs were good but didn?t feel significantly different from an unmodified game. Like Jahiera his most commonly used HLAs were Critical Strike and Hardiness.

Sarevok ? Everyone knows what a monster this guy is. In most ToB games I?ve played he is the first or second best in kill stats, but he barely earned those honors this time. He was nearly even with Jahiera and Minsc. HLA wise I used Greater Whirlwind the most with him since that maximizes the odds of one of his Deathbringer Assaults. Refinements changes seemed fine here too.

Aerie ? I don?t really use Aerie well. It?s just too hard keeping up with all her spells and Imoen?s and the PC?s. So the poor elf had the worst stats of ToB. Though she did make major contributions in several battles. I was just a tad frustrated by her HLAs. As a muticlass spellcaster it takes her a long while to get 7th level cleric slots and even longer for 9th level mage slots. I chose Scribe Scrolls first but after that was pretty much winging it. Cleric/Mages could really use another non-spell HLA or two. I almost never actually used Scribe Scrolls either. I tried it just for fun a time or two but it seemed just ?meh? to me. I don?t think that it would hurt to let this HLA be picked multiple times.

Imoen ? I like Swash Imoen. I really like Swash Imoen. I had Imoen using buckler and the Firetooth Dagger (specialized) much of the game. That gave her the party?s second best AC and a potent ranged attack to boot. This change were very noticeable in the Underdark but became less so as the game progressed and Imoen relied more on her spells. I ended up skipping out on Time Stop for the most part with her too, currently she has 3 Dragon?s Breath spells and 1 IA memorized. On the rare occasions when Laedon has flubbed his Aura Cleansing for one reason or another Imoen had really been able to throw it down. I really like the fact that she has access to Dragon?s Breath and my sorcerer does not. It does help balance things out. Overall the HLAs looked good for her as a pure Mage too. One thing that I didn?t like was the color changes. Blegh!

Balthazar ? Not really a party member (not yet anyway), but I finally tried the Refinements Balthazar battle one time last night. It was hard to tell exactly what changed but one thing I noticed was that in the past Balthazar seemed to target my PC moreso than other party members. This was always a problem given his Quivering Palm and other stuff. Last night though he just seemed to melee with whomever was nearest. That made thing *much* easier. On the positive side he did manage to disrupt my sorcerer?s attempts to activate Aura Cleansing *twice* via that fireball thing he does. I didn?t get it off until a third try (lol broken Wish combo) and even the massive Lower Magic Resistance / Horrid Wilting / Chain Lighting / other damage didn?t kill him though it got him to ?Near Death? and Jahiera was able to finish him off. Overall this battle could use some additional improvements IMHO.

I haven?t been able to test a lot of the other changes. No elemental princes. No Sword Angle. Etc.

One thing that I want to hammer home is that 9th level spells suck for the most part. They are either cheesy (Chain Contingency, Time Stop, Shapechange, and Wish), not useful (Time Stop in major ToB fights and most of the others all the time). Only Spellstrike really seems both useful and balanced to me. Making the Sorcerer HLAs innates really highlighted this in game. I just can?t get over how much these spells blow.

I want to close with a repetition that the Sorcerer is still largely broken with Refinements 1.3. It?s not any one thing. By themselves Aura Cleansing, Spellcasting Speed Increase, Wish, and the Robe of Vecna aren?t really that bad. Powerful yes ... and maybe even a little cheesey in the case of wish but overall not that bad. It?s only when you put all 4 of them together that madness ensues. Even 3 of the 4 at one time are a bit over the top. Take away the Robe and you still have the issue of major spell bangs followed by multiple Wishes and a rinse and repeat.

One quick and dirty suggestion I have for ?fixing? this is to make Wish a Mage only deal. Either make it a HLA, part of the True Dweomer package, or just make it an unscribeable scroll. Just do something so that Sorcerer?s aren?t getting 5+ of them in one sitting.

How about some sort of Improved Sanctuary ability for C/T types?  It shouldn't be vulnerable to true seeing or, if possible, the theifly Detect Illusions ... or simply have it work like Project Image except that there would be no image.

Hmm.  I wonder if Jahiera's nose was ment to look like it had been broken in the orginal?

Anway I like your fixed shot much better!