21 replies to this topic

[Vandervecken]

Hi all,
So I'm making my way through ToB, all the way from the beginning with a Tactics Megamod, and I have discovered, some items that are so egregiously powerful that they really need to be looked at. I know that modders are always in charge of their own modding, but maybe if the community were to take a look at some of the truly OP items out there, something could be done, or at least pointed out.
In that spirit, I would like to share the items I have found that are just too much. Other people should add their own truly egregious items, and maybe we can make the game more fun. Here goes:

Robe of Mystra - An avoidable fight in Spellhold - Breudayael - Improved Asylum
Why: Immune to Timestop, L6 or lower spells, Imprisonment, +3 or lower weapons. Also, massive resists and +4 9th level spells. Make all other robes look like scraps of cloth. - R#ROBE2.ITM, from the Improved Asylum mod.

Robe of Dh'arlo'me - NToTSC or DSotSC.
A low level version of Robe of Mystra, though obtainable at around level 9. Int and Wis become 19, immune to spells of 3rd level or lower, instant casting speed, protection from nonmagical weapons, +4 to 1st, 2nd, 3rd level spells. - DSROBE03.ITM - from DSotSC

Plate of Camelot - Found 2 copies. AC -10 just by itself, +6 Dec, +6 Con. - XARM005.ITM - from Exnem's Items

Ring of Titanium - 2 copies:
-10 AC, +10 to saves, -10 THACO. - XRNG005.ITM - from Exnem's Items

Ring of Ultra-Wizardry - found early. +5 spells levels 6-9 - ULTRARNG.ITM - Alex Macintosh
Ring of Ultra-Holiness - found early. +5 spells levels 4-7 - HOLYRN.ITM - Alex Macintosh

Jade Cloak of the Dragon - found early. Regenerate 2hp/sec. Claims to
be for Monks only, but anyone can use it. Would be fine if it were Monks only. - JADECLK.ITM - Alex Macintosh

Helm of Quickness - 2 copies. Permanent Improved Haste, Intelligence set to 18. Makes warriors absolutely murderous. - NEWHE01.ITM - Region of Terror

Weapons doing weird damage:
Doom Bringer - 4d12 + 4 2-H sword. Strength set to 25. - XSWD002 - Exnem's Items
Katana of Unknown Origin - 3d12 damage, +1 attack per round - overwrites
SW1H75.ITM - Killing Wolf
Long Sword of Unknown Origin - same as Katana - overwrites SW1H74.ITM
Eye Crusher - 4d10 + 5 - XCLB002.ITM - Killing Wolf
Ultima - 3d9 + 5, 10 point bonus to THAC0, 20% chance of Elemental Rain while striking. - XSWD008.ITM - Exnem's Items

Scimitar of Thunder - Auto stuns anyone it hits for 1 round, no save - THUNDER.ITM - Alex Macintosh

Spell Scrolls:
Phoenix Down - Too easily found. Raise and heal all party members. 50%
chance to make the caster unconscious. Not memorizable thank god. - Exnem's Items

Too many potions of +1 stats - XPOT001.ITM, XPOT003-7.ITM - Exnem's Items

Too many items that make you immune to Timestop. A few is good, but I have found in my game so far:
Robe of Mystra
Necklace of Time Stability - S#AMUL01.ITM - Rolles
Heart of Braldain - Long Sword - R#BRALSW.ITM - Improved Asylum
The Reign of Virtue - Got from Sataraleth - DEITM116.ITM
Volcano Blade +6 - VOLCANO.ITM (not got this) - Improved Volcano Pack
Ring of the Mephit - RTT017.ITM - Return to Trademeet
Ring of Fate - CMGRIN02.ITM - Dark Ritual - Improved Harpers
Robe of Time Control - NEWRO03.ITM - Region of Terror

In summary:
Major offenders - Exnem's Items, Alex Macintosh
Medium offenders - Improved Asylum
Minor offenders - Killing Wolf, Region of Terror, DSotSC

[Arkenor]

That is kind of the point of Exnem's Items mod, I think. It's not one you want to be using in a balanced game. As the BiG World pdf says:

"This Mod contains 21 new spells and 88 new items plus edited monsters and areas.
The mod includes items from Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings and who knows what else, nevermind
the fact that they are overpowered beyond imbalanced and the fact that it also potentially overwrites
your random treasure table."

With a review like that I'm surprised it's even included in BiG World. Kind of like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu, and it telling you that their spaghetti bolognaise tastes horrible and is mostly made of poison.

The BP-Balancer has options for removing overpowered items from some of the larger content mods, which is useful. I also avoid any mod that has a description that emphasises adding items or merchants over actual story or quests. There are some exceptions, but they tend to be the most unbalancing ones.

Edited by Arkenor, 09 December 2009 - 06:39 PM.

[Lollorian]

So I'm making my way through ToB, all the way from the beginning with a Tactics Megamod ...

... Exnem's Items

Exnem's Vault got shifted to the Expert Install in BWP 8.2 (serves it right ... for the overwriting stuff atleast )

Everything could be nerf-ified by the BP-Balancer (if someone works on it )

With a review like that I'm surprised it's even included in BiG World. Kind of like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu, and it telling you that their spaghetti bolognaise tastes horrible and is mostly made of poison.

You have a way with sig posts my friend

Cheers,
Lol

[Vandervecken]

Good to know (the Expert thing).
Alex Macintosh could use the same treatment, as should Killing Wolf (which includes items in his store from Fallout).
And the guys who do RoT, Improved Asylum, and the maintainer of DSotSC should fix those few items, or have them balanced for them.

[Jarno Mikkola]

So I'm making my way through ToB, all the way from the beginning with a Tactics Megamod, and I have discovered, some items that are so egregiously powerful that they really need to be looked at. I know that modders are always in charge of their own modding, but maybe if the community were to take a look at some of the truly OP items out there, something could be done, or at least pointed out.

Robe of Dh'arlo'me - NToTSC or DSotSC.
A low level version of Robe of Mystra, though obtainable at around level 9. Int and Wis become 19, immune to spells of 3rd level or lower, instant casting speed, protection from nonmagical weapons, +4 to 1st, 2nd, 3rd level spells. - DSROBE03.ITM - from DSotSC

with BP-Balancer-v0.33b beta?

[Solaufein]

Is that Chosen of Mystra's DSotSC Robe of Dh'arlo'me? I thought we dumbed that down. Any how if you like a "balance" game, don't use the items, don't pick them up and don't sell them. Leave them where they lie and they'll be gone when you return to that area. Not all over kill items have all positives about them, some even have negatives added to them:

Ring of Fate
The Ring of Fate is immune to time and its effects there for it makes the wearer immune to Time Stop spells. For its benefit there are negatives to go along with it.

STATISTICS:

Immune to Time Stop
-20 hit points
-2 to dexterity

I would hardly call a ring that gives immunity to Timestop overkill considering that those muppet liches that cast it constantly on your party, plus Imprisonment. Now that is over the top.

[Vandervecken]

Firstly, no, it looks like that item is still there. I don't know if BP-Balancer was included. I installed BWP 7, using the tactics mod. With a very few exceptions (Saerileth for one) I didn't know enough about the various mods and the modding world to know what to include and what to remove for a balanced game.
Only in hindsight do I realize how unbalancing some items are, and the BWP should be set up in such a way that unless the Expert mod selection is taken, the game should be free of too many egregious items. Moving Exnem to the Expert category is an excellent idea, for example.

Secondly, the Timestop issue. I agree that the Ring of Fate isn't too bad. I'm finding though that -2 Dex, -20 HP isn't a big deal in the late game, and that the proliferation of anti-TimeStop items is the problem, not any one of them.

Thirdly, you are in a sense right that the constant Timestops are over the top. There are some wicked imbalances in some of the fighting scripts. The constant Chain Contingencies, Spell Triggers, and Sequencers can be all a bit much, especially when a creature naturally immune to non-magical weapons casts "Protection From Magical Weapons", and in many cases I've gone into a fight where the enemy for example pelt you with fireballs constantly. I died, reloaded and went in with Fire Resistance rings all around. Suddenly, there were no fireballs. How did they know?
Given that the fights can be so unreasonably hard, it's hard to fault someone for using any advantage they can get their hands on to win, only later to realize that it was just too much.

[dabus]

SCS (II). Detectable spells. Look in your weidu.log, it should be there.

[Miloch]

That is kind of the point of Exnem's Items mod, I think. It's not one you want to be using in a balanced game. As the BiG World pdf says:

"This Mod contains 21 new spells and 88 new items plus edited monsters and areas.
The mod includes items from Final Fantasy, Lord of the Rings and who knows what else, nevermind the fact that they are overpowered beyond imbalanced and the fact that it also potentially overwrites your random treasure table."

With a review like that I'm surprised it's even included in BiG World. Kind of like going into a restaurant, looking at the menu, and it telling you that their spaghetti bolognaise tastes horrible and is mostly made of poison.

Well, that was my point when I used those words originally to suggest it really shouldn't be in BWP at all. So they just quoted me verbatim and put that in the PDF, presumably to warn off potential users (though does anyone really read that whole PDF?) . Yes, it's "expert" but I don't think that deters too many folks either.

If you're not sure where something came from, even if it overwrote a vanilla item, a "weidu --change-log imbaitem.itm" should tell you where it came from (or use the change-log batch file provided with BWP).

[Lollorian]

Any how if you like a "balance" game, don't use the items, don't pick them up and don't sell them. Leave them where they lie and they'll be gone when you return to that area. Not all over kill items have all positives about them, some even have negatives added to them:

Hear hear!!!

Yes, it's "expert" but I don't think that deters too many folks either.

They should put up a warning that installing the expert version would mean no support from the BWP Team unless you fix bugs yourself (and yes, I am joking )

Cheers,
Lol

[Jarno Mikkola]

They should put up a warning that installing the expert version would mean no support from the BWP Team unless you fix bugs yourself (and yes, I am joking )

Well, the warning is that you'll run into errors that have not been fixed yet, so you'll have to fix them yourself. Clear enough? The items are just an example.

[Lollorian]

The items are just an example.

But you forget that the items are not errors

Cheers,
Lol

Edited by Lollorian, 10 December 2009 - 04:30 AM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

The items are just an example.

But you forget that the items are not errors

Depending on how you look at things, if you wish the game to only have items upto +5, a Ring of Protection +10 has an error by default... yes, I do get your point though. Still using the iiSSAM beta?

[Lollorian]

Still using the iiSSAM beta?

Yup, whaddya wish master?? (although I'm not actually playing the game right now because of reasons previously stated )

Cheers,
Lol

[Chevalier]

So they just quoted me verbatim and put that in the PDF, presumably to warn off potential users (though does anyone really read that whole PDF?) .

I have read the whole .PDF 2 or 3 times!

[Vandervecken]

SCS (II). Detectable spells. Look in your weidu.log, it should be there.

True, it's a separate component, but it's a required component for the whole SCS 2.
Mages being ready with spell protections I can believe, mages knowing what spells I am resistant to? Not so much.

Also, in BWP 7, Exnem and Alex Macintosh and Killing Wolf weren't in Expert. They should ALL be. Alex also has poorly made overpowered items, and Killing Wolf brings in stuff from Fallout.

[Calliea]

I have no idea what mod it was in - maybe someone will - but I found a terrible game-balance-shattering robes in my previous installation on BWP. I had tons of mods, it's been sometime ago so I can't truly tell you which ones exactly. Thing is, in BG2 part of the game, some mod added very much overpowered mage robes all over the game. Usually they were also completely undeserved - just laying in boxes there for you to take. I remember I somehow managed to leave them where I found them (though it did take some fun away...), but I picked up one in Spellhold (telling myself I deserved it lol). I think it was somewhere near the entrance to the first corridor on the north-west - that robe gave some crazy regeneration ability. My mage/warrior/thief main character just ran through entire Ust Natha (mind you I had installed every toughening tactics mod I could find) slaughtering everything that moved. For a moment, I let entire team enter one building there and they were dead in seconds (low level party, I was in a hurry to complete my party and I didn't know Ust Natha would be so tough now). The character with that robe was just unkillable. If anyone knew WHAT mod brings those many robes along with this regeneration one, I'd be happy to know what to avoid in the future

Thanks in advance and Merry Christmas!

[Miloch]

I have no idea what mod it was in - maybe someone will - but I found a terrible game-balance-shattering robes in my previous installation on BWP.

Kinda hard to say without at least an item name. DSotSC appears to add several powerful robes, but none like a "Robe of Regeneration" that I can see.

[psychlopes]

I think it is life pulse mantle from Exnem mod ( regeneration 3hp/sec....its a red robe) although Im sure the one in that area should be death tyrants skin ( purple robe) which doesnt give regeneration but more absurd immunities

[Hoppy]

A couple of those Exnem robes can cast those devastating spells through the items abilities too. To make the mod more balanced I would like to see it give those items to creatures and use those babies. That would maybe wipe out the whole party in Chapter 2