72 replies to this topic

[Baltrek]

For what it's worth, not being a tester, but from an old DM's point of view.

I think the Robe of Vecna is an artifact level item, and should not be available from a store. You don't get Carsomyr from the Adventurer's Mart, do you? And I would say the Robe is more powerful than even Carsomyr. I would have designed it with some sort of drawback. But anyway...

From what I gather, the problem is stacking increased casting speed. For a mage, I do not think there should be any increase available at all, from skill or item. Mages learn their magic as a formula, a specific combination of words, components, and gestures, that produce a desired result. How does this get sped up by an item?

For sorcerers, it makes complete sense. But sorcerers should be limited some other way. I think it is a problem with the balance of the class as a whole, rather than a balance problem with an item or skill. I find only having 5 level 9 spells to choose from not very limiting at all. I can use scrolls to augment. While on the other hand, with a mage, I don't use very many scrolls at all. I beleive AC should only be selectable once. That would alleviate some of the problem I think. Another choice would be to make Timestop unavailable for Sorcs? Possibly make Timestop a Mage HLA? While not very in keeping with AD&D rules, making Timestop a mage HLA would certainly alleviate a huge part of the problem.

As a DM, I would never allow a player to be in a Timestop+IA or AC position. I would not let those spells work in conjunction like that in a million years.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Caedwyr, Aura Cleansing?s speed is both it?s strongest and weakest points.

Used to it?s full potential by itself it can let you dump a lot more spells than a sequencer and a bit less than a Timestop + IA. That?s pretty potent for an innate.

Aura Cleansing?s speed lets your Sorcerer toss out a bunch of spells *without* forcing you to go the Timestop route. In other words *at the same time* your Sorcerer is unloading mass death your warriors can be whirlwinding, your thieves can be backstabbing, your bards can be singing, and your clerics can be doing their thing.

I can just ?hear? you say next, ?But Rath, you can do that with IA too!? And that argument is true to an extent. IA does speed things up, but not as much as AC does. Pretty much everyone who uses IA does so within a Timestop for a reason. It?s the only way to take full advantage of IA. You have to have time with IA to get all those spells off. AC seems to go a lot faster for me. You *don?t* need Timestop to get a bunch of AC spells off.

That?s the positive application of the speed. In my mind that alone makes it better than IA in some respects.

In addition to not being able to move and it?s other limitations that same speed is Aura Cleansing?s biggest weak point too.

You can use IA very effectively without pause on spell cast, but it?s much more difficult for a human player to do the same with AC. AC?s duration is so short that it?s hard to point and click fast enough to really use it well. In other words that speed makes it harder ability to use.

I *like* Aura Cleansing. I suspect that folks are going to argue about whether it or IA is better for some time, and that?s a good thing. IMO it?s an indicator of balance.

And on that issue of balance I want to look at two things that influenced my feelings on AC.

First I thought about what is happening with IA. Since only Mages will get it now they have to actually use spell slots as opposed to the way Sorcerer?s cast. That means that every IA and possibly Timestop to go with it means fewer other 9th and 10th level spells available. It?s unlikely that a high level mage will spend more than 2 slots on IA. In many cases they will use only 1 I?m willing to bet. IMO that?s a balancing factor in itself to limit the number of times a Sorcerer should be able to use Aura Cleansing in turn.

Now, if in V2, TG idea of True Dweomers gets implemented and IA doesn?t use 9th level spell slots & could potentially get used 4 times a day then it might in turn be time to take another look at raising the number of times Aura Cleansing can get picked. But as is limiting Sorcerers to 1 AC pick seems pretty reasonable to me.

I feel pretty similar about the whole Robe of Vecna issue. It?s an established item. It?s powerful and maybe even unbalancing, but that?s true of a lot more than just it?s effect on Aura Cleansing. Overall I see the item as less abusive than say Celestial Fury, the Holy Avenger, the Shield of Balduran, or the Cloak of Mirroring.

Item balancing is a whole different subject ... and, in my humble opinion, one that should be addressed at another time. Again maybe in version XXX when the crew actually doing all the work on this killer mod gets around to rebalancing items the Robe of Vecna can be addressed, but not now. I would vote to balance Aura Cleansing and other HLAs against it as is for now.

[Schatten]

"I think the Robe of Vecna is an artifact level item, and should not be available from a store. You don't get Carsomyr from the Adventurer's Mart, do you? And I would say the Robe is more powerful than even Carsomyr. I would have designed it with some sort of drawback. But anyway..."

this can be true. but its just your opinion. i can come up with 1000 possibilities why it can be on any store/black market/ect...


"From what I gather, the problem is stacking increased casting speed. For a mage, I do not think there should be any increase available at all, from skill or item. Mages learn their magic as a formula, a specific combination of words, components, and gestures, that produce a desired result. How does this get sped up by an item?"

you move faster, the casting time is for you is lowered by magical means yadda yadda... its fantasy and no real world. so physic rules dont matter.



"Another choice would be to make Timestop unavailable for Sorcs? Possibly make Timestop a Mage HLA? While not very in keeping with AD&D rules, making Timestop a mage HLA would certainly alleviate a huge part of the problem."

now, stop it, would you? this is an essential spell. if you dont use it, dont use it but dont force it on me.


"Now, if in V2, TG idea of True Dweomers gets implemented and IA doesn?t use 9th level spell slots & could potentially get used 4 times a day then it might in turn be time to take another look at raising the number of times Aura Cleansing can get picked. But as is limiting Sorcerers to 1 AC pick seems pretty reasonable to me."

not everybody uses the high lvl items on one sorcerer. not a good argument, imo. i splitt the loot euqally because everybody does his part and get the share. imo 3 times is good. if you give one meleer all the stuff then you must limit his ww, too.



"Item balancing is a whole different subject ... and, in my humble opinion, one that should be addressed at another time. Again maybe in version XXX when the crew gets around to rebalancing items the Robe of Vecna can be addressed, but not now. I would vote to balance Aura Cleansing and other HLAs against it as is for now."

sorry, orig items should mainly be untouched. none of them is unbalanced, imo. cloak of mirror? target other chars. shild of balduran? target others. its more of a ai question than items. and seriously, if you use the shild dont complain. i never have used those things.

[Baltrek]

Dang, no need to be that defensive. BG2 is as Mony Haul as a campaign could possibly get. I think I will try to play a game with an item saturation you would see in a normal AD&D campaign and see how they fare, as an experiment. The selling of powerful items as prolifically as done in BG2 is dumb. I, too, could think of a reason a very few items would end up on the black market. Think about this though. What kind of person would have owned the Robe of Vecna? Likely someone powerful enough to not have it pickpocketed or stolen. He would only have been able to be killed by a character high enough in level, they would have kept it for themselves. And if you say they found it while adventuring, maybe "stumbling on its corpse", whatever killed the person wearing it, would love for a thief who would sell it at the adventurer's mart to stumble along. The biggest problem is the level at which you can get these things. The cleric stronghold is undoubtedly the most difficult without the shield for sure. Even the ring of Gaxx is easy to get with the Ring of the Ram, a single good weapon, and a single protection from undead scroll...I think that Carsomyr is the only powerful item, besides Cromwell's, that represents a good balance of quest = reward. I would also bet that the people tht split up the powerful (gimme at that) mage items, are few and far between. The fact is, characters become so powerful in BG2, they get placed in extremely stupid role playing situations to weaken them. How many archmages are running around in ToB? Every one you fight can cast Time Stop. How many liches are running around Amn? Dime a dozen. I mean, you find one in the spellhold dungeon, with no story line, no real stronghold, nothing. Just hanging out. I think the game could have done without three quarters of the items that are in it, without a doubt.

Now for the flip side, how many do you find if you role play? Well, you miss out on maybe a third. And about half of Cromwell's items. Any big and powerful ones? Not really. Just mosey on over to the adventurer's mart and the copper coronet and find better garbage than you get from almost any quest reward or monster treasure in the game. It is pretty easy to get a lot of gold in this game.

And am I sayin that a 30 level mage should not have a Robe of Vecna? Not at all. But it definitely should take great pain, suffering, and questing to get, not bopping around selling longswords and leather till you can buy it from the black market at level 10. Same with all that other garbage. Could I beleive you could buy a +1 Dagger, absolutely.

[Schatten]

pwned.

true what you say.
powerfull items are in pnp because players want them and dont want to whack enemies with a stone with a lvl 30 char. same for bg2. sure you can beat the game with low level crap, its possible. drawback is its no fun (for me).
you tell me you beat kangaxx this way? (the tougher one and without cheese like ring of ram and simulacrums)

on a side note: you cannot compare pnp (or your pnp group playing style) with bg2. as one example the time frame is whole different. bg is far far compressed. you can become lvl 20 in a very short time and thus resulting in fighting rare monsters to the left and right.
sure you become very powerfull (godlike) and thats what i think is fun. and to have some good fights you have to place some powerfull foes there. (i, too, think that the two liches (spellhold, temple ruins) are stupidly placed, same for the modded dragons in the wood).

p.s.: whats mony haul?

[Caedwyr]

Earlier in this thread, a limit of 3 times for AC was mentioned. I would be happy with this limit and not complain any more.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

Just to be clear in all this discussion.

I would like to limit it to 1 selection.

I will not complain about if 2 or 3 is decided on, but personally I think that 3 is too many.

[Caedwyr]

Would you be wiling to compromise and be happy with 2? Only one selection doesn't give the player any chance to screw up at all. Any movement and the ability is wasted.

[Rathwellin the Bard]

A valid point.

To answer your question ... yes. In that context 2 would make sense.

[Baltrek]

Monty Haul originally was an old british game show. It was adapted by AD&D players back in the day to describe campaigns where characters have packs and carts full of loot, and every powerful item in the game. Like "Hey, all the orcs drop Rings of Wizardy and Holy Avengers out of their Bags of Holding", as in jackpot prizes on a game show.

I got decidedly off topic on my posts, and apologize.

The easiest way to cheese Kangaxx is to buy the Sword of the Mask, and cast a prot. undead on a single character, placing everyone else in the bottom corner. Ring of the ram him into the top corner, then whack with the short sword until dead. Wisconsin sized cheese, and can be done about three hours into the game if you pickpocket the ring of the ram.

The whole compressed tim of the game always tripped me out. I think the only one that reflects his level is Keldorn.

I know that you cannot compare BG2 to PnP. I have always struggled wih that. But, all things aside, I play BG2 because I was a dedicated gamer back in the day, and while I do not play AD&D anymore (Damn WoTC), I do develop PnP RPGs, and have found BG2 to be a wonderful adaptation of a great PnP game. while I liked the simplicity and balance of the BG, you just have more freedom and a richer environment in BG2. I think that yes, it is different than its PnP base, but the flavor was successfully retained, and that, is what I do not want to see ruined.

I cheese the lich in spellhold every time, because he does not even fit in, or deserve to be there.

It sounds like 1 or 2 selections of AC would suffice. Of course after thinking about it, I only remember one battle where I normally used TS-IA, and that was the big demon battle in watchers keep. I never really needed to use it any other time. I much prefer to Globe of Blades, Blade Barrier, Shield of Archons, then pick up the crom and wade on in in the off times I play a male PC, but usually play a thief, druidess, or sorceress.

[Littiz]

One pick.
We wanted to tone down sorcs in the first place, it seems we're risking to do the opposite...

[T.G.Maestro]

After reading through all the arguments, I would vote for 1 pick too.

[Schatten]

After reading through all the arguments, I would vote for 1 pick too.

what about a schatten install option with 3 picks?

[T.G.Maestro]

Well of course, your majesty!
Anything else? Girls, refreshment?

[Schatten]

hey, i AM a tgm fanboi and president of 'we love littiz' so you could do that.
btw, never noticed? i am stalking you.

[T.G.Maestro]

btw, never noticed? i am stalking you

L O L.
Hush now, lets get back to the topic, which is the Aura Cleansing ability.

[Kish]

You'd need to use Auto-Pause on Spell Cast to get the full benefit of Improved Alacrity, too. What's the problem? If you're not setting it, that means you're choosing to have BG2 function as a real-time game wrt casting spells--so of course if you speed up your character's spellcasting ability beyond what the player can deal with, some of the speed increase will go to waste.

[Kish]

So Holy Smite is a bad idea then? It's not much good if you have an all-evil party, after all.