37 replies to this topic

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Good to know that you're only nerfing the itamz

Plus removing duplicate items. (At least where the description suggests that the item is unique)

I was thinking that weapons should be allowed to have up to +3 enchantment in BG1, and armor up to AC: 0 (in tune with already existing vanilla items). Some of the mods do indeed add some encounters that surpass vanilla BG1 in difficulty, thus I see no problem in adding a few more +3 weapons (as far as I remember only Drizzt's scimitars were that heavily enchanted in vanilla BG1 [in addition to the cursed sword]). Though these should be unique (no generic +3 weapons) and not too easily obtainable.

[Mike1072]

I am currently playing BWP "tactics" : SCS/SCSII/Hard Time and few others mods did remove a lot of magical item (in particular, every +1 weapon becomes "fine weapons") so that the first magical weapon I have found was a +3 staff !!! How funny
Few ideas could be (BG1 part) :

• Every +3/+4/+5 weapons becomes +2 weapons,
• Every +2 weapons becomes +1 weapons,
• Every +1 weapons becomes fines weapons,

If you're talking purely about non-unique weapons, I'm not sure that this would have much impact in terms of game balance, though it might be helpful for "realism" or gold-gathering restrictions. Even in BG1, you can generally find a unique vanilla weapon that's better than all normal ones of its type, so nerfing the non-unique ones won't have much impact on the player. If you're talking about unique items, it's possible that some may have enchantments exceeding reasonable limits for where they are found (especially if there are +4/+5 ones in BG1), but that's something you'd probably want to check on an individual basis, item by item.

As far as fine or masterwork weapons go, I don't install those components myself because of their current implementation. The absurdity of "there's too many +1 weapons around!" is comparable to the absurdity of "there isn't a single +1 weapon on the face of Faerûn... but there are plenty enough +2 and +3 weapons...). A jump from +0 to +2 (or +3) is jarring as you noted. Ideally, I'd like to write a version of the component that replaces perhaps half of the +1 weapons with masterwork versions, and leaves the rest alone, so as to find some sort of potentially sane middle ground, but it's not high on my priority list.

[Fouinto]

As far as fine or masterwork weapons go, I don't install those components myself because of their current implementation. The absurdity of "there's too many +1 weapons around!" is comparable to the absurdity of "there isn't a single +1 weapon on the face of Faerûn... but there are plenty enough +2 and +3 weapons...). A jump from +0 to +2 (or +3) is jarring as you noted. Ideally, I'd like to write a version of the component that replaces perhaps half of the +1 weapons with masterwork versions, and leaves the rest alone, so as to find some sort of potentially sane middle ground, but it's not high on my priority list.

I think you're right, that's why I have proposed to tone down every weapons But your solution seems also good to me
I also think that few +3 unique weapon is something interesting.

Edited by Fouinto, 02 January 2010 - 09:23 AM.

[10th]

@OneEyedPhoenix
Weapons of the BGT-part:

+5 Weapons in BG1:
Defender +5 (Drizzt)

+4 Weapons in BG1:
Flame Tongue +4, Warhammer +1/+4 vs Giantkin

+3 Weapons in BG1:
Martial Staff +3, Frostbrand +3 (Drizzt), Kiel's Morning Star, Cursed Sword of berserking +3, Xan's Moonblade +3, Sling +3, Cursed Spear Backbiter +3, Staff of striking +3 (charges), Bastard Sword +1/+3 vs shapeshifters, Short Sword of backstabbing +3, Two-handed Sword +3 'The world's edge', Heavy Crossbow of accuracy +5

10th

[Lollorian]

Defender +5 (Drizzt)
Frostbrand +3 (Drizzt)

They should be left alone for lore reasons And anyway, its not like they're lying around for the picking ... oh wait ... they are So increase Drizzt's pickpocket resistance (or somesuch )

Cursed Sword of berserking +3

It's cursed ... nuff said. I say leave it ...

Bastard Sword +1/+3 vs shapeshifters

Looking at where you get it, it should be left too

Just IMHO ofc

Cheers,
Lol

Edited by Lollorian, 02 January 2010 - 09:48 AM.

[10th]

@Lollorian
Any changes to these items will affect BG2 as well, therefore it's not recommended to change them at all. This post of mine was just a list of highly enchanted items you can find in a game without any additional mods.

10th

[Jarno Mikkola]

@OneEyedPhoenix
Weapons of the BGT-part:

+5 Weapons in BG1:
Defender +5 (Drizzt)

+4 Weapons in BG1:
Flame Tongue +4, Warhammer +1/+4 vs Giantkin

+3 Weapons in BG1:
Martial Staff +3, Frostbrand +3 (Drizzt), Kiel's Morning Star, Cursed Sword of berserking +3, Xan's Moonblade +3, Sling +3, Cursed Spear Backbiter +3, Staff of striking +3 (charges), Bastard Sword +1/+3 vs shapeshifters, Short Sword of backstabbing +3, Two-handed Sword +3 'The world's edge', Heavy Crossbow of accuracy +5

10th

I hope you know that those are all vanilla items, and that you propose that they should all be left alone, well, expect the 'Heavy Crossbow of accuracy +5', but does one even ever get that, or the 'The world's edge'... now, this is more about the balance of the mod added weapons...

Any changes to these items will affect BG2 as well, therefore it's not recommended to change them at all. This post of mine was just a list of highly enchanted items you can find in a game without any additional mods.

And thus you should say, that:

We can find these weapons in the plain old BGTotSC, and they shouldn't be changed.

PS: The Flame Tongue is a +1 weapon, the enhancement makes it up to +4. As do the Giantkin Warhammer and Bastard Sword vs shapeshifters. And by the way, the Drizzt's sword is only +3 weapon, the +2 to AC is just addition to the +3 enchantment.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 02 January 2010 - 12:09 PM.

[10th]

@Jarno Mikkola
My post was more or less a reply to that:

(as far as I remember only Drizzt's scimitars were that heavily enchanted in vanilla BG1 [in addition to the cursed sword]).

Of course I know that all those are vanilla game items and should never under any circumstances be changed. You can find the heavy crossbow +5 by killing Aldeth and then his brother in Central Baldur's Gate. The two-handed sword +3 'The world's edge' can be found on the corpse of the king in the Durlags Tower version of live action battle chess.

And Flame Tongue may only provide +1 to to hit and damage but it its nonetheless a +4 weapon.

10th

Edited by 10th, 02 January 2010 - 10:37 AM.

[Solaufein]

So far I see game alterations. If you plan on doing it to someone else's mod you might want to ask if its ok to alter their mods files first.

[OneEyedPhoenix]

@OneEyedPhoenix
Weapons of the BGT-part:

+5 Weapons in BG1:
Defender +5 (Drizzt)

+4 Weapons in BG1:
Flame Tongue +4, Warhammer +1/+4 vs Giantkin

+3 Weapons in BG1:
Martial Staff +3, Frostbrand +3 (Drizzt), Kiel's Morning Star, Cursed Sword of berserking +3, Xan's Moonblade +3, Sling +3, Cursed Spear Backbiter +3, Staff of striking +3 (charges), Bastard Sword +1/+3 vs shapeshifters, Short Sword of backstabbing +3, Two-handed Sword +3 'The world's edge', Heavy Crossbow of accuracy +5

Thanks again 10th.

So far I see game alterations. If you plan on doing it to someone else's mod you might want to ask if its ok to alter their mods files first.

As stated elsewhere this is a mod to balance other mods. Source mods will not be touched.

I also agree that the "masterwork" and "fine" weapons mods could be better, though I thought there were way too many magical items in BG1 without them.

Edited by OneEyedPhoenix, 02 January 2010 - 12:19 PM.

[Solaufein]

And what mods are being "modded" or balanced?

[Fouinto]

So far I see game alterations. If you plan on doing it to someone else's mod you might want to ask if its ok to alter their mods files first.

I understand that it would be better to ask the modders, however, If I have understood this project (but I may be wrong), the aim is not to balance mods, but to balance BWP (imho, with the same spirit as BWFixPack) !

[10th]

@OneEyedPhoenix
As I stated above, this is vanilla game equiqment and should be left alone. This list should only illustrate how many highly enchanted weapons accessible by the player are already in BG1.

@Solaufein
Up to now OneEyedPhoenix and mm75 only aim to balance DSotSC and NTotSC.

10th

Edited by 10th, 02 January 2010 - 12:36 PM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Oh, I hadn't realised that those spells were from Exnem's Vault. Still, I rather like some of the spells listed, and would love to keep them, albeit a little more nerfed than they are now.As for low-level BG2 attack spells like fireball etc. they are mostly useless after BG1. Sure, one can instead reserve all low-level spell-slots for mirror-image, stoneskin, protection from fire etc., and use high-level spells like dragon's breath and horrid wilting to wipe out opponents, but there are only a few spell-slots at the higher levels for those spells so that mages have to repeatedly rest before each major encounter to replenish their spells(which, IMO, I find unrealistic and constitutes cheating). I'm sure I could get away with not resting in an unmodded game, but in a BWP game with SCS2 AI, enhanced monsters, it's not an option.

Well, the mirror image's area 'effect spell resistance' has already been taken away in Spell Revision, so now it's only none area hits the mirror images protect against, so the fireball does always hit mirror imaged creature.

And if you don't wish to sleep eternity just to get some spells back, I would suggest that you'll ask me to give you the v5 beta2 of the iiSSAM mod... now the spells only return to their own level, and you'll have much more to optimize...
Spell Regain Timer= timer1 + timer2*timer3*('spell level'-1), instead of just timer1. Yeah, just a little ad there.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 03 January 2010 - 05:17 AM.

[Lollorian]

... the v5 beta2 of the iiSSAM mod ...

A beta2?? ... ahem ... and yeah, itz gooooood <zombie voice>Try it! Try it! Try it!!

Cheers,
Lol

[OneEyedPhoenix]

Anybody know an efficient way of listing all the changes a mod does to the game?
I have been typing out this information by hand reading from the mods tp2, baf ,itm and spl files.
This, needless to say, is a timeconsuming and tiresome way of doing it, but lacking a better way I don't see how this can be avoided.
If anybody could suggest a better way of doing I would be very grateful and it would definitely speed up the project a lot.