POLL: What to do with Robe of Vecna?

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Amen to that. I gave a quick 'once over' of the items list and was put off that player had to pay substantially in item/gold to "upgrade" Carsomyr just to get it to do what its description says it does (i.e. plus 5/6, dispel on hit, +50MR, maybe a bonus against CE 1d6?). Heck, in my games the Holy Avenger already works as advertised, so I hesitate to add a mod that effectively 'nerfs' one of the premiere weapons in the game. I know there's a lot more to Anvil than that, but why voluntarily install a mod that'll nerf a fine Paladin weapon that been around (buggy or fixed) since day 1? Even if I'm not a pally and don't have Keldorn or the Japanese jailbait chick, perhaps I'll decide to use a HL thief as PC, or Jan.

At least with the Gaxx upgrade in Anvil, a player can decide whether the economics of freeing up a ring slot is worth the slight improvement of Gaxx at the cost of a serious amount of resources, or to just keep the original Ring of Gaxx with all its benefits and save the gold/components.

Just goes to show how oddball the RPG/PCG can be, why, just the other day I read an extended debate - that ran for pages - regarding assigning alignment to various heroes or ne'er do wells. There's no shortage of strongly held opinions.

I've been really enjoying a handful of great mods my last few runs of BGII, so maybe when my current list plays itself out I revisit IA as a substitute mod. But I'd really like to thank everyone involved for all the hard work put into the Tactics- Ascension-Questpack- Unfinished Bus- Oversight -G3Anniversary- Upgraded Items- Banter- BG2Tweaks mods I've used on and off the past couple of years. Fantastic work.

 

IA doesn't nerf Carsomyr. The Improved Carsomyr is WAY more powerful than the original one.

The sword doesn't work as advertised in the original game. IA not only fixes its bugs but also adds to its power once you upgrade the sword.

And of course, it is needless to add that IA is not a mere item-upgrade mod. It is a game enhancing mod with so many different features.

 

Hi Sikret, perhaps I missed something, was it changed to a 2d12 or something? IIRC from the readme, the upgrade to Holy Avenger makes a 2HSW that dispels on hit, does extra 1d6 to CE enemy, adds 50% to Magic Resist when equipped, and adds a couple of dispels to ability slots.

It's quite likely that I missed something, then, so what did I miss - in what way is it more powerful than the 'vanilla' description.

Oh, btw, I'd already be at least partway through your mod if it was offered a la carte, which is the bottom-line reason why I haven't installed/played it yet.

 

The Improved Holy avenger has 15% chance (per hit) to successfully dispel all types of protective abilities (even those which are not normally affected by remove magic). In other words, the Improved Carsomyr has 15% chance to cast "Spell Strike" + "Ruby Ray" + "Breach" + "Remove Magic" on the enemy per successful hit.

The original Carsomyr wouldn't even cast its pathetic Remove Magic successfully all the times. Now, the dispelling effect is WAY more effective. The only thing is that it has 15% chance to be activated per hit, because having it on every hit would make the sword overpowered.

The alleged additional +5 damage against CE enemies never worked in the original game. It works with the Improved version of the sword. And yes, the damage is also increased to d12 +5 (not 2d12).

As for your last remark, I have already explained repeatedly why IA cannot be divided into separate components at installation stage.

Cheers

 

Hey, that's cool.

I was just explaining why I haven't given it a try yet, not because of fussiness over a weapon or 2, but the one-size-fits-all approach; not a criticism, just my reason.

As for Carsomyr, I didn't say it worked in the original game, simply that it works just great in the game I play (i.e. with some basic mods, no total conversions or anything), and I would't want to have to pay big to get it to work as described in the vanilla game when I already have that now.

"DISPEL EFFECTS" - I see it in the information box for every hit by Keldorn (or, for the four days I kept her before slipping out while she was paying for drinks, Saerilith). It works, although I cannot recall what patch or mod fixed it in its "+5" state. Perhaps the Weimer Item Upgrade (though that doesn't sound right)?

So my original observation stands: in the I.Anvil mod, a player pays a substantial amount to improve Holy Avenger into a nerfed Carsomyr - one that's a pale imitation of its original glory, no more powerful than it's vanilla description (in fact, the upgrade makes it 85% less effective).

As for the part you describe about dispelling conditions beyond the ability of dispel magic (which even strips Stoneskins in my world), I'm intrigued, please tell me more! Otherwise you might want to consider that my characterization may not be flattering but it was very much accurate.

Anyway, not everyone will care about such mundane details, but my original respone was mainly to agree with Fel's point (apologies to whatever member I dissed if it wasn't Felinoid). Hey, I'm just another player who's posted maybe 5 times now, so take my comments for the little that they're worth.

I agree it's overpowered, but arguably balance is restored by being stuck in a single-class in a game where multi and dual classes reign supreme. The pally gets the fighter HLA, and the Summon Deva as an ability icon and carso, that's it.

SoM is also "overpowered", and I'd argue CFury most of all (or Crom Fyr, if you're not of the mind that Righteous Magic makes its main selling point redundant). A no save "slow" by FoA with a hit is possibly the most overpowered item. Remove or change those 4 items and it may still be lot's of fun - but it's not a game of BGII.

 

This is not true.

Several protective abilities are not dispellable even by a corrected remove magic (done by any mod). Improved Carsomyr in IA has 15% chance to dispel everything (even those which are not dispellable by remove magic). Remove magic doesn't dispel everything the combination of "spell strike" + "Ruby Ray" + "Breach" can dispel. Hence, the Improved Sword is not a nerfed version of the original one (even after being fixed by a mod). It is actually WAY more powerful.

 

I'm extremely curious and interested as to what those might be. I'm always looking to improve my knowledge of the game, and nothing comes to mind, even the Lich immunity to spells lvl 1-5 doesn't protect against dispel, only SI:Abj protects from dispel as far as I can recall at the moment.


On a tangentially related subject, oddly enough, I avoid ugrading FoA to a +4 in TOB because instead of seing the slow effect with almost every hit I noticed markedly fewer "slows" when it dropped to the 1/3 chance of slow w/no save with the upgrade to +4. [assuming, of course, that I'm using FoA as one of my team's primary weapons.]

So, in my world, upgrading the FoA to +4 is a form of nerfing the original without a commensurate return in the form of damage or elemental benefit - sure, poison is nice, but very few creatures were already immune to all three of the fire/cold/electric elemental damage so the disrupt-spellcasting effect isn't substantially improved by the addition of poison to the mix. Otherwise, the upgrade to +4 adds only +2 damage to the min and max dam (+1 poison, +1 enchanted flail damage), at the cost of 2/3 chance to slow target with no save. The real improvement comes with the +5 that doubles each element's damage to +2.

Also, few creatures have the 'immune to all but +4 or better', so FOA +3 to FOA +4 is an example of an upgrade I wouldn't make. Same with your description of the "more powerful" Carsomyr (compared to what I now have), it's an upgrade I'd never voluntarily undertake and certainly not something I'd want to pay for.

So when I'm ready to play the I.Anvil mod, I'll have to seriously re-think my team, and whether I even want a Paladin (my fave, the Inquisitor), along for the journey -the dispel spell is too clunky, but the true seeings are nice, and with carso as an upgrade only dispelling around 1 hit out of 7, etc. etc.

[ October 24, 2006, 22:22: Message edited by: Tuttle ]

 

Improved Holy Avenger has 15% chance per hit to dispel the following protections altogether, while the original Carsomyr (even after fixing its remove magic) cannot dispel them at all:

Shield of the Archons
Minor Spell Deflection
Minor Globe of Invulnerability
Spell Immunity: Any school
Minor Spell Turning
Spell Shield
Globe of Invulnerability
Spell Deflection
Spell Turning
Spell Trap

 

@Sikret

Thanks for the information, interesting.

I'm also impressed by how well you support your mod.

 

You are welcome.

I'll be glad to offer information and/or technical support whenever I can be of any help.

You may also want to visit the mod's forum where players constantly send their suggestions and requests for the next version of the mod.

 

Ok, based on the votes of the majority of players in this forum, I made the following changes to Robe of Vecna in my local version of IA (the forthcoming v4.0):

1- The robe is tweaked to grant less casting time bonus (2 instead of 4) but to grant better AC (2 instead of 5).

2- The robe has been removed from the shop. A very tough mage wears it now, but I won't say who and where.

3- The robe cannot be added to the game by cheating (neither through SK nor CluaConsole). Hence, the only way to have it is to find and defeat the mage who has the robe.

Question about a new option:

Do you want me to give the robe to a powerful mage who is randomly picked from a list of powerful mages in the game? In this way, each time you play Improved Anvil, you won't be sure where to look for the robe. In every new game, the robe may be with a different mage. What do you think?

 

Random mage would be good (meaning you would have to go and kill every spellcaster in the game... NICE!) but I don't get why you actually increased the AC???
It's not like the Robe wasn't powerful enough (what's the point in wearing an Archmagi robe anymore? Or being MC or Dual and wearing the Elvish chainmail that enables spellcasting).

 

I'm in favour of randomising it- the biggest problem with me getting through games of BGII is that I know where everything is, so changing stuff arounds gets a thumbs up from me.

As a similar idea, would it be feasible to have a list of powerful mages and a list of powerful mage items? You could then randomly allocate one of the items to each mage each new game. Just a thought- I'm no modder so I don't know if this is practical (I don't even know if it would be a popular idea).

On a side note: may I ask why the Robe cannot be cheated into the game? To me, it just seems an odd thing to actually bother doing.

 

Randomness ideas is cool beyond words, can you do it? It is very unique in BG2 type games though.

 

Agree the randomizing this is a great idea. Something that is probably worth exploring with other items as well.

I'm also in favor of reducing the bonus to casting time--I think this should make that robe "great," but not cheesily great. However, 2 ac seems a tad extreme. I mean, it's a robe. This AC rivals some of the better armors in the game... and would probably still allow a ring/amulet/cloak of protection to boot? There aren't even bracers of armor in the game that give this level of AC.

I could maybe see boosting the AC to 4.... perhaps.... to 3, but 2 just seems too good in my humble opinion.

 

How about a timed ability on the robe?

"Once per day the casting time of all spells is reduced by x for 5 rounds."

"Once per day the casting time of all spells of all characters is reduced by y for 1 round."

Or

"The lower your hp the higher the spellcasting bonus."

..ok that doesn't really fit here much but it would be neat when stoneskin acually changes only the skincolor and not all colors... kinda boring those all grey casters :7.

mmh sth else.. I am also kinda annoyed to whenever one of my guys dies I have to reequip all his stuff, is it possible to make all items "undropable/unchangeable/permanent" during fights? It would also make the game harder no helmet/ram-ring/shield switching in battle..

[ October 28, 2006, 20:42: Message edited by: Exor ]

 

Thanks for the inputs, everyone!

As for AC bonus:

I remember than any time I was playing the game with this robe, its AC bonus had looked rather pointless to me, because by that time I already had bracers of AC3. So I thought to myself: "Now that we are nerfing the robe's casting time modifier bonus, let's at least give more sense to its AC bonus."

As for randomization:

@Silverstar:
Yes, it is doable.

@Marceror:
Which other items in the game you think that may be worth cosnidering for this randmization program?

@Decados:

Well, it's a bit complicated and hard to explain. Existence of two robes of Vecna in the game may mess the Global variables and may cause serious problems. A cheater may cheat more than one Robe of Vecna to the game and then come to send false bug reports to forums without admitting that he has cheated. Then many hours of my time will be wasted to check whether the report is a genuine bug or just a result of cheating. As a second reason, Robe of Vecna is an ingredient for item upgrade. Now having two robes may lead to two upgraded robe which will mess things even further. My experience has shown that cheaters are not honest and usually deny that they have cheated. Hence, I may be faced with situations where I won't be sure whether the report is worth considering or just a cheater's babble. A third reason is to prevent triggering quests and adventures prematurely. A similar problem existed with "Judgement Day" sword and I also made it uncheatable to prevent starting a quest which is not supposed to start till late in TOB. A player may cheat the required item into the game and then appear with spoilers about the quest. Even worse, when the item is cheated into the game without doing the other quests which were needed to be completed, the final quest may start without all of the other Global variables being set to the right numbers. This can of course be fixed in different ways. I can add codes to check all the needed variables in addition to the existence of the item before the final quest starts (though it is much redundant work just to keep a cheater's game bugfree). But one other way is to make the item uncheatable altogether. Given all the previous reasons, I decided to make some items uncheatable.

 

Alright, I see what you mean now. If a cheater mucks up their game with bugs, I have no problems. However, if it ends up causing you hours of wasted effort then fair enough.

@Exor: I wouldn't agree with either idea, to be honest.

1) I'm against durations as they seem too short, especially considering the status of the Robe (if they were increased to a length that would make me use 'em others would say they are overpowered). Besides, I rarely can be bothered to use abilties with short durations in the middle of a fight- having it that way would put me off installing.

2) But then you'd never cast Vampiric Touch as it would make your subsequent spells slower! IMO, having a reason not to use the spell would be a bad thing as it doesn't see all that much use ATM- remember it is up against Skull Trap and Slow.

 

There are several potential items that might be cool for this. A few that come to mind are Carsomyr, Gloves of Dex 18, ingredients for Crom Faeyr, etc. Pretty much, the items that a typical party is not going to want to miss in the game.

By doing this with several key items I think that some of the "ho hum, go here to get that item" is removed from the game, and there is a new element of freshness added for longtime veterans who know where basically everything is in the game. Not anymore you don't. So just do the quests that you enjoy or that make sense for how you're playing the game. And if you don't find what you're looking for, well, those items are out there somewhere. How determined are you to find them?

 

I like this idea but it shouldn't be taken too far... For instance Celestial Fury could be relocated in the Underdark, but if in the end this is just an incentive for the PC to go on a killing spree it may not be that good.
What would be the determining factor for choosing which character should be the recipient of these items? Characters the party is going to face anyway (Firkraag, Torgal, ...).