Why are IWD2 armors "junk"?

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Druids are already considered underpowered compared to clerics. You are going to make them even worse by barring them access to most medium and heavy armors?

 

Crucis, I've explained repeatedly why the IWD2 armors are poor: They give less AC than an easily-built naked character with a couple of long-lasting low level spells.

The armors I gave as examples came directly from the 3.0 DMG, which the deisgners *should* have read. If their game cannot model them easily, that is not my fault.

I agree that the claw attacks on armor would be junk in IWD2. Just a minor ability, swap it with something like fire res 10/-.

My point with mithral shirt is that by the rules it costs almost *nothing* and yet is better than nearly every armor in IWD2.

Yes, moving the Khuldahar armors to (much) earlier in the game would help. You'd also want to make better armors for Khuldahar.

This "feature" has been well-debated. I think the official answer is that as you gain levels you are supposed to gain spells and items that boost AC or otherwise help you avoid damage. The 3.x rules even include wealth-by-level guidelines. So the 1st level fighter is going to have mundane chain mail, and the 20th level fighter is going to have +5 mithral armor with additional abilities, plus lots of other powerful magic items. The problem is that for every spell or item that increases defense, there's at least one that increases attack, and meanwhile BAB has gone from +1 to +20.

However, if you're trying to improve IWD2, I wouldn't attempt to tackle this issue. I also wouldn't go with the Dispel-everything "solution". Just put in better magic armors. By "better" I definitely mean "more AC" and "more max Dex bonus", though including extras like damage reduction, SR, crit immunity, *high* (20+) elemental resistances, etc, would be fine.

Oh, re Mokona's post: focus on balancing for normal.

 

JT, thanks for the good reply.

Which sounds like a good replacement. Slightly OT, I've always wondered why the designers included such incredibly minimal resistances on the various items that happen to have resistances. 2 or 3 points of a resistance have always seemed to me to be barely worth the effort. OTOH, 10 points of resistance is enough to make someone sit up and take notice.

Given that I don't really have a background in PnP DND, I don't really understand wny a mithral shirt is so cheap, but I agree that it does seem like a good, cheap item that's an improvement on so many of the available armors. And it's cheap enough to be in Targos.

Yes, replacing the "moved" armors with other ones kind of goes without saying. In a very real sense, part of the reason for moving the current armors earlier in the game is also to make room for better armors. The only alternative would be to upgrade the current armors and put new mid-level armors earlier in the game. Either way, the result ends up pretty much the same.


Concerning my thoughts on the nature of offense vs defense in 3e, I doubt very, very much that I'd try to play around with that, even though I disagree with its implementation. It'd be too messy to screw with and trying to find the right balance would probably either be raw guesswork or too time consuming.

Adding AC is pretty much the easiest thing that can be done. But playing with MDB is a different animal altogether. MDB, ACP, ASF are all hard-coded and tied to the armor type (i.e. full plate, half-plate, chain, hide, studded, or leather). So, increasing an armor's MDB significantly usually means switching it from heavy to medium or from medium to light armor. Oh, sure, it's possible to make a minor tweak within an armor type, i.e. making a chain with hide armor's stats, while still remaining a "medium" armor, but larger changes require switching armor types, which in turn means that other classes might be able to wear these armors when perhaps they shouldn't.

I suppose as long as such type upgrades are relatively rare, the concern about what it means for other classes being able to wear said armors it kept to a minimum.

I'm not really worrying about HOF, per se. OTOH, most (though not all) of the new items, weapons and armor, I've been creating have had normal and HOF versions.

 

The D&D rules also (unlike 2E) makes each successive attack at -5 to the max BAB. so a level 13 fighter will make the first attack at +13, and the seccond attack at +8. This means that high armor DOES benefit from beeing hit less, as only the first and perhaps the seccond attack (for high levels) is "guaranteed" to hit. That is how they have balanced out the difference between armor and hit bonuses in D&D. Also it removes the "über defence characters" like high AC problems where you can only hit things on a natural 20 in both P&P and CRPG.

In short, i dont think a "added AC bonus per level" would be a good idea, that would probablly just end up with even more armorless high dex characters with monk etc.

regarding the topic, I apollogice, I am not experienced enough a powergamer to explain why armors arent this and that. As a normal player i can only say that i can not remember any armor that actually "impressed" me save the leight weight full plate (that just might be a problem in itself though).

 

@Crucis
Hey! You got a mod which adds armors to IWD2? That's a good news! Where can I download it...! Or is it still in progress?

 

Lionheart, it's an in-progress mod. And frankly, I've spent much more time creating weapons than armor. But I will be shifting my item creation efforts to include more armors.

 

Crucis, I like your armour ideas - and I agree totally with Druid metal limitations (although this goes out the window as soon as a Druid wields a Halberd, or spends a feat in a "metal" weapon proficiency). Perhaps, to keep Mokona=Modoki happy, you should invest a bit of time creating a few Druid only armours. After all, they can wear Hide armour...

As for hide armour, I want to be a bit picky. In reality Black Dragon Scale and Beetle Plate are wrong. They should be considered Hide armour, which means the Dragon Scale should be 2 AC lower (lower MDB), while Beetle Plates should be higher.
And furthering this, there are a number of 1/2 or 1/4 weight heavy armours out there (including the Beetle Plates). Surely, if an armour weighs less (assuming that limb movement is not restrictive in such armours, which would make the whole idea of 2-weapon fighting or using the Weapon Finesse feat seem unrealistic), then surely the MDB should increase?
e.g. +1 MDB for 1/2 weight and +2 for 1/4 weight.

Damage reduction on armours would be nice, like is done in BG2 (not sure but they've done this for Icewind Gate 2), i.e. Chainmail has a small Bludgeoning resistance, but no Piercing resistance. It just goes further from my "realism" idea with armour weights.

Anyway, Mokona=Modoki, you forgot a few things like could further increase your example character's AC:
1) 1 Rogue level + Swing From the Masts,
2) Helm's Watch,
3) Adding cleric levels (11), you could give Divine Shell, instead of Ghost Armor.
This would bring the AC to 66.
If you add 11 cleric levels to 11 wizard levels, you are more likely to be in HoF mode, so could wear the Sunfire Talisman and Crow's Nest, for a total AC of 70.
Such ACs are only required for HoF mode though.

But this character seems to be a defensive tank (Deep Gnome and Expertise) - what about the damaging tanks? Due to few front line tanks having 11 wizard levels in normal mode, which also contribute to low BAB and hit points, the AC will not be as high.
Also assuming you have 2 tanks, one high AC (the Deep Gnome) and a high damage output tank - this character will not be wearing either the Brazen Bands and Flame Dance Talisman. An AC of 43 is still pretty damn good though...

 

@Crucis,
Nice idea and nice work! Just don't forget to annouce the release of your mod...

 

Yep, a new mod for IWD2 will be welcome indeed! I agree that most armors are just not very useful in the game, if one wants to achieve uber AC decoys, very bizzarre, almost freakish DG characters with monk/wizard/rogue/Helm levels can do it!

 

Vis-a-vis druids and metal weapons, it could end up really being painful for druids if all metal weapons were no longer usable by druids. However, in the 3.5e Player's Handbook, there is no limitation against metal weapons listed for druids, so I don't think that we really need to worry about this.


Well, I was already intending to include Umber Hulk Plate and Ankheg plate in the game, as well as plenty of other leather and hide armors.

Why should they be considered as Hide armor? Just because they're made from the "hide" of a creature? I'm not sure that that's a proper interpretation. I can easily see the justification of making really heavy, stiff plate-like "hide" into what should be more properly called "plate armor".

I tend to think that the classification of the armor relative to the specific "hide" should be made as a function of what armor type that "hide" most closely resembles when made into an armor.
That is, if one creature's hide is incredibly light and supple, maybe leather is the proper classification. OTOH, if the hide is tough as nails, stiff as steel, bulky, and heavy, then maybe some sort of plate is more appropriate.

This is a very fair question and one that I've been pondering, particularly/initially in terms of that Beetle Plate.

In the simplest of terms, should a set of Plate Armor (or Full Plate) that wieghs only 10-15 lbs still be considered "heavy armor"?

On a related note, Rock, it is not possible to directly modify MDB. All that can be done is change the armor type among the choices of Full Plate, Half-Plate, Chain, Hide, Studded, and Leather, and accept the MDB, ACP, and ASP's that are associated with each one.

This is what was done with the +2 Mithral Plate that you get near the end of the game. It gives +10 AC, but has an MDB of +2. And why is that? Because the Mithral Plate is classified as chain mail, thus the +2 MDB and a type of "medium armor".

There are some other armors in the game that have taken this route to associate overall "lightness" of the armor with the armor type that's different than stated. (i.e. plate mail that's called chain mail, or chain that's called a robe) And yet, the designers did not, for some reason, do this for the Beetle armors.

I have seriously considered classifying the Beetle Armors as "medium armor" and chain mail, specifically, which would give them a MDB of +2. Any thoughts on making the Beetle Armors medium armors? Or this general concept in general?

Actually, it's not so much that 2e rules game small and differing "resistances" to different armor types. What they did have was slightly differing AC modifiers to different damage types.

Either way, it's a real pain to implement because to the best of my knowledge, you cannot add special abilities to items thru the WeiDU code, only by individually editing each item using an item editting tool, like DLTCEP. Which, in turn, makes such a wide reaching change incompatible with other mods that include armors.

It's one thing to add some resistances to armors on an individual basis. But to do it as a general rule makes a mod incompatible with other potential mods and probably not a great idea. (Oh, it's not such a bad thing in the EoU mod, cuz it's optional.)


Lionheart says.....

Thanks, and be very patient. It's only me, myself, and I working on this little endeavor.

 

Yes, that is really what I meant by increasing MDB. Setting a 1/2 Half Plate Armour as Full Plate (offset 0x1c in the itm file) would give the +1 MDB. You would just decrease the AC bonus by 1, so the ACs match.

Also, what I have noticed from item descriptions is that most armour types have a 5% ASF when made magical.

I've noticed this while making my spell mod - I've had to just replace the spells. The best example is Bull's Strength. It did have 30 spell abilities - 1 for each level. This was for each Duration field in the extended effect blocks. However, Cat's Grace just had the 1 (despite the fact both should do exactly the same thing, except with a different stat).
Adding spells like Bear's Endurance (1d4+1 CON), Fox's Cunning (1d4+1 INT) and Owl's Wisdom (1d4+1 WIS) meant all 6 level 2 stat boosting spells had to work exactly the same way, with the same durations.
So I had to remake Bull's Strength, with just 1 spell ability, because I don't know what the Duration field inside the extended effect blocks do for Simplified Duration spells.

As you stated, this kind of work cannot be done in WeiDu (your quote should read "add or delete special abilities"!)

 

Da Rock, what tool do you use to edit spells and items? I use DLTCEP and have never had any problems doing what I was trying to get done.

There are times when I use Near Infinity for viewing and searching. It's particularly good when I'm trying to find where a given item has been placed in the game (in what area, store, or creature). But for the most part, DLTCEP is my editting tool of choice for items and spells and effects.


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EDIT.....


Ladies and Germs, here are a couple of armors that I created today that I thought I post for your perusal.

and

My first thoughts are to add Whisper to the armor merchant in the Underdark and Khevlahr's Tunic to Conlan's Smithy in Kuldahar.

Comments? Questions? Criticisms? Praise?


Frankly, I could toss together a variety of generic armors, but that wouldn't show any originality or have any flavor. I'm trying to create armors that are somewhat original and will hopefully add some flavor to the mod. I'm not trying to go overboard.

BTW, when I was investigating various armors in the game, I stumbled across a number of the armors that IIRC are sold be the underdark armor merchant and when comparing them to my chart of base armor types and stats, it seems that they are underpowered and almost ridiculously so. The general level of enchantment of the weapons sold by the other merchants in the immediate are is +3. Yet, the armor merchant's armors seemed to be no better than +1, often +0 armor enchantment bonuses for their armor type. I was definitely taken aback. I'm talking about armors like Aasimar's Aura, Air Genasai's Plate, and the Pit Fiend's Plate. Armors with decent enough special effects, but seemingly no enchantment armor bonuses. Effectively, +0 armors. Weird.

I'm undecided about what to do about these armors. I'm tempted to "fix" them to have enchantment armor bonuses that seem more in keeping with their general location within the game. I suppose that I could just move most of them up to Targos or so and replace them with new armors, but that would be a lot more work than just tweaking them to be "better". Any thoughts on this?

[ January 31, 2007, 05:34: Message edited by: crucis ]

 

I like Khevlahr's Tunic (nice play on words). You might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevlar if you really wanted an accurate "play on words" armour, i.e. resistance to heat (fire) and cutting (slashing), but buckles under pressure (bludgeoning).

Are you lazy, or do you want your mod to be the best? The answer to this should help you about moving the armours from the Underdark to Targos or not.
(I personally think more is better in games like this - it gives more choice and therefore a higher replay value. Just adding the EoU component for Bastard Swords made me use them for the first time. I don't now because they were vastly overpowered.)

Anyway, as to answer your question, I generally use NI and tweak with DLTCEP. I created an area for IWD2 (Dark Hollow, a village in the Vast - the other side of Faerun! It has no occupants, but at least the dithering behind objects and the doors work) in DLTCEP and kept forgetting to save, before closing the window (so I kept losing my updated data). So my experience with DLTCEP so far has been annoyance, simply due to my own forgetfulness. This kind of problem doesn't happen in NI, so that is why I generally stick to that.
And the only problems I have are limited to the engine (some spells just cannot be implemented).

 

Now, I know you're not ragging on me , but I'm not exactly sure how to take this (the 2nd sentence in particular).

Part of the problem is that I find it difficult to force creativity when it comes to coming up with original (or at least semi-original) concepts for new items. Usually, my original ideas just pop into my head after looking a number of things. In the case of Khevlahr's Tunic, I was over at the GameBanshee site that has a search engine for D&D Online items looking for inspiration and I came across the "Ironweave Tunic" and "Ironweave Robe". And I was bouncing the idea of "ironweave" around in my mind for a while and Kevlar popped out. I actually first made a kevlar cloak, but decided to make it a set of armor.

I noticed in that wikipedia article that kevlar bulletproof vests aren't necessarily resistant to arrows, among other things. Frankly, if I stuck with that, the entire concept of Khevlahr's Tunic would be quite questionable. But I'd rather not dump this "arrow-proof" tunic. I think that I'll just stick with it as is, thinking of it as being "inspired" by kevlar, rather than actually "being" kevlar. This otherworldly material will "merely" be something semi-magical, created by someone who somehow heard about the concept of a bulletproof vest and a "mystical" material called kevlar.


Back to the underdark armor merchant's underpowered armors...

For the most part, I tend to think that these heavy armors are acceptably interesting and have decent enough special abilities, but are only seriously lacking in AC that is appropriate to their location in the game. Is it "lazy" to want to keep them in place and merely upgrade them to proper levels? Keep in mind that I've upgraded (or, sometimes, downgraded) other items in my work thus far. I'm not trying to be "lazy" as much as I'm trying to be efficient with my time and efforts. And keeping these otherwise decent armors in place let's me focus my efforts elsewhere.

Keep the comments coming!

 

Sorry to disapoint, but there is no damage reduction in BG2 or any of the other games. the bonuses you mention are "AC bonuses", meaning that chainmail with a normal AC of 5, gains -2 AC bonus to blunt weapons and +2 AC bonus to slashing weapons. Also, just for your information in the case of AD&D 2E armor classes, that means the chainmail is better against slashing and WORSE against blunt (Since they never can deside when to use + or - in 2E, messy stuff...)


Regarding the armors like Air genasi armor and fiends plate. They are interesting armors, that would be fun to actually use in their "full glory" so it could be worthwhile to "upgrade" them and just put them back. You might want to scatter them alittle about, and add some new armors to the same places just for variety, but it definitivelly would be fun to use those armors as they where some of the more characteristical armors in the game.

 

Fair enough - I've not played BG2 for years, except through Icewind Gate 2 - which DID set Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing resistances on top of the AC boost.

Yes, I wasn't meant to be insulting or anything - just silly. It is obvious time constraints can always be a factor, and as mods grow, the time seems to draw out into a neverending vortex in the far distance.
Anyway, I sort of gave my opinion after my quote - but it is purely up to you how you want it. I wouldn't complain either way with the final results - simply because there is someone else out these (including Domi_Ash) who ISN'T modding BG2!

 

Scattering them about is an interesting option, of course.

One of the problems I'm having right now is actually finding all of the "named" armors within the game files. The "search" capabilities of DLTCEP and Near Infinity have been rather inconsistent. DLTCEP simply does not work when trying to search for items in ARE files, and is extremely inconsistent when searching in STO files. OTOH, NI sometimes works, but sometimes not.

I'm trying to fine all of the "named" armors because I want to know where they are within the game. If I'm going to upgrade them in place, I want to know where they are so that I can upgrade them to an appropriate level.

OTOH, if I were going to scatter them, I suppose that I could simply upgrade them to whereever I intended to place them and refill their RTHF dummy items with other items. That said, unless I know where those items were in the first place, it would be difficult to replace the original named armors with appropriately leveled other items for their location within the game.

I don't suppose that there's another tool out there that does searches (for item locations) more consistently and accurately?

 

This may help:

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/dl.php?s=IWD2&f=IWD2/IWD2-ItemList.zip

It lists all the items - and in most cases, where they are found.

 

Thanks, Rock. I've downloaded it and will check it out.

 

I need some opinions....


Is there really any point to Splint and/or Banded armor, beyond being cheaper than half-plate and full plate?

Unlike other armors in the medium and light types where each armor seems to have a different mix of MDB, ACP, and ASP, Splint and Banded merely seem to be cheap knock-offs of Half and Full Plate, since splint and half-plate have all the same stats other than AC, cost, and wt. and banded and full plate have the same stats, except for AC, cost, and wt.


I ask because I'm working on and trying to conceptually create new armors for my mod, and I'm having a hard time understanding why any armor maker would want to put the effort into making a set of inferior splint or banded when half-plate or full-plate is just as mobile as its inferior counterpart, but will end up being more protective for the same level of enchantment.

A case can easily be made for all of the light and medium armors, since each seems to have a different MDB that will end up suiting characters with different levels of DEX.

Opinions?