Status Report

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As some of you know, I've been working on a mod for a while now. I thought that I'd give you a status report.

I'm actually testing the mod right now. Even as detail-oriented as I am, there are still little bugs that creep in. It took me the better part of a day last weekend to squash all of the bugs in my WeiDU TP2 file and other various installation issues, but the mod now installs just fine.

I've had to squash a very small handful of bugs as I've been playing my test party. I'm up to the Ice Temple and Battle Squares.


Now, let me give you all an introduction to my mod...

It's named:

The Light of Selune (LOS, for short)


It's primary task is to introduce a LOT of new items, both in normal and HOF mods. But there are also as of this moment, 4 new merchants. 2 in Targos, one in the Wandering Village, and one in Kuldahar.

My personal favorite is the Kanno the Bowyer in the Wandering Village. He has a mini (very mini) quest for you, and will be very grateful if you do him this one favor.


The other new merchants are (Targos) Skalla Ironaxe, a very reputable dwarven merchant from Mirabar, (Targos) Govan Tremayne, a less than reputable merchant from Luskan, and (Kudahar) Wencit, a merchant of arcane items (but not scrolls).

Also, some of the existing merchants have had new items added to their inventories.

A number of existing items have been editted. Sometimes the "edit" has been an upgrade. Sometimes a "downgrade". A few bosses' weapons are a bit different than you remember them.

A note, while I'm thinking of it. I've done my level best to avoid creating a bunch of overpowered, unbalanced weapons. I downgraded a number of my own new creations when I decided that they were too good. And I've added in plenty of lower level weapons.

Also note that this is not a weapons only items mod. There are plenty of items of all types. There are LOTS and LOTS of new armors. And I dearly hope that they are GOOD new armors. I've also upgraded many of the original armors as well.


Now, before anyone thinks that this mod is only about new items and new merchants, that's not completely true. It's MOSTLY about new items and new merchants. But I've also included a number of other things...

1. Nastier traps. I won't give any details. If you don't think that they're nastier, try your old tricks and get back to me (when I release the mod, that is; I'm still checking their nastiness right now).

2. Some tweaks to the bard and ranger classes, largely along 3.5 ed lines.

The Ranger is now a 1d8 class and starts with only light armor prof, but has the "good" reflex save progression, not the standard "bad" warrior reflex save progression. Rangers (and Druids) now start with the Forester feat. Rangers now get 3 Skill points per level. Rangers now get the following spells: (L1) Charm Person or Animal, (L2) Barkskin, Cat's Grace, Spike Growth, and Bull's Strength.

Also, due to the difficulty of dealing with the official rules relative to 3.5 ed ranger weapon skill career paths (dual wielding vs archery), I simply opted to wuss out and give rangers +1 AB and +1 damage with missile weapons every 3rd level. (If you really like dual-wielding rangers, sorry, but there are no existing IE-IWD2 effects that can enhance off hand weapon skills.)

Bards now start with only the light armor prof but get the bow prof at creation. Bards now get 3 Skill points per level.


3. Speaking of dual-wielding... in 3.5 ed rules, you only need ONE feat to get the full benefit that IWD2 current requires TWO feats (Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Fighting) to achieve. THEREFORE, I gave every class Two Weapon Fighting at creation to effectively eliminate the feat. To get the full benefit for dual-wielding, you need only take Ambidex. I originally intended to reverse it and give Ambidex free, but in 3.5 rules, TWF has the prereq of 15 DEX, but not in IWD2. So I kept the feat (Ambidex) that had the big prerequisite.


4. Per the 3.5 rules, Druids cannot wear metal armor. However, there are plenty of non-metal armors to be found, so this shouldn't be too big an issue.


5. There are a number of new "light" finesse-able weapons. Some are truly new. And some existing weapons have been made "finesse-able", by merely making them "small blades". There aren't a lot of them, but a few good ones. And I went out of my way to make them not just be various sorts of off-hand parrying weapons. I wanted them to be true offensive weapons, not defensive weapons or weapons with great offhand effects, but not all that good on offense.


6. I kind of hate giving this little "spoiler", but I wouldn't want anyone playing my mod planning their pally X/ftr 4 to have 3 points in longsword and be really PO'd when they get their hands Cera Sumat... only to find that it's now a major league, kickass greatsword. I'm not going to give all the details, but let's just say that Cera-kickbutt Sumat is now not a sword for wussy Sorc X/Pal 2's. If you don't have a STR of 16 and a WIS of 12 (IIRC), you're not paladin enough now!!!

I hadn't intended on upgrading Cera Sumat. But due to some comments by the well-known modder Domi (who's currently working on an IWD2 NPC mod), I made a significant upgrade to the Holy Avenger. I decided that there were far, far too many of the semi-generic weapons in IWD2 that were actually much more powerful than the HA and for the HA to return to its proper glory, it needed a big boost.

So, BEWARE all evil creatures in the Dale!!! If you face the Holy Avenger in melee, the sacred wrath of Cera Sumat will smite your worthless evil arse faster than you can say "Yxonomei". (Well, maybe not *that* fast. But it is a considerably more deadly weapon now.)


And after I finish this version of LOS, I have other ideas for the next revision that I temporarily shelved so that I could finish a first version. An idea like a subplot that starts in Targos and continues on all the way to Kuldahar... and may relate to the very title of this mod.

I'm also hoping to replace Battle Squares as we know it and replace it with (only) ten battles, one for each rank. Ten battles where your entire party faces down a mob of those battle squares shadow monsters. And instead of winning a long known rank reward, there will be a semi-random new reward at each rank, culminating in a totally new, random grandprize.

But this won't be until the next version... However, I have created ALL of the new items for BSQ rewards.

(FYI, I actually considered merely replacing the current rewards with my new ones, but decided against it because I'm not so sure that anyone would have the patience to fight all 250 battles just to get the new rewards, and I didn't want to create a EoU-like version where you got all of the new rewards for free. So this will wait until the next version.)


Enough for now... Back to the testing...

 

sounds good, can't wait to try it. You've definately peaked my curiousity about the new (future) subplot...

 

I just love the "nastier traps" idea. Rogues are going to be useful at last!

I have doubts about the changes regarding classes and feats though... I guess the components are going to be optional?

In any case it's great to hear of a new mod for IWD2. Kudos for resisting the temptation to create new overpowered uber items!

 

The trick is making the traps nasty enough without making every trap "disable or die". Thus far, I'm not sure that they're nasty enough. (Heh, heh, heh. *evil chuckle*)

You have "doubts"? Don't leave me hanging. Express yourself. Let me know what you're thinking.

It hadn't been my intention to make them optional. I wasn't looking at this as being like Weimur's EoU mod where every little thing is optional.

Thanks. I tend to think that more than a few of the already existing semi-generic weapons feel a bit overpowered.

 

What I meant by "doubts" is that IWD2 is a rough version of 3E and it is not 3.5, that is to say it's not as accurate as NWN. I'm afraid that changing the classes would modify the game balance. It would no longer be the same system. Especially since the changes seem quite radical.

I don't mean to criticize in any way your mod before its release, I'm just stating that IMHO the changes you listed seem a bit extensive to me (points 2 and 3, especially the bit about skillpoints and Ranger hit points).

That being said I like the bit about druids wearing non-metal armours. Druids and Rangers getting the Forester feat makes sense. And I really like the idea of "balanced" items.

All in all I have some (minor) reservations but I'm willing to be convinced!

 

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Caradhras. I wasn't worried about you being critical as much as I wanted some feedback on what felt like a dangling comment.

Regarding 3.0 and 3.5, maybe I'm not a true DnD-er, but I'm not all that convinced that the two rulesets are all that different. After all, it's "3.5", not "4.0".

But on to the details...

Most of my changes outside of the new items/merchants are related to trying to improve the ranger class. I don't have a 3.0 PHB for comparison, but I've got to say that the Ranger class has always felt lacking. Not that I'm looking for it to be some sort of uberclass. Just good enough to be really interesting and worth taking.

And given the way that it is presented in IWD2's version of 3.0, the Ranger class doesn't really seem to know what to do with itself. What do I mean by that statement? Let me back up for a moment to use some loose terminology from a discussion I had on another board about Rangers, etc. One person described the Fighter class as class that is entirely focused on Feats. (I won't use the exact term he used.) OTOH, paladins are a class of holy warriors. And the way that this person looked at rangers is that they should be a warrior class that are focused on skills.

But for rangers to be focused, optimized on their class skills, they simply shouldn't bother wearing anything heavier than light armor. Oh, I suppose if you only care about Animal Empathy and Wilderness Lore, then you don't really need to worry about armor. But most people will probably look at rangers as being "light fighters" and scouts, who need to be wearing light armor to get the most out of their skills, not heavy plate wearing tanks.

The modifications that I've made in my mod to the ranger class are only to further optimize the class as a class of DEX-based, highly skilled, "light fighters", as described in the 3.5 rules. While hardly perfect, I feel that these changes give the Ranger class more flavor and make them a more focused class that actually "knows what it wants to be".


As for giving Rangers and Bards 3 SP/level, rather than 2, well, there are some people who tend to look at skill points as a waste from the get-go, so I hardly see that increasing it by 1/level as that big a change.

Another point, the ONLY change that I made, as described in my initial points 2 and 3, that is not in the 3.5 rules, is my giving the archery bonus to the ranger class. There is simply no way to properly give the proper feats that Rangers should have access to for their Dual Wielding or Archery combat "career" paths.

In 3.5, bards can wear light armor without any chance of a spell failure. I could have emulated this by giving bards all 3 points of Armored Arcana at creation, but I chose not to do so because I didn't want anyone sniping a level of bard to get this. I made the reduction to light armor, because that is the 3.5 standard, but also as a counter to giving them the Bow proficiency at creation, which is also the 3.5 standard.



As for point 3, effectively merging Ambidex and Two Weapon Fighting, by giving all characters TWF at creation, this is also effectively by the rules. Furthermore, it doesn't make TWF any "better". It only makes it only cost 1 feat to achieve what previously required 2 feats. Dual wielding is in effect not a tiny bit better than before. Only less painful to get.


If I wanted to go a little nuts, I'd make a change that Mindchild and I discussed in another thread about making Weapon Specialization into true Grandmastery. Right now, there are plenty of players who see taking anything about mere weapon proficiency feats as a waste. If I were to make a change that made weapon focus (2 points) give +1 AB and +2 damage (instead of only +1 AB), and weapon specialization give +2 AB and +4 damage (instead of only a total of +1 AB and +2 damage), this would emulate a compression of the weapon skill progression from 5 feat points into the 3 that are available. As for any potential for game imbalance, people are always commenting that at higher levels, magic rules, so I can hardly see giving fighters a bit more of a boost as screwing up balance when the mages are already nuking everything in sight.

I stuck with druids and non-metal armors, in spite of some negative comments by a few. But to be fair, I made an effort to make sure that there are plenty of non-metalic armors to be had in the mod. There are even a handful of non-metallic heavy armors. The beetle shell armor, for starters. But there's also some Ankheg Plate and a set of enhanced Umber Hulk Plate. ("Enhanced" as in not your base set of UH plate, but a +2 enchanted version.)

Druids and rangers getting the Forester feat at creation was straight from the PHB.

As far as "balanced" items, most of my new items are placed in stores and I tried to place items so that their costs were in keeping with the general level of other "official" items that could be purchased in the same store or a store in the same region.

I'd like to think that I've created some nice and interesting items at lower levels that people will like. But don't despair, if you like higher powered items later in the game. There are plenty of those as well.

And armors... I've made a concerted effort to improve the overall quality of armor in the game. Not only did I upgrade many of the official armors to be more in keeping with their relative location within the game, but I also added in a lot of new armors. In particular, I added a rather fair number of good light and medium armors, categories that were sadly lacking in the official game.

And I didn't forget shields either. While I didn't create all that many new shields, there are some that will hopefull be worth giving up that greatsword to use.


Ah well... Back to the testing and tweaking.

 

Seems like a good mod. Just some small thoughts:

On point 3 I thikt you should give ambidex instead. TWF is much better that makes the focused dual wielder (who has spent one feat) better than others at that. Ambidex don't do much difference since it only improves the weaker hand.

Druids should be able to use some druid-like spells (cat's grace and some similar).

Weapon finesse could be given as a free feat for all classes. Daggers don't really require strength.

Hopefully the traps won't become too nasty. I hate that you take full damage when you're trying to disarm a trap. Traps are ment to be effective only when the target don't know about them. Now my stupid rogue just stands right in the path of the arrow when he tries to disarm them...

I liked that the holy avenger was a longsword in this game. I think sword and shield fits a paladin better than greatswords. Shields are a great symbol of protection. Greatswords fits better for offensive evil paladins who don't care about protecting anything.

If possible it would be fun if you could allow evil paladins. Evil gods should also have their champions. Maybe for the next mod you could give the choice between holy avenger and an evil "unholy" alternative.

Other than that I really like what you've done. I'm really looking forward to playing a new play through with it.

 

i dont know how much work is going into some of this (heh, a great deal for the items at least) but you could offer certain feats that have reqs of either Dual Wield or Archery Feat (also new feats you could add) and give them a feat bonus for the levels that get bonuses to them for the corrosponding feats...

I dont know if this would make them more like fighters (with feat bonuses) but my take on the matter is that if someone wanted feats, they'd level fighters, if they wanted a ranger, they'd take ranger. So a bonus feat and feats that require one or another might work...

again dunno how much work was planned but...maybe? (unfortunately, for new feats, there are hard coded tests for the max feat #...of course, my dll conveniently changes those based on settings )

 

Cool. Let's go thru them...

I disagree. I analyzed this particular choice and decided that Ambidex was the far better feat to keep and require the player to take for dual wielding.

Let's compare...

Here are the AB numbers straight from the IWD2 manual for Dual wielding with niether feat, w/ just Ambidex, w/ just TWF, and w/ both feats. (I've left light weapons off the table below, so as to not confuse the issue.)

Code:

TWF penalties

Circumstance       Main Hand     Off Hand
Normal Penalties      -6            -10
TWF Feat only         -4            -8
Ambidex feat only     -6            -6
Both feats            -4            -4  

Furthermore, the Ambidex feat has a prereq of 15 DEX and the TWF feat has no prereq. But in the 3.5 PHB, the TWF feat, which covers both Ambidex and TWF, has the prereq of 15 DEX.

Giving the Ambidex feat free would effextively delete the 15 DEX prereq from dual wielding. And that seems wrong to me.

And yes, Ambidex helps "only" the off-hand, whereas TWF helps both hands. But as I look at the concept of dual wielding, the idea is to be able to fight equally well with BOTH hands, which is what Ambidex does.

I originally thought I'd keep TWF and give Ambidex free. But the more I analyzed it, the more I realized that the primary benefit would be in keeping the name "Two Weapon Fighting". The most in-game benefit comes from the Ambidex feat, as well as preserving the strong prerequisite.

I'll check to see if they get those spells in the 3.5 PHB and consider it. I was focusing more on improving the Ranger class, but am not averse to some other small tweaks.

I have done some work on adding some "new" spells, but intend to hold off on them for now. The current version of LOS is large enough already.

And by "new", I mean 3.5 spells that aren't in IWD2. Spells like Chaotic and Lawful versions of Holy Smite, Holy Word, and Holy Aura. 3 different spells to replace Animate Dead... Animate Dead I, Animate Dead II, and Animate Dead III, at levels 3, 6, and 9 IIRC), which at the highest levels, would re-include the really nasty undead monsters that were removed by official patch. And additional "Healing Circle" spells, at higher levels...

This is one that I'll avoid. WF still exists in the 3.5 PHB and I'd rather not screw with that.

I somewhat agree with your assessment about the overall concept, however. I tend to think that DEX is somewhat undervalued in the overall offensive equation. But that's a question for debate at another time.

Another debateable point. I suppose that it depends on the specific type of trap involved. Still, there's no way that I know of that would reduce trap damage for a someone trying to disarm said trap. About the best that could be done would be to make all trap attacks have the option of taking half damage on a Reflex Save, which of course, rogues would always have in abundance.

*sigh*

Can't please everybody.

Mudde, part of the "problem" is that IWD2's ruleset makes two handed weapons inherently more damaging than their one handed counterparts. Yes, shields are nice symbols of protection, but as I recall, the Holy Avenger isn't a shield. It's a weapon. And as a weapon, its ability to protect is based on its ability to smite its wielder's enemies. And, all in all, Cera Sumat is actually a rather weak weapon, offensively comared to sooooo many other higher level weapons in IWD2. As someone pointed out to me, Cera Sumat can hardly scratch Xvim later in the game and that seems so wrong. A Holy Avenger should be an ultimate weapon for fighting Evil.

Oh, you won't get any debate from me on this one. I believe that "paladins" should exist for every alignment. Heck, I believe that a true paladin should have the exact same alignment as his patron god.

Of course, I also think that "paladins" of different gods should have different abilities that strongly reflect their patron god. Paladins in their official version seem to reflect a god like Tyr. But a "paladin" of Mielikki might actually be a ranger-like character. OTOH, a "paladin" of Mask might be a really dangerous rogue/assassin-like character. And so on, and so on.

While it would be possible for anyone to remove the alignment limitation from paladins by merely editting the alignment 2DA file, I don't know if there are any hardcoded things in the game. Also, there are a few items in the game that might have alignment or "paladin" limitations that would need to be re-examined. For example, Cera Sumat is paladin-only on the assumption that paladin's are only LG. It might be necessary to add a true alignment restriction to the HA.

Mudde, this is a particularly interesting topic to me. And I'll give it some serious consideration for the next version of LoS. But for now, I'm going to try to keep my mod mostly as is, simply so that I can get it tested, any bugs squashed, and released as quickly as possible.

Thanks. It's interesting having new items to play with.


BTW, please note that I've used a fair number of new BAMs for many of my new items. Some old IWD1 bams, some BG2 bams, and some of both that I've editted a little. And a small number of outright new BAMs.

 

I should probably agree with you that TWF is better because of the prereq part. Still I think TWF is the feat that really makes your character able to dual wield. With that your main hand won't loose too much when fighting with 2 weapons.

Now I'm really looking forward to your second mod. I would really love having an evil paladin of bane wielding an "unholy avenger"...
But this first mod will get a playthrough when it comes out. I'll just finish my current playthrough and my "Tactics orge" playthrough and then I'll start planning a new party for your mod, probably with a ranger in it.

 

Mudde, I guess that it's a matter of perception. When I think of Dual Wielding, I'm thinking about how well you do with your off hand, not your main hand. With the TWF feat only, you still have a major AB penalty (-8) with the offhand. But the Ambidex feat lets you fight equally well with either hand, which is how I think proper dual wielding should be. Remember, you can dual wield without either feat. Having only the TWF feat only lets you dual wield a little less poorly, but the Ambidex lets you fight equally well with both hands. And both feats let you become reasonably proficient.

But to me, the thing that seals the deal is Ambidex's prerequisite. You shouldn't be able to get the full benefits of skilled dual wielding without meeting the prerequisite. And in 3.5ed, to take the TWF feat, you have to meet that 15 DEX prereq.


Regarding the "second" mod, I've been thinking of it more as the next revision of this mod, than an entirely new mod. Particularly since the heart of the second version will be some subplots. All the other things I've mentioned, like cleric domains, possible pally tweaks, etc. are just some nice additions.

However, it's going to be a little while yet, cuz I still need to get the initial version of LoS fully tested... and I'm only up to the Wandering Village/Fell Wood area right now. Had to squash a couple of minor bugs relating to the Bowyer merchant (two different bugs that caused the game to hang) and Carynara the dryad (forgot to include code to compile her updated dialog). And I had to re-install IWD2 so that I could get a fresh install to test from, again. (I hope that I don't have to do that too often.)


Ok, back to the grindstone...

 

I'm up to Kuldahar on my test run. Along the way, since the Wandering Village and the Bowyer, about the only bugs that I'd found were rather minor ones, like missing (forgot to include in the install) BAMs.

However, in Kuldahar, there was one of my new bows that happened to have a min STR of 14. OK, whatever, I think. My rogue has a STR of 14+, so no problem, which was indeed the case. But then I decided to check out if the min STR thing really worked so I had my 12 STR sorc try to equip it. And she did. WTF? So it seems like I've spent the last couple hours trying to figure out why the STR min wastn't working. I tried a LOT of different things. Examining the ITM file. Comparing it to the Massive Halberd of Hate, whose STR min DOES work ... examining the ITM file's hex code, looking at it in Near Infinity and DLTCEP. All with no effect. I was beginning to wonder if IWD2 was ignoring the ability minimums in the ITM files, so I check some basic items that I knew had STR minimums, like your average unchanted halberd (STR min of 13 listed in the ITM file). And voila! My 12 STR sorc could equip that halberd.

Now I'm really wondering if IWD2 is ignoring stat minimums or has something hardcoded. But for yucks, I did a search of all the 2da files for the Massive Halberd of Hate's ITM code and, wonder of wonders, it's in a file named ITEMABIL.2DA that just so happens to be a file listing some items that the engine will NOT ignore their ability minimums. So I test this file by editing my own version of it with my new bow and the unenchanted halberd (00halb01) appended to it... And it works. Now my 12 STR can't equip my new bow or the halberd. Wooo-hooo!!!!

I was beginning to wonder if all the hard work that I'd put into quite a few items with stat minimums was going to go to waste. Of course, now, I'm going to have to find all of my new items with various stat mins so I can patch the ITEMABIL.2DA file during the install.

Whew!

 

kudos on the bug. Ya know, a public beta wouldnt be sooo bad *hint hint*

MILDLY OFF TOPIC
hmm a new harcoded bug to fix...i wonder if that information is loaded from the itm file at all...if so, it shouldnt be too hard to find that little reference in the dll and make it read the reqs all the time...weird that it does that though...

edit: well that was easy, added itemabil bypass to my dll (check reqs on all items no matter what)

[ April 20, 2007, 07:24: Message edited by: MindChild ]

 

If you need a playtester, I volunteer. I am an avid Tutu player, but with Domi creating an interactive party mod for IWDII I have installed the game and glanced through with both NI and DLTCEP. (I want to be ready!). I am a 2E player, so likely to only run single classes and not optimize, but the advantage is I have never player the whole game - so if I don't realize it is modded content then you know it blends. (Plus, I can open the hood and send you info if you end up needing it). Either of you can contact me at G3 if you have a Beta you want run .

 

Crusis: Some feats (example Expertise) does not work if you do not have the correct stats requirement (Try give Expertise to a character without inteligence 13 or higher and that character will be unable to make use of the feat). Would this work for Ambidexterity ? If such is the case then actually giving them Ambidexterity for free would do no harm at all (and keep the names more "right).

 

I'm waiting for the release.
Heh heh heh...~~~

 

Raptor, I'd rather give TWF free and make the player qualify and earn Ambidex, than the reverse, where (assuming that Ambidex give for free would work) any PC could take TWF without any prereq. I'm more concerned with keeping the proper effect and the proper prerequisite than I am with keeping the proper name.


Cmorgan, I'm currently at the Yuan-ti Temple and I think that I'll finish this play thru on my own. But thanks for the offer.

However, since this will be my first official mod, I'm curious how much testing do serious modders think is required before releasing a mod. After I complete my first run thru the game with my test party, I'll give serious thought to releasing it. To be honest, I doubt that I'd have the patience to play thru the game more than once to test the same mod without any serious changes. What I'd like to do is get thru the game this one time checking out the items and then move on to Rev 2 of Light of Selune, where I can work on some of the stuff that I'd really, really like to have put in the first revision.


Right now, I'm not even sure that I'd call what I'm doing "beta" testing. I'm playing my way thru and stopping to fix problems along the way. I've had to stop for a short time to deal with some minor issues. (Darn BIS, there are 7 treasure containers in the Yuan-Ti treasury. One is called Treasury Table X, and the other 6 are called TreasurE Table X ... and I didn't notice this difference in my initial coding.) And I decided to move an item from a container to a CRE. And then I decided to give this same CRE a brand new weapon that I'm making right now.


BTW, on the topic of nastier traps, for the most part, they are a bit nastier, but I'm not so sure that they're as totally nasty as I had in mind. That said, I have to remember to actually take the hits from the traps. I have a pure rogue in my test party who is disabling most of the traps. I think that I need to have her walk over the floor blades ones, just to get a feel for their pain. I know that the various arrow traps are a bit nastier, but not as nasty as I'd like.

I have a second version of "nastier traps" in mind for Rev 2 of LOS. I already started coding it. And it will include HOF versions of some of the traps. Why you ask? Well, a 2d6 arrow trap in NM chapter 1 might be a little painful, but in HOF a 2d6 arrow trap is a mosquito bite. I'm going to try to make my HOF traps really hurt HOF characters. (Yes, it might be a bit tough on anyone trying to start a fresh new party in HOF, but I assume that if you get past the prologue with a level 1 party, you'll be relatively tough enough in HOF Chapter 1 to avoid getting chunked.)

 

Quoted Crusis:

I would disagree with this solution. A 9th level Ranger would be better with a Bow than a Fighter with weapon specialisation would be. Even with the archery choise in 3.5 edition there is no way a Ranger could ever be better than a Fighter at Archery. If anything, just give him rapid shot for free at 2nd level (preferablly). That is the same bonus he would normally get anyways. Alternativelly giving him +1 to hit and damage period (no better) would be an okie solution.

On the whole and large most changes you mentioned on Classes shuld be no problem, the extra skill points, hitdice modification, armor proficiencies etc are all in line with 3.5 book and will not make a large impact, its not like many people used rangers as pure frontliners anyways (even if this game is still just a bastardised 3.0).

Just a note about making Weapon Focus give +1 hit and +2 dmg, All classes have waepon focus available. Thus your seccond idea with focus giving +1 hit and specialisation giving the +1 hit and +4 damage might be a better idea in that regard. Or the difference between fighter and other classes would be very small again.

Quoted Mudde:

Disagreed, Weapon finesse is a feat for a reason, it is supposed to represent special training. Also against it simply becose it is not given to any class in PHB. It is already good enough as it is, since you can take it and let it aply to all light weapons as opposed to PHB where you pick specific weapon.

Quoted Mudde:

I would not mind, as long as you named them something else than Paladin! A "paladin" is supposed to be the Knight in shinning armor, the hero of all that is good and great etc. It would be nice with alternative "Divine champions", for example as Unearthed Arcana suggested (One for each: LG, CG, LE, CE, where the LG is standard Paladin of corse). I am not certain, but would it not be able to use the "kits" (aka orders in this game; Illmater, Helm etc) to make variations with different alignments ?

But really, it is not a big problem making up your own "divine champion" through various cleric multiclasses. Just by having a wisdom of 18 and a level of cleric gives you most of the saves you need, you still suck at Reflex, ad a level fo fighter for the combat part and you got a character easilly a match for a Paladin. Just more spells than special abilities.


Regarding Traps, the one thing that mainly anoys me with traps is that after playing the game two times, you remember where every trap is. I don't know how easy or difficult this would be, but would it be possible to actually double the amount of places traps could be found (or more) and just randomise them ? Would make trap finding (and triggering) much more fun though.

Edited to put in who I quoted, I never get the quote"nick" thingies right.

[ April 23, 2007, 01:29: Message edited by: raptor ]

 

Raptor, for starters, when you post quotes, please distinguish between my quotes and someone elses' quotes. For example, using the quote about giving Weapon Finesse free was not mine, but using it as you did, made it sound as if it was my idea, which is was not. Thanks...

I'd love to create a situation where a 9th level ranger was better than 9th level fighter with WSpec. But a mere one time only +1/+1 AB/Damage bonus won't come close to accomplishing this. I suppose that giving +1/+1 AB/Damage every 3rd level will slowly make rangers very good archers.


I have atrongly considered giving rangers a special archery ability, in leiu of new and non-existant feat. I inteded to call this special ability "Called Shot". (Unoriginal, I know.) Initially, I was going to give it at creation, but decided against that cuz I hate sniping classes for their 1st level abilities. My next thought was to give it at level 6, since my initial design for Called Shot was for it to improve every 5th level with the following progression, level 1, 6, 11, and so on. Starting it at level 6 would make this progression continue to work and require a solid commitment to the class to get it.

My Called Shot ability was intended to give a +1 AB, +2 damage per level of Called Shot (+1/+2 at L1; +2/+4 at L6; +3/+6 at L11; and so on) for only 2 rounds. But there was also a downside to the ability. You had to remain fairly immobile while using it. In game terms, your movement dropped to near zero and your Reflex save took a -4 penalty, IIRC. Also, I intended that the ability be only usable once a day initially, but gain "per day" uses every 5th or 10th level.

I decided against implementing it mostly because I tend to not use special abilities. I tend to just forget about them. So, I included the +1/+1 AB/damage bonus every 3rd level, instead, as a constant bonus that I wouldn't have to remember to use, rather than a nice special ability that my ranger could only benefit from when I remembered to use it.

Along these lines, I'd be very curious to hear what other people think about constant bonuses vs. special abilities that must be activated to use.

Thanks, and true. Rangers just aren't meant to be heavy (i.e. plate wearing) tanks. Wearing heavy armor wipes out just about all of the class's stealth skills. The Ranger class really comes into its own when it's played as a light fighter, wilderness scout, and, perhaps, archer.

I haven't done anything on this yet. The fact is that I'd have probably gone the route you describe as well, for the same reason.

Disagreed, Weapon finesse is a feat for a reason, it is supposed to represent special training. Also against it simply becose it is not given to any class in PHB. It is already good enough as it is, since you can take it and let it aply to all light weapons as opposed to PHB where you pick specific weapon.[/quote]

I agree, which is why I have no intention of giving Weapon Finesse free. Oh, I could make some arguments that certain classes should possibly get it as a free bonus feat at creation or level 2 or so. But that's only for argument's sake, not something I'm intending on doing.

Furthermore, I don't know how to give a Feat free after creation, except thru a some sort of script or dialog. (I do give a player to unknowingly gain a free lesser feat at some point in the game, as part of a reward for doing something. The feat I give is unlikely to be taken by most players, so it makes a nice reward feat that has little risk of duplication.)

Worry not, raptor. Creating non-LG "paladins" or divine champions is rather low on my mental "to do" list for the next revision of LOS. It *is* a topic that interests me, however, and I might give it some thought.

I'm sure that it would be possible to create new traps, to add addditional trals or even "move" some existing traps. I agree that knowing where the "official" traps from previous knowledge lessens the danger when "exploring" a new area, after you've played the game a time or three.

The problem is that I don't know how to do this. Perhaps I'll try to learn how for the next rev.

And as I said in my previous post, my testing thus far is showing me that my "nastier traps" aren't really all that nasty. Annoying and a little painful, but not as truly nasty as I'd prefer. I have more work to do to get traps to where I'd like them.

 

If it is possible it would be better with +1AB/+1 damage for WF and +1AB/+3 damage for WS. That way fighters make a big difference and WF is still worth it for some other classes. Now WF seems mostly as a waste of feats for non-fighters (eg. paladins and barbarians).