Pax_Empyrean

Here, get the Thief/Bard kit, it's not exact dual classing, but the closest you'll get in this engine... and it has a +x weapon in itself(a long sword), up to +4. Hmm... interesting. I take it there's no way to just add thief skill points to the Bard when they level up? It'd have to lose a weapon quickslot to make room for Bardic Music, but... meh. I don't know enough about modding this game yet. Anyway, got some first impressions on higher level summons from looking at the stats. Aerial Servant vs Animate Skeleton Warrior. Holy crap is this one a no-contest. The skeleton warrior is superior in a few respects: it's got 90% magic resistance, it's got a longer list of immunities, and it lasts for 8 hours. The Aerial Servant lasts for 1 turn per level, which is long enough that it doesn't matter unless you're trying to rest and want extra help if you get attacked. The 90% magic resistance is a big deal, but improved invisibility makes it so that it's impossible to target the Aerial Servant with spells anyway. One non-detection spell and you're ready to go. The Aerial Servant does more damage per hit (2d6+11 vs 2d6+4), has THAC0 that's better by either 9 or 13 points, depending on whether the stat block takes improved invisibility into account, AC that's better by either 3 or 7... the difference in combat effectiveness is just huge. Summon Death Knight, on the other hand, is rather overpowered thanks to the spell list of the summoned monster. A level 7 spell gets you a monster that can cast Symbol of Weakness and Symbol of Death, both level 7 spells. Plus, it can cast Power Word Blind, Stun, and Kill (written as "Death" in the description; needs a fix). That's a lot of iconic, high level Wizard spells that the Cleric probably shouldn't have access to, even indirectly. Druids seem like they would have a stronger set of summons than Clerics, since a larger chunk of their spell list is summoning spells, but their summons are overshadowed by what the Cleric gets. Elemental summons last for 1-3 turns depending on level, while the Cleric summons last anywhere from 3 turns to 8 hours right out of the box. The Shambling Mound is strong and lasts a long time, but the Animal Summoning line is kind of lackluster and that makes up the majority of a Druid's summoning options.

That's what you get for playing a game w/o Item Revisions, where bow's rate of fire is nefred to 3/2 apr. I took a look at the Item Revisions thread, but since it's structured as changes from a previous version I have no idea what else is going on with it. A page or document that shows everything as it currently stands would be a lot more useful for prospective users than the Bob Ross step-by-step method, especially since Item Revisions is old enough to be in kindergarten by now. If something like that is distributed with the closed beta, then that's better than nothing, but it would be good for people to be able to see that without being in the closed beta. The same goes for the other mods, really. The Spell Revision mod has a nice list of spell descriptions for v3, but beyond that it's just a changelog. Not a huge priority thing, but it would be nice to have current documentation. The thing is, the really epic stuff is way more than just a +5 enchantment. It's got a +5 enchantment and also makes you a sandwich 3/day, covers your enemies in bees on hit if they fail their save, and does double damage vs carnies, mimes, midgets, and other circus-folk. A weapon that is merely +5 isn't in the same league as the really good stuff. In any case, having it scale with level would help Bards out, and unless you've got a mod that lets them dual class, they could definitely use the help.

I'm not sure if your preference is for me to edit posts with new information, or if I should just make a new post when I find something new. To make it obvious when I've got something new, I'll just keep making new posts unless the previous post is really recent. Latest thing: the short bows and long bows created by Enchanted Weapon (DVENSBOW and DVENLBOW) have only 1.5 attacks per round instead of 2, like other bows of those types. Confirmed in DLTC Editor that this is from the Stat: Attacks Per Round Modifier effect.

Animal Summoning VI refers to summoning 2 or 3 Dire Bears, but the stat block calls them Cave Bears. The animals that are summoned are Cave Bears. Bolt of Glory spell description has a typo: "Magic resistance does not effect this spell" should be "affect" instead.

Enchanted Weapon: I love this spell like fat kids love candy. Lasts a long time, covers the ammo needs for multiple archers if that's your thing, helps fill in the equipment needs of party members who don't have good weapons yet. Just a great spell. It's missing a few things that I'd like to see, though. You can make arrows, bolts, and sling stones with it, which is great for characters that use those, but you can't make darts, throwing axes, or throwing daggers. Was that deliberate, or just an oversight? I'd kill a baby right in front of a high level Paladin for a higher level version that creates more powerful weapons. Say, a 6th or 7th level spell that can make foo+5. They'd still be inferior to the really good weapons, since they tend to have powerful effects in addition to their enchantment bonuses, but it would still be a useful spell, especially for the ammunition. Another possibility would be to make the enchantment bonuses scale with the level of the caster, giving +1 per four caster levels. The latter option would be great for Bards, since they tend to rack up caster levels quickly but don't have many spell slots, and this spell fits them well, I think. I know it's a fair amount of work to create all those weapon icons; I don't think anybody would care if you reused the +3 ones for a +5 version. They look sufficiently fancy already.

Call Woodland Beings is too good relative to Animal Summoning IV. Mostly because the Nymph you summon can cast Animal Summoning IV. And while it can only cast the spell as a 7th level caster, this just means that you're summoning two Leopards instead of three. Not that much of a drawback, really. In practice, getting Call Woodland Beings is like trading one leopard for a Nymph. Even if you disregard the pile of spells that the Nymph can cast (15 spells for a 4th level spell slot! And a bunch of them are really good spells!), it's not actually that bad as a physical combatant compared to a Leopard. It's got slightly more HP (42 vs 36), slightly better AC (3 vs 5), slightly better THAC0 (15 vs 16), and can cast Shillelagh to increase its damage to 2d4+2. It's still slightly lower in terms of damage output due to having half as many attacks per round, but its considerable pile of spells make it the superior choice in pretty much every situation. I would replace Animal Summoning IV on the Nymph's spell list with something a little less potent. Poison would be a decent option, since it's very level-dependent for its effectiveness and so a higher leveled Druid would prefer to memorize Poison instead of just summoning a Nymph to do it and then do a bunch of other useful stuff, too.

I figured it was intentional, as in pnp the arcane casters generally had the better summons than divine casters, with the exception of elementals being auto-friendly with the latter and being stubborn with the former. Yeah, that's risky, especially since you can get wolves out at relatively low levels when everybody is still blowing their saving throws on a regular basis. As it stands, the usefulness of dogs persists because of how well they counter invisibility, and the usefulness of wolves drops to zero when they are no longer able combatants in their own right due to poor THAC0, low damage output, etc. What I would do with wolves is tweak their ability so that instead of getting attack bonuses from nearby wolves, they inflict a stackable AC penalty on enemies in very close proximity with them; the more wolves adjacent, the bigger the penalty gets (+1 AC penalty per wolf seems reasonable). That keeps the "gang up on an enemy to make them weaker" flavor, makes them useful to the rest of the party as support even after their damage output stops being relevant, and makes them perform relatively better against powerful solo opponents than they would against a group of weaker opponents. It fits wolves well, I think. I don't know that it's too good in an absolute sense, just that it's better than See Invisibility, mostly because the duration is so much better. Increasing the duration of See Invisibility to one turn instead of five rounds would probably be enough to make me indifferent about which one I brought along to do the job. Invisibility Purge is still probably a bit better since it knocks out invisibility spells entirely instead of just suppressing the effect while the spell is running or when the dogs are nearby. Thematically, Ranger/Cleric doesn't make as much sense as Ranger/Druid, but it is a legitimate class combination in pnp and I'm sure some people would miss it if you took it out. Even more so because Ranger/Cleric was such a big deal in this game previously. I use EE Keeper to add kits to multiclass characters, and I think a Stalker/Druid would be a blast to play. Might have to disable stealth when you turn into a Fire Elemental or something, though.

Animal Summoning II and Animal Summoning III aren't much different from each other. Animal Summoning II summons 2-3 war dogs, Animal Summoning III summons 2-3 wolves. Stat-wise, they both do the same damage and have the same THAC0. The wolves have slightly better HP (21 vs 18) and slightly worse AC (6 vs 4). The wolves' special ability will give them +1 to hit for each other wolf nearby (pretty weak benefit), while the dogs can detect invisible (pretty much completely eclipsing Detect Invisibility, since it lasts six times as long and gives you minions to boot, although the range is shorter). The dogs also have marginally better saving throws than the wolves do (13/17/13/15/17 vs 15/17/15/13/17). I would probably increase the pack attack bonus to give the wolves a bit more of an edge. Ranger/Clerics are pretty powerful casters. Before the latest EE patch they they got full access to the Druid's spellbook, which was mostly just good for throwing bugs at casters and putting Iron Skins on yourself. Now they only get up to whatever level of spells the Ranger side has unlocked, up to 3rd level at level 13. The improvements to Druid spells in general means they still get some great spells out of this; the Regeneration line is great, and since it caps out in power with relatively few caster levels it makes a Ranger/Cleric a more versatile healer than a straight Cleric without really costing them much in terms of straight up healing power. Being able to throw Call Lightning around like confetti is a huge boost to the Cleric's offense; up to 30d6 worth of random lightning bolts over the course of five rounds from a 15th level caster is really, really good against a single powerful target.

Hi, everybody. I'm new to the forum and relatively new to BG2, although I've played more than my share of tabletop 2nd edition and 3.0/3.5. I was disappointed to find that Spell Revision didn't work with BG2EE, and came here to ask for an invite to the closed beta. I'll be sure to give feedback.