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[Guest Guest_BloodBeast_*]

NIce work on the magic axes and hammers, it has been bugging me for years, cheers !!!

I am still holding my breath for the 2-Handed mod for Axes, Maces, Hammers, and flails, I guess I can just tweak them myself for now.

 

About the 2-Handed Bastard Swords and Katanas mod from Tweak pack, should I install this mod before Item Revisions? Or after?

[Demivrgvs]

I am still holding my breath for the 2-Handed mod for Axes, Maces, Hammers, and flails, I guess I can just tweak them myself for now.

I may ask Mike what he thinks about it. I'm not into it because without an appropriate animation I would never wield them with two hands, but if he likes to have an IR's version of that Tweak which includes more type of weapons I'll obviously let him do whatever he likes.

 

About the 2-Handed Bastard Swords and Katanas mod from Tweak pack, should I install this mod before Item Revisions? Or after?

After IR, at least after IR's main component.

[Guest deducter]

Hey, thanks for your speedy reply, glad you might take into consideration some of my suggestions. I have a few more thoughts on some of the items in your mod.

 

Skin of the Ghoul +3

Equipped Abilities:

Charisma: -3 penalty

Saving Throws: +3 bonus vs. paralyzation

Stench: living creatures within 10 feet must save vs. death each round or be nauseated, suffering -4 penalty to attack rolls and 25% casting failure rate

Armor Class: 5

Arcane Spell Failure: 10%

Thieving Skills Penalty: none

 

Does Stench affect your party members, because this armor would seem useless if it did.

 

Mielikki's Gift +4 (previously Night's Gift +5)

Equipped Abilities:

Dexterity: +1 bonus

Saving Throws: +2 bonus vs. breath

Armor Class: 4

Arcane Spell Failure: 10%

Thieving Skills Penalty: none

 

Have you thought of making this armor exclusively for rangers (Mielikki I think watches over nature and rangers)? In which case I'm not exactly sure what bonuses might go with that, something like a permanent bless effect, and maybe +1 con?

 

Radiant Plate +3

Equipped Abilities:

Protection from Evil: +2 bonus to AC and saving throws vs. evil creatures

Armor Class: 0

Arcane Spell Failure: 40%

Dexterity Penalty: 10%

Movement Rate Penalty: 20%

Thieving Skills Penalty: 60%

 

Maybe rewarded for completing the Windspear Hills quest?

 

Shield Amulet

Special Abilities (consumes one charge):

Shield

 

What about just making this item give permanent shield? The spell's not too powerful anyway (although protection from magic missiles can have its uses).

 

Traveler's Robe

Equipped Abilities:

Armor Class: +1 bonus

Movement Rate: +2 bonus

Tireless: wearer doesn't need to rest

 

This robe seems to be by far the best robe of the bunch, while the robes of the archmagi are nearly useless. A mage needs to be able to run away and blast out spells from a distance, whereas in the case of the archmagi robe, the AC is nearly useless considering the huge array of protection spells they have, and what's +1 saves and +5% magic resistance compare to being able to run away faster? I think the Movement Rate bonus needs to be removed from this item.

 

Belts of Inertial Barrier

Equipped Abilities:

Saving Throws: +5 bonus vs. breath

Missile Damage Resistance: +25% bonus

Magic Damage Resistance: +50% bonus

 

I always thought the +50% bonus to magic damage resistance is way too much, especially now you have a ring that gives another +25%, and stacking these give -75% resist to spells like horrid wilting and skull trap, which just seems wrong. You may want to reduce the magic damage resist to +25%.

 

Ring of Djinni Summoning

Special Abilities (once per day):

Limited Wish

 

While I don't think Limited Wish is too powerful (plus your caster's gotta have a decent wisdom score), I think it is a little ridiculous to be wishing away every day. I thought the original ring was pretty good, except the ring was destroyed when the Djinn died. Maybe you can just have the ring summon a Djinn for 5 rounds/day, because in SCS Djinn are actually pretty good.

 

Ring of Gaxx

Special Abilities:

Invisibility (once per day)

Improved Haste (three times per day)

Equipped Abilities:

Armor Class: +2 bonus

Saving Throws: +2 bonus

Magic Resistance: +10% bonus

Regeneration: 1hp/round

Immunity to disease & poison effects

 

You should probably just let only evil characters wear this. It'd be nice if you can mod something like bring this item to Cromwell, have him "destroy" or "purify" it but in the process get a comparable ring for neutral/good characters. That or just let only evil characters wear this.

 

Bala's Axe

Combat Abilities:

Dispel: removes all magical effects upon the target (save vs. spell neg.)

THAC0: +1 bonus

Damage: 1D8

 

Notes: I've "exploited" its original description (which was really good for once!) to make it quite a special weapon. It's considered non-magical, and combined with the new dispel effect which is clearly hinted by the description itself, this axe can be really powerful against mages protected with PfMW.

 

To my knowledge, there are only two other weapons in the game that does dispel on hit, the super powerful Casomyr and Staff of the Magi. You're giving one of the most powerful item abilities of the game to an axe you can find pretty easily in the Planar Sphere. It's good that it can't hit many creatures such as Liches, Demons, etc, but I think you should reduce the dispel to like 25-50% chance, as opposed to every hit, and give the target being hit a +2 saves bonus. I play with SCS, and nearly every encounter the opponents use some buffs, like potions or pre-casted party buffs whatnot, and I just think dispel on hit is really too powerful, because it'll severely weaken all the opponents, not just mages. If you reduce the dispelling chance, it becomes a very interesting, more reasonable weapon.

 

Mace of Disruption +4

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to level drain effects

Combat Abilities:

Disruption: undead creatures must save vs. death or be destroyed

Undead Bane: additional +2 bonus to THAC0 and +8 to damage against undead

THAC0: +2 bonus

Damage: 1D6 + 3

 

Notes: with +4 enchantment level it can hit the most powerful undead creatures, demiliches. I may add some illithium in the Underdark, to allow good parties (especially those with paladins) to roleplay Sir Sarles quest without losing this item.

 

I think it'd be a very good idea to just move the illithium completely so you can only get it in the UD (from either the duergar merchants or the deep gnomes) so that way you get the best anti-undead weapon in the game only in act 6. I also think you should further weaken the Disruption effect, because it really is super powerful (I used to just give Minsc this mace, have him walk into a room with 20 vampires, and slaughter them all without breaking a sweat). Maybe reduce the chance to somewhere like 25-50% and give a further +2 saves bonus to the undead? It's still uber-powerful, considering the extra thaco, damage, negative plane protection, etc.

 

Lilarcor +3

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to charm & confusion effects

THAC0: +3 bonus

Damage: 2D6 + 3

 

Notes: it's a +3 weapon too easily obtainable before going to Spellhold, and it quite bothers me, but I fear that reducing it to +2 would ruin this weapon (I love to use it with the extended banters and Minsc love2.gif ). Any suggestion?

 

I agree completely with you that you really shouldn't get +3 items easily early in SoA, at least until you clear a major subquest, and only then you should get 1 (like you get the flail of ages from the Keep, just one +3 item, or the Shortsword of Backstabbing from doing the Shadow Thieves quest). I think reducing Lilarcor's enchantment is tragic, but it's for the best. On a side note, I think merchants shouldn't sell +3 weapons at all until the Drow City, or until Ribald gets restocked.

 

Scroll of Protection from Undead

Effects:

Immunity to level drain

Protection from Undead: +2 bonus to AC and saving throws vs. undead creatures

Duration: 10 turns

 

Heh, I think there's enough items that grant immunity to level drain as is, and fighting vampires really should be more than slap this scroll on your fighter and charge him in, since vampires generally do little damage vs fighters anyway. Maybe remove the Immunity to level drain but make it +3 bonus to AC and saves?

 

Have you considered doing something along the items of Item Upgrades (the really old mod from Weimar), or maybe even an updated version of that? A lot of the items added by that mod are kinda overpowered, but it'd be nice to be able to have more recipes and things to combine. For instances, the robes of the archmagi should be upgradeable in ToB to truly powerful items, with additional AC, saves, and caster bonuses (but no +casting speed). Or it'd be nice to combine the rings of elemental mastery in ToB into a single ring, wearable by a mage, that lets you summon a 16 or 20HD elemental per day and give like +25% elemental resistance, and various other bonuses. Obviously this would be quite the undertaking, and probably beyond the scope of your mod, but just some ideas.

 

Phew I said a lot, I hope you have time to take a look and think about some of my suggestions. Keep up the good work!

[Demivrgvs]

Raj,

I'm sorry I didn't noticed your post yesterday, it got lost at the bottom of the first page!

 

Cloak of Displacement

1) It's even more annoying than the old one, with the single clone following the npc that doesn't make sense; a 'hidden' 50% miss chance like in NWN would be preferable but I guess the engine doesn't allow it.

I can fix it by making the clone last only one round, it would also help toning down the item.

2) Like Deducter says, effectively doubling a character hit points is just too powerful and that's a shop-bought item.

For that I'll reduce the % chance of triggering the clone.

3) Mirror Images in BG2 are sorta lame, protecting against aoe attacks, so that's a 50% permanent immunity to a lot of nasty spells as well; while I can stand the standard, easy dispellable spell ( I'd like to see it revised in SR anyway ^^ ), having a item granting a permanent effect is against my game ethics.

I cannot change the hardcoded effect, else I would have done it for SR too.

4) Standard Cloak of Displacement is a very nice, useful while not overpowered item already.

Yes, use the original one if you like it better. I've just tried to make it more "unique", vanilla's one is just a classic AC and Save boosting item.

 

Amulet of Spell Warding

Amulet of Spell Warding worries me about the permanent removal of the deflection animation, balance-wise isn't that bad: its effect is very nice for a soloer facing mid-level casters but in a party its a big tradeoff, with it stopping beneficial buffs; a use of spell shield/deflection/reflection/whatever, alongside with some permanent bonus to saves to avoid swapping it just for the special effect would make it good enough imo.

It's very probable I'll do something like that, it's way more easy to implement than the current one. Saves seem an appropriate permanent bonus, but I'll have to check other amulets and see if there aren't already too many granting saves bonuses.

 

Elemental damage on weapons: is it possible to make elemental damage not to cause spellfailure to mages with 100%+ immunity? That would be realistic and solve some balance issues.

No it's not possible.

 

On a last note, did you restore any bg1 item named in the readme yet ( cloak of balduran, spider bane greatsword come to my mind )?

Currently not, re-allocation of items should be included in the next release.

 

Skin of the Ghoul

Does Stench affect your party members, because this armor would seem useless if it did.

It was affecting allies too in my previous internal build, but in V1 I've made it not affecting them. Is this armor too powerful now?

 

Mielikki's Gift

Have you thought of making this armor exclusively for rangers (Mielikki I think watches over nature and rangers)? In which case I'm not exactly sure what bonuses might go with that, something like a permanent bless effect, and maybe +1 con?

I've thought about it, and the quest its gained from is quite appropriate too, but I dind't find "ranger only properties" to justify that choice. Furthermore I fear having a quest reward usable by only one class may unplease many players, and I'm already planning to make Aeger's Hide usable only by rengers, druids and barbarians, with nastier abilities.

 

Radiant Plate

Maybe rewarded for completing the Windspear Hills quest?

Paladins already get a set of armor for completing that quest, and there's already a lot of loot in the dragon's hoard, but it would be an appropriate reward. Will think about it.

 

Shield Amulet

What about just making this item give permanent shield? The spell's not too powerful anyway (although protection from magic missiles can have its uses).

I originally did that, but Cloak of the Shield currently does something very similar, and I left it unchanged at player's request. Still I'm not satisfied with it in its current version.

 

Traveler's Robe

This robe seems to be by far the best robe of the bunch, while the robes of the archmagi are nearly useless. A mage needs to be able to run away and blast out spells from a distance, whereas in the case of the archmagi robe, the AC is nearly useless considering the huge array of protection spells they have, and what's +1 saves and +5% magic resistance compare to being able to run away faster? I think the Movement Rate bonus needs to be removed from this item.

Wow, I thought everyone would have considered it the most useless robe! I'm glad you find it very useful, but I do think its current properties aren't more powerful than the ones found in other robes.

 

Belts of Inertial Barrier

I always thought the +50% bonus to magic damage resistance is way too much, especially now you have a ring that gives another +25%, and stacking these give -75% resist to spells like horrid wilting and skull trap, which just seems wrong. You may want to reduce the magic damage resist to +25%.

Haven't I just replied to that somehwere? Anyway, yes I'm going to town it down.

 

Ring of Djinni Summoning

While I don't think Limited Wish is too powerful (plus your caster's gotta have a decent wisdom score), I think it is a little ridiculous to be wishing away every day. I thought the original ring was pretty good, except the ring was destroyed when the Djinn died. Maybe you can just have the ring summon a Djinn for 5 rounds/day, because in SCS Djinn are actually pretty good.

SR's Djinn are even more powerful. Your request is reasonable, I may do that for V2.

 

Ring of Gaxx

You should probably just let only evil characters wear this. It'd be nice if you can mod something like bring this item to Cromwell, have him "destroy" or "purify" it but in the process get a comparable ring for neutral/good characters. That or just let only evil characters wear this.

It was my intention, but several players voted against it claiming it would make the entire Gaxx quest pointless. I do think good parties shouldn't even think about doing that quest. I'll probably do something like that sooner or later...

 

Bala's Axe

To my knowledge, there are only two other weapons in the game that does dispel on hit, the super powerful Casomyr and Staff of the Magi. You're giving one of the most powerful item abilities of the game to an axe you can find pretty easily in the Planar Sphere. It's good that it can't hit many creatures such as Liches, Demons, etc, but I think you should reduce the dispel to like 25-50% chance, as opposed to every hit, and give the target being hit a +2 saves bonus. I play with SCS, and nearly every encounter the opponents use some buffs, like potions or pre-casted party buffs whatnot, and I just think dispel on hit is really too powerful, because it'll severely weaken all the opponents, not just mages. If you reduce the dispelling chance, it becomes a very interesting, more reasonable weapon.

The chance to dispel already is around 50% because of the save, reducing it may just make this axe useless as you should take into account it's only a masterwork axe except for that ability.

 

Mace of Disruption +4

I think it'd be a very good idea to just move the illithium completely so you can only get it in the UD (from either the duergar merchants or the deep gnomes) so that way you get the best anti-undead weapon in the game only in act 6. I also think you should further weaken the Disruption effect, because it really is super powerful (I used to just give Minsc this mace, have him walk into a room with 20 vampires, and slaughter them all without breaking a sweat). Maybe reduce the chance to somewhere like 25-50% and give a further +2 saves bonus to the undead? It's still uber-powerful, considering the extra thaco, damage, negative plane protection, etc.

I'll think about further nerfing it after some more playtesting (I've already reduced the save by 4, which is quite a lot). I'm probably not going to remove the original Illithium because it would involve a lot of quest editing.

 

Lilarcor +3

I agree completely with you that you really shouldn't get +3 items easily early in SoA, at least until you clear a major subquest, and only then you should get 1 (like you get the flail of ages from the Keep, just one +3 item, or the Shortsword of Backstabbing from doing the Shadow Thieves quest). I think reducing Lilarcor's enchantment is tragic, but it's for the best. On a side note, I think merchants shouldn't sell +3 weapons at all until the Drow City, or until Ribald gets restocked.

I should have already removed +3 items from early chapter's stores. In my dreams this sword improves with the wielder as Dakkon's Blade should, until I either do that or find a better way to make the sword appealing for later chapters I'll left it as a +3 weapon. This item is too unique to be made unappealing, even more if you use Banter Pack.

 

Scroll of Protection from Undead

Heh, I think there's enough items that grant immunity to level drain as is, and fighting vampires really should be more than slap this scroll on your fighter and charge him in, since vampires generally do little damage vs fighters anyway. Maybe remove the Immunity to level drain but make it +3 bonus to AC and saves?

I'm not sure, I'd like to collect more feedback about it. Without the level drain immunity it seems too weak for a scroll which was supposed to be the bane of unded.

[Salk]

Hi there!

 

For the very brief time I could play with IR (and SR) till I found the game breaking bug in SCS v9, I have been thinking why IR didn't introdue the 1PP medium shields.

 

IIRC, those are already available to the public and the BG2 medium shields are really awful.

[Mike1072]

the BG2 medium shields are really awful.

We like them!

[Demivrgvs]

For the very brief time I could play with IR (and SR) till I found the game breaking bug in SCS v9, I have been thinking why IR didn't introdue the 1PP medium shields.

 

IIRC, those are already available to the public and the BG2 medium shields are really awful.

As Mike already said, while I hated BG2's bucklers I quite like BG2's medium shields.

 

Anyway, I can probably make it so that both animations are used for different shields. Most BG2's unique shields have bams (both equipped icon and description draft) which really don't suit BG1's medium shield animation, like Dragon Scale Shield, Shield of the Order, and so on. For those shields I'll surely keep BG2's animation (though Dragon Scale Shield uses a special 1PP's paperdoll image in the inventory).

I should be able to introduce 1PP medium shield animation for some other shields. Shield of Balduran is probably one of them considering the new bam I've assigned to it.

 

Does it seem satisfactory?

[Salk]

It is rare that you don't satisfy me...

 

Oh my... Talk about double meanings here.

 

No joking, it seems an excellent solution and something I will look forward to! For normal, non magical shields, I would think that the 1PP ones (the BG1 ones) are way much better. The BG2 ones are like a punch in the eyes, mostly when mixed with the 1PP art.

 

Also, I don't think I like the graphic of the helmets either. The BG1 art was superior in this respect too (for me at least... and obviously even for Erephine )

[Raj]

Raj,

I'm sorry I didn't noticed your post yesterday, it got lost at the bottom of the first page!

 

np I'm more sorry to know about so many engine limits

 

 

About the Traveller's Robe being considered useless/overpowered, it depends on player style I guess; BG2 walking speed is already high enough to let a mage overrun most enemies casting spells while being chased, your change let those who like to cheese having a easier time. It's more of a nuisance for me, because I like the party to stick together.

[lynx]

I think the armor speed penalties should take the armor weight in account. There are some magically lightweight armours available.

[Icendoan]

That would be fairly easy to code, as well.

 

On a side note, what is WeiDU's handling of ints? Does it have decimals?

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

I think the armor speed penalties should take the armor weight in account. There are some magically lightweight armours available.

Actually they already do with IR. I've revised all armors' weight values, and weight isn't affected by enchantment level anymore. Encumberance in IR is only based on weight and armor type, to have reduced encumberance armors need to be made of special material or craftmanship (e.g. ankheg shell, mithral, elven craftmanship, ...).

[Mike1072]

I think the armor speed penalties should take the armor weight in account. There are some magically lightweight armours available.

Armours that allow penalty-free spellcasting or stealth use are not affected by this component, on the basis that these items are not as cumbersome.

[Salk]

And it makes perfect sense...

[Guest Guest]

Regarding Celestial Fury's Batto, is there any reason why you wouldn't want to use it in a fight? If not, is there some way of making it automatic, to avoid having to manually (and tediously?) having to activate it yourself for every fight?