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Revised Races


Demivrgvs

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Short story: I want to try few tweaks to make the difference between each race more meaningful, while also trying to rebalance them a little bit.

 

Long story: Vanilla's Human selling point was the ability to dual class but leaving aside my issues with dual-classing, the huge flaw behind this is that if you didn't dual than the human character was always the weakest race.

 

I would also dare to suggest letting humans multi-class. It's waay more balanced than the dual-class system, it makes much more sense role-play wise, and giving them such option doesn't lessen demi-humans in any way.


Vanilla's Races

RACE      STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA  Special
Human:    18  18  18  18  18  18
Elf:      18  19  17  18  18  18   Immmunity to charm & sleep, +1 thac0 with long swords & long bows
Half-Elf: 18  18  18  18  18  18   Resistant to charm & sleep
Dwarf:    18  18  19  18  18  16   +x bonus to saves vs. death and spells
Halfling: 18  19  18  18  17  18   +x bonus to saves vs. death and spells, +1 thac0 with slings
Gnome:    18  18  18  19  17  18   +x bonus to saves vs. wands and spells
Half-orc: 19  18  19  16  18  18

Suggested Revised Races

RACE      STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA  Special
Human:    18  18  18  18  18  18
Elf:      17  19  16  18  19  18   Immmunity to charm & sleep, +1 thac0 with long swords & long bows
Half-Elf: 17  19  17  18  18  19   Resistant to charm & sleep
Dwarf:    18  16  19  18  18  16   +x bonus to saves vs. death and spells
Halfling: 16  19  18  18  17  18   +x bonus to saves vs. death and spells, +1 thac0 with slings
Gnome:    17  18  18  19  17  18   +x bonus to saves vs. wands and spells
Half-orc: 19  17  18  17  18  16

Note: shorty +x to saves was capped at +5 with CON 18 in vanilla, it's capped at +3 with CON 19 within the current build of KR.

 

I was also pondering to raise the max stat to 20 for few specific cases (e.g. Elf's DEX, Dwarf's CON) which would have the side effect of making Coran and Kagain stats legal, but it harder to balance because I would have to lower some other stat even more.

 

What do you think? If you have any suggestion (e.g. keep Half-orc vanilla's CON to 19 and lower DEX by 1 more point down to 16) I'll gladly discuss it.

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Looks fine to me. One technical question though: how did you implement the +x bonuses? I thought this was hardcoded in the original.

Are you talking about the improved stats or shorties saves? Regardless, they can be modified via 2da files, abracead and savecndh/savecng respectively.

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Logical changes as always.

 

For comparison, "Victor's Improved Races" component does the following changes:

 

RACE      STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
Human:    18  18  18  18  18  18
Elf:      18  20  16  18  18  18
Half-Elf: 18  19  17  18  18  18
Dwarf:    18  18  20  18  18  16
Halfling: 16  20  18  18  18  18
Gnome:    18  18  18  20  16  18
Half-orc: 20  17  20  15  18  17
It seems more or less inspired by 3.5 edition with some variations. I liked the fact that dwarves are viable thieves now but your version is more balanced and logical.
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Half-orc: 19 17 18 17 18 16

 

What do you think? If you have any suggestion (e.g. keep Half-orc vanilla's CON to 19 and lower DEX by 1 more point down to 16) I'll gladly discuss it.

Erhm, sorry, but, that's a -3 overall stats out of 18 in all, all the other races have avarage 18, except dwarves with -1, and they get a bonus saves out of it... what are you thinking man ? Plus they get nothing out of it, unlike the every other race except humans.

19 on CON would definitely equalize it a bit... enough maybe. I don't know, but not this: 19 17 18 17 18 16 ...

 

And I heavily am of the opinion that 19 should be the max for everyone. And the Half Elf Cha 19 is good in this too. :thumbsup:

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
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@Jarno the thing is that not all stats have the same value, especially within BG. Physical stats are hugely more important for all classes within our system, while mental stats either play a minimal role or no role at all depending on the class.

 

Btw, half-orc do get something special already: it's the only race with STR higher than 18.

 

Logical changes as always.

For comparison, "Victor's Improved Races" component does the following changes:

RACE      STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
Human:    18  18  18  18  18  18
Elf:      18  20  16  18  18  18
Half-Elf: 18  19  17  18  18  18
Dwarf:    18  18  20  18  18  16
Halfling: 16  20  18  18  18  18
Gnome:    18  18  18  20  16  18
Half-orc: 20  17  20  15  18  17
...but your version is more balanced and logical.

That's the one I use!


 

 

But dwarves don't get 18 DEX.

Both dwarves and half-orcs on that table are hugely more powerful than humans.

 

A Dwarf with CON 20 should at least have DEX 16 to balance it out. Their bonus to both saves vs. death and saves vs. spell is outstanding and has to be taken into account imo.

 

Half-orcs with STR 20, DEX 17, and CON 20 are insane! :O I could be persuaded to go with 19, 17, 19 despite Jarno's weak argument, but that would still make them the de-facto superior pick for any warrior class.

 

Keep in mind I'll also revise ability scores a bit to make each +1 matter. For example right now the difference between DEX 19 and 20 is pretty much non-existent. I'll try to post them later tonight.

Edited by Demivrgvs
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Btw, half-orc do get something special already: it's the only race with STR higher than 18.

Sorry but my BG2 fighter will always have at least 19 STR, cause of the manual in BG1. So that's not a real benefit, ever to be. Which is why the half orc char could have that in BG2 char-gen.

Of course this all depends on how the bonuses change in each stat. So, I'll comment that too... :devlook:

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"Victor's Improved Races"

That's the one I use!

 

But dwarves don't get 18 DEX.

 

Are you sure about this ? The mod's Readme mentions "-Dwarves can now have 20 CON, but their CHR is limited to 16."

 

Both dwarves and half-orcs on that table are hugely more powerful than humans.

 

A Dwarf with CON 20 should at least have DEX 16 to balance it out. Their bonus to both saves vs. death and saves vs. spell is outstanding and has to be taken into account imo.

 

Half-orcs with STR 20, DEX 17, and CON 20 are insane! :O I could be persuaded to go with 19, 17, 19 despite Jarno's weak argument, but that would still make them the de-facto superior pick for any warrior class.

 

Keep in mind I'll also revise ability scores a bit to make each +1 matter. For example right now the difference between DEX 19 and 20 is pretty much non-existent. I'll try to post them later tonight.

Yes, both are quite strong and with practically no disadvantage. I guess he didn't have balance in his mind like you but wanted to implement 3.5 edition (If we read here, the standard 3.5 races of Hill Dwarves, High Elves, Lightfoot Halflings are exactly the same as his. Gnomes and Half-orcs are similar but not the same)

 

Your version is more balanced. Losing 3 points may seem much from a power point of view as Jarno said but it seems logical (at least to me). Half-orcs are a bit bulky (hence +1 str -1 dex) and due to their orc half they would be a bit less intelligent (-1 int) and people would perceive them as ugly (-2 chr)

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Btw, half-orc do get something special already: it's the only race with STR higher than 18.

Sorry but my BG2 fighter will always have at least 19 STR, cause of the manual in BG1. So that's not a real benefit, ever to be. Which is why the half orc char could have that in BG2 char-gen.

Of course this all depends on how the bonuses change in each stat. So, I'll comment that too... :devlook:

Well, that manual would have taken your half-orc to 20 instead of 19. :p

 

A daring idea about shorties is to make them more true to their PnP lore. They may be more magic resistant than humans, but - they're level-limited. One would think twice before rolling a dwarf if that dwarf would get 20% XP penalty.

While I agree that shortie save bonuses are still outstanding despite my nerf, balancing classes with different xp progression is a recipe for disaster imo (see vanilla's Bard becoming the ultimate buffer and dispeller, or druid's stupid level scaling). Those things might work for specific cases (especially on PnP with a DM finely tuning it) but as a global rule it's not a good idea imo.

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"Victor's Improved Races"

That's the one I use!

 

But dwarves don't get 18 DEX.

 

Are you sure about this ? The mod's Readme mentions "-Dwarves can now have 20 CON, but their CHR is limited to 16."

Yes. The Readme doesn't mention 17dex since it's not changed from vanilla.

 

 

 

 

A daring idea about shorties is to make them more true to their PnP lore. They may be more magic resistant than humans, but - they're level-limited. One would think twice before rolling a dwarf if that dwarf would get 20% XP penalty.

While I agree that shortie save bonuses are still outstanding despite my nerf, balancing classes with different xp progression is a recipe for disaster imo (see vanilla's Bard becoming the ultimate buffer and dispeller, or druid's stupid level scaling). Those things might work for specific cases (especially on PnP with a DM finely tuning it) but as a global rule it's not a good idea imo.

You wouldn't be balancing classes with different progression (I also find vanilla bard hilarious), you'd be balancing races. Example: a human fighter would need 2000XP for level 2. A dwarf fighter, armed with outstanding resistance to hostile magic, would need 2400 to get to that same level 2. The opcode works perfectly, and you can't "fool" it by soloing or similar - shortie XP cap would in fact be 20% lower than that of humans. This means not only slower level progress, but less HP and less HLAs - so you have to choose between having beefed up saves OR better late-game + faster level-ups.

This wouldn't be too difficult to code actually.

Also, with breath save included in SR evocations you already kind of "balanced" shorties even before +5>+3 nerf.

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Half-orcs are a bit bulky (hence +1 str -1 dex) and due to their orc half they would be a bit less intelligent (-1 int) and people would perceive them as ugly (-2 chr)

.. and they got punished for looking like that and got tougher hides(+1 con) all seems legit... except that what if the on looker is a <insert a random non bipedal race>, then the race perspective you have doesn't apply, and the orc might be the fanciest of them all.

 

Well, that manual would have taken your half-orc to 20 instead of 19. :p

Well, or not, cause the player doesn't ever take a half orc in BGT-weidu/EET game if they choose to not do so. And so there won't be a 20 somethings to fly by. Ouh, but of course one could also choose the one kit that gives +1 at level 1, level 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. No manuals or cheat hammers needed, just pure will.
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