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Unusability woes


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Separated from the "More stuff for v10" thread in an effort to keep things manageable.

 

Let's also talk about avenger druids ("may not wear better than leather armor") and animal-based armor. [...]

I say either leave things as they are or ban them all. [...]

Looking at these in the broader context of kits, we may have more work here.

 

Kits/classes have the following armor restrictions: no armor for kensais and shapeshifters, no metal armor for archers, no plate for barbarians, nothing greater than studded leather for stalkers, and nothing better than leather for avengers.

 

White Dragon Scale: [...]

 

Shadow dragon scale: [...]

 

Red dragon scale: [...]

 

Blue dragon plate: [...]

 

Ankheg plate: [...]

 

Talking about usability [...] Blue dragon plate [...] white dragon scale [...]

 

I've been meaning to dig deeper into this topic, but wanted to see the Effing Effs issue finished before starting any new research. I've now considered everything from the ground up, looking at every LEAT, CHAN, and PLAT armor in the game and every description, before and after the Fixpack, and it seems we are not finished yet. First of all, I'd like to extend CamDawg's summary of the in-game armor restrictions. I made the following table which lists the armor restrictions of all classes and of those kits whose restrictions deviate from the base class (this is trivial information). The bars on the right represent the actual in-game implementation of the restrictions. Base classes in bold, kits in italic.

 

post-5538-0-16571300-1361502790_thumb.jpg

 

With the Fixpack installed, I can confirm that all the ordinary, not creature-based LEAT##, CHAN##, and PLAT## items comply 100% with this scheme (I've checked every single usability flag of every armor). Now the non-obvious ones:

 

 

Shadow Dragon Scale (leat19)

 

How does the game classify it?

- Description says unusable only by mages, which is consistent with leather-type armor.

- All usability flags are consistent with plain leather armor.

- The armor is erroneously usable by shapeshifters.

 

What does the Fixpack do?

- The Fixpack adds the missing shapeshifter flag.

 

Current status?

All correct, except maybe for the fact that it is usable by avengers: The unidentified name of the armor is Studded Leather, and the strength requirement, the enchantment value, and the AC bonuses are all consistent with studded leather. However, I'm leaning towards not adding the avenger flag, because the armor is not actual studded leather. It has these properties only because the template used was studded leather, but it is a unique dragon scale armor now. If we wanted to exclude avengers, we would have to make that sharp distinction (being studded leather, not being plain leather), which I think is inappropriate to do for such exotic items. Any comments?

 

 

White Dragon Scale (chan20)

 

How does the game classify it?

- Description says unusable only by mages, which is consistent with leather-type armor.

- All usability flags are consistent with studded leather armor, except for the spurious mage-thief flag.

- The armor is erroneously usable by shapeshifters.

 

What does the Fixpack do?

- The Fixpack adds the missing shapeshifter flag.

- The Fixpack removes the erroneous mage-thief flag.

- Recently by CamDawg: The Fixpack adds the stalker flag.

 

Current status?

All good, except for the stalker flag. I think CamDawg's recommendation four months ago went a little too far. By default, the armor is usable by all classes that cannot wear chain mail but can wear studded leather: thieves, druids, beastmasters, archers, and stalkers. This is consistent with its description. Hence I don't see why we should add the stalker flag when this armor is clearly meant to be usable by all classes that are able to wear studded leather. The armor does not even disable thieving abilities, further proving that it belongs into the leather-type class in terms of usability. The item's template may have been a splint mail, but its usability is set independently. It is usable like studded leather.

 

 

Ankheg Plate Mail (plat06)

 

How does the game classify it?

- Description says unusable by bards, druids, mages, and thieves, which is consistent with plate-type, metal armor.

- Contrary to that description, the druid flag is missing in the item file.

- All other usability flags are consistent with plate-type, metal armor.

- Unlike Shadow and White Dragon Scale, the armor disables thieving skills, which is consistent with metal armor.

 

What does the Fixpack do?

- Recently by CamDawg: The Fixpack adds the avenger flag and removes the archer flag.

 

Current status?

I have read this thread, so I am fully aware of everything.

First problem: Archers. I seriously doubt that the archer's "no metal armor" restriction is to be taken literally. According to BG2 vanilla, it seems this is a short way of saying no chain, splint, plate, and full plate mail - see the graphic above. The game classifies the Ankheg Plate Mail as plate and treats it this way in every respect. So while I understand that the armor may not be made of actual metal, that does not seem to matter. It is a plate-type armor, and archers cannot wear plate, that's why Bioware made it unusable for archers. Most importantly, archers by default cannot wear the two other plate-type items either (Red Dragon, Blue Dragon), which further supports that "no metal armor" means no chain mail or better, regardless of the armor's material. (Remember that archers can wear the White Dragon Armor not because it is not made of metal, but because it is intentionally usable like studded leather! There is no controversy here!) Finally, barbarians are correctly disallowed from wearing the Ankheg Plate Mail, but their armor restriction is less prohibitive than the archer's (see the graphic). So allowing archers to wear it also creates a severe discrepancy in that respect.

Second problem: Druids. Contrary to what CamDawg said earlier, the description in BG2 does list druids as being unable to use it! This is different from BG1. In BG2, druids are on the list. Consequently, instead of adding the avenger flag, we have to add the missing druid flag. As an aside, the "druids" entry in the BG2 description further illustrates that no-metal-classes are supposed to be prohibited from wearing any plate-type armor.

 

 

Red Dragon Scale (plat18)

 

plat18 is a copy of plat06, as evidenced by the fact that Bioware didn't bother to adjust the completely unique strength requirement of the specially light Ankheg Plate Mail which is exceptionally low for a plate mail, and by the fact that plat18 also inherited the completely unique AC bonuses of the Ankheg armor. This means that the usability flags are also identical to plat06. Unfortunately, while the Ankheg armor's description was updated after BG1 to list druids as being unable to wear it, the description of the Red Dragon Scale still looks like the Ankheg armor's BG1 description, meaning it does not list druids. For that reason, if we do not reach another concensus, I would be okay with letting druids continue to wear the Red Dragon Scale. However, I strongly urge the Fixpack to recognize the circumstances that make the armor wearable by druids, as it probably shouldn't be wearable.

As for archers, the Fixpack's recent removal of the archer flag should be reversed due to the reasons detailed before.

 

 

Blue Dragon Plate (plat20)

 

How does the game classify it?

- Description says unusable by bards, druids, mages, and thieves, which is consistent with plate-type, metal armor.

- Every usability flag is fully consistent with the description.

- Unlike Shadow and White Dragon Scale, the armor disables thieving skills, which is consistent with metal armor.

 

What does the Fixpack do?

- The Fixpack removes the druid flag, for no visible reason whatsoever!

- Recently by CamDawg: The Fixpack removes the archer flag.

 

Current status?

This item was not copied from another creature-based armor. It was independently created for Throne of Bhaal. You could say this is an untainted example of what Bioware intended "non-metal" plate-type armor to be, namely no different from "metal" plate-type armor. This time, there is no ambiguity whatsoever: The Blue Dragon Plate is simply a full-blown plate mail. It is usable exactly like any normal full plate mail. No exceptions. No druids, no barbarians, and of course no archers or any other restricted class. The usability flags are completely consistent with the list in the item's description. This really is the one armor that does not require any guesswork. All of Fixpack's current changes to this item are completely and utterly wrong. The armor is perfectly fine as it is in vanilla BG2. It does not require any fix at all.

 

--------------

 

Finally, something completely different. I already hinted at this in the graphic: Did we ever discuss whether the beastmaster's restriction to non-metal armor is actually intended? I ask because the beastmaster's kit description only says "no metal weapons". The kit's special advantages are poor even when compared only to the limited weapon selection. But there is nothing in the kit's description about any additional armor restriction. Having done my research it occurred to me that the bits controlling the stalker's and the beastmaster's flag are located next to each other within the same byte. Hence, all of those restrictions in the CHAN and PLAT items might be unintended. What do you think?

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Let's start with...

 

White Dragon Scale (chan20)

Its additional armor bonuses (pierce/crush/missile) match scale armor, as does the STR requirement. If it is leather, then it's leather +10 (or studded leather +9) instead of +6 scale. I don't know what the devs were trying to do here--frankly, I don't think they knew either--but the one thing I'm very sure of is that this is not leather.

 

For Ankheg:

 

- Description says unusable by bards, druids, mages, and thieves, which is consistent with plate-type, metal armor.

I'd suggest you get a clean install--both my ToB and SoA games list the restrictions as bards, mages, and thieves. This is identical to the clean descriptions of red dragon scale (SoA and ToB) and blue dragon plate (ToB).

 

First problem: Archers. I seriously doubt that the archer's "no metal armor" restriction is to be taken literally. According to BG2 vanilla, it seems this is a short way of saying no chain, splint, plate, and full plate mail - see the graphic above.

Except they have a way to say that, as they did with two other kits, and chose different language. The better argument is here:

 

Most importantly, archers by default cannot wear the two other plate-type items either (Red Dragon, Blue Dragon), which further supports that "no metal armor" means no chain mail or better, regardless of the armor's material. (Remember that archers can wear the White Dragon Armor not because it is not made of metal, but because it is intentionally usable like studded leather! There is no controversy here!)

Other than White Dragon Scale being scale, this is a very good argument, and we're into a full-blown what the game does vs. what the game says conflict.

 

Finally, something completely different. I already hinted at this in the graphic: Did we ever discuss whether the beastmaster's restriction to non-metal armor is actually intended? I ask because the beastmaster's kit description only says "no metal weapons". The kit's special advantages are poor even when compared only to the limited weapon selection. But there is nothing in the kit's description about any additional armor restriction. Having done my research it occurred to me that the bits controlling the stalker's and the beastmaster's flag are located next to each other within the same byte. Hence, all of those restrictions in the CHAN and PLAT items might be unintended. What do you think?

Even given some of the egregious bugs we've seen, I have a hard time believing 40-some armors were all flagged wrong--Occam's Razor suggests an incorrect description.

 

Going further, it looks like we can boil this down to four pertinent questions--

  1. What kind of armor is the White Dragon Scale?
  2. Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for archers, or its implementation?
  3. Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for beastmasters, or its implementation?
  4. Do druids get a loophole for animal armors?

At this point I'd say scale, implementation, implementation, and yes.

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Kulyok's comment from the other thread:

Does the usability-for-creature armor means that Valygar won't be/isn't able to wear the White Dragon armor? Um. I've always understood the developers wanted to give one -2AC item which is usable for everyone who can wear anything besides robes, so that people who use archers, stalkers, thieves and fighter/thieves will have at least one godlike armor. But that's just me.

I'm going to copy this over to the pinned usability thread and let this one remain about the rings, but I'll go ahead and ask here--do you have a cite for the dev comment? Because it's an interesting angle to the argument I've not heard.

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Thank you for your input. :)

 

White Dragon Scale

 

Its additional armor bonuses (pierce/crush/missile) match scale armor, as does the STR requirement. If it is leather, then it's leather +10 (or studded leather +9) instead of +6 scale. I don't know what the devs were trying to do here--frankly, I don't think they knew either--but the one thing I'm very sure of is that this is not leather.

 

You're right, it is not leather, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. What I'm saying is that the White Dragon Scale is usable like leather-type armor. The fact that it was created from a splint mail template is completely true and obvious, and at the same time irrelevant, because it is not a splint mail anymore, it is a unique, exotic dragon armor. Once you look at the item from this perspective, meaning strictly in terms of usability, you will find it hard not to see that the armor is consistently meant to be usable by all thieves-and-beyond types of classes - which it is, by default. Remember, the armor does not disable thieving abilities, unlike every splint mail. Which means: Since we know that it was created from a splint mail template, we also know that Bioware then manually removed the disabling effects, along with the unusability flags for bards (!), thieves (!!), stalkers, archers etc., to turn the item into what it is now: a special White Dragon armor. If we decided that it is not usable by stalkers, we would also have to undo all of those adjustments which were apparently conscious decisions. Hence, I think we should accept the item for the unique piece of armor that it is. And regarding Kulyok's point: I have always had the same impression. It's only that we can't prove it.

 

 

Ankheg

 

- Description says unusable by bards, druids, mages, and thieves, which is consistent with plate-type, metal armor.

I'd suggest you get a clean install--both my ToB and SoA games list the restrictions as bards, mages, and thieves. This is identical to the clean descriptions of red dragon scale (SoA and ToB) and blue dragon plate (ToB).

 

Fresh ToB game here, installed from 5 CDs, with patch 26498 applied, as always. I never make a claim without having the right data. Luckily I nonetheless managed to find the explanation for our contradiction. It's the German version. Final lines of string 17489:

 

Kann nicht verwendet werden von:

Barden

Druiden

Magiern

Dieben

 

I don't have access to an English BG2 game, but I can compare BG1 English to BG1 German, and it turns out that druids are not listed in the English version but they are in the German one. I don't know why the strings are not identical. Anyway, I guess this difference was carried over to BG2, so there we have it. Given that the Ankheg armor has always been usable by druids in both BG1 and BG2 and that the English descriptions in both games reflect this, I happily conclude that the German description must be wrong.

 

 

Blue Dragon

 

Are you sure that string #66421 doesn't list druids? Because again, my German description does, and it's hard to believe this is the same case as with the BG1 Ankheg armor. More importantly, unlike the Ankheg armor, the Blue Dragon Plate is not usable by druids in vanilla ToB.

 

 

Archers

 

I'm sure that going with implementation rather than literal description is the right way. It is bad enough that we would have to change three consistent items (Ankheg, Red Dragon, Blue Dragon) just to make the description work. Additionally, if we went down that path we would also have to admit that other descriptions leave room for a different interpretation as well, e.g. if dragon armor is wearable by archers because technically, it is not metal, then barbarians can wear dragon armor, too, because technically, an armor made of scales is not the same as plate/full plate. And finally, the only example where we do take the "no metal" restriction literally is druids, and that is because we can somehow see that "no metal" reinforces their bond with nature. Which begs the question: In which way are archers even remotely similar to druids, in terms of nature/metal? It seems way more fitting to think of the archer's armor restriction as a need for agility similar to thieves and stalkers, whose armor restrictions are exactly the same as the archer's in terms of implementation. All of this supports the notion that the interpretation should be "no chain mail or better".

 

If this goes through, how about we make it clear and adjust #25209 to use the same unambiguous wording as the stalker?

 

 

Beastmasters

 

Even given some of the egregious bugs we've seen, I have a hard time believing 40-some armors were all flagged wrong--Occam's Razor suggests an incorrect description.

 

Yeah, I'd rather leave the flags as they are as well. But unfortunately there is a new problem: The beastmaster cannot use the ankheg / red dragon armor, which druids can. Four options:

1. Conclude now that the beastmaster's flags were erroneously set identically to the stalker and archer flags. Make beastmasters able to wear all armor as per their vanilla description.

2. Conclude that this is further proof that "no metal armor" really doesn't mean you can wear Ankheg/Dragon armor. Adjust druids to be restricted like beastmasters, maybe with a loophole for Ankheg due to the long tradition of being usable by druids.

3. Adjust beastmasters to be restricted like druids. Change the Ankheg armor and possibly the Red Dragon armor to be usable by beastmasters.

4. Change no flags but make the description say "no chain mail or better" rather than adding "no metal armor", even though the latter would correspond better to the existing "no metal weapons".

 

Given that this discovery undermines the idea that the beastmaster's flags were consciously set, I'd be okay with the more radical option 1 as well. 2 would have very little consequence and keeps the logic intact. 3 and 4 are the easiest options but are more arbitrary.

 


PS: Damnit, the Ankheg usability issue might not be resolved as easily as I thought, because it seems the German text may have been translated correctly. By trying to get a hold of an English BG2 dialog.tlk for comparison, I stumbled upon this site. It turns out the English game texts hosted there do list druids in the various descriptions. I'm confused. CamDawg, do you use the US or International English version? Is it possible that therein lies the difference? Can you tell what kind of version was used to create the dialog.tlk files hosted there? In any case, would you mind traifying your vanilla ToB game v26498 and uploading the file here so I can see what you're seeing? This would certainly be useful for me.

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Just about the White Dragon Scale, I see it (as usual) just like Hurricane.

 

That armour, like all dragon armours, is one I consider as leather as usability goes because the base material is the skin of a dragon which is, undoubtedly, (extremely hard) leather. Now, said that, I'd think that most of those armours are strengthened with the metal rings (chain mail) or scales (scale and plate). But looking at how the game classifies it, I believe that the metal reinforcements have not been applied to the White Dragon Scale.

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Going further, it looks like we can boil this down to four pertinent questions--

  1. What kind of armor is the White Dragon Scale?
  2. Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for archers, or its implementation?
  3. Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for beastmasters, or its implementation?
  4. Do druids get a loophole for animal armors?

At this point I'd say scale, implementation, implementation, and yes.

 

I'm in full agreement with Cam on this.

 

Having first hand experience as a BGEE developer, I can tell you that oversights like this may ocasionally occur due to the harsh reality of strict deadlines and limited development time. In summary, we shouldn't read too much into it. The Bioware developers simply made a mistake and we should correct it in the most reasonable way.

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From Baldurdash homepage:

White Dragon Scale Armour Usability Fix - corrects the usability of this armour, which was allowing Shapeshifter druids to wear it (though they may not wear any armour at all) but not thief/mages, though single-class and all other multi-class thieves may wear it (it's defined as enchanted light chainmail which doesn't interfere with thieving.) This was confirmed with BioWare, as well as its almost universal usability.

 

From 1.12 readme:

White Dragon Scale Armour Usability Fix

File CHAN20.ITM; a modified version of item definition file for the White Dragon Scale armour. It corrects the usability for this armour, which was erroneously allowed to be used by Shapeshifters, who may not wear armour, and disallowed from Thief/Mages, though they may use thief-compatible armour and this armour is. Even though it is defined as enchanted chainmail, and looks like plate, it was confirmed with Senior Designer David Gaider of BioWare that all other classes than Shapeshifters and Avengers (and single-class wizards of course) are permitted to wear it, including thieves and their multiclasses.

 

It's therefore supposed to be usable by Stalkers as well.

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From Baldurdash homepage:

White Dragon Scale Armour Usability Fix - corrects the usability of this armour, which was allowing Shapeshifter druids to wear it (though they may not wear any armour at all) but not thief/mages, though single-class and all other multi-class thieves may wear it (it's defined as enchanted light chainmail which doesn't interfere with thieving.) This was confirmed with BioWare, as well as its almost universal usability.

 

From 1.12 readme:

White Dragon Scale Armour Usability Fix

File CHAN20.ITM; a modified version of item definition file for the White Dragon Scale armour. It corrects the usability for this armour, which was erroneously allowed to be used by Shapeshifters, who may not wear armour, and disallowed from Thief/Mages, though they may use thief-compatible armour and this armour is. Even though it is defined as enchanted chainmail, and looks like plate, it was confirmed with Senior Designer David Gaider of BioWare that all other classes than Shapeshifters and Avengers (and single-class wizards of course) are permitted to wear it, including thieves and their multiclasses.

 

It's therefore supposed to be usable by Stalkers as well.

Well, we don't get more definitive than that. Thanks kreso, we'll be going to this in the next version.

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And here I was trying to decipher the intention of the devs, while it had all been spelled out before... I'm glad we now have clarity regarding the White Dragon Scale.

 

Moving forward, I've come to think that it's no use interpreting the implementation of the beastmaster's restrictions. The flags for the beastmaster are set identically to the ones for the stalker, so I guess it's okay to just leave them and add the "no heavier than studded leather" line to the beastmaster's decription, regardless of the *metal* weapon restriction. BGEE also did it this way.

 

For the druid, as I said, I don't mind the ankheg armor being usable, since this is vanilla BG1 and BG2 behavior after all. @CamDawg, I'd still like you to comment on my previous remarks about the language versions, though. I have a hard time believing that the German version is the only one listing druids as being excluded from using the Blue Dragon Plate, given that the flags are set accordingly. For archers, I still think that changing the usability of the Ankheg, Red Dragon, and Blue Dragon Plate is a mistake, for reasons detailed before (changing three consistent implementations, making barbarians worse off than archers). But since you authored this extended usability for archers, I understand this is ultimately your call.

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So, the only official response on this topic has been (paraphrasing) "Yeah, things got a little sloppy" from Trent Oster, and BGII:EE QA is content to follow our lead here. I'd like to refocus (again) the discussion and our pertinent questions. My notes about what the game does is a reference to patched ToB:

 

What kind of armor is the White Dragon Scale?

 

We now have a definitive answer for this from Gaider (usable by everyone save mages, avengers, and shapeshifters). Given that kensai are not allowed armor (and this flag is present by default), I think we have this settled with the above plus kensai.

 

Fixpack currently removes the mage-thief flag and adds flags for shapeshifters and avengers. The avenger change will be dropped.

 

Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for archers, or its implementation?

 

The kit description reads "An archer cannot wear any metal armor". When you look at its implementation, archers are disallowed from all chain, splint, and plate save the White Dragon Scale (noted above), drow chain/plate, and leftover tutorial chain/plate. All leather and cloaks available to rangers are available to archers. Among the animal armor ankheg, blue dragon, ashen scale, and red dragon are not available though shadow dragon armor and hide armor are.

 

Fixpack currently makes the drow armor unusable, and makes all of the animal armor (save ashen scales) usable. Fixpack generally places more weight in descriptions than the files, which is the current implementation, though ashen scales were missed. Hurricane's assertion that 'no metal' is shorthand for heavy armor does jive with the current implementation, in which case Fixpack should only be making the drow armor unusable.

 

Should we believe the description of armor restrictions for beastmasters, or its implementation?

 

The kit description reads "Cannot not [sic] use metal weapons (such as swords, halberds, hammers or morning stars)." Though it does not mention armor, this has been widely believed to include metal armor from its implementation: disallowed from all chain, splint, and plate save White Dragon Scale (noted above) and leftover tutorial chain/plate (ignored). All leather/cloaks are available. Among the animal armors ankheg, blue dragon, ashen scales, and red dragon are not available though shadow dragon armor and hide armor are. Save for the drow armors, this is a near-identical list to archers.

 

Fixpack currently adds flags for the drow armor (they're not present in SoA), which isn't even consistent with the archer changes despite an assumed identical restriction. Beastmasters should have the same two options as archers, above, though we do not necessarily have to come to matching conclusions for both.

 

Do druids get a loophole for animal armors?

 

Druids, thankfully, have an additional data point available: unlike kits, druids are listed in the usable/unusable section of armor descriptions. Druids are unable to use all chain, splint and plate save the White Dragon Scale (noted above). Ankheg plate is usable (though the description says no, Hurricane is correct here), and druids have access to shadow dragon armor, red dragon scale and hide armor, though not blue dragon plate or ashen scales. Save ankheg, the description matches these usabilities. The manual (snicker) says leather only for druids.

 

Fixpack currently makes blue dragon plate usable by druids and the GTU removes druids from the ankheg unusable list under the loophole assumption (and, under this assumption, should also make ashen scale available). There's not really enough to definitively say one way or the other--if you think the ankheg descript is wrong and that ashen scales are a lazy copy (entirely plausible), you've got 5/6 animal armors available and a solid case for animal armor for druids. Conversely, if the accept that the ankheg descript is correct and that the red dragon scale is a lazy copy (also entirely plausible), you've got a set of animal armors consistent with leather-only. FWIW BG:EE makes ankheg armor available to druids.

 

edit: Or we could just change ankheg so that its description and implementation match and say sod it all.

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What kind of armor is the White Dragon Scale?

 

Fixpack currently removes the mage-thief flag and adds flags for shapeshifters and avengers. The avenger change will be dropped.

 

You meant to say "currently adds flags for shapeshifters and avengers stalkers. The avenger stalkers change will be dropped", yes?

 

 

As for beastmasters and archers, I cannot add anything to what I said in the previous post.

 

As for druids, the problem is that this ultimately affects the decision for archers and beastmasters, I think, due to the assumed identical restriction ("no metal"). As I said, I don't mind druids being able to wear the ankheg armor, since they were able in BG1 and still are in BG2 despite the armor's description, but if this leads to beastmasters and archers being able to wear the heavy animal armors, then I have a problem, because none of the vanilla flags for beastmasters and archers agree with this.

 

Do druids get a loophole for animal armors?

 

if you think the ankheg descript is wrong and that ashen scales are a lazy copy (entirely plausible), you've got 5/6 animal armors available and a solid case for animal armor for druids.

 

How do you get a total of six? Are you counting in the White Dragon and Hide armor? Obviously these do not belong into the relevant, heavy armor category. Also, even if we follow the stated assumptions, one animal armor (Blue Dragon) still wouldn't fit, and there is no explanation whatsoever for why it should. Hence, you call this case solid, I call it incomplete. Plus, I wouldn't say that the Ashen Scales are as obvious a copy of another item as the Red Dragon armor (see my first posting for just how obvious it is in the case of the Red Dragon armor).

 

Conversely, if the accept that the ankheg descript is correct and that the red dragon scale is a lazy copy (also entirely plausible), you've got a set of animal armors consistent with leather-only.

 

That. (See all my reasoning since the start of this thread.)

 

 

FWIW BG:EE makes ankheg armor available to druids.

 

BG:EE doesn't make the ankheg armor available because the armor is usable by default in BG1. Hence, there was no conscious decision by Overhaul, other than maybe to not make it unusable.

However, BG:EE does expand the druid's description. It now says "May not wear armor heavier than studded leather." I wonder why this doesn't say "no metal" ... *whistle*

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If Archer is to be allowed Red Dragon Scales and similar armor (Ankheg, Blue Dragon Plate) then the armor restrictions from Beastmaster should be completely lifted - the description of kit restrictions is very clear - no metal weapons .

The mention of their armor usability is not mentioned anywhere in their description (in addition to kit being made of suck as it is, but that's another story). Any yes, I also believe that in-game implementation is the correct way to go.

If you wanna go "the route of description" then follow through completely and enable up and including to full plate for them.

If you wanna go by what's in game (and what is imo correct) - Archers don't wear Ankheg Plate - this is just silly. They use Studded leather, same as in a non-Fixpacked game. Beastmasters and Stalkers as well.

As for Druids - Studded Leather, as vanilla. Even if it makes no sense that druids are banned from such armor like Ankheg (or Beastmaster prohibited from any Dragon scale), it is very clear in their description- no heavier than studded leather. Why invent hot water?

The alternative is :

- agree that armor made of natural sources exist, and doesn't neccecary fit into any category (splint, plate etc.) per se

- agree which armor is it (Ashen, Dragon, Ankheg...)

- make it usable by Archers, BMs, and fix Druid description so it says "no metal" and not "heavier than studded leather"

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alternative is not that good.

 

exemple:

firkraag's armor (natura[?] source - dragon) has armor class -1 and elemental resistance bonus. archer can use it.

full plate mail has armor class 1 and no elemental res bonus but archer can't use it coz its metal. no sense at all. firkraag's armor has plate mail stats (even better) which means that firk armor = plate armor (actually full plate mail +2). this armor is not for archers. end of story.

 

so, eventually, all this stuff needs to be further revised but it's not worth it imo.

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I think we should not be arguing semantics and blindly sticking to kit/class descriptions.

 

Archers and Stalkers weren't restricted to light armor because they are allergic to metal or something. They were likely prohibited from wearing such armor because it's too heavy and would realistically limit their movement and/or stealth. Druids OTOH, are prohibited from wearing metal armor and shields by the underlying rule system. Their class description is likely an oversight. For Beastmasters I have no clue, but at a guess, the developers wanted them to use only simple weapons and armor that they could feasibly make by themselves.

 

So in summary, my suggestion would be: go with what makes the most sense and is the least intrusive solution. Allow druids to wear all non-metallic armors. Don't allow Archers, Stalkers and Beastmasters to wear heavy armor regardless of its composition (i.e. don't alter the original game behavior). Just my 0.02$.

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