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Stabbey Offline OP
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I feel pretty confident that the Traits and Talents Stretch goal will be met. Let's make this topic a catchall for discussion on some of those.


It's been confirmed that attributes will cap at 20. I think reaching 20 in an attribute deserves a trait as a reward, don't you? What are some possible level traits suited for reaching level 20?

Perks for 20 points in Attribute X:

These are just some random ideas, and some are probably too weak or just plain bad. I had a hard time thinking of these.

  • StrengthThrow Enemy: Gain the Throw Enemy skill (0 mana cost, uses X AP). Throw any small or medium sized enemy you are adjacent to. The enemy takes half your currently equipped weapon's attack damage on landing.
  • DexterityDouble Strike: (Passive) 5% Chance that a normal attack will go off twice. It has the same miss chance as a normal attack, the miss chance is calculated for each individual chance. Does not work on special moves (anything that uses mana).
  • IntelligenceEffortless Casting: (Passive) 10% Chance that any spell you cast won’t cost any mana/will refund you the cost of casting.
  • ConstitutionSecond Chance: (Passive) Once an encounter, if an attack would normally kill you, instead you are reduced to 1 HP, and possibly are invulnerable until your next turn. If in the same combat encounter, there is a second attack that would normally kill you, it will.
  • SpeedFaster than Light: (Passive) 5% Chance for a second turn immediately after your first.
  • PerceptionDeath Blow: (Passive?) 5% chance of an instant kill on any non-boss enemy, regardless of level or hit points. Or maybe a special active attack that is rolled agaisnt the enemy speed, which just gives a damage boost if it fails.




In the Quill18 video, David said that soldiers were smart enough to recognize that if you targeted an enemy and they were caught in the splash that they would not consider you hostile, they wouldn't take it personally.

I think that would be the fine basis for a Personality Trait that can get added to your character if you cause a certain amount of friendly fire damage/death to NPC's: Unfriendly Fire: X% bonus damage to area-effect attacks, melee hirelings hiring price increased, NPC soldier default reaction decreased.

Maybe not that exact stuff, but something along those lines.

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For me that wouldnt be attractive. I dont like to specialize in only one or two attributes.

If such reward is implemented in the game it would kind of force me to give some more points in only strengh and constitution and totally forget about speed and so on because it is more attractive to me to go for 20 points in one attribut than 15 in one and five in another.

this will be kind of prevent allrounders and only reward specialized charackters.

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Originally Posted by Stabbey
Perks for 20 points in Attribute X:

Sounds fun and promotes further specialization. This sounds a lot like Wizardry 8, actually, which I have been playing recently. Let me see if I can dig it up...

Players can focus on ~two of seven stats at a time if they want to specialize. If a stat reaches 100, the character gains access to expert skills (read: perks) that the player can put regular skill points into.

Stats mechanics taken from Wizardry 8 stats

Code
Attributes
----------
Strength	2.5 lbs carry weight, .7 stamina
		Melee: .1 to Hit, .1 Attack Rating, 2%/1% damage above/below 50
		Ranged: 1%/.5% damage above/below 50
Intelligence	? spell points
Piety		.7 stamina, ? spell points
Vitality	1.25 lbs carry weight, .7 stamina, .125 HP/Level
Dexterity	Ranged: .1 to Hit, .125 Attack Rating
		Melee: .1 to Hit, .083 Attack Rating
		Adds extra attacks as you level up, although slower than speed
Speed		.04 AC, .2 Initiative
		Adds extra attacks and swings as you level up
Senses		Melee: .05 to Hit, .05 Attack Rating
		Ranged: .05 to Hit, .05 Attack Rating


Expert skills
-------------
Power Strike	Melee: .05 to Hit, .05 Attack Rating
Iron Will	.2 all magic resistances
Iron Skin	.25 damage resistance
Reflection	.06 AC
Snake Speed	.1 Initiative
Eagle Eye	Ranged: .0625 to Hit, .0625 Attack Rating


Originally Posted by X-tasy
this will be kind of prevent allrounders and only reward specialized charackters.

Not if there is a fitting perk also for characters that have at least XX points in every stat.

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Originally Posted by X-tasy
For me that wouldnt be attractive. I dont like to specialize in only one or two attributes.

If such reward is implemented in the game it would kind of force me to give some more points in only strengh and constitution and totally forget about speed and so on because it is more attractive to me to go for 20 points in one attribut than 15 in one and five in another.

this will be kind of prevent allrounders and only reward specialized charackters.


You're right, the maxed-stat rewards will have to be balanced so that they're more of good bonuses than must-haves that will draw you from your intended build. But since attribute points will be pretty limited, focusing on one will be at the detriment to other attributes, so there should be a compensation to make it worthwhile, hence the idea of a talent at maximum level.

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Maybe more reactive system. If you often use an ability X, there will be higher chance that you will recieve a perk connected with X. Some examples:

- You start every fight by summoning elemental, so the game rewards you with "Summoner" perk - your summons have more health and/or deal more damage.
- Like to play with two-handed hammers? Everytime you fight with a hammer you have a higher chance of knocking back your enemies.

More general ideas:

- During the fight you tend to loose a lot of health. Your character will recieve one of these: health regeneration when your health reaches xx%, higher damage when your health is bellow xx%,
- Spending a lot of mana - mana potions regenerate more mana, your spells cost less mana

I think that it would be a great idea, because the player will be rewarded accordingly to his playstyle, not to his stats.

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Yeah that sounds much better but a 20% chance for doublestrike is pretty overpowered i think especially with crit. i mean for every dd-rogue that would be a musthave and this would prevent me of giving points into strength (which is increasing the melee dmg).
I have to say that i love the definitions of the attributes how they are now and more perks would outbalance this again.

And i think we all know that larian is not always good on balcing skills (skorpions in DD, the multiple arrow in D2 are totally overpowered und kill even the endboss in seconds even on nightmare mode).
and thats why i have the fear that this perks cant be well balanced without forcing players into a certain skilltree on hard/nightmare mode.

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Some ideas for faith traits:
High-
Divine Might:
Having high faith and strength/dexterity/intelligence rewards you with a damage bonus vs undead/demons/elementals.

Blessed Bulwark:
High faith & Constitution grants you a small chance to absorb any attack made against you.

Low-

Unbeliever:
Low faith and high combat stats leads you into putting faith only in yourself increasing all damage by a small amount.

Battle Bound:
Low faith and high constitution leads you to knowing your armor like a second skin, increasing your armor rating by a small amount and reducing the rate at which it degrades.


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I hope its a system with both negative and positive traits. That way I can take the 'Bad BO' trait (-2 cha) in order to be able to afford the 'Monkey toes' trait (May wield one small weapon while not wearing foorwear)

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something Involving Insanity would be fun.

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I like the idea of negative traits, too. In the Arkania games, you can make your characters claustrophobic or necrophobic. I love the idea of a cleric whose job it is to go into crypts to smite undead actually being terrified of crypts and terrified of the undead.

I'd say there are traits which are simply modifiers dressed up with some flavourful text (e.g. "Zealous: Immune to fear effects when in sight of a church or shrine to your god.") and then there are ones that add totally new things (e.g. "Intuitive: Dialogue options that would cause an NPC to agree or disagree with you are marked in green and red text respectively.") The first ones are easier to implement but the latter ones are a lot more interesting, even if they don't necessarily give you any advantage.

I'd like some characterful things that don't really do anything stats-wise, myself. Things like making your character sing certain songs if he or she gets drunk, or something like "Impulsive", where your character has a chance to randomly choose certain dialogue options without your input.


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I like the idea of having opposite traits.. for example if you get.. uhmm "non-believer", which allows you to do more damage against normal things like orcs, wolves etc. etc. but makes you more feeble to damage done by ghosts and skeletons. Or "swift of foot" which would allow for a base +1 statpoint, but gives you 10% chance to trip and fall down at movement actions above 2 actionpoints of cost.

Though ofcourse non-combat traits would be awesome to laugh



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There is plenty of room to make interesting traits and talents. As I see it, it could become a very interesting gameplay feature, or just a forgettable, irrelevante one.

I'm not expecting lots of traits/talents not combat focused, but I would certainly welcome a generous addition of those. Only by reading posts here, it's clear that many of us see this as an opportunity to delve deeper in character customization and role-playing inmersion.

So, that said... I hope that the talents affecting dialogues and non-hostile situations are well implemented. As I stated in other threads, I would really appreaciatte a well developed persuasion system that makes the investment in this area something enjoyable and powerful -and not just an opportunity to make scarce and uninspired dialogue branches. If we are given the chance to develope a persuasive character, I hope that this investment bears some importance in both critical and optional quests.

Of course, I'm not saying that persuasive characters are meant to bypass every situation with good dialogue options. But also, I don't want to feel that I have wasted the character growth with talents that only are useful in a couple of irrelevant places.

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What about a Recuperation Talent that helps you if you end your turn with unused action points? If you have 1 or 2 action points left, the talent automatically converts them into a LITTLE bit of healing. Not as much as drinking a potion, just something useful if you end up with spare action points after ending your turn.


EDIT: I don't know how the health scaling in the game will work, or what level you'd have to be to take this talent, or if your HP goes up naturally as you level, so this is just a rough spitballing estimate. Right now in the media build you have 74 HP at level 2.

This only works if you end the turn with 1 or 2 AP. Maybe the amount healed increases per level:

Level 1 = 5 HP each (max 10)
Level 2 = 6 HP each (max 12)
Level 5 = 9 HP each (max 18)
Level 10 = 14 HP each (max 28)
Level 15 = 19 HP each (max 38)
Level 20 = 24 HP each (max 48)

At level 2, 12 HP is 16% of your total. It's probably just enough to keep you going for a while longer. 48 HP probably isn't that much anymore at level 20, but it probably helps.

Last edited by Stabbey; 23/04/13 03:39 PM. Reason: added calculations
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That's actually pretty smart. It'd give you more reasons to actually just back off a bit instead of always trying to use every single AP..I'm liking that.


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Yes, I like this idea, too. Something like "first aid" or "taking care".

Some magic oriented talents could be cool, too. Maybe something like "effieciency", allowing chances for less mana use in every spell cast.

Also, I think that dialogue talents should have different natures like "demanding" (for greedy characters), "pathological liar" or "sophist" ^_^

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Yeah i'd like it if regaining your health is somewhat of a big deal during combat. Spamming the health potion icon isn't something I'm looking forward to and where are the tactics in that? In any case, this thread provided a good read here and there.


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Originally Posted by Stabbey
What about a Recuperation Talent that helps you if you end your turn with unused action points? If you have 1 or 2 action points left, the talent automatically converts them into a LITTLE bit of healing. Not as much as drinking a potion, just something useful if you end up with spare action points after ending your turn.


EDIT: I don't know how the health scaling in the game will work, or what level you'd have to be to take this talent, or if your HP goes up naturally as you level, so this is just a rough spitballing estimate. Right now in the media build you have 74 HP at level 2.

This only works if you end the turn with 1 or 2 AP. Maybe the amount healed increases per level:

Level 1 = 5 HP each (max 10)
Level 2 = 6 HP each (max 12)
Level 5 = 9 HP each (max 18)
Level 10 = 14 HP each (max 28)
Level 15 = 19 HP each (max 38)
Level 20 = 24 HP each (max 48)

At level 2, 12 HP is 16% of your total. It's probably just enough to keep you going for a while longer. 48 HP probably isn't that much anymore at level 20, but it probably helps.


That is insanely powerful. Regen is a very powerful trait. It really should be limited to out of combat situations to prevent it from adversely affecting game balance.

Last edited by Brian Wright; 25/04/13 04:57 PM.
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Yeah, could be. Cut the values down by half, maybe. But I'm not here about that right now. I've got a question for Larian.


Are Talents just another word for Passive Skills?

I know, I know, To Be Determined and such, but in the videos, it seems that's what a lot of them are. There was talk about spending Talent points on things like curiosity, so there's a Talent point system. Are Talent points separate from Skill points, or do they share the same precious pool of Skill points. How do you acquire Talent points?


EDIT:

Found some information on how you get them on an update page. Duh.

Quote
We'll introduce talents that further define your character. These talents help you in combat, in dialogues with NPCs, and in all kinds of other interactions. You get to choose some at character creation, by exploring the world, and occasionally through leveling up.

Last edited by Stabbey; 30/04/13 01:15 AM. Reason: found info
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Originally Posted by Stabbey

Are Talents just another word for Passive Skills



Had the same impression..But that wouldn't be consistent with their previous way of skill tree (active/passive mingled)



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I thought that Talents would be similar to Trails from Fallout games, but being positive only.

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