Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Suggestions Do more with intelligence

I know I'm a latecomer in this, and I did a search but it only goes back one year.

One thing I would have liked to see is a bigger role for the intelligence stat. Constitution affects vitality but also stamina. Agility affects chance to hit and be hit. Strength affects how much you can carry and also your potential damage. But intelligence only appears to affect mana, so there's little motivation for any class to develop their intelligence (vs simply boosting their mana by other means). This is why there's not much good reason to choose an intelligence charm over a mana charm.

It would have been nice if the intelligence attribute affected the strength and duration of spells; the affect would affect the mage class the most, and would affect the warrior class the least, and so on. This way a player could weigh the pros and cons. The warrior would know that his spells would be weaker unless he really developed his intelligence throughout the game. When it came to charms, the mage would have to decide, more mana available, or more powerful spellcasting.

Right now I don't see much reason to choose Mage over Warrior unless you're just wanting to switch things up a little. Which isn't to say I didn't have a lot of fun with my mage character. But if the warrior can enjoy all the benefits of being a warrior, and can be just as powerful a spellcaster as any mage, why choose mage?

Of course I guess the argument can be made that any class can be just as good as any class if you add enough charms, and by level 50 the differences are pretty insignificant anyway, so why choose any class over any class...but that's beside the point lol.

One more thing, it would have been cool if there were more special mele move skills that use up stamina. Seems like stamina becomes a non-issue pretty early in the game (unless you do a lot of sneaking etc).

Yeah, i agree with you. Another point would be that to increase the distinction between the classes, they could have it easier to put points into their primary stat i.e whenever a mage puts a stat point into intelligence, he gets 2 intelligence points instead of 1, that would encourage the characters to develop their unique powers better (they could also do something like this for skills, i.e if a warrior put a skill point into sword expertise get 2 points instead of 1, but then the maximum skill points for any skill would have to be an even number and perhaps that would make each character too unique and would possibly ruin the classless skill system for which is admired) and in the same time the game would keep it's treasured uniqueness. BTW, Stamina is pretty important in the game already,
but yeah, it would be nice if there were more skills that depended on stamina...

Personally, I'm against the concept that every game MUST have classes.

I just find an class-less system fine.

But this doesn't mean that there shouldn't be distinctions when focusing on a few primary fields ...

Such as the ones listed above...

Yeah, I like the generally classless nature of DD as well, I would just like it if there were more distinct advantages to developing the intelligence attribute, and additionally some way that greater intelligence would affect the warrior to a small degree and a mage to a greater degree. But maybe to do this and still have balance, you'd have to further nerf some of the Mage's non-magic abilities, and possibly even nerf some of the Warrior's non-fighting abilities.

Seems like Survivor is pretty much middle ground, except their damage per strength is just barely better than a Mage. I'm not seeing a distinct advantage to being a Survivor other than possibly that little boost to defense per agility.

If they do what I suggested in the next game (the part about the stats, not necessarily the part about the skills), the warrior will end up stronger, the survivor will end up quicker and the mage will end up more intelligent. That way, it would be worthwhile to pick any character depending on your personal preferences.

Yeah, and I like that Today I thought of a different way to make intelligence worth more, make it so the higher your intelligence is, the less mana it costs to cast spells, and vise-versa. Make this effect increase as the spell levels go up. For example, you have to be at INT 15 to cast level 1 spells at their "normal" cost, below that, they're a little more expensive. Level 4-5 spells will start to be very expensive if INT is too low. This way if a warrior with 10 intelligence and a bunch of mana charms is casting a lot of the higher level spells, he's still going to burn through his mana much faster than he'd like. While the 95 INT Wizard is popping high level spells off at a discount. The effect could be the same for all classes (kinda like weight and stamina) so all classes would have some motivation to increase intelligence.

Speaking of Stamina again, do you ever think melee combat should slowly drop your stamina? I got the "special treatment" from Penumbra today, and afterwards your stamina drains for about 10 seconds. I thought it was so cool, I did it twice heh.

You can get it from Penumbra? Funny, in my games she just disappeared from the game after I gave her back her dagger... I'll see if she's there this game.

After you rescue Penumbra and give her back her dagger, head to the cellar beneath Leptin's shop, talk to the customer at the table, and then the bartender...

Thanks Raze, now THAT'S intelligence!

That bed didn't look like much fun though heh. No wonder your health goes down to 10%

Are you kidding? A older relative of mine once told me that when he was about 20 (and unmarried), some of his friends told him of a place where he could get the "special treatment". But he had only recently learned English, so he misinterpreted what they were saying and thought it would all be peaches and cream. Let's just say that during the process, it's PAINFUL, but after it's over with and you walk down the street, you feel like you're in the clouds.

Hahah funny. And no, I'm not kiddig, you have to see Penumbra's room to appreciate it, she's freaking hardcore. Afterwards, your health is down to 10% and your stamina drains for about 10 seconds.

Yeah, but seriously, my older relative said that even with the feeling you get after it's all over (the "walking in the clouds feeling"), it ain't worth going through the pain, so stay away from those wildcats!

I'd like to see intelligence affect things like being able to read books and scrolls, and affect dialog options (better choices with high intelligence)

That's an interesting idea, and one that would be very realistic (i.e if some very unintelligent Warrior character tries to debate with a learned scholar, doesn't get anything out of it but if an intelligent Wizard character debates with the same guy, manages to outwit him and get a free skillpoint in a certain skill).

Well I would also like to see Intelligence replace the know creature skill, I think the higher the intelligence the more you know about your enemy, his hit points,attack,resistances, behaviour etc

It's a general rule in most games that ranged characters are impossible to balance against melee characters. Mostly, ranged characters (like mages and rangers) are a lot more powerful than melee classes; which is of course bad if you're planning on pvp'ing. A pvp/pve game is never balanced, because you have to choose. If you make a mage as difficult to play as a melee type in pvp, the mage will be useless in pve where you get zerged and will have to get hit at some point. The mage is a glass cannon character, which means it's defensively worthless, but offensively brilliant. It's part of why I dislike magic in games; because when you're melee (and dont have a party) and come up against a mage that knows what he/she is doing, you're dead; simple as that. It's 'imba' as they say.

So the choice you have to make is; will you make intelligence affect only the mana pool upon which to draw, or will you let it affect mana pool and spell efficiency and dps rating, or will you create another attribute for spell efficiency and dps, and keep intelligence for mana pool? Personally, I think mana pools is one of those concepts that RPGs should find a replacement for... something more like the D&D games, perhaps; but most importantly, something that stops the mage being a glass cannon, reducing its damage significantly; but also encouraging the mage to spend his/her points in vitality and dexterity, increasing its survivability.

I would much less dislike magic in a game if the mages were gifted people who would fight with staves, perhaps, and once in a while, when necessity requires it; cast one of their special abilities; making mages more like clerics and less like the end all of DPS. That way you could also explain magic in the world far better, rather than something intelligent people just magically attain, and a warrior HAS to be stupid, etc. etc.

I have long dreamed of a game which has a credible, perhaps low-fantasy explanation of mages. Something like sages; loremasters who can give the best insights on many issues, that know which herbs you need for healing and know best how to properly apply them; that can tell you on beforehand which is the best way to beat a certain foe, and so on. Someone who can't one-shot foes or just whip out a ridiculous fireball to kill everyone around him; but someone who is a gifted stickfighter and can offer many special insights into matters (such as dialogue options) which other classes can not. Which would end the mage's reputation of a glass cannon manafarmer, and would create a whole new image of mages, not butchering the wisdom of such a character; but reducing the balance issues and ending the whole 'run and cast, run and cast' type of exploits that come with mages.

Please don't shoot me for my opinion, but the everpresence of incredible and over-the-top magicks including the whole manapool and spells out the bunghole tends to really decrease my immersion of the game. I'm sure it's cool in outer space; but for a medieval fantasy world I just think it's distasteful. It strongly reduces the amount of feeling you can get for the story and the character. I think it's boring if you can just say "Manus Dei" and everyone around you dies; then quaff a few mana potions and rinse and repeat.

I feel the same way about health potions and such as well, by the way. Lose the whole potion idea. Healing is a way you can make the mage invaluable without strengthening the mage cliché.

Look back at the origin of wizards and such. It was for a good purpose that the wizards in Tolkien's books weren't human; they were Maiar, immortal lesser gods, and I feel only they can possess such powers without it getting tacky or far-fetched.

That is why it's so important when making a game with both pvp and pve to make sure to have two different versions of the skills and spells and weapons. Balanced for one will not be for the other and it is absolutely imperative that you have two different versions of things to make it balanced.