Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Sarongs are wrong

Hi,

Sarongs seem to be wrong. I've just leveled to 20 with my party. Only the Sarongs that my level 1 toons came with have no skill requirements. Above that, every sarong, purchased or looted, plain or magic, has an INT requirement. Which is absurd in many ways:

1. All the purchasable or lootable sarongs have an INT requirement depending on the level, whether they are magic or not

2. The only requirement being INT, only mage classes are supposed to wear them apparently

3. One doesn't need to be an einstein to put on a no magic no stats loincloth, come on

4. The strength of an enchant depends on the item level, no idea how it is supposed to make sense

5. All in all, a wasted item slot for a STR and/or DEX character

Atm I am trying to craft a fire-resistant sarong for my fighter. The level 1 he came with, which hasn't been upgraded for the reasons stated above, can only be made with +5 Fire RES. The higher level sarongs that I tried, 18 and 19, can be enchanted with up to +25 Fire RES, all with the same skill 5 crafting character. But of course he can't wear those since these sarongs have a 10 INT requirement. He only has 5 and wasting 5 attribute points for one equipment slot makes no sense.

Suggestions:

1. The strength of the enchantment must not depend on the level of the item but on the level of the crafter

2. Sarongs with no magic nor stats, e.g. plain pieces of cloth, must not have any requirements. If you still feel you need to toy with your customers' blood pressure then throw a dice when deciding which attribute it should fall on, so we get plain pieces of cloth that need STR, DEX, etc.

I'd suggest making level 1 no-reqs sarongs available at vendors regardless of the party level, but there isn't much point in dedicating a whole item slot to a +5 RES, better fix the item thoroughly.

Put some int and let the items carry the rest of the stats. Why don't use you INT? It's very OP unless you are a pure mage.
Problem solved.
And there is the starting sarong, which is best looking imo. The main point of the sarong is those +1 willpower + 1 bodybuilding and 2 initiatives, btw

1. The higher requirement makes sense, because they can have better enchantments on them.

2. STR based chars have an additional item slot as well (shields).
If you want to wear them for cosmetic reasons, you an just use your starter Sarong.

3. The only real reason why you would want to wear a high level no ability Sarong is because you want to enchant it. Since the stat requirements of the enchanted items don't change, it gets around the problem that players would enchant items and become unable to wear them afterwards.

4. You can get to crafting 5 very early in the game. Adding multiple +25% to all resistance enchantments to your equipment would just break the game balancing wise before you leave the first map.

5. Since many sarongs come with a +INT bonus and the max requirement is only 10 INT, you don't need to put many hard points into INT to use some awesome sarongs.

Fair point, but we are talking percentages here.


2-hand users don't, DEX-based archers don't.


Doesn't address the issue of sarongs having an INT requirement exclusively, I wouldn't even have started this thread if the requirements were evenly spread among all the attributes.



It's percentage based, so if you resist for instance 25% of a 20 dmg spell at level 2 or 25% of a 200 dmg spell at level 20, you've resisted the same proportion. At any rate you'll making the game easier at one point or another. In my experience the game was way harder before level 9, at 20 almost every encounter is trivial (and I didn't even read any "optimize your character" threads), I wish it were the other way around.


The max +INT I've seen is +2. So: that's still wasted points for nothing to bring it from my current 5 to 10; and secondly, why would my fighter even wear a +INT sarong in the first place.


Anyway guys, you're just dancing around the problem, I'm proposing to fix it. I wonder what justifications you'd come up with if for instance necklaces all had a DEX requirement, with a max of +2 DEX on each taking the space of another, more useful attribute.

Check this out:





Here we have a fresh belt ready to be enchanted, for any character. And the sarong is clearly broken.

You have a peculiar notion of "broken".
When you say "broken" are you trying to say "not how I think it should work"? Because I believe sarongs are definitely functioning as intended.

If you want a gameplay justification, consider that str and dex both allow you to wear better armor than int. Additionally, str increases carry capacity and dex increases defense rating. They also give access to the best weapons in the game.
Int gets sarongs.

Mage based characters can't wear armour due to the requirements, and robes don't give a lot of perks. Cut them some slack and let them wear their Sarongs with pride

STR chars have the ability to equip high level shields. It is up to you if you prefer the 2H style, 1H with shield or 1H.

Sarongs are meant to be used by INT chars, because INT is more important for them than the main attribute of other builds, since it is the only way they can boost their damage. Melee chars and archers will do more damage with a higher dmg weapon, while the only thing that matters (regarding their damage) for mages is the attribute bonus.

One of the reasons why so many players complain about the difficulty midgame is because of the high resistances (including full immunity/ healing from elemental damage). Making the level of the item matter delays this problem a bit.
If you invest 1-2 points into INT and get another +1-2 from gear, the +2 INT sarong will stay equipped after taking of some secondary equipment that gives +2 INT. With 10 INT you can cast many low level spells without penalties, including summons, Oath of Destruction and Bless, which buffs your damage output and survivability much more than another 3 points in strength. On top of that there are the other boni of the sarong (willpower, body building and resistance).

Amulets and Rings can't be enchanted and come with attribute boni for every type of character. It would not make sense to tie their usage to a single attribute.

I am not sure if belts not having an attribute requirement was an oversight (if not: which attribute would be appropriate?) or if this is because (non-enchanted non-legendary) belts don't really play a big role with the small boni they provide compared to other items.

That's a playstyle change. It still doesn't make the sarong slot usable nor useful. You also conveniently skipped the issue with archers while shoehorning this "Larian could do no wrong" idea.


By using your logic above, one can advise mages to use a sword and board. And this attribute bonus can be compensated by adding a tad more INT to items with +INT, instead of making a slot unusable for a whole class.


Why would one craft a class to circumvent a bug? I already have 2.5 mages in my group, that's enough. I want one to remain a pure melee with all the restrictions that it has, yes it's my choice, and no I don't think I should have to change the class to work around a bug.


No, the belt with no requirements is a good thing, it allows one to shape it up to any character, and the same should be applied to the sarong slot. Either this or call it 'special magician trinket' or something. Also, I wouldn't call this a small bonus:



The plain sarong is enchantable in exactly the same way as the belt. Now come on, make something up, why is this bad to have this available to any character, be it a sarong or a belt? Or it is normal to be able to give these resists from both a belt AND a sarong to a mage but not an archer nor a fighter? Having more or less HP is not a good enough reason, archers are not supposed to be monster tanks, and btw a frontline fighter needs even more resists than a mage because of all the mess the mages are doing that he has to suffer from too. What we are saying here is that if you *already* have a good INT, then we are giving you even better INT with enchanted items in this slot, or a truckload of resists if you prefer. Just because you have a higher INT. It makes no sense with either magic nor regular items.

Why do you care that you can ruby the Sarong?
You can make every character 100% resistant to all elements without giving any of them sarongs, so it doesn't really matter. The Sarong is overkill in your example.

If you want other reasons, read what Styno and I wrote.

Archers might not get another equipment slot, but they can have an additional upgrade for their equipment, namely the Sextant which offers up to 3 additional points of Perception.
Correct me if I am wrong, but shields and swords can't have a +INT bonus, so instead of 2 INT you will miss out on 5 INT, which drastically affects the efficiency of your primary attacks.
Warriors on the other hand mainly attack with their regular attack (+ stances/ buffs). A bit less STR only affects your chance to hit and not the damage of your skills (except Crushing Fist). That reduced chance to hit gets more than compensated with the +30% c2h buff that you gain in return. The way to boost the damage output of a high STR Warrior is not more STR but a few points of INT.
If you want to wear "mage equipment" as a warrior, you need to increase your INT. There is nothing wrong / bugged about this. However once you have a few points in INT you might as well use the spells that make your Warrior deal more physical damage.
It looks like you have skipped the "non-enchanted" part in my post. Crafting - in particular adding resistances to your gear - being OP has nothing to do with sarongs.
Fighters don't even need to use an extra slot, because their heavy armor per default comes with a bonus to elemental resistance + they have a talent that adds +25% vs all on top of that.
Compared to the max attribute requirements of other equipment types, Sarongs have a relatively low requirement. This means that they are supposed to be available to mid-low INT chars as well. I see them as an equipment type that makes it easier to "multiclass" and encourages less linear character development.

Are people actually arguing that the intelligence requirement on sarongs makes sense? That's just funny. What's even more funny is the thought of someone being able to wear a sarong and robe at the same time.

Speaking of senses, int requirements on robes and dex requirements on leathers don't make sense either but I don't have a problem with it.

The int requirement on sarongs doesn't seem intentional. So all other classes are supposed to ignore a whole equipment slot, and it's to be assumed by players that it's specifically meant to benefit int classes only? No way. If that was the intent, then why not make it a "magic trinket" slot like has been suggested in here already? Put it off to the side of your character sheet and require 8 or so int to equip any sarong/magic trinket at all so as not to confuse players--or don't even show the slot at all unless you invest in an ability to use it effectively--"Sarong Mastery" (like Shield Specialist).

I haven't found a single pair of bracers without dex or str requirement in 2 playthroughs. Every mage I ever had in my party only wears an enchanted version of the bracers he/she came with. The only exception I've found was the weresheep armor set.

Addiotnaly, late-game clothing headgears seem to be non-existant or very very rare at least (again except for the weresheep set). The same goes for clothing boots. Highest itemlevel I was able to acquire here was 4 or 5.

And finally, staffs or any weapon don't help your damage, healing or buff capabilities at all as a mage.

Seems like the attribute requirement on sarongs is just fair to me. It especially enables battlemages to cap resistances quicker to help them survive and even heal on their own hazards, which is cruicial with spells like self-immolation and explosion around.

Perhaps this is just the price D:OS asks for overly specialized builds. Perhaps they expect ordinary mages to get 8-10 STR/DEX and regular fighters to get 8-10 INT.

Something was wrong in both your playthroughs. Just two examples:

They have both some armor AND magical properties, without requirements. Not sure about cloth bracers, but the leather ones don't have pre-reqs and everyone in my party wears them. Only the plate ones have a STR requirement, and I don't have a problem with this. If for instance plate had STR, leather had DEX and cloth had INT as a requirement it would be fair, we are restricting equipment by class. We are NOT restricting the whole slot to toons who specialize in a certain attribute only.


Agree, I have the same problem with my mages too. Heavier headgear isn't much better, it's not like my tank needs a plate barbute with +vision and +sneak.


They do. Here is a +3 INT staff:


To the left a spell with the staff, to the right the same spell with the staff unequipped.



+STR gives extra damage in the same proportion.


I disagree. What you are talking about is bad itemization. It does not justify to reserve a whole slot just for +INT toons. You need more +INT, ask for items to drop with +2 to +6 INT instead of the +1 to +3. No need to reserve a whole slot for just one attribute.

There is so much bullshit people are shoveling in this topic it's going to take weeks to dig your way out.

I'll make this really simple for the people making excuses. The attributes on a lot of items don't belong on the items they're on. here are some examples:

. .



Do people really expect to be taken serious when they're telling people things like "Well you can just put a couple of points into Strength on your mage if you want to wear it" so I don't see the problem...Are you kidding me!!

I also think it's fucked up how people don't grasp the concept that there is no reason to have an attribute requirement on items that have no stats on them, Saying you need an intelligence of 11 to wear a Sarong that has no stats on it is exactly like saying the only way someone is capable of being able to wear a baseball hat is if they're a professional baseball player. It's fucking stupid and there is no logic behind it.

Now back on the sarong Subject
It's very clear and obvious that the way it is currently set up only class that can benefit from a Sarong is the mage, making all the excuses as to why IS NOT FUCKING RELEVANT here.

Either only allow the mage class to have a sarong Slot, or make a sarong for each class. As it stands now, there is no other class that can benefit from a sarong or wear one to the same degree a mage can, except a mage.

People making all the excuses about this isn't going to change the fact that it's a completely wasted slot for a character that's not a mage.

Talk about BS.

There are no classes in this game. Period. Technically everyone can wear whatever he likes because everyone can meet the attribute requirements.
That's a fact.

A second fact is that more than just pure mage builds benefit from sarongs and INT. There are plenty of viable hybrid builds and even pure men-at-arms builds benefit heavily from ranking int to 8+ for basic buffs and summon spells.
If you find a sarong that's worth it then get that additional 2-3 int one way or the other and you'll still benefit.

What you said is just wrong and how are they supposed to lock/unlock itemslots for certain classes if there aren't any?

I do think INT requirements on items that have no stat bonuses is daft (honestly I think Sarongs should be wearable by anyone regardless of stats, I can't quite see the roleplaying going "you need to be intelligent enough to put the Sarong on properly")

Hmm well the only magical bracers I've found so far had stat requirements. Maybe next time... GRR

Regarding staffs:
It's about the way spells work. Staff damage doesn't improve your spelldamage but the damage values on your melee and ranged weapons do improve damage of maa / marksmen /scoundrel skills.
Plus isn't it technically possible to find a two-handed sword with +3 int as well?
If so then the only actual benefits for mages wielding staffs as opposed to any other weapon is that there is a crafting recipe for +int staffs.

It's fine though since maa / markemsn / scoundrel don't get any level 18 and barely any lvl 16 skills in return :P


I think you didn't get my point though. The way attributes and requirements are set in D:OS makes me believe that 8 int is actually a sort of soft baseline (as opposed to 5 int as our hard baseline).
Compareable to how you need 7 or whatever int for the ability to speak properly in a pen&paper.

After all the game doesn't punish for running 8 int with any build. Like someone before said, oath of desecration is worth way more than 3 more STR or DEX could ever be.
Then if you happen find even more sarongs with higher itemlevels (after all your int focused chars are taken care of) then either it's worth getting another 2-3int or not. No big loss and you can finish the game on hard with ease either way.


That said it certainly won't hurt the game to improve on item variety and to stabilize the RND a bit more. Perhaps if there were recipes to craft items for all slots, with predictable requirements and boni depending on the ingrendients you've used to create them.

A possible solution would be to change the item level of "blank" Sarongs to 1, so that they can not be enchanted well. That way players without INT can still wear them for cosmetic reasons, but don't get the big resistance bonus for free.