Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - Enhanced Edition A few Balance tweak suggestions.

I admit that I haven't had a chance to play as much as many other people, but I have been reading about the changes, and so I decided to put together a list of balance tweak suggestions. These are of course, only my own OPINIONS.

Feel free to make your own list.


- AP cost of Sneak in combat reduced from 5 to 3

• Justification?
• The original change was to reduce how overpowered Guerrilla was. Okay, but I feel that making the cost that high was an overnerf. It makes the Guerrilla Talent only useful for the first strike from out of combat, and it makes Sneaking in combat - even just to hide - so AP-intensive that it's not worth doing at all.
• Reducing the AP cost by 2 still makes the Sneak + Guerrilla build much less powerful than it was in vanilla, but it also restores some combat functionality back to Sneak.

- Glass Cannon health penalty reduced from -50% to -33%

• Justification?
• Glass Cannon was overpowered in vanilla, we can all agree. It's now been doubly nerfed, first by making it incompatible with Lone Wolf, and secondly by reducing the AP benefit from double AP to 4 AP.
• The reduction to bonus AP is good, but the health penalty now seems too large for the benefit. I think the health penalty should be reduced somewhat to keep it in better balance.

- Talent trading should go from 1 Ability Point per Talent point to 3 Ability points per Talent point.
- All Skilled Up increased from 2 Ability points to 3 Ability points

• Justification?
• This was a clear overnerf. Yes, the trade ability made some existing Talents useless to take because you could get a bigger benefit by trading than taking those Talents.
• However, reducing the trade benefit was taken too far. With that ratio, that option might as well have been completely removed for all the use it has now.
• Adding an additional point to All Skilled Up keeps it in line with the others.
• Changing the benefit to 3 ability points will make the option much more attractive and still keep it in line with the now fairly-consistent existing Talent-Ability-Attribute ratio:
• - Bigger and Better = 1 Attribute point = 3 Ability points = 1 Talent point
• - Know-It-All = 1 Attribute point = 3 Ability points = 1 Talent point
• - Politician = +2 Charisma = 3 Ability points = 1 Attribute Point = 1 Talent Point
• - Scientist = +2 to +10 Ability points (depending on base level)

- Escapist Talent now grants an additional 10% bonus to dodge.

• Justification?
• This Talent remains lackluster since fleeing from combat is already easy under most circumstances.

- Courageous Talent now lets you flee if ALL enemies in combat are Invulnerable

• Justification?
• Seriously, invulnerable enemies -
  (the Death Knights)
  - which you can't flee from would seem to make this Talent kinda broken. EDIT: Oh wait, the pyramids. does that work? EDIT: Nope!
• There is a difference between "Courageous" and "Stupid".

- My Precious - Your items no longer lose durability

• Justification?
• This talent is still lackluster, especially given how easy it is to repair things.

or as an alternative idea:

- My Precious - Magic rings gain an additional modifier

• Justification?
• Uh, the "lackluster" thing I mentioned above?
• Okay I don't think Larian will go for this. Probably not balanced. Neat idea, though.
• gollum, gollum

- Know-it-All grants an additional +1 Ability point immediately

• Justification?
• Bigger and Better gives you an Attribute Point without restrictions or penalty.
• Intelligence is now less useful than it was in vanilla thanks to the changes to cooldown reduction
• A bonus ability point helps make up for the restricted use and the penalty. I'd almost suggest going as far as +1 Ability point every 4 levels, but Larian almost certainly wouldn't agree to that.

AP change of Sneak: the old sneak talent was an all or nothing anyway. Because either the combo with guerilla is interesting, either it isn't. And if it's effective on scoundrel, it will be more on marksmen. So ineffective is the way to go I guess, and sneak would allow you to rest in combat more effectively. Marksmen could have a 5 AP attack, so 3 AP minimum for sneak as you said is a good value. I agree with that suggestion.

Glass canon: I just feel this talent is too much. Just restrict the AP gained (1 or 2 instead of 4) and change the vitality nerf accordingly.

Talent trading and All skilled up: Sounds good.

Escapist: I never flew from combat. No idea. I'm used to reload. I'm planning todo honor mode, and I'll have to take that talent on both main probably, but I see that as one supplemental penalty compared to Tactician mode (one talent less).

Courageous: No. Just die.

My precious: Instead of repairing less than half the time (because you replace gear), you never repair (and repair is free anyway). Well doesn't sound OP at all, so it's fine. As additional effect you could say it has an effect on the gear you sell: the gear you sell has 10% more value because you make it shine.

Hi Stabbey, how its going ? :- ]


Well, I am glad that some talents were balanced so there is no longer an OP talent. However there are still useless or simply placeholder talents. I think its better to remove useless things then offer them and make some players sad.

Here are my observation & suggestion :

Anaconda
- weak talent need a boost by one of the fallowing
- option1 : on top of a current feature add +5% to Accuracy
- option2: on top of a current feature add +5% Weapon damage by earth element
- option3: on top of a current feature add 10% chance in every attack (not a skill usage) to add a round to the Knocked down status of the target. e.g. target who is knocked already will be knocked for another round. Lay down snake.

Glass Canon
- overnerfed
- 50% HP sacrifice is good to get a glassy felling from glass cannon talent. Also with elemental shields change there is no longer chance of full party of glass canons. The issue is the bonus is too low for HP sacrifice.
- set it +5 AP (instead of +4AP)

Escapist
Avoid Opportunist
- Bot of these are weak talents
- Merge them, keep Escapist name add Avoid Op feature

Wheatherproof
- placeholder skill
- make it same way as Demon and Ice King
- at the moment dont have other cool idea then just disable it otherwise

Guerilla + Sneaking
- previous usage was OP and spoiled gameplay. I am happy it was addresed.
- curent pricing is good but Talent Guerilla needs some better usage
- Guerilla talent - change - >> "50% boost is applied when attacking from sneaking, Shadow walk or Invisible"
- so we have 3 possible ways to hide then get the bonus

Far Out man
- too great and wierd
- touch spells need to touch. No exuses. Maybe upcoming Polymorph ability can have 5m long hands but no regular man.
- remove bonus range for touch spells

My Precious
- useless talent
- its cool name maby some meaningfull functinality? Althou just remove it would help too.

Pack Mule
- weak talent
- everyone knows that mule kicks like a ... mule ---> on top of current feature add +10% chance to any Knockdown skill (Battering ram, Crush fist, Trip, ...)

Sidewinder
- weak talent
- high level Man-at-arms has low defense rating anyway so they they are hit when flanked or not regardless.
- on top of current feature add bonus +5% of defense rating for every flanking enemy. (Up to 6) e.g. in case of 2 oponents he gets +10% to defense rating. In case of 1 oponent, no bonus.

Oh right, I forgot Weatherproof

- Lower requirements for Weatherproof from Geomancer 5 to Geomancer 1

• Justification?
• This Talent never should have survived the cancellation of weather systems. The fact that it made it all the way into the "Enhanced Edition" without changes suggests that some people were not paying attention.
• Most of the areas which have weather effects in them are so early on that you are very unlikely to meet the super-steep Geomancer 5 requirement. Reducing it to Geomancer 1 allows you to get more "use" out of the Talent.
• Probably still needs a buff on top of this too. Maybe a +10% to saving throws versus Warm, Chilled, and Frozen?

gGeo - I like the suggestion you have for Escapist, I made the same one a while ago.

I strongly disagree with your suggestion for touch spells. Especially since they just added a new preset template for touch-range mages. I don't think Far Out Man is overpowered enough to need a nerf, especially with how the Talent options are for mages anyway.

Nice ideas for Pack Mule and Sidewinder. These are the kind of Talent ideas that can be used to create builds based around them. Those are the kind of Talents I want to see moving forward.


FOR D:OS 2 (not the EE)

- Politician, Know-It-All, Scientist give special tags that open new conversation options in certain situations

• Justification?
• In the next game, with its emphasis on tags and origins, why not improve some Talents by giving them additional conversation options you can only get by taking those Talents? Not every conversation, but certain selected conversations where it would be appropriate and relevant.

Where is talent for Geomancy5 then? Lowering is not a good option. Beef up is.

Thx. That is exactly what I wanted.

Iam aware that you have come with idea of Inquisitor a while ago. However, would just observe the touch spells by independent eyes?
In other systems you have to make roll for a hit by empty hand, then make a roll for the spell. Status when you cast a touch spell for 5m is not very playful. Touch spells might have better chance to apply an effect or better ratio AP/dmg. But touch should remain touch.

By default, a touch-range spell has a 3 meter range. That's within the range of of any other melee weapon attack range. Yes, it can be extended to 5 meters... by spending a Talent. Isn't that what Talents are for? You spend points on them to get a special bonus.

This is not D&D and does not have rolls to hit with spells, let alone two rolls for a single attack. That might be something to consider for D:OS 2, but it's not likely to be changed in a future EE patch.




MAAAAAAAAAGIC. MAGIC. Spells are not normal physical objects with a fixed size.

Now I'm going to stop the argument here to avoid derailing the thread any further.

I approve of most of these suggestions, but I feel the "Sneaking" in combat should be replaced by the Scoundrels invisibility skill.

I have never liked the idea of "walking behind someone, making a skill check" and suddenly I'm "Sneaking" and they are somehow unaware of me being behind them now.. It a silly mechanic no matter what game has it.. I'm looking at you D&D tabletop!!

I think, rather then change sneaks AP cost:

1. Sneak can be used "out of combat" only
2. Sneak has no AP cost because of 1
3. Gorilla (:P) now does 2 things.. ONE, any target you attack from sneak takes x5 Damage, putting it close to a "one shot" kill ability. and TWO it adds an additional 25% damage on all "Back Attacks".

So now, you can "Open" with a sneak attack to take out one target, and then proceed to backstab for additional damage. IMO a pretty fair tradeoff.

You get a special bonus, which should have a sense. Right?
Does it make a sense to make a skill "Long fangs" so its extends daggers range to 6m?
You get a special bonus which should be a special, touching spells are special by themselves. They should be dangerous for the target and for the caster to come to close. That is tradeoff to consider. Give them a range so make it a common.

Touch spells should have same range as daggers.