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Arma Arcanum
Prerequisite: Shield Specialist 5
Half of your Blocking chance applies to Spells as well as Attacks.

Death Pact
Prerequisites: Witchcraft 5
When you are at 0 Vitality and your summon is within 12 meters of you, take all of its Vitality instead of dying.

Fashion Plate
Prerequisite: Armour Specialist 5
The attribute requirements of your equipment are reduced by 3.

Go For the Throat
Prerequisite: Scoundrel 5
Your Critical Strikes bypass enemy Armour.

Graven Importance
Prerequisite: Bodybuilding 5
Instead of being immobilized while Frozen or Petrified, your movement, Starting, Maximum, and Recovery AP are reduced (as if Slowed).

Head Start
Prerequisite: Level 3
You get a +3 bonus to Maximum and Starting AP, but lose 1 Recovery AP.

Jailbreaker
Prerequisite: Lockpicking 1
You do not require a lockpick to pick a lock. Gives you a +1 bonus to Lockpicking while using a lockpick.

Macromanager
Prerequisites: Leadership 5
You can control two summons at once.

Mind Over Matter
Prerequisites: None
Gives you 2 bonus points in Telekinesis but you lose a point in Strength.

Resolute Technique
Prerequisites: Willpower 5
Your attacks cannot miss, but you cannot deal Critical Strikes.

Savour the Moment
Prerequisites: None
Incompatible with: Walk it Off
All statuses on you (including negative ones) last an additional turn.

Walking Almanac
Prerequisites: None
Gives you a +2 Loremaster bonus for identifying enemies.

Original ideas for Head Start and Go For the Throat by dirigible. Resolute Technique inspired by an idea by Cameron9428 and the game Path of Exile. Macromanager inspired by an idea by Fellgnome. In most cases, these inspirations have been heavily edited by me.

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 27/07/14 06:49 AM.
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Death Pact would give mages something other than Man-at-Arms stuff, but I'm never going to put 5 points into Witchcraft when I could just get Willpower and have comeback kid.

I'd rather see a talent that improves summons than one that might save a character once in a blue moon. Summons Gain 2x Leadership bonuses from their master. Or summons have 30% extra health and armor. Whatever to make a summoning focused build possible.

Fashion Plate is good, although I'm not sure if I'd ever have the spare ability points on a mage to take it, and of course mage is the only class I'd take it on.

Graven Importance seems like junk to me, since it only applies to a few effects.

Head Start seems to be a "glass cannon users only" talent, and while almost every build should have glass cannon I'm not sure that's a good thing.

Jailbreaker I think we discussed in the other thread, if there was ever a point to lockpicking it could be a decent talent but that's not currently case.

Mind Over Matter is fine, although the str penalty rules it out for many builds.

Savour the Moment would be a new mandatory cheese talent, for the same reason Walk it Off is terrible, but in reverse of course.

Walking Almanac might as well just be +2 Loremaster, gear identification isn't that big of a deal and this'd just make it more convenient. Identifying enemies is also of questionable value - many have obvious weaknesses/resistances, and the more you've played and know enough about the enemies from experience, the less value it has. I'd give it a little combat bonus to represent better knowledge of weak points or whatever to make it more enticing.



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Probably should have included explanations right away, but here is good.

I like Witchcraft and voluntarily get 3/4 ranks in it. :p
I think it would be OP if people actually got ranks in Witchcraft only for the talent. It should be something you might get if you're investing in Witchcraft anyway, not a free grab.

Not really a direct reply, but the original idea behind Fashion Plate was "I want a talent which makes me immune to those damn Weakening Arrows random archers fire at my guy to make my plate armour fall off." I decided to make it more open because... why not make it more open? But I don't think I'm the only one who's been frustrated by that particular situation, and I imagine you'd see the talent picked up by non-mages as well. After all, haven't you ever lamented that all those extra sarongs are going to waste?

I think Shield Specialist is underrated so I didn't want to give it anything overly powerful. It's just there to cover the other two immobilizing status effects which disable Blocking (you can already acquire immunity to Stun and Knockdown).

Glass Cannon would double Head Start's drawback, making it effectively -2 to recovery AP. For me, the whole point of the drawback was "Glass Cannon would really like more starting AP, so what can we do to make this less of a pure Glass Cannon talent?" Do you really think it's a talent for Glass Cannon users?

What if Savour the Moment was worded so that, even if you make a save with Bodybuilding or Willpower, the negative status still hangs around for 1 round (since 0+1=1)? I'm not of the opinion Walk it Off is terrible, by the way; there are certain characters in your party you plan on buffing until they are death machines, and then there are other characters who you plan on just providing crowd control and not really doing or soaking up that much damage. Walk it Off is a little bit of protection for the characters who get the assists rather than score the goals. On the other hand, Savour the Moment would clearly be a talent for further buffing the death machines, so yeah, balance is a concern. (Walk it Off is usually for spellcasters, since they're the only ones who don't benefit from the global benefits of Blessed Earth.)

Walking Almanac is, I believe, the type of talent which would have a nice little niche following but be ignored by... pretty much everyone on these forums. If you're here, you're likely very aware of web content such as wikis, and you read various posts describing some specific situations. The thing to remember is: we are the minority, and less than 5% of those who play the game are likely to visit the forums. And they don't play like us. These players have the blinders up regarding the Internet, and they enjoy it better that way; they're the ones for whom spoiler tags were invented. For them, such a talent would be a very appealing pickup on their first couple playthroughs.

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 25/07/14 03:26 AM.
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How is this v2 if you just reposted the talents you posted in the first thread?


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It's difficult to make something easy.
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For some reason I can't fathom, I no longer have the ability to edit the first post of the old thread. Hopefully that doesn't happen again, and as long as it doesn't I won't make any new ones.

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Symbiote (or Sympath)
Prerequisites: None
25% damage to summoner is transferred to summoned creature (and vice versa).

Gatherer (there's probably a better name for it).
Prerequisites: Lucky 1
Incompatible with: Gold Digger
You are more likely to find ingredients, but you no longer find any equipment.

Gold Digger
Prerequisites: Lucky 1
Incompatible with: Gatherer
You are more likely to find gold, but you no longer find any ingredients.

Focused
Prerequisites: None
AOE spells are 50% more effective, but 50% less radius.

Nobody Has As Many Friends
Prerequisites: None
Attitude towards character is increased by 25 points when gifting cheese.


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Any combat which lasts longer than 4 rounds makes Head Start a bad thing - even worse if you take Glass Cannon. Bump it up to +4 and I think it's a good, solid talent.

Fashion Plate is good for characters who spread their stats out, which I think is good.

suggestions:

Scout
increases Sight and Hearing by 4

Venomous Strikes
(req rank 3 Scoundrel)
Doubles elemental damage from weapons

Find Weakness
Each point of Perception allows you to ignore 1.5% of the enemy's armor rating.

Cozy
(req rank 1 Pyro)
Heal 5% of your max HP every turn, while Warm

Fish out of Water
(req rank 1 Hydro)
gives +1 recovery AP while wet and -1 recovery AP while warm or burning

Light Touch
reduces strength by 1, but increases lockpicking and pickpocketing by 1 each.

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I'm not going to comment on Scout because I've never noticed any particular effect that vision/hearing radius has on things. I will ask though: how are sight and hearing useful?

Um, elemental damage isn't venomous. Plus, doubling the elemental damage on weapons would probably be too good. Now doubling the poison damage... that would work fine. It's also a Crafting 1 recipe (empty flask + ooze barrel or fly agaric or rotten eggs, then any weapon + poison flask), so it's very accessible even to low-level characters. Making it poison-only would definitely give it more character, even if it means some fights are more troublesome. Make it properly poison-only and lower the prereq, and I'd wholeheartedly approve... although, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think the game engine would have problems with it.

I think Find Weakness would be more interesting if it was a little more open-ended. How about "Your Critical Strikes ignore the enemy's Armour Rating." Perception increases your critical chance, so more Perception would still mean more Armour Rating ignored; however, it wouldn't be the only way to skin the cat. This would allow you to spec a critical strike build, something which the game doesn't really support currently. Well, except backstabbers. I guess my version would be pretty darn good for them.

I don't know how to feel about Cozy. The prerequisite definitely seems out of place... other than that, don't know what to say.

Fish Out of Water isn't really OP, but it's a functional duplicate of Elemental Affinity. Actually, a little better. You can control where the puddle forms when you cast Rain, but you can only use the AP savings on Hydro spells, which limits it somewhat... and you also need to form the puddle on yourself, which means you risk having the puddle electrified. I think it's better to just let Elemental Affinity take this niche instead of making a very similar talent.

I don't like Light Touch just because it can't really coexist with my Jailbreaker or Mind Over Matter suggestions. :p Other than the possibly biased view of believing my suggestions are better... I don't think it really needs the Strength penalty, it would still be balanced without it.

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 25/07/14 04:56 AM.
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Hearing increases the range at which you can detect enemies on the mini-map
Sight increases the range you can see enemies - is helpful for rangers who want to shoot farther, or if you just want more warning before walking into a group of enemies.
Neither are THAT useful imo, but I would consider getting Scout, especially on a ranger.

re: "Venemous" I couldn't think of a better name, and went with it figuring it could be figurative venom. The problem with restricting it to 'poison only' is that poison is completely worthless for the entire first act of the game, and continues to be frequently unhelpful after that. If I tried to build a character around poison damage, I feel like I would be eternally frustrated. I really like the idea of a poison specialization for Scoundrels, but the game just seems really unfriendly to poisoners, what with all the skeletons and zombies and mushrooms and random things that are immune to poison damage. Also note that Scoundrels are already gimped during act 1 due to all the 'fuck your piercing damage' skeletons.

Warm and Fish Out of Water are both intended to be specializations for their elements. Fire-casters will get a bit of a boost by setting everything on fire around them. Water users will get a bit of a boost by making it rain (a spell which I find I use less and less as the game goes on). Fish's tradeoff is that it becomes a penalty when you wind up near fire.

Last edited by dirigible; 25/07/14 05:33 AM.
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A lot of these pro/con talent ideas would be better as choose-able traits ala Arcanum. Talents are too few to spend on smaller trade-offs that don't compete with the big combat benefits of stuff like Glass Cannon, Leech, Weather the Storm, Bully, etc.

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Problem is, you just listed the 4 best talents in the game.
You shouldn't really think of Glass Cannon or Leech as a baseline for what talents should be. Both of them are ridiculously overpowered. Instead, think about Politician (-1 int, +2 charisma) or Far Out Man (+2 range on spells) or Zombie (heal from poison but die from normal healing).

90% of the existing talents are small buffs, or tradeoffs that specialize you.

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Btw if you double elemental damage, mage staffs are gonna be really great wink

And no 90% of the existing talents are not small buffs.

Guerillia - double damage from stealth.
25% elemental resistance
backstabbing
Even zombie isnt as small as you make it out to be, it actually is huge.

Those DEFINE the way you play, your very options. Just like GC or Lone Wolf or leech.

90% of the existing talents are too weak is what should be said. There is nothing wrong with very strong talents, that alter your gameplay in very unique ways. Some of them might be over the edge (e.g. leech), but those are the baseline in terms of how much power they should give you, not the weak ones, that nobody in their right mind would pick.

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First, and this might seem a little off-topic, but Bully is a horrendously overrated talent from an efficiency perspective. Loosely translated, it reads "when you inflict negative status effects on your enemies, you win." You really don't need to spend a talent in order for this to be true; if your enemies are consistently Knocked Down, Slowed, or Crippled, you're going to win anyway. Bully seems much better than it is because it makes big, satisfying numbers pop up on the screen. Lightning Rod, for example, is much more efficient than Bully, because it's much more likely to decide the outcome of a battle. (The other three talents you listed, however, are powerful indeed.)

Second, it's totally okay that you're a fan of Bully. There is a specific psychographic of RPG player who enjoys those big, satisfying numbers popping up on the screen, and if that's what's fun for that player, then it's okay if they're a little bit less purely efficient. (Notice that I qualified all the comparisons above with references to efficiency, because more efficient doesn't directly correlate to better.) Some people like collecting data more than they like powergaming; those people would really like Walking Almanac. Some people might have a fantasy of being stuck in a jail cell and escaping on their own, and they might really like Jailbreaker. Some players couldn't resist at least on playthrough with Pet Pal to make sure they got to see what all the animals had to say, just because they're curious. If you're designing a game, you shouldn't judge every single talent according only to the standards of your personal psychographic (reminds me of Spike/Timmy in MtG), because you need to be able to cater to multiple different psychographics simultaneously.

But I do really care about what you, Fellgnome, think about Head Start, because from what I can tell you're the intended demographic for that kind of talent. With the others, there might be other people who might like them, but if you don't like Head Start, I can't imagine who would. Similar situation, but not quite as extreme, with Savour the Moment.

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 25/07/14 06:44 AM.
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Originally Posted by ScrotieMcB
Death Pact
Prerequisites: Witchcraft 5
When you are at 0 Vitality and your summon is within 12 meters of you, take all of its Vitality instead of dying.

Are people actually dying in this game?

Quote
Fashion Plate
Prerequisite: Armour Specialist 5
The attribute requirements of your equipment are reduced by 3.
This could give dex chars access to heavy boots, bracers and sarongs as well as lucky charm shields for opening chests. At the same time it is a protection from Attribute debuffs (sometimes you end up dropping your equipment if you barely made the requirements). You could even give your dex char a club against Skelletons in the first map if necessary.
That being said, AS 5 means that it is unlikely to see this talent on anything other than a STR char.

Quote
Graven Importance
Prerequisite: Shield Specialist 5
Your Defense Rating and Blocking still apply while Frozen or Petrified.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't frozen give you a additional defense rating?

Quote
Head Start
Prerequisite: Level 3
You get a +3 bonus to Maximum and Starting AP, but lose 1 Recovery AP.
Now that is an interesting talent, for Glass Cannon Mages, especially when that have 0 Perception because of the +1INT-1PER books. I wouldn't want this on a char without Glass Cannon though, since -1 Recovery AP effectively means losing 2 SPD instead of just 1.

Quote
Jailbreaker
Prerequisite: Lockpicking 1
You do not require a lockpick to pick a lock. Gives you a +1 bonus to Lockpicking while using a lockpick.

Aren't Lockpicks completely useless atm?

Quote
Mind Over Matter
Prerequisites: None
Gives you 2 bonus points in Telekinesis but you lose a point in Strength.
How high do you want Telekinesis to be? 1 talent point is worth 10 ability points, which would be enough to boost the skill from 0 to 4 or from 3 to 5.

Quote
Savour the Moment
Prerequisites: None
Incompatible with: Walk it Off
All statuses on you (including negative ones) last an additional turn.
This talent would cause plenty of early frustration when your saving throws are low. It also seems that debuffs are far more common than buffs.

Quote
Walking Almanac
Prerequisites: None
Gives you a +2 Loremaster bonus for identifying enemies.

1 talent point is worth 10 ability points, which would be enough to boost the skill from 0 to 4 or from 3 to 5.

Last edited by eidolon; 25/07/14 06:45 AM.
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Once again, people: If you have 14 recovery AP with Glass Cannon before Head Start, you would have 12 recovery AP after. (7-1)x2 = 12, not 13.

Frozen and Petrified both give you additional Armour rating (how much exactly is not something I could find online). They also drop your Defense Rating (chance enemies will miss) to zero.

People die on Hard. Not too often though, unless they're trying really dangerous things like Glass Cannon without either Picture of Health or Lone Wolf. I think magma is the #1 cause of death on Normal.

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 25/07/14 06:57 AM.
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Originally Posted by dirigible
Problem is, you just listed the 4 best talents in the game.
You shouldn't really think of Glass Cannon or Leech as a baseline for what talents should be. Both of them are ridiculously overpowered. Instead, think about Politician (-1 int, +2 charisma) or Far Out Man (+2 range on spells) or Zombie (heal from poison but die from normal healing).

90% of the existing talents are small buffs, or tradeoffs that specialize you.


I see talents as "feat" equivalents D&D wise. We don't necessarily have a standard for how powerful any one talent should be since they're so imbalanced right now. Some of the existing talents I feel are downgrades to a character even. Politician is a great example of that - it's a tradeoff but nigh-objecively a bad one considering the limited applications for a high charisma.

I personally think Far Out Man is quite strong though. But I have ended up playing almost exclusively mage and mage hybrid characters by now as I find everything else dull or reliant on the extremes of cheese(resistance stacking/stealth).

I don't mind if talents get toned down or up but I would like consistency. I don't like "no-brainer" talents that are just obviously your best choice for a build. I want an interesting personalized character build that provides enjoyable and balance gameplay, and I don't want to need to gimp my character to achieve that.

Originally Posted by ScrotieMcB
First, and this might seem a little off-topic, but Bully is a horrendously overrated talent from an efficiency perspective. Loosely translated, it reads "when you inflict negative status effects on your enemies, you win." You really don't need to spend a talent in order for this to be true; if your enemies are consistently Knocked Down, Slowed, or Crippled, you're going to win anyway. Bully seems much better than it is because it makes big, satisfying numbers pop up on the screen. Lightning Rod, for example, is much more efficient than Bully, because it's much more likely to decide the outcome of a battle. (The other three talents you listed, however, are powerful indeed.)

----

But I do really care about what you, Fellgnome, think about Head Start, because from what I can tell you're the intended demographic for that kind of talent. With the others, there might be other people who might like them, but if you don't like Head Start, I can't imagine who would. Similar situation, but not quite as extreme, with Savour the Moment.


I disagree on bully. Midnight oil is cheap and can be used every turn. It doesn't take enemies completely out of the fight either, like stun or knockdown. It can be a very efficient talent. Also, stuns and knockdowns do have CDs, so it can be important to take down enemies before the effect runs out, depending on your party makeup.

Head Start as a talent doesn't really appeal to me. I'm trading a small gain for the first turn of combat in a game where I can often force the first turn to not matter at all. Recovery AP is much more important to me. With glass cannon, the gain to max AP does come into play more however, but only with glass cannon would this have any merit. Even then though, I'd probably pass on it for something more substantial feeling.



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Originally Posted by Pappus
Btw if you double elemental damage, mage staffs are gonna be really great wink

And no 90% of the existing talents are not small buffs.

Guerillia - double damage from stealth.
25% elemental resistance
backstabbing
Even zombie isnt as small as you make it out to be, it actually is huge.

Those DEFINE the way you play, your very options. Just like GC or Lone Wolf or leech.

90% of the existing talents are too weak is what should be said. There is nothing wrong with very strong talents, that alter your gameplay in very unique ways. Some of them might be over the edge (e.g. leech), but those are the baseline in terms of how much power they should give you, not the weak ones, that nobody in their right mind would pick.

Ehhh, I partially agree and partially disagree.
Things like Backstab, Bully, and Guerilla are acceptable because they give you large bonuses, but only in certain circumstances and only if you earn it. Backstab forces you to use the worst melee weapon, Bully only activates if you spend AP disabling the enemy, and Guerilla is only useful if you spec heavily into stealth.
Those are good. I like those.

Essentially I believe talents should fall into one of three categories
1) small bonuses which are generally useful and have no costs (Far Out Man, 5 Star Diner, All Skilled Up)
2) large bonuses which come with a cost (Zombie)
3) large bonuses which only activate under specific circumstances (Guerilla, Comeback Kid, Bully)

Politician and Glass Cannon are examples of 2 which are unbalanced. The former is underpowered, the latter is overpowered.
Leech is a huge bonus with no costs, usable in all circumstances : overpowered.

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Those look great Scrotie. Here are a couple more I though would be cool (they're mostly offensive)...:)

Retribution - Offensive Rating is increased by 50% for 3 turns after successfully blocking an attack. Requires 5 Shield Specialist.

Bulwark - Successfully blocking an attack has a 20% chance to trigger an enhanced defensive state, increasing defensive rating and armor rating by 20% for 3 turns. Requires 3 Shield Specialist.

Splitting Arrows: Your arrows have a chance to fragment and hit additional opponents for 20% of the original damage that was inflicted. Requires 5 Marksman.

Lacerate: Attacks with a a dagger have a chance to cause additional bleeding damage to the target.

Fortuitous Hit: Increases chance for a critical hit by 30%, but also reduces you overall damage with ranged and melee weapons by 20%.

Purposeful Blow: You can no longer inflict critical hits, but your normal attacks are far more devastating, increasing overall damage by 35%.

Ravager - Your attacks with swords ignore 10% of your opponent's physical armor.

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Changed Graven Importance (the pun is intended, by the way) to require Bodybuilding instead of Shield Specialist and to be more effective. It doesn't provide immunity to the Frozen and Petrified statuses, because both of those statues statuses provide some Armour, so instead it just changes the effect those statuses have.

Added Arma Arcanum (as a new idea for a Shield Specialist 5 talent), Go For the Throat (which inspired by dirigible's Find Weakness), Resolute Technique (inspired by Cameron9428's Purposeful Blow and the game Path of Exile), and Macromanager (based on a comment by Fellgnome). I feel the ability to bypass enemy Armour should be a rare and valuable thing indeed (among other reasons, to keep Silver Arrows useful for much of the game).

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 26/07/14 09:08 AM.
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