Comments on Vagrant kit, Send them here Options

[Sikret]

Since ranger is one of the most recommended classes while playing Improved Anvil (for playing the expanded ranger stronghold), I added the new Vagrant kit to the game in order to give players more options at character creation stage. Please send your feedbacks, suggestions and comments about the new ranger kit here.

1- Is the kit balanced, overpowered, underpowered? (mostly compared to other ranger kits of the original game)

2- Are the swanmays helpful, too powerful, too weak, well balanced?

3- Does the kit gain the ability to summon swanmays too early, too late, too frequently, not frequently enough, or just fine?

4- How interesting is the kit compared to other ranger kits? Is it attaractive enough to give you motive to play with it at least in some of your game-throughs (when you decide to play a ranger anyway)?

Here is the newest description of the kit (you can always find the newst description in theinitial post of this thread or in the related file attached to the mod's readme file):

VAGRANT: Vagrants do not stay in a place for long. They spend most of their time exploring new wilderness areas and enjoying the beauties of nature. Woodlands and lakes are the most favorite places for vagrants. They are very healthy characters with exceptional stamina. Vagrants can develop a special kind of friendship with swanmays. Swanmays are very rare and special kind of lycanthrope rangers living at lakesides in woodlands and in remote temperate wetlands. High level vagrants can call for swanmays' help.

Advantages:

1- +1 bonus to Constitution
2- Immunity to disease and poison
3- +2 bonus to save vs. Paralyze/Death
4- 15% resistance to elemental damage for every 6 levels of experience
5- Gians the ability to summon Swanmay at levels 13 and 16.
6- Gains the ability to summon Greater Swanmay at levels 19 and 22.
7- Gains the ability to summon 'Swanmay Queen' at level 25.
The swanmays will loyally fight at the vagrant's side for 20 rounds.

Disadvantages:

1- May not wear armor greater than studded leather
2- Cannot specialize in ranged weapons
3- Requires 12 Charisma
4- Cannot dual class

This post has been edited by Sikret: Feb 4 2008, 02:00 PM

[leonidas]

Against my better judgement, I'm playing a vagrant protagonist atm. Not a comment on the kit itself, rather a matter of the amount of work I should be doing .

To get down to the brass tacks, the kit is a lot weaker than say.....a f/m or a r/c, which is why I imagine a lot of people haven't chosen it for their first game (only losers like me who have played 1.5 games already).

But it is comparable to the other ranger kits, and a damn sight better than archer or beast master. No, I would keep the power level as it is, rather than try to compete with the multi-classes, and settle for creating an intentive spin on the usual bg 2 gameplay.

Firstly, I think introducing elemental resistance is unnecessary, unless you're willing to add more disadvantages to using the kit. My advice would be to concentrate on expanding the summoning ability, perhaps give it a bit more tactical weight without being cheesy.

From my experience, the ability came in a bit too late to be truly useful. By the time my vagrant was lvl 13, I already had mordenkainen's sword, so summoning a swanmay instead of a sword is kinda pointless. And i'll update you when I get there, but I could see swanmays getting shredded almost instantly by the enemies in tob. Plus I kinda feel like the summon needs some identity, a special ability that's unique.

So this is my idea: one tactical area I feel is neglected in bg and could lead to rewarding gameplay are those icedust potions. You only get 3 in the whole game, yet they're a really good idea (they'd be a real life-saver if you couldn't just walk out of a dragon's breath and not get hit). But yeah, one of the most annoying parts of the game for me is realising a triple abi-dalzim's horrid wilting is coming and not having any protection spells left, or you can't cast them fast enough. So I say the swanmays should have an ability which allows you to sacrifice them to make your party immune to a certain type of damage for 2 rounds or so, like the icedust potions, except you could use it for magic, fire, acid etc. Imo this is an underused device.

I also very much like the idea of having a more powerful summon for tob, and the vagrant-specific quest. Dynamic content is always a good thing.

If there's anything else, feel free to ask away, I think I have a pretty good impression of the kit.

[Sikret]

Thank you very much for the feedback, leonidas!

But it is comparable to the other ranger kits, and a damn sight better than archer or beast master. No, I would keep the power level as it is, rather than try to compete with the multi-classes, and settle for creating an intentive spin on the usual bg 2 gameplay.

I mainly want the kit to be comapred with the Stalker (which is the most powerful ranger kit of the original game, IMO).

Firstly, I think introducing elemental resistance is unnecessary

Well, the main reason I thought of adding this new ability was to introduce a better justification for why the kit can't wear metal armors. For stalkers the justification is that they are backstabbers and stealth is a primary ability for them. For vagrants, I felt a lack of this kind of justification (except that they are probably more attuned with nature than other rangers). This was why I thought to add the resistance to elemental damage ability. Metal armors are conductive materials which will probably contradict with resistance to electricty, fire and even cold. Hence, I added these resistances to give a better justification why the kit won't use metal armors.Do you think that the elemental resistance (10% per 4 levels) will make the kit overpowered?

From my experience, the ability came in a bit too late to be truly useful. By the time my vagrant was lvl 13, I already had mordenkainen's sword, so summoning a swanmay instead of a sword is kinda pointless.

Well, swanmays are more powerful than Modenkainen's swords in many respects (and weaker in some other respects, of course). First of all, Swanmays are not ordinary summoned creatures. "Death Spell" will not kill them (and of course enemies will not cast death spells on them; they also know that Swanmays are not ordinary summoned beings). Also, Swanmays are 13th level warriors; so, it didn't make sense to me to give the ability to summon them to lower level vegrants. I'm not sure,but perhaps it won't be a good idea to allow a low level vagrant to summon a swanmay which has higher level than the summoner.

Plus I kinda feel like the summon needs some identity, a special ability that's unique.

They already have a unique ability. A special attack called "Wing Swing". I'm just thinking of improving this special attack and making it a bit more powerful for the next release of the mod. I hope that with the revision I have in mind for this special attack, Swanmays will turn to really helpful creatures even in IA's difficult battles.