Must forge items Options

[Mongerman]

Thought I'd start a thread discussing must forge items introduced by IA, so new players can decide where to spend their precious gold on.

Must forge items

1. Boots of impr haste - With belm in off hand, and gauntlets of extraordinary spec, its like having permanent GWW activated! Whats not to like? With these boots, you are free to take multiple critical strikes.

2. Memory of the Apprenti - 3 extra spells per level. With specialist class, thats 4 extra spells per level. You could stand forever in the midst of the most powerfull melee monsters and emerge without a stratch.

3. Holy avenger - When multiple RoR still dont work, never fret, holy avenger is here! Combine with time trap and a WW for extra effectiveness.

4. Improved Cat Figurine - Greater restoration on steriods, without exhausting the user. Enough said.

I havent gotten around to forging more weapons yet,so no opinions there for now.

[Sikret]

@Romulas

There is really little left to be dicussed on this issue. It's a choice you (as the player) should make for your game. If not using three or four items (with some classes) can influence your enjoyment of the game in such a big negative extent that you prefer to cope with the bugs of the vanilla game, then keep the current version of the mod and do not update it when the new version is released.

But one other way to think about it is that these few items might even not have existed from the beginning. Wouldn't you play IA if there were no Boots of Imp. Haste? Does everything in the game so seriously depend on a pair of boots, a flail and two swords?

[Arkain]

[...]

As for forcing players to play with rangers, I really fail to see how these changes can be interpreted in this way. You can always give those boots (or the flail) to Valygar or Minsk without being forced to pick a ranger protagonist. Adding the new kit to the game was to add new flavor to the game and to *encourage* (not to force) players to think about playing a ranger as an interesting class, however.

As for the other changes, I think that they can (at least to some extent) fill the gap of power between F/Ms and other classes.

Note that thetruth has completed the game without using any of the mod's items, which means that you can enjoy playing the mod without concentrating on the items and without depending on them. All of the battles are doable without those items.

[...]

Well... indeed you do not force players to choose class X. But you may force them, mayhaps, to choose certain party members. There aren't that many good aligned single class warriors around. In fact what annoys me about the Judgement Day plot, or rather IA in general, is that the player is much better off if he chooses to play a good guy, rather than being evil. Being evil has some disadvantages, such as not getting your hands on items like Judgement Day or The Truth for you cannot wield or forge them.
Maybe you could think about creating something for the badguys as well? Being good is so tiresome at times.

Fill the gap? That's odd. You argue that some of IA's items aren't that important for having a good IA-experience and stuff, one shouldn't restrict himself to those few items etc.:

There is really little left to be dicussed on this issue. It's a choice you (as the player) should make for your game. If not using three or four items (with some classes) can influence your enjoyment of the game in such a big negative extent that you prefer to cope with the bugs of the vanilla game, then keep the current version of the mod and do not update it when the new version is released.

BUT they actually "fill the gap" between F/Ms which is a too strong class anyway if the restrictions are changed. So, restricting the F/M (and other) classes from using these über powerful items adds some balance, while they aren't that important for that matter anyway? Huh? So they ARE so very powerful that they change the IA experience (via "balance" issues) in the end? (I'm sorry if it ins't quite clear what I'm trying to say - English isn't my first language)

Why should I (or rather anyone) *care* what thetruth did? Why should I or anyone else care what some other player did? Tell me please. Is this some comparison now? Or some "if I can do it, you can do so as well" competition thingy? Sounds strange to me.
And of course all those battles are doable without these items - it would be an ridiculous excuse for high difficulty fights if they weren't, no? I mean, if one really needs to have item X to stop being frustrated because he constantly loses to enemy Y then something is really wrong, imho.

[...]

But one other way to think about it is that these few items might even not have existed from the beginning. Wouldn't you play IA if there were no Boots of Imp. Haste? Does everything in the game so seriously depend on a pair of boots, a flail and two swords?

These items weren't in the original game, that much is true. Well, what else wasn't there before? Ah, right:

- no enemies with ridiculous resistances to likely everything, mostly because they can have them or because it makes them "tough" (yep, those [half-]elven X/Y/Z multiclass guys sure have some tough skin. I want that skin as well )
- no weird golems (with resistances to mostly everything, of course) gating themselves into likely every battle with some mage involved. I guess there's some demiplane-of-golems-nobody-ever-heard-of-who-really-hate-the-protagonist?
- no enemy with such crazy regeneration. I mean, seriously: as with the resistances everybody and their brother (not to mention grandma ) regenerates. Sometimes like hell. I remember the Horrid Rakshasa in the sewers: Chop him up until he reaches near death status. "*PANIC!* OMG! I'M DYING! WAAAAH!" and he ran off. Only to come back fully healed, throwing some more Horrid Wiltings. I repeated this like... *remembering* uh... 3 times? Yay!
- no epic level guys wherever you look. Hey, those 2X/2X F/Ms, F/Ts etc. really are common in the realms, now aren't they? Strange that they stick to places like the Atkathla sewers though, instead of taking over the whole city o.O
- no mages using exactly the same rather "rare" high level spells. These scrolls of Spell Immunity, Spell Shield, ADHW, PfmW (those especially, as well as Breach and the like) etc. are really common, are they not?
- etc. (*cough* need more ideas *cough* )

See what I mean? While those items actually help in the battles, they mostly do so because they rebalance the whole thing a bit. Instead of having that nasty guy wiping the floor with you using the best spells or some highly enchanted weapons in combination with his weird resistances (including high magic resistance. Common as well these days, no?) and regeneration rate you can actually wipe the same floor with him, using superior tactics (he's just some sort of bot, after all ) and eventually superior items. Well some more of those superior items than before, actually.
As Romulas pointed out, items such as the Boots of Improved haste can actually make a change, because the I.H. isn't dispelled, lasts "forever" or whatever. So one can beat these nasty - really hard hitting - enemies with some more attacks.
As for me, btw, I didn't forge anything before I left the Underdark. Actually after some time needed to get used to IA and after gaining some useful equipment ("Hey, let's beat on those golems with our mighty Mace +2! I need +3? Oh maaaaan... *sigh*") IA is... easy. Sorry, but there are/were very few encounters (yes, most where left for the time after the Underdark) now/then which really provided a challenge. At least in SoA (let's see what ToB's battle package looks like, yay!). The Twisted Rune was one of them. Kangaxx, for example, took some minutes. I didn't really buff before, just wanted to see if he's much stronger -> determine whether I need some more levels. Well, he wasn't that strong. I was kinda puzzled o.O
Fun nevertheless.

... whatever...

Now, back to the quintessence (if there ever was one) of my message:

- those longswords (especially The Truth [sorry, thetruth ^^]) aren't that important. I still think it's strange to limit them to single class warriors, specifically the Judgement Day sword. Why? I guess it's some highly magical, maybe even intelligent o.O, blade. Why would it want to be wielded by non magical "barbarians" only? Why would a fighter who's able to use the arcane to his advantage be unable to wield it?
- the boots... thinking about the whole issue again the following question came to my mind: Why would a scout be the only one able to wear boots which do nothing normal Haste/Boots of Speed wouldn't do BUT double his attack rate? He's as fast as with Haste/Boots of Speed. He's attacking much faster. So he's no longer a "scout" (which would be a rogue type anyway, but that's just me) but a killer, given his attacks per round and THAC0. Weeeeird o.O
- Carsomyr.. yep. My oppinion didn't change on this subject. Maybe silly me didn't mention it before, but I'm actually fine with it (w00t? ). Carsomyr is a holy blade. Some rogue shouldn't be able to wield it - for example it may "jump" out of his hands when drawn to do battle, because he's not pure enough (of heart, or whatever -> iirc rogues aren't allowed to be LG?). Maybe it turns against him?
- concerning the flail I'm not sure what to think. On one side another good flail is a good thing. But on the other hand this one's really powerful . Then there's this restriction thing: it's still not logical for me. Just another pseudo balance thingy. Like I said: when a change for "balance" is sooo needed (and related to this item) is it really that great? Does it really change so much, because one item (well, four *sigh*) is/isn't usable by certain classes? An argument usable for pro and contra, eh?

This post has been edited by Arkain: Jun 5 2007, 02:47 PM