"Philosophical" questions, What is a cheesy method? Bug or feature? Options

[Vuki]

I created this topic to discuss the "philosophical" aspect of the game. We can discuss here questions like:

- is a modification really needed or not?
- is something cheesy or cheeting or just a clever trick?
- game balance
- is an actual gap a bug or a feature?
- and so on ...

This topic will be maybe a bit too theoretical but I do not think it is a problem. We need such a place - as the discussions from the last 2-3 weeks prove it.

This post has been edited by Vuki: Aug 11 2008, 08:34 PM

[lroumen]

lroumen, how much of the mod have you actually played? I find there is more variation in spell casting later on.

I've finished earlier versions. There is some variation because foes are higher level than the earlier mages and have more at their disposal. However, for each "stage" I get the feeling that certain mages are scripted comparable to eachother. There're many spells that are not used very often (especially low level spells). I guess this is not just in IA though, but a problem in many mods. I guess that considering the content that IA adds, I agree that it doesn't need to be changed much. I'll let this rest.

The thief "detect illusion" ability is a divination tool. It's not divination spell or magic, but it's still sort of divination tool. See the mod's readme about this tweak.

The tweak is fully justified in my book

I fully agree with this. It's a type of divination after all, so I can see the reasoning for it to be blocked.

Theoretically high intelligence give protection against illusion spells, 19 protects against 1st level illusion spells, 20 against 2nd level and so on (in standard AD&D). I am not sure if it is implemented in the game or not (I think it is not) but the modified version of IA should protect against it also (based on your description). Do you think it is reasonable?

You cannot implement this because each character has a different intelligence score. In PnP you can manage it (especially solo) or in NWN solo, but not in party play such as BG. It would mean that one character is able to see the foe, whereas another character cannot see that foe. You can envision that that character points it out to the others….. but they will simply not see it, so it must be dispelled by a proper spell, not by just having high intelligence.

A dwarven sorc has +5 to saves unlike human, elf or half elf. That's a major bonus, I believe the game itself does'n allow it because of balance. As for Pt.10 - doesn't it mean you'll be killing them regardless of your aligment?

Weird race/class choices are disabled because they weren't edition 2 if I recall that correctly. I still like to play those bits though .
Dependent on my alignment I sometimes actually reason with foes to talk them out of a fight. Den of 7 veils, sewers party… those fights can all be avoided, so I sometimes do (at the cost of some nice item drops though).




General remark.
I'm a roleplaying person through and through. Because I like a challenge I've come to play IA and I've finished v2, and I've gotten halfway through the TOB part in v4.2 after which I stopped to play the new v5. My roleplaying style is somewhat disabled in IA, since several options are disabled because Sikret thought them not proper. The following are already discussed above:

1. Stealing quest items (I don't really mind this, but from a roleplayer point of view I think it ought to be possible with alternate quest endings, such as lower quest rewards, NPCs or foes leaving the site and hence not dropping their items, or spawning different cre files for the same NPC, one with droppable loot, one with less droppable loot).
My opinion. I don't mind this, but I'd rather see extension rather than blocking.

2. Stealing from shops (though of course selling it to the same shop owner should be disabled. I even feel that Stealing from Ribald should be possible as a result of the Ribald Amnish Guard locking you up in prison or putting you in front of the Amnish Court, followed by Ribald prices going up a 200%… that'd be an interesting implementation).
My opinion. I don't mind this, but I'd rather see extension rather than blocking.

3a. Info gathering through sneaking (I also use detect evil to determine whether they are foes) (Sikret has foes casting True Sight when they think there's a hidden person, though I would make it an Oracle scroll since it wastes their True Sight)
3b. followed by surprise attacking.
Up to a certain level he's correct. You cannot attack foes when they just stand there doing nothing or when they expect you but just haven't seen you due to fog of war. The Firkraag attack when you place traps in his area is a really good example for fixing this (there are more examples but I won't list them). However, in some cases when they don't expect it I think it ought to be allowed to get in the first hits without a big prebuff.
3c. Foes illogically prebuffing
I agree that certain foes can prebuff if they know you're coming or if there is a good reasoning that they might have set a somewhat justifiable perimeter guard (such as spies or invisible wards that you cannot disable). It's just that many foes just aren't aware of your presence and hence should not prebuff or marginally through a contingency.
Don't get me wrong, I do like it that you get a really challenging battle every single time, and in that division IA performs extremely well or I wouldn't replay it. It's just that sometimes I feel it's becoming a bit too common to forcespell each foe and it becomes a bit boring and I let my game rest a while before continuing..... that's my problem with IA.


My opinion. I still don't agree the reasoning that "they can prebuff because you can do it too", because that assumes that you always prebuff and now it forces you to always prebuff. To me it sometimes becomes a drag to do so and I don't think it's the best solution to fix the problem.

[Sikret]

2. Stealing from shops (though of course selling it to the same shop owner should be disabled. I even feel that Stealing from Ribald should be possible as a result of the Ribald Amnish Guard locking you up in prison or putting you in front of the Amnish Court, followed by Ribald prices going up a 200%… that'd be an interesting implementation).
My opinion. I don't mind this, but I'd rather see extension rather than blocking.

The general problem with the types of solutions you suggest is that the player will simply reload the game after a failed stealing attempt and will continue doing this till he eventually manages to steal whatever he wants.

I understand that each and every player gives me suggestions based on his own playing style and preferences, but I have to make the final decisions based on much more general considerations. I have to consider a lot more possible scenarios for every case than you or any other player uses or encounters in the game.