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

[Sikret]

When this kit appeared in IA v4 for the first time, I received many comments from players telling me that the kit was too weak and needed some boost and improvements.

I improved the kit in v5; many players were satisfied, but then I started to receive comments from some other players telling me that the kit is overpowered. The number of these players were of course smaller than the number of players who had asked me to improve the v4 version of the kit. Nonetheless, I thought that this kit should be tested more accurately and thoroughly. So, I asked a few of my testers to play with this kit and evaluate it.

The result was clear: The kit is powerful but by no means overpowered for IA.

This was reassuring. One of my testers clearly wrote that the vagrant kit is actually even weaker than the other IA specific kits (Riskbreaker and Protector) and that all IA kits are certainly weaker than the wild mage which is a kit of the unmodded game.

Add to this the fact that vagrant ranger has plenty of additional content and additional powerful enemies to face and defeat. One big quest is added for them in v6 which has very difficult battles. The point is that if vagrants are powerful, this is adequately compensated with the powerful enemies they have to face.

A satistical survey I made about players who complain about the vagrant kit and call it "overpowered" had interesting results. Most of players who complain about IA kits (and particularly about the vagrant kit) are those who didn't like the ranger class even before playing IA; it's not the new kits that they have problem with, it's the ranger class that they dislike (this is a very interesting and illuminating point).

Ironically, the reason they didn't like the ranger class was that in their opinion rangers were too weak compared to other warriors such as fighters and paladins. After the appearance of the vagrant kit and improving it in v5, the natural reaction one would expect of these players was that they say "Hurrah! At last we have a better ranger to play with". But as ironic as it may sound, some of these players didn't welcome a powerful ranger kit, because they were addicted to the belief that a ranger is weak (or at least weaker than other warriors).

All in all, the criticisms and comments I had received about the allegged overpoweredness of the vagrant kit, practically wasted some of our time in testing the kit over and over again; and now I'm glad to say that I'm satisfied with the results of these tests and do not believe that the vagrant kit is overpowered in IA's atmosphere and for the tough enemies he has to confront.

I can understand the psychological impact of some old beliefs about the weakness of rangers compared to other warriors, but those old days have gone. If you play IA, you know that the ranger class is no longer a weaker version of other warrior classes. Not only the vagrant kit, but also the Protector kit (in v6) are both added to the game to put an end to those old-fashioned beliefs about the weakness of rangers (as men of woods who didn't know how to fight effectively) as opposed to the awesomeness of the kensai or berserker kits. Don't get me wrong though; the Kensai and the berserker still have their advantages over rangers (they have bonuses and abilities the rangers lack), but that unfair equation is now balanced by new abilities rangers have and those other warriors lack. Justice is preserved.