Initial comments Options

[mikel123]

Overall this has been a lot of fun so far. Albeit quite a GRIND. Tons of running back and forth from challenge to challenge... every time I get a new item or spell or level, to give another shot at the previously impossible challenges.

While some of the shop prices seem silly (Nymph's Cloak for example), I do like the emphasis on money. I'm maybe halfway through Chapter 2/3 and have 75k gold and don't want to spend any of it!

As far as comments/suggestions, here is my .02.

I think the Paladin kit nerf for Inquisitor makes sense. Cavalier, not so much. Fear is one of the easiest immunities to acquire, thanks to the level 2 spell. And the entire nerf of paladins (the "Turn Paladin" ability) seems unwarranted. When the grandmastery "fix" is recommended, that's your Paladin nerf right there. There's an extraordinary benefit to having a fighter class, which IMO outweighs the benefits of any Paladin.

Thieves aren't of much use here, which is well known. I've mentioned in another thread I think, that I'd suggest removing the ability entirely. It's only useful against enemies you don't want to use it against anyways. I think the HLA abilities of Evasion or Avoid Death might be a flavorful replacement.

I also think you could make thieves more useful again with some edits to the traps in the game. I don't know how feasible this is, but if a trap was randomized... that is, you didn't know if it would be a petrify trap, a fireball trap, a level drain trap, etc... you wouldn't be able to just buff one character with the appropriate defense (since we know all the existing vanilla trap effects) and open it. Additionally, adding some higher level traps (i.e. casting Comet, or Creeping Doom or something) would be cool too. That would also let thieves have some usefulness.

Bounty Hunter, Beastmaster, and Monk could use some beefing up. The kits provided in this mod are cool, but extremely powerful. It would be nice for the mod to allow more diverse parties on initial playthroughs. For example, the monk could be shifted a little towards a Riskbreaker, ability-wise, to allow it to be more used in the game.

For areas like the Trademeet Crypt, which seems like some kind of no-magic zone, it would be nice to put the status icon on characters like they do in the Watcher's Keep level 3 no-magic zones.

One other thing I'd suggest is more complete documentation around the special quests and items. Especially since many of them appear to be protagonist class dependent, it would be nice to be able to pick your class based on some of this.

As I said above, all in all this is a very enthralling mod and I've enjoyed the challenge thus far. Looking forward to continuing to explore.

[nicoper]

@vuki: thks, but I am afraid I plagued enough this forum with my journals

First: The guy to ask for original parties is Hideous The Wu Jen

Second: Let's just say I tried several parties, some because I wanted to prove "underdogs" (like thieves, paladins,...) can make it too

Here are 4 samples (on top of 2 journals I put on public forum), If anyone wants journal, let me know, I will semd it (or publish it on the forum, but I fear overdose)

Necro
Undead hunter
Undead hunter
multi R/C
dual Berserker->C
Jaheira

Fate: Made it to EDE, lost EDE because not enough firepower against Prince (and patience from myself maybe) lost after Prince 4th AI

Necro
RB
Vagrant
Valygar
Swash
Assassin

Fate: Won EDE

Vagrant
Berserker
RB
Undead hunter
Cernd
Imoen

Fate: won EDE (Prince did not stood a chance)

Party of 4
Necro
RB
Valygar
Cernd

Fate: won EDE

[Hideous the W...]

First: The guy to ask for original parties is Hideous The Wu Jen

Thanks for the acknowledgement nic but a lot of times I don't get as far as I want with those parties. Monk, Blade, Archer, Riskbreaker, Auramaster and Necromancer party really had trouble against monsters that require +4 weapons to hit. A certain spider battle is where I got too frustrated and had to stop that party.
My current party including a Priest of Helm>Mage and Priest of Lathander>Ranger are doing fine in TOB.

So I agree with Mikel that for me part of the replay value of BG2 is party composition. But after being around here for a few versions I see that Sikret and the testing team can only implement so many new kits and changes to kits without having to go through and testing everything. Which they do a great job of since the mods are just about 100% bug free. Therefore I think it's better to just have patience and eventually new versions will cover classes, just like I hear Druids are worked on in v7.

Keep at it though Mikel, while frustrating at times, once you get to know the ins and outs of it it's a walk in the park. Err, maybe more like a marathon.

[Sikret]

Thanks Hideous! We are proud we have made such a huge mod bug free. I had the chance to work with the best BG2 players in my testing team.

And yes, v7 is druid's version of IA.