Suggestions for the coming release Options

[SparrowJacek]

i want to see the next version D pllzzz

Since there are some people willing to test our new stuff, I started working on the updates. The work is slow, as I'm not skilled with Weidu, so be prepared to catch some bugs and weirdly working stuff

What you can expect from our new Cleric rebalance:
1. A massive rework to "Cause X wounds" spells - I hope they will be an interesting choice, not only at the beginning now
2. Some non-standard upgrades to high level Clerics in form of HLAs and/or 7th level spells
3. A rework and improvement to some of the higher level spells
4. A slight improvements to some spells that buff the Cleric or the party, eg. spells that set your strength to X, won't do that if your strength is higher than X, which should make spells like "Strength of One" worth casting, at least in first chapters

[SparrowJacek]

Do you guys have any ideas, how to make Cleric kits a viable choice? Right now, no matter how I look at it, R(9)/C is just far superior. More health, more spells(IRON SKINS!), more proficiencies, better weapon specialisation... Cleric kits would need to be very powerful, to match that.

[lroumen]

I never gave that a thought because kits are better than pure class anyway as are most duals (in and out of the cleric). You cannot balance everything or you get too much unity.
In the current IA no-one picks a pure class cleric and even in vanilla you would not play one of you go for a most powerful party.

I think removing a few of the improved cleric spells from the r/c list would be an option (not sure how to code that). Then the kits and pure class are unique in their usage.
Restricting some HLA might be okay, but that is late game applicable only.

It may also be easiest to buff their bonus abilities. Some last too short to begin with. Some are not useful to have in current IA.
I would have Hold Undead affect the new undead to some extent. Divine favor to last longer. Maybe have boon of Lathander scale through level and take away the stacking. Replace lightning bolt from Talos with at least a more party friendly alterbative. Scale stormshield with an extra bonus through levels. Scale Chaos of Battle differently.
Maybe add a third bonus to each that themes a bit.

This post has been edited by lroumen: Oct 13 2022, 05:00 AM

[pekkae]

Do you guys have any ideas, how to make Cleric kits a viable choice? Right now, no matter how I look at it, R(9)/C is just far superior. More health, more spells(IRON SKINS!), more proficiencies, better weapon specialisation... Cleric kits would need to be very powerful, to match that.

Yes. . Though just one kit.

If I recall correctly the R/C isn't supposed to get skins, they just get druidic spells up until level 3 or so. They used to get but it was because of a bug in the game.

Would use Priest of Lathander as a Template. Here's random ideas that I think would fit the Cleric nicely without being OP.

So "Priest of Lathande" - Kit. Essenatially a buffer with good combat ability & tremendous casting & combat ability, especially against the undead. A specialist with "sword and shield - style" combat.

- Gets Boon of Lathander every 10 levels, gets one use of the ability on level 1.
- Boon of Latahndee: +1 APR, +2 (or +3) bonus to Thac0 and Damage and decreases casting time with -2. Negative plane protection. Lasts for 1 rd per 2 levels.
- Can use Blessed Bracers (while the R/C would not be able to)
- Single class Clerics gain mending (at start or at level 18 or so), so a number of buffs can be cast immediately (say something like AoF, protection from fire, resist fire & cold, protection from evil, negative plane protection, defensive harmony, chant, free action, protection from evil 10" radius bless, remove paralysis, aid, mental equillubrum + some additional useful ones and cleric's essential combat buffs so holy power + righteous magic). Right now cleric is an almost useless buffer in combat.
- "Armor or faith" is reverted back to the original armor of faith for Priest of Lathander (so bg2 vanilla AoF which is a lot more powerful than IA's AoF)
- Clerical abilities should work against IA's undead
- Introduce "mental equillubrum" for clerics as well
- Can put 2 prfiency points in "sword and shield style"
(Could put 3 proficiency points in "sword and shield style", where the Kit-specific additional * would give additional-1 against missiles (-5 AC total against missiles) + 10% physical resistance against missile damage). No-one ever uses the "sword and shield" -style, so it would be nice to see it in use + also fits nicely with this character.

HLA's

- Gains HLA of equal ability to Cernd's "Aura of Invulnerability" with a few uses daily
- Gains power attack HLA
- Gains HLA Spell Trigger (so can start a fight with false dawn + bolt of glory + repulse undead or so )

Additional bonuses at level 25 or so (don't recall exactly when the holy symbol is received but somewhere in the vicinity)...

- Gains new ability "Mind Clarity" (or something like that) which is just uninterrupted casting (so if it gets hit while casting casting isn't interrupted)
- Gians additional combat ability "blessed touch" against undead & demons (can also be a HLA); say undead/demons hit by cleric get -2thac0, -2damage,- 2ac for 5 rounds and it is cumulative. So Cleric can wear undead/demons down and remove the most potent physical attacks.
- Cleric's holy items they get at (level 25 or so?) should be upgradeable. Now they get +1STR +6&7th level spell. Something like elemental resistances, -3AC, Immunity to fear, +1 thac0, +1damage, +1 spell per level, +25% magic resistance and immunity to silence & grave silence should do it

Minuses

- Can't dual class
- Armour choices restricted to chain mails
- Can't use 2-handed weapons or missile weapons
- Can't put any proficiency points in "dual wielding", "2 handed weapon style" or "single weapon style"

Would be unique, useful and very powerful without being completely op. Also, this character can protect itself in combat in later stages and has very useful casting ability. And it can dish out damage as it should have fighter Thac0's & 5 APR's under IH with Boon of Lathander + Blessed Bracers.

It may also be easiest to buff their bonus abilities. Some last too short to begin with. Some are not useful to have in current IA.
I would have Hold Undead affect the new undead to some extent. Divine favor to last longer. Maybe have boon of Lathander scale through level and take away the stacking. Replace lightning bolt from Talos with at least a more party friendly alterbative. Scale stormshield with an extra bonus through levels. Scale Chaos of Battle differently.
Maybe add a third bonus to each that themes a bit.

And this would be very welcome as well. Cleric's undead breaking abilities should definitely be useful against IA's undead as well.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 13 2022, 09:37 AM

[SparrowJacek]

If I recall correctly the R/C isn't supposed to get skins, they just get druidic spells up until level 3 or so. They used to get but it was because of a bug in the game.

I am not sure, but I think that people still playing IA use this bug, as it makes R/C a real beast. There is an internal variable that can change that, so you just need to edit some .ini file or something to get that. If people don't use that, then R/C loses some appeal and B/C becomes a far better option.

I think removing a few of the improved cleric spells from the r/c list would be an option (not sure how to code that). Then the kits and pure class are unique in their usage.

I don't want to restrict too much for the players, the more options there are, the better the chance for players to come back and use a different party Same thing with blocking the option for dual classing for Clerics. So reworked vanilla spells will still be obtainable by R/C.

But what we can do is to introduce new stuff just for kitted Clerics.

I would have Hold Undead affect the new undead to some extent.

Hmm, only PoL get this spell, right? And there's a 3rd level arcane version of it too, yes?

I would have Hold Undead affect the new undead to some extent. Divine favor to last longer. Maybe have boon of Lathander scale through level and take away the stacking. Replace lightning bolt from Talos with at least a more party friendly alterbative. Scale stormshield with an extra bonus through levels. Scale Chaos of Battle differently.
Maybe add a third bonus to each that themes a bit.

All of these are good ideas, I will try to come up with something nice for all Cleric kits, since most of those abilities are unusable righ now in IA.

- Can put 2 prfiency points in "sword and shield style"
(Could put 3 proficiency points in "sword and shield style", where the Kit-specific additional * would give additional-1 against missiles (-5 AC total against missiles) + 10% physical resistance against missile damage). No-one ever uses the "sword and shield" -style, so it would be nice to see it in use + also fits nicely with this character.

That's a fantastic idea

- Single class Clerics gain mending

Mages (and Auramasters) have Aura Cleansing, Shamans have Mending, we want to keep classes as distinct as possible. Don't worry, Clerics will have some means of casting faster and more efficiently. 2 or 3 ways even.

- Gains new ability "Mind Clarity" (or something like that) which is just uninterrupted casting (so if it gets hit while casting casting isn't interrupted)

That would be really awesome, but I am not sure it's doable at all.

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Oct 13 2022, 01:29 PM

[pekkae]

am not sure, but I think that people still playing IA use this bug, as it makes R/C a real beast. There is an internal variable that can change that, so you just need to edit some .ini file or something to get that. If people don't use that, then R/C loses some appeal and B/C becomes a far better option.

Yep they do. But you have to change the variable. "Out-of-Box" IA doesn't support it (at least my game didn't).

IBut what we can do is to introduce new stuff just for kitted Clerics.

Makes sense as the tweaked R/C is nice option to play. Though it's appeal is diminishing after Jaheira is quite close to it but improved in many ways.

Hmm, only PoL get this spell, right? And there's a 3rd level arcane version of it too, yes?

Yes

That's a fantastic idea

I like this as well. As there's Rangers / Riskbreakers / Swashbucklers who are dual-wielding specialists. Then there's Paladins, Barbarians & Avengers (and Swashbuckler/Fighter + Kensai) who are 2H specialists. Making something special out of the "Sword + Shield" style specialist in Cleric would be super. And it fits the character nicely (I think). My suggestion isn't very powerful so the bonuses could be further increased. Or the whole proficiency could be reworked a little bit.

Mages (and Auramasters) have Aura Cleansing, Shamans have Mending, we want to keep classes as distinct as possible. Don't worry, Clerics will have some means of casting faster and more efficiently. 2 or 3 ways even.

Sounds good! This would be great & make the Cleric's buffing repertoire usable in combat as well. As now it's non-usable. Cleric can't even heal properly for it will get disrupted so much.

- Gains new ability "Mind Clarity" (or something like that) which is just uninterrupted casting (so if it gets hit while casting casting isn't interrupted)
That would be really awesome, but I am not sure it's doable at all.

I think SCS IWD component has this, or something like this (level 7divine spell impervious sanctity of the mind, description attached as a pic here). And Dragons can't be interrupted, so something like that already exists. Though this is just guessing from my side, I don't know anything about modding.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 13 2022, 05:40 PM

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[SparrowJacek]

Makes sense as the tweaked R/C is nice option to play. Though it's appeal is diminishing after Jaheira is quite close to it but improved in many ways.

I consider Avengers to be balanced, but Clan Spirits are definitely not so now R/C should have some improvements to their spells, which should make them closer in power.

I would have Hold Undead affect the new undead to some extent.

I won't touch the arcane version, but I have an idea for PoL version, it won't be too powerful by any means, but might add a bit of flavor to the kit. Thank you for the suggestion to modify it!

I like this as well. As there's Rangers / Riskbreakers / Swashbucklers who are dual-wielding specialists. Then there's Paladins, Barbarians & Avengers (and Swashbuckler/Fighter + Kensai) who are 2H specialists. Making something special out of the "Sword + Shield" style specialist in Cleric would be super. And it fits the character nicely (I think). My suggestion isn't very powerful so the bonuses could be further increased. Or the whole proficiency could be reworked a little bit.

Mazzy's shield's "bash" ability abd addutional DR was our attempt to incentivise players to use shields, even just a little. Dual wield is far superior currently, as in most cases dealing damage has a higher priority than protecting one's characters, since dead enemies can't hurt you

Sounds good! This would be great & make the Cleric's buffing repertoire usable in combat as well. As now it's non-usable. Cleric can't even heal properly for it will get disrupted so much.

There will be some ways to cast spells faster and during the fights, which (at least in theory) should give players some freedom and room for creativity with Clerics, I'm really excited for those changes, here's one of them in the form of rebalanced Cause Serius/Critical Wounds spell:

Cause Serious Wounds
(Necromancy)

Level: 4
Sphere: Healing
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: 4
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: None

This spell is the reverse of Cure Serious Wounds. Instead of healing the creature touched, it causes damage. On a successful touch from the priest, the spell inflicts 17 points of damage upon the target. The next successful attack that the priest makes will inflict this effect, however, <PRO_HESHE> only has 2 rounds to make the attack before the spell fizzles. This spell directly affects the nervous system of the touched enemy, bypassing Magic Resistance, though enemies resistant to magical damage will be able to withstand the pain better. Because of the nature of this spell, all non-living creatures, such as undead or constructs are immune to its effects.

The spell covers the priest's hand with magical energies, that provide some benefits, which increase with the caster's level:
- number of attacks per round set to 2,5
- +4 bonus to hit
- a successful hit releases the magic not only inside the enemy but also around the caster, cleansing <PRO_HISHER> aura
- at level 15 bonuses from strength stat are also counted, when determinig caster's chance to hit
- at level 20 the caster can direct the energy through a punch, instead of a touch, thus enabling <PRO_HIMHER> to deal additional crushing damage, based on <PRO_HISHER> strength stat

What do you think of that?

I think SCS IWD component has this, or something like this (level 7divine spell impervious sanctity of the mind, description attached as a pic here). And Dragons can't be interrupted, so something like that already exists. Though this is just guessing from my side, I don't know anything about modding.

I am not sure why dragons can't be interrupted, this might be hard-coded. I tested Impervious sanctity from SCS and sadly, it doesn't protect from spell interruptions.

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Oct 13 2022, 09:01 PM

[lappen]

when i use shadow keeper,

u can add some special states to a character. there u can find uninterruptable

[pekkae]

when i use shadow keeper,

u can add some special states to a character. there u can find uninterruptable

Which stat was this? I tried finding it but was unable to, unfortunately.

I consider Avengers to be balanced, but Clan Spirits are definitely not so now R/C should have some improvements to their spells, which should make them closer in power.

The CS is like having an additional full fighter on board.

]Mazzy's shield's "bash" ability abd addutional DR was our attempt to incentivise players to use shields, even just a little. Dual wield is far superior currently, as in most cases dealing damage has a higher priority than protecting one's characters, since dead enemies can't hurt you

Right. I never thought about it that way. But makes perfect sense. It is almost as good as dual-wielding. Then again, one can always dual-wield where the off-hand weapon is only there for it's special abilities (like using runehammer off-hand for immunity to fear & negative plane protection). My problem with Mazzy is that as a fighter who can't use 2H weapons she isn't powerful enough to be a candidate on higher difficulty levels as she can't protect herself well enough.

There will be some ways to cast spells faster and during the fights, which (at least in theory) should give players some freedom and room for creativity with Clerics, I'm really excited for those changes, here's one of them in the form of rebalanced Cause Serius/Critical Wounds spell:

The basic problems with a cleric (at least for me)
- APR's (fixaxble with blessed bracers + boon of lathander)
- Non-working spells against IA's undead (hopefully gets fixed)
- Not being able to protect itself in combat (I'm not sure how this is will be balanced)
- Unusbable spell repertoire in combat, only usable in prebuffing.

Cause Serious Wounds
(Necromancy)

Level: 4
Sphere: Healing
Range: Touch
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: 4
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: None

This spell is the reverse of Cure Serious Wounds. Instead of healing the creature touched, it causes damage. On a successful touch from the priest, the spell inflicts 17 points of damage upon the target. The next successful attack that the priest makes will inflict this effect, however, <PRO_HESHE> only has 2 rounds to make the attack before the spell fizzles. This spell directly affects the nervous system of the touched enemy, bypassing Magic Resistance, though enemies resistant to magical damage will be able to withstand the pain better. Because of the nature of this spell, all non-living creatures, such as undead or constructs are immune to its effects.

The spell covers the priest's hand with magical energies, that provide some benefits, which increase with the caster's level:
- number of attacks per round set to 2,5
- +4 bonus to hit
- a successful hit releases the magic not only inside the enemy but also around the caster, cleansing <PRO_HISHER> aura
- at level 15 bonuses from strength stat are also counted, when determinig caster's chance to hit
- at level 20 the caster can direct the energy through a punch, instead of a touch, thus enabling <PRO_HIMHER> to deal additional crushing damage, based on <PRO_HISHER> strength stat

What do you think of that?

It looks promising and I would definitely like to test this properly in combat . This would need to be balanced against cleric's regular attack (possible with some buffs). It sort of makes no sense if one can whack more damage via regular physical attack than with a spell - or if can, then the spells will be left unused. Ofcourse this could work against a specific creature type/types for example.

One "easy" (though requiring probably much work) would be to improve cleric's casting based on alignment (so Good/lathander, Neutral/Helm, Evil(Talos) where good cleric's are able to cure wounds more efficiently, neutral ones are able to buff more efficiently and ecil ones are able to cause damage more efficiently.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 15 2022, 11:22 AM

[SparrowJacek]

Which stat was this? I tried finding it but was unable to, unfortunately.

There is such thing. Unfortunately there is no way to set this value via an item or spell, so the oy thing that can be done is to permanently add it to one of the NPCs, like Viconia.

t looks promising and I would definitely like to test this properly in combat smile.gif. This would need to be balanced against cleric's regular attack (possible with some buffs). It sort of makes no sense if one can whack more damage via regular physical attack than with a spell - or if can, then the spells will be left unused. Ofcourse this could work against a specific creature type/types for example.

The spell looks ok to me, though I will definitely make it last longer, so that you will be to cast a spell, then hit the enemy, which would result in aura cleanse and then be able to cast once more. The spell acts as a +4 weapon when determining who can be hit, increases APR and has some decent damage 17/27 + str bonus. If that proves to be not enough, some other changes might be introduced.

Making a distinction between Clerics based on alignment sounds like one more thing to consider

[pekkae]

There is such thing. Unfortunately there is no way to set this value via an item or spell, so the oy thing that can be done is to permanently add it to one of the NPCs, like Viconia.

Well. Giving NPC's abilities unattainable by PC character sounds exactly like IA .

Since evil characters are somewhat overlooked it would be fun to give a superbly useful unique ability to Viconia. Could either be "done" (on paper) with a custom made cleric kit tweaked for Viconia (say Priest of Talos - kit with the unique ability of being uninterruptible, "Priest of Lloth") or a Viconia specific item, as she doesn't have one.

Assuming the cleric kits are balanced would give another really nice option for a priest that matches Cernd & Jaheira. This would also continue IA's tradition of making NPC priests more powerful than the PC version can be.

Making a distinction between Clerics based on alignment sounds like one more thing to consider

For me this makes sense and sort of would also make cleric's more flexible. Say with a shaman in a party there's no need for a cleric who can heal really well, a cleric who can cause damage / buff would be more useful since healing is already covered.

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 16 2022, 04:38 PM

[lroumen]

Viconia worships Shar, not Lolth though.

I would make the cleric kits stand out with their own roles. Throwing out some random thoughts.
Tempus for melee party buff bonuses
Lathander for anti undead and healing
Helm for smiting damage and some melee singular bonuses
Tyr for debuffing the party from negative effects and some smiting damage
Talos for casting
Shar for debuffing?

Not sure....
The cleric symbol is a great way to give unique bonuses to each kit in the late game

This post has been edited by lroumen: Oct 15 2022, 02:30 PM

[pekkae]

Viconia worships Shar, not Lolth though.

I would make the cleric kits stand out with their own roles. Throwing out some random thoughts.
Tempus for melee party buff bonuses
Lathander for anti undead and healing
Helm for smiting damage and some melee singular bonuses
Tyr for debuffing the party from negative effects and some smiting damage
Talos for casting
Shar for debuffing?

Not sure....
The cleric symbol is a great way to give unique bonuses to each kit in the late game

That's right, I'm not that good with Lore .

This would make the cleric kits distinct but I can only imagine that this would be a lot of work. But would definitely be very nice!

[pekkae]

(double-post removed)

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 16 2022, 04:49 PM

[lroumen]

I do not know how easy it is to modify existing spells with weidu and patching them into the clabs. Making new ones is easy enough if they are basic bonuses and immunities.
But it takes time to create a lot of them and to test them all.

I also do not know what each cleric kit should be able to do lore wise...

This post has been edited by lroumen: Oct 16 2022, 05:11 PM

[SparrowJacek]

Thank you for more ideas!

I finally got a good explanation as to why kitted Clerics should be better than standard ones - whether it's the main character, or some NPC, they have a much stronger bond to their deity, serving them for far more time, so it makes sense that this deity favors them and bestows more powers on them.

Viconia worships Shar, not Lolth though.

I would make the cleric kits stand out with their own roles. Throwing out some random thoughts.
Tempus for melee party buff bonuses
Lathander for anti undead and healing
Helm for smiting damage and some melee singular bonuses
Tyr for debuffing the party from negative effects and some smiting damage
Talos for casting
Shar for debuffing?

I think that for the existing kits, it would be the best to stick to what we know of them from their descriptions and abilities, just improving them significantly. As for Priestess of Shar... we will see. I am not skilled with making new kits, so for now I'll skip that. I need some data showing whether Clerics are good or not after they're rebalanced, so my current approach is to rework some spells for all Clerics and to add some (many) new things to Priest of Lathander, as it's probably the kit with the best ability. There will be many changes for this kit, both in HLAs and spells. Based on your opinions I will either do some changes, or introduce those changes to other kits (with some variations probably).

I get new ideas almost every day, I hope I will have enough skill to put them into the game, and more imprtantly - I hope, you will feel that they're interesting enough to start a run with a PoL in your parties!

[SparrowJacek]

Double post, strange...

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Oct 16 2022, 06:06 PM

[pekkae]

I get new ideas almost every day, I hope I will have enough skill to put them into the game, and more imprtantly - I hope, you will feel that they're interesting enough to start a run with a PoL in your parties!

I'm very much looking forward to new cleric kits! I'm hoping that there at least one that is very melee focused. As I'm looking to do a run to try out all of the new things so I'd have Jaheira, a Shaman + a Cleric in my party. That's quite a lot of divine casting power (and I'll probably have a Vagrant as well so four characters who can cast divine spells ...)

This post has been edited by pekkae: Oct 18 2022, 02:35 PM

[SparrowJacek]

I'm hoping that there at least one that is very melee focused

PoL is a very nice melee fighter. Blessed bracers and BoL give enough APR to be useful.

Okay guys, no more clerical spells, I'm very bad at coming up with new names, here's the list, that will be available in the beta:

Divine intervention
Heavenly shield
Protective chant
Guardian angel
Spiritual bond
Blessed endurance
Purify aura
Demon hunter

These names might be subject to changes, if I find any cooler sounding names. Now it's time to implement their content and later create proper graphics for each of them.

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Oct 17 2022, 10:11 PM

[pekkae]

I don't know about names that much, as I'm terrible at making 'em up. But I'm OK at using Google =).

There's the 5th edition spells for example here - might they be of inspiration?

http://dnd5e.wikidot.com/spells:cleric