Progress report for IA v6 Options

[Sikret]

It has no place in the world of AD&D.

Heh, you really need to reconsider your limited information about AD&D. Evil cleric's ability to turn paladins exists in AD&D.

The core ruleset? How will they proceed infinitely when all the information ends at level 20 for them? How do you think it's realistic to even get that high a level in 2e? The highest level NPC in ALL of 2e lore is merely level 15. the charts compeltely end at 20, so you'd have to completely invent anything after that.

The same point I mentioned above! You haven't heard anything of the extended charts or the various compendium volumes, eh?

And once again (for two times in a row), you didn't answer to my question whether you have so far played Improved Anvil or not. This says enough to me.

I don't think that you will play this mod or even enjoy playing it if you do so; so, please spare us all the time of pointless arguments. Thanks.

[zuras]

It has no place in the world of AD&D.

Heh, you really need to reconsider your limited information about AD&D. Evil cleric's ability to turn paladins exists in AD&D.

Werid. But that's correct. Paladins are on the 2e turn tables(though not mentioned anywhere else), strangely fiends are missing.

The same point I mentioned above! You haven't heard anything of the extended charts or the various compendium volumes, eh?

You mean like epic rules?? The same ones that extend the progress demihumans can make in the game, too?

And once again (for two times in a row), you didn't answer to my question whether you have so far played Improved Anvil or not. This says enough to me.

I don't think that you will play this mod or even enjoy playing it if you do so; so, please spare us all the time of pointless arguments. Thanks.

I thought your question was rhetorical. Why the hell would I be here if I never played the mod?? I haven't played v5 in quite awhile, and it's the only version I ever played. I found it a good mod, but balanced far too heavily on the melee-oriented side of things. Not much like AD&D like in that regard but fine otherwise.

[Ralmevic]

I would like to make a request about the scaled-according-to-xp encounters (Spellhold, Shade Lord and whatnot). Could we get a readme file which matches the difficulty of the battles with your xp or level ? Cause I would really like to do all the battlles at their hardest. If it's considered too spoilerish to include in a readme file, perhaps it could be done through pm.

Thanks in advance

[thick3]

Bards were never overpowered, altho the Blade was a good kit, it was the bard armour introduced by IA that made the Blade overpowered together with the ring from The Four.
Nerfing paladins was totally unnecessary, you have to be stupid really to play a warrior without Grandmastery in IA lol, besides the Vagrant of course. Then again the Vagrant gets grandmastery in Axes in v6 so problem solved.
As for dwarves saving throws getting nerfed, not much of a problem really. You have Riskbreakers getting a major buff, Swashbucklers will have yet to see.

Vagrant -GM Axes
Kensai -GM Halberds Staves or TwoHandedSwords
Riskbreaker -GM LongSwords Flails
Berserker/Cleric -GM Clubs Hammer
Sorceress or Mage- evil for Robe of Eloquence
Kensage -to replace the Bard

Easy doable Shade Lord, Firkraag, Samia, Troll Mound, Tarnor, Sion, Alhoon before sailing for Spellhold with this party. In v5 that is.

[Sikret]

I would like to make a request about the scaled-according-to-xp encounters (Spellhold, Shade Lord and whatnot). Could we get a readme file which matches the difficulty of the battles with your xp or level ? Cause I would really like to do all the battlles at their hardest.

You can't do all of the battles at their hardest level, because you will need to do some of them before the others to actually gain xp.

Moreover, it's true that some battles are improved with your xp, but it doesn't mean that you will necessarily find them harder if you postpone them, because your party is also more powerful with higher xp.

Spellhold is definitely harder if you go there with a higher level party. Sail for spellhold with a 15th level party if you wish. Going there with a 17th level party will improve spellhold even further, but again, a 17th level party is also more powerful than a 15th level one and the overall difficulty may be the same as going there at level 15.

[Sikret]

the ring from The Four.
...
Sorceress or Mage- evil for Robe of Eloquence

The Four was a mod I created a few years ago in response to some players' request for powerful items at Sorcerer's Place forums. Serious IA players either do not install The Four or if they install it, they do it for the battles in the mod not for its items (they do the battles and leave the items on the ground). Among those four items, the druidic helmet is reasonably balanced, but the other three items were created just for fun. The mod was never meant to be a serious add-on to IA. Although I'm the creator of The Four, I never installed it on my own machine except for testing it before its release.

[Kerkes]

I think it's not the armor itself (perhaps a bit ) , but the bard's spellcasting ability that makes them so powerful - fast level ups + ease of use unnerfed spell slots (8th lvl IS overboard, really) + unnerfed THAC0 which is, well, insane. To have a bard with a THAC0 equal to a berserker is plain stupid, and with The Four, it can be even worse. I don't agree they should be capped at 5th lvl, but the way they are in IA5 is too strong.

[matti]

4) Did IA 6 delaying HLA's for all classes? I think that in IA 6, HLA delay apllies only for multiclass overpowerness and, as such, should be done much earlier.

No. The HLA delay was introduced only for triple-classed characters. Nothing's changed since v5 for single and dual-classed characters. The full info is available in the first post of this topic.

Yeah, that's what I meant.

you have to be stupid really to play a warrior without Grandmastery in IA lol, besides the Vagrant of course.

No, no, you're wrong. I play barbarian without grandmastery in anything and I kick serious ass in IA 5. I'm really not that stupid at all. Honest.


Jeez, what is this ***** fetishism? Take for exemple multiclassed ranger/cleric, he/she has only ** in anything but is a melee monstrosity, just like barbarian.

[thick3]

I think it's not the armor itself (perhaps a bit ) , but the bard's spellcasting ability that makes them so powerful - fast level ups + ease of use unnerfed spell slots (8th lvl IS overboard, really) + unnerfed THAC0 which is, well, insane. To have a bard with a THAC0 equal to a berserker is plain stupid, and with The Four, it can be even worse. I don't agree they should be capped at 5th lvl, but the way they are in IA5 is too strong.

A bard is weak in early-mid game, very few spells, poor thac0.
Remove magic useless in early-mid game, up to lvl 20-25.
Thac0 becomes that of a fighter level in late game, with the ring and phosphorus.
APR is still a problem thou even in late game.


A Kensage is almost as good as Blade, just no Permanent Alacrity and no good reliable remove magic in late game.
Still your evil mage can make up for fast buffing prior to major fights

[thick3]

No, no, you're wrong. I play barbarian without grandmastery in anything and I kick serious ass in IA 5. I'm really not that stupid at all. Honest.


Jeez, what is this ***** fetishism? Take for exemple multiclassed ranger/cleric, he/she has only ** in anything but is a melee monstrosity, just like barbarian.

Except that a Kensai Bersker or Riskbreaker kicks serious ass faster than your Barbarian.
As for Ranger/Cleric vs Berserker/Cleric (dual) . More APR, more DMG, more enrage, more buffs, more restoration.

Both your kits are tanks.

[Sikret]

The bersker has grandmastery (more attacks per round), better AC and can dual-class; while the barbarian has better rage, more HP and resistance to physical damage. Both have advantages and disadvantages compared to each other. There is no conclusive argument in favor of berserkers. Grandmastery isn't everything. But please stop this kind of arguments about classes and kits (especially) here in this topic.

[lroumen]

About the novel content and quests.

Some of the IA v6 content is restricted to certain character kits. I was wondering what your plan was for IAv7 (it'll take a while to finish that I know) with regard to other kit-specific (or kit-restricted) quests. Some of the kit-specific quests are rather small, but do add more depth to the game and the IA kits as added to the game.
It would be nice if some of the vanilla kits could get more depth with the help of a kit-specific quest such as:
- a Bountyhunter needs to track down a few criminals for the City Council (like Neb, or rewrite the Tanner Quest to involve a bountyhunter reward like extra cash).
- a Cavalier needs to hunt or exorcise some demons (maybe an extension or alternation of the Malah quest?)
- an Diviner solving an adaptation of the Circus quest and maybe divining an alternate ending for the Buried alive quest in the Graveyard.

Something like that. What would be your take on that?

This post has been edited by lroumen: Mar 19 2010, 03:49 PM

[critto]

As was mentioned earlier, the IA team plans to carefully re-examine existing game classes and kits, extend the protagonist strongholds in order to enrich player's experience. The first priority for IAv7 is to perform rework on druid and paladin protagonists. As you know from the first post of this topic, there is actually a whole quest almost fully done for a druid protagonist. However, for a number of reasons, the quest won't be introduced in v6. Instead a decision was made to postpone it for v7, so we can also see to it that playing with the druid protagonist would be an exciting experience. As for paladin, Sikret has quite an interesting and somewhat epic idea for a new paladin storyline. It is not my place to reveal any details of it, however

[lroumen]

Sure, I 've heard and read these updates on druids and paladins, and I'm certain that something nice comes out. I'm just curious if the other kits/classes get something specific as well.

[critto]

I'm just curious if the other kits/classes get something specific as well.

Can't promise anything specific for v7 yet, but in the future - they definitely will.

[geh4th]

Easy doable Shade Lord, Firkraag, Samia, Troll Mound, Tarnor, Sion, Alhoon before sailing for Spellhold with this party. In v5 that is.

I don't think I'm going too far in stating that one of the main goals of v6 - and something that we testers have invested a TON of effort in working on - is the notion that you should NOT be able to "easily" do these encounters at all. All are challenging but doable, just not 'easy'.

Some encounters that you named are now pretty flatly un-doable before Spellhold no matter what classes are in your party, assuming fair play. You will learn which ones are better left for Chapter 6. This is due to many factors, but I'll say this: v6 is going to force you to think much harder about your tactics, far more than ever before. And in some cases, no matter how good you are, you'll have to learn to recognize when you're biting off more than you can chew and know when to come back later.

[Vuki]

Estimated Date of Release: March 2010

There are only two days left and estimation is still March? Mistake or reality?

[Sikret]

The site is in a financial crisis and will be closed in the near future if players and fans do not help the site. This should be everyone's priority at this moment. What's the point of releasing a mod when the site is going to be closed? I expect all IA-players to look at this problem as their own problem and upgrade to (at least) Premium membership.

It's on hard days like these that one can know who is a friend and who is not.

[Sikret]

The site is in a financial crisis and will be closed in the near future if players and fans do not help the site. This should be everyone's priority at this moment. What's the point of releasing a mod when the site is going to be closed? I expect all IA-players to look at this problem as their own problem and upgrade to (at least) Premium membership.

It's on hard days like these that one can know who is a friend and who is not.

I wish to sincerely thank those IA players who have already responded to my request in positive and upgraded their membership to "Premium". It's most appreciated.

Those who haven't upgraded their membership fall into four distinct categories:

1- Those who browse BWL, but aren't IA players. Consequently, the abovementioned request (which was addressed to IA players) doesn't apply to them.

2- Those who are IA players and want to help the site, but they can't really afford the extra 24 dollars to upgrade their membership.

3- Those who are IA players and want to help the site, but they just need some time (perhaps a couple of weeks) to manage their budget and upgrade their membership.

4- Those who are IA players and can afford the additional 24 dollars, but deliberately ignore my request, either because they don't want to help the site survive the financial crisis or because they prefer to wait for other players to do the job for them.

The first group are out of question here. They visit BWL for the site's other mods and they don't feel that they need to take my request seriously.

The second group (those who really can't afford the additional 24 dollars) can send me a PM or e-mail and explain the situation (so that I know that they want to help but they can't).

The third group just need some time. That's fine. Their help will be most appreciated.

The fourth group should really reconsider their approach to the situation. If you are among IA players and you can help the site, do help it please; otherwise, the site will be closed and you won't eventually have IA v6 to play. Don't wait for others to do the job; if everyone waits for others, noone will do anything and we will lose the time (moreover, if you can upgrade your membership, it's not morally nice to do nothing and just wait for others to solve the problem).

[kimbull]

I see release date March, is it a typo? If not, how long to wait? I want to start a game