I’ve run through this game twice in the recent one and a half month. It is admirable that even I’ve played the mod so many times, it’s still attractive. I am very appreciate with the changes of the recent releases. I’m so glad that this mod is still under updating and I am quite looking forward for the next release. So here are my personal suggestions for it.
1.Relief the constraint on whether the protagonist is a necromancer.
The single factor that affects the difficulty and game experience of the mod most is whether the protagonist is a necromancer. I should admit that the adventure and item designed for necromancer is very fantastic and the battle with the Old Ones is one of my favourite. However, after so many tries I would like to start the game with other roles. Unfortunately, the game difficulty could be quite different, especially in the battle with the Great Wyrm. One way to do this is to make Memory of the Apprenti and Amulet of Hades available for all characters, or other wizard should have counter abilities against Greater Silence. As a trade off, necromancer should be nerfed. RVE is a bit too powerful for a necro that in late game you nearly need no other healing method.
2.Make cleric more powerful.
Just as I said, with RVE you nearly don’t need a healer in your party. And what makes things worse is that in the recent release druid over compete cleric from nearly all dimensions: stoneskin, new items and new kits, and more useful HLAs. So to maximize party fighting power, there is no room for a cleric. But cleric is one of my favourite role in the game(and also in other PRGs), so I would like it to be buffed in the next release. I think a single class cleric should be as the same attractive as Jaheira.
3.Make ranged weapons a choice.
Damage dealt by ranged weapons can be lower than melee weapons instead of no damage.
4.Make paladin more powerful.
Comparing to other warrior roles(ranger, barbarian, champion of arvoreen, risk breaker), paladin is far less attractive. It should be buffed a bit.
5.Nalia should be buffed
She should at least have access to the 9th level spells. And her first class and low wisdom make her not a good party member. But she is one of my favourite character.

These suggestions are ordered. And I do hope the first two to come true. I think they will be beneficial for further development of this mod.

Completely agree on the Cleric. A pure cleric doesn't pack enough punch / have required skills to be a useful character in the game.

I cheated a bit & played a Swashbuckler/Cleric turned into a vampire, so she could use the "cloak of the daywalker" on my latest run. I upgraded the "holy symbol" - item that she received & she turned out to be very useful / diverse & powerful (while buffed) character, with those sort of minor changes.

Alternatively one could always make a ranger/cleric or a multiclass fighter/cleric. A multiclassed dwavern defender/cleric would also work nicely and be very powerful by the end of the game.

One tweak I would love to see for a cleric is a tweak for "disrupt undead" spell so that the cleric's version would have a range. As it is right now, it isn't that useful because you can't protect the cleric from hits so it always gets interrupted.

All of these are good suggestions and have been talked about a lot in the past, including internally within the development team (or what's left of it, in any case). I doubt any of the suggested changes will see the light of day in v7 because many of them are quite challenging and therefore postpone the release for a couple more years.

Except for Nalia, maybe. Since when she does not have access to 9th level spells?

Nalia's intelligence is 17 so she cannot memorize 9th level spells.

I don't remember this being an issue in the past. Is this something recent?

I'm not sure. In original game, Nalia's intelligence is 17, wisdom is 9 and is level 4 thief turn to mage.
I don't know whether this mod has modified anything about her. But it turned out to do nothing in my computer.

Not recent. Mages are able to cast 9th level spells only with an int of 18. (should probably be for sorceror's as welli)

In vanilla, the only npc mage who is without buffs able to cast 9th level spells is Edwin.

I wonder why I don't remember this. I've had Nalia in my play-throughs in the past. Granted, this was about 10 years ago but I still don't recall having an issue. I've probably used the Lum machine to give her a point in intelligence.

It might be an EE thing. I do not recall this being an issue in vanilla bg2-tob

@OP - you may want to check out IATweaks, which offers the ability to relax forging constraints as an option. So you could have a vagrant PC with a necromancer companion (or not) and forge the mage robe and amulet if desired.

As bulian mentioned - it's already an optional content of IATweaks



Sure, something should definitely be done to Clerics in general, same thing with Bards and Thieves. Sadly our time and abilities are scarce at the moment. At some point we should tackle all of those issues, one by one most probably, as each needs a lot of testing and thinking. But you're right - single class clerics should see some love, that's for sure.

I actually had an idea which critto realli liked, an idea which would bring those items to the game, but without cheesing like running in circles with 1 character, while the others send thousands of bolts at the enemy. It might be a bit clumsy and it will require A TON of testing to get it right, but we might find enough time and strength to address this issue.

4.Make paladin more powerful.

Some slight improvements might be introduced though Undead Hunter and Inquisitor are really potent at the moment. + in v7 Keldorn (he can be either of those kits thanks to IAtweaks) will have a far better item upgrade.


If she can't learn/cast 9th level spells then this should be addressed immediately for all her character files, thanks for pointing that out!

After trudging along with a cleric for some time, here's a few ideas to make the cleric usable & fun character.

As resources are thin, I don't think these changes are that big (though of course I can't tell, as I've never one changes to the game outcounting some basic changes)

- revert AoF back to the way it works in the original game for a cleric ("improved armor of faith")
- make the high level cleric spells (false dawn, bolt of glory, sunray etc.) work against undead introduced by IA (so skeleton lords etc.). Cleric should really shine against the undead.
- give the class an item (I'd use the silver dragon plate graphics for example), say AC -2, +15 fire & magic dmg resistance,
- Can be upgraded with the cleric's holy symbol (they get at level 24(?)), AC -3, -25 fire & magic damage resistance, extra 6th & 7th level spell, -1 casting time, +1 caster level, +2 wis
- Gains natural restoral HLA

(possibly)
- Can use grandmaster of flowers

^ This way it's usable as a tank in a few fights, as it sort of should be. It can heal, as this char is supposed to be the best healer in the game. It can also wreak havoc against the undead. It can also dispel, without reaching Inquisitor levels, because of fast level gains and the +1 caster level.

Thank you for your suggestions pekkae! I've been trying to find a way to make pure clerics more powerful and distinct and I got like 15 ideas written in my notebook. Some are minor, some are major and some are brand new to IA, using mechanics never before seen in this mod.

I plan to apply those changes to my local game and make a full playthrough, just to see how useful such stuff will be. I really hope that playing a single class cleric will be fun in IA. I will also be making some changes to another neglected class/kit, wanting to give players more choices as to what party composition they will go with in their future runs! But let the specifics of that be a secret for the time being.

In general, I am not that skilled in modding and critto is the lead modder of IA now, so every decision and every new version will have to be approved by him first and sadly he his time to work on the mod is really scarce lately, so I can't promise any dates. But I wrote all this to reassure you, that we are still here and still have many new and (hopefully!) fun ideas

Sounds great! Cleric is sort of neglected so it would be nice to see the class improved.

If I can suggest, I would also like to see a few more powerful belts & generic amulets in the game. Also a Cleric specific belt would be nice.

And thanks for the great mod! I've enjoyed it very much!

Feel free to suggest stats and crafting components for the items you think would be additive to the mod.

Here's a few ideas. The areas where the mod is lagging diversity is bracers + amulets + blunt weapons. So ...

1. Make Flail of Ages upgradeable to the +4 version with the poison head from WK level 2 by Cromwell. This would give another good +4 weapon (with minimal modding work I assume?), since phosphorous is quite expensive in terms of permanency scrolls and you really don't have any other option if you are proficient in a flail.

2. Maces are quite overlooked at the moment, adding a single +4 mace would be a very welcome addition. Maybe make the mace of disruption upgradeable to a +4 (/+5) weapon? So ... Mace of disruption + Jerrod's Mace => Mace of disruption +4 (+ 3 extra thac0 / damage against demons and the original qualities of the mace of disruption)

3. A few other suggestions to compliment the current set:

Belt of Speed
Grants haste
Drop at wk level 2 or so

Tymora's Gift (belt)
+10Magic Resistance
+3 to Luck
Drow merchants in underdark

Belt of Missile Supremacy
-4 against missiles
+10 resistance to missile damage
- 5 to charisma
Ox-tail belt
Orc leather
30000GP

Belt of the Divine
+1 Strength
+ Wearer is under Bless & Protection from evil
*For Clerics/ Paladins
Girdle of Stone Giant Strength
Scroll of Bless
permanency scroll
30000 GP

Belt of Master Swordsman
+2 Thac0 with offhand
Drop at chapter 3 or 4

Amber shield (Amulet)
+ 1 AC
+ 10 HP
+ 1 Saves
+ 40% resistance against electricity
a chunk of amber
amulet of protection +1
2 potions of fortitude
permanency scroll
25000gp

Amulet of Ilmater
+2 to saves
+1 AC
Periapt of life protection
amulet of spell warding
necklace of form stability
Amulet of Protection +1
25.000GP

Improved Amulet of Ilmater
+3 to Saves
+1 AC
+10 Magic Resistance
Amulet of Ilmater
amulet of seldarine
25.000 GP

protector +2
+2 Saves
+2 AC
two amulets of protection +1
20.000 gp

True Protector +2
+2 Saves
+2 AC
+20 HP
* must be neutrally aligned
Protector +2
5 potions of fortitude
permanency scroll
100.000GP

Supreme Bracers
AC1
Bracers of defence ac 3
Bracers of defence ac 4
Bracers of defence ac 5
50.000GP

I think you can already forge Flail of the Ages +4 with poison in the De Arnise Keep

That's right, you can.

rraaaagggghhhh....

I've been tinkering with a cleric for a little bit. As I don't want Cernd for a run (once you've played with the maxed out -5 Cernd, anything else just doesn't feel that right).

The focus would be to make an effective (divine) spellcaster, that can also dish out damage in H2H.

This is where it currently is, using Priest of Lathander as a template. I think this could work, without being OP.

+ Gets Boon of Lathander every 5 levels
+ Gets -1 casting time at level 14
+ Gets +2 divine caster levels at level 14
+ Gets to use the "blessed bracers" (so Blessed bracers would be for Clerics & Paladins)
+ Can use Might of the Avariel (without the increase in caster levels - as it doesn't increase caster levels although I think it is supposed to). So just spell slot bonuses + increase in HP's.

- Doesnt' receive "hold undead"
- Gets -1 to STR, DEX, CON

The idea would be to Dual-Class her into a mage at level 14/15. Then give her Drow Chain. With Foreknowledge she could reach -3, which means great instant buffs under IA as well as the ability to drop a lot of damage dealing low level arcane & divine spells. Also, with Boon of Lathander + Blessed Bracers + Buffs she can reach -10Thaco with 5APR. And because of the Mage protections, she can be used as a tank as well. Very versatile, very useful.

EDIT:

And ofcourse that character can be played as a pure cleric. As it can use Staves for reach & with combat buffs should be able to reach -24...-28 effective AC in mid-point. A full cleric with Thac0 of -15 and 5APR's should be very useful.

I feel that a major problem with clerics is that things they should be best at are done better by other classes. For instance, buffing is traditionally part of the Cleric class identity, but the best buff spells in the game are all arcane.

Adding spells to make clerics stronger is tricky - mage spells can be gated by limited scroll availability whereas cleric spells cannot. Unless there is a way to add cleric spells known by script, this makes giving late game cleric spells tricky without upsetting early to mid game balance.

The availability of Alacrity for Auramasters is a large part of what makes them outshine clerics so much. I would be hesitant to straight up give it to clerics without any hoops to jump through, but I feel like they need access to it to some degree (I also feel like it shouldn't be so easily given to Auramasters or Mages, but that's probably a separate conversation).

Some things that could be done to give cleric a better class identity and give a reason to include a cleric over something like a druid:

• Change Giant Strength (any maybe other buff spells) from a mage spell to a cleric spell
• Add a self-buff that increases APR (similar to Boon of Lathander, but not limited to a kit)
• New, stronger anti-undead or anti-outsider spells that are unique to clerics
• Cleric-unique ways of debuffing an enemy's elemental damage weakness (setting to exactly 90% resistance would open up a lot of strategies without opening up abuse by being stackable)
• Cleric-unique ways of buffing party members (eg +10% resistance to a damage type)
• New cleric ability/buff: Upon striking an enemy, gain alacrity and/or improved casting speed for 3 seconds
• New wish/RVE style spell with weaker initial choices, but more powerful options being unlocked as the game progresses/major enemies are defeated
• Pitre-style spells/abilities where other party members are protected but the cleric is made vulnerable and prioritized by enemies

I'm not suggesting all of these, but I feel that some combination of them could be used to give clerics a power level similar to other classes without making them feel too similar to the other classes.

really good ideas i think

Completely agree. The Cleric seems to sort of left behind and it's not even an optimal healer as druids & necro are much more adept at it than a Cleric.

I don't think there's need to make new anti-outsider / anti-undead spells, as cleric has a number of cleric specific spells - should be quite easy to rebalance them so that they work in ia + work against the new undead introduced by IA? (Though I know absolutely 0 about modding).

A few other ideas;

The Boon of Lathander is nice. It's also quite easy to make an early game powerhouse with it, if it would stack (like in vanilla bg2). As you could reach (without haste / ih) 3 APR's after level 10 with it (assuming you get it every 10 levels). That together with fast level progression and combined with a bonus of casting as few levels higher than the actual levels would mean great APR's, great Thac0 (though buffs) early game. Also great dispelling ability later on.

I really like the idea of debuffing elemental resistances as that would be unique to a cleric and quite useful.

Another idea would be t give cleric a HLA with long-lasting regen (undispellable). This would be a good addition.

I don't know how a cleric could protect itself in combat though as it only has nice AC. Perhaps reworking sanctuary-spell could be something useful?

perhaps clerics would be better healer if their healing spells would be cast faster

Sanctuary is 10 rounds of uncontested summoning and buffing. I am not sure what else it needs outside of it not breaking when casting on party members.

I would rework the cleric specific spells that are already there to give some of them more of a punch against the introduced monsters, and I would enable a few positive debuffing spells a wider area of effect.

A few better summons, improved touch spells that nearly instacast and give a rebalanced thac0 bonus. Some apr perhaps.

But yes... that balancing needs testing and gets in the way of anything v7 related (if that is still on the way).

I think the issue is that the avenger got some bonuses that might have suited the cleric or the shaman better. (melee shaman with axes, daggers, scimitar would be sweet).

I love how there are so many new ideas for rebalancing, even after so many years! Thank you for that and keep this thread alive

Cleric class is the one that requires the most rebalancing, I already have many ideas for that, and I see some new ones here. Let me tell you my vision of what I want a cleric to be (with some spoilers):
We can agree that mages are the ultimate tanks
Shamans will be the ultimate healers with some powerful situational buffs
Clerics should be neither of them, I want clerics to be the frontliners, who can pack a punch without the need to dual class, support other frontliners and work especially well against undead and demons.

If you guys are eager to test some changes, I think I could implement (at least some of) those changes and provide a beta version for you to check and provide feedback. But I'll need some time for that and it might be buggy, since critto won't be able to help for some time and I'm not too experienced with some things I have in mind.

The plan for the Cleric sound good.

I'd be more than happy to try out changes, as I'll need to make changes to the game to keep it interesting.

sounds great !

I would disagree with you on a couple points there. A divine frontliner would be a paladin, a cleric would need to be a primary caster to let paladin keep their identity.

My personal breakdown of what each class's role should be is:


To describe each caster combination in more detail:
Mage: Important for dismantling other casters and making them vulnerable to warrior party members, while allowing warrior party members to take advantage of lowered enemy defences. Single class means high caster level for things that matter (i.e. dispel checks from other casters). Blaster role takes off after Alacrity is unlocked.
Druid: Best at elemental damage and protection from elemental damage. Alacrity gives big blasting potential, somewhat better blasting than mage. Good at summoning and battlefield control.
Cleric: Best at stopping party members from dying. No access to Alacrity means that spells are stuck at once per round, and are big and splashy enough that once per round is enough. Slightly faster level progression than mage means protection from dispel effects. Strongest at dispelling, but only has access to Dispel Magic and not Remove Magic.
Fighter/Wizard: Combines offensive damage output of fighter with defensive ability of mage. Vulnerable to other casters, as dispel checks are pretty much always lost. Limited blasting ability.
Fighter/Druid: Less defensive ability than the fighter/wizard, but more offensive ability. Less offensive ability than the Ranger, but stronger casting ability.
Fighter/Cleric: Similar to the Fighter/Druid. Better against undead/outsiders, but worse against other enemies.
Mage/Cleric: Highest utility of any caster. In late game, becomes the ultimate blaster by combining Alacrity from mage with the impact of cleric spells.

Changes that could be made to achieve this:

• Give Aura Cleansing to all druids, not just Auramasters
• Give Clerics access to Improved Haste (or another APR increasing buff), probably at level 7 to prevent too early access to the spell
• Change Giant Strength to be a Cleric spell, probably at level 6
• Give clerics RVE as a HLA

Quite some classes in anvil got the short end of the stick. Thieves, clerics, bards... Their tasks are taken over by other classes or kits. If you do not have about 4 melee capable characters and a pure mage, then you are going to have a bad time.
I can understand that replacing one of those melee with a new choice is quite interesting. But on the other hand, it should not be strongest warrior.

I guess I mean, not everyone should be good in melee, but that is what the mods is going towards. Even mages can do well with Tensers partial transformation. My preference is to play the kits and classes as the archetype roles.
But I do think one cleric kit or mage kit (maybe dragon disciple) could fit with enhanced weapon skills/spells as a one-off from the archtype role (same as swashbuckler and blade).

I think that various thief multis/duals have a place as UAI users. They have the downside of missing out on powerful kit abilities and caster level dependent stuff (eg dispel wars), but the upside of being able to enhance their non-thief class by using items meant for a third class. Fighter/thieves get the best of this, though there are other cases a mage being able to use the druidic circlet that improves casting speed. If we had stronger caster-specific equipment, then I could see mage/thief and cleric/thief having a place as "Someone who can cast spells from X class but use items from Y class to bolster their abilities". I can't see a way to make pure thieves viable, unless we give them more strong HLAs or give them a new kit that fixes the APR problem.

Thieves and Bards have similar problems where the gap between them and a fighter in damage output is too large. They both have terrible THAC0 progression, lagging behind the cleric and beating only the mage. They both have terrible APR, with bards and non-swashbuckler thieves the joint worst APR in the game (no APR for level progression, limited to a single proficiency point in weapons so no APR from proficiency, offensive spin and haste are not compatible), and swashbucklers barely above that (an extra 0.5 APR from specialisation). Their damage per hit is also terrible, with bards and non-swashbucklers gaining no benefit from proficiency and swashbucklers getting their on-hit bonus rarely and unreliably. They classically have the ability to perform fewer big hits (eg backstabs), but IA enemies are resistant to those, and the way damage resistances and rounding works means that fewer big attacks don't have the impact of

If we want to balance them, we need to give them additional APR to put them in the middle between casters and warriors, and also create stronger class-specific items so UAI duals/multis can boost their non-thief class. Some ideas:

• Items with restricted class that a Thief/Caster will want (eg druid specific item with a casting speed bonus, cleric specific item with silence immunity)
• Additional powerful HLAs for a single class thief (to give a reason to play thief without another class)
• THAC0 changes - for reference, warrior tops out at 0, cleric at 6 and mage at 8
  • Thieves to top out at 4 instead of 7
  • Bards to top out at 2 instead of 7
• APR changes - for reference, warrior tops out at 3 (1 base, +1 from levels, +1 from proficiency), cleric and mage at 1
  • Thieves to be able to specialize (top out at 1.5)
  • Bards able to specialize and gain an additional 0.5APR at level 10 (top out at 2)
  • Swashbucklers able to GM (top out at 2)
• Thief/bard specific items that enhance combat
  • Equipment for thieves/bards to improve THAC0 (like the Melodic Fury ring from the old The Four mod)
  • Equipment for thieves/bards to increase APR (+0.5 if it consumes a minor equipment slot, +1 if it consumes a major equipment slot)

I'm not sure how I feel about swashbuckler - It should definitely be stronger than both thieves and bards in combat, but I feel like it should lag slightly behind a pure warrior. Monk is a class that I have no idea how it can be brought up to par with the others.

At the moment that's true for all except for Swashbucklers. I think that players haven't used Swhashies that much, which is a shame. At some point I made a calculation, which showed that swashbucklers are only slightly worse at dealing damage than kensais with 2h weapons and now Hexxat is also a Swashbuckler with her powerful upgraded weapon giving additional 1/2 APR.


Non-warrior classes don't get that additional APR, so Swashies still have only 1APR, which can be only changed by items/abilities/spells.

That's a really good idea, I had no clue that their thaco is so terrible, because I only ever played a Swashbuckler...


As pointed above, the engine doesn't give any APR to non-warrior classes (fighter/paladin/ranger)

- Swashbucklers are all about dual wield, they can use weapons like Water's Edge to boost their APR to 6 + Hexxat has her cloak, which gives 7APR + their on-hit abilities
- after my new change, Assassins should become really good at dealing damage, in fact some of my ideas might make them too overpowered, that's why I'd love to hear some constructive criticism from players testing them
- at some point Bounty Hunters will also be rebalanced, I see them as ranged fighters using (rebalanced) traps, not engaging in close combat if they can avoid it
- Shadowdancer will need to be rebalanced or removed entirely, due to some changes I want to introduce

In general what I want to do is to make pure thieves (at least kitted ones) be useful without the need to dual/multiclass them, I even have a simple solution for that, you will be able to reach full potential of this class only with pure thief, though multi/duals should still be a viable option. We want to bring as much variety to party composition as we can, since v6.0 was very restrictive in that regard.


Did you play with a monk after the changes done in 6.2 I think? At some point they have 3-24(base) +5(enchantment) dmg, they get +4 from gauntlets of crushing, can get up to +14 from strength so 26-47 dmg with 8 steady APR (as they have undispellable IH), with their upgraded amulet and Diamond Body they get amazing Damage Reduction and regeneration (which is doubled because of how the game engine treats IH) + they're immune to most of the nasty stuff and have solid Magic Resistance, which allows them to avoid stuff like 3xADHW. Monks are very powerful and extremely cheap (as they need only the amulet and rings/cloak +2), their only weakness and downside in terms of fun is that they just punch with their fists dealing crushing damage, there's little space for intricate tactics and clever skill use. Also in the newest version Rashaad's item will be slightly better.

That's a viable point, we will need to keep that in mind.


That would be balanced, with different classes being best at different stuff, sadly that would require too many changes in the current game. We will gradually make changes, improving the balance and bringing back some of the more underused spells, but I don't think that many spells will be moved between classes.


We don't want to enable too many classes/kits to full Aura Cleansing. The spell is very broken when used by late game Necro or Cernd (as pekkae showed in one of his playthroughs ), not as much when used by others (since they can't get as much casting time decrease), but it would lose its flavour, if everyone could use it. If you play a pure druid, you usually pick a kit, at the moment Auramaster is the best caster, while Avenger is an amazing fighter with additional useful spells when needed. At some point we might rebalance Shapeshifter, and this kit wouldn't also benefit from Aura Cleansing.

I wonder how you will react to the changes that we have made to Shaman class, as it has... hmm... some kind of Aura Cleansing, although more tactical, requiring players to think about which spells they will need

Art apr.
You can give kits the ability to follow the warrior thac0 bonuses via clswpbon = ~1 m n~, just check the weidu or kit tutorials for that. Alternative is to give them Apr via effect upon reaching a certain
level but I am not sure that plays well with improved haste.

Wrt alacrity
I often use a homemade spell that gives alacrity for 3 seconds and casting speed of - 3 as a convenience, just in order to prebuff a bit faster. The main issue with priests is that you need casting speed rather than alacrity because everything takes so long, and therefore the better buffer is the auramaster currently.

Here's a very little teaser of the changes that I will be introducing for the new beta version of IA:

Reworked Repulse Undead:

I don't think that there was any use for the original spell in IA. Now it can be helpful, when encountering powerful undead, especially Skeleton Grandlords, that hit very hard! Also this spell will have a short area of effect, which will be my way of pushing Clerics closer to the front lines and this trend will be visible in some of my other changes.


That's new for me, great to know, that such things are possible unfortunately this enables both APR from levels and from weapon specialisation, there's no way to activate them separately.


For this issue I have some ideas, both for general Cleric progression and for some interesting HLAs, but they might be broken if you dual into a mage... We really don't want to introduce this stuff only to Cleric kits and restricting these kits from dualling. That's why I hope you will be able to provide some feedback

There's really good ideas here in this thread. And SparrowJacek> those new capabilities look like a lot of fun! I hope they are released soon =)! I can play-test as well, if needed to. Though I'm not sure when I can actually start a proper game.

After tinkering with a cleric for a little bit, here's a few additional Ideas.

In case of Cleric protagonist, bring some RvE options for a cleric, but with modifications. So that one cannot have full Necro & full-cleric capabilities. So ...

1. Really good option would be to give cleric the ability to cast "long lasting regeneration" on another party member. While RvE regen is quite nice, most of the spell will be sort of useless on higher difficulty levels when you essentially have only one physical resistance tank as regen on a skinned character is rather pointless as only a few selected characters can get enough physical resistance to be able to tank. Long lasting regen would fix that. Especially if it's non dispellable and would bring a lot to the party. It sort of makes sense as well for Cleric is supposed to be the ultimate healer.

2. Give the cleric an altered "wish" (in case of cleric protagonist). Change greater deathblow to Critical Strike (or Power Attack) and "double length time-stop & ia" to "wish:rest" (so cleric protagonist has higher chance of scoring wish:rest). Bring back "knockback" from lower wisdom-levels to higher wisdom levels (it should be quite ok choice assuming cleric isn't that good in H2H).

3. Make some clerical buffs non-dispellable. Say for example improved protection from evil (same bonuses, same duration but non-dispellable).

4. Give the cleric access to spell trigger & spell sequencer, as it's a way to get the spells off faster without giving access to Alacricity.

Blessed Bracers should probably be usable by a cleric as well. The priest of lathander with Blessed Bracers should be quite effective in H2H, even though missing critical strike will hurt a lot later in the game. Still 5 APR's with fighter Thac0's with full access to all abilities is nothing to scoff at. The only thing making this character a non-frontliner is the incapability to protect itself. Actually with cleric level progression this character should be very good in H2H very early in the game as it'll have really good thac0 from the start though it's effectiveness in H2H will wear out during the game, but ehn high level spells & other abilities will become available.

Do you also have the shaman changes in the release? I have been hoping to do a run with that for a while now.

- protagonist evil shaman
- Hexxat swashbuckler
- Viconia improved cleric
- Korgan, berzerker

Maybe something like
- Dorn, black guard or undead hunter
- Edwin, conjurer

Not sure.

We won't be tackling other protagonists than Druids/Shamans right now, maybe only toning down Vagrants, but this has a very low priority. Right now I'm focused mostly on rebalancing the existing aspects/spells/abilities of Clerics (many smaller changes) and Thieves (a complete rework of Stealth and some changes to other thieving skills) and Critto, when he has some time, is implementing and testing the new Druid Stronghold.


There's actually a change similar to what you propose, that I want to make

Fun fact - our first version of reworked Avenger had these spells. We will see how some other changes work and if Clerics are still underwhelming, then this might be a nice idea, though we still want to make classes as distinct as possible. Yes, I know that they tend to become more and more melee oriented, but there are different ways of making characters useful in H2H combat, I hope you will be able to see and feel that with new Cleric/Thief upgrades.


No objections, Clerics would benefit from this and all Cleric multi/dual classes suffer greatly from being able to use only crushing weapons, so it shouldn't upset the balance.

Yes, we do have this class finished, so you can see for yourself if it's any useful and fun to play.


If I manage to make all the changes to Thieves, then I would love to see your Hexxat changed to an Assassin

Shaman is in. That's a sure playthrough from me then.

I prefer to keep Hexxat a swashbuckler for now, but I can see why you would consider her more an assassin.

Okay, time for the second teaser of the changes:

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

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.

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.

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.



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

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 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.

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


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.

That's a fantastic idea


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.


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

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


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.

Yes


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.

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.


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 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 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!

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


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:

What do you think of that?


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.

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.


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


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.

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.



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.

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.


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