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I don't know what UAI is, but you can drop Kelsey's cloak.

20% magic resistance? thats very very stout, second only to the Holy Avenger.

THe 1st and 2nd level spell slots arent a big deal (unless he was a PC and you were soloing, then itd help a lot early on)

+1 to saves no biggy (thousands of items recreate this)

Fireshield, no biggy again. The real bad guys you have to worry about dont give a damn about fireshields anyways (Dragons, Giants, and Wizards oh my)

+1 AC and +1 Con, eh, well I admit I havent played him or have even seen his stats, so I dont know how this effects him overall.

I think one problem that seems to be coming up with custom NPCs is that people arent balancing them with other NPCs.

Take Edwin for example. He has a ridiculous amount of spells due to his amulet. But on the flip side, the guy has the WORST stats outside of his Intelligence out of anyone. His dexterity and strength are simply terrible, not to mention that despite his good constitution, being a pureclass mage he has sissy hitpoints anyways.

Or Viconia. Great wisdom, awesome dexterity, no strength or constitution. As tough as she acts, she wilts quickly.

Or Anomen. Especially early, great strength and const, not to mention hit points due to his dual nature. But man, his dexterity and wisdom are serious issues. His dexterity especially make having him and Keldorn together virtually impossible due to the need for gauntlets of dex.

Anyways, what im saying is you should have to play to the strengths of your NPCs. They shouldnt be all good, or even some good and the rest ok. There should be real advantages for them and very real drawbacks.

Anybody else besides gnome tried all three NPC's and can compare between them?

RE:

I have. I didn't like the Kelsey character at all. Where with the other NPCs either support or complement you as the main hero, Kelsey's plot takes away from that and tries to force the spotlight on him. I thought that was not cool. Solamod is awesome for the increase of difficulty. Tashia I didn't hang around long cuz I have a female sorceror meself.

Originally posted by jcompton
I don't know what UAI is, but you can drop Kelsey's cloak.

UAI = Use Any Item

Originally posted by jcompton

Basically, we wanted to come up with a way to keep Kelsey from being an easy murder victim. Even with all that, he's STILL likely to fall to a backstab if you let his stoneskins get depleted, or to a Horrid Wilting if you get close enough to a lich. (The MR gives him a chance in hell of surviving that, which was the point.)

And hey, I DID write a backstory for it.

Hold on, Aerie dies if she gets backstabed for hit by abhi dhalzims, so does nalia and imoen and and edwin

You think your better then them! Huh, kelsey.. do ya? Punk!

Here, im not trying to be an ass.. but if a mage or sorc gets backstabbed or hit by abhi dhalzims without the apropriate protection spell, HE DESERVES TO DIE!!!!

Thats the attitude that unbalances add on pc's.. Kelsey has spells to protect him from backstab / abhi dhalzims and as such he doesnt need a cloak to do it for him. The sorcerer is incredibly powerfull kit to begin with you dont need to add powerfull items to get people to use him, his spellcasting abilitie far outstrips ANY existing npc mage including edwin with his amulet

Now if kelsey were a bard and began with a powerfull item as incentive I could understand.. but lets be honest, who needs incentive to take a sorcerer in there party?
And who can honestly feel cheated if there inapropriatly protected sorcerer or mage falls to a 20d8 abhi dhalzims or a quintuple dmg backstab?

Here, im not trying to be an ass.. but if a mage or sorc gets backstabbed or hit by abhi dhalzims without the apropriate protection spell, HE DESERVES TO DIE!!!!

Totally agree.

My advice to those who are horribly offended by the cloak is to drop it. If you're happy with that, then I'm happy with that. We got a lot of feedback from potential players while designing, as well as our beta testers, that suggested it would go over well.

Now, Yoyoma, your feedback I have to comment on...

I have. I didn't like the Kelsey character at all. Where with the other NPCs either support or complement you as the main hero, Kelsey's plot takes away from that and tries to force the spotlight on him. I thought that was not cool.

I find this fascinating, but as a guy who's been playing BG2 for the past 18 months I have to say I don't agree.

Kelsey's mini-quest fights are timed events, and Kelsey doesn't leave the party. In my opinion, this makes them:

- Less intrusive than Jaheira's harper plot, which involves Jaheira leaving the party twice and forcing you to truck around to the Docks twice.

- Less intrusive than Anomen's family quest, which requires Anomen possibly leaving the party, trucking over to the Gov't district, trucking over to the Order, and (if you do the romance) going back to a city zone at least one more time after he leaves the party yet again.

- About as intrusive as Viconia's handmaiden attacks. Two fights, timed/triggered events...that's about right.

As far as his romance goes...he tells you his story. How is that any different than the other romances? How is that any more "spotlight-stealing"?

And let me go further and say that I really liked the way Jaheira's plot ran parallel to the PC's, and I know some people enjoyed watching Anomen's story unfold. What about Kelsey was that much more upsetting?

Solamod is awesome for the increase of difficulty.

Now, this I find interesting because some people, myself included, have said that Weimer made Solaufein the "spotlight" character of the game, what with the fact that Bodhi will ALWAYS abduct him (not connected to romance), his exquisitely difficult challenges, etc.

RE:

The Solaufein add-ons are challenging enough although it's still pretty easy once you figure out the new weaknesses (or the ones they forgot to cover and you can still exploit). For example, Mae'Var and his goons unable to break invisibility... PC Mage + Haste + Invis Potions + Cloud Kill = Boo Snacks.

Originally posted by GNGSpam
20% magic resistance? thats very very stout, second only to the Holy Avenger.

Third to the Holy Avenger and Viconia's innate (and Solaufein's innate if we want to expand the playing field here.)

But this was the point I wanted to get to:

Or Viconia. Great wisdom, awesome dexterity, no strength or constitution. As tough as she acts, she wilts quickly.

Viconia and Aerie conveniently have Mauler's Arm waiting for them at a VERY low price at the Copper Coronet. This has all the subtlety of a Louisville Slugger to the kneecap, in my opinion, so why screw around putting a tailor-made item around the corner? We just put it on our guy at the outset.

We put the "don't bother taking Minor Sequencer" item in as part of the mini-quest, though, yes.

Viconia shoudnt wilt quickly, as she can have a very low ac and hp's and strength can be augmented by several cleric spells, armour of faith can reduce physical dmg and latent mr give her big spell protection

I personally think that for the people who create npc's to say there balanced istn really fair when you consider the following

Sorcerer, Sorcerer, Fighter / mage

Need I say more? two of the most popular and most powerfull kits in the game. Once again I am certainly not trying to be a bastard and regardless of what I now say I have played through the game with tashia solufein and Kelsey and there all good but I still cant swallow that you wanted your char's to be balanced and then made them sorcerers and fighter mages..

A memorable pc isnt always a powerfull one.. most people have to swallow any sense of rp'ing pride before letting keldron aka sir boring old fart into there party.. they do so anyway becouse he can have carsomyr and insta true sight / dispell

Minsc is a slack character, dos constitution and dex.. slack prof's and a bezerker rage that gennerally kills your party more than your enemies but he has character and most people gladly have him in there party regardless of his crappy fighting skills

And then theres people like Nalia, no one likes nalia. Nalia is a bad mage, a bad ripoff of imoen who isnt funny in any way (aside from the bad way, where you laugh for a few seconds trying to cover your disgust and then you vomit) and is not worth taking in your party for any reason (other than to leave her in the planer prison, or to imprison her along with the monkey boy)

So theres three categories of npc. Nalias, minscs and Keldorns

And then theres korgan... Classic dialogues, funny as all hell and a severly badass fighter (I place edwin in this category, some dont.. If you dont like edwins lines I pity you) many people place jan In this category

Tashia fits into the korgan category as far as im concerned, but Kelsey I still havent made up my mind if he's a keldorn or a korgan

Ill summarise by forgiving kelsey for being the character equivalent of dry toast, lethal dry toast.. but still very dry

On the grounds of what is written on the description of his unidentified cloak... dont think I didnt notice

Do kelsey and Sola interact?
I'm thinking on having them both...

Kelsey has one interaction with Solaufein, yes. The way it's packaged, you will have needed to install Solaufein _before_ Kelsey, otherwise it gets overwritten when you install Solaufein. Really, the best way to distribute inter-mod dialogue is in a totally separate pack, which is probably what I'll do when Kelsey-TOB is done and I turn my attention to doing some quick "dialogue packs" that will add lots of new party dialogue, including some incorporating Kelsey, and possibly Solaufein as well.