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Ok,
Just bought "Silver Marches" yesterday, (the latest D&D release)..cool book for the Northern Frontier..anyway, it has Wulfgar's stats in it. Lvl 9 Barb, and uses, of course - Aegis Fang. (+4 Returning Maul) ..how in the name of heaven can he use that? what happened to Item level Restriction? That thing in NWN cannot be used at least till you're lvl14-15 at least.
Is it just me or do people find Level restrictions for items in NWN utterly unrealistic? Does Item restriction exist in P&P, or is this just a NWN creation to discourage uber items? Maybe NWN over estimates Item cost to make things harder. I mean, in BGII your 9th level Thief could get Daystar with one potion of speed .. +2 Longsword, +4 against Evil? Please! in NWN you'd be lucky to get it at Lvl13-14.
What does everyone playing NWN do? Do they just turn level restriction off? It's a great idea, but flawed in practice. I could understand the concept of a +2 longsword acting as +1 in an amateur's hands, (the blade reaches it's full potential only in the hands of a master) thus levelling up the item as you level up..wish someone could do that in a D&D game..

Bioware heavily tweaked D&D for game balance...but turned the SP campaign into a diablo clone.

Which is why I only play online.

it was really made of online playing

Originally posted by Indra
<snip>
I mean, in BGII your 9th level Thief could get Daystar with one potion of speed .. +2 Longsword, +4 against Evil? Please! in NWN you'd be lucky to get it at Lvl13-14. <snip>

BG2 suffered much more of the Diablo syndrom as I like to refere to it. Higher bonus weapons/spells et all to keep the players "interested" and thus ending up with throwing another +4 sword into your backpack because you are all using +5 or higher.
This is imo more annoying then the high level restrictions in NwN.

The problem with level restrictions is that for the character itself (not the player) the level should be unquantifiable.

It is one thing for an item to require a certain feat, or spell level (things clearly quantifiable in the game world) but character level is just plain stupid.

It is especially bad if you have a henchman item (and I had a loyal henchman, just one throghout the game), you do his quest, he upgrades the item and you can't use it anymore for the next 3 levels! Insane!

How would one character in the world explain it to another one how he has this really cool cloak, but he can't use it yet? In character? Through actual roleplaying?

You might think up of something (I can not use this item till the gods deem me worthy to use it), but it is siliness when this happens to items that are actually inherent to the story (the amulet you get at the end of the game, which requires level 18... I was 16 at that point.)

It is indeed insanely stupid, and one of the major detracting factors of the game for me.

Rav,
well, I've given up and turned Item level restictions off. I play single player through the user created modules, and some of them are very very tough. There's no way a Lvl6 Ranger-Rogue can take out a Lvl9 Drow Weapons Master dual weilding Long Swords without some serious hardware! ..So if I find an item in my adventures, I *will* use it...and I don't believe in the gods letting me do anything .. ..I play rogues..

Originally posted by Indra
Rav,
well, I've given up and turned Item level restictions off. I play single player through the user created modules, and some of them are very very tough. There's no way a Lvl6 Ranger-Rogue can take out a Lvl9 Drow Weapons Master dual weilding Long Swords without some serious hardware! ..So if I find an item in my adventures, I *will* use it...and I don't believe in the gods letting me do anything .. ..I play rogues..

Heh, well, glad tht I made point in a convincing way.

The way the game should have handled it was to give less treasure to characters which are overpowered due to their equipment, till they are balanced out again. This could also be done vice versa: more treasure awarded to skint characters.

Anyway, it doesn't matter now.