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The Siren`s Yearning

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 8:28 am
by Darkwind
Does anyone know if Bard´s get any bonuses(from Charisma For example) to The Siren´s Yearning Song??

Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2005 9:32 am
by myrophine
I'm not aware specifically of what you ask...

BUT I did make a drow ch20 pump ch bard and that song was junk (at least how I used it). It would make people confused but I couldn't attack them and they usually got in several free hits before succumbing to the music. Better to cast horror, confusion, chaos etc imo

myro

Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 12:31 pm
by Darkwind
Yeah... I thought so :D

That song should be either harder to resist or replaced by some other song...
Too bad that there are so many useless skills in this game. Also some Cleric Domain skills are poor... Pain Touch skill of Painbearer Of Ilmater or Those Of The Demarch Of The Mask... Blind Fight is quite useless and the other skills aren´t class skills of Cleric, so I don´t see any point in those as well. Not sure If different domains have different class skills, but it´s very unlikely.

It would be great idea(?) if we all members here would give our opinions of the downsides of this game and suggestions to make them better, but not unbalanced and then someone who is good at making mods would do that :D
It would be helpful for all of us..

Yeah right.. Not gonna happen, but one can always dream, can´t he ;)

Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2005 2:57 pm
by Raven_Song
Actually I think the Pain Touch ability of the Painbearer of Ilmater was likely included for a Painbearer of Ilmater / Monk of the Broken Ones multi-class.

Similarly the bonuses to hide and move silently can benefit a (Lawful Evil) Monk of the Old Order (or Darkmoon I suppose) / Demarch of Mask combination.


I think Black Isle needed to develop certain classes further, the bard being one of them, as there is very little reason to develop them beyond the 11th level. A greater selection of songs (and indeed more useful songs) and perhaps some bard only spells would have likely have increased their popularity as a class. Similarly the ranger needs attention as does the druid's shapeshifting (I am aware of weidu's mod - the shapes are just too powerful for the normal mode).

Still I think chances of any modders turing their attentions from Shadows of Amn to Icewindale are very slim...

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:22 am
by Aerich
Call me a stickler or a purist, but there needs to be more benefit for sticking with a class for an extended length of time - as it is, you can take class after class to gain the beneficial starting features of that class. Maybe a cap on number of classes per character is in order - say, three?

Skills
Different class skills for the cleric domains would be nice. It makes no sense at all that a Dreadmaster of Bane has to spend only 1 skill point for a rank in Diplomacy and 2 for Bluff and Intimidate, particularly as one of their domain "perks" is +1 to the talking skills.

Warriors need more skills. Right now, there's no point to a fighter with more than minimal intelligence (ok, aside from expertise), because the only class skill is intimidate. :rolleyes: I'm not sure what else should be added, but maybe a certain number of skill points could be put toward getting an attack bonus or a generic AC bonus.

What about allowing certain spells to be cast through skill points? Say it takes 3 skill points to be able to cast a first-level spell once per day (choice of bless, doom, sleep, cure light wounds, Laerloch's Minor Drain, etc) and for each additional skill point you get an additional casting. Could also allow some 2nd level spells to be cast this way (Eagle's Splendour, Luck, Cat's Grace, Barkskin, Blur, Protection from Arrows, Minor Elemental Barrier).

Access to these spells through skill points could be determined by class - e.g. ranger can use Cat's Grace, MEB, PfA, Barkskin, etc.

This would enable a bit more customization of characters, and a bit tougher decision of what skills to pick on level-ups.

Classes

The Demarch of Mask is also a decent (if odd) combo with a rogue.

I am in total agreement with the need to up the ranger's utility. More spells, an archery/swordsmanship bonus, or even a couple more bonus feats (perhaps on attainment of higher levels, like a wizard) would go a long way toward making the ranger a class on par with the rest. I agree with an upgrade to the bard, also.

Changes to druid shapeshifting are a must - if nothing else, the mechanics of shapeshifting are so buggy... - and a shapeshifted druid in HoF mode should gain at least some partial HoF advantages - say +100% HP and damage with AC bonus - as it is, the shapeshifted forms are useless as tanks in HoF.

Feats

The feats need some work, too. Anyone ever take Precise Shot? Forester? Deflect Arrows?

My biggest beef is with Toughness. Instead of +3 HP across the board for a measly +15 HP for FIVE feats, it should be an increasing amount - say +4 with one feat spent, +10 with two, + 18 with three, +30 with four, and +45 with five. This would encourage people to stick with the fighter class for longer, so as to get the extra feats for a total of 45 extra HP.

Improved Initiative needs to be fixed.

Some of the useless feats should be removed and replaced with better ones, or just given a better bonus. Someone might give Forester a whirl if it was a +6 instead of +2, Precise Shot should remove the close-up distance penalty altogether, and Deflect Arrows should be about +3.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 1:30 am
by Raven_Song
Yes I really like the idea of a class cap of three ... no more uber but totally unbelievealbe deep gnome rogue/monk/wizard/cleric combo's :D

Although I don't think the many power gamers would enjoy this change much!

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:14 am
by silverdragon72
[QUOTE=Raven_Song]Yes I really like the idea of a class cap of three ... no more uber but totally unbelievealbe deep gnome rogue/monk/wizard/cleric combo's :D

Although I don't think the many power gamers would enjoy this change much![/QUOTE]

...don't agree with only allowing three classes - it would be better to add incentives to higher levels like the special feats and skills you get in BG2...

...what really sucks are

...the capped attacks (max 5) per round

...missing feats like imp. 2-W-F or whirlwind

...and the weak sneak attacks...

...and the quite unbalanced HOF mode especially for melee PCs!


ToEE has a much better rule implementation then IWD2 - but sad but true ToEE is just a little boring, easy and quite unfinished :(

.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 4:29 am
by Ravager
Toughness would be better if it worked as in NWN- retroactive- bonus to HP each level. I don't agree you should get that kind of bonus though, at least not without required level limitations, it would throw out the game far too much.

Don't really agree with including HLA's and stuff like that- not as it appears in BGII anyway. If you need other feats to acquire something like Whirlwind Attack like in NWN/TOEE, that would make more sense. I do agree there should be more incentives for sticking with 'purer' classes though. Say attack bonuses. Or a free stat increase- kinda like Planescape.

I think really high levels like in BGII: TOB and NWN: HoTU should be avoided in general, it gets too cheesy after a while.

TOEE seemed quite a good structure apart from all the bugs and the limitation to 10th level (at least without newer updates and mods)

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 7:11 am
by koz-ivan
[QUOTE=Raven_Song]Yes I really like the idea of a class cap of three ... no more uber but totally unbelievealbe deep gnome rogue/monk/wizard/cleric combo's :D

Although I don't think the many power gamers would enjoy this change much![/QUOTE]

granted the gnome is a very special case, but why outlaw 4+ classes for one very specific race / class combo? (esp one that's really geared towards hof - where all game balance goes out the window anyway?)

--

for the most part i'd like to see more happen for classes @ higher levels (20+)

as it stands there isn't much for most classes once that point is reached - hence the powergamerish builds.

--

few more scattered thoughts -

ranger - was bad enough in 3rd edition, loss of improved twf, and general game design decisions (force walk to enconters, damage resistances) further limit them.

druids - i tend to think of shapechange as an added bonus that they can do, and that their true strength is spells. as that stands the druid spell list has some pretty nice spells.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:19 am
by Darkwind
********Actually I think the Pain Touch ability of the Painbearer of Ilmater was likely included for a Painbearer of Ilmater / Monk of the Broken Ones multi-class.

Similarly the bonuses to hide and move silently can benefit a (Lawful Evil) Monk of the Old Order (or Darkmoon I suppose) / Demarch of Mask combination.********'


Yes... For Monk/Painbearer Of Ilmater build its great, but why would it be designed for that build only?? It should support the single class build also. The touch spells should also add Monk unarmed bonuses... For Monk/Sorc. build for example. Great build by the way.... For me it has worked perfectly. With MI, Blur, Shield etc. he´s nearly unstoppable :D

Ranger class should be upgraded bit... More spells, special skills etc.
Paladin: more special skills at higher levels, more spells
Druid: with weidu mod its fine, but normally it sucks.... poor shape changes, spells, skills
Wizard specialists: Decreased casting time for their specific spells, Increased duration and damage also.
Barbs: higher damage resistance, maybe evasion at very high level
Rogues: set trap skill should be added
Monk: better unarmed boni at lower levels

And poisons, diseases, traps etc should be more difficult to deal with to make some feats/skills more useful.

Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2005 2:35 pm
by Aerich
Entirely agree with the weaknesses of HoF mode. It's no fun to fire WotB non-stop. Some of those ridiculous saves bonuses to Reflex and Fortitude must be weakened - as it is, there's not much point to a spell-nuker unless he/she has all the luck abilities. There's even less call for a melee character that may have dominated the normal game - e.g. barbarian or monk. More balance would be nice - say, armor capable of stopping the attack of a hobgoblin...

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:05 am
by Raven_Song
Posted by koz-ivan
Granted the gnome is a very special case, but why outlaw 4+ classes for one very specific race / class combo? (esp one that's really geared towards hof - where all game balance goes out the window anyway?)
Actually the comment was meant to apply to all races, I was just using the deep gnome as an example. Sorry it was poorly written.
Posted by Darkwind
And poisons, diseases, traps etc should be more difficult to deal with to make some feats/skills more useful.
But that would make hauling a rogue absoultely necessary!!! :eek:

Also as for the cleric domain abilities who knows? Why were any of them designed the way they were. The Dreadmaster's boni to speech related skills for example, aside from diplomacy the others are corss class skills and how people bother with charisma on a cleric. Similarly the 'special' abilities of a Lorekeeper can anybody say 'bard'. To be honest I think quite a few of these were either implemented with specific builds in mind or were simpley not thought out at all.

*EDIT*

I've just remembered that one of the instruments actually requires the bard to have a wisdom of 13 (and good aligned I think) so it's likely the programmers created the domain abilities with specific builds in mind. Maybe I'll try a Lorekeeper of Oghma/Bard who knows it might be good?

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:25 am
by Darkwind
That´s entirely true....
There are only few builds that succeed in HoF. Damage based spells are quite useless on the long run(Web, Fireball, Spike Stones, Spike Growth, Ice Storm, Fire Storm, Horrid Wilting... etc. Even when you throw them all at once on a bunch of stronger enemies, they still survive the blast :eek:

It is meant to be hard yes, but not unfair.

Only tried few times in chapter one few years ago.. with a basic party.

I´ll report my success with my current party once I reach Hof. Currently playing normal and on Dragon´s Eye and so far no problems... None has died yet and Guardian was a piece of cake. Only got 1400xp for killing it. Is it normal???

Here´s my current Party(These levels are for the end of HoF)

Bhaelan Lightbringer
Aasimar Male, Lawful Good
Paladin2/Morninglord Of LathanderX(maybe monk levels later on)

Freya Dawnwind
Human Female, Chaotic Good
Fighter4/Wizard5/Barb3/Silverstar Of Selune18

Kaeshir Blackblade
Drow Male, Chaotic Evil
Fighter4/Rogue3/Wizard23

Sangarunya The Vain
Wild Elf Male, Lawful Evil
Monk20/Sorc10

Deidara Fireflower
Half Elf Female, Chaotic Neutral
Bard9/Druid21

Acarien Darkwind
Drow Male, Chaotic Evil
Sorcerer30( maybe some monk levels later on.. and yes I use mod for alignment restrictions removed)

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:44 am
by silverdragon72
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if you ask me - the rogue *should be* a must character for a D&D game!

...but you could still cover most rogue skills with bard, wiz, monk or whatever...


.

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:56 am
by silverdragon72
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@darkwind: as your party is quite close to what I suggested in my guide I really hope it's cakewalk - otherwise I have to rewrite the guide! ;)


...but how does the monk sorc perform?


...and why do you go for silverstar 18? - the L9 cleric & silverstar domain spells aren't that good and 3 rogue level are just to good to skip - and how did you allocate the stats for this build (this build really needs tons of stat points and without dreadmaster quest it's quite hard to get the stats you need for this build!)

...also sorc without pal - just to be evil?

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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2005 7:58 am
by Darkwind
So far it has been quite easy... Kaeshir leads the kills :D Followed by Freya and Acarien... Deidara does the support, healing and some archery so occasional kills for her too... Bhaelan does the party buffing, meat shielding, so he gets alot of kills with the other tanks. Freya and Deidara are summoners also, thats why the high levels of Silverstar.

Monk/Sorc has been excellent as a decoy, scout and spec ops. He just goes invisible with Kaeshir and sneak towards the swarming enemies .. Sunfire and lots of dead enemies :p At lower levels he uses throwing axes(cloudkiss) because unarmed boni are so poor... nearly everytime he hits. 8 chambers was easy too except for the final, where he got burned by flame strikes :rolleyes:

Stats were the tricky part.... first I created them normally, but since heavy multiclassing is not really supported by point by, I used dalekeeper2, but not godly.. just got all stats above ten and not over the racial boni. Cheating maybe, but It would be like the end of HoF when they would be good enough and by then the game is over already..If you know what I mean.

It cannot be emphasized enough how good luck boni is for character who uses dual wield and scimitar. Lucky Shot!, Lucky shot! etc.