Livonya's beta version 2.0 coming attractions

:anger: I'd like to throw in a quick suggestion, if I may! (I hope this is the right place for this.)

It seems to me right now that reach weapons are really overpowered when you combine them with particular feats. (whirlwind in particular - the actual area threatened is like 4 times as large, but also combat reflexes, etc.)

I understand the game engine does not give them any kind of penalty, like they should have! (the 5 foot range no-attack thingy) Anyway, this really irritates me for some wierd, purist reason. :twitch:

Since the basic idea is to a. discourage close-in combat with these weapons b. keep their effectiveness down in terms of total "threatened area," I have some possible solutions.

1. Make them ALL exotic weapons. This requires you to trade a feat for the greatly increased threat area. (Alternatively, get rid of the non-exotic ones.) I don't think this is a good enough fix, really. A fighter will just shrug off the extra feat used to attack 10 critters a round, and still have whirlwind at level 6.

2. Have them reduce AC by two points. (Except for the spiked chain.) AC sounds like it would be the easiest thing to tweak, but I don't know. I think this is a better solution, but not perfect. (Ideally, this would not reduce your AC vs. ranged weapons.)

3. Make them provoke an AoS, the way unarmed does. This is of course irrelevant if you out-range your opponents. They're not close enough. But when an in-fighter gets close to someone with a ranged weapon, they'll tear them up. (This should not apply to the spiked chain.) The point being, of course, to force the reach-weapon users back into the second lines, where they are more effective.

I've also been told that due to a bug, the game also does not calculate the +4 AC cover bonus for trying to attack "through" someone else with a range weapon. Therefore, 3 alone should be the best trade-off for the increased range of threat. But in terms of "simulating" PnP AD&D, 2 would probably "feel" the smoothest, and I'd recommend 1 only if there were no other option...

If anyone has any other ideas on how to return reach weapons to their original purpose, please do so. :dance:

Edit: Livonya, you rock!

4. Added: Thought about how it would be if they gave you a negative to your attack by default. It would definitely counter-act the increased area of enemies you could hit with whirlwind. If you think of it in general terms, they're perfect counter-balances.

The increased area you can hit in ToEE increases your overall damage - and a negative to your attack bonus will decrease your overall damage. So a -2 to your attack bonus for normal reach weapons, -1 for the exotic spiked chain, would be the solution closest to the original purpose.

Of course, you still have the other unintended bonuses, such as clerics being able to heal at 10', being able to trip at 10' and avoiding the AoO normally incurred, etc. Considering this, the penalty to AC seems like it might still be relevant. -1 ac, -2 ab perhaps, and -1/-1 for the spiked chain?

5. Also, I know there are weapons (bows, spells) in ToEE that must have some sort of range calculation. Maybe those can be hijacked somehow for a workaround to make reach weapons not work at 5' and under? (Would that still affect WW?)

 

Robes of the Archmagi

First I'd like to say that I am thoroughly impressed with your last patch. I am overjoyed that I can finally push beyond level 10 in this great game. I do have a couple of questions, though. After much effort (and a little bit of finagling) I was finally able to save up enough xp and gp to make a robe of the archmagi for my wizard, but for some reason it takes away my dexterity bonus to ac when I wear it, effectually making it worse than my other wiz armor options. Think you could fix this in the coming patch?

Also, what are the prospects on more higher level spells to populate the spell lists above 5th level, so far i have no good choices but chain lightning and metamagic. Will you be including any new, or could you reccomend a good patch?

thx
k

 

When I tried it, the robe takes away everyother bonus to AC except its own.

 

Edited for Content

The wierd thing is, I went back and got a Proto Editor trying to fix it, and whatever I did to the CoAM had no effect, but when I gave a regular cloak all the same stats, it worked fine. My only other guess is that there must be an error in some other file, but I have only enough ranks in Computer Use to guess that, but not how to fix it...

 

*sigh* :no:

What could have been...

 

My heart leaped. I thought maybe a miracle had taken place and Livonya was coming back and would finish her version 2 mod. *sigh*

 

Bah,

I thought Liv had returned........:shrugno:

 

Any modders currently in Co8 that can do the changes that Liv mentioned in her 2.0 beta? Would be great to get any of those implemented (if they haven't been done yet).