I'm making a little background/blessing/spell/item mod/pack I called "Recipe for Destruction". I buffed up spells (slightly), mixed them with Krupp's mod (Krupp Ranged mod beta1.2), removed Velorien blessing (It just gives nothing now except for XP I think so simply choose the God/Gods you want to worship! Not just one that gives you God mode. Other gods have also been nerfed and Alberich now gives you a bonus to your repair skill) I also added Darke's Magic mod that changes a few spells like Steal Life (necromantic healing) and Machined Plate mod made by The Mad Texan (I buffed the plate to give +4 st). I also included and modified the shopkeeper hack by DKoepp913 because some of the items that exist in the game where never avalible like for example a suit of Mithril Plate Armor. Here's how some of the Bacgrounds currently look: {1001}{Raised by Snake Handlers You receive an increase in your resistance to poison and a bit of resitance to normal damage, but suffer a penalty to your looks and dexterity due to the large numbers of bite scars on your arms and legs. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Damage Resistance (Normal +10% and Poison +60%)||Dexterity (-1)|Beuty (-3)|} {1010}{Halfling Orphan Abandoned in a large city as a child, you survived by stealing and never received any education. You gain bonuses to your thieving and combat skills but lose a bit of intelligence. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Damage Resistance (Normal +10%)|Critical Strike Chance (+5)|Pick Pocket (+2)|Prowling (+2)||Intelligence (-1)|} I followed a certain system I made. 1 stat = 10% resistance (any) or +20% poison resistance -200 gold = +1 stat -400 gold = +2 stat Every character with a background starts with a standard +2 to his/hers statistics. Another +2 can be gained if you have no gold at all. So a char with no gold with start with better stats but will have a harder start. I also counted a +5 to crit as +1 stat (but it never goes higher then 10!) and +2 to skills as 1/2 of a stat. REMEMBER! Blessings have been NERFED! SEVERELY! So you have to rely on youself instead of some GODLY powers. I'm still correcting some typo's in the text. But it's comming out nicely. Also the line you see -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is visable in the game and gives the player a clear view of what he loses and recieves under's the character's story. Any suggestions?
Halfling Orphan is way, way, overpowered. Several bonuses and only one subtraction to intelligence, which may or may not be useful to a neutral thief character anyway? Also, 200 gold being equivalent to one point in a statistic makes little sense either. One of the reasons the "Raised by Monks" background in the original game was so awesome is that you basically get a free +1 PE, since gold tends to mean very little in the long run of the game (or even the short run, really). I'd start the game with -2000 gold if I could get +5 in every stat if I could, and that wouldn't be very balanced at all. +2 to every stat? At the start? Really? This game isn't that hard to begin with. Your overall theme to this amalgamation of other people's work plus your own additions confuses me. You instigate tremendous buffs at the start of the game, and negate the big blessing buffs at the end of the game? Part of the reason people play games is for payoff. You work and work, slowly build, and get your payoff. Build, then release. RPGs works like that, real-time strategy games work like that, hell, comedy in general and even REAL LIFE work like that. If you start the game super powerful what's the point of progressing at all? Why not just make it a cheat mod?
I told you! "Blessings have been NERFED! SEVERELY!" so what if it works different!? Your better from the start but it gets harder the further you are in the game. If you want imba mod plz play the Esacped Lunatic! Just to prevent any more portals of stupidity getting opened I'm going to re-introduce the human background in it's untouched form. {1053}{Escaped Lunatic You have escaped from an insane asylum and stowed away aboard the IFS Zephyr. You are extremely resistant to damage, but you have no money, you have stolen some cheap clothing, and most people are frightened or repulsed by you. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Damage Resistance (+25% to Normal, Fire, Electrical, and Poison resistance)||Reaction (-25)|} My goal is pure and simple. To make alternatives to the Escaped Lunatic and make the player rely more in himself then some idiotic blessing crap. Sure the blessings do work but they do not give you as much as they did. Use your stats. Companions. Weapons and armor. Getting a blssing to be imba... It's just the same as getting the best weapons at the very end of the game. You don't even get to enjoy them for long. I find it idiotic. So I decided to nerf and remove most of it. Every single person just goes for the blessing! A whopping bunch of resitances and a 100 to your HP and Fatigue. How the hell does that even make sense? You get 2x the power, resistances and skills. And with the Orphan you just get some crit and stats. How the hell do you compare those 2 things anyway? Sad because of the loss of God Mode? Anyway with the things I did you'll think what God to worship. What blessing benefits you? Most of them no longer have +1 to some stat unless it a none combat one. I'm giving the player a chance to chose. Chose their God or Gods. It's called "Balance" take one thing and replace with another + you end up having less stats then you had. So you need to do more with less which makes it challenging.
First of all, in a half dozen times through the game, I've actually never gotten Veloran's blessing. Guess I don't have the patience, and didn't feel the need to get it. It's not like the blessing was needed to become godlike. The game I just played through two weeks ago, I didn't bother with any blessings at all. So let me see if we get this right... To balance out reducing the power of blessings (which you don't need), you get: 1) Higher stats right from the start, making you overpowered by clicking a background and not even having to work for it. 2) More powerful spells, when spells were often considered "too strong" to start with. 3) Upgraded equipment. I don't think there is a whole lot of balance intended with this module whatsoever.
I personally don't see the point. Is there even a unique story being added, or are you just offering a collective of ten-minute .mes changes?
Yep, I agree with Philes and mr St.Clair here. You seem very sensible and angry about the final blessing topic, but what you do is mostly replacing god mode at the end with half-god mode from the very beginning. Interesting, yet not balanced. It's a blessing from the very creator of the in-game universe, a reward for his ancient puzzle. Without the Interwebz there would be very few people who would solve it by themselves, so the reward should be grand and so it is. What more sense is required? You put a strong emphasis on the balance issue, so why do you get mad when someone points an obviously unbalanced background? Showing something else (here - Escaped Lunatic, in which you forgot to mention the lack of money and proper clothing in minuses) is in your opinion even more unbalanced does not lower the lack of balance for your own background, in which several bonuses are given for only one minus. Notice how the minus in the Halfing Orphan would affect only mages and technologists, while the one form Escaped Lunatic count for every single character. I myself wanted Velorien's blessing from the very moment I heard about him at the Tarant university without knowing what it will mean, yet I surely like the idea of more powerful yet uqual in value blessings. it would introduce achoice for the player, but then again, it is common for fantasy worlds to hav several more or less ewual gods, from which the player can chose one to worship, while the Arcanum circle scheme is more innovative and original.
Jumping in to say that most of the time I don't bother with the damn blessings as it rarely seems worth it - like others have been saying, the game is easy already. Then again, it's your mod.
