Underrepresented Items

[Cultist]

Underrepresented Items is a well known mod for BG2 which fixed one of the main drawbacks in combat system - obviously, underrepresented weapons. Two-handed axes, daggers, quarterstaves, bastard sword, maces, halberds, darts etc.

All that underrepresentation have ben caused mostly due to BG2 introducing a lot of weapon types specializations.

Instead of short swords, polearms and such we had scimitars, halberds, bastard swords and every other variation. So at the beginning some people chosen some weapon type only to find later that there were no such weapons for higher levels.

Please, try to avoid it in PE.

[JFSOCC]

This is what crafting could be useful for.

[mstark]

While I'm a big proponent for unbalance in single player games, it'd be great to see most, if not all, weapon specializations represented in end game equipment.

 

I'd also be very happy if a few specializations turned out to be just slightly better than others, because it'd elicit that "aw crap, I should have picked that instead" feeling, which'll give you a reason to play the game again.

 

Aren't we just a difficult bunch to please .

[Nonek]

In general i'm against an equivalency of inventory. obviously I do not want my items to be sub par, but so long as they are thematically correct for my character and beneficial to my playstyle then i'm not particularly upset if I have not chosen an optimal configuration. My character should be the potent force, not his inventory.

 

It's always seemed a little too gamey to have a wide range of every available configuration catered for, regardless of local culture, history or any other factor.

[jethro]

In IE DnD games there were a lot of different weapons classes but most of them practically identical to play. So they only provided the impression that you had a wealth of different weapons (hey, there's a bastard sword+1, a long sword+1 and a scimitar+1). But the wealth was an illusion.  And you had to ignore whole classes of weapons outright because none of your party members was specialized in them.

 

Solutions:

 

a) Lots of weapon classes, but few weapon skills that each allows using more than one class of weapon

 

b) Few weapon classes. Advantage in this case is that the weapons could be very distinct in their play style. This might not be possible with a) because of the substantial effort to design and balance alll the classes.

 

c) Crafting fills the void of missing weapons. I don't like that option since crafting shouldn't supplant the exitement of finding loot. But it could work well for classes of weapons that are of foreign design. You don't expect to find many of them in loot, but the starting town might have a weaponsmith from that country who has a few. He also knows where to find better recipes.

 

d) I also think it could be an interesting mechanic to have one class of weapons where the information text on the skill informs the player that this type of weapon is very seldom. But they are also the best weapons you can find.... One way to do this is to give these weapons a special intrinsic ability (for example vampiric) besides the normal stats. Now a player can decide if he wants to play it safe and take other classes or gamble that he will find one. Obviously this would work better in a random-loot game, though

[rjshae]

It might be useful to have a barter system for magic items. A high-end guild coster can manage various deals of the form: "will trade items X, Y, or Z for an item of type X or best offer", with a service fee paid for by the other party. This can allow you to more readily obtain an exotic item during the game.

[JFSOCC]

c) Crafting fills the void of missing weapons. I don't like that option since crafting shouldn't supplant the exitement of finding loot. But it could work well for classes of weapons that are of foreign design. You don't expect to find many of them in loot, but the starting town might have a weaponsmith from that country who has a few. He also knows where to find better recipes.

I disagree. If someone invests in crafting, they should be rewarded for their effort. Why shouldn't you be able to get something cool from crafting?

And it's not supplanting loot, it's supplementing it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

IIRC, weapons will be in groups to avoid the "damn, no +5 Katanas" that happened in BG2. I do think that there should be a wide variety of powerful magic equipment available at higher levels, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about that.a

[Sacred_Path]

IIRC, weapons will be in groups to avoid the "damn, no +5 Katanas" that happened in BG2. I do think that there should be a wide variety of powerful magic equipment available at higher levels, but I'm pretty sure I don't have to worry about that.a

It's still nice to have all weapons equally well represented; if your fighter build is optimized for high initiative, medium damage one-handed weapons, and katanas are the most suited for this, then I actually want to use katanas, even if I'm also proficient with longswords and short swords. But yeah between crafting and general loot I don't think we'll be wanting for weapons.

[jethro]

 

c) Crafting fills the void of missing weapons. I don't like that option since crafting shouldn't supplant the exitement of finding loot. But it could work well for classes of weapons that are of foreign design. You don't expect to find many of them in loot, but the starting town might have a weaponsmith from that country who has a few. He also knows where to find better recipes.

I disagree. If someone invests in crafting, they should be rewarded for their effort. Why shouldn't you be able to get something cool from crafting?

And it's not supplanting loot, it's supplementing it.

 

 

You could say, I want to eat the cake and have it too ;-). I want to craft and get something cool out of crafting and still have fun finding loot.

 

What I am against is that crafting can do nearly everything you can find in the wild (as it was done in NWN2 for example). Since you could craft bastard sword+4 flaming as well as long sword+4 flaming it wasn't necessary for the designers to make sure that both weapons were found as loot. It makes it easy to be up-to-date in every item slot you have thereby making progression smooth, predictable and boring. The situation where you have to make do with inferior stuff and make hard decisions about what to use simply never arises. For example you never need to consider switching to a different weapon class because you haven't found a good weapon for your main class yet.

[Amberion]

I would actually prefer a mechanic whereby you can change the weapon 'focus' you get bonuses with. For example, I imagine this mechanic(using 3rd edition DND terms):

 

I roll a new level 1 fighter type. I choose the 'feat' 'martial weapon focus training' or some such. I can then activate that ability, and choose from a dropdown list a weapon type to focus training in. Then, I rest. At the end of that 8 hour rest period, I get a temporary buff(with no time limit) that gives me +1 to attack and +1 to damage for that weapon type. I can change my focus training at any time, but it only becomes active after an 8 hour rest period. You could even extend it to specialization, requiring a further 8 hour rest period afterward to gain the specialization bonus on top of the focus bonus.

 

This would allow you to have many different weapon types, but not punish you for choosing a 'wrong' type.

Edited July 9, 2013 by Amberion

[JFSOCC]

 

 

c) Crafting fills the void of missing weapons. I don't like that option since crafting shouldn't supplant the exitement of finding loot. But it could work well for classes of weapons that are of foreign design. You don't expect to find many of them in loot, but the starting town might have a weaponsmith from that country who has a few. He also knows where to find better recipes.

I disagree. If someone invests in crafting, they should be rewarded for their effort. Why shouldn't you be able to get something cool from crafting?

And it's not supplanting loot, it's supplementing it.

 

 

You could say, I want to eat the cake and have it too ;-). I want to craft and get something cool out of crafting and still have fun finding loot.

 

What I am against is that crafting can do nearly everything you can find in the wild (as it was done in NWN2 for example). Since you could craft bastard sword+4 flaming as well as long sword+4 flaming it wasn't necessary for the designers to make sure that both weapons were found as loot.

 

yeah, I disagree. I think crafting shouldn't be nerfed just because some believe that the coolest loot has to come from enemies.

I want to go through the effort of making a weapon which is an extension of myself. One which defines my playstyle and isn't inferior to that piece of junk you pulled from a corpse.

 

It makes it easy to be up-to-date in every item slot you have thereby making progression smooth, predictable and boring. The situation where you have to make do with inferior stuff and make hard decisions about what to use simply never arises. For example you never need to consider switching to a different weapon class because you haven't found a good weapon for your main class yet.

Again I disagree. I don't think progression should be gear based any way, it should be character based. But regardless, it could be just as difficult crafting something as it could be finding something.

[Lephys]

You could just have SOME of the coolest loot come from slain enemies, and SOME of the coolest loot come from crafting.

 

Unless the list of cool loot in the game consists of just a single item, nothing requires that the cool loot you get from crafting be the same cool loot that you get from slaying things.

 

It's just like with anything else that gets you loot. Work through some really kickass dialogue? Maybe someone rewards you with some old family heirloom unique sword that you could NEVER find via killing all the foes in the land. That doesn't mean that killing all the foes in the land won't yield some other awesome piece of unique loot that isn't the exact same thing as that heirloom sword but that's equally as cool.

[Tsuga C]

If a weapon type (i.e. bastard sword, spetum, flail, etc.) is included in the game, I do hope that there will be low-mid-high-level specimens available (drops, treasure, craft it) as being stuck with the AD&D equivalent of a +1 weapon with no additional bonuses at Level 14 because I chose an unusual weapon for my protagonist would grate on my nerves mightily.  Through in-game dialogues, scripts taking note of what we use, or some other method, please ensure that the campaign allows us to actualize the vision we have for our protagonists.