The Bard's Tale 4

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Caliane

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have not tested. there is one on steam discussions.
first version of a respec tool :: The Bard's Tale IV General Discussions

Weapon type doesnt matter. passives effect the SKILLS, not the weapon used with the skills. and you can use any weapon, with any skill.

Example: Critical hit swords passive. Sword skills have a 20% chance to reset their cooldown. Storm of blades, passing slash, sundering smash, sweeping slash, all or nothing, and last breath.
you get that passive effect, using those skills, even if you do not use a sword.

Now, basic weapons will have ADDITIONAL passive effects.
Short swords have +1 attacks to storm of blades for example. But this is specific to the weapon itself.

So, what elven weapons count as, means nothing. You just need to decide of the elven weapon effect is more valueable then whatever passive the other item, and stats it has is better.
for example, shillelaghs have -1 op cost to headbash. imho, that shit is WAY better then any, elven weapon proc for my fighter. or, the "choose direction for knockback" on the other mace. knockbacks cause damage on collision, making that also pretty powerful.

(Granted the elven acid wand, trivializes the entire game, making that all irrelevant...)

(might need a bow equipped to use the bow skills? would need to check that.)
 
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Void

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Hmm.

So you're saying that if I take Head Knocker, for example, but am using a sword, I still get to use the Head Knocker skill? Sure, it will take 2 opp, I get that, but that's literally retarded if that is the case. I understand all the passives from the various weapons, but if you can just use whatever weapon you want, that's fucking dumb. Why wouldn't I take, as an example that isn't necessarily smart but just popped into my head, 2h swords for the armor rend skill and shield skills for defense, and then just equip the best stat item I can find in both hands, regardless of type? Hell, maybe I'll just use the Spear of Strife as a 2h weapon, because maybe I don't even need to have a shield equipped to use shield skills? And the Spear gives 2 other seemingly good skills of its own. I'd be able to armor rend, block if necessary, and use the 2 spear skills on top of all that.

I'm at work so I can't fuck around with any of this yet, but if weapon type has literally nothing to do with skill-use beyond the passives on the weapons themselves, that changes a lot of things even more than I realized. And is retarded.

Thanks for the respec link, I'll check it out.
 

Caliane

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you can. shields give solid ARMOR stats though.
and the spear giving 2 skills, will OVERWRITE 2 mastery slots. so you can only slot 2 other active skills. (fuck that shit..)

and yeah, just checked a thread, apparently rogue doesnt even need to equip a bow to use bow abilities.


They mentioned this. Might be the cause of your stance issue?
"Strangely enough many classes can't enter a stance while stealthed."
 
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JOESAN21

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Biggest thing I remember about #1 was getting to fight FRED. Something summoned a FRED, it looked like and old man and completely demolished our party. I remember being completely surprised/pissed/and laughing at the same time. Bring back FRED!!
 

Void

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you can. shields give solid ARMOR stats though.
and the spear giving 2 skills, will OVERWRITE 2 mastery slots. so you can only slot 2 other active skills. (fuck that shit..)

and yeah, just checked a thread, apparently rogue doesnt even need to equip a bow to use bow abilities.


They mentioned this. Might be the cause of your stance issue?
"Strangely enough many classes can't enter a stance while stealthed."
I do have the stealthed party skill on my rogue, and I'm always trying to use it immediately at the start of combat, for obvious reasons, so I would bet that is the issue. Thanks!

I was aware of the issue with the spear skills, but just saying, if I have a character that does nothing but use the spear skills, armor rend, and then one other thing like a taunt or whatever, and then a trinket, he could be loaded down with shield stats and passives and crafting and shit, potentially. Maybe it would be a stupid character, sure, but I'd love to at least try it out via a respec option. I mean, it is stupid that I could even do that without an appropriate equipped item, but if that's how they wanna play it, I'd like to be able to experiment with it legitimately through the game.

Also, bow skills are woefully lacking in this game. Is there any legit reason to have a bow user? Forgetting the fact they do physical and you could just have a much better practitioner, obviously. Really sucks, I always enjoyed making a straight up archer character in Bard's Tale, Wizardry, Might & Magic, etc.

EDIT: Is there any point at which I can delete characters I'm not using from the Adventurer's Guild? I just realized I'd hit that cap if I don't use a cheat on skill respec and just try to make new ones, and there isn't any way to delete them currently.
 

Caliane

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well pracs are basically broken op.
Otherwise bow skills can target anywhere. The aoe bow skill has a delay, but hits pretty hard as well. Although, leather strop creates the same problem conjurers mark has. since its +flat damage PER HIT. Spending 2 op for 1 attack, 1 turn later, vs spending 1 op, for storm of swords 3 hits, is bad math. +12 strop damage 6 times vs +12 damage once.


Armor rend on items, and conjurers mark need to be gutted, to make the game more interesting really.
 

velk

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well pracs are basically broken op.
Otherwise bow skills can target anywhere. The aoe bow skill has a delay, but hits pretty hard as well. Although, leather strop creates the same problem conjurers mark has. since its +flat damage PER HIT. Spending 2 op for 1 attack, 1 turn later, vs spending 1 op, for storm of swords 3 hits, is bad math. +12 strop damage 6 times vs +12 damage once.


Armor rend on items, and conjurers mark need to be gutted, to make the game more interesting really.

I think conjurer's mark is bugged - it seems to do an aoe explosion instead of just hitting the creature that has it.
 

Qhue

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Thanks to Conjurer's Mark and the Wand of Rend I was able to face roll the final battles without breaking a sweat despite the bad guys being red.

I actually skipped the Wand of Peace entirely..


The more I think about it, the more I am convinced you could make a REALLY nice game using that fundamental 4x4 grid quasi-tactical combat system, they just got lazy after the first few levels and when testing indicated that there were crazy synergies between things like Conjurer's Mark they leaned into that rather than switching things up to keep it lively with differing tactics etc. I really feel that someone came up with then initial combat system for levels 1-6 and then walked away from the project and whoever finished their work had no idea what they were doing.
 
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Void

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Yeah, I'm starting to get a little bored with this, and I only just opened the Elven portal. For one thing, I've had to leave behind so many different "secrets" that it triggers me just thinking about it, but I suppose that is a good thing. Not having to get every little thing solved and still progressing with the story is good, but whenever I do go back, either because I remembered to do it or I found a new item, the stuff is so low that it doesn't really matter. Not to mention, there is nothing that I love more than finally figuring out one of those stupid fucking fairy puzzles (seriously, kill me) to get that massive fucking chest behind the locked gate...and I get 20gp. Makes me not even give a fuck.

But anyway, about the boredom...I don't even have the armor rend wand, and it is still way too easy. Let me clarify, I have the wand, but I haven't had a green fucking seed since the beginning of the fucking game when it had that glitch where if you solved a puzzle weapon while it was equipped, it didn't stay solved. So I either had the glitch eat several greens, or I just never got that many, and I have definitely never gotten one since leaving the Underground. Probably completely random chance, but seriously, fuck that green bitch. Anyway, even without that, Party Stealth is literally the most game-breaking thing in existence. Two rogues (I made one an archer simply because the game is still too easy...he rarely even gets to hit anything with Rain of Arrows since they are already dead) razor strop, and two mages meditate, for free, while the enemy stands there with their thumbs up their butts. And my fighter and bard give me additional opportunity. And several sword-users have a 50% chance to get back their opportunity on a crit. Which is 100% the second time with those crit-inducing weapons. I don't even care if I get first turn, because that's just more mana for my mages if I don't. If it looks like a "tough" fight the bard does the ae mark thing. Both rogues and the fighter have the armor rend ability, because I should totally be able to do that with a bow equipped, right? I even went all in on the cleric tree on one of my mages because who cares? If someone actually dies during combat (hah!), I can resurrect them!

Imagine if I had the armor rend wand too. Essentially I'm just playing Myst now, trying to figure out puzzles that eventually get so monotonous that I don't even care if I opened all the secret areas, as long as I got the main quest done. They had some great ideas for puzzles, but after you do them a dozen times you just want to kill yourself. The enemies literally mean nothing to me anymore. Magnar did zero damage to me. I'm sure there are some harder fights, but I mistakenly zoned into that high-level area by the water behind the Sacred Grove area way before I should have, and some reds jumped me as soon as I got inside. Thanks party stealth! Killed them all without even trying. Why am I caring anymore? Maybe time to get that Pathfinder game.
 
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Vaclav

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Patch 2 really improved performance a ton for me, oddly only on higher settings though. If I switch to barebones settings the performance is actually worse. Not sure how they accomplished that.

I'm really enjoying it all the way through, however - but I'm a puzzle guy so they don't stymie me much, wife.... not as much.... so I end up having to swoop in to solve them for her too, and could def see people that don't like puzzles (and don't have an assistant on hand) would get bugged by it.
 

Void

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Patch 2 really improved performance a ton for me, oddly only on higher settings though. If I switch to barebones settings the performance is actually worse. Not sure how they accomplished that.

I'm really enjoying it all the way through, however - but I'm a puzzle guy so they don't stymie me much, wife.... not as much.... so I end up having to swoop in to solve them for her too, and could def see people that don't like puzzles (and don't have an assistant on hand) would get bugged by it.
I greatly enjoy puzzles, and I think I'm a fairly smart guy that can figure them out. Solving them isn't my problem. I just don't want to do the same exact puzzle type many, many times, sometimes for a whopping 20 gp. If I could be assured that something worth a shit would be the result of my time, I might not be quite so put off, but even with that, Bard's Tale should have some element of struggling to overcome the actual enemies too. Once you get a couple of skills (party stealth being the biggest, and remember, I don't even have the armor rend wand yet!), the fights are literally meaningless. So instead of challenging combat with challenging puzzles, I get 10 of the same puzzle type, a few trivial battles, maybe some loot that I don't care about, another skill point that just makes me even more OP, and then I move on and do the exact same thing again, just with a different puzzle type.

The game really suffers from a decent beginning that literally falls off a cliff after a certain point. I don't even know if I'm halfway through the game, to be honest, and I have zero desire to continue because except for new puzzle types I feel I know what the rest of the game entails for me. I could be wrong, but I'm not motivated to try more than here and there every once in awhile. Hopefully I'll still finish the game, but it will probably be sporadically as I push through each "chapter" here and there.
 
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velk

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Infiltrator is grossly overpowered, I agree - should be self-only. Obvious non-stealthy things like playing music or taunting should also break stealth for obvious reasons. Rend wand should only work on single target spells, and conjuror's mark should only damage the creature it's on.
 

Shmoopy

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Finally finished Pathfinder (120+ hours) and moved on to this.

Up to level 15 now. Damn this game is really well done. Only thing to complain about is it needs a real beefy system and the characters are kinda ugly. I'm really liking the combat system. Fairly unique.
 

Caliane

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Probably a good time. They just dropped a huge patch addressing some of the major issues people had, on the 22nd.

respecs, save anywhere, new difficulty mode, toggles for automapping/resing,waypoints.

Major rebalancing.
arcane barrage scales with DR, instead of linearly. weaker past 20 int.
conj mark scales at 33% of str, down from 40%. its aoe damage halved, and only triggered by NON SPELL attacks.

infiltrator is now 1 turn, and only 2 party members, not stealthing entire party for 3 turns.

acidic changed. but IM not 100% sure what changed.

patch notes:

The Bard's Tale IV :: Second Sight Update now live!
 

Qhue

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Those changes make a very big difference, especially towards the later part of the game where it was brain-dead easy due to insane obvious synergies.
 
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Shmoopy

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Finished on Normal. Party was 2 Sword/Shield Fighters, 2 Sword Rogues, Practioner, Bard. Pretty much plowed through the game easily. Don't think I lost a single fight after around level 10. Not even boss fights.

Way better game than I expected. That ending is great.
 

Fyff

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Just started this. Game is everything I wanted it to be. I had to drop my settings once I got to the dock. It would crash every 2 minutes until I turned it on low.

It's a lot of nostalgia for me as I played the originals on release with my buddies back in the day.

Man the Mangar fight is hard. I sent away my fighter in plot to go warn some people which was probably a mistake.

The music for this is really well done. Bravo to the guys who wrote the score to this.
 

Sterling

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Game was good, but honestly I was probably more excited by the remasters of the old games.
 
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Droigan

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The Director's Cut 2.0 is due out in a couple of days, August 27th. Been looking forwards to that, I stopped playing after around 30 hours due to a bug (forget what).

Features new DLC dungeon, "thousands of fixes", upgraded interface, full gamepad support (also launches on consoles), rebalanced combat and encounters, more enemies and puzzles.

Update will be free for the people who have it already.

 
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