User talk:Diablerie

Notes on Game Balance

One of the issues I ran into while working on the Claws + Monk Gear mod was game balance. Powerful weapons are cool, but making something too powerful, too early in the game just isn't fun.

Fortunately (in a sense), hand-to-hand combat was already underpowered in Oblivion. Adding on-strike damage to gauntlets and claw weapons would bring it up to par with weapon combat. Then, to avoid having the player "lose" a slot, I could add additional properties to the item.

My rule of thumb is not to make items more powerful than anything that already exists in the game. Trancendent Sigil Stones are useful guidelines for this. For example, the best sigils can do 25 points of elemental damage, increase stats by 12, give 35% elemental resistance, or 20 points of shield.

Gauntlets use the hand slot, so doing damage and adding a "replacement" gauntlet ability would make it a fair item. Claws use the ring slot, and it's possible to equip two, so claws should only do half damage. I intentionally made on-strike claws and gauntlets not equippable at the same time.

Price works as a balancing factor only at low levels, where money is limited. By the time the player reaches level 15+, he can buy pretty much anything in the game. I think the best way to make items specifically for a higher level character is to make a level-limited quest.

-- Diablerie 11:25, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Discussion

Comments are welcome! Please don't edit the table below, though. -- Diablerie 11:25, 10 June 2006 (EDT)

Well, this sounds like a good mod you're making! An idea for this leveled thing though, instead of having it so that you can only get the quest at level 20 or whatever, how about you have the enchantment leveled (lv. 5, 10, 15, 20, etc...)? Then again, there's always the problem of the player "growing out" of the item, as it becomes obselete after the player goes beyond a certain level. Anyway, just an idea I thought that you could use. The Imperial Dragon 22:13, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

That system would work, but only for quest rewards. For the purposes of this mod, though, I think it would be best items were static. I want to guarantee that quest reward items will be more powerful that purchaseable items. -- Diablerie 23:54, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

You can use The Imperial Dragon's idea and still make rewards give better items. Just make 2 leveled item lists. I have made an example for you. The first leveled item list is the one you would attach to containers in the worldspace. The second is the leveled item used as a reward. This way you can have better items returned for quests than found at random and still base them on your level. Decoup 21:02, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Container			Reward
Level	Item		Level	Item
1	Weak Claw		1	Petty Claw
2	Petty Claw		2	Good Claw
4	Good Claw		4	Great Claw
8	Great Claw		8	Best Claw

Claws + Monk Gear Item Plan

Item	Item Type	How to Get	Abilities	Critical	Notes
Stonefist Bracers	bracers	merchant	Health damage 3; Block 6
Bracers of the Sun	bracers	merchant	Fire damage 10; Light 30; Resist fire 15
Elemental Bands	bracers	hidden merchant	Fire, Frost, Shock damage 5; Hand to hand 10
Fists of Flame	leather gauntlets	merchant	Fire damage 5
Hands of Oblivion	daedric gauntlets	hidden merchant	Fire damage 15; Strength 10
Touch of Rime	fur gauntlets	merchant	Frost damage 5
Frostbite	blades gauntlets	merchant	Frost damage 9; Damage speed 5
Arctic Grip	glass gauntlets	hidden merchant	Frost damage 15; Frost shield 10
Gloves of Lightning	steel gauntlets	merchant	Shock damage 5
Stormtouch	orcish gauntlets	merchant	Shock damage 10; Fortify speed 8
Thunderfist	elvish gauntlets	hidden merchant	Shock damage 12; Weakness to shock 50 (on strike)
Iron Knuckles	knuckles	merchant, loot	(L) Health damage 1 (R) Health damage 1		weak set
Steel Katar	katar	merchant, loot	(L) Health damage 2 (R) Health damage 2		weak set
?	?	merchant, loot	(L) Health damage 3 (R) Health damage 3		weak set
(L) Fist of the Brawler (R) Fist of Might	knuckles	merchant	(L) Health damage 2; Hand to hand 4 (R) Health damage 2; Strength 4	Damage strength 5	weak set; unique
(L) Claw of the Bear (R) Claw of the Tiger	claws?	merchant	(L) Frost damage 5; Strength 5; Resist frost 20 (R) Fire damage 5; Agility 5; Resist fire 20	Strength 50 for 15 secs; Speed 50 for 15 secs (on self)	medium-powered set; unique
(L) Mageslayer (R) Wit's End	folding katar?	hidden merchant	(L) Shock damage 6; Damage magicka 20 (R) Frost damage 6; Damage intelligence 4	Silence 10 secs	medium-strong set (anti-caster); unique
(L) Silent Death (R) Swift Retribution	katar?	hidden merchant? quest?	(L) Poison damage 8; Disintegrate armor 60; Speed 5; Shield 16; Light, Heavy armor -100 (R) Poison damage 8; Disintegrate weapon 60; Athletics 5; Shield 16; Light, Heavy armor -100	Fire damage 3; Disintegrate weapon 200	strong set (unarmored); unique
Dragon Talon	dragon claws?	quest	(L) Fire damage 11; ? (R) Shock damage 11; ?	Paralysis 2 secs	ultimate set; unique
(L) Blade of Final Rest (R) Blade of Pestilence	glass katar	guild merchant	(L) Health damage 8; Light armor 10 (R) Poison damage 5; Weakness to poison 50 (on strike); Sneak 10	Frost damage 8	Dark Brotherhood set; unique
(L) Hand of Justice (R) Hand of Valor	knuckles	guild merchant	(L) Frost damage 8; ? (R) Shock damage 8; ?	Restore health 25 (on self)	Fighters Guild set; unique
(L) Bound Claws (R) Bound Claws	daedric claws	guild merchant (spell)	(L) Fire damage 6; Damage intelligence 5; Damage wisdom 5 (R) Fire damage 6; Damage magicka 10	Restore magicka 25 (on self)	Mages Guild set (summonable); unique
(L) Blade of the Deceiver (R) Blade of the Infiltrator	punchblade	guild merchant	(L) Health damage 8; Luck 5; Sneak 10 (R) Health damage 8; Agility 5; Security 10	Demoralize 75	Thieves Guild set; unique

Mod Planning/Discussion

General questions:

Should there be a set of claws for each guild, or just some of them?

Create new quests or tie in to existing quests?

What kind of set bonuses for the claws?

One possibility is to have some sort of "critical strike" ability for claws. If matching claws are equipped, have a chance of doing extra damage on each hit. -- Diablerie 08:56, 11 June 2006 (EDT)

I think crit strike chance for a matching set of claws is a great idea, if it can be done it's definatley the way to go. It would differentiate the claws from the gauntlets. I'd also say that the stronger claws should be better than the gauntlets, since they are the main focus of the mod, i mean the gauntlets can be any gauntlets , but the claws and katars are what is percieved to do extra damage. Also no damage gauntlets and claws at the same time. -- Cryo

To limit the level at witch you can get them i'd say place them on fixed level bosses , so even if a level 5 gets the quest, there is no way he can defeat the level 40 boss using the Blades of Final Rest for example.

Also have longer quests to get the whole set, for example you find out about a powerfull set of claws, and have to search someone out who knows their location and find each claw separatley in some dungeon or on some boss.

Another way to recieve quests is from books, like have a rare book that forifies h2h by 1 and tells you about the possible location of a certain pair of claws. -- Cryo

I found an excellent place to have a hidden merchant and/or a quest giver. There's an "isolated house" in the southwest of Cyrodiil. On the world map, it's just north of the "st" in "The West Weald". The house just has some unimportant bandits in it, and they can be replaced with one or more NPCs. -- Diablerie 16:23, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

The DB and fighters guild claws are ok, i'd say add in some special Punchblades for the thieves guild that fortify sneak as well as do damage, but no claws for the mages guild though (or maybe a strong summonable set) -- Cryo

Summonable claws! Awesome idea! Making a spell that "fakes" a bound item should be doable. It would be helpful if you could make a set of claws with a daedric texture, preferably ones that attach from the back of the hand. -- Diablerie 16:23, 12 June 2006 (EDT)

Yeah ok i'll make a set of daedric claws, i already stared working on the katar model today , and on the ultimate claw set, i was thinking of dragon claws, seeing as how dragons are the most powerfull creatures in nirn (or whatever the world is called) plus it would look cool having dragon claws as weapons, now i just have to settle on a design -- Cryo

I'll write more as i get ideas, this is shaping up great so far -- Cryo

About the ultimate set, paralisys is way to powerfull, make it have a proc chance of paralisys , something like 5% and do some nice damage , that should be ok. As for the rest of the claws they are shaping up great. Oh never mind i just saw what you did with the crit table, GREAT idea having a special crit for each set! No we should just experiment with what a good proc chance for crits would be, is it ok if i edit the table a bit and add some crit ideas of my own? --Cryo

Go right ahead and edit the table. For the critical chance, I'm thinking of making it 1/10 of the player's HtH skill (so 80% HtH gives 8% critical hit chance, for example). I'm hoping that won't be too powerful. By the way, you can sign entries with 4 tildes ("~"); the wiki automatically replaces them with your name and the date. -- Diablerie 22:07, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

Ok i will copy and paste the table for now, if you like the changes i make replace the main table

Item	Item Type	How to Get	Abilities	Critical	Notes
Iron Knuckles	knuckles	merchant, loot lists	Health damage 2;	Health damage 10	weakest set, basic H2H weapon
Fist of the Brawler	knuckles?	specialised claw merchant	Health damage 2; Hand to hand 4	Forify strength 5 for 10 secs on self?	weak set - enchanted
Steel Katar	Katar	merchant, loot lists	Health damage 3;	Damage health 15	Basic katars, weak
Claw of the Bear	claws	specialised claw merchant	Frost damage 5; Strength 5; Resist frost 20	?	medium-powered set
Claw of the Tiger	claws?	specialised claw merchant	Fire damage 5; Agility 5; Resist fire 20		"
Silent Death	katar	hidden merchant? quest?	Poison damage 8; Shield 16; Sneak 10; Light, Heavy armor -100	Fire damage 10	strong set (unarmored)
Swift Retribution	Folding Katar	hidden merchant? quest?	Poison damage 8; Shield 12; Athletics 10; Light, Heavy armor -100	Disintegrate armor 100 pts	hidden merchant, very expensive
Dragons Talons	Unique Dragon claws	quest	? damage 13; H2H 15 pts	Paralysis 2 secs	ultimate set; paralysis too powerful?
The Butterfly	folding katar	quest	Acrobatics 10; damage health 11; Agility 10	damage health 30	quest set
Blade of Final Rest	black glass claws	guild merchant	Health damage 8; Disintegrate armor 80; sneak 10	Frost damage 10; Disintegrate weapon 200	Dark Brotherhood set
Blade of Pestilence	glass claws	hidden merchant	Poison damage 5; Weakness to poison 20 (on strike)	Poison damage 15; Weakness to poison 60	Hidden merchant
Hand of Justice	knuckles?	guild merchant	Frost damage 8; Strength 10	Restore health 25 (on self)	Fighters Guild set
Hand of Valor	knuckles?	quest boss	Shock damage 8; shield 7		quest
Sanities Eclipse (bound)	daedric claws?	guild merchant (spell)	Fire damage 6; Damage intelligence 5; Damage wisdom 5	Restore magicka 25 (on self)	Mages Guild set (summonable)
Mageslayer (bound)	daedric claws?	guild merchant (spell)	Fire damage 6; Damage magicka 10	Silence 5 secs; damage Intelligence 10	quest
Blades of the Infiltrator	Black punchblade	guild merchant	Health damage 8; Security 10; Sneak 10	Demoralize 75	Thieves Guild set
Blades of Debilitation	punchblade?	boss	Health damage 8; Agility 5;	Burden 1000 pts for 2 secs (heavy burden causes knockdown?)	quest

OK so i reduced guild sets to 1 to make them more special , added glass claws , a basic knuckle and Katar set (maybe we need a basic claw set as well). We still have to add the glass katar ( a couple versions should do) About guild items, we have knuckles for fighters, punchblades for thieves, glass claws for DB and Daedric claws for mages, the types all sem to match the respective guilds I will also finalize models before i work on new ones so you can get them into the game, so expect final knuckles today or tomorow and final punchblades and foldng katars in 2-3 days -- Cryo

Ah, I see where I went wrong. I should have marked more clearly that each row of the table was one item, and not one set. I started this page as an organizational aid for entering data in the CS, which is why they're organized like that. I'll continue merging the tables in the morning.

To make them more interesting, I wanted to give the left and right claws in each unique set different names and abilities. For example, the Claw of the Bear and Claw of the Tiger are the the left and right items in the animal-themed set. Or is that too confusing? -- Diablerie 23:54, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

Is it possible to do this, because gauntlets are for both hands, and cannot be seperated like in Morrowind. I'd like the idea though, if they had only different abilities and not different names. The Imperial Dragon 00:12, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Actually, they have to be separated since claws use the ring slots. It was the only way to make them work with complete armor sets like the Dark Brotherhood and arena armor. -- Diablerie 00:20, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

So you're going to have a set for every armor type in the game? The Imperial Dragon 00:22, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Are there going to be any sets for the Arena in this mod? The Imperial Dragon 22:35, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

I don't think so. We were planning on having claws only for the major guilds, not the minor ones. -- Diablerie 23:54, 13 June 2006 (EDT)

I never really thought of the Arena as a minor guild, after all, it has its own storyline, an epilogue, and ranks... The Imperial Dragon 00:01, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Ah yes i understand now , sorry for the confusion. As is we have to few sets now, we should make some more generic ones for loot tables and generic merchants, and also some more enchanted medium powered ones, buy maybe we'll do that for the next version if it's too much work for now. Did you think of any quests yet? or where to place some bosses with the stronger claws? Cryo 06:13, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

Well, there's nothing wrong with planning new items. Making new items and placing them in loot lists or in shops is pretty quick and easy. The "generic" claws can be equipped on some bandits too. Claws don't do extra damage when equipped on NPCs, but it doesn't make much of a difference with the weak items.

Making quests goes a lot slower, though.

I set up the table to have one set on each row. Hopefully it's clearer now. BTW, what do you think -- same names or different names for claws in a set?

I do have a few ideas for the Dragon Talon quest. A logical place for the Dragon Talons would be in Pale Pass, since there was a big battle with Akavir there. To extend the quest, we can say that one of the claws was stolen and taken to another dungeon somewhere. The Pale Pass boss can be the ghost of the general who originally owned the claws. The NPC in the isolated house can be a reclusive collector of Akaviri lore. He (or she) can give the quest, and possibly sell a few types of claws. -- Diablerie 08:11, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

About balance, we have to reduce the damage claws do, i mean in a normal game with the best sword you would do about 30 damage max , so having claws that do 11 damage each PLUS the h2h damage would be abou 40 damage , witch is too overpowered, so i'd say we should reduce claw damage across the board Cryo 09:01, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

I've already done some research into this. In fact, you can do a lot more than 30 damage. A daedric dagger has about the same attack speed as fists, and does 20 damage max (with 100 Strength and Blade). You can enchant it or put an elemental sigil on it to do up 25 damage extra, so that's 45 damage total.

In stock Oblivion, fists do up to 11 damage. Most hand-to-hand mods bump that to about 15-17, still less than a dagger. The dragon claws currently do 22 elemental damage on top of that. That's less damage than the best weapons in Oblivion, like Goldbrand or even a really good self-enchanted dagger. I think the lower damage offsets the advanage of never having to recharge the claws.

Subjectively, my current character is level 21 and has 15 damage gauntlets, and doesn't feel overpowered. -- Diablerie 11:10, 14 June 2006 (EDT)

I was thinking we could have the critical on the silent death and Swift Retributin set be Disintegrate armor since they are a set for unarmored chars it could even the odds

Also we could add a set to be speciffically used against mages , something like:

Item	Item Type	How to Get	Abilities	Critical	Notes
Mageslayer (L)	Katar?	hidden merchant	Lightning damage 6; Damage magika 6;	-
Witt's End (R)	Katar?	hidden merchant	Ice damage 6; Damage intelligence 4;	Silence 10 Seconds	Medium-Strong set

Cryo 20:20, 15 June 2006 (EDT)

Sounds good! -- Diablerie 20:37, 15 June 2006 (EDT)