Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

* Pro: More in line with PNP version of Bigby spells, summoning an actual hand.

- INTRODUCTION: THE LOGIC OF BALANCING: Feats, spells, skills and abilities of every kind, as well as classes and races, have in my view two balancing criteria: they MUST be balanced according to the gaming environment (and the BEST PLAY: player errors aren't a balance concern) and they MUST have some forms of counterplay (soft counters are better than hard ones, which just tend to make characters "one trick ponies").

- ARE THE (vanila) BIGBIES BALANCED? The Bigby line of spells is, with the BG change of Bigby 6 (Forceful Hand), completely congruous with the above statement: the environment an arcane caster has to face was built and tweaked keeping into account his/her ability to cast these spells (which especially against the vast majority of bosses range from extremely important to almost necessary), thus making them PvE balanced by definition, and as far as PvP is concerned generic counters like Spell Mantles (spells, wands and potions), Spell Resistance (items, spells, potions) and Hide in Plain Sight (feat), or more specific ones like for instance extremely high AC and/or simply healing until expiration (Bigby 9), high AB (Bigby 5) or Mind effect (like long lasting spells like Circle vs Alignment and Mind Blank) and knockdown (foundation of stone potion, for instance) immunities satisfy the need for counterplay

- WHY ARE BIGBIES NEEDED? Bigbies are the way Obsidian chose to represent in game the power of spellcasters. Unable to reproduce without devastating consequences iconic spells like Wish, Timestop or the Divination line (starting with the real Premonition) for instance, Bigbies were altered to give mages powerful tools to have a chance at winning battles against opponents with high saves and healing potions. Without them (that is what the current implementation means), a serie of characters (every Red Wizard type, simple caster Wiz20/ASoC10 and the likes) instantly become not worth playing, as they can easily be killed while retaining no chance of being effective against bosses or other players (try to stop that fighter type running to you and dealing 600+ dmg/round on average with a 36 AC mage, if you can). This change effectively pigeon-holes mages into gishes (because the high AC, better saves and ability to melee insure playability), HiPSers (one of the few ways left to survive Boss and player stomps alike), Pale Masters, Blood Magi and Vampiric Feast users.

- WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE NEW BIGBIES? Anyone who played a "classic" caster mage, or that understands anything about NWN2 anyway, knows that those character types cannot survive the unexpected. Very often, a DM spawning 2-3 strong melee mobs on them that open with breaches means unavoidable death because of how concentration checks work (unless you are a gish, have HiPS, PM or BM scars ready, or if you are extremely fast with Boots of Etherealness and the server doesn't stand in your way).
This should make clear that a mage needs a reliable tool to deal with certain threats, and has no second chances in those cases, unlike clerics, FSs, warlocks, druids or fighter types.
The new Bigbies are unreliable, uncontrollable and based on a model, pathing and walking time. Therefore, utterly useless for high level play. Considering that death should have grievous (when not decisive) consequences, this is of course unacceptable.


In light of the above, the changes should be reverted.