Spell Revisions

A Gibberlings Three Mod
Author: Demivrgvs
On the web: Home page and discussion forum

Version 2 - Check for the most recent version
Languages: English
Platforms: Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Overview

Spell Revisions aims to fix/tweak/enhance arcane and divine spells in Baldur's Gate II. This originally started as a project to make the spell system more balanced: weaker spells have been improved, overpowered ones have been (or will be) nerfed, save-or-else spells now benefit from increased saving throw penalties, and so on.

All spell descriptions can be found in spell_rev\languages. I know that not everyone will like some of the changes I've made - and some of them are controversial - but this can be discussed and I'm open to any suggestions. Anyway, if you think that your favorite spell has become complete rubbish, don't delete this mod just yet! You can choose spells that should be left unmodified before starting the installation process. See Section III - Customizing Your Installation for more details.

Compatibility

This mod has been designed to work with BG2: Throne of Bhaal. It has not been extensively tested solely with BG2: Shadows of Amn, but there are no problems anticipated if the expansion is not installed. The mod has been tested and may be installed over BGT/Tutu if desired.

Spell Revisions should also work fine with most other WeiDU and non-WeiDU mods (it has been tested with most of them). Small problems may arise if you've installed other spell-modifying mods. Spell Revisions will overwrite changes made by these mods (although new spells introduced by them probably won't be affected). To prevent this, you might want to disable some of the changes made by this mod. Read the section below for details.

In general, it should be installed after BG2 Fixpack and before AI enhancing mods. Install it before all mods that change spells unless you want their version. I highly recommend to install DavidW's SCS II, all my efforts will be put to achieve compatibility between the two mods. DavidW himself has been kindly enough to take into account some of the new summons (e.g. Death Knights) as of SCS II v5. Unfortunately SCS V8 has a slight patching error which somewhat breaks SR's 7th level spell, Cacofiend. To solve this you just have to install SR's fifth component (Temporarily SCS's Fiends Hot Fix ) after SCS.

Spell Revisions may have slight compatibility issues with Divine Remix. Divine Remix rearranges the spellbooks of clerics and druids, and I've not tested how this works with the changes made by Spell Revisions (e.g. clerics no longer have access to animal summoning spells while druids gain some "precluded" spells like Sunray along with new ones like Ice Storm and Polymorph Other). However installing Divine Remix after Spell Revisions will surely lead to better results.

Spell Revisions is somewhat incompatible with gMinion as that mod is based upon vanilla's creatures, while SR's ones are heavily changed. Anyway SR provides custom scripts for its creatures heavily inspired by gMinion itself. Installing gMinion before SR should allow to use its scripts for non-SR creatures, but I haven't tested it.

You should not need to start a new game to take advantage of this mod. Currently, only an English version is available.

Installation

Windows
Spell Revisions is packaged and installed with WeiDU and is distributed as a self-extracting archive. To install, simply double-click the archive and follow the instructions on screen.

Alternatively the files can be extracted from the archive using WinRAR. If properly extracted, you should have a "spell_rev" folder, setup-spell_rev.tp2 and setup-spell_rev.exe in your BG2 folder. To install, double-click setup-spell_rev.exe and follow the instructions on screen.

Please run setup-spell_rev.exe in your BG2 folder to reinstall, uninstall or otherwise change components.

Mac OS X
If the mod was previously installed, uninstall it before extracting the new version. Spell Revisions for Baldur's Gate 2 is packaged and installed with WeiDU. To install, simply extract the contents of the mod into your BG2 folder. If properly extracted, you should have a "spell_rev" folder, setup-spell_rev.tp2, setup-spell_rev, and setup-spell_rev.command in your BG2 folder. To install, double-click setup-spell_rev.command and follow the instructions on screen.

Linux
Extract the contents of the mod to the folder of the game you wish to modify. Download the latest version of WeiDU for Linux from WeiDU.org and copy WeiDU and WeInstall to /usr/bin. Following that, open a terminal, cd to your installation directory, run 'tolower' and answer Y to both queries. You can avoid running the second option (linux.ini) if you've already ran it once in the same directory. To save time, the archive is already tolowered, so there's no need to run the first option (lowercasing file names) either if you've extracted only this mod since the last time you lower cased file name. If you're unsure, running tolower and choosing both options is the safe bet.

Run WeInstall spell_rev in your game folder to install the mod. Then run wine BGMain.exe and start playing.


How to Prevent Certain Spells from Being Installed
Note: this must be done before installing the mod. To disable a certain spell, open the file spell_rev/setup-spell_rev.tp2 with a text editor, search for the spell in question and comment it out /* like so */. Anything inside the commented area will get skipped when installing. Here is an example for Oracle.

setup-spell_rev.tp2 - searching for 'Oracle' yields:
COPY ~spell_rev\spwi5##\spwi515.spl~ ~override~ //Oracle
SAY NAME1 @639 SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC @640
COPY ~spell_rev\spwi5##\scrl6w.itm~ ~override~
SAY NAME2 @639 SAY IDENTIFIED_DESC @640

Adding the following will prevent the spell from being installed:
/* COPY ~spell_rev\spwi5##\spwi515.spl~ ~override~ //Oracle
SAY NAME1 @639 SAY UNIDENTIFIED_DESC @640
COPY ~spell_rev\spwi5##\scrl6w.itm~ ~override~
SAY NAME2 @639 SAY IDENTIFIED_DESC @640 */

Congratulations, Oracle will no longer be changed when you install the mod! If you have any questions or require assistance with any of the above, feel free to drop me a line in the forum.

Contents

Complete spell descriptions can be found here.

Components

  1. Shared Files (required) - This component contains files used in both the divine and arcane components. Included are some minor fixes, new animations from Icewind Dale for some illusion spells, items used by the improved creatures summoned by various spells, and innate abilities for many summoned creatures.
  2. Divine Spells
  3. Arcane Spells
  4. Cure Sleep Fix - This fix allow creatures afflicted by Sleep to awaken if hit, and creatures afflicted by Greater Command to make a save each round to awaken. I'd prefer that this be included in the other components, but being that it is an .exe patch, it may give problems due to different localizations, patches, nocd cracks, etc. Most of you won't have any problems installing it, but if it gives you an error message, don't install it, it's not really a big deal - you just won't have the two mentioned features. Contact me if you have any problems.

Spell Description Changes
Descriptions for all spells have been updated. Now, you can be sure that what you read is what you get (well, maybe 95% sure). Descriptions are constructed in the following manner: 

<Name>
<Level>
<School>
<Sphere>
  Only for priest and druid spells
<Range>
  Personal - area of effect is centered on the caster
  Touch    - same as the range of one-handed weapons
  Short    - 1/3 of visual range of caster
  Medium   - 2/3 of visual range of caster
  Long     - visual range of caster, the longest that the game allows
<Duration>
BG2 uses the following units:
  1 round = 6 seconds
  1 turn  = 10 rounds
  1 hour  = 5 turns
  1 day   = 12 hours
<Casting time>
  1 = fastest
  9 = 1 round = slowest
<Area of effect>
  Caster     - spell affects the caster only
  1 creature - spell affects any one creature
  X' radius  - spell affects creatures in the given radius (50 feet is almost equal to visual range of caster)
  Cone       - spell has a cone-shaped area of effect
<Saving Throw>
<Magic Resistance>
  Yes - the target's magic resistance can protect from the spell effects
  No  - target's magic resistance is ignored (Breach, Lower Resistance, ..)
<Description>

Universal School of Magic
Spells that belong to the universal school can be learned and cast by every specialist mage (in the case of arcane spells), and cannot be blocked by the Spell Immunity spell. Universal spells include all level 10 wizard spells, all level 8 priest spells, Find Familiar, and Dispel Magic.

Scroll of Restoration
Some spells that had previously been available to both clerics/paladins and druids/rangers are now accessible by only one pair. After starting the game, the protagonist will be given a Scroll of Restoration. Use it on all clerics, druids, paladins and rangers in your party - spells with changed restrictions will be removed, and the correct ones will be added to the spellbook after the next level-up.

Note: characters created after the mod has been installed will already have the correct spells in their spellbooks. In this case, you will only have to use the scroll on NPCs in the party.

Overview of Divine Spell Changes
While the most accurate spell descriptions are available here, this should give you an overview of the most notable changes made to divine spells.


Overview of Arcane Spell Changes
While the most accurate spell descriptions are available here, this should give you an overview of the most notable changes made to arcane spells.

Contact Information

Demivrgvs created this mod. Visit the Gibberlings Three forums for information on this and any other Gibberlings Three mods on which I may be working.

Thanks and Acknowledgements

Firstly, many thanks to Gibberlings Three, and especially Cam, for hosting!

Huge thanks of course to Westley Weimer, who created an astonishingly flexible and powerful mod editor for IE games, and to the bigg for his modifications to that editor. Many thanks also to the creators of the Infinity Engine Structure Description Project, which clarified what the hell was going on several dozen times; and to Jon Hauglid, for Near Infinity.

I'm also very grateful to anyone who has beta-tested the mod and/or provided much useful feedback, especially to Mike1072, who's help has been essential to this project.

And last but not least, thanks to Marv for creating ADPack from which all my work started...

Tools Used in Creation
WeiDU by Wes Weimer and the bigg
Near Infinity by Jon Olav Hauglid and devSin
IESDP maintained by igi

Credits and Copyright Information

This mod may not be sold, published, compiled or redistributed in any form without the consent of its author. Spell Revisions is ©2008 Marco Montagnoli

Version History

Version 2 - August 18, 2008

Version 1.5 - July 22, 2008

Version 1 - May 19, 2008