Item Revisions Mod

[J Beau]

Good news indeed.

[Demivrgvs]

With a little delay due to forum's problems here's the semi-definitive amulets' list. As always if you think something should be changed or can be done better let me know.

 

Shield Amulet

Special Abilities (consumes one charge):

Shield

 

Notes: unchanged (minor description improvement). I would prefer a permanent +2 bonus to armor class while equipped because else the amulet can simply be equipped to cast the spell and then replaced with another one for the encounter. What do you think?

 

Silver Amulet

Equipped Abilities:

Silver Glow: +2 bonus to AC and saving throws vs. shapeshifters and vampires

 

Notes: replaces Wolfsbane Charm, may be "restored" in BG2. It previoulsy granted +1 to thac0 and damage vs. lycantrophes, but I think that defensive abilities are more appropriate for an amulet. Furthmore (and even more important) thac0 vs. creature type doesn't stack, therefore the previous bonus was useless if the character already had something similar (Flametongue, BG1's Sword of Balduran, Werebane, ...).

 

Periapt of Proof Against Poison

Special Abilities (once per day) :

Cure Poison

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to poison effects

Notes: unchanged.

Amulet of Metaspell Influence

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to silence

Casting Speed: +1 bonus

 

Notes: it previously allowed to memorize one more 2nd level spell to arcane casters. It simulates PnP's quicken spell and silent spell metamagic feats now. It should be much more useful throughout the whole game now, and it usable by both arcane and divine casters.

 

Greenstone Amulet

Special Abilities (consumes one charge):

Mind Shield: confers protection against many forms of mind-control magic, such as charm, confusion, domination, fear, feeblemind, know alignment, hold, sleep, stun, and Psionics for 1 turn

 

Notes: minor fixes.

 

Amulet of Magic Shielding

Equipped Abilities:

Energy Resistance: +10% bonus

Saving Throws: +1 bonus

 

Notes: "replaces" Amulet of +5% Magic Resistance. Two others amulet did that and even more making it useless very soon imo. The effects are obvioulsy inspired by the Potion of Magic Shielding.

Kaligun's Amulet of Magic Resistance

Special Abilities (once per day):

Magic Resistance (15th caster level)

Equipped Abilities:

Magic Resistance: +10% bonus

 

Notes: I've only added the ability to cast the 5th level spell once per day. It should make it more interesting and I didn't want this amulet to be a lesser version of the Seldarine's Amulet.

Periapt of Life Protection

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to death & level drain effects

 

Notes: it previously granted +3 to saves vs. death. I think its new effects are still appropriate (the new description is again more interesting) and party's saving throws are already too good compared to enemies' ones imo. Unfortunately only cleric protagonists can obtain this amulet, should I add another one in the game?

 

Necklace of Form Stability

Equipped Abilities:

Immunity to disintegration, petrification & polymorph effects

 

Notes: it previoulsy granted +5 to saves vs. polymorph/petrification. It still does exactly what it should have before, but it works better imo because many spell-like abilities that simulate/use disintegrate and petrification don't allow a save vs. polymorph (most of them, like beholder's ray use a save vs. spell). Furthmore it should be more user-friendly allowing a character to be immune to annoying romance/loot breaking deaths.

 

Amulet of Spell Warding

Equipped Abilities:

Spell Warding: can absorb and consume 4 spell levels of up to 4th level every five rounds

 

Notes: this is the one of which I'm most unsure. I think the idea of using Spell Deflection is very good but I'm unsure how to implement it. Unfortunately a cast X times per day would allow to unequip it after casting the spell, thus I've opted for this solution that makes it rather powerful (but you get it in the underdark and not so easily if you install SCS). Any suggestions?

 

Amulet of Power

Equipped Abilities:

Arcane and divine casters can memorize one extra spell of each level from 1st to 7th

 

Notes: I know this is very radical and I've to explain the reasons behind such a change. Most of its effects are now granted from other amulets (Metaspell Influence's vocalize and casting speed, Periapt of Life Protection's immunity to level drain) and magic resistance is granted by many others items (including two amulets). Furthmore its now much more similar to its PnP and NWN versions. It should allow non-Edwin casters to partially reach his spells repertoire, and because its new background (which is really extensive) relates it to the hathrans (cleric/mage witches of Rashemen) its now usable by divine casters too (Aerie its surely the best candidate to receive it, she gain a total of 14 more spells per day! ). Any thoughts?

 

Amulet of Cheetah Speed

Special Abilities (once per day):

Improved Haste (15th caster level)

Equipped Abilities:

Armor Class: +1 bonus

Movement Rate: +2 bonus

Saving Throws: +2 bonus vs. breath

 

Notes: I've added the armor class and saves bonuses because it lacked "while equipped" effects imo. It should be more interesting now (vanilla's version was quite useless considering how late you get it) and it now has a much deserved background.

 

Amulet of Seldarine

Equipped Abilities:

Wisdom: +1 bonus

Saving Throws: +1 bonus

Magic Resistance: +10% bonus

 

Notes: I've only added the wisdom bonus. I'd like to do something better if possible but I've quite exhausted the ideas. As always suggestions would come handy, but it also may just remain as it is if you think so.

 

Amulet of the Master Harper

Equipped Abilities:

Lore: +10 bonus

Armor Class: +1 bonus

Find Traps: +20% bonus

Pick Locks: +20% bonus

Detect Illusions: +20% bonus

Saving Throws: +2 bonus vs. spell

 

Notes: I've added lore, detect illusions and saves bonuses, but I've removed immunity to silence (already granted by another amulet) and I've rduced its +3 bonus to AC (way too much) to "only" +1.

[Salk]

Hello Demivrgvs!

 

Some general comments about the revisions suggested on the first post (no comments mean I think the proposed changes are already good the way they are):

 

Characteristics set by item

 

In case of Gauntlets of Ogre Power, an increase of +2 to base Strenght should take STR 16 to 18/01 (in my opinion) with 18/00 attainable only with base Strenght 17.

 

Restriction changes

 

I am not so fond of thieves being able to use Wands. I have always thought proper to have only bards being the non mage class having such possibility.

 

About the amulets above:

 

Shield Amulet

 

I would keep it unchanged altogether. It's true that a player could start its effect and then replace it but I'd not accomodate the revisions to fit power gamers. And also, once in the inventory, the game should be resumed, exposing the player to possible damage.

 

Amulet of Master Harper

 

I would add a +1 bonus to AC as well.

 

GENERIC QUESTION:

 

I wanted to ask you: will all the revisions (spells&items) introduced by your two Mods also affect NPCs so that the game balance is kept "fair"?

 

Thanks for your work, I think it's great!

[Demivrgvs]

In case of Gauntlets of Ogre Power, an increase of +2 to base Strenght should take STR 16 to 18/01 (in my opinion) with 18/00 attainable only with base Strenght 17.

I'd like to do it, but it's impossible. The only other solution is having them grant +1 to strength with 100 exceptional bonus, which would increase a character strength from 16 to 17, or from 17 to 18/00.

I am not so fond of thieves being able to use Wands. I have always thought proper to have only bards being the non mage class having such possibility.

I can make it optional in the future, though PnP rougues can even read scrolls at 10th level. Unfortunately that can't be reproduced, but Refinements replace the ridiculous Use Any Item with Use Scrolls (though Bards still retain UAI, making the class a little more unique).

Shield Amulet

I would keep it unchanged altogether. It's true that a player could start its effect and then replace it but I'd not accomodate the revisions to fit power gamers. And also, once in the inventory, the game should be resumed, exposing the player to possible damage.

I know I should probably don't bother with power-players but I find that directly removing the possible exploits is more satisfying than restricting myself when playing. Anyway I'll leave it as it is for now.

Amulet of Master Harper

I would add a +1 bonus to AC as well.

Done!

I wanted to ask you: will all the revisions (spells&items) introduced by your two Mods also affect NPCs so that the game balance is kept "fair"?

Well, long story short: I'm not trying to generally increase spell/item power, I'm just trying to make most of them as useful/powerful as those few that every player is "forced" to use in vanilla BG. The goal is variety, not powergaming. Anyway... NPCs will automatically cast the improved spells thus making Spell Revisions quite fair. Some creatures will benefit from the improved items too (e.g. Demon Knight leader in the Underdark has Soul Reaver equipped) but for no apparent reason some creatures just have them in the inventory instead of using them (e.g. the same Demon Knight don't wear Death Knight Armor) or use an undroppable copy instead of the original one (e.g. Gromnir uses a custom undroppable Ice star). I'll try to rectify the latter unfairness, but I'm not sure it can be done without risking incompatibility with some mods (e.g. Ascension may actually need gromnir.itm instead of blun35.itm).

For balance purpose I would suggest to avoid Item Upgrade and FR/RoV mods which adds too many powerful items imo, and I always encourage using SCS.

Thanks for your work, I think it's great!

Thanks!

[Salk]

I am completely satisfied with the answers you gave!

 

Keep it up, pal!

[Salk]

As premise, I must say I have played BG a loooooong time ago and that my memory sucks (and I remember much more of BG1 than BG2).

 

Said that and after reading (not so much in details) the previous pages, I thought to give some suggestions:

 

Girdles are badly underrepresented and I wish there were new ones to be found with unique abilities. It's enough to check how few belt*.itm exist in the vanilla game to understand what I am saying.

 

About armours: I would personally introduce a movement penalty depending not on the armour type but rather on its weight. It would make more sense, according to me.

 

I will come with more suggestions if I ever happen to think of any.

 

Keep it up!

[Demivrgvs]

Girdles are badly underrepresented and I wish there were new ones to be found with unique abilities.

I've done and I can do very little about it unfortunately. There are only 9 girdles in the whole game, 3 of them give AC bonuses vs. a selected weapon type, 4 simply grant strength bonuses, thus pratically only the Girdle of Fortitude and the Belt of inertial Barrier offer an opportunity to do something different. One thing that can be done is to make somewhat more special the girdles of stone/frost/fire (e.g. giving them resistance to physical/cold/fire damage), but probably the best solution would be to introduce a few new girdles, which surely can't be done before a first release (it would slow too much my work which is already quite slow ).

About armours: I would personally introduce a movement penalty depending not on the armour type but rather on its weight. It would make more sense, according to me.

Actually it's exactly what I've done. IR's armors will have a fixed weight based on the armor type and material (instead of the quite random vanilla's values). Enchantment level doesn't count anymore, thus a full plate +5 would still weight 60 lb unless it's made of some special material. You may notice (well actually you couldn't because I've not given such an information ) that natural source armors usually weights 10-15 less than metal ones of the same type (mithral reduces it by 20-25 lb), and consequently have less penalties.

I will come with more suggestions if I ever happen to think of any.

You're welcome.

 

P.S As a side note I've tweaked again some shields (Kiel's buckler, Fortress shield and Falling Stars) which I had previously left somewhat underdeveloped.

[Salk]

Hello again!

 

Yes, what I meant to say was to introduce new girdles, not much to change the few existing ones.

 

About armours: I am very happy to see that I was suggesting something you have already done. I must have been blind for having not noticed while reading the posts.

[J Beau]

Girdles are badly underrepresented and I wish there were new ones to be found with unique abilities.

One thing that can be done is to make somewhat more special the girdles of stone/frost/fire (e.g. giving them resistance to physical/cold/fire damage)

 

This is an interesing idea. I kind of like it.

[Salk]

Girdles are badly underrepresented and I wish there were new ones to be found with unique abilities.

One thing that can be done is to make somewhat more special the girdles of stone/frost/fire (e.g. giving them resistance to physical/cold/fire damage)

 

This is an interesing idea. I kind of like it.

 

We have already rings that cover this but yes, I suppose... I had hoped for something more unique for new girdles because it's the quantity here that is sorely missing.

[Shaitan]

Where's Kiel's buckler to be found in BG2??

[J Beau]

I don't think you get it in the unmodded game, not really sure. I think it is available with Rogue Rebalancing.

[Shaitan]

Ah!

[Salk]

Demivrgvs,

 

have you perhaps taken a look at the vanilla weapons' range?

 

Most spears have range 1 and it should be 2.

 

It would be nice to have a value between 0 and 1 for those weapons that should have shortest range (ex. daggers) but I guess this is not possible.

[Demivrgvs]

Where's Kiel's buckler to be found in BG2??

I don't think you get it in the unmodded game, not really sure. I think it is available with Rogue Rebalancing.

Yeah, I've not restored it myself because RR already does it and it's not an item that can be found multiple times. But if you prefer to use mine version or just IR's "standarized" descriptions just install IR after RR. I've said "after RR" only because I think RR too slightly tweaks it, but there shouldn't be any issue if you install IR before RR.

Demivrgvs,

 

have you perhaps taken a look at the vanilla weapons' range?

 

Most spears have range 1 and it should be 2.

 

It would be nice to have a value between 0 and 1 for those weapons that should have shortest range (ex. daggers) but I guess this is not possible.

I've done things even I am not aware of! I've checked and I had already set all spears to have range 2 and all daggers (except Longtooth) to range 0.