Some vague suggestions

[Strontium Dog]

It occurred to me that since there are now several spell-adding mods(ie Darkest Day/Davaeorn's spell-pack/wild-mage additions etc.) which give PC characters extra spells in addition to the limited selection provided by(unmodded) BG2, that perhaps it might be an idea if hostile spellcasters had access to some or all of them as well. It's just that many BG2 classes such as clerics(and especially druids) are shortchanged in terms of variety of spells by comparison to BG2 mages, and I think a wider spell-selection for hostile NPCs would be a good idea - at least, I only found the druid-class playable once I added all these extra spell-mods - playing with Cernd in unmodded BG2 was just plain ridiculous.

 

Lastly, as I understand it from past comments, Tactics uses force-cast spells which presumably vary very little in scope, whereas you have enemy scripts using spells that the hostile NPCs have actually memorised. Does this mean that I could, for example, use shadowkeeper, adding various extra timestop/improved alacrity/horrid-wilting spells etc to the .cre version of Irenicus in hell, for example, with Irenicus actually being able to use all those added spells? Or are your scripts more rigidly-set only allowing certain spells to be cast/recast?

[DavidW]

It occurred to me that since there are now several spell-adding mods(ie Darkest Day/Davaeorn's spell-pack/wild-mage additions etc.) which give PC characters extra spells in addition to the limited selection provided by(unmodded) BG2, that perhaps it might be an idea if hostile spellcasters had access to some or all of them as well. It's just that many BG2 classes such as clerics(and especially druids) are shortchanged in terms of variety of spells by comparison to BG2 mages, and I think a wider spell-selection for hostile NPCs would be a good idea - at least, I only found the druid-class playable once I added all these extra spell-mods - playing with Cernd in unmodded BG2 was just plain ridiculous.

 

Cute in principle. I'm not that familiar with most of them, though, and I worry that many are unbalanced.

 

Lastly, as I understand it from past comments, Tactics uses force-cast spells which presumably vary very little in scope, whereas you have enemy scripts using spells that the hostile NPCs have actually memorised. Does this mean that I could, for example, use shadowkeeper, adding various extra timestop/improved alacrity/horrid-wilting spells etc to the .cre version of Irenicus in hell, for example, with Irenicus actually being able to use all those added spells? Or are your scripts more rigidly-set only allowing certain spells to be cast/recast?

 

Yes, if you add spells to Shadowkeeper, the SCS II AI will (usually) use them - any spell that any SCS II mage ever uses already, at any rate. (You can't add Bigby's Clenched Fist, for instance).

 

Tactics is more flexible than you think, though - you can do that to Tactics mages too, usually.

[Salk]

It occurred to me that since there are now several spell-adding mods(ie Darkest Day/Davaeorn's spell-pack/wild-mage additions etc.) which give PC characters extra spells in addition to the limited selection provided by(unmodded) BG2, that perhaps it might be an idea if hostile spellcasters had access to some or all of them as well. It's just that many BG2 classes such as clerics(and especially druids) are shortchanged in terms of variety of spells by comparison to BG2 mages, and I think a wider spell-selection for hostile NPCs would be a good idea - at least, I only found the druid-class playable once I added all these extra spell-mods - playing with Cernd in unmodded BG2 was just plain ridiculous.

 

Personally, I would not welcome this at all. The spell selection insipiring SCS and SCS II can be nothing but the original offer that comes with the unmodded game.

[Strontium Dog]

Personally, I would not welcome this at all. The spell selection insipiring SCS and SCS II can be nothing but the original offer that comes with the unmodded game.

 

 

Well, I prefer the NWN-viewpoint which is that the unmodded gameset up by programmers is imperfect, due to time-constraints etc., and that there should be a multitude of individual improvements to the game to enhance it. Heck, just transferring the BG1-game-settings to BG2-equivalent-Tutu version is, in and of itself, a major restructuring of the game, so why not take it further, especially if it involves enhancing hostile NPCs to the same level as the players?

 

Mind you, even with just hostiles only having the standard BG2-spells (and some spell-adding via shadowkeeper), I can still create a great gaming experience by using most of the spell-alterations from the AdPack mod along with the Spell50 mod, to make hostile spellcasters truly lethal( one of my pet-peeves re AD&D games(except for TOEE/AD&D 3.5 edition, to some extent) is that wizards and clerics have usually been so heavily nerfed as to make them a complete joke - for example, by the time I got to the TOB-section of (unmodded)BG2, I would find that many low-level damage-spells such as fireball etc., would be effectively useless against NPCs, thus forcing me to use tenser's transformation and the like most of the time, instead.

[Salk]

I understand your point but it would be at the very least awkward (and unfair) for the casual BG player to witness tricks he has no access to because they simply do not exist.

 

What you propose could be nothing but an optional add-on (SCS II detecting the presence of mods extending the spell selection and equipping enemies with the same - but is it worth it?).

[DavidW]

I understand your point but it would be at the very least awkward (and unfair) for the casual BG player to witness tricks he has no access to because they simply do not exist.

 

What you propose could be nothing but an optional add-on (SCS II detecting the presence of mods extending the spell selection and equipping enemies with the same - but is it worth it?).

 

Not in terms of my time, I'm afraid - I agree, that's the way it would have to be done, but I'm not realistically going to do it.

 

Having said that, the scripting language (SSL) in which I wrote SCS II is available for those that want to use it, and maybe one of these days I'll even get around to writing documentation for it, so if someone wanted to write SCSII-style AI for one of these spell packs, they'd probably be able to with a bit of work.

[Demivrgvs]

I'm modding too all spells starting from the excellent ADpack and testing it with SCS II...so far there are absolutely no problems and Jaheira is a lot more fun to play!!

[Strontium Dog]

I'm modding too all spells starting from the excellent ADpack and testing it with SCS II...so far there are absolutely no problems and Jaheira is a lot more fun to play!!

 

Yes, Adpack is a brilliant mod, in that it allows you to select only those specific spell-alterations you want. I have been careful, though, to exclude the changes made to summon insects-type spells, as, without them, druids are somewhat handicapped - and, of course, given that most other AI-type mods change specific types of spells such as breach/ruby-ray of reversal etc. to their own specifications, I've preferred not to accept AdPack's version, just in order to be safe. However, AdPack is absolutely fantastic, in all other respects, in that it strengthens a number of really weak low-level spells which become pointless to cast after level 5 in the BG1/Bg1Tutu game.