SCS II and Spell System Adjustment Mod

[Guest Splunge]

I came across this mod at SP.

 

Spell System Adjustment Mod

 

The Spell Refresh components allow the player to regain cast spells without the need to rest. This feature can reduce the requirement to rest (avoiding the ludicrous situation where players rest habitually to regain lost spells). The feature also opens a new way of playing - normal mages (and priests) can be played as a more flexible Sorcerer class, and new tactics are possible, as spells become available mid-way through a battle.

The Spell System Adjustments Mod allows mage spells, priest spells and innate abilities to be treated differently, and allows the player to customise their experience. Spells can be regained as soon as they are cast, or after a user-defined delay.

Spells can be regained only after a successful casting, or they can be regained after any casting, even if it was unsuccessful (e.g. the spell caster was hit while casting, and the spell was interrupted).

...

The mod makes use of the DPLAYER scripts, and therefore requires party AI to be switched on.

A large amount of script blocks are added to the game, which may cause possible slowdowns.

 

While I have big reservations about how hugely overpowered this mod would potentially make spellcasters (especially if combined with Improved Alacrity), the powergamer in me is curious, so I'm leaving my options open.

 

My question is this (for DavidW):

Without knocking yourself out trying to answer this, do you see any incompatibility issues with SCS II?

 

I should also point this out from the related forum:

 

Question:

it ruins battles with enemy mages since they just keep casting the first spell in their list over and over - there's no fun in slaughtering a mage when he just stands there casting Shadow Door over and over again. Is there a way to remove refresh for everyone but the PC, or at least put in a much slower refresh rate for enemies so that they can get through some of their spells before starting over again?

Answer:

Yes. The same fix I am adding to prevent CTD in certain situations should also restrict spell refreshment to the Party only.

[DavidW]

My question is this (for DavidW):

Without knocking yourself out trying to answer this, do you see any incompatibility issues with SCS II?

Not that I can think of... but I'm not that familiar with the mod in question.

[Sayne]

OK this thread is from like a year ago... but... it applies for me.

 

I just started using the Spell System Adjustment mod, and using it with SCSII seems to give Liches unlimited spells... I set the spell refresh time (the mod requires you to manually key in the amt of time it takes a spell to refresh) to around 10 seconds then went in to fight the lich in the crooked crane.

 

Well he time stopped, cast 2 pit fiends, time stopped again, cast 2 more pit fiends, time stopped again, cast 2 more pit fiends... and so on and so forth.

 

I know the is problem related to the smarter mages component of SCSII because I uninstalled it and the unlimited spells stopped. I'm not sure of the relation to the ten seconds bit because the Spell System Adjustmment mod doesn't want to uninstall properly - I'll have to do a clean BG2 install to test that. I'll set it to a less awful 30 seconds or so and see how it works.

 

I decided to use the mod because I was tired of resting after every single fight... but I might have gotten too greedy with the 10 seconds thing (especially since my PC is a sorcerer).

 

I'm not sure how the SCSII scripts work, exactly, but I can infer that Liches are scripted to look for time stop -> cast it, then in the time stop cast the nastiest things they have in their spellbook. Well with the "spell system adjustment mod" installed, I'm guessing the liches get stuck in the "look for time stop -> cast time stop -> cast the nastiest thing in spell book" part of the script because as soon as the lich is through the time stop cycle, the spell has reappeared in his spellbook. 'Course I might be COMPLETELY wrong, I'm just guessing. ^_^

 

The most annoying part is that the spell system adjustment doesn't want to uninstall so I can't test SCSII without the offending scrips installed without reinstalling BG2, I guess it's karma.

[DavidW]

I'm not sure how the SCSII scripts work, exactly, but I can infer that Liches are scripted to look for time stop -> cast it, then in the time stop cast the nastiest things they have in their spellbook. Well with the "spell system adjustment mod" installed, I'm guessing the liches get stuck in the "look for time stop -> cast time stop -> cast the nastiest thing in spell book" part of the script because as soon as the lich is through the time stop cycle, the spell has reappeared in his spellbook. 'Course I might be COMPLETELY wrong, I'm just guessing. ^_^

 

 

This isn't a bug (or not really)

 

SCSII is scripted to make spellcasters use whatever spells they have as effectively as possible. For high-level mages, the algorithm is something like:

 

(i) if you're not currently in a timestop and you've got timestop, cast it

(ii) if you're near to the end of a timestop and you've got another timestop, cast that too.

(iii) if you're out of timestops, or you're in a timestop but not near the end of it, cast offensive spells.

 

Timestop lasts 18 seconds; you've installed a mod which restores cast spells after 10 seconds. The lich benefits from this mod too (I gather), so it gets its timestop back before the spell expires. Why wouldn't an intelligent opponent just spam timestop at you?

 

I guess it is a problem that the lich never lets any timestop expire before recasting, so the damage never actually comes in. If I were to fix this, I'd probably tell the lich to stop after every twentieth timestop for a round. Realistically this will be insta-kill for most parties, so I'm not sure it's worth it.

 

I think what's really going on is that the spell replacement mod makes spellcasters - especially high-level ones - horrifically overpowered. SCSII is smart enough to take advantage of it.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I would like to ask, if anyone has tried the mod with timers like 256-900(15 minutes)? As it was known that the 255 had a bad consequence.

 

As this would make the game playable without resting extencivelly with a wizard.

Well, I'll be testing that shortly, in about 1/2 years from now.

[igi]

Yes. The same fix I am adding to prevent CTD in certain situations should also restrict spell refreshment to the Party only.

 

It looks like the party only behaviour never made it into a released version?

 

 

The most annoying part is that the spell system adjustment doesn't want to uninstall so I can't test SCSII without the offending scrips installed without reinstalling BG2, I guess it's karma.

 

What problem are you encountering when trying to uninstall the mod? It's WeiDU based, so it should uninstall like every other WeiDU mod.

[Sayne]

What problem are you encountering when trying to uninstall the mod? It's WeiDU based, so it should uninstall like every other WeiDU mod.

 

When I run the uninstaller, it uninstalls the script yet still asks me to enter in a time for the spells to refresh and won't let me proceed without entering in a time. After I enter a time, the script reinstalls. No worries, I'll just reinstall BG2.

 

I've been trying to get on the TBG forums to post about this, but they seem to be down.

[Sayne]

I think what's really going on is that the spell replacement mod makes spellcasters - especially high-level ones - horrifically overpowered. SCSII is smart enough to take advantage of it.

 

And all I'm trying to do is not have to rest after every fight ;-) It's not a problem once my character reaches a level high enough to cast wish. At that point I just dump my whole spell book during / after a fight to make sure the genie offers me the option to renew all my spells.

 

I got greedy and you wrote smart scripts, punishing my greediness. Hehe.

[DavidW]

I think what's really going on is that the spell replacement mod makes spellcasters - especially high-level ones - horrifically overpowered. SCSII is smart enough to take advantage of it.

 

And all I'm trying to do is not have to rest after every fight ;-)

 

Try setting the spell-renewal timer to something more like 250 (that will still give mages a nontrivial advantage, but it won't have the dramatic consequences you've been seeing).

[Sayne]

Try setting the spell-renewal timer to something more like 250 (that will still give mages a nontrivial advantage, but it won't have the dramatic consequences you've been seeing).

 

That would probably make more sense. I'll do it later tonight after work.

[DrAzTiK]

I was not aware about this mod. It seems interessing, I also don't like to sleep too much ...

[Sayne]

One thing I have definitely found out is that SCSII's Smarter Mages will not install if Spell System Adjustment Mod's XP for casting spells component is installed.... not that that particular component is all that important... and the Smarter Mages is much cooler and more fun than getting XP for casting spells.

 

Edit: I always spell something wrong and it bugs me.

[DavidW]

One thing I have definitely found out is that SCSII's Smarter Mages will not install if Spell System Adjustment Mod's XP for casting spells component is installed.... not that that particular component is all that important... and the Smarter Mages is much cooler and more fun than getting XP for casting spells.

 

Edit: I always spell something wrong and it bugs me.

 

It's probably SCSII's fault, though, since SSA is pretty smoothly coded. What error message do you get? I'm probably making some assumption about the structure of a spell file that's unsafe.

[Sayne]

One thing I have definitely found out is that SCSII's Smarter Mages will not install if Spell System Adjustment Mod's XP for casting spells component is installed.... not that that particular component is all that important... and the Smarter Mages is much cooler and more fun than getting XP for casting spells.

 

Edit: I always spell something wrong and it bugs me.

 

It's probably SCSII's fault, though, since SSA is pretty smoothly coded. What error message do you get? I'm probably making some assumption about the structure of a spell file that's unsafe.

 

I've forgotten what error it gives me, I just disregarded it and got rid of the XP for spells component... I can achieve faster leveling by using the console to give me XP if I really wanted to. ;-)

 

In other news, I set the spell refresh timer to 150 seconds and that indeed fixed the spell spamming problem. You wrote some smart scripts for the Liches to detect that the spells had returned to their spell book and recast time stop.

 

Now the lich in the Crooked Crane just has a Glabrezu in his Chain Contingency, as well as a spell immunity abjuration, spell immunity divination, improved invisible, globe of invulnerability, protection from magical weapons and stoneskin. He cast time stop cast greater malison, imprisoned Minsc, cast a horrid wilting on my whole party and cast mislead.

 

SO he still kicked my lvl 12 party's butt (I couldn't even touch him), but he did it without spamming spells. ^_^

[Ithildur]

And all I'm trying to do is not have to rest after every fight ;-)

 

Resting after every fight takes the challenge out most dungeons. Just say no; use a self regulated house rule of 'one rest per lvl of dungeon' or such.

 

I think it makes the game much more challenging and it's much more sound RP wise (although ambushes while trying to rest in dungeons helps balance things out).