SR V2 release

[Demivrgvs]

Global Changes

 

Improved Summoned Creatures' behaviour/AI DONE

Spell Revisions' summoned creatures benefit from custom scripts.

 

Currently the main features are:

- creatures are now summoned as allies, thus giving the party xp for defeating enemies

- no turning hostile (Efreeti and Djinni are an exception, and will still turn hostile if you damage them)

- creatures will return to the caster and follow him in a non-combat situation (as per GMinion)

- better targeting

- better use of spell arsenal (nymph and genies make good use of their spellbook)

- cast-n-attack (genies are considered fighter/mage in SR and perform much better now)

 

Baahlspawn Innate Abilities DONE

Charname's innate abilities are "updated" to make use of SR's spell changes.

 

Avenger, Beast Master, and Stalker Abilities DONE

These classes additional spells are "updated" to make use of SR's spell changes.

Beast Master's Animal Summoning abilities are slightly different than druid's original ones to take into account the different rangers "casting level", which doesn't go up the 9th.

 

HLAs DONE

I'm not going to do something as ambitious as Refinements (which I always suggest to use), but I'll at least improve vanilla's HLAs to bring them more in line with SR spell system. The component will mainly focus on arcane and divine HLAs, but I may do something to others as well if players think something has to be done absolutely.

 

 

Arcane Spells

 

Larloch's Minor Drain: drains 2 points +1 for every two extra levels (up to a maximum of 6 at 9th level). DONE

 

Burning Hands: similarly to Tweak Pack's component I've given the spell a small area of effect, but the cone lenght is 10 feet instead of 5 in order to actually make it work against multiple targets. DONE

 

Stinking Cloud: instead of vanilla's sleep effect creatures inside the cloud must succesfully save or be unable to attack and/or cast spells. DONE

 

Flame Arrow: I've internally made it so that you can actually fire multiple arrows to the same target or to different targets (as it should be), but I have to test it and contact DavidW about it because a) I don't know how the AI can handle it; b) when stored in a sequencer only one arrow is used making it much less effective

 

Lightning Bolt: damage reduced from 10d10 to 10d8 for BG1 balance reasons. DONE

 

Enchanted Weapon: I'd like to allow all types of weapon to be created, and maybe allow the caster to create more enchanted ones (like +2 at 8th level, +3 at 12th, +4 at 16th, +5 at 20th).

 

Greater Malison: I've made it as per PnP/IWD, -2 penalty on saves. DONE

 

Polymorph Self: shapechanging abilities are slightly improved. More info here. DONE

 

Lower Resistence: reduces target's resistance by 20% +1%/level instead of 10% +1%/level DONE

 

Summon Djinni/Efreeti: I've quite improved them once again, and I've slightly changed their spellbook. Djinni switched Teleport Field with Improved Invisibility (casting it instantaneously it works exactly like the higher level spell Shadow Door), and Shadow Door with Conjure Lesser Air Elemental. Efreeti got Conjure Lesser Fire Elemental instead of Sunfire (also note that being Efreet 9th level casters Sunfire had no advantage over Fireballs). I've also restored/added to them the ability to turn into gaseous form once/day DONE

Summon Fiend: Glabrezus now correctly use all their powers (permanent True Seeing; Mirror Image, Confusion, Unholy Blight at will; Unholy Word and Power Word:Stun once per day). DONE

Bigby's Clenched Fist: each round it deals 2D8 points of crushing damage and hold the target for one round (a successfull save vs. paralyzation at -6 negates both effects for that round, but each round the target will have to make another save). The Hand lasts for 8 rounds. DONE

 

Energy Drain: due to how the engine works, I have to make this spell drain always the same number of levels to avoid weirdness. Thus the spell now drains 4 levels each time it's casted. DONE

 

What about adding a +X max HP to caster for 5 turns (similar to vampiric drain)?

 

Bigby's Crushing Hand: each round it deals 2D10 points of crushing damage and hold the target for one round (a successfull save vs. paralyzation at -6 negates both effects for that round, but each round the target will have to make another save). The Hand lasts for 10 rounds. DONE

 

Black Blade of Disaster: it has to be improved in general.

 

Gate: Pit Fiends now correctly use all their powers (permanent Fear Aura; Fireball, Power Word:Stun at will; Unholy Word and Meteor Swarm once per day) DONE

 

Meteor Swarm: new animation to differentiate it from Fire Storm. DONE

 

Shapechange: shapechanging abilities have been improved. More info here. DONE

 

 

Divine Spells

 

Entangle: creatures within the area of effect move at half speed even when not entangled (as per PnP). Beholders, dragons, giants, imps, mephits and wyverns won't be affected by this spell anymore. DONE

 

Fire Trap: new druid/ranger spell. Druidic 2nd level version of the cleric's 3rd level spell Glyph of Warding. In PnP it inflicts 1d4 +1/level fire damage (up to 1d4+20) but at the moment I've opted for 1d4/level just like Glyph of Warding. DONE

 

Negative Plane Protection: shouldn't it protect from Unholy Blight spell?

 

Restoration: re-tweaked the fatigue effect (last only 5 rounds now, causing 10% spell failure and -2 to caster's constitution). DONE

 

Holy Power: instead of setting strength to 18/00 it may just raise attack and damage rolls by 2. Together with its other effects (caster gains fighter's thac0, and +1HP/level) this will effectively make it a lesser Tenser Transformation, and finally an appealing alternative to Draw Upon Holy Might (which currently is more useful even if it's only a 2nd lvl spell). This way it will also be usable in conjuction with Righteous Magic!

 

False Dawn: for the duration of this spell (which now is 6 rounds), the priest calls into existence a dazzling beam of intense light each round, which deals 2d6 points of damage to all undead creatures within 30 feet. There is no saving throw against this damage, and affected creatures are also blinded for 1 round by each beam. DONE

 

Cacofiend: priests now get to cast Cacofiend (thus Death Knights) instead of Gate (Pit Fiends).

SR's Pit Fiend are really too powerful to be summoned by a 7th level spell, and for the same reason priests already cast Devas instead of Planetars. DONE

 

Earthquake: I've done some serious improvements to this spell. The spell consists of three tremors that now take place once each round instead of every two rounds. Earth elementals and flying creatures are now immune to this spell. DONE

 

First Tremor: 6D6 crushing damage, save vs. death or be knocked unconscious for 2 rounds

Second Tremor: 4D6 damage, 20% chance to fall into a fissure (save vs. breath or die)

Third Tremor: 2D6 damage, 10% chance to fall into a fissure (save vs. breath or die)

Note that creatures knocked unconscious by the first tremor will automatically fail the save to avoid the fissures if they are affected by them.

 

Energy Drain and Control Undead: shouldn't these spells be added to cleric's known spells?

 

Greater Restoration: re-tweaked the fatigue effect (last only 5 rounds now, causeing 10% spell failure and -2 to caster's constitution). DONE

 

(Un)Holy Word: what about adding a 'banish extraplanar creatures' effect (useful against demons and planetars, though obviously they'll be allowed a save)? I'd like DavidW to implement it to enemy's AI so that it can benefit from an anti-Devas/Planetars spell.

 

Regeneration: regeneration rate is reduced from 3hp/sec to 1hp/sec, but duration is increased from 10 rounds to 30, making it more useful in a prolonged battle. DONE

 

 

Notes:

- I'm not sure all of these features will make it to SR v2. Let's say I'll do my best.

- This post will be constantly updated when necessary

[Salk]

Nice to see your plans for future versions.

 

Few comments:

 

HLAs:

 

As you said, Refinements already does an excellent work (despite not being updated for a long time) with revisioning the HLA system so I must ask you: why would you use your (precious) time to work on them? Isn't it better just to suggest the installation of Refinements together with SR?

 

But perhaps I have misunderstood and this revision of yours will be installed alongside Refinements to integrate it?

 

Bhaalspawn Innate Abilities: Excellent!

 

Burning Hands: The cone area effect is a must. Warmly recommended.

 

Stinking Cloud: I'd welcome your proposed changes here.

 

Improved Summoned Creatures behaviour/AI: I am a huge fan of GMinion but if your version is just a customized GMinion I might install it.

 

Flame Arrow: The idea is nice but I don't think it's worth the big trouble. Also, it might be noted that ideally casting arrows to different targets might require a higher casting time for the spell. I would suggest to leave it like it is (the tradeoff is not worth it).

 

Enchanted Weapons: Good idea. I am not so fond of this spell though, I must confess, so I don't care much about possible changes.

 

Polymorph Self: Again, excellent!

 

Antimagic Attacks: Here it's really hard for me to give advice. If it was not for SCS (which I use), I would not give them ever any area of effect. They should never miss the target while instead now it can happen. But since I use SCS and like me many others, then I think it's worth it. Generally speaking, I would like to have SR a bit counter the increase difficulty for the party to damage wizards. In fact Arcane casters in SCS really get many advantages: just think of their use of SSs and SIs...

 

Energy Drain: Honestly I don't like it. I would keep it like it is as I don't see a real reason for changing it.

 

Black Blade of Disaster: Agreed. We must think of something but I would suggest to keep the way it works like it is. Just let's beef it up a bit.

 

Shapechange: Excellent!

 

Negative Plane Protection: No, actually I don't think it should. This protection is mostly intended as protection against undead's level draining effects or spells that work in the same manner.

 

Holy Power: Your suggested revision is sensible, meaning I would welcome the change of this spell so that it resembles Tenser's Transformation. But fact is: a 18/00 strenght grants a better attack power than a +2 to Hit and to Damage. How does your revision make it more appelaing then? Also, it might be nice to take another approach: change its name to "Draw Upon Holy Power" and make it a better version of the level 2 "Draw Upon Holy Might" - This would fix the inconsistency of the level 2 spell being better than Holy Power.

 

False Dawn: Your suggestion is tempting.

 

Energy Drain and Control Undead: Yes, I believe they should.

 

(Un)Holy Word: Yes, I agree.

 

CONCLUSION:

 

There are so many interesting things here that I fear I will wait untill v2+ is out!

[Demivrgvs]

HLAs

As you said, Refinements already does an excellent work (despite not being updated for a long time) with revisioning the HLA system so I must ask you: why would you use your (precious) time to work on them? Isn't it better just to suggest the installation of Refinements together with SR?

Even if I recommend it not all players are going to use Refinements anyway, and I have to take it into account. Furthermore I'm going to obviously prefer my changes (though not very different from Refinements' ones), and they'll work fine with or without Refinements.

 

Improved Summoned Creatures behaviour/AI

I am a huge fan of GMinion but if your version is just a customized GMinion I might install it.

Ideally I would just include GMinion in SR. The "problem" is that GMinion probably can't handle SR's spellcasting creatures because they use different spells (e.g. Nymphs are now druids instead of a sort-of-mages). Furthermore, GMinion have all summons not-turning hostile when hurt by party members, while at least Djinn and Efreet should (wizard's conjured elementals too, and this would be a fine rebalancement for having removed vanilla's mind-battle-for-control).

 

Holy Power

Your suggested revision is sensible, meaning I would welcome the change of this spell so that it resembles Tenser's Transformation. But fact is: a 18/00 strenght grants a better attack power than a +2 to Hit and to Damage. How does your revision make it more appelaing then?

Well, actually only creatures with low strength will gain more than +2 to hit and damage, while creatures with good strength value may gain the same or even less than that. The increased appeal is because of:

a) it can now be used by characters with strength >18/00

b) it now works better together with Draw Upon Holy Might and Righteous Magic

 

There are so many interesting things here that I fear I will wait untill v2+ is out!

If you want to start a game I highly suggest you to only wait for the first official release.

[Guest Guest]

About the HLAs, I love Refinements but it has some issues with Level One NPCs mod which I now always use. I would definitely give your version a look. Its too bad that most of the original Refinements team are no longer modding.

[Bursk]

Demivrgvs, for your implementation of gMinion, could I request that the Nymph casts Mass Cure before expiring, if they still have the spell? That's what gMinion currently does, and I find it really useful.

[Demivrgvs]

About the HLAs, I love Refinements but it has some issues with Level One NPCs mod which I now always use. I would definitely give your version a look. Its too bad that most of the original Refinements team are no longer modding.

Indeed. I would prefer to use shadowkeeper over Lvl One NPcs mod if it means I have to play without Refinements, the latter is much more important to the gameplay. Anyway, SR's HLAs will be very similar to Refinements ones, it's just that my work will be limited to few of them.

Demivrgvs, for your implementation of gMinion, could I request that the Nymph casts Mass Cure before expiring, if they still have the spell? That's what gMinion currently does, and I find it really useful.

Actually that's one of the reason for which I have to create a cutom GMinion. SR changes Nymph to be more in line with PnP (though I've used 3rd edition here), and they now cast spells as a 7th level druid, thus they can't cast a 5th level spell (which was quite strange imo). I've already gave them a simple script which make use of the new spells, and curative ones are mainly used by them to heal themselves when they reach low HP, but they'll cure a poisoned character. If you want to know more about them their complete description is in the Improved Summons thread.

[Bursk]

Cool, I'll be sure to take a look.

[Demivrgvs]

Ok, I've done some progress, and I've also found out more work to do.

 

Bigby's hands and Earthquake were poorly coded imo, saves against their effects were made only once at the beginning of the spell. This meant that being the save penalties decreasing a successfull first save would negate everything, instead of having different saves each round. Correcting this will make these spell much more effective, and just that I'm doing this I'm going to spice things a little too.

 

Furthermore I'm going to slowly update some spells to add appropriate immunities to them. For example Earthquake won't affect Earth Elementals, Energy Drain won't affect undead creatures, Lower resistance won't affect Golems, and so on...

 

Earthquake

Damage output and save penalties are slightly increased, the tremors now take place once each round instead of every two rounds.

I'm thinking to add a X% chance on the second round (and maybe on the third too) to create fissures on the ground. Creatures will have to save or fall into them and die.

What about making the caster immune to the effects?

 

 

Progress report 26/07/08:

 

Baahlspawn Innate Abilities

Charname's innate abilities are "updated" to make use of SR's spell changes.

 

Larloch's Minor Drain: drains 2 points +1 for every two extra levels (up to a maximum of 6 at 9th level).

 

Burning Hands: similarly to Tweak Pack's component I've given the spell an small area of effect, but the cone lenght is 10 feet instead of 5 in order to actually make it work against multiple targets.

 

Stinking Cloud: instead of vanilla's sleep effect creatures inside the cloud must successfully save or be unable to attack and/or cast spells.

 

Polymorph Self: shapechanging abilities are slightly improved.

 

Meteor Swarm: new animation and appropriate description to differentiate it from Fire Storm.

 

Shapechange: shapechanging abilities have been improved.

[Demivrgvs]

Progress report 27/07/08:

 

Earthquake: I've done some serious improvements to this spell. The spell consists of three tremors that now take place once each round instead of every two rounds. Caster, earth elementals and flying creatures are now immune to this spell.

 

First Tremor: 6D6 crushing damage, save vs. death or be knocked unconscious for 2 rounds

Second Tremor: 4D6 damage, 20% chance to fall into a fissure (save vs. breath or die)

Third Tremor: 2D6 damage, 10% chance to fall into a fissure (save vs. breath or die)

Note that creatures knocked unconscious by the first tremor will automatically fail the save to avoid the fissures if they are affected by them.

 

Bigby Crushing Hand: just wow, before working on it I never realized how bad this spell really was! It only does 10D10 damage to one target with a chance of holding it for up to 4 rounds, and the target can pratically avoid all damage and effects with not so difficult saves too! Come on, vanilla's Horrid Wilting was one level lower and did twice as much damage to all opponents! Comet does the same damage to all opponents, WITH NO SAVE!! Enough of my rants, this is how I've done it (taking PnP and NWN versions as template).

 

Each round it deals 2D10 points of crushing damage and hold the target for one round (a successfull save vs. paralyzation at -6 negates both effects for that round, but each round the target will have to make another save). The Hand last for 1 turn.

 

 

I've made many other small changes (Restoration, Regeneration, ... ), I'll slowly update the first post to reflect them.

[Salk]

Demivrgvs,

 

as usual, I like everything you come up with.

 

Good changes and nice revitalization of underpowered spells!

 

About Earthquake, I don't think it's a good idea to make the caster immune to its effect. What it could be really good, would be to restore a tweaked version of the P&P 2nd-level spell "Levitate", which should also be an innate to Mind Flayers (it's one of their P&P powers). Such spell would make people immune not only to Earthquake but also other spells as well (see below).

 

In P&P this is a 2nd Level Wizard Spell. I might think of replacing "Power Word, Sleep" which has its effects already present elsewhere anyway.

 

This is how it might be:

 

Levitate

(Alteration)

 

Level: 2

Range: 20 yards/level

Duration: 1 turn/level

Casting Time: 2

Area of Effect: 1 creature

Saving Throw: None

 

When a levitate spell is cast, the wizard can place it upon his person or upon a single creature. The recipient of the spell floats 5 feet over the ground and is subject to a moderate oscillation (-2 AC bonus and -4 THAC0 penalty). When levitating, the creature is unaffected by spells like Grease, Entangle and Earthquake while automatic saves are rolled against Burning Hands, Web, Lightning Bolt, Fireball, Sunfire, Cone of Cold, Chain Lightning, Prismatic Spray, Horrid Wilting and Creeping Doom. Horizontal movement is not empowered by this spell.

 

 

Tell me if you like the idea.

 

 

Keep it up!

[Icendoan]

Bit powerful for a level 2 spell, don't you think? Powerful with a long duration.

 

Icen

[Salk]

I copied the parameters directly from the Player Handbook but nothing stops us from tweaking them some.

 

We can tone down the duration or we can move it to a higher level.

 

I would rather go the first way but everything can be discussed.

[Demivrgvs]

Levitate

Adding wizard's spells isn't my priority and I've never felt they were lacking them at any spell level (while druid are seriously missing good level 1 and 2 spells). Furthermore being unable to add an appropriate animation introducing Levitate would be somewhat controversial and sub-optimal. It's a shame because I like the idea (though I would surely reduce its protection to earthquake, grease and entangle only, and my AD&D's PHB doesn't mention any of your suggested spells). I'm sorry for not being able to please you this time.

 

I've made the caster immune to his own Earthquake to make it more useful, and NWN does it too, but it's probably more appropriate to remove this feature.

 

Well, just that I'm here posting...this is what I've done this morning...

 

False Dawn: for the duration of this spell (which now is 6 rounds), the priest calls into existence a dazzling beam of intense light each round, which deals 2d6 points of damage to all undead creatures within 30 feet. There is no saving throw against this damage, and affected creatures are also blinded for 1 round by each beam.

 

Any suggestion about it? I would have made it work against drows too...but unfortunately there is no drow race in the BG engine. I may find a workaround though.

[Icendoan]

Well, Demi, if you were to patch it, you could quite happily add a Drow race to Race.ids and patch it so that it is applied to all the drow, and then use a drow false dawn. Something a bit like this, I think;

COPY_EXISTING ~Race.ids~ ~override~
APPEND ~291 Drow~ 

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~UDD.*.cre~ ~override~
WRITE_BYTE 0x272 291

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~SEN.*.cre~ ~override~
WRITE_BYTE 0x272 291

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*DROW.*.cre~ ~override~
WRITE_BYTE 0x272 291

BUT_ONLY_IF_IT_CHANGES

 

Should work, but that is off the top of my head.

 

EDIT: A slightly better way came to mind;

COPY_EXISTING ~Race.ids~ ~override~
APPEND ~291 Drow~ //I am unsure if I need to put the index number in here.

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP ~.*.cre~ ~override~
READ_ASCII 0x8 name
PATCH_IF (%name% = "Drow") BEGIN
 WRITE_BYTE 0x272 291
END
BUT_ONLY_IF_IT_CHANGES

 

Icen

[Salk]

Demivrgvs,

 

I realized there could be major problems and drawbacks with a new wizard Spell. It was just a suggestion and you should not feel sorry at all for not developing it. I do understand the reasons behind it. About the spells mentioned in the PHB, there is no spell mentioned at all there! I used my logic to assume that it should make the target immune to some spells (Grease, Earthquake, Entangle) and that it should also give benefit (which I translated into successful saving throws) against some specific area spells that would partly miss the target.

 

Anyway, you are right. The Wizards don't seem to lack spells while instead cleric and druids do.

 

However about earthquake, yes... As I mentioned the caster should not be immune so I would not adapt NWN's take on it in this case.