Couple of extra questions

[Strontium Dog]

I've just read the spell-revisions readme and wanted to ask whether the ice-storm spell still does damage or it just causes a slow-effect? Also, I see that death fog has been changed to acid fog - does this mean it now does the same(weaker) damage as the Icewind dale spell of the same name? Also, the prismatic spray spell has been changed, it seems - is this the same change as adpack has, where a successful save avoids all effects of the rays? I'm not sure but I think ther adpack version also only targetted 1 NPC with the spell.

 

Oh, and would this mod conflict with the spell50 mod, the one which allows many spells to be cast at a much higher level(<50) than is usual. For example, I am contemplating installing spell-revisions and adpack, particularly the improved spell "skulltrap", which restricts the damage to 10d4 but is only activated by hostile NPCs - then I would install the Spell50 mod, which I would expect to keep the "affecting-hostiles-only" effect but then remove the 10d4-damage upper-limit for a 50d4 upper-limit. Is that correct, or would I have to choose between a potential 50d4 skulltrap which still affects friendlies or a 10d4-limit skulltrap which affects only hostiles?

 

Lastly, I have a request:- 1 of the biggest problems with the BG Trilogy was that druids were severely short-changed. I would play with Cernd and have only a tiny selection of high-level druid spells to chose from, and most of the druid spells, other than the elemental-summoning spells, were pretty weak. My solution was to create a cleric/ranger (or fighter/mage/cleric) and just use ShadowKeeper and laboriously add in all the priest-spells and druid spells so that the relevant PC could have access to enough spells. However, for those playing druid-single-classes PCs, it would be most helpful to have extra druid spells, in addition to the ones you've added. The Icewind Dale 2 modders managed to add a component which gave a large number of elemental-oriented mage spells to druid-PCs, which finally made that class properly playable in that game, so it would be great to have the same sort of option for BG2. After all, druids are supposed to be more offensive-oriented in terms of spell-use than clerics. Fireball or cone of cold or cloudkill or deathfog/acid fog etc. spells would be appropriate for a druid, given the elemental nature of those spells.

[Demivrgvs]

Ice Storm

I've just read the spell-revisions readme and wanted to ask whether the ice-storm spell still does damage or it just causes a slow-effect?

It still does damage.

 

Acid Fog (Death Fog)

Also, I see that death fog has been changed to acid fog - does this mean it now does the same(weaker) damage as the Icewind dale spell of the same name?

I've changed the name to its 3rd edition version because I've removed the "kill summons" effect, and added the slow effect, the damage is actually two points higher than in vanilla BG.

 

Prismatyc Spray

Also, the prismatic spray spell has been changed, it seems - is this the same change as adpack has, where a successful save avoids all effects of the rays?

IR's version is quite different from ADpack's one, and most effects even have a different save instead of sharing the same. The effects of the rays in IR are:

 

Red - 20 points of fire damage (save vs. breath half)

Orange - 40 points of acid damage (save vs. breath half)

Yellow - 80 points of electrical damage (save vs. breath half)

Green - Death (save vs. poison reduces to 20 poison damage)

Blue - Permanently stunned (save vs. polymorph neg.)

Indigo - Feeblemind (save vs. wands neg.)

Violet - Maze (save vs. spell neg.)

 

Spell50 mod and ADpack

Oh, and would this mod conflict with the spell50 mod, the one which allows many spells to be cast at a much higher level(<50) than is usual.

I don't know if Spell50 mod patches or overwrites spells. Anyway I wouldn't recommend to use it with SR as conceptually they are on opposite extremes. I'm trying to "rebalance" spells, while that mod purposely makes them extremely overpowered.

For example, I am contemplating installing spell-revisions and adpack, particularly the improved spell "skulltrap", which restricts the damage to 10d4 but is only activated by hostile NPCs - then I would install the Spell50 mod, which I would expect to keep the "affecting-hostiles-only" effect but then remove the 10d4-damage upper-limit for a 50d4 upper-limit. Is that correct, or would I have to choose between a potential 50d4 skulltrap which still affects friendlies or a 10d4-limit skulltrap which affects only hostiles?

A friendly 50d4 skull trap?! That's absurdly unbalanced!!

Anyway, if Spell50 patches it may be possible, but I wouldn't bet on it.

 

Druid's spellbook

I have a few more spells in mind for them (mostly those added by Divine Remix), but I'm quite sure I'll restrict myself to spells druids have in PnP (though I don't restric myself to a particular edition). I have nothing against an Avenger casting Fireball (and I have plans for them when I manage to work on Kit Revisions), but plain druids casting it have never been seen in this setting and would probably be too strange imo.

That being said, with SR the only level which is still somewhat lacking in terms of repertoire is the 1st imo, as at 2nd level druids now have a useful Cure Wounds, a quite powerful Fire Trap, a much improved Barkskin and a more effective Charm Person/Animal. I'm also planning to further improve Flame Blade.

[Strontium Dog]

Well, I suppose I will have to ask on spellhold studios as to whether the recent spell-50 v10 overwrites or patches spells - at least when their website becomes accessible as all I get now is "cannot find server". My bet would be that spell-50 overwrites spells since the Weidu Tactics mod does that. Ah well, a 50d4 skull-trap that also affects friendlies isn't so bad.

 

(My view is that if we are to have a magic-oriented RPG-game, that magic should be predominant. Too many AD&D PC games have very weak spellcasters(magic-users and druids, especially), which get overwhelmed by fighters who are not restricted by a limited spell-selection - for example, in the Throne of Bhaal section a 10d6 fireball is almost useless as an upper limit. A good example is the standard campaigns of Neverwinter Nights 1, where a single-classed mage has to rest practically every time after each encounter). Mind you, I understand that the revamped spell-system of AD&D 4th edition corrects this issue.

 

Re druid-spells:- I'm not bothered if the druid spells aren't directly taken from wizard-spells. But there should be many more druid spells, overall, as it gets pretty boring if one has a single-classed druid PC and just casts flamesword etc. umpteen times. At the moment, it seems as though the only advantage druids have is the werewolf-ability of BG2Tweak's shapeshifter-enhancement component.

 

Last question:- Does the color spray in spell revisions affect all those with HD less than that of the caster, like with adpack?

[Demivrgvs]

Well BG is a game where spellcasters surely are much more powerful than warriors from mid levels onward levels!

 

A 10d6 Fireball isn't so bad if you can cast it many times in a day. It may even become too powerful if used during a Timestop+Alacrity because you can then cast 6 of them one after another before a group of warrior can even try to reply, and I'm not sure how many warriors can survive 60d6 points of damage without magical protection from fire...

And this example doesn't take into account things like Casting Speed Bonus, an effect that if abused (like with vanilla's Robe of Vecna) may seriously make spellcasters the gods of battle.

 

Re druid-spells:- I'm not bothered if the druid spells aren't directly taken from wizard-spells. But there should be many more druid spells, overall, as it gets pretty boring if one has a single-classed druid PC and just casts flamesword etc. umpteen times. At the moment, it seems as though the only advantage druids have is the werewolf-ability of BG2Tweak's shapeshifter-enhancement component.

With SR the most noticeable advantages of Druids in terms of spells are: Fire Trap, Call Lightning, Call Woodland Being, all "Insect spells", Conjure Elementals, Stoneskin, Earthquake, and Nature's Beauty.

What really bothers me about Druids is that their shapeshifting abilities are pratically useless instead of being a very cool feature, but I intend to change that too in the future.

 

Last question:- Does the color spray in spell revisions affect all those with HD less than that of the caster, like with adpack?

Haven't you seen the Arcane Spell pinned topic?

 

Anyway... "Color Spray: creatures with less or equal Hit Dice/levels to the caster are knocked unconscious for 5 rounds, those with one or two greater are blinded for 3 round, any creature is stunned for 1 round (save vs. spell negates all effects), note that effects are cumulative".

 

Currently I've made it exactly as per AD&D PnP, but I will probably have to slightly nerf it as currently it overshadows too much Sleep (the only advantage of the latter being a friendly area of effect).

[Strontium Dog]

Thanks. I'd hoped color spray was fixed that way.

 

Re 10d6 fireballs:- Yes, with timestop one can cast 6 fireballs, but then one is usually bereft of any remaining level 3 spells, so for just 1 encounter, it's a bit of a waste -plus, highly advanced hostile NPCs tend to be resistant or even imune to fire, due to having certain magic-items etc. I always ended up, after reaching Suldanessellar /Watcher's Keep, scrapping all minor spells such as magic missile/fireball, and exchanging them for combat-altering spells such as "haste" etc...

 

I'm aware that one can just simply rest before every single encounter in order to recharge spells, but I just don't like that practice. Also, using spell50 etc. to enhance spells makes enemy spellcasters also much more powerful, thus balancing things out. I remember when using tactics and spell50, that the 34th(?) level lich in the docks became a real challenge, due to casting horrid wilting etc.

 

I agree that there are some druid spells which were quite effective in vanilla(creeping-doom/insect summoning spells, and the conjure elemental spells which didn't have a failure-rate) but there was still too little choice. And nature's beauty had , I think, a +2(?) bonus to saves and a very small area of effect, prior to changes made by this mod, as I recall.

 

One thing I forgot to ask, before:- if I were to install those spell-rev spells you've made specifically for druids only (ie animal-summoning/barskin etc.) does that just mean that these spells won't appear in a cleric's/cleric-ranger's spellbook-selection while in-game, or does it also mean that I no longer will be able to artificially add in those druid-only spells to a cleric-PC while using Shadowkeeper, without causing a CTD when restarting the game etc.?

[Icendoan]

Magic Missile is the only level 1 spell, apart from perhaps Prot. Evil, that stays useful throughout the entire game, never scrap your MM.

 

Icen

[Demivrgvs]

Sorry but I can't agree, to me allowing mages to cast a 40D8 Horrid Wilting is just the same as allowing a fighter to wield a "keen vorpal defending and wounding long sword +6 of speed and flaming burst"!

 

One thing I forgot to ask, before:- if I were to install those spell-rev spells you've made specifically for druids only (ie animal-summoning/barskin etc.) does that just mean that these spells won't appear in a cleric's/cleric-ranger's spellbook-selection while in-game, or does it also mean that I no longer will be able to artificially add in those druid-only spells to a cleric-PC while using Shadowkeeper, without causing a CTD when restarting the game etc.?

Wait...you just said druids are too weak...and then you would add some of their most useful advantages to clerics? Cleric/Ranger will have IR's druid-only spells (and I hate how much that class is unbalanced, Divine Remix does a good job preventing them from learning Druid's spell higher than 3th level), but pure clerics don't. I'm not sure if it works adding them via shadowkeeper, neither I have an interest in finding it out sorry. Anyway I guess you could just try it once and discover it!

[Strontium Dog]

Well, if the cleric/ranger class has the druid spells, then I'm pretty certain that shadowkeeper will allow artificial editing-in of druid spells to a fighter/cleric/mage(there's no triple-classed druid-class possible, so I have to do it the other way round).