SR V3

[Ardanis]

PfMW & Mantles

Well, SR's Mantle protects from +3 weapons (instead of vanilla's +2) and I don't think there are many opponents with +4 enchanted attacks in BG (e.g. greater elementals and even planetars have +3), Improved Mantle is almost a complete protection as +5 enchanted attacks are even more rare (e.g. even balors and pit fiends have "only" +4).

More or less - yes. Can't speak for others, I just find it nervious to know that by a twist of fate they might happen to get a +4/+5 at their disposal and make a short work of me. Somewhat similar to having a %-based penalty (like armors' arcane failure) - it's unlikely to happen but who'd fly a plane that has 5% chance to fall down. On a contrary, when casting PfMW I know I can laugh at their faces and merrily tell them to go *** themselves and there's nothing they can do about it. Probably a bit too blunt approach when dealing with a everything-is-based-on-a-chance game, but whatever.

 

I guess shortening it to 3 rounds may actually work well indeed. But adding penalties? Well, perhaps, though I'm more likely to disagree than agree.

[Demivrgvs]

PfMW

I think PfMW being superior to mantles is of the same league as being hardcoded, probably even more so.

I'm afraid that in the end I'll agree on this. I can't really come with a better solution allthough something could easily be done... My main complaint (fear) is that it would mess with too much AI scripts.

Well, I suggest myself things that may end up being broken or not implementable. Thus feel free to say whatever you like.

 

I guess shortening it to 3 rounds may actually work well indeed. But adding penalties? Well, perhaps, though I'm more likely to disagree than agree.

Yeah, I'm not sure how SCS AI would handle it, though I do know it would detect the correct duration. Personally I think I'd like this solution...

 

Only non-melee damage rolls, so a F/M which buffs with PfMW, Protection From Energy and Spell Trap, and then hits them, with, say, Kundane and Celestial Fury (disregarding IR, I can't remember the changes), he would still do a hell of a lot, since vanilla CR has a random chance of 20 damage, which isn't a roll.

Actually the caster would get -x penalty to minimum attack and damage rolls (both on melee and ranged attacks), and would suffer +x additional damage from damage dealing spells. I'd prefer a simple penalty to saves over this.

 

Draw Upon Holy Might

Just a quick note, I was going to reduce the duration to six rounds when I realized another possible alternative, which is a 5 rounds fatigue effect after the usual 10 rounds. It's easy for me to change it last minute thus I'll continue with other things in the meanwhile.

 

P.S We haven't discussed Champion's Strength!! Vanilla's drawbacks were ridiculous imo, making the spell almost useless, but I probably overdo removing both of them. I think the "cannot cast spell nor innates" was really too much, but perhaps the fatigue effect could be kept (a la SR though, thus 5 rounds and no rest required).

[Salk]

Draw Upon Holy Might

Just a quick note, I was going to reduce the duration to six rounds when I realized another possible alternative, which is a 5 rounds fatigue effect after the usual 10 rounds. It's easy for me to change it last minute thus I'll continue with other things in the meanwhile.

 

Even better!

[yarpen]

About penalties for PfMW - maybe, because it's a sort of anti-magic barrier, what do you think about penalties to spellcasting? 15% failure chance sucks because of wizard's scripts, but +2 to casting time is a pain in the ass. Mantles are working in completely other manner and they don't have penalties.

 

But still, idea comes from Arcane Remixes - I'd prefer to change PfMW into Lesser Mantle which protects against +2 weapons. Original PfMW makes the rest completely unuseful. Who's afraid of non-magical weapon so much? Especially in Throne of Bhaal? Even if there are creatures with it, you can easily erase them by one Death Spell. Also 6th level, non 9th spell.

 

About Absolute Immunity, now I'm thinking more about combination of protection against +5 weapons and protection against energy (fire/cold/acid/electricity/magic damages). Hey, that's 9th level spell and I think it's allowed for mage to be completely immune for these few rounds. And this spell when is near of Time Stop or Dragon Breath, could be a bit more special. Because now it's worse PfMW from 6th level, so what we are talking about?

 

EDIT and PS.

I also think that for this mod there is real need of new wizard scripts, even for vanilla game. Not for making them tougher but to make them using different repertouire of spells. And who "knows" about best Demi's improvements. I'd love to see wizards polymorphing or desintegrating my characters, who are using spell shields etc. Enchanters who are using sleep spells, necromancers with little army of ghasts etc.

[Salk]

It seems to me obvious that PfMW is overpowered.

 

Combined with a natural immunity against normal weapon is an insta-kill and that's the main problem.

 

I am asking: would it be possible to force vulnerability against normal weapons for the duration of the spell even for those creatures that are in other conditions fully protected against them?

 

After all, the spell, by its description, is not compatible with the PfNW spell and this solution might work and it would be enough to slightly change the description from:

 

"This spell cannot be cast on anyone who is protected from normal weapons..."

 

to something like:

 

"This spell removes automatically the benefits - temporary or otherwise - of any kind of protection from normal weapons..."

[Demivrgvs]

PfMW

About penalties for PfMW - maybe, because it's a sort of anti-magic barrier, what do you think about penalties to spellcasting? 15% failure chance sucks because of wizard's scripts, but +2 to casting time is a pain in the ass. Mantles are working in completely other manner and they don't have penalties.

I'd probably prefer to reduce the duration to 3 rounds over penalties, but if we'll opt for penalties casting time may be fine.

 

But still, idea comes from Arcane Remixes - I'd prefer to change PfMW into Lesser Mantle which protects against +2 weapons. Original PfMW makes the rest completely unuseful.

As I said, I can't do this as it would litteraly disintegrate mages AI behaviour.

 

I am asking: would it be possible to force vulnerability against normal weapons for the duration of the spell even for those creatures that are in other conditions fully protected against them?

 

After all, the spell, by its description, is not compatible with the PfNW spell...

It can't be done, and it wouldn't be a true solution either imo. Such a change would make PfMW work as inteded and weaker for the AI, but players could still exploit PfMW as the AI isn't able to effectively counter it with normal weapons as a player would.

 

Absolute Immunity

About Absolute Immunity, now I'm thinking more about combination of protection against +5 weapons and protection against energy (fire/cold/acid/electricity/magic damages). Hey, that's 9th level spell and I think it's allowed for mage to be completely immune for these few rounds. And this spell when is near of Time Stop or Dragon Breath, could be a bit more special. Because now it's worse PfMW from 6th level, so what we are talking about?

Well, if it last only 3-4 rounds it may be "reasonable". After all Time Stop grants 3 rounds where the caster is virtually immune to everything and free to do whatever he/she wishes, whereas this spell wouldn't grant immunity to non-damaging effects (e.g. transmutations, enchantments and most necromantic spells) and wouldn't freeze all enemies (who may simply cast Breach or Pierce Shield to negate the protection).

 

This also wouldn't be much different than casting PfMW while affected by the long lasting Protection from Energy.

 

It would surely become a very attractive spell, so much that it scares me, but if most of you would like it, we may give it a try. Let me know.

 

SR's AI

I also think that for this mod there is real need of new wizard scripts, even for vanilla game. Not for making them tougher but to make them using different repertouire of spells. And who "knows" about best Demi's improvements. I'd love to see wizards polymorphing or desintegrating my characters, who are using spell shields etc. Enchanters who are using sleep spells, necromancers with little army of ghasts etc.

Yeah it would be great, but I'm almost sure I won't work on that. DavidW is incredibly more skilled than me and I do hope he'll manage sooner or later to take SR into account as he said here.

[yarpen]

Personally I think that DavidW's incredible work on SCS/SCS2 is a great tactic challenge... but also many players complains about it. SCS characters are extremly efficent at fight, but they are using very few of spells. They are using only these which allows to end fight as fast as possible. And I think that's against the philosophy of SR. Also there is a bit of simplicity: David just removed from game Transmuters or Diviners, because they don't have these best spells. And I think that's bad.

 

Scripts which works with SR should give something completely different. F.e. diviners knows EVERYTHING about party items and spells, transmuter will try to disable most powerfull characters using polymorphy, or turn them into stone... and I know that it's a lot better to just use Greater Malison + Chaos combo... but heh, we're such a fine people because we're completely different.

 

Long time ago when Infinity was popular and there was polish scene of modding, my friend wrote a Bible of scripting, based on his experiences of working on his TC which was never released. Of course now I don't have time even for end my work with BAMs but maybe if got some, I will try to create some scripts which aren't always efficent, but are a bit random (about 4-5 tactics options) for everyone and give to player new experience.

[Salk]

Personally I think that DavidW's incredible work on SCS/SCS2 is a great tactic challenge... but also many players complains about it. SCS characters are extremly efficent at fight, but they are using very few of spells. They are using only these which allows to end fight as fast as possible. And I think that's against the philosophy of SR. Also there is a bit of simplicity: David just removed from game Transmuters or Diviners, because they don't have these best spells. And I think that's bad.

 

Scripts which works with SR should give something completely different. F.e. diviners knows EVERYTHING about party items and spells, transmuter will try to disable most powerfull characters using polymorphy, or turn them into stone... and I know that it's a lot better to just use Greater Malison + Chaos combo... but heh, we're such a fine people because we're completely different.

 

Long time ago when Infinity was popular and there was polish scene of modding, my friend wrote a Bible of scripting, based on his experiences of working on his TC which was never released. Of course now I don't have time even for end my work with BAMs but maybe if got some, I will try to create some scripts which aren't always efficent, but are a bit random (about 4-5 tactics options) for everyone and give to player new experience.

 

I second completely your vision.

[Demivrgvs]

Looking here and there I'm glad to see I can find there little left to do, which means I'll be very satisfied with V3 as almost all spells will be finally as good as I can imagine.

 

The only time consuming things I'm going to work on tonight are new creatures for summoning spells ("leaders" for monster summoning spells, Mummy Lord for Create Undead, ...).

 

I'm doing a few changes and fixes here and there but I'll discuss only those a little more noticeable to avoid wasting too much time.

 

For example...

 

Color Spray

I've changed its .pro file as we previously discussed. Do you think a smaller AoE is enough to rebalance it?

 

Mirror Image will now use opcode 159 instead of 119, so that I can have full control over the number of images created. The spell will create two images plus one for every three levels up to a maximum of eight images at 18th level. Shouldn't we limit this spell duration to something like 1 turn considering how incredibly powerful it is?

 

SR, SCS, and Wizard Specialists AI

Personally I think that DavidW's incredible work on SCS/SCS2 is a great tactic challenge... but also many players complains about it. SCS characters are extremly efficent at fight, but they are using very few of spells. They are using only these which allows to end fight as fast as possible. And I think that's against the philosophy of SR. Also there is a bit of simplicity: David just removed from game Transmuters or Diviners, because they don't have these best spells. And I think that's bad.

 

Scripts which works with SR should give something completely different. F.e. diviners knows EVERYTHING about party items and spells, transmuter will try to disable most powerfull characters using polymorphy, or turn them into stone... and I know that it's a lot better to just use Greater Malison + Chaos combo... but heh, we're such a fine people because we're completely different.

I second completely your vision.

Me too, but as I said I highly doubt I'll ever work on that.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Also there is a bit of simplicity: David just removed from game Transmuters or Diviners, because they don't have these best spells. And I think that's bad.

Well if you think that's bad...

Well, guess how many Transmuters or Diviners there are exactly in unmodified BG2 game?

 

Well, I do not have to guess, I know that it's exactly 0.

BACKUP ~creaturesearch/backup~
AUTHOR ~Jarno Mikkola.~

BEGIN ~Search for Diviners.~ 
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.CRE~ ~creaturesearch\div~ 
READ_LONG 0x0244 ~type~
	PATCH_IF ~type~=0x01000000 BEGIN //Search for Diviners
WRITE_LONG 0x0244 0x00000000
END
BUT_ONLY

BEGIN ~Search for Transmuters.~ 
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.CRE~ ~creaturesearch\tra~ 
READ_LONG 0x0244 ~type~
	PATCH_IF ~type~=0x20000000 BEGIN //Search for Transmuters
WRITE_LONG 0x0244 0x00000000
END
BUT_ONLY

BEGIN ~Search for Conjurers.~ 
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.CRE~ ~creaturesearch\conj~ 
READ_LONG 0x0244 ~type~
	PATCH_IF ~type~=0x00800000 BEGIN //Search for Conjurer
WRITE_LONG 0x0244 0x00000000
END
BUT_ONLY

...As there are 0 creatures in the "creaturesearch/div&tra" folders after running that .tp2 code with properly re-named WeiDU.exe... the conjurer is there so I could know the code indeed works, and it gives me 113 files, in my bit modified game.

 

PS, that code can be used for other purposes too.

[yarpen]

Me too, but as I said I highly doubt I'll ever work on that.

All of us know, you're doing a lot of great job in SR/IR/KR projects by providing really revised Baldur's Gate 2. Maybe If I'll create something, I post it on the forum. I've got plenty of ideas such as unique classes abilities shown only in scripts - as said earlier, Diviner who knows everything about you and your team. Enchanter who will choose character with weakest save vs. spells parameter as target for his charms etc.

 

Also I was thinking about making difference between inteligent and stupid creatures. Inteligent/wise fighter will use some tactics (defending clutch wizard as example), potions and when see no chance for win eventually run away to save his live. But stupid ogre will just charge for nearest creature and he even won't realise that he attacks person who's immune to non-magical weapon.

[Shaitan]

Color Spray

I've changed its .pro file as we previously discussed. Do you think a smaller AoE is enough to rebalance it?

 

I'd think so. It's the only thing I ever wondered about regarding Colour Spray

 

Mirror Image will now use opcode 159 instead of 119, so that I can have full control over the number of images created. The spell will create two images plus one for every three levels up to a maximum of eight images at 18th level. Shouldn't we limit this spell duration to something like 1 turn considering how incredibly powerful it is?

 

I think that sounds so cool with a better control on the numbers of images. On the other hand I don't see the need for only 1 turn duration, if anything make it one turn per casterlevel or so.

 

Cheers

[DarkWon]

Color Spray

I've changed its .pro file as we previously discussed. Do you think a smaller AoE is enough to rebalance it?

 

Mirror Image will now use opcode 159 instead of 119, so that I can have full control over the number of images created. The spell will create two images plus one for every three levels up to a maximum of eight images at 18th level. Shouldn't we limit this spell duration to something like 1 turn considering how incredibly powerful it is?

 

Color spray sounds great, should be perfect now. The new mirror image will make much more sense! Atm its so random and kinda overpowered at low levels.

 

Personally I am for longer durations! This spell usually gets "used up" before its duration anyway so a shorter duration will just mean it doesnt last between fights and more frequent resting.

 

P.s. does the iSpellRestore mod work with SR? I am dying to use it....resting to restore spells seems crazy and annoying to me

[Demivrgvs]

Color Spray

I've changed its .pro file as we previously discussed. Do you think a smaller AoE is enough to rebalance it?

I'd think so. It's the only thing I ever wondered about regarding Colour Spray

And why haven't you told me before?!

 

Mirror Image

...will now use opcode 159 instead of 119, so that I can have full control over the number of images created. The spell will create two images plus one for every three levels up to a maximum of eight images at 18th level. Shouldn't we limit this spell duration to something like 1 turn considering how incredibly powerful it is?

I think that sounds so cool with a better control on the numbers of images. On the other hand I don't see the need for only 1 turn duration, if anything make it one turn per casterlevel or so.

Well, it currently is 3 rounds +1/level as per vanilla, and thankfully it's almost half the duration of Blur, else the latter spell would be completely unappealing compared to the former. MI wouldn't be so overpowered if it wasn't for how it protects against AoE spells (e.g. a fireball explotion may hit an image and leave the character unharmed), but we never found a way to fix this issue and thus MI is really too powerful for its level. If you're against a shorter duration it's fine for me to keep the original one, but I'm surely against a longer one.

[Ardanis]

Jarno, you might want to use

INNER_ACTION BEGIN
 COPY ~table.2da~ ~table.2da~
 INSERT_2DA_ROW 0 x ~%var1%  %var2% ... %varx%~
END

instead, if anything, it makes reading the result easier.

 

 

Mirror Image

I'm for keeping it 3+1/lvl.

PS I am.