Fire Giants

[Guest nick]

I am not sure if this problem is due to SCS, but fire giants in my game appear to be virtually unkillable.

 

Powers they now appear to have: Hardiness, Lower Fire Resistance (lowers resistance to -128%, is this supposed to happen?!), Non-dispellable Fire Shield, about 20 Fire damage per hit, ThacO at least -10 and at least 3 attacks/round, ability to cast Fire Storm or Fireball at will

 

I am thinking maybe somehow a little bit of Tactics forgot to uninstall itself, as SCS doesn't usually resort to evilness like this!

[coaster]

Sounds like Tactics to me...the "Improved" Fire Giants, lol.

[DavidW]

Sounds like Tactics to me...the "Improved" Fire Giants, lol.

 

Agreed. SCS doesn't do anything like this.

[Jarno Mikkola]

So the lesson here is... the SCSII uses the games Fire Giants, and gives them better AI at most, so nick is seeing the Tactics Fire Giants(with SCSII's AI), not the common Fire Giants modified by the SCSII.

[DarkWon]

OK so I figured out what I did...I had accidentally installed the Tactics component as well as SCS!

 

Now the Fire Giants are difficult and intelligent but no longer have ultimate deific powers like the ability to full heal themselves with Firestorm every round...which combined with hardiness makes them nigh unkillable!

 

I usually use Tactics only for the Streamlined Trolls, which I consider a fix

[Guest Guest]

So could you tell us, if SCSII and Tactics are compatible in the case of the fire giants, what differences to the vanilla game you found exactly? What remained of Tactics and what did SCSII get rid of, except of the full healing "ability"?

[DarkWon]

So could you tell us, if SCSII and Tactics are compatible in the case of the fire giants, what differences to the vanilla game you found exactly? What remained of Tactics and what did SCSII get rid of, except of the full healing "ability"?

 

I don't really understand what you're asking. I have now uninstalled the Tactics component, and the powers of Fire Shield, munchkinny Lower Fire Resistance (my main complaint) and the ridiculous amount of fire damage they were doing seems to have disappeared.

 

On the other hand they still make intelligent use of their abilities and potions, and use of better calls for help. They are still markedly harder.

 

When you are a level 30 Bhaalspawn, with ability scores of 20-25 and wield legendary weapons, have defeated dragons, drow armies and Archmages galore you don't expect or desire to be squashed easily by 2-3 fire giants.

 

SCS is still tough, it all depends whether you want one tough fight that makes you think and use all your resources (SCSII) or 15 reloads until you get a lucky win (Tactics).

[Guest Guest]

OK so I figured out what I did...I had accidentally installed the Tactics component as well as SCS!

 

Now the Fire Giants are difficult and intelligent but no longer have ultimate deific powers like the ability to full heal themselves with Firestorm every round...which combined with hardiness makes them nigh unkillable!

 

I don't really understand what you're asking. I have now uninstalled the Tactics component, and the powers of Fire Shield, munchkinny Lower Fire Resistance (my main complaint) and the ridiculous amount of fire damage they were doing seems to have disappeared.

 

The second part of the first posting (Now the fire...) was when you already had got rid of Tactics? So SCSII AI actually lets them use these spells and abilities if both are installed? Interesting.

I thought that SCSII AI might suppress some parts of Tactics... (what still might be the case, since I never played Tactics only till ToB, so I do not knwwo what else they might be able of).

 

In the case of the Sahuagin city this is a bit different. If SCSII ist installed, the sharkmen heal each other on death, but do not (or cannot) use scrolls to dispell invisibility anymore. So here the combination is actually totally acceptable.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Now the Fire Giants are difficult and intelligent but no longer have ultimate deific powers like the ability to full heal themselves with Firestorm every round...which combined with hardiness makes them nigh unkillable!

The second part of the first posting ... was when you already had got rid of Tactics? So SCSII AI actually lets them use these spells and abilities if both are installed? Interesting.

 

I thought that SCSII AI might suppress some parts of Tactics...

A bit more accuratly quoted...

 

And to answer your question, yes, when the Tactics component is uninstalled but still using the SCSII's component. And yes, the SCSII's upgraded AI's use the Tactics spells if they are named like the originals were in Tactics.

[DavidW]

The second part of the first posting (Now the fire...) was when you already had got rid of Tactics? So SCSII AI actually lets them use these spells and abilities if both are installed? Interesting.

I thought that SCSII AI might suppress some parts of Tactics... (what still might be the case, since I never played Tactics only till ToB, so I do not knwwo what else they might be able of).

 

In the case of the Sahuagin city this is a bit different. If SCSII ist installed, the sharkmen heal each other on death, but do not (or cannot) use scrolls to dispell invisibility anymore. So here the combination is actually totally acceptable.

 

The technical reason for the difference is that Tactics Fire Giants works by modifying the giants' statistics and giving them a powerful weapon: the fire shield, Lower Resistance, periodic fireballs, and the like are all generated by the weapon. On the other hand, Tactics Sahuagin works partly by modifying the stats but largely by modifying the scripts.

 

SCS works mostly by modifying the scripts. So SCS and Tactics Fire Giants combine completely, whereas SCS and Tactics Sahuagin overlap, so you don't get all of both.

 

Officially I don't recommend installing any pair of SCS and Tactics components that do the same thing, because who knows how they might interact. Unofficially, glad it's working for you.