Will enemy spellcasters function correctly?

[Guest Vladislav]

Hello,

 

I am really intrigued by this mod. Great work to all those involved! My story: I usually don't mod my games unless the mod is a "must have" and it seems that without this druids are painful to play as. And i'd like to play a druid. I never finished BG2:SOA and just reinstalled it + TOB and plan to play it all the way through -- with the BG2 Fixpack this time.

 

So, my question is, how does this mod effect other enemy spellcasters? lets say Bodhi. I remember she was a tough battle. Will she know the right spells? will it play buggy? (ex: will she try to cast a spell she thinks is one thing but is actually another because this mod changed it?)

 

Thank you for answering my concerns!

[Guest Quante]

Hello,

 

I am really intrigued by this mod. Great work to all those involved! My story: I usually don't mod my games unless the mod is a "must have" and it seems that without this druids are painful to play as. And i'd like to play a druid. I never finished BG2:SOA and just reinstalled it + TOB and plan to play it all the way through -- with the BG2 Fixpack this time.

 

So, my question is, how does this mod effect other enemy spellcasters? lets say Bodhi. I remember she was a tough battle. Will she know the right spells? will it play buggy? (ex: will she try to cast a spell she thinks is one thing but is actually another because this mod changed it?)

 

Thank you for answering my concerns!

hey there

 

I myself had some spell issues with the avenger druid bonus spells not working properly(although that is most likely a problem related to my installation rather then the mod) but even with these minor bugs i still have a great time playing the game with the spell fixes (playing as an offensive spell caster druid). It seems that all the enemies use their spells wisely (sometimes even more efficient then in the vanilla game. e.g. mages casting a lightning are no longer killing themselves with it by accident).

I'm not that far in the game though to tell about bodhi, but i fought against a lich that was quiet devasting with his spells and not casting anything illogical (even used time stop efficiently although it now is a lot shorter then earlier)

 

All in all druids are now really fun to play and no longer a class that is only good for summoning.

 

(PS: i also installed the fix from the "bg2 tweak pack" of this site, that changed the druid spell and level progression to the ones of a cleric. Very good since it prevents you from beeing overpowered before lvl 14 and underpowered in ToB)

 

You will have a great time useing call lighting as a spell that now is actually useful and having decent damage dealing spells on lvl one and two.

Enemy spells like "hold person","stone to flesh" or finger of death are now a lot more dangerous so you can no longer simply ignore them once you are higher lvl.

 

Hope that helped a bit.

[Demivrgvs]

So, my question is, how does this mod effect other enemy spellcasters? lets say Bodhi. I remember she was a tough battle. Will she know the right spells? will it play buggy? (ex: will she try to cast a spell she thinks is one thing but is actually another because this mod changed it?)

You don't have to worry about that, I do took that into account when making the changes and I'm pretty sure I never "break" the AI. Actually I take som much the AI into account that some changes were made more for the AI than players themselves.

 

Regarding Bodhi, she's not a spellcaster and SR generally don't mess with unique creature's spell-like abilities . I changed very few spell-like abilities like Death Knight's ones, or demilich's Howl and Trap the Soul abilities, but similar changes arelimited to these few cases, and still perfectly blen with the original behaviour.

 

Thank you for answering my concerns!

You're welcome, I'm generally much quicker to answer but I'm facing real strange connection issues with my provider lately.

 

I myself had some spell issues with the avenger druid bonus spells not working properly(although that is most likely a problem related to my installation rather then the mod) but even with these minor bugs i still have a great time playing the game with the spell fixes (playing as an offensive spell caster druid).

Oh sorry, I promised to look into it (though I'm almost sure those spells are fine) but got didn't find the time for it, I'll do it tomorrow.

 

It seems that all the enemies use their spells wisely (sometimes even more efficient then in the vanilla game. e.g. mages casting a lightning are no longer killing themselves with it by accident).

I'm not that far in the game though to tell about bodhi, but i fought against a lich that was quiet devasting with his spells and not casting anything illogical (even used time stop efficiently although it now is a lot shorter then earlier) ...

 

You will have a great time useing call lighting as a spell that now is actually useful and having decent damage dealing spells on lvl one and two. Enemy spells like "hold person","stone to flesh" or finger of death are now a lot more dangerous so you can no longer simply ignore them once you are higher lvl.

I second all of this, except that I really didn't touched Time Stop. I wanted to, but we ultimately decided it was not a good idea. Speaking of which, one of the "cons" of making it last a little less as per PnP was exactly that the AI would not be able to handle it properly (especially fine tuned AI like SCS one). See, we care about our poor AI.

 

All in all druids are now really fun to play and no longer a class that is only good for summoning.

 

(PS: i also installed the fix from the "bg2 tweak pack" of this site, that changed the druid spell and level progression to the ones of a cleric. Very good since it prevents you from beeing overpowered before lvl 14 and underpowered in ToB)

Yep, I do recommend that.

[vladislav]

Thanks so much for your replies. I feel safer about embarking on this epic adventure with SR now. Thank you Demivrgvs for the amazing work!

 

One other concern cropped up today while I was considering SR and that was that perhaps I should enjoy vanilla BG2+TOB before modding it to my liking and playing it anew. That is, vanilla + BG2-fixpack.

So, dear readers, would you recommend playing BG2 the first time w/ vanilla spells, or are the changes in SR important enough that I should play BG2 the first time with 'em.

 

best,

[Dakk]

If you feel arbitrary and inconsistent effects, durations & dispellability are to be considered developer intent and therefore to be suffered, then enjoy vanilla

[DavidW]

If you feel arbitrary and inconsistent effects, durations & dispellability are to be considered developer intent and therefore to be suffered, then enjoy vanilla

 

Well, in halfhearted defence of the vanilla game, in most cases the various "arbitrary and inconsistent" features of the spells in BG2 are clearly deliberate, as they're ported directly from pen-and-paper AD&D. (Not all cases by any means, to be sure.) It mis-sells SR (and indeed does it a disservice) to suggest that it's a fixpack for specific problems with the game's spells, rather than a complete reimagining of them.

 

Personally, I'd probably recommend not playing with SR (or any rules-tweak mod, really) on a first playthrough. The game's vanilla spell set is perfectly reasonable, for all that it can be improved upon, and there's something to be said for seeing the game as its writers intended it first time round.

[Demivrgvs]

If you feel arbitrary and inconsistent effects, durations & dispellability are to be considered developer intent and therefore to be suffered, then enjoy vanilla

Well, in halfhearted defence of the vanilla game, in most cases the various "arbitrary and inconsistent" features of the spells in BG2 are clearly deliberate, as they're ported directly from pen-and-paper AD&D. (Not all cases by any means, to be sure.)

Well, I'd say in most cases "arbitrary and inconsistent" effects were not ported by PnP, but simply deliberate changes, when not pure mistakes/bugs.

 

Both vanilla and SR are not 100% true to PnP, but I wouldn't claim that the former is more true than the other, in many cases SR is far more PnP inspired (though I tend slightly more than vanilla to mix 2nd and 3rd edition rules).

 

It mis-sells SR (and indeed does it a disservice) to suggest that it's a fixpack for specific problems with the game's spells, rather than a complete reimagining of them.

You're right, SR is a complete overhaul of the spell system rather than a fixpack, but I think Dakk was simply pointing out few of the things he considered most unbereable of vanilla (e.g. Dispel Magic not properly working, inconsistencies between spell descriptions and their in-game effects, etc.) rather than suggesting that it's the only thing SR does.

 

Personally, I'd probably recommend not playing with SR (or any rules-tweak mod, really) on a first playthrough. The game's vanilla spell set is perfectly reasonable, for all that it can be improved upon, and there's something to be said for seeing the game as its writers intended it first time round.

For some reason I agree that for a first playthrough I'd probably avoid mods (except fixpack), but that comes from players like us who has played the game countless of times, I don't know if I'd suggest the same to someone who may never play it more than once.

 

P.S Let's be clear, vanilla's spell sytem was not so bad at all (in fact, SR doesn't alter it much, I'd say it refines it a lot), it's one of the most interesting and complex I've ever seen in videogames. It had a lot of room for improvements and needed many fixes, but the base was very solid.

[Dakk]

Valid points David, but:

It mis-sells SR (and indeed does it a disservice) to suggest that it's a fixpack for specific problems with the game's spells, rather than a complete reimagining of them.

You're right, SR is a complete overhaul of the spell system rather than a fixpack, but I think Dakk was simply pointing out few of the things he considered most unbereable of vanilla (e.g. Dispel Magic not properly working, inconsistencies between spell descriptions and their in-game effects, etc.) rather than suggesting that it's the only thing SR does.

.. Demi pretty much said what I wanted to say much better than I said it myself

 

FWIW my personal opinion is that even for the very first run-through BG1/2 is better with Fixpack, SR, IR and SCS(II). I totally get the point of "the vanilla game as the developers made it" though.

[DavidW]

FWIW my personal opinion is that even for the very first run-through BG1/2 is better with Fixpack, SR, IR and SCS(II). I totally get the point of "the vanilla game as the developers made it" though.

 

I think I'd be worried that most of SCSII would just be too difficult for someone new to BG2. I recall finding my first playthrough reasonably challenging up to about late SoA, though fairly straightforward after that except for the ToB endgame battle. (Though thereafter I'd have found it much too easy, I think - the other two times I've played through have been with SCSII or a predecessor.)

[vladislav]

I really appreciate all the replies. I'll give it some more thought and then hopefully finally start playing this beauty. Vanilla can't be all that bad considering that so many awesome people continue improving and expanding it to this day! off-topic: I'd be nice to have the source of the infinity engine released GPL... ... not to undermine GemRB, of course, which is awesome