scsii.ini Mage & Priest Scaling

[Brindisium]

I'd value some advice please:

 

If I use the parameters in scsii.ini to manage Mage and Priest levels would I be affecting all the creatures in the game that can cast spells? Would, for example, the effective casting level of (smarter) Fiends, (smarter) Dragons and named NPC's be affected? ie anything touched by scsii's spell casting AI?

 

I'd like to tweak the difficulty down a notch to give me more room to experiment with different tactics and parties but I would prefer to stick to the "core rules" setting in the game engine if I can. I'm thinking of something like this:

 

Mage_Level_Add 4
Mage_Level_Scale 60
Priest_Level_Add 4
Priest_Level_Scale 60  

 

Hopefully that would reduce the power of the all high level casters (and spell casting creatures) without nerfing the lower level ones completely? The current party is around 500,000xp (L10-ish) and Gaius (in the sewer party) seems to spawn in at approx L20. I'm hoping the changes would make him a L16 caster. That would still be a handful for me while I blow the cobwebs away and remember how to play this great old game again.

[DavidW]

I'd value some advice please:

 

If I use the parameters in scsii.ini to manage Mage and Priest levels would I be affecting all the creatures in the game that can cast spells? Would, for example, the effective casting level of (smarter) Fiends, (smarter) Dragons and named NPC's be affected? ie anything touched by scsii's spell casting AI?

 

Only creatures affected by the "smarter mages" and "smarter priests" components. That basically means all human and demi-human spellcasters, as well as undead spellcasters like liches, but it doesn't include creatures with spell-like abilities. It's possible (I lose track) that a small number of (demi)humans aren't affected, but it should catch 99% of them.

 

I'd like to tweak the difficulty down a notch to give me more room to experiment with different tactics and parties but I would prefer to stick to the "core rules" setting in the game engine if I can. I'm thinking of something like this:

 

Mage_Level_Add 4
Mage_Level_Scale 60
Priest_Level_Add 4
Priest_Level_Scale 60  

 

Hopefully that would reduce the power of the all high level casters (and spell casting creatures) without nerfing the lower level ones completely? The current party is around 500,000xp (L10-ish) and Gaius (in the sewer party) seems to spawn in at approx L20. I'm hoping the changes would make him a L16 caster. That would still be a handful for me while I blow the cobwebs away and remember how to play this great old game again.

 

You've got the maths right, for sure: L20 gets scaled down to L12 (12=20 * 0.6) and then pushed up to L16. The break-even point is L10 - i.e. mages below that level actually get more powerful - but that won't have more than a very minor effect.

 

Be warned that tweaking the ini file counts as "advanced user" stuff, i.e. it's not the kind of thing I've tested too extensively. (It should be fine, though.)

[Brindisium]

Thanks! I'll post if I find any interesting anomalies.

[Brindisium]

I hope this is useful David. With the scaling above (60% +4) Gaius now spawns in as a L17 Necromancer (not 16) with a spell casting capability to match. His spellbook contains a slightly unusual spell distribution though:

 

L1: 6 (expected: 6)

L2: 6 (expected: 6)

L3: 7 (expected: 6 - four copies of flame arrow, prot from fire, remove magic & slow)

L4: 6 (expected: 6)

L5: 6 (expected: 6)

L6: 3 (expected: 4)

L7: 5 (expected: 4 - includes spell deflection from L6)

L8: 3 (expected: 3)

 

Thanks again, the scsii.ini scaling is a great tool for tweaking the feel of the game.

 

(No mods except the fixpack and scsii v18 installed)