SR v4 (detailed list of changes - ongoing update)

[Jarno Mikkola]

Having above 39% resistance on armor with SCS will result in a number of ToB oponnents not using Hardiness HLA (it's a very, very delicate system )

Hmm, aren't you implying here that even with the Detectable Spells and other scripting, the best way found yet if the spell is there is to detect the resistance ?

What about using secondary effect that temporarily colors the characters shirt ? See I am a green shirt, I (already) got this... yeah, it's a little unreal like thing to consider, but what the hell.

 

Cre index:

0x002c 1 (byte) Metal Colour Index

0x002d 1 (byte) Minor Colour Index

0x002e 1 (byte) Major Colour Index

0x002f 1 (byte) Skin Colour Index

0x0030 1 (byte) Leather Colour Index

0x0031 1 (byte) Armor Colour Index

0x0032 1 (byte) Hair Colour Index

Edited September 22, 2014 by Jarno Mikkola

[kreso]

 

Hmm, aren't you implying here that even with the Detectable Spells and other scripting, the best way found yet if the spell is there is to detect the resistance ?

 

Don't ask me, I just read the code. Ask DavidW, he writes it.

[subtledoctor]

Well, SR/IR/KR are "optimized" for SCS, and what you're doing here isn't.

Which I why I say again, this is not something I suggest to be included in IR, rather it's an option I use for further customization after IR.

 

Cute, but ain't gonna work on EE as it is. Or BG without ToBEx tweak . You'll have to modify each elemental weapon to use "cast spell" and then modify Ironskins to use "pro spell" for each spell you make. Spell disruption happens even on zero damage instances. Or give it "immunity do damage animation" if that's possible.

Sigh. Well that's just stupid. See, crap like that is why I refuse to play this game without TobEx's "Concentration Check for Spell Disruption" component. Which would make my proposal work a) well enough, for a 6th-level spell, and more importantly, b) the way a rational new player might actually expect the damn game to work (no damage = no spell disruption, duh). I say again, sigh...

 

It does a lot actually, when you realise that DR from multiple sources stacks and how that stacking beefs up the HP. Difference in between having 45% DR and 60% DR is huge, and from that point on only get more and more imbalanced. Having above 39% resistance on armor with SCS will result in a number of ToB oponnents not using Hardiness HLA (it's a very, very delicate system )

I don't think what you wrote there means that my system is what is delicate

 

So I just read through that thread, it is a good discussion of the issues at hand. Btw the graph there is wrong: 90% DR on a 100hp warrior will not let him survive 1,000hp of damage. If he takes 250 4hp arrows, they will each do 1hp of damage. So he will take 2.5x more damage than the graph suggests (250 damage, not 100 damage). I've playtested it: it is a quirk of this game that DR is less effective in practice than it would seem to be on paper.

 

Of course 100% is 100% effective, so that must be blocked. The thing that keeps coming back to me is, the vanilla game only uses DR in a handful of places. So if I have a functional and enjoyable system in place for Armor with DR, it will only require tweaking a few other items/spells. That, I think, is a good thing from a modding point of view.

 

First, most obviously, is to limit resistance stacking. Frankly this doesn't just apply to DR, but to any resistances. Cheesemongers love stacking resistances but I don't think there's anything in the rules as written or conceived that says they deserve to get it. Most items and effects should set resistance, not increase it.

 

Hardiness is a big issue, with +40% DR. And having it set DR will be useless for warriors, since they will likely be wearing good armor. But let's step back: this system is already giving warriors what the Hardiness HLA was conceived to give them. So, quite simply, we no longer need it. It can be eliminated, or it can be replaced by another useful defensive effect. (Maybe AC + broad elemental resistance + guaranteed saves... whatever, you could think of something.)

 

Armor of Faith is actually okay as-is, I think - it's supposed to be the power of a deity protecting his faithful, it should be powerful. (Whereas, in vanilla, for reasons I described above, the DR it grants is functionally near-useless.) I think you could leave it as a 15-20% increase in DR, even for a priest in 45%-DR plate mail, and just drastically reduce the duration: like, 3 rounds + 1 round per 5 levels.

 

In other words I agree that 75%+ DR should be prevented... but I don't think it's that hard to prevent it.

 

In short, Revision mods can't really be going this way.

I agree 100%. (Agreement stacks ) In fact that is my whole point here: if someone wants to go to the trouble of creating a DR-based armor system, i think it's possible to do so successfully. But IR need not take on the burden of that task. Edited September 22, 2014 by subtledoctor

[Jarno Mikkola]

Hardiness is a big issue, with +40% DR. And having if set DR will be useless for warriors, since they will likely be wearing good armor.

Hmm, I am not that sure about that, it could set to a higher value with the set DR, and a barbarian could set his resistance to even a higher value for the short duration. But the main point is, that if the warrior hasn't picked every one of the resistance increasing items, he could specialize with the HLA, just like the ones that pick the whirlwind attack, or they could rely on their armor and other things WHICH won't stack with the HLA.

[kreso]

f he takes 250 4hp arrows, they will each do 1hp of damage. So he will take 2.5x more damage than the graph suggests (250 damage, not 100 damage). I've playtested it: it is a quirk of this game that DR is less effective in practice than it would seem to be on paper.

And this is exactly what I mean by "theorycrafting". This never happens in game. By the time this high resistance really comes into play/possible (EE has an upper hand here, since any damage reduction is clearly shown in combat log), you're not fightning orc archers with 2 pips in long bows (well, you do in WK level 4 challenge room). You're fightning Demons, Drow, and Dragons. All high-level SCS fighters buff with strenght potions, and do approx 25-30 damage per hit. Drow are very common is Sendai's Enclave, and wield "special" weapons, further boosting their damage output.

The game does "round down" physical resistance, but it only matters in BG1 levels.

 

90% DR on a 100hp warrior will not let him survive 1,000hp of damage.

I said his effective HP is equal to that. If he's getting hit by 100 arrows, each doing exactly 10 damage, 100th arrow will kill him at 90% resistance. (each arrow would do 1 damage, same as if they did 4 damage, 3, 2, or probably 1).

If he had no resistance, he would die to 10th arrow. (10*10=100).

The graph I made is not correct for low damage values due to round-down game makes, but no enemy in ToB does 4 damage per hit without reductions. DR will work correctly for high damage instances - and this is where it's effect is actually felt the most (i.e. 50 damage Abazigal slap is nullified to 6 damage and similar, which is much more important than reducing the 4 damage arrow to 1 point of damage).

 

 

 

Sigh. Well that's just stupid. See, crap like that is why I refuse to play this game without TobEx's "Concentration Check for Spell Disruption" component. Which would make my proposal work a) well enough, for a 6th-level spell, and more importantly, b) the way a rational new player might actually expect the damn game to work (no damage = no spell disruption, duh). I say again, sigh...

 

Well, there's a "way around" that. Nerf the weapons instead. Example - Stonefire axe. It does fire damage each hit. Tone it down so it does fire damage on 10% of hits; Fire Arrows 5% of hits. Raise the damage done (hell, make them burn!) and voila, screw concentration check and numerous 206 opcodes.

 

 

First, most obviously, is to limit resistance stacking.

Been tried in Refinements....not good. You can't set the cap without stuttering.

 

 

 

Hardiness is a big issue, with +40% DR. And having if set DR will be useless for warriors, since they will likely be wearing good armor. But let's step back: this system is already giving warriors what the Hardiness HLA was conceived to give them. So, quite simply, we no longer need it. It can be eliminated, or it can be replaced by another useful defensive effect. (Maybe AC + broad elemental resistance + guaranteed saves... whatever, you could think of something.)

 

I like this idea. I'm not sure Demi would go any further than what KR already does however. Fwiw, I do think that warriors do not need more AC then they can already have (good shield + full plate + Def.harmony + Pro Evil + younameit goes a long way - I've just fought WK green dragon missing AC -20 on a roll of 12. So much for AC becoming "irrelevant" in ToB....sigh)

[subtledoctor]

And this is exactly what I mean by "theorycrafting".

No theorycrafting here, sir, I'm reporting my results after multiple playthroughs with this system in effect. Obviously I was using 4hp arrows as an extreme example to make the point; but the point is valid. The rounding affects damage actually taken, not possible damage. So even in your counter-example:

 

If he's getting hit by 100 arrows, each doing exactly 10 damage, 100th arrow will kill him at 90% resistance. (each arrow would do 1 damage, same as if they did 4 damage, 3, 2, or probably 1). If he had no resistance, he would die to 10th arrow. (10*10=100).

Yes at 10hp/hit you can distinguish between 10% DR and 20% DR. But you *cannot* distinguish between 10% and 15%. In fact at up to 14 hp per hit (and let's remember that 4d6 averages to 14, so we're not talking about Carbos and Shank here) 15% DR will be about as effective as 5%... meaning IR leather and IR plate will be roughly equal. Which is not ideal.

 

I only raised that to explain why, in my *actual experience* (not theory), a system like this needs relatively large steps between armor types. In my *actual experience,* 15% jumps work pretty well across all parts of the game. (They were full BGT playthroughs.)

 

 

First, most obviously, is to limit resistance stacking.

Been tried in Refinements....not good. You can't set the cap without stuttering.

Nah, I wouldn't do it by scripting. Just change most of the instances of "Inc/Dec by +40%" to "Set value at 40%."

 

I like this idea. Fwiw, I do think that warriors do not need more AC then they can already have (good shield + full plate + Def.harmony + Pro Evil + younameit goes a long way

Well keep in mind that in my system if you're wearing plate mail for high DR you probably have crappier AC than in vanilla; Armor of the Hart is something like AC2, with *zero* DEX bonus.

 

But anyway that's only something I came up with for Hardiness after literally 5 seconds of thought. I'd have to think about it more before actually proposing, or coding, something definite.

Edited September 22, 2014 by subtledoctor

[kreso]

 

And this is exactly what I mean by "theorycrafting".

No theorycrafting here, sir, I'm reporting my results after multiple playthroughs with this system in effect. Obviously I was using 4hp arrows as an extreme example to make the point; but the point is valid. The rounding affects damage actually taken, not possible damage. So even in your counter-example:

You really got hit by 4 HP arrows? Jokes aside, I'm talking high values here. Not 4, not 14, but scores above 20 (which is what ToB oponnents do).

 

 

Yes at 10hp/hit you can distinguish between 10% DR and 20% DR. But you *cannot* distinguish between 10% and 15%. In fact at up to 14 hp per hit (and let's remember that 4d6 averages to 14, so we're not talking about Carbos and Shank here) 15% DR will be about as effective as 5%... meaning IR leather and IR plate will be roughly equal. Which is not ideal.

 

I don't see a problem here, tbh. A guy wearing IR "heavy armor" like plate with 15% will be still better protected than the one wearing hide armor with 10%, not due to resistance but due to better AC, as he should be, no? There's little to do in the way game rounds up damage, and as I said, this is only noticable in <10 damage hits (basically BG1, where a full plate AC protection is much better than it having even 60% reduction). IR armor resistance isn't it's "defining" feature, it's more of an "added feat", it shouldn't be affecting the game in a very noticable way (I'd say AC is probably a better protection in 99% cases you're not held/stunned, Timestop cheese excluded). Difference in between 10 and 15% is in fact very noticable later in game ( add Hardiness into mix, when even a slight difference like 5% makes a big change).

Fact is - percentage based reductions are much more effective against hard-hitters. Depriving Shank for 2 damage won't hurt him any, depriving Abazigal of 40 damage will hurt him a lot.

 

When you obtain 50% reduction, having an extra 10 or extra 15 is a difference, and that difference has crazy scaling.

Edited September 22, 2014 by kreso

[subtledoctor]

Not crazy scaling... just scaling to match the values you set. Yes, if a dragon lands a 50hp hit on Keldorn in my game, he only takes 25 damage. Whereas Valygar takes 50 damage. That's fine to me, it properly reflects the tankiness of plate armors and the vulnerability of light armors. And it's easy to balance it with AC (Keldorn is more likely to get hit in the first place) and other tweaks (I play with BECMI hit dice) and by simply moving the difficulty slider.

 

It's very much a different system... it works and I think it's superior to vanilla, but it's not for everyone. IR tiptoes up to using a different system ("let's add some DR and DEX penalties to heavy armor") but then backs off ("we want gameplay to basically be the same as vanilla.")

 

What remains are minor tweaks. I'm just saying, if I'm a player interested in adding depth to the armor system by way of DR, then Revised Armors doesn't really interest me. If I'm a player who likes AD&D's method of using AC as a complete abstracted representation of physical vulnerability, then I don't see a need to revise armors.

 

I guess it's really a marketing issue: I just don't see who is the target audience for that component. But clearly it's not me, so maybe you guys shouldn't be listening to me!

[kreso]

I guess it's really a marketing issue: I just don't see who is the target audience for that component. But clearly it's not me, so maybe you guys shouldn't be listening to me!

Oh no, discussions like these are always good, regardless of what comes out of it.

Anyhow, re armor; basically, I think that the whole point of IR armor is in essence - "effective HP vs physical damage" is boosted by both resistance AND armor class. In your mod (I haven played it, I did download it and read your proposed changes, I do like some stuff you did) you seem to have the player make a choice - either leather-plated low AC OR full-plated DR tankiness.

All in all, my bet is, if I'd put a -14 AC Cavalier wearing IR equipment against Firkraag's claws he'd probably live just as long if he were wearing AC 2 full plate with 45 DR (SoB); give or take few seconds.

In effect, both IR and SoB (Scales of Balance) pretty much will end up doing the same thing . IR may be more about having both AC and resistance, while yours puts the emphasis on the latter being mutually exclusive with AC. (late-game, DR will probably be more useful since it gets more and more better with more HP, and Critical Strike usage on enemies - this will be balanced with on-hit effects happening more often aka strenght/intelligence drain, level drain, paralysis etc).

As for targeted audience for armor revision - I'd guess people who don't min-max on character creation, like some more depth in gameplay, and love KR Paladins.

[subtledoctor]

Also, I was just thinking about

Power Word: Kill

(I think its discussion was in this thread, but I'm on my phone and can't reasonably comb through 31 pages to find it)

The discussion was, how to make it a decent spell when right now it is extraordinarily 'expensive' if the target has > 60hp. Demi talked about having it kill people with more hp, but giving them a save to avoid the effect. That is s substantial 'buff' for the spell.

But how about treating it like the new version of Harm? Just do 60hp of damage, no save. People with 60hp or less will die, those with more will still be substantially affected. You might resist the Power Word, but doing so takes a toll on you. (I first thought how about being stunned or slowed or something, then I figured, why not just damaged - why not damaged by the very threshold of the spell? What else does that threshold represent??)

(In general I dislike 'save to completely avoid being affected.' Saves should generally indicate resisting the effects of a spell; but resistance should not be perfect, it's not like you were in a different room or something. A successful save should mean half damage, half duration, etc. (Magic resistance should work that way too, but that's a whole other discussion.))

Edited September 30, 2014 by subtledoctor

[n-ghost]

I'd vote for:

 

1) expanding the threshold up to 100 hp;

2) making the spell search for another viable target nearby if the first target makes it's save or the spell had no effect for any reason. Is it possible to implement? Maybe some tricks with Chain Lightning code?

[Demivrgvs]

Power Word: Kill

The discussion was, how to make it a decent spell when right now it is extraordinarily 'expensive' if the target has > 60hp. Demi talked about having it kill people with more hp, but giving them a save to avoid the effect. That is s substantial 'buff' for the spell.

This is exactly how it's performing since the first v4 beta. If you have 60+ hit points you can save to avoid death, while if you have <60hp you have no save (as vanilla).

 

But how about treating it like the new version of Harm? Just do 60hp of damage, no save. People with 60hp or less will die, those with more will still be substantially affected.

This would introduce the concept of "phychic damage" into BG, something I suggested back then for Feeblemind too but most players seemed to not like. I'd need more opinions on this matter.

 

Balance-wise I would have to think about it. I know it's a 9th lvl spell, but instant casting time, long range, no save 60 dmg is kinda a big deal imo. Are we sure it wouldn't be too good? Mmm...

I'd vote for:
1) expanding the threshold up to 100 hp;
2) making the spell search for another viable target nearby if the first target makes it's save or the spell had no effect for any reason. Is it possible to implement? Maybe some tricks with Chain Lightning code?

1) hardcoded

2) it cannot be properly implemented, but I don't like the concept

 

Save or else spells

In general I dislike 'save to completely avoid being affected.' Saves should generally indicate resisting the effects of a spell; but resistance should not be perfect, it's not like you were in a different room or something. A successful save should mean half damage, half duration, etc. (Magic resistance should work that way too, but that's a whole other discussion.

I'm with you on this matter, and many "save or die - nothing happens when saved" has been tweaked following this principle (Disintegrate and Flesh to Stone are perfect examples).

Edited September 30, 2014 by Demivrgvs

[Hoverdawg]

Power Word: Kill

The discussion was, how to make it a decent spell when right now it is extraordinarily 'expensive' if the target has > 60hp. Demi talked about having it kill people with more hp, but giving them a save to avoid the effect. That is s substantial 'buff' for the spell.

This is exactly how it's performing since the first v4 beta. If you have 60+ hit points you can save to avoid death, while if you have <60hp you have no save (as vanilla).

I like this variant. I assume it's got the capped -4 save modifier?

Edited September 30, 2014 by Hoverdawg

[subtledoctor]

This would introduce the concept of "phychic damage" into BG, something I suggested back then for Feeblemind too but most players seemed to not like. I'd need more opinions on this matter.

 

Balance-wise I would have to think about it. I know it's a 9th lvl spell, but instant casting time, long range, no save 60 dmg is kinda a big deal imo. Are we sure it wouldn't be too good? Mmm...

 

I'm not actually thinking of psychic damage so much. (Well, it could be interesting... say, Slow for a number of seconds equal to spell level every time you make a saving throw... but such a broad-ranging change is for another conversation.)

 

Rather, I'm just looking at the original mechanics of the spell: if you have 60hp you die, if you have 61 you survive. As the magic assaults your body, that 61st hp, that one little hp, saves your life. I know the spell says it only affects those with <60hp, but the general mechanics of the game are, when one hp saves your life it's because you lost all the other hps.

 

So you could read the spell to implicitly work that way. Or at least you could mod the spell to work that way, and decide it's better than the vanilla one (if indeed you think it is better).

 

What about: 60hp or less = die, no save; over 60 hp = take 60 damage, save for only 30? That would at least prevent it from being inferior to Finger of Death. It is after all a 9th level spell, I really hate the idea of 9th level magic just fizzling.

[spanyam]

One small issue I notice. If someone has a "Regenerate ___ wounds" spell cast on them and they travel before the spell has run its course, the spell effect is lost without having healed the person. It would make sense that whether a character is standing around or traveling, the regenerate should continue to work. If the character rests instead while regenerating, the healing is fully applied.