IR v3 Feedback

[Darkersun]

I use the Spellcasting in Armor witch higher casting times.

Its much better than spell failure from my point of view.

 

Lowering the values a little bit should be fine. I still tend to not stick F/M in big armors.

Having Bucklers with 0 penalty should be fine and also makes sense, because as far as I know thesy are straped on the arm.

[janoha]

Spellcasting in Armor

 

Hi Demi,

 

Sorry for the very long time to reply - I have just moved to another country

 

I must admit, that I didn't account for the damage reduction component of IR. That will of course change the picture in favor of armors over robes, but without it, it's clearly no match for armors.

 

The problem with armors is that the armor spells are so good. With Spirit Armor you already get AC 1, and you are able to add an item of protection +2. When it comes to end game items the best heavy armor alternative to Robe of Larloch would be Shurrupaks Plate +5. And even with the added damage reduction, I just don't see how it can compete against a 5 point casting speed difference.

Now I'm not sure how much Dmg Reduction might skew this picture, but I still hold, that Casting Speed is the single most important stat for any caster.

 

In the end, I guess my point is that even 1 point Casting Speed penalty is a significant penalty, and I would advise you to keep that very much in mind.

 

(Oh and I hope that the mods will soon be out! Can't wait to play with them )

 

Edit: oops. Seems like I only looked at plate mails. Anyway, it shouldn't materially change the facts as the added AC is counteracted with +1 more Speed Casting penalty.


Edit 2: Another, and unrelated, thought. Just read the item description for Helm of Darkness and Helm of Glory. What do you think of making them usable only to Evil and Good characters, respectively? I think that would make them stand out more, in a good way.

[Demivrgvs]

Spellcasting in Armor

Spirit Armor is indeed really good, but it's a 4th level spell, it doesn't last all day long, and can be dispelled or breached (SCS loves to use removals). The thing is that armors easily offer an equal or superior armor class that cannot be dispelled, while also granting additional effects. Physical resistance is neat, but if you install that component you also get reduced weapon speed and DEX penalty to balance that resistance.

 

I do not want heavy armors to easily become the standard go-to equipment of F/Ms, but I admit that after looking at the armors again I do not see myself picking them for a F/M compared to even mid-tier robes. We have to find a good compromise imo.

 

Short story: I do said I'm open to discuss reducing cs penalties a bit if more players manages to give me convincing arguments.

 

Helm of Glory & Helm of Darkness

Well, I already made then not usable by evil/good alignment respectively. I didn't went for good/evil only simply because such tweak would make neutral characters unable to wear both.

[janoha]

Spellcasting in Armor

 

Spellcasting in Armor

[...]

I do not want heavy armors to easily become the standard go-to equipment of F/Ms, but I admit that after looking at the armors again I do not see myself picking them for a F/M compared to even mid-tier robes. We have to find a good compromise imo.

 

Short story: I do said I'm open to discuss reducing cs penalties a bit if more players manages to give me convincing arguments.

 

Well barring broader support for lower Speed Penalties from other mod users, I still think your current proposal for changes are a vast improvement, and could help to bolster some underused item groups (light armor and bucklers).

 

I agree that putting a Full Plate armor on a Fighter/Mage shouldn't be an obvious choice. I would like it to be an unlikely choice, that still might be used, at least for some battles.

 

And if Bards will be able to use light armors and chain mails without penalties, then I am all for the numbers you proposed. That would really make them more special and give them a niche to shine in.

 

(Incidentally, would you consider adding that aspect to the IR mod until KR is ready to be released?)

[Jarno Mikkola]

Spellcasting in Armor

Speaking of which, how are you going to implement the Bards ability to cast spells without penalties ?

Cause if you remove it with the opcode immunity, then any bonuses will be gone as well. And that's bad for the elf armors usage.

[Ardanis]

Note - if anyone feels like testing various value combinations, you can set them in item_rev/lib/armor_penalty_table.txt before installing the appropriate component.

[Demivrgvs]

Spellcasting in Armor

Well barring broader support for lower Speed Penalties from other mod users, I still think your current proposal for changes are a vast improvement, and could help to bolster some underused item groups (light armor and bucklers).

Yeah, the idea is exactly that one.

You are not a beta testers, but I think you may wish to know the next beta will include the following changes:

- Hide Armor and Chain Mail no longer have movement rate penalties
- Splint Mail and Plate Mail movement rate penalty lowered from 20% to 10%
- Full Plate Mail movement rate penalty lowered from 30% to 20%
- Hide Armor weapon speed factor penalty raised from 1 to 2
- Splint Mail weapon speed factor penalty raised from 2 to 3
- Leather Armor casting speed penalty lowered from 2 to 1
- Chain Mail casting speed penalty lowered from 3 to 2
- Plate Mail casting speed penalty lowered from 4 to 3
- Buckler no longer cause casting speed penalty or spell failure

And if Bards will be able to use light armors and chain mails without penalties, then I am all for the numbers you proposed. That would really make them more special and give them a niche to shine in.

The idea is to have bards suffer 1 point less of casting speed penalty. That means they will suffer no penalty while wearing leather armor (*), and a very small one while wearing armors up to chain mail (**).

(*) one more reason for which Leather Armor cannot have 0 speed penalty as you suggested. Bards would not look so special imo.

(**) as above, Chain Mail requires at least -2 penalty (which becomes -1 for bards) because Elven Chain Mail needs to remain special.

Incidentally, would you consider adding that aspect to the IR mod until KR is ready to be released?

We already considered this yes. I cannot promise it, but the next beta might contain this tweak.

@Jarno, not sure what you mean, we'll simply use EFFs to make penalties/bonuses affect the correct classes.

[Lawlight]

Wand of Cursing (beta)

 

STATISTICS:

Special Abilities (consume charges):
Blindness, Deafness and Silence

Requires: 13 Intelligence
Usable By:
Thief
All

 

Spellcasting in Armor

I like the changes!

 

Revised Armors

I'm a little bit concerned about Elven Chain Mails tbh. They look a little bit too good on paper now. With all other armor types trading something for extra defensive capabilities, Elfen Chain Mails gain +10% pr basically for free. They are the clear winners of the change.

 

Sensate Amulet

I know it's a bonus merchant item for now, but I want to share some random thoughts. The first thing that comes into my mind is, why the hell is this amulet restricted to clerics? Sensates tend to not specialize in classes, because a specialization would mean to limit the scope of possible experiences. In fact the faction had a high number of dual- and multiclass members. Now that Amulet of Seldarine kinda overlaps with Sensate Amulet, what about giving it some appropriate unique abilitiy like +5-10% bonus to experience gain, which fits the lore of the faction imo. Call me mad, but with KR's nerfed xp-tables in mind I wouldn't call this crazy op and it would help multiclasses in large groups a bit. Yeah it could be 'abused' in soloplay or small groups, but we are not the police and this is broken anyway.

[janoha]

Spellcasting in Armor

Well that was some interesting news from the beta! I very much like the general thrust of the changes.

 

I thoroughly approve of Bards having just 1 lower Casting Speed Penalty, especially with your newly proposed tables. I think that makes it all come together very well.

 

 

Movement Speed Penalties

Lowering movement speed penalties is a very good idea imo, and I have long thought they were just too high. Not so much from an in-combat perspective, but certainly from an out-of-combat perspective. Having the Fighters lacking 1/3 the distance behind mages is just too annoying, and would only serve to worsen the already high degree of micromanagement required of the party, due to bad pathfinding.

 

I look forward to hear the changes of the next beta version then

[Jarno Mikkola]

Wand of Cursing (beta)

 

STATISTICS:

 

Special Abilities (consume charges):

Blindness, Deafness and Silence

 

Requires: 13 Intelligence

Usable By:

Thief

All

...

There's a chance that the Thief identifier was added by other mods, and the Item Revision is not responsible for the latest iteration of the item, you could --change-log the file and find out what are the responsible mods.

PS, if you use the archive in the link, do not override the weidu.exe whit the one in the archive, it's an old version and prints errors if you use later versions to install mods, as you probably should.

 

@Demivrgvs: Ahh, never mind... the Imp forgot your solution, it sometimes does that several times.. ah, what just happened. Who the cheese am I.Wh... aah.

[Lawlight]

It's IR. But thanks.

[Demivrgvs]

Revised Armors

I'm a little bit concerned about Elven Chain Mails tbh. They look a little bit too good on paper now. With all other armor types trading something for extra defensive capabilities, Elfen Chain Mails gain +10% pr basically for free. They are the clear winners of the change.

Your are right Elven Chains got a huge buff, but overall their "availability" probably keeps them somewhat balanced:

- EE added an Elven Chain Mail +1 within BG1, but it's pretty much on par with Shadow Armor imo (the former has +5% physical res, the latter a total of +30% stealth), and if you don't need spellcasting Ankheg Plate Armor is still superior (for -1 DEX penalty you get a lot better AC and higher physical res)

- if you are a bard you can get Melodic Chain +2 within mid-early SoA, but SCS doesn't make it so easy

- if you are not a bard you are not getting anything better than a plain Elven Chain +1 until the very end of SoA

 

Wand of Cursing

Yeah, I haven't checked yet but I guess it's the "thieves can use wand" tweak causing that as it probably assumes the wand cannot be used by all (wands are not supposed to be usable by everyone but vanilla game couldn't care less). Anyway, I think I'd prefer to fix it by making the wand not usable by everyone rather than making that tweak not affect it.

 

Sensate Amulet
Right now this amulet is not even available within IR as it does not have a unique bam. I have to think about your idea, but I'm not sure I like the implications of using such effect. Other than "boosting" what's the purpose of an item which grants increased xp gain?

 

On a side note, I do thought about using a "bonus/penalty to experience gain" but that was a loong story which involved KR giving NPCs appropriate (fixed) character levels and eventually use that opcode on certain NPCs (e.g. make Aerie a very low level character but make her fill the gap at mid-high levels). Crazy idea which will probably have to be discarded.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Wand of Cursing

Yeah, I haven't checked yet but I guess it's the "thieves can use wand" tweak causing that as it probably assumes the wand cannot be used by all (wands are not supposed to be usable by everyone but vanilla game couldn't care less). Anyway, I think I'd prefer to fix it by making the wand not usable by everyone rather than making that tweak not affect it.

Shouldn't the tweak be reading the values that the item has and then make it's course of action depending on the results of the read to the particular item ?

So if the item is already usable by thieves, then it should not get the particular tweak.

[Ardanis]

Description patch does read first who can use the item. The problem in this case is that it doesn't understand what "All" stands for. I'll see what can be done.

 

Don't get you hopes high, however, because it is 95% more trouble than it's worth.

[Buli]

Hello everbody

 

I have encountered wierd bug with IR beta on BGEE.

I picked Xan's Moonblade before talking with him and now its stuck in my PC inventory. I cannot move it or anything (it appers to behave like critical quest item).

Nothing big, but I figured I will post it anyway ( not other bugs yet ).