Summoning Spells for V4

[Salk]

All you said about trolls do make perfect sense, Demi although I feel their regen rate is not too bad... Those changes you suggest should be part of SCS, no doubt.

[geg_Ma3gau]

Can we get a strict cap for the amount of fiends summoned by the player's and the opponent's party? I mean two pit fiends and lvl 17+ are a bit too much sometimes especially when your party is ~12 lvl. I know, that is working as intended but still . But he just keeps summoning them: you can have 2-3 cornugons and a pit fiend on your 6 at a given time thats a bit tough ))). That Tolgerias Planar Sphere fight.

 

1 fiend per party, both you and AI. How does this sound?

 

Also, how does SR work with SCS' "improved fiends" component (50% bonus hp etc)? WIth G3 tweaks' all creatures get max hp component? If i install SCS after SR, the Fiends seem to be quite a bit weaker hp wise and ac/thac0 wise (checked with bg2ee).

[Jarno Mikkola]

Can we get a strict cap for the amount of fiends summoned by

No, they are not meant to be... but then again, the Pit Fiends should have 80 Hit points(the telpit1.cre has 100, the rest have 80 in the original game), not 230, so it's not my fault they are just a bit OP !

Yep, cutting all the summon HPs to bellow 100 makes a huge difference...

[geg_Ma3gau]

Ok so i reinstall the game, take SR and install it on top of vanilla bg2ee. browsing Pit Fiends with EE keeper and here s what i get:

 

Name Resource Type

 

herp derp herp

.... .... .....

Pit Fiend DEMPITSU Overridden

 

This is the one im looking for

 

when i open it, it says:

 

Some items assigned to this character were not found in the database.

If you save this character those items will not be saved.

 

Cannot find: DW#SUMFI

 

"OK"

 

The stats that are displayed are:

Base/current HP: 194 (not 230?)

 

AC -6

THAC0 2

 

saves 3 3 3 8 3

 

This all doesnt match your description in the "SR summons". Did they get updated in V4?

[Demivrgvs]

Once upon a time I knew what DW#SUMFI was...I don't recall anymore.

 

Pit Fiend stats seems fine. Remember to add stat-related things such as DEX 18 giving 4 points of AC, STR 24 giving +6 bonus to attack rolls and CON 18 giving 36 hit points in theory (I need to check that but it should work because the creature has a fighter/cleric/mage PC class assigned...).

[zenblack]

Beholders are way too powerful and way to difficult to code to put into MS. Gauth on the other hand are much less powerful and have fewer respective abilities. I think Ogres and Ogre Magi are too powerful and have been in SR. They are already (as of 3.1) overpowered for BG1. You might want to consider upping their MS level or making them lesser specimens (though I don't really think that is going to matter, ti's the raw damage output of Ogre Berserkers that is the problem).

 

For MS1 Gibbering are nice, but I would rather them have a Unstable upgrade that allowed them to blow up for 1d8 Fire (or 1d8 Cold or 1d4 Cold/Fire) when killed. This would make them actually have a reason to be cast post Lv3. Gibbering Bombs. Hobgoblins are pretty good for MSIII and close balance wise to what a MS spell should provide. MSII is difficult because there are not that many good creatures, Possibly Flinds (Gnolls) would be good balance but they are pretty slow. Movement is also why I don't like the Otylugh and would prefer Wyverns or whatever is in the similar level competition for it.

 

All in all I think the MS should have more magical creatures (which is the separating feature from AS) So recolored Snake as a Naga is good, Umber Hulks (with polytweak scripting). If spiders were not tied to Spider Spawn I would prefer they be used in AS. Displacer Beast can be recolored Leopards with Blur (which can be upgraded with IA) and look the part and have good saves (Lv12 as far as 2nd Edition). You could use recolored Baby Wyverns for Fire Drakes instead of hellhounds for a creature with a breath weapon. I'm not sure if base BG2 has the animation for Harpies, but if so you could also use them.

[geg_Ma3gau]

Once upon a time I knew what DW#SUMFI was...I don't recall anymore.

 

Pit Fiend stats seems fine. Remember to add stat-related things such as DEX 18 giving 4 points of AC, STR 24 giving +6 bonus to attack rolls and CON 18 giving 36 hit points in theory (I need to check that but it should work because the creature has a fighter/cleric/mage PC class assigned...).

Installing SCS after SR V4. The component "smarter fiends get 50% more hp" overrides some of the changes in SR v4 and installs with warnings. Pit fiend now has 150 hp + bonus HP from constitution.

 

base hp 150

 

base ac -6

 

base thac0 0

 

str 24 con 18 dex 18 etc

 

saves 2 3 3 4 3

 

Honestly this translates into ~-10 ac ~-7 thac0 which is more then enough with poison and paralysis. Also ~180 hp or so.

 

Otherwise this fiend works as intended.

[toxin]

Could someone please give me the lowdown on the current state of the summoning cap?

I take it SR doesn't touch it so it's still 5?

 

What if I use BG2Tweaks to remove it, will that even fully work (considering SR adds its own summons, unknown to BG2Tweaks)?

And even if it does, will it be fair considering SCS/SR summoning AI? I gathered from another thread that they are not technically subject to the cap, so I guess the question is whether they take advantage of it or not...

[Ardanis]

I don't think AI ever checks for the cap, simply because it's unaffected by it.

[toxin]

I don't think AI ever checks for the cap, simply because it's unaffected by it.

Thank you Ardanis, I guess that answers the fairness question, but how about techincally?

Seeing as SR adds its own summoning spells (to the best of my knowledge), will the cap removal work for them as well?

[Ardanis]

Pretty sure that cap removal is automated in BG2Tweaks, meaning it doesn't need a list to work off.

 

In BGEE the summoning cap is softcoded, so that's out of concern either way.

[toxin]

Cool, I have EE so I guess I'm good to go.

Thanks again!

[Jarno Mikkola]

@Jarno you picked the only objectively unbalanced summon

Hah.

 

Still that doesn't come even close to these stats:

Even if you put the SCS's demon staying power added stuff to it. Anyways, let's turn our attention back to the main topic.

[Demivrgvs]

@Jarno vanilla's Pit Fiend was a joke. Seriously look at it, in terms of raw power a pit fiend is supposed to be on par with a planetar and only inferior to a solar or an ancient dragon! Those stats can barely scare a mid lvl charname.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Those stats can barely scare a mid lvl charname.

Well, you are not getting the fact that the character you are talking about is the player character, aka the next thing to a god. Yeah, this pit fiend should be scared of character. Not the other way around.

 

 

a pit fiend is supposed to be on par with a planetar

And if you wish to use the planetars stats on the pit fiend, then go ahead and use these:

 

But not these:

 

Planetar (18 Hit Dice):

STR 19, DEX 19, CON 18, INT 18, WIS 21, CHA 22; AL Chaotic Good

HP 198, AC -7, THAC0 -4, Saving Throws 3/5/4/4/6

3 Attacks Per Round, 2d6+10 Slashing Damage (Greatsword +3)

...

18 HD, WTF ? With 198 hitpoints... more like 44 HD, see the curve cuts in 9HD on fighter based chars from the D = 10 hit points to near D= 3 hit points per level: 90+3*(x-9) = 198 -> x=44 . Now if it were 18 HD, it would have 117 hit points, totally respectable hit point amount. Now if it were monster, aka 8d10+2/(level -10), the 198 hit points would be archived at level 64, so actually never.

I said the Aerial Servant wasn't the only unbalanced creature, the above is just the peak(of the iceberg).

 

And let's not forget that in a proper tabletop D&D game, the dice are thrown, and so they never give the maximum possible outcome, so the 8d10+2/(chalenge level -10) monster usually, has 40 hitpoints +2/ challenge level -10. So around 56 hit points. Not 198.