IR v4 Beta (last update 20 June 2017)

[Demivrgvs]

@beta testers, I have a free afternoon today, thus if you have reports or suggestions to make this is the right time to tell me where to work.

 

- Belt of Inertial Barrier is bugged. (can't remeber what exactly, I think target is wrongly set to self, probably the duration is also wrong). Fixed locally and changed to no-save, 2 rounds -20%MS, can't be affected more than 1x turn. The feedback window simply gets too spammed with save vs x message.

 

- Fireshield from Ring of Fire Control is breachable. (tweaked locally to cast a real Fireshield, not a mimickry).

- Mov rate opcode had incorrect targeting yes, but you do have a point about the "spamming"

 

- the ring's custom Fireshield is there because we don't want it to call Cowled Wizards, and because it has "special additions" to make it grant full immunity to fire dmg animation (ring grants 50%, spell grants 50% plus ProSpell 206s to grant full immunity to fire based effects).

 

- The first thing I noticed was the Readme needing some rearrangement.

 

- I know it has been a while since last time, but the potions part is adopted into the main component now?

- Mike is working on it

 

- yes

[Incantatar]

- Ring of Human Influence charms the caster (new in v4 for me)

- The djinns, fiends and a few other summonable creatures have nice scripts with IR/SR/SCS but a few monsters do not, notably the lesser elementals, e.g. from the rings of X control. Would be nice if they also had a following/attack script.

[Hoverdawg]

Damn it. I wrote a long post with lots of feedback, but the bugger was lost as my browser crashed. So, I'll omit the long-winded mechanics part (mostly concerning armor damage reduction) and stick to item properties:

I'm using the penultimate IR update (I couldn't wait with my game), so some things might have been fixed in the meantime.

- [bUG] Circlets have armor properties (dexterity penalties, spellcasting failure chances)

- [bUG?] Shortbow +2 gives +4 thac0, while the eagle bow +2, is that how it should be?

- [bUG] Anomen's shield gives +5AC while it should +4 (+2 basic and +2 enchantment)

- [sUGGESTION] Nerf some of the NPCs' items. It's weird to use the same stuff they started with for almost the whole game. Specifically:

- Keldorn's armor is a fullplate +2 with a small bonus on top of that. Fullplates +2 cost a lot and/or can only be found after Chapter 3 (I used it till Armor of Hart, I think). Lowering its enchantment to +1 should be enough.

- Anomen's shield is even more useful, I'm tackling Hell right now and he still wields it (unless Beholders are around) thanks to big AC bonus (bugged see a previous point) and a significant fire resistance. Make it +1 (AC3) and maybe lower its resistances too.

- Valygar's armor. A leather armor with AC2 and protection from charm. Frankly it's one of the best light armors in the game! A big nerf is needed, maybe making it a real studded leather +2 with charm protection. Not sure about his katana either, but I suppose there aren't enough of them in the game, so no biggies.

- Mazzy's and Haer'dalis' weapons are quite potent, but seeing as they are the toughest henchmen to recruit (especially Haer'dalis), no problems there.

- I applaud the modification of boring good/neutral/evil archmage's robes to something more interesting, but they don't seem really balanced. Robe of the Battlemage is awesome for a fighter/mage and easily rivals Bladesinger Chain. Arcane Might is fantastic for a cleric/mage (or other multiclass mage). Weave is, well, kind of meh when compared to those.

- I'm not a fan of items giving +attributes rather than setting their values, especially the Strength ones. They weren't really used for low-strength characters anyway (well, maybe Viconia) and, without stacking, their power wasn't *that* enormous, but significant. Now, a 19 STR character can reach 24 STR easily, and it's very easy to jump over the 18/x hill. It doesn't bother me that much when it comes to Ring of Influence (it was too obvious in vanilla) or Gauntlets of Dexterity (always used on a low DEX guy like Edwin, plus there are less +DEX items around).

- I find Arrows of dispelling useless right now. Obviously there were THE antiboss counter in vanilla, especially in BG1, but with current change they did fuck all against Sarevok's henchmen.

- I understand making potions undispellable, and my only small gripe with it is that it makes a fun battle against Mutamin piss-easy as his Dispel Magic doesn't make your characters vulnerable to his basilisks.

[Salk]

Instead I am personally a big fan of the items increasing the attributes instead of setting it to a specific value. It's one of the IR changes I value the most. Same thing for the potions whose effects are no longer possible to dispel.

 

I am sympathetic about the Arrow of Dispelling though...

Edited November 14, 2014 by Salk

[kreso]

I pretty much agree with everything Hoverdawg said. Apart Mazzy's items, which aren't imo that good (bow with Free Action - I'd take Tugian any day over it....sword is not good also).

Potions are indeed very potent, probably a bit too potent. While I understand the reasons behind this change, I'm not sure this is the way to go. Imo, use of caster level would be perfect for them.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Imo, use of caster level would be perfect for them.

Right, and the 40th level berserker is going to rip your second level mage's spine out... uh, yeah it can't cause the mage is still immune to the *insert an area of effect save or die spell* when the fighter is not any more case the potion that they both got to use only provided it a rounds length of immunity to the area of effect spell, while the mage got 2 cause it was: rounds per caster level.

[Demivrgvs]

@Hoverdawg, thanks for the bug reports and feedback.

NPC's Custom Equipment

Nerf some of the NPCs' items. It's weird to use the same stuff they started with for almost the whole game.

You have a point, but I think NPC's personal items should be used to make each NPC more unique rather than considering them normal equipment. Without those items any PC generated character can be the same improved copy of existing NPCs (except Viconia maybe) while these items help keeping NPCs somewhat special, am I wrong?

 

My idea was to make NPC items really good and as unique as possible within their specific item-type. Good enough to remain appealing for most of the game, but not enough to outshine top tier items.

 

Mage Robes

Mmm, you are not the first one to say that the Robe of the Weave is the least appealing one but I still don't understand why. Does SCS use Lower Magic Resistance so much? Because that robe combined with the SotM gives a whopping 40% magic resistance which sounds cool on paper. Am I missing something?

 

STAT-enhancing items

I'm not a fan of items giving +attributes rather than setting their values, especially the Strength ones. They weren't really used for low-strength characters anyway (well, maybe Viconia) and, without stacking, their power wasn't *that* enormous, but significant. Now, a 19 STR character can reach 24 STR easily, and it's very easy to jump over the 18/x hill.

There's only one potential issue introduced by this change, and that's the "stat stacking", but it's almost not-existent within IR imo because I purposely almost never use +X STR bonuses on items

 

Previously any low STR character could reach STR 19+ too easily imo (e.g. Jaheira would benefit from those belts as much as Viconia, if not more imo) making their starting STR value completely irrelevant. The latter is what I liked the least, and it's even worse imo for stuff like the Ring of Influence which could turn an idiot with no charm into the most cool charismatic influential person in town.

 

You seem to imply that the change made it easier to reach higher STR values, but I fail to see it. If you give these belts to STR optimized character you get similar results to vanilla belts. For example Girdle of Fire Giant Strength was granting STR 22, now it gives +3, thus only a character with STR 19 (half-orc? charname with STR manual?) can reach the same STR value of vanilla belt. The only case where I would have said you were spot on was the old IR's Girdle of Hill Giant Strength, because that +2 STR was kinda cheap and could make 18+ values too easy to achieve...but that's not the case anymore.

 

Arrow of Dispelling

The problem of this particular arrow imo is that it can easily go from OP to too weak. If I made the arrow too weak we may increase the save penalty, or make these arrows more easy to get (e.g. more places, lower price), but vanilla "no save - 100% chance" was really too much of an "I win button" against mages imo. What do you guys think?

 

Potions

@Jarno, maybe Kreso was thinking about a fixed caster lvl? A variable one make less sense imo, why would the potion's power be tied to the imbiber level? Anyway, using caster level is really hard to balance in both cases, and would make potions unreliable again. If a particular potion is too good and I would probably shorten its duration, or nerf its effects a little bit rather than making it affected by dispel again, especially considering SCS mages almost always out level the party and thus would almost always dispel potions again, no?

[kreso]

Str enhancing items - imo, the problem isn't setting str to a fixed value or adding to it, the problem is there's too much of them.

I do prefer +x to str rather than setting, tho.

Robes - Weave is poorly underused since all other are usually better, not because it's weak by itself.

Dispel arrow - I never use them. Tried once, but it's very underwhelming (paying a crapload for a save or nothing is not nice, not to forget that mages usually do save)

Potions - even if they got dispelled, they can be quickly re-used, without pulling cleric to the front-line. This way, they're better than spells in 99% cases. I usually use spells only if I%2

[Jarno Mikkola]

Potions

@Jarno, maybe Kreso was thinking about a fixed caster lvl? A variable one make less sense imo, why would the potion's power be tied to the imbiber level? Anyway, using caster level is really hard to balance in both cases, and would make potions unreliable again.

Well, yeah, k was probably.

You could make several of the same potions and redistribute them according to the creature level that possesses them, but then again you are likely to run into the circle of enemy songs "ha, you can't ever dispel my potions but I can always yours..." with should be avoided like the plague. Well, there could be a point in making a specifically items/spells to handle the difficult to dispel enhancements, but that could get to be OP-meh fast.

 

I never use the Dispel arrows cause they have the chance to miss. It would be funny to replace them with arrows that cause the spell caster to begin casting spells with wild surges.

-Where did the mage go?

-Don't worry about it. It's the bunny over there.

But the price point is still of concern, as they get to be really pricy at low levels and pretty useless on high... when you could just summon things to get slathered while you pick them of from distance with regular arrows. Or better stuff.

[kreso]

it makes a fun battle against Mutamin piss-easy as his Dispel Magic doesn't make your characters vulnerable to his basilisks.

 

I think this is the single most important point here. Hoverdawg mentioned Mutamin here - his first move in battle is "Remove magic" to make PCs vulnerable to petrification (speaking of which, Flesh to Stone Green scroll doesn't revert Stone to Flesh with latest SR).

IR Potions of Mirrored Eyes make this battle (area) from being fairly dangerous (and something you need to think about in advance) to a sheer XP harvest (buy 2-3 potions of Mirrored Eyes, and get 9x1400 + 1x7000 + 1x1200 exp; no danger at all)

;same could be extended to a multitude of battles.

I would use "caster level", "use current level".

It's very false assumption that "SCS always succeeds in dispels".

While it is true for some high-level oponnents, their number isn't nearly as high as people believe, and is mostly limited to boss-types.

Additionally, SCS mages don't have a dozen dispels memorized - mostly 1 or 2.

[zenblack]

@ Demi

 

NPC Items - I think you should consider when such an upgrade will come and whether it will feel like a real upgrade or simply putting an otherwise unusued piece of equipment on a character because it's technically better. I find this the case with Valygar's armor (no real options for him and he gets a good effect and good ac, which he needs in vanilla) and Keldorn's armor (this is more of an effect of swimming in basically similar heavy armors with no real choice until a unique).

 

Arrow of Dispelling - It needs a decent save penalty. -2 to -4 should fit.

 

Potions - I disagree with people clamoring for dispelling on potions. Most of them have a significantly short duration that they shouldn't be dispelled or can be balanced by lowering duration (I'm thinking Freedom, Clarity, Absorption, Magic Resistance all need to have duration's looked at). For me it has to do with potions getting dispelled on PC's but rather the other way around. The AI needs it's potion effects.

 

The potion of Mirrored Eyes is an outlier as it is used only very circumstantially and could be reverted to having being dispelled simply because it protects against a very rarely used effect and is only a problem in one area of BG1. I mean if there was a Medusa lair or something that would be different, but as it is, those potions when you rarely get them are usually straight to the sell bag. It's not even worth using them against vampires (the only other thing you really encounter with gaze attacks). Another possibility beside that would have them protect from only one gaze attacks (if possible) thus keeping the protection, but again you would have a problem with the Mutamin encounter since he will still attempt to dispel regardless of what is actually on the PC's.

Edited November 15, 2014 by zenblack

[n-ghost]

How about remaking Arrows of Dispel into Warding-Whippish (well, BG-flavor warden-whippish)? I.e., on hit affected character makes a save each turn, for, say, 3 turns total, and if it fails, he loses one of the beneficial spell effects on him?

 

Also, it could slay summons on save vs death.

 

I don't remember any enchantments on them (actually, they were treated as non-magical in vanilla BG afair), so buffing them up to +2 is fine too (if it isn't the case already).

Edited November 16, 2014 by n-ghost

[n-ghost]

Also, could the Mirrored Eyes potion effect be limited to a single gaze attack?

 

Because, frankly, the only fight where you need to use them as mandatory is Aec'Letec, and he uses his gaze only every so often.

Edited November 16, 2014 by n-ghost

[n-ghost]

NPC items are fine btw, I always feel awkward when offering Sir Keldorn to change his breastplate as soon as he joins the party.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Also, could the Mirrored Eyes potion effect be limited to a single gaze attack?

 

Because, frankly, the only fight where you need to use them as mandatory is Aec'Letec, and he uses his gaze only every so often.

NO. Just no. Get ambushed by two basilisks instead of one, and you are dead. Dead.