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Opposite schools and specialist mages


subtledoctor

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@kreso, you remove the Abjuration spells from illusionist. This is a good idea in general as removal of the removal of illusions makes it OP otherwise, but when it comes to fighting enemy mages, it's quite hard to fight them without say the Breach spell. Shall you make a "Phantasmal Beach" -spell or something that does the exact same thing, except that it's for the Illusion based, and thus also rare ?

 

Sigh. If I include that it will take at least several hours more to get it done. :(

But that's part of the fun man.
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Sigh. If I include that it will take at least several hours more to get it done. :(

Should be copy and paste, no? If your changes just make sense in the context of what I posted, you don't even need to make it a separate component. Just lump it all together.

 

@kreso, you remove the Abjuration spells from illusionist. This is a good idea in general as removal of the removal of illusions makes it OP otherwise, but when it comes to fighting enemy mages, it's quite hard to fight them without say the Breach spell.

For balance purposes I highly, highly recommend moving some spells into the 'Universal' school - the capability for doing this is built into what I posted. Breach, Vocalize, that kind of stuff. Any spells you think all wizards should have access to to prevent them from being totally gimped in the context of BG2. All you have to do is mark the spell with a 0 in the __list.tpa files.

 

What would be really interesting would be to vastly increase the number of Universal spells - maybe include all Invocations or something - and then have specialists ONLY get access to the Universal spells, and their own school. Then each specialist would really be unique!

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Sigh. If I include that it will take at least several hours more to get it done. :(

Scrap that, it took 2 minutes actually. :beer: Thanks, much appreciated. Included as core part. We don't want mages even more powerful, yes?

There are some errors with spell schools, but I'll fix them eventually.

 

@kreso, you remove the Abjuration spells from illusionist. This is a good idea in general as removal of the removal of illusions makes it OP otherwise, but when it comes to fighting enemy mages, it's quite hard to fight them without say the Breach spell. Shall you make a "Phantasmal Beach" -spell or something that does the exact same thing, except that it's for the Illusion based, and thus also rare ?

 

Hm...well, only time will tell I guess. It's easy enough to do. Note that mages using Oracle (or anything else than True Seeing) will NEVER be able to target illusionsts succesfully (after level 12 I think when he gets immune to all that Divination crap). The main idea behind them is guise and invisibility, not mage combat.

 

 

For balance purposes I highly, highly recommend moving some spells into the 'Universal' school - the capability for doing this is built into what I posted. Breach, Vocalize, that kind of stuff. Any spells you think all wizards should have access to to prevent them from being totally gimped in the context of BG2.

I don't really think *everyone* should have Breach, no. I'll work out the spells code some time.

 

Anyways, since I won't be able to do any more work with this today and I said I'll upload it this evening, here - have fun. It's very unfinished and unpolished however, but playable.

Descriptions are awful, I'll do them properly one of these days - I don't have time now and I'm totaly burnt out . Subtledoctor's mod is included as *core* and has some minor errors (you'll get few spells you shouldn't) which I'll work out eventually. Not a big deal anyway.

It works on EE(only tested on EE2 tho, w/o the Invoker since...bleh. See for yourself if you try EE install), BG2, BGT. Maybe IWDEE but don't count on it.

Oh - and use SR with this. Nothing bad will probably happen otherwise (maybe one of Abjurer's bams will be missing since I use Banishment one from SR) but I haven't tested w/o it. Install *AFTER* SR.

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No reason it wouldn't work on IWDEE. Of course you have to get SR working in IWDEE, but that's not *too* hard.

 

I got the code originally from the Tome & Blood guys, who had reassigned all sorts of spells; and then I in turn reassigned a bunch of spells; and then to post it here I had to go through and try to put them all back into the correct schools for vanilla (and for SR, which is different).

 

It was really painstaking to go through every spell in NI in an unmodded BG2EE game and adjust the spell and the scroll in the lists... and then install SR and go through the whole process again. So I may have missed a couple. But you can easily double-check anything by just looking at the __list.tpa files.

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It was really painstaking to go through every spell in NI in an unmodded BG2EE game and adjust the spell and the scroll in the lists... and then install SR and go through the whole process again. So I may have missed a couple. But you can easily double-check anything by just looking at the __list.tpa files.

Don't get me wrong - it's really nothing gamebreaking and I appreciate your work on this.

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I think I've managed to sort out Subtledoctor's code to account for newest SR changes. Link.

Also, spell school restrictions should work correctly now.

Enchanter - Necromancy & Invocation

Abjurer - Illusion (was Divination :nono: ) and Transmutation

Conjurer - Divination & Invocation

Transmuter - Abjuration & Necromancy. This makes 0 sense, PnP be damned; he *will* get Evocation ban. He's to be used in the front line where Vampiric Touch and similar are used, not tossing Fireballs in the back.

Illusionist - Necro, Abjuration, Invocation

Diviner - he gets only *1* banned school as per PnP (they're supposed to be wise scholars) - Conjuration.

Invoker - Enchantment & Conjuration

 

Uploaded.

- Necros should not get Illusion :D

- Necro Retaliation should work properly now (should add "Display String..." but it should work)

- some minor fixes

 

To Do:

- rename Retaliation to Vampiric Shadow Shield ('cause that's what it is)

- finish Transmuter *properly* and add vs save vs Wands bonus

- Diviner needs heavy tweaking or a 2nd ban (Evocation? They shouldn't be so agressive...)

- Invoker could use a Breath save bonus

- melee hit Daze effect for Enchanter

- descriptions

 

 

Uploaded:

- Enchanter gets Daze on melee hits from level 2 (1 round, target can't do anything, no save for now but should probably have one)

- Transmuter (once again) banned from Necromancy, some Alchemy stuff done

- fixed Enchanter being able to cast Evocations (I hope school restrictions finally work properly now)

 

Uploaded:

- school restrictions once again fixed

- first attempt at kit descriptions, yey

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Here be the kit descriptions (those done for now):

 

Abjurer:

 

Abjuration is a magic school devoted to protective and defensive spells. Most spells of this school have a beneficial effect, in particular the protection against elemental and physical harm, or the defense against enemy spells. Abjuration spells can be used offensively as well, albeit in an indirect manner - this mostly includes attacks against magic protections and their dispelling. Abjuration specialization is limited to Humans.

Advantages:
- one extra spell per level
- Abjurers get 10% resistance to damage at 1st and 14th level
- from level 5, Abjurer gains Protective Ward aura, which increases armor class of his allies by 1. Every 5 levels thereafter, AC bonus is increased by one, up to +4 at level 20
- at level 9, Abjurer can use Banishment spell 1x/day
- at level 19, gains Mage's Disjunction innate ability, which removes all spell/combat/specific protections from a target.

Disadvantages:
- cannot cast spells from schools of Transmutation and Illusion.

 

 

Diviner

 

Divination is the smallest school of magic, and deals with revealing the hidden - be it objects, knowledge or creatures. Students of magic pursuing this specialization are usually loners and scholars, since their deeper understanding of human nature makes it difficult for them to relate to other people.

Advantages:
- one extra spell per level
- Diviner's luck at level 1 - Diviner's insight into the future allows him deeper understanding of the world around him, granting him a +1 bonus to all of his rolls.
- at level 7, any enemy in the vicinity of Diviner gains -1 to his Luck scores
- at level 9, Diviner can use Greater Scrying 1xday, which works like a True Seeing spell but it's effects cannot be dispelled
- at level 14, all allies near Diviner get +1 to their Luck scores
- at level 17, he gains Prediction of Failure innate, with which he destroys the target's body and mind with the anguish and suffering of every bitter failure it will ever experience. Enemy affected by this spell suffers -4 to all rolls(-2 to damage), and if a mage affected by it fails to save at -4 (vs spells) he is affected by Wild Magic, with -50 to outcome rolls.

Disadvantages:
- cannot cast spells from the school of Conjuration

 

Diviner will likely get a 2nd ban, I think even with the huge loss he suffers (no Conjuration is very bad) this is a very powerful kit now. I'm not sure if he should be banned from Abjuration - but it's fairly likely that it will happen.

 

Enchanter

 

Enchantment school deals with manipulating the minds of sentient beings, by changing their emotional or mental state. Practicioners of this school of magic are usually sensitive, perceptive and kind; usually prefering diplomatic approach to conflicts.

Advantages:
- one extra spell per level
- at level 1, Enchanter gains a +2 bonus to his save vs spells. This bonus is increased to +4 at level 17.
- from level 2, each of Enchanter's melee hits apply a Daze affect (1 round of stupored state)
- from level 5, Enchanter is immune to Charm effects
- from level 11, Enchanter can cast clerical spell of Free Action 1x/day
- from level 15, gains Aura of Despair; which makes any enemy near Enchanter suffer -2 to THAC0, damage and save vs spells score.

Disadvantages:
- cannot cast spells from schools of Evocation and Necromancy

 

 

Necromancer

 

Necromancy, often referred to as the "dark art", is a school of magic that deals with death and the dead. It is quite small, but has some of the most deadly spells of all. Your spells can steal the living spark of life and fortune and create undead creatures. Bone, blood and spirits are shaped by the necromancer with magical energies into bizarre things.

Necromancers bring life and death against a fascination bordering on obsession. They are mostly thoughtful, humorless and self-absorbed. They live as far away from other people as humanly possible and choose their home often in old castles, deep caves or even abandoned crypts. Most people consider them for cold and hostile, but those who care for dealing with them, know them as thorough and complex people with deep emotions, thus a necromancer can prove as a valued and trusted companion.

Advantages:
- gains +2 to save vs Death at level 1. This bonus is increased to +4 at level 17.
- from level 5 is immune to Hold effects
- from level 14, Necromancer is permanently wreathed in Vampiric Shadow Shield, which causes a temporary level drain (1 level for 3 rounds) to anybody hitting the Necromancer in melee combat, and any hit against it heals the Necromancer for 2HP, draining the oponnent for the same ammout.

Disadvantages:
- cannot cast spells from schools of Enchantment and Illusion

 

 

Invoker

 

Evocation school typically draws mages most serious in their efforts to study the art of Weave. Invokers put little value in earthly possessions or pleasures, choosing almost ascetic exsistance. Due to their narrow-mindedness and emotional distance, they rarely develop close relationships with other people. Of all the magic schools, Evocation is the most offensively oriented, dealing with elemental spells to cause great harm.

Advantages:
- specializing in elemental spells, Invokers gain a 30% increase in Fire, Cold and Electric damage

 

Disadvantages:
- Invokers cannot cast spells from schools of Conjuration and Enchantment

 

 

Illusionist

 

Illusion school includes magic which deals with bending reality. Unlike Transmutation spells, these effects aren't real, but only exist in the perception of those affected by them. Illusionist mages are usually very self-confident and flamboyant, creative and perceptive.

Advantages:
- one extra spell per level
- from level 1 has innate ability Blinding Ray which he can use at will. Anybody struck by the ray must make a save vs spells or be blinded for a round, and will suffer -1 to THAC0 regardless of save
- from level 9, Illusionist gains immunity to negative effects of hostile illusions like Nature's Beauty and similar spells

- from level 12, Illusionist can no longer be detected by magical means. Creatures under True Seeing and similar powers can still detect him.
- from level 19, Illusionist gain "Clones" innate ability; which creates Simularcum duplicates of his party. Unlike the spell Simulacrum, these illusions last only 5 rounds.

Disadvantages:
- cannot cast spells from schools of Necromancy, Abjuration and Evocation

 

 

I will upload a new version tomorrow, hopefully I'll sort out the scrolls in Subtledoctor's code as well (90% done, but few are missing - mostly Summons).

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Have you ever checked how your mod plays out with others like SCS and Refinements? I had a few issues. Enchanters +2 vs spells bonus SCS couldn't digest. Which is odd, since the spell is a carbon copy of Necro's +2 vs Death, and that caused no issues..... :undecided:

Another thing: I started a new game, created an Illusionist, I want to use Blinding Ray - only to see that he doesn't have it....I open NI, check his clab file - Refinements completely overwritten it with it's own version :nono: . One more thing about Refinements- I noticed it causes a baldur.bcs/baldur25.bcs file overfloat. This is apperantly used for "Use scrolls" feature. I deleted all that jazz since I don't really use it; + more: most of Strongholds stuff (I won't be playing a bard/druid/thief any time soon), Drow item check (I don't touch that stuff), Lirarcor talks (cute, but gets old), romances etc. and managed to remove >70% of the script. :D

The game works much better (less lag, especially in magic intense battles) without all that crap.

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Refinements' Use Scrolls is a work of genius, but it causes problems everywhere. I too am going to comment it out in my next install. I also comment out everything except the HLAs. Those are great though, I can't stand the vanilla game's lazy treatment of HLAs (bards setting traps??).

 

Recent builds of SCS are super sensitive, and crashy, if your CLABs and the associated SPL files are not utterly perfect. It's kind of annoying.

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(bards setting traps??).

:D

I share your sentiment.

However, the problem with mage clabs is in fact worse than I tought - it seems SCS won't read from them at all, probably because those clabs don't even exist in the original game setup. :(

On a good side, one doesn't have to care much about making innates/custom spells/1x day/auras abilities any longer - you can simply create a bunch of spells and learn them via clabs on whatever level suits your fancy or whatever, and make sure they're power-wise a bit above the "standard" spells of the same level, or at least more unique in their effects.

On the bad side, all my ideas about SCS using the same rules/abilities (how cool would it be to see Lavok with Vampiric Shield effect!? :pout: ) are flushed right down the toilet - maybe DavidW will do something for the next SCS version.

For now, blah. :rant:

At least that schools restrictions is (imo) splendid - I'm starting to use spells (especially on Illusionist/thief) I never would otherwise. Grease? Hell yea.

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For the CLAB stuff, you can just manually patch creatures -

COPY_REGEXP (all creatures)
PATCH_IF (kit = enchanter)
ADD_CRE_EFFECT (effect to grant +2 saves)
I don't know about innate abilities... but you might be able to 'fool' SCS... if you patch the CREs to give them the innate, and add a line in SPELLS.IDS giving your innate the same identifying name as another spell that SCS recognizes, then the SCS scripts' HASSPELL checks migh recognize it as valid, and use your innate ability.

 

(That's what is *supposed* to happen with my at-will, innate versions of Spell Thrust... but I haven't done any definitive testing.)

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Interesting. I'll definitely try, but that is pretty simple way to put it - Enchater should get +2 at level 1, +2 (total +4) at 17th, and an aura at 15th. I could use this for Invokers, since they get all of their bonuses at level 1.

What bothers me is why all other kits work fine, regardless of what I make of them, but mages fall apart. SCS part governing this includes all clabs:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB "clab.*\.2da" "%workspace%".

What could be causing issues is Refinements. I'll try on EE w/o Refs and see.

As per innate, my guess is it won't work. SCS mages have half-random spell selection in their spellbook. I doubt they'd use innate abilities in place of what's in their book. You could fool them if you use that "restore spell" opcode on spell removals (of this I'm fairly certain it will work), otherwise I highly doubt it.

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I think innates can work. If you look at a CRE file in NI you'll see that an NPC's "spellbook" is just a bunch of "effects" entries like

knows spell: X
knows spell: Y
knows spell: Z
memorized spell: X
memorized spell: Z
You can patch a CRE with WeiDu with an effect so that it "knows/memorizes" an innate ability. Innates are, after all, just regular SPL files with two offsets changed (spell type = 4 and spell button location = 4). Innates can also have entries in SPELL.IDS so when the SCS script runs and uses HASSPELL to read the CRE's "spellbook," if the CRE has the innate ability, SCS should see it and use it just like any other spell. Easy-peasy (ish)

 

This easy to test: install the Wizard Class Tweaks from my mod (in my sig) and see if SCS mages ever use Spell Thrust against you. I've converted ST into an innate ability that refreshes itself immediately after casting. Any AI wizard CRE that normally has ST in its spellbook should have my innate after my mod is installed. So take a wizard with 10+ Minor Spell Deflections memorized up against an SCS mage who has ST in its spellbook... if you keep casting MSD then the SCS mage should be able to use the ST innate against you repeatedly.

 

For level based effects, you can add a PATCH_IF and check the CRE for the right level. Something like

COPY_REGEXP (all creatures)
READ_BYTE/SHORT/LONG (kit offset)
PATCH_IF (kit = enchanter)
READ_BYTE/SHORT/LONG (level offset)
PATCH_IF (level < 17)
ADD_CRE_EFFECT (+2 saves)
END
PATCH_IF (level >= 17)
ADD_CRE_EFFECT (+4 saves)
END
END
Something like that. I don't have time to give you real code because I'm working 7 days a week for the next month but it's totally doable.
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