Unearthed Arcana presents Scales of Balance: a post-hac tweak pack

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

if you install both components 102 and 124 which is APR rate for darts exactly?

In that case darts' base APR is 2; and therefore up to 4 APR with GM at 13th level. This compares to 1.5 base APR for bows and throwing daggers (going up to 3.5 with GM at 13th level).

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

Furthermore is it true that component 201 according to one older Tome and Blood readme actually change arcane spell progression: " To maintain balance with the existing system, the existing spell progressions for Mages, Bards, and Sorcerers will all be reduced by one spell per level, to a minimum of one spell"?

Nope. The Readme is here - any out-of-date Readmes are out of date if they conflict with what is stated here.

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

And what exactly "sorcerers only get bonuses to spells up to 5th level; in addition, they get up to three 1 bonuses to their caster level" means, is it that Sorcerer with 18 CHA casts Fireball 3 levels stronger than his actual casting level

Yes. Sorry, that's a typo, it should read "up to three +1 bonuses." Also, I suppose there should be a proper chart there for sorcerer bonuses. This Readme has so many charts, I was trying to avoid adding another one. But I guess I should. (EDIT - done!) Until I add it, you can see the sorcerer bonuses at the end of this document. (I think there are very small differences... like, instead of +1, +2, +2 +1, ... it now goes +1, +1 +1, +2 +1, ... if that makes sense.)

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

Finally I dearly hope that bug which you described in component 204 is finally fixed with 2.6.6 patch, did you test it perchance?

Sorry, that bug is STILL there and it's terrible, so bad that in fact component 204 is not installable in the current version of the mod. The behavior is so erratic and unbalanced that I decided it's better to not even offer the option. If you want the terrible erratic concentration checks, you can delete the line that says DEPRECATED from component 204 in the .tp2 file... or just edit CONCENTR.2da yourself. That bug was introduced when they screwed up porting the ToBEx feature to the 2.0 engine back in 2016 (ah, the last year before the timeline began to collapse...) and at this rate it won't be fixed until 2023... at the earliest... if at all. It's goddam shameful.

1 hour ago, Greenhorn said:

it looks that 16 or 18 CHA are the same regarding casting level...

Yes, 16-17-18 all have a +1 caster level bonus. 19 has a +2 bonus and 22 has a +3 bonus.

Edited March 11, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Greenhorn]

So IWO beats WPO and last installed doesn't win in this case. Thanks Doc for elaborate explanations, it's appreciated although it is real damn shame that even with this newest patch they failed to rectify C checks. To tell you the truth I didn't really expect it  and with regret I must agree with you that is more probable that we will see flying pigs than this small and yet significant thing fixed. 

[Graion Dilach]

Using the cd_tweaks INI example of YARAS's, I end up with op145s blocking innate abilities on the armors. SoB 5.37.4.

[Quester]

Some random thoughts after reading through the readme (haven't played with this mod yet):

With the item changes, have you considered doing something with helmets? I know IR has a component that removes the critical hit immunity from them and gives them 1+ ac, but I always wanted something more. Like say, adding 5-10% dmg resistance depending on type of helmet. Maybe a -1 dex if you wanted a penalty to go along with that. I don't know, something.

If I wanted to add some movement penalties for the heavier armors through YARAS_default.ini, like say 10%...would I put a 1 instead of 0 there? Or how do I know how much a static modifier corresponds to in terms of %? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Single-Weapon Style: now called "Fencing". I don't know about this one...do you fence with a warhammer? To me, fencing is specifically something you do with a sword. Whereas you can use any single-handed weapon with this style.

Overall I love the changes this mod brings to the game.

[subtledoctor]

18 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

Using the cd_tweaks INI example of YARAS's, I end up with op145s blocking innate abilities on the armors. SoB 5.37.4.

I cannot reproduce this. I just installed it, and CHAN02.itm looks like this:

Spoiler

 

5 hours ago, Quester said:

have you considered doing something with helmets? Like say, adding 5-10% dmg resistance depending on type of helmet. Maybe a -1 dex if you wanted a penalty to go along with that.

Meh, I don't feel very strongly about helmets. In the base game they are good to prevent crits; I play with IR Revised Crits so for me they are good for -1 AC (early on) or some cool equipping effects (later on). FWIW I'm playing ToB right now and there are TONS of really good helmets/head-slot items, way more good ones that I want to equip than my party can in fact equip. I don't think DR makes much sense, and anyway the YARAS DR is pretty carefully tuned to give improved durability without allowing 100% resistance cheese. I'm not sure what else a helmet should do, really.

5 hours ago, Quester said:

If I wanted to add some movement penalties for the heavier armors through YARAS_default.ini, like say 10%...would I put a 1 instead of 0 there? Or how do I know how much a static modifier corresponds to in terms of %? Sorry if this is a stupid question.

Not a stupid question. I'm not entirely sure what the base movement speed is - I'm pretty sure it is either 9 or 10, and it may actually differ between games. Fine-grained percent modifiers just aren't going to have much effect - you want to give chain mail -7% and plate mail =12%? Well, those will both end up being the same. So I think better to use simple modifiers instead. -4 would be pretty slow... barely more than half your normal movement rate. Honestly I would probably limit this to -2 for heavy armors, -1 for medium/heavy armors. Too much difference and it will just be annoying. (I particularly hate having party members with different walking speeds... I refuse to have anyone wear the grandmaster's armor, even though the IR version grants a full +1 APR. Just too annoying having that one person speed ahead of the party.

6 hours ago, Quester said:

Single-Weapon Style: now called "Fencing". I don't know about this one...do you fence with a warhammer? To me, fencing is specifically something you do with a sword. Whereas you can use any single-handed weapon with this style.

Yeah I've been meaning to change this, but it's purely cosmetic so it is low-priority. I maintain that the base game is worse: "single-weapon style?" A halberd is a single weapon, but the style doesn't apply. The whole design of these styles is stupid. They aren't really "styles" of fighting, they are just modifiers for this or that weapon loadout. Got a bard with spec in SWS? Well, don't use those fancy bardic harp items, because equipping one of those in your off-hand is hard-coded to apply the shield-fighting style, so you lose your proficiency bonuses. I would zero these all out and replace them with something like Might & Guile's 'fighting postures,' except like I say, these things are hard-coded to take effect when you equip certain weapons. And fully replacing them would be too much work.

I'll probably rename this to something like "one-handed fighting" or something like that... when I get around to it.

[Graion Dilach]

3 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I cannot reproduce this. I just installed it, and CHAN02.itm looks like this:

  Reveal hidden contents

I could, but it is possible that TnB interacts with YARAS badly. This is my minimal repro case:

// Log of Currently Installed WeiDU Mods
// The top of the file is the 'oldest' mod
// ~TP2_File~ #language_number #component_number // [Subcomponent Name -> ] Component Name [ : Version]
~TOMEANDBLOOD/TOMEANDBLOOD.TP2~ #0 #25 // Sorcerer: Magus: 0.9.26.2
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #100 // IWO - Yet Another Revised Armor System: v5.37.4

 

[subtledoctor]

Ah - that’s helpful. I’ll take a look. Definitely the potential for adverse interactions there since the Magus kit patches all armors. 

EDIT -  still can't reproduce it: ...

EDIT 2 - okay I see it now. Fixed in version 5.37.7.

This also gives me a bit of motivation to dive into YARAS anyway - I've long wanted to enable preference options to actually keep any 145 effects in place, so players could use it to modify armor characteristics without changing its basic interaction with arcane spellcasting. Will be a bit complicated, so that will be a separate update.

 

Edited March 14, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

...Aaand, version 5.38 has improved compatibility with both the TnB Magus kit and the 5E spellcasting mod, and also adds some more YARAS options.

Up til now, YARAS has been a "cast arcane spells in armor" mod - it gave you lots of options for damage resistance and Dex penalties and various casting modifiers, but every option always enabled wizards and bards to cast spells in armor. As of v5.38, there are new variables in the settings.ini file to disable that. This way you can keep the base game behavior when it comes to arcane spellcasting, but still use all the other settings as far as changing armors' AC values, DR, Dex/movement penalties, etc.

There is an added base presets file in Scales-of_Balance/ini/ that matches the default YARAS setting, but with arcane casting disabled. You can use this as a base to play around with the settings. (The options for disabling casting are fairly fine-grained as well - you can enable or disable arcane spellcasting for leather, studded leather, hide, chain, scale, splint, plate, or full plate armor.)

Edited March 15, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Mordekaie]

Just for confirmation : The mod folder contains a "Mac_Weidu_Launcher_v7.app" folder. I am on windows. Am i supposed to delete this folder ?

[GreyjoysAnatomy]

Subtledoctor, fantastic mod and had a lot of fun with it so far. Had no issues installing it prior but wanted to restart with a different mod list and for some reason during the scales of balance install it only asks for the first component, the armor changes, and then it just says the install is done and I have to quit. I've copied the whole mod over several times now and no luck, keep getting the same thing (not seeing any of the following mod components). Not sure why since it was working great last week on a similar install.

Attached my weidu log if it'll help, thanks!

WeiDU.log

[subtledoctor]

14 hours ago, Mordekaie said:

Just for confirmation : The mod folder contains a "Mac_Weidu_Launcher_v7.app" folder. I am on windows. Am i supposed to delete this folder ?

Yeah - Win users can delete the Mac installer, and Mac users can delete the .exe file. I included them both so that a single download can cover all both platforms. (Sorry Linux users, but I figure you're gong to figure out your installation procedures on your own anyway.)

Edited March 17, 2022 by subtledoctor

[subtledoctor]

4 hours ago, GreyjoysAnatomy said:

Had no issues installing it prior but wanted to restart with a different mod list and for some reason during the scales of balance install it only asks for the first component,

Sorry, this is due to my stupidity, I commented some things out for testing and neglected to reenable everything before uploading. Please grab version 5.38.1 and use that one.

[Mordekaie]

I was just testing v5.38 of SoB and i get only the component 100 : PI only shows component 100. Idem with manual installation on a BG2EE 2.6.6

[subtledoctor]

28 minutes ago, Mordekaie said:

I was just testing v5.38 of SoB and i get only the component 100 : PI only shows component 100. Idem with manual installation on a BG2EE 2.6.6

Yeah you need to download it again, sorry for that

[Mordekaie]

Ok thanks.