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

[Fishmalk]

Been trying out the new Scales of Balance and Might & Guile, encountered a few issues that persist with just the two of them installed. Weidu log attached.

• 3 points in Attack Speed gives 1.5 attacks per round instead of 1 attack per round
• the 4th point in Attack Speed seems to do nothing, the character has the same attacks and to hit penalty as they do from three points.
• Use Magical Device, the Magical Abilities option, seems to do nothing. A thief with it cannot use wands or scrolls.
• Thieves can wear any type of armor, such as plate mail. they are not being restricted to light armor.
• Trueclass druids can place points in Two Handed Weapon style, but none of the druid kits can.
• Rangers cannot select non-good alignments with 'Improved Rangers' from M&G
• the M&G component 'Revised Ranger Spell Table'  is not noted in the readme. Is this the improved casting progression from IWD?

WeiDU.log

[subtledoctor]

4 hours ago, Fishmalk said:

3 points in Attack Speed gives 1.5 attacks per round instead of 1 attack per round

This is weird... I'm not seeing this exactly, for me it acts properly when  you put the 3rd point into the skill, but the next time  you level up it gives an extra 1/2 APR. I think what is happening is that it is giving you the +1/2 bonus for 2 pips as well as the +1 bonus for 3 pips. I'll try to add some guardrails to prevent that.

4 hours ago, Fishmalk said:

Use Magical Device, the Magical Abilities option, seems to do nothing. A thief with it cannot use wands or scrolls

I found a bug here, but it is the opposite - under certain circumstances all thieves can use wands and scrolls even if they did not learn this skill. What you are seeing might be a variant of this bug (maybe), or it might be something more pedestrian like, you took the UMD skill but you still don't have the requisite INT score to use the wand. In any even I'll upload a fix soon.

4 hours ago, Fishmalk said:

Thieves can wear any type of armor, such as plate mail. they are not being restricted to light armor.

Yes, this is an intentional part of the YARAS component, which adds thieving skill penalties to heavy armor.

4 hours ago, Fishmalk said:

Rangers cannot select non-good alignments with 'Improved Rangers' from M&G

This was either an oversight, or an intended shifting of this function over to the new "regional rangers" component, and the Readme simply was not updated to reflect the intended state of the mod. I think it was the latter...  but I am going to treat it like the  former, and restore  this function to this component.

4 hours ago, Fishmalk said:

the M&G component 'Revised Ranger Spell Table'  is not noted in the readme. Is this the improved casting progression from IWD?

It's the Faiths & Powers table - you can see the progression here. Basically, you get spells earlier than in vanilla, but progression is slower and doesn't  go as a far as IWD. I'll add it to the Readme, thanks for the heads-up.

[Fishmalk]

Fiddled a bit in BG2 EE with Might & Guile and Scales and found a few more things, weidu attached.

• Shadowdancer and Stalker are limited to two points in backstabbing, limiting them to a 3x backstab multiplier instead of the 4x they could reach unmodded.

• Improved Stalker cannot put points into Set Snare, and does not have the Set Traps thief skill.

• All rangers have 'According to geography' as their only racial enemy option with regional rangers installed, not just the regional kits.

• With regional rangers installed, the trueclass ranger can still be taken by choosing the ranger class and not clicking on any of the kits. One of the kits will be highlighted, but will not be taken unless the player actually clicks on one. I am assuming this is due to the game defaulting to the trueclass even if the trueclass has been removed as selectable from the UI.

• Archer kits and the Marksman kit cannot place more than 4 points in 'Ranged Accuracy'. The + button is clickable with 4 points in Ranged Accuracy, but clicking it will not assign further points.

• Marksman thief is able to place up to 4 points in Backstab and in Slings, seemingly in contradiction of the kit description which states they have a reduced backstab multiplier and can only reach higher mastery in bows/xbows.

• Weapon Master can assign up to 4 points in any weapon with their usual proficiency points. Weapon of Focus adds one proficiency to a weapon not already at 4 points. Kit description seems to suggest they would be limited to two or three points normally in any weapon, and Weapon of Focus would bump the chosen weapon to 4 points.

WeiDU.log

[JediMindTrix]

Are Scales' CON/Hit Dice changes incompatible with CDTweaks Max HP for all NPCs?

[subtledoctor]

On 12/4/2022 at 5:03 PM, JediMindTrix said:

Are Scales' CON/Hit Dice changes incompatible with CDTweaks Max HP for all NPCs?

Yes. Yes? Maybe. Worth noting, the SoB HD changes do not change the hit point values of any joinable NPCs. They get an arbitrary value that the game gave them, which is presumably supposed to be the result of a die roll, because that's how Dungeons & Dragons works. I don't know whether the CDTweaks component maximizes NPC hit points based on the static vanilla tables, or based on the HD tables it finds in your /override folder. So I guess if that's the question you're asking, you'll have to ask on the Tweaks forum.

[Guest ManoloxD]

Hello subtledoctor, three parry postures skills (slash, piercing and crush) makes my character completely immune to the damage type, even when it's disable. Leadership affects only the character that emanates it, the snare skill just gives 2 traps and 2 special traps to my bounty hunter and lore bonus skill dont work. Here's my log.

 

Spoiler

// 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]
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #100 // IWO - Yet Another Revised Armor System: v6.3
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #102 // IWO - Functional Weapon Tweaks: v6.3
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #109 // IWO - All Potions Usable by Any Class: v6.3
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #123 // WPO - Weapon Proficiency Overhaul -> NEW Expanded Combat Skills System: v6.3
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #124 // WPO - Fighting Style Changes: v6.3
~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #200 // SBO - Stat Bonus Overhaul: v6.3
// Recently Uninstalled: ~SCALES_OF_BALANCE/SCALES_OF_BALANCE.TP2~ #0 #206 // SBO - Hit Dice Overhaul -> Generous (above-average) hit points: v6.3
 

 

[subtledoctor]

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

Fiddled a bit in BG2 EE with Might & Guile and Scales and found a few more things, weidu attached.

• Shadowdancer and Stalker are limited to two points in backstabbing, limiting them to a 3x backstab multiplier instead of the 4x they could reach unmodded.

This is by design. There is a simple prorgession of kits who can be a little skilled, moderately skilled, or very skilled in this or that area. So Shadowdancer/Stalker/Rake/MnG bards can put 2 pips into backstabbing (reaching x3 damage); most thieves can put 4 pips (reaching x5 damage); and assassins can put 6 pips (reaching x7 damage).

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

All rangers have 'According to geography' as their only racial enemy option with regional rangers installed, not just the regional kits.

Yes - the idea of "racial enemies" is overhauled with the regional rangers component, turned into something particular to rangers, i.e. these five regional rangers. Other ranger kits are not rangers, per se; they are archers, stalkers, forest runners, whatever. Those kits don't have any racial enemies.

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

With regional rangers installed, the trueclass ranger can still be taken by choosing the ranger class and not clicking on any of the kits. One of the kits will be highlighted, but will not be taken unless the player actually clicks on one. I am assuming this is due to the game defaulting to the trueclass even if the trueclass has been removed as selectable from the UI.

Yes. TBH this was filed as a bug with Beamdog way back in the 1.3/1.4 patch era, and I thought it had been fixed? Are you running a modded UI? But at any rate yes, this is a UI bug that I cannot do anything about.

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

Archer kits and the Marksman kit cannot place more than 4 points in 'Ranged Accuracy'. The + button is clickable with 4 points in Ranged Accuracy, but clicking it will not assign further points.

What level are you? My reading of weapprof.2da and profsmax.2da suggests that these kits should be able to put the 5th and 6th pips into that skill, but only after reaching 10th level.

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

Marksman thief is able to place up to 4 points in Backstab, seemingly in contradiction of the kit description which states they have a reduced backstab multiplier

Fixed in version 6.3.2.

On 11/30/2022 at 10:36 PM, Fishmalk said:

Weapon Master can assign up to 4 points in any weapon with their usual proficiency points. Weapon of Focus adds one proficiency to a weapon not already at 4 points. Kit description seems to suggest they would be limited to two or three points normally in any weapon, and Weapon of Focus would bump the chosen weapon to 4 points.

Should also be fixed in v6.3.2.

18 hours ago, Guest ManoloxD said:

three parry postures skills (slash, piercing and crush) makes my character completely immune to the damage type

Opcode 335 is acting weird for reasons I can't figure out. So I changed it, made it a bit less reliable but more accurate for its description. Fixed in v6.3.2.

18 hours ago, Guest ManoloxD said:

Leadership affects only the character that emanates it

Also fixed in v6.3.2.

18 hours ago, Guest ManoloxD said:

and lore bonus skill dont work

Also fixed in v6.3.2.

For those last three things mentioned by @ManoloxD, and anyone else using SoB v6.3, you can also fix them mid-game with this hotfix. (Won't affect any character who already used the busted Lore Bonus, but it will for anyone taking it afterward, and it will fix Leadership and Parrying if you simply turn them off and turn them on again.)

[Guest ManoloxD]

The leadership and lore bonus are working now, thank you. The parry skills now disable, but make my char immune to the specific damage when enabled, instead one evade for turn. Is this intentional?

[subtledoctor]

Something weird is going on with the application of opcode 335. Per the IESDP and prior instances of using it, getting hit by a specified damage type is supposed to cancel the effect providing immunity. See here. It also notes that the usual method of applying a spell every round (7-second duration, op321 vs. itself at the too of the stack) can break because the previous op335 effect won’t let the next instance replace it. And my testing confirms this problem. The IESDP suggests using timing mode 4, which is what version 6.3 does. But for some reason, the 7eyes interaction is not being removed properly and the protection with timing mode 4 is just permanent. 

Or possibly, the op321 effect at the too of the stack is failing? Leading to many ‘layers’ of op335 protection? That shouldn’t really be possible but with this engine who knows. 

So I changed it to use timing mode 0 with a 5-second duration. This means that, is an enemy times their attacks to land in the 6th second of your round, you would have *no* protection. But enemies aren’t able to do that so it’s okay. With this application the protection properly gets out of its own way, and while not working as reliably as I would like, still gives some protection against the damage type. I have this in my game right now and when I set multiple to attack me with the protected damage types, their attacks definitely get through. (Sometimes you might see two blocked in quick succession which seems like it shouldn’t happen, but it might be one in the 5th second of a round and then another in the 1st second of the next round - this can happen when the ability is working as intended. To really test, you need at least 3 attacks per round coming in.)

Sorry for the technical deep dive, just to give you an idea of what I’m grappling with. I don’t know why it’s not working 100% as it should, especially as I’ve seen and made implementations that do work and I don’t see a material difference between this one and those. 

[Guest ManoloxD]

It's okay, thanks for the detailed reply, subtledoctor. 

One question. How grappling posture work? Do I need One hand free?

[subtledoctor]

4 hours ago, Guest ManoloxD said:

How grappling posture work? Do I need One hand free?

I don't think so, it should work passively just like the Shield Bash in Revised Weapons Styles: every round, if an enemy is close to you, the closest enemy will be grappled. This will cause a short (2-second) movement rate penalty (which you may not notice because an enemy attacking in melee may not be moving), and force a saving throw. If the save if failed then the enemy will be Slowed, with the attendant -4 penalty to attacks and AC.

[Guest ManoloxD]

Thanks for the explanation. One last bug report, the spells that thiefs learn from magical abilities does not appear in any menu.

[subtledoctor]

8 hours ago, Guest ManoloxD said:

One last bug report, the spells that thiefs learn from magical abilities does not appear in any menu.

Took a minute, but I figured out the problem. Should be fixed in version 6.3.3.

[Guest ManoloxD]

Thank you!

[subtledoctor]

Gonna take a look at whether I can extract the combat skills part of this from the proficiency system part of it, so that combat skills could work with other proficiency systems (like component 122, or the BG1/IWD proficiency systems in CDTweaks).

No promises, though. Not sure whether these conjoined twins can be separated.